sufferer, what was my dismay to see them all roll slowly down to
the other end! And when I staggered to that end, and held out the
glass once more, how immensely baffled were my good intentions by
the ship giving another lurch, and their all rolling back again! I
suppose I dodged them up and down this sofa for at least a quarter
of an hour, without reaching them once; and by the time I did catch
them, the brandy-and-water was diminished, by constant spilling, to
a teaspoonful. To complete the group, it is necessary to recognise
in this disconcerted dodger, an individual very pale from seasickness,
who had shaved his beard and brushed his hair, last, at
Liverpool: and whose only article of dress (linen not included)
were a pair of dreadnought trousers; a blue jacket, formerly
admired upon the Thames at Richmond; no stockings; and one slipper.
Of the outrageous antics performed by that ship next morning; which
made bed a practical joke, and getting up, by any process short of
falling out, an impossibility; I say nothing. But anything like
the utter dreariness and desolation that met my eyes when I
literally ‘tumbled up’ on deck at noon, I never saw. Ocean and sky
were all of one dull, heavy, uniform, lead colour. There was no
extent of prospect even over the dreary waste that lay around us,
for the sea ran high, and the horizon encompassed us like a large
black hoop. Viewed from the air, or some tall bluff on shore, it
would have been imposing and stupendous, no doubt; but seen from
the wet and rolling decks, it only impressed one giddily and
painfully. In the gale of last night the life-boat had been
crushed by one blow of the sea like a walnut-shell; and there it
hung dangling in the air: a mere faggot of crazy boards. The
planking of the paddle-boxes had been torn sheer away. The wheels
were exposed and bare; and they whirled and dashed their spray
Page 15
Dickens, Charles – American Notes for General Circulation
about the decks at random. Chimney, white with crusted salt;
topmasts struck; storm-sails set; rigging all knotted, tangled,
wet, and drooping: a gloomier picture it would be hard to look
upon.
I was now comfortably established by courtesy in the ladies’ cabin,
where, besides ourselves, there were only four other passengers.
First, the little Scotch lady before mentioned, on her way to join
her husband at New York, who had settled there three years before.
Secondly and thirdly, an honest young Yorkshireman, connected with
some American house; domiciled in that same city, and carrying
thither his beautiful young wife to whom he had been married but a
fortnight, and who was the fairest specimen of a comely English
country girl I have ever seen. Fourthy, fifthly, and lastly,
another couple: newly married too, if one might judge from the
endearments they frequently interchanged: of whom I know no more
than that they were rather a mysterious, run-away kind of couple;
that the lady had great personal attractions also; and that the
gentleman carried more guns with him than Robinson Crusoe, wore a
shooting-coat, and had two great dogs on board. On further
consideration, I remember that he tried hot roast pig and bottled
ale as a cure for sea-sickness; and that he took these remedies
(usually in bed) day after day, with astonishing perseverance. I
may add, for the information of the curious, that they decidedly
failed.
The weather continuing obstinately and almost unprecedentedly bad,
we usually straggled into this cabin, more or less faint and
miserable, about an hour before noon, and lay down on the sofas to
recover; during which interval, the captain would look in to
communicate the state of the wind, the moral certainty of its
changing to-morrow (the weather is always going to improve tomorrow,
at sea), the vessel’s rate of sailing, and so forth.
Observations there were none to tell us of, for there was no sun to
take them by. But a description of one day will serve for all the
rest. Here it is.
The captain being gone, we compose ourselves to read, if the place