NIGHT ON BOARD. 7 



dinner-time, immediately after being assisted to the finest cut of a very yellow boiled leg 

 of mutton with very green capers/' there were few invalids the first night. 



The subject of sea sickness is an unpleasant one, and cannot occupy much space here. 

 Every old and many a new traveller has a remedy for it, so possibly the mention of our 

 mode of prevention may be permitted here. It is simply for the sufferer to wear a 

 very tight belt round the waist. It has been recommended to many fellow-passengers, 

 and its use has proved invariably beneficial. The unusual motion, and sometimes the 

 smells of the vessel, are the cause of the nausea felt. The tightened belt steadies the 

 whole body, and, provided the sufferer be not bilious, soon braces him up corporally 

 and mentally. If he is bilious (which he often is on account of leave-takings 

 and festivities prior to his departure) the worst thing possible is generally recom- 

 mended him the ordinary brandy on board. Very fine old liqueur cognac in small 

 doses can, however, be taken with advantage. An authority (Dr. Chapman) recommends 

 the application of ice, enclosed in an india-rubber bag, to the spinal cord. In various 

 travellers' works, marmalade, cayenne pepper, port wine, chutnee, and West India pickles, 

 are prescribed for the malady. The invalid would do much better by eating fresh or 

 canned fruits of a cooling nature. But to return to the voyage. Dickens describes the first 

 night at sea in feeling- language. 



"To one accustomed to such scenes/' says he, "this is a very striking time on 

 shipboard. Afterwards, and when its novelty had long worn off, it never ceased to have 

 a peculiar interest and charm for me. The gloom through which the great black mass 

 holds its direct and certain course ; the rushing water, plainly heard, but dimly seen ; the 

 broad white glistening track that follows in the vessel's wake; the men on the look-out 

 forward, who would be scarcely visible against the dark sky but for their blotting out 

 some score of glistening stars ; the helmsman at the wheel, with the illuminated card before 

 him shining, a speck of light amidst the darkness, like something sentient and of Divine 

 intelligence; the melancholy sighing of the wind through block and rope and chain; the 

 gleaming forth of light from every crevice, nook, and tiny piece of glass about the decks, 

 as though the ship were filled with fire in hiding, ready to burst through any cutlet, wild 

 with its resistless power of death and ruin." 



Irresistibly comic, as well as true, is his description of the ship during bad weather. 

 "It is the third morning. I am awakened out of my sleep by a dismal shriek from my 

 wife, who demands to know whether there's any danger. I rouse myself and look out of 

 bed. The water-jug is plunging and leaping like a lively dolphin ; all the smaller articles 

 are afloat, except my shoes, which are stranded on a carpet-bag, high and dry, like a couple 

 of coal-barges. Suddenly I see them spring into the air, and behold the looking-glass, 

 which is nailed to the wall, sticking fast upon the ceiling. At the same time the door 

 entirely disappears, and a new one is opened in the floor. Then I begin to comprehend 

 that the state-room is standing on its head. 



" Before it is possible to make any arrangement at all compatible with this novel state 

 of things the ship rights. Before one can say ' Thank Heaven ! ' she wrongs again. Before 

 one can cry she is wrong, she seems to have started forward, and to be a creature actively 

 running of its own accord, with broken knees and failing legs, through every variety of 



