40 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER 



August 20, 18:!0 



From a ' Mar'.nei's Sketches,' lately publislieil in 

 ProviHence. 



Sickness at Sea. — One who has never been at 

 sea, can form no idea of the peculiar feelingfs of de- 

 serteilness and s-iliturte that seize the wretch, whom 

 the fates visit with any kind of indisposition of body, 

 when out of the reach of the faculty nurses, warm- 

 ing pans, chicken broths, and all those convenien- 

 ces, that make a fit of sickness at home, a kind of 

 'otium cum dignilnle' affair — a sort of temporary 

 withdrawing one's self from the cares and vexations 

 of'this vile world, while the increased solicitude and 

 anxiety of friends give one a feeling of consequence 

 and importance, peculiarly srratifyinir, provided never- 

 theless, that the sickness aforesaid is not unto death, 

 in which case, perhaps' the difference between sea 

 and land is merely imaginary. But at sea no one 

 can be spared to wait upon the patient; chickens 

 are viinus, warming pans and doctors ditto. The 

 cook is indeed ex officio nurse general, and is in 

 fact called the 'doctor' in all merchant ships, though 

 his culinary avocations render his attentions to the 

 h"ospitiil department extremely uncertain and inter- 

 mittent, for the axiom that 'a living dog is better 

 than a dead lion,' or even a sick one, is gospel at sea, 

 and of course greater care is taken to supply the 

 healthy with food than the sick with comforts. 



In addition to tliis, I have always remarked that the 

 masters of American merchantmen will seldom be- 

 lieve that a man is sick till the agonies of death take 

 place, it being the chief cornerstone of their belief to 

 look after their employer's interest first and foremost, 

 and rather to kill a man by hard work and exposure, 

 than to permit him to defraud the owners by his 

 iiDliuiely sickness. 



liLE OF France. — Very high up on the side of 

 oucj of t!ie highest mountains near the harbor, is a tel- 

 egraph station, which seemed inaccessible to any 

 animal but a very smart, active monkey ; from which 

 vessels could be seen twentyfour hours before their 

 arrival, from the extreme clearness of the air. 



In this island, originated the science of ' nauscopy,' 

 or, as an Irish philosopher defines it, ' the art of 

 seeing a ship before she is in sight ;' the theory of 

 which is this, that the refraction of the air, shows an 

 inverted iuiage of the ship above the horizon, while 

 the sliip is still below or rather beyond its limits. 

 This 'notion' attracted some attention at first, but 

 was soon exploded, people generally being contented 

 with seeing in a straight line, and doubting the 

 utility of looking ' round a corner.' 



Calcutta. — The Fakirs, a class of devotees, may 

 be steu in almost every street, practising their re- 

 ligious mummeries. One of these fellows that 1 saw, 

 had made a vow to keep his arm in an upright posi- 

 tion Yor seven years, but long before the expiration 

 of half that term, the muscles shrunk and withered 

 and lost all their power so that the limb remained 

 tixed alofl, like a sloop's topmast, or a lightning rod. 

 Another had vowed to lie upon a plank bed, covered 

 with blunt iron points, about half an inch long. His 

 vow was likewise for seven years, and when I sjw 

 him, his hide was callused and as hard as an al- 

 ligator's, and I have no doubt was equally impene- 

 trable, though I had no convenient opportunity of 

 trying the experiment. 



A third wretch had made a vow not to sleep at 

 night, and for the purpose of preventing the carnal 

 ■ man from getting a nap without the privity or con- 

 sent of the spiritual, he uttered a roar every four or 

 five minutes during the night. In the course of the 

 ' pilgrim's progress' he took up his station directly un- 

 der my chamber window. I bore it with most ex- 

 emplary fortitude for one night, muttering curses, 

 not loud bat deep, and meditating ' brave punisli- 

 mei.ts' and schemes of vengeance tor my murdered 

 sleep, for ihcie periodical howls had the double 

 effect of keeping both himself and uie awake. The 

 next night, in company with a fellow lodger, I took 

 my stand at the window, well provided with brick- 

 bats. About ten o'clock the mortifier of the flesh 

 'took post,' and in due time warbled forth a long 



and melodious howl, to wliirh we immediately re- 

 sponded by a shower of missiles, whose peculiar dull 

 banging sound, announced that they had come in 

 contact with the 'soul's dark cottage' of the saint, 

 who was soon after seen clearing out, and to 'make 

 uight hideous' somewhere else. 



