Notwithstanding this high tone of courage and confidence, I could
not but observe that very few remained long over their wine; and
that everybody had an unusual love of the open air; and that the
favourite and most coveted seats were invariably those nearest to
the door. The tea-table, too, was by no means as well attended as
the dinner-table; and there was less whist-playing than might have
been expected. Still, with the exception of one lady, who had
retired with some precipitation at dinner-time, immediately after
being assisted to the finest cut of a very yellow boiled leg of
mutton with very green capers, there were no invalids as yet; and
walking, and smoking, and drinking of brandy-and-water (but always
in the open air), went on with unabated spirit, until eleven
o’clock or thereabouts, when ‘turning in’ – no sailor of seven
hours’ experience talks of going to bed – became the order of the
night. The perpetual tramp of boot-heels on the decks gave place
to a heavy silence, and the whole human freight was stowed away
below, excepting a very few stragglers, like myself, who were
probably, like me, afraid to go there.
To one unaccustomed to such scenes, this is a very striking time on
shipboard. Afterwards, and when its novelty had long worn off, it
never ceased to have a peculiar interest and charm for me. The
gloom through which the great black mass holds its direct and
certain course; the rushing water, plainly heard, but dimly seen;
the broad, white, glistening track, that follows in the vessel’s
wake; the men on the look-out forward, who would be scarcely
visible against the dark sky, but for their blotting out some score
of glistening stars; the helmsman at the wheel, with the
illuminated card before him, shining, a speck of light amidst the
darkness, like something sentient and of Divine intelligence; the
melancholy sighing of the wind through block, and rope, and chain;
the gleaming forth of light from every crevice, nook, and tiny
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Dickens, Charles – American Notes for General Circulation
piece of glass about the decks, as though the ship were filled with
fire in hiding, ready to burst through any outlet, wild with its
resistless power of death and ruin. At first, too, and even when
the hour, and all the objects it exalts, have come to be familiar,
it is difficult, alone and thoughtful, to hold them to their proper
shapes and forms. They change with the wandering fancy; assume the
semblance of things left far away; put on the well-remembered
aspect of favourite places dearly loved; and even people them with
shadows. Streets, houses, rooms; figures so like their usual
occupants, that they have startled me by their reality, which far
exceeded, as it seemed to me, all power of mine to conjure up the
absent; have, many and many a time, at such an hour, grown suddenly
out of objects with whose real look, and use, and purpose, I was as
well acquainted as with my own two hands.
My own two hands, and feet likewise, being very cold, however, on
this particular occasion, I crept below at midnight. It was not
exactly comfortable below. It was decidedly close; and it was
impossible to be unconscious of the presence of that extraordinary
compound of strange smells, which is to be found nowhere but on
board ship, and which is such a subtle perfume that it seems to
enter at every pore of the skin, and whisper of the hold. Two
passengers’ wives (one of them my own) lay already in silent
agonies on the sofa; and one lady’s maid (MY lady’s) was a mere
bundle on the floor, execrating her destiny, and pounding her curlpapers
among the stray boxes. Everything sloped the wrong way:
which in itself was an aggravation scarcely to be borne. I had
left the door open, a moment before, in the bosom of a gentle
declivity, and, when I turned to shut it, it was on the summit of a
lofty eminence. Now every plank and timber creaked, as if the ship
were made of wicker-work; and now crackled, like an enormous fire
of the driest possible twigs. There was nothing for it but bed; so