To Panama and back

by Henry T. Byford

Doctor Brower looked at the cigar, turned suddenly pale, said “Ugh,” and started toward his stateroom.

“What a great thing a sea voyage is to bring out all there is in a man,” said Senn, as his friend disappeared. He then lighted a fresh cigar and sat down to read French poetry.

But Doctor Brower’s experience was only a sample of what was in store for the rest of us. He merely got ahead of the crowd, as usual. Eleven o’clock, our breakfast hour, came an hour too late. By eleven o’clock the wind blew, the waves grew, and the breakfast flew. But the breakfast habit had become too firmly fixed to be broken off voluntarily, and when the hour came around, those of us who were able to be about could not resist the impulse to try our luck. Two ladies were counted among the brave when we solemnly filed into the dining-room, viz., Doctor Waite and Mrs. Brower. But they were out of place, for the occasion called for gymnastics rather than gustatics, for dexterity rather than daintiness. The table, which extended across the room from side to side, was set with the frames on, for the rolling of the ship was such that itself was about the only thing that did not go over. Every few minutes a big lurch would send dishes, frames, chairs and passengers sliding down to the end of the table, changing food from one framed space to another, and feet and elbows from one place to another.

Doctor Hughes, who sat next to me, had an old head and a young face, and was of that indefinite age at which the hair turns prematurely white and men grow considerate and gentle in their ways and feelings. He was greatly distressed whenever his chair struck mine, when his feet came down upon my feet, when his elbow rammed my ribs, and his bottles and plates with their spilling contents mixed freely with mine. His elbows hurt me and he knew it; but he was helpless to avoid it, for I sat in the corner of an ell at, the end of the table and served as a buffer to stop the advance of the whole line. He had the accumulated momentum of the others, besides the motion of the ship, to resist, but he had me for a cushion. His distress was mental; mine was physical.

In order to conceal my suffering I called in as gay a voice as I could command to Doctor Newman, who sat opposite on the solid seat that ran along the wall of the room, and was able to cling to his place and to his food.

“What do you think of this jam, Doctor Newman?”

“I’m fond of jam; pass it over, please.”

“Ask Doctor Hughes. I got mine from him.”

“Oh! Ah! I see! You’ve got too much Hughes. Everything is going your way. But this passive exercise is just what we all need. The boat is doing the moving; all we have to do is to resist, and to eat.”

Doctor Frank had brought Jordan’s “Majesty of Calmness” to read en voyage, but had not yet come out of his five-days’ doze. So Doctor Hughes borrowed it (not the doze), and spent the afternoon reading extracts to us from it, and in quoting Pope’s “Essay on Man.” At any other time and place I probably could have appreciated these books, although I would not have taken time to read them, but it seemed to me that Jordan was more or less possessed about the word calmness. It is easy to say to yourself or to the sea, “Be calm,” but there are things beyond Jordan both in the mind and in the sea. Pope’s polished verse and filigreed philosophy are out of place in the trade-winds. Even the meaning of words and the truth of philosophy depend upon the way the wind blows. It is not what the author writes, but what the reader reads that makes the book.