floating deposit of lukewarm oil in my throat, and a compression of the
bridge of my nose in a blunt pair of pincers--these are the personal
sensations by which I know we are off, and by which I shall continue to
know it until I am on the soil of France. My symptoms have scarcely
established themselves comfortably, when two or three skating shadows
that have been trying to walk or stand, get flung together, and other
two or three shadows in tarpaulin slide with them into corners and cover
them up. Then the South Foreland lights begin to hiccup at us in a way
that bodes no good.

It is at about this period that my detestation of Calais knows no
bounds. Inwardly I resolve afresh that I never will forgive that hateful
town. I have done so before, many times, but that is past. Let me
register a vow. Implacable animosity to Calais everm--that was an
awkward sea, and the funnel seems of my opinion, for it gives a
complaining roar.

The wind blows stiffly from the nor'-east, the sea runs high, we ship a
deal of water, the night is dark and cold, and the shapeless passengers
lie about in melancholy bundles, as if they were sorted out for the
laundress; but, for my own uncommercial part, I cannot pretend that I
am much inconvenienced by any of these things. A general howling,
whistling, flopping, gurgling, and scooping, I am aware of, and a
general knocking about of Nature; but the impressions I receive are very
vague. In a sweet, faint temper, something like the smell of damaged
oranges, I think I should feel languidly benevolent if I had time. I
have not time, because I am under a curious compulsion to occupy myself
with Irish melodies. "Rich and rare were the gems she wore," is the
particular melody to which I find myself devoted. I sing it to myself in
the most charming manner and with the greatest expression. Now and then
I raise my head (I am sitting on the hardest of wet seats, in the most
uncomfortable of wet attitudes, but I don't mind it) and notice that I
am a whirling shuttle-cock between a fiery battledore of a lighthouse on
the French coast and a fiery battledore of a lighthouse on the English
coast; but I don't notice it particularly, except to feel envenomed in
my hatred of Calais. Then I go on again, "Rich and rare were the ge-ems
she-e-e-e wore, And a bright gold ring on her wa-and she bo-ore, But O
her beauty was fa-a-a-r beyond"--I am particularly proud of my execution
here, when I become aware of another aw