This afforded us a good view of the river. On one side was the New York shore, and on the other, the Jersey. Panoramas of houses and docks on either side swept by us as we moved along, and sky-scrapers loomed up prominently.
We passed pretty close to the Goddess of Liberty, and saw plainly Governor's Island, Ellis Island, Fort Hamilton, Fort Wordsworth, Bath Beach, Staten Island and Coney Island. Quickly enough we were abreast of Sandy Hook, which was the last point of land we would see until we reached Europe. Straight ahead of us was nothing but sky and water.
It was now nearly noon. I had eaten nothing that morning and what I had eaten yesterday was mostly downstairs in the hallway. The fresh sea-breeze had revived me a little and now I felt that I could eat something. None of the passengers had eaten anything since they came on board, and probably they, too, must have been hungry, for when the dinner bell rang there was a mighty stampede. Some of them didn't take time to rush downstairs, they just dropped down.
The dinner was good. There was plenty of nourishing soup on hand, a liberal allowance of meat, vegetables, bread, butter and coffee. No one need have gone hungry. All the other meals were satisfactory, though an occasional one was punky. Of course there were kickers, but those kind of people will be found everywhere.
The second day out was Sunday, and it was a fine spring day, but on Monday morning clouds began to gather and tried to work up a storm. They succeeded all too speedily. The sky became black, the wind roared up aloft, the masts hummed, timbers creaked, the ship rolled from side to side and then rose and fell; the cordage whipped against the masts and everything looked lovely for a first-class storm. I got scared. I hated to die so young, but what's the odds? The waves were high as mountains and to me seemed about as mean looking as anything I ever saw. They were white on top and made straight for us. We could not run away from them. I was on deck waiting to see the storm out, for what was the use going below and being drowned there? If I was to die I would die game and at the front. It didn't seem to me that anything built by human hands could withstand the buffeting of those waves. The force of the sky-scraping billows was awful. They kind of made me wilt when I looked at them.
I survived that storm or I wouldn't be writing this. If you catch me on the sea again though, you'll have to be a fast runner.
I was told that we would see land again by the following Sunday and I was sort of pining to see it. It was a wait of several long days, but I didn't have much else to do than wait. There was nothing to do on board except to eat, sleep and wait. I got pretty badly drenched during the storm. A huge comber made a leap for me and broke right over me, spilling a few tons of water on top of me. It was a soaker, sure enough, and I didn't dry out until several days afterward. I had only one suit of clothes with me and they were on my back so they had no chance to dry. I slept in them to keep them warm.
A life on the ocean wave is a gay thing. It is awful nice to be spun around like a cork and then see-sawed up and down with a possibility of touching bottom. The heel over from side to side is also very funny, for there is a good chance of being shot overboard when the ship jams suddenly away over. You hold on wondering whether the ship is going to right herself or not. If she does, you're in luck, and if she don't it's good-bye Lisa Jane. How many ships do tip over? Several thousand of them every year. Luckily, the Furnessia wasn't one of the unlucky ones this trip. The worst that happened to me was a bad scare and a shower-bath. Maybe the water wasn't cold when that wave struck me! Ugh! It knocked the wind out of me for a moment and I didn't know where I was at. I dripped like a drowned rat and when my fellow passengers saw me they roared.
On Tuesday morning of the second week we saw the shores of Europe. We had now been out about ten days. I have read that Columbus and his crew felt pretty good when they saw land again after their eventful voyage but I'll bet a dollar to a doughnut they didn't feel half as good as I felt when I saw land again. I was more than pining to see it. Ten days of sloppiness was a whole lot for me. If there is any fun wandering around with one's clothing sticking to one's back I fail to see it. I was feeling all right and my general health was good, but the lack of sleep and the fetid odors down below helped to daze me. I was in a sort of pipe dream and hardly knew whether I was afoot or on horseback.
There was land ahead, though, and I felt like shouting.