6 THE SEA. 



In the botidoir,'ihc street, at the concert, and play, 

 In a sort of coxcombical roundelay. 



You may roam through the City, transversely or straight, 

 From "Whitcchapel turnpike to Cumberland Gate, 

 And every young lady who thrums a guitar, 

 Every mustachioed shopman who smokes a cigar, 

 With affected devotion, promulgates his notion, 

 Of being a ' Rover ' and ' Child of the Ocean ' 

 "VVhate' er their age, sex, or condition may be, 

 They all of them long for the ' "Wide, wide sea ' ' 

 But however they dote, only set them afloat, 

 In any craft bigger at all than a boat, 

 Take them down to the Nore, and you'll see that before 

 The ' wessel ' they ' woyage ' in has made half her way 

 Between Shellness Point and the pier at Herno Bay, 

 Let the wind meet the tide in the slightest degree, 

 They'll be all of them heartily sick of the sea ! " 



So says " Ingoldsby," and it is, no doubt, true of some London Jack Tars and Cheapside 

 buccaneers, who, on leaving- port, are much more nautically " got up " than any of the 

 crew. These stage sailors become very limp when the sea-water takes the starch out of 

 them. Barham tells us of one Anthony Blogg : 



" So I'll merely observe, as the water grew rougher 

 The more my poor hero continued to suffer, 

 Till the sailors themselves cried, in pity, ' Poor buffer ! ' " 



The great steamships of most lines running to distant foreign parts are comparatively easy 

 and steady in their motions, and there is really more chance of being attacked by the 

 mal de mer on an English or Irish Channel boat than there is on the voyage across the 

 Atlantic. The waves in such channels are more cut up and " choppy " than are those of 

 the broad ocean. The employment of the twin-boat, Calais-Doiivres, has mitigated much 

 of the horrors of one of our Channel lines. It is curious to note the fact that Indians 

 often use a couple of canoes in very much the same manner as did the designer of the 

 doubled-hulled vessel just mentioned. The writer has seen, in the Straits of Fuca, natives 

 conveying all their possessions on the top of planks, placed over and lashed to two canoes, 

 One suggestion for the improvement of the steamboat service across the Channel to 

 France is to construct an enormous vessel, 650 feet long and 150 wide, a ship as long as 

 the Great Eastern and twice her beam, to be propelled by both paddles and screws. She is to 

 be capable of carrying several trains, and is to have a roofed station on board, with all 

 the necessary saloons. Floating platforms are to connect this great steam ferry-boat with 

 the shore rails, so that it can start or arrive at any time of the tide. 



" Are you a good sailor ? " asks one passenger of another just after leaving Liverpool. 

 " Oh, I suppose I'm no worse than anybody else," is, perhaps, the answer ; while some 

 are bold enough to answer, "Yes." But Dickens noticed that the first day very few 

 remained long over their wine, and that everybody developed an unusual love of the open 

 air. Still, with the exception of one lady, " who had retired with some precipitation at 