If one walk for recreation in one of the same 

 spicy groves, there is ten chances to one, tliat he 

 disturbs the repose of a' 'cobra di capello,' or hood- 

 ed snake, whose bite sends him to the shades in fif- 

 teen minutes, so that unless he has his testamentary 

 dotuments previously prepiired, he runs some risk 

 of dying intestate, and chousing the judge of pro- 

 bate out of his fees; if he is tempted by the shade 

 of a tree to take a nap under its branches, he finds 

 when it is too late, that is, when he wakes in 

 another world, that he has been sleeping under 

 a mancliineel, or some other whose narcotic shade 

 is an introduction to the. infernal shades; if he sit 

 down to rest himself, a scorpion or centipede crawls 

 up his pantaloons and the envenomed sting leaves 

 him a leg out of pocket : if he extend his walk far 

 into the forest, he meets with a tiger, or a boa con- 

 strictor, who happens, just at that moment, to be in 

 search of a dinner, and the unfortunate admirer of 

 spicy groves finds an ignoble grave in the bowels 

 of a wild beast ; if he feel oppressed by the heat 

 and takes a fancy to bathe in the coolin» stream, an 

 alligator, a mile long, introduces him to ' worlds bc- 

 Imv the flood ; ' if he avoid the spicy groves and pe- 

 rambulate the open field, a ' coup de soleil,' dehiium 

 and brain fever close the scene. 



South Shetlano Islands — The seals, on our first 

 arrival, were so tame, that when hauling our boats 

 on shore, it was frequently necessary to kick them 

 out of the way. 1 saw one beach where upwards of 

 three bundled had been killed, almost every one of 

 which had a young one as black as a coal, and look- 

 ing at a little distance like black water spaniels. 

 These poor little wretches were standing whiin- 

 peiing and whining each one by the mangled carcase 

 of its dead mother, a piteous spectacle. 



On one of these rambles we unexpectedly came 

 across an old wig [male s6al] on an immensely high 

 cliff. He was probably rusticating to avoid the ex- 

 termination that was raging on the sea-coast. It 

 was immediately resolved, nem con. that he should 

 be compelled to jump off the cliff forthwith, a res- 

 olution which we proceeded to put in practice. 

 Notwithstanding his roarings and caperings, iiis re- 

 luctance, and his ' nitor in adversum' behavior, he 

 gradually approached the brink, till at last he took 

 the 'lover's leap.' I ran and looked over the edge 

 of the cliff, and saw him bounding like a foot-ball 

 from one projection to another till he alighted in the 

 roaring surf below. As soon as he had extricated 

 himself from the tremendous surf into which he 

 fell, and which flew half way up to us, though 

 elevated nearly four hundred feet above the level, he 

 turned his head towards us, and, I presume, roared 

 lustily, though his voice was not distinguishable 

 from the roar of the surf. By way of appeasing 

 him we kicked off a score of penguins, that had 

 colonized the place. 



We were just getting the frying-pan and coffee 

 kettle under way. the mate was compounding a large 

 tin pot of hot 'blackstrap,' when a huge monster of 

 an old wig bolted in among us without ceremony, 

 and deliberately placed himself in the middle of the 

 fire, which was large enough and liot enough to have 

 roasted a cattle-show premium ox. I saw him after 

 the snow had abated, smelling at his scorched flip- 

 pers from time to time, as if at a loss to account 

 for their crisped condition. 



