seems as if turned
bottom upwards, clinging with its nails to chaos, and fearing to launch
away. The captain comes and says,--"It is true, you have a nasty, short,
chopping sea hereabouts; but you see, she is spinning away down South
jolly!" And this is the Gulf-Stream!

But all things have an end, and most things have two. After the third
day, a new development manifests itself. Various shapeless masses are
carried upstairs and suffered to fall like snow-flakes on the deck, and
to lie there in shivering heaps. From these larvae gradually emerge
features and voices,--the luncheon-bell at last stirs them with the
thrill of returning life. They look up, they lean up, they exchange
pensive smiles of recognition,--the steward comes, no fiend this time,
but a ministering angel, and, lo! the strong man eats broth, and the
weak woman clamors for pickled oysters. And so ends my description of
our sea-sickness.

For, as for betraying the confidences of those sad days, as for telling
how wofully untrue Professors of Temperance were to their principles,
how the Apostle of Total Abstinence developed a brandy-flask, not
altogether new, what unsuccessful tipplings were attempted in the
desperation of nausea, and for what lady that stunning brandy-smasher
was mixed,--as for such tales out of school, I would have you know that
I am not the man to tell them.

Yet a portrait or so lingers in my mental repository;--let me throw them
in, to close off the lot.

No. 1. A sober Bostonian in the next state-room, whose assiduity with
his sea-sick wife reminds one of Cock-Robin, when he sent Jenny Wren
sops and wine. This person was last seen in a dressing-gown, square-cut
night-cap, and odd slippers, dancing up and down the state-room floor
with a cup of gruel, making wild passes with a spoon at an individual in
a berth, who never got any of the contents. Item, the gruel, in a moment
of excitement, finally ran in a stream upon the floor, and was wiped up
by the steward. Result not known, but disappointment is presumable.

No. 2. A stout lady, imprisoned by a board on a sofa nine inches wide,
called by a facetious friend "The Coffin." She complains that her sides
are tolerably battered in;--we hold our tongues, and think that the
board, too, has had a hard time of it. Yet she is a jolly soul, laughing
at her misfortunes, and chirruping to her baby. Her spirits keep up,
even when her dinner won't keep down. Her favorite expressions are "Good