THE ROARING FORTIES 111 



streaked and shot with foam and looking like a 

 polished mass of jade or agate. 



I had not imagined water could assume such 

 wild and appalling shapes. Those monster 

 waves seemed replete with malignant life, roar- 

 ing out their hatred of us and watching alertly 

 with their devilish foam-eyes for a chance to leap 

 upon us and crush us or sweep us to death on 

 their crests. 



I became genuinely seasick now for the first 

 time. A little touch of seasickness I had experi- 

 enced in the tropics was as nothing. To the rail 

 I went time and again to give up everything 

 within me, except my immortal soul, to the mad 

 gods of sea. For two days I lay in my bunk. I 

 tried pickles, fat bacon, everything that any 

 sailor recommended, all to no purpose. I would 

 have given all I possessed for one fleeting mo- 

 ment upon something level and still, something 

 that did not plunge and lurch and roll from side 

 to side and rise and fall. I think the most 

 wretched part of seasickness is the knowledge 

 that you cannot run away from it, that you are 

 penned in with it, that go where you will, on the 