Lascars — Nothing occurred to vary the scene 

 but a very heavy thunder squall near the equator. 

 Not a single black fellow could be persuaded or 

 forced to go aloft, they all fell prostrate on deck, 

 crying 'Allah! Allah!' \ made shift to coax one, 

 who had been in an English man of war, to go aloft 

 with me, and got him as far as the main top, when 

 an exceedingly bright flash of lightning, that roost 

 effectually blinded me for five or six miuutes accom- 



panied-by a clap of thunder, like the explosion of 

 dozen or twenty powder mills, overthrew his for*, 

 tude and he slid down one of the maintopmast bad 

 stays, and joined his howling countrymen. Thi 

 have likewise a great antipathy to cold.— Talkir 

 with one of them one day, he said that on the coa 

 of Chili, in the winter, it was 'two jacket cold' goir 

 round Van Dieman's Land was 'three jacket cob 

 but the English channel in the winter time, w; 

 ' plenty jacket cold.' 



Overboard.— 1 was going aloft and had got as fi 

 as the futtock shrouds, w hen a ratlin broke under n 

 feet, and I fell backwards. My first sensation wi 

 surprise ; 1 could not imagine where I was, but soc 

 ascertained from the rusliiiig of the air bv my ca 

 that I was falling and that headforemost. "Dr'Johi 

 son says that the near approach of death wonderful 

 concentrates a man's ideas. I am sure it did niit 

 for I never thought so fast before or since, as I d 

 dniing the few seconds that I was tumbling. 1 

 an instant the rccolleciion came into my bead th; 

 one of the quarter deck guns (No. !iO) was direct 

 under me, and I should m all human probability, I 

 dashed to pieces upon it. I would have given tl 

 world to vent r.iy feelings in cries, I tried to gathi 

 my limbs together, to contract my muscles, to shric 

 my body into as small a compass as possible, ai 

 with unspeakable terror awaited the 'death shod 



All this time there was a blood red light befoi 

 my eyes, through which a thousand horrible forn 

 were constantly gliding. Then I thought of bom 

 and the forms of all 1 hold dear on earth, and mar 

 others, 'strangers of distinction,' besides, floated bi 

 fore me. Then the recollection of the infernal gu 

 and the consequent smash across the breech of it,"pi 

 all these phantoms to flight, and I felt that peculii 

 sickness and distress at the stomach, which it is sa 

 one experiences when on the point of undergoin 

 a sudden violent and painful death, and I thougl 

 to myself 'surely it must be almost time for tl 

 shock.' 



A shock I certainly did receive, and that no ve; 

 gentle one across the back of the head, neck ai 

 left shoulder, and in an instant all was dark and sti 

 ' It is all over,' thought I 'this is the slate betwec 

 death and resurrection.' I really thought I had pa 

 sed the first and awaited with increased terror f 

 the second, when to my utter dismay, I felt mysf 

 falling a second lime, but the sensation was differen 

 the blow that I had received had turned me, and 

 was descending feet foremost. But no words can e; 

 press my delight, my ecstasy, at finding myself owe 

 board, instead of on the gun. I kept going dow 

 down, till it appeared to me that the seven fathoa 

 and a half, (the depth of water at our anchorage 

 had more than doubled since we let go our ancho 

 After a while I became stationary arid soon bega 

 slowly to ascend. When I looked up I saw higl 

 very high above me, a dim greenish light, whic 

 became brighter and brighter till at last I bounce 

 on the surface like a cork. 



It is said that intelligence is now received at Pari 

 from Calais, in 3 minutes, by 27 telegraphs — in 

 minutes, from Lille, by 22 — in 6^ from Strasbur| 

 by 46— in 8 from Lyons, by 50 — in Iti from Perpij 

 nan, bv 89 — in 8 from Brest, by 20 — in 145^ fioi 

 Toulon, by m.—PhiUd. Chron. 



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