112 A YEAR WITH A WHALER 



royal yard or in the bilge, you cannot escape the 

 ghastly nightmare even for a minute. 



There is no use fighting it and no use dosing 

 yourself with medicines or pickles or lemons or 

 fat meat. Nothing can cure it. In spite of 

 everything it will stay with you until it has 

 worked its will to the uttermost, and then it will 

 go away at last of its own accord, leaving you a 

 wan, limp wreck. I may add, to correct a gen- 

 eral impression, that it is impossible to become 

 seasoned to seasickness. One attack does not 

 render the victim immune from future recur- 

 rences. I was very sick once again on the voy- 

 age. After a season ashore, the best sailors are 

 liable to seasickness, especially if they encounter 

 rough weather soon after leaving port. Some 

 time later we were frozen solidly in Behring Sea 

 for three weeks. When a storm swell from the 

 south broke up the ice and the motionless brig 

 began suddenly to rock and toss on a heavy sea, 

 every mother's son aboard, including men who 

 had been to sea all their lives, was sick. Not 

 one escaped. 



During the storm we kept a man at the wheel 



