The more my poor hero continued to suffer,
Till the sailors themselves cried, in pity, ‘Poor buffer!’ ”
The great steamships of most lines running to distant foreign parts are comparatively easy and steady in their motions, and there is really more chance of being attacked by the mal de mer on an English or Irish Channel boat than there is on the voyage across the Atlantic. The waves in such channels are more cut up and “choppy” than are those of the broad ocean. The employment of the twin-boat, Calais-Douvres, has mitigated much of the horrors of one of our Channel lines. It is curious to note the fact that Indians often use a couple of canoes in very much the same manner as did the designer of the doubled-hulled vessel just mentioned. The writer has seen, in the Straits of Fuca, natives conveying all their possessions on the top of planks, placed over and lashed to two canoes. One suggestion for the improvement of the steamboat service across the Channel to France is to construct an enormous vessel, 650 feet long and 150 wide, a ship as long as the Great Eastern and twice her beam, to be propelled by both paddles and screws. She is to be capable of carrying several trains, and is to have a roofed station on board, with all the necessary saloons. Floating platforms are to connect this great steam ferry-boat with the shore rails, so that it can start or arrive at any time of the tide.
“Are you a good sailor?” asks one passenger of another just after leaving Liverpool. “Oh, I suppose I’m no worse than anybody else,” is, perhaps, the answer; while some are bold enough to answer, “Yes.” But Dickens noticed that the first day very few remained long over their wine, and that everybody developed an unusual love of the open air. Still, with the exception of one lady, “who had retired with some precipitation at [pg 7]dinner-time, immediately after being assisted to the finest cut of a very yellow boiled leg of mutton with very green capers,” there were few invalids the first night.
The subject of sea sickness is an unpleasant one, and cannot occupy much space here. Every old and many a new traveller has a remedy for it, so possibly the mention of our mode of prevention may be permitted here. It is simply for the sufferer to wear a very tight belt round the waist. It has been recommended to many fellow-passengers, and its use has proved invariably beneficial. The unusual motion, and sometimes the smells of the vessel, are the cause of the nausea felt. The tightened belt steadies the whole body, and, provided the sufferer be not bilious, soon braces him up corporally and mentally. If he is bilious (which he often is on account of leave-takings and festivities prior to his departure) the worst thing possible is generally recommended him—the ordinary brandy on board. Very fine old liqueur cognac in small doses can, however, be taken with advantage. An authority (Dr. Chapman) recommends the application of ice, enclosed in an india-rubber bag, to the spinal cord. In various travellers’ works, marmalade, cayenne pepper, port wine, chutnee, and West India pickles, are prescribed for the malady. The invalid would do much better by eating fresh or canned fruits of a cooling nature. But to return to the voyage. Dickens describes the first night at sea in feeling language.
“To one accustomed to such scenes,” says he, “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 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.”
Irresistibly comic, as well as true, is his description of the ship during bad weather. “It is the third morning. I am awakened out of my sleep by a dismal shriek from my wife, who demands to know whether there’s any danger. I rouse myself and look out of bed. The water-jug is plunging and leaping like a lively dolphin; all the smaller articles are afloat, except my shoes, which are stranded on a carpet-bag, high and dry, like a couple of coal-barges. Suddenly I see them spring into the air, and behold the looking-glass, which is nailed to the wall, sticking fast upon the ceiling. At the same time the door entirely disappears, and a new one is opened in the floor. Then I begin to comprehend that the state-room is standing on its head.
“Before it is possible to make any arrangement at all compatible with this novel state of things the ship rights. Before one can say ‘Thank Heaven!’ she wrongs again. Before one can cry she is wrong, she seems to have started forward, and to be a creature actively running of its own accord, with broken knees and failing legs, through every variety of [pg 8]hole and pitfall, and stumbling constantly. * * * And so she goes on staggering, heaving, wrestling, leaping, diving, jumping, pitching, throbbing, rolling, and rocking, and going through all these movements sometimes by turns, and sometimes all together, until one feels disposed to roar for mercy.”
Dickens gives a droll account of a ridiculous situation in which he was placed. “About midnight we shipped a sea, which forced its way through the skylights, burst open the doors above, and came raging and roaring down into the ladies’ cabin, to the unspeakable consternation of my wife and a little Scotch lady—who, by the way, had previously sent a message to the captain by the stewardess, requesting him, with her compliments, to have a steel conductor immediately attached to the top of every mast and to the chimney, in order that the ship might not be struck by lightning. They and the handmaid before-mentioned, being in such ecstasies of fear that I scarcely knew what to do with them, I naturally bethought myself of some restorative or comfortable cordial; and nothing better occurring to me at the moment than hot brandy-and-water, I procured a tumblerful without delay. It being impossible to stand or sit without holding on, they were all heaped together in one corner of a long sofa—a fixture extending entirely across the cabin—where they clung to each other, in momentary expectation of being drowned. When I approached this place with my specific, and was about to administer it, with many consolatory expressions, to the nearest 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 tea-spoonful.”
What a difference to the accommodations and comfort of most modern steamships, with their luxurious saloons placed amidships, where there is least motion; their spacious and airy state-rooms, warmed by steam, water laid on, and fitted with electric bells; their music-room with piano and harmonium, their smoking-room, bath-rooms, library, and even barber’s shop. The table is as well served as at the best hotel ashore, and the menu for the day is as extensive as that of a first-class restaurant, while everything that may be required in the drinkables, from modest bottled beer to rare old wine, is to be obtained from the steward. And provided that the passengers assimilate reasonably well, there will be enjoyable games, music, and possibly private theatricals and other regularly organised entertainments. The idea of a “Punch and Judy” in the middle of the Atlantic seems rather funny; but we have known of an instance in which even this form of amusement has been provided on board a great steamship! On long voyages it is not by any means uncommon for some one to start a MS. daily or weekly journal, to which many of the passengers contribute. Such have often been published afterwards for private circulation, as affording reminiscences of a pleasant voyage.