544

DISCOMFORTS ON THE 'ROLLING DEEP.' [1866.

long sea-journey. She is a beautiful steamer, stanch, elegant and commodious, though smaller than those of the west side, which a single winter voyage on the Atlantic would strip to the hull. Her state-rooms are pleasant, each containing three berths and a sofa, with abundant drawers and shelves. A friend and myself occupied one. Another friend, his wife, five children and nurse, had three more, side by side; and in day-time we threw open the doors, converting the four rooms into a pleasant saloon.

The moment our wheels started, we felt the sharp contrast to the smooth Pacific, and the shining capacity of our steamer for rolling and pitching. It was difficult to decide which was hardest, to keep in bed through the night, dress in the morning, or eat during the day. The tables were a dreary expanse of empty seats, and our pretext of breakfasting very shallow and ridiculous. Huge waves drenched the upper deck with spray. It is wonderful how steamers ride them, with wheels now entirely submerged, and a moment after, lifted far out of the water.

For two days we staggered about or adhered to our sofas, battling the two difficulties of Artemus Ward--to keep inside of our state-rooms and outside of our dinners. The third was a little smoother; and wretched mortals began to creep out of their hidingplaces, and appear at table. The women uniformly declared that they had not been seasick, but merely suffering from headache. Why is everybody ashamed of seasickness and innocent of its existence? Some thirty of our passengers were prostrated with Panama fever, often induced by the tropical voyage and crossing the isthmus. It is ordinarily prevented by taking two or three grains of quinine daily in the low latitudes.

Among the entertaining persons on board was a lady born near the Black sea, educated in Paris, conversant with most modern languages, and speaking English with just difficulty enough to make her chat piquant. With her husband, long in our public service, she has seen much of every quarter of the globe. Her comments upon American society were pungent.

'The Bostonians,' she said are very charming, very hospitable very cultivated; but they are perfectly convicted of their immense superiority to everybody else.'

She gave an amusing account of her three days' experience on

1866.]

EXPERIENCES OF TWO PASSENGERS.

545

this rolling vessel. Her beautiful hair, wonderfully fine and soft, is so long that when she stands upright, it sweeps the floor. Each morning she arranged it laboriously; but just as it was nearly finished a heavy lurch would fling her across the state-room, and down it came! After attempting again and again, she at last gave up in despair, sat down upon a trunk to enjoy 'a good cry,' and then returned to bed for the rest of the day.

However ill one feels, it is far better to partake of every meal, and, like Dr. Johnson, preserve the proud consciousness of 'a man

who has endeavored well.' Iced champagne is the best remedy for this intense nausea. The sea is a relentless leveler, without the slightest regard for personal prejudices. One of our company, Congressional delegate from Arizona, was a member of the Maine legislature passing the original simon-pure, prohibitory law, of which he was an enthusiastic advocate. I now saw him upon a sofa for three days, pale as death, living upon champagne 'straight' and he seemed to like it!

546

NIGHT IN A HEAVY GALE.

[1866. The third evening, on our left, we saw the dim mountains of Jamaica; and a few hours later, on our right, the little monitorshaped island of Nevassa. The weather cooled, and the ship continued to roll, when we left behind the last of the Bahamas.

On the seventh day from Aspinwall, in the Carribean sea, the wind increased to a gale. Many declare that a storm does not equal one's imagination; that waves never run mountain-high. Actually I suppose they do not. Scientific measurements are said to prove that they seldom reach one hundred feet; yet standing on the hurricane deck, clutching a rope or iron rod for safety, we looked up at huge billows which gave the exact effect of tall mountains, far exceeding all my fancy had painted them. In beautiful, ever-changing colors they came rolling down upon us with great gulfs between, deep enough to hide a village church, steeple and all. Standing at the stern, we saw the bows of our gallant ship sometimes 'point up toward the sky, making the deck like a steep roof; and a moment after, dive down toward the bottom of the sea. It is a perpetual wonder to landsmen that a ship can ride such billows; but as long as they strike her bows or stern at a right-angle she breasts them easily, though a single broad-wise wave would be likely to swamp her. The New York behaved admirably under Captain Horner, an old and thorough seaman; but through that long rough night, it was difficult to keep in one's berth. Indeed, a new Jack and Gill in the bridal chamber fell down the steep hill of the careening floor, while all the mattresses came tumbling after.

At intervals in the darkness would come a tremendous lurch, straining the ship in every joint, and followed by crashing of glass and crockery. I had always longed to see a storm on shipboard; and here it was, to my heart's content. The anticipation was a good deal more agreeable than the reality. It was a memorable night-the only one in which I remember to have been kept awake solely from fear. By daylight it is appalling enough to watch vast waves upon which the ship seems the merest feather— to see every loose article flung across the cabin, and dishes from the tables scattered about like wheat from a sower's hand; but it is far more impressive for one to lie through the slow hours, wondering whether he will see the cheerful world again; remember

1866.] END OF EIGHT MONTHS' WANDERINGS.

547

ing that a slight break of machinery would leave him at the mercy of the elements; that only a plank is between him and death.

The next morning we were laboring up the Gulf Stream, off Cape Lookout. We were able to make only three or four knots per hour-barely enough motion for steerage. Our forward bulkheads had been shaved off as with a razor; sheets of copper stripped from the hull; thirty feet of the upper deck broken off and floated away; four larboard closets carried overboard; and three-inch planks, thickly studded with spikes, torn up like paper. Old salts declared the weather as bad as ships ever live through; and after reaching port we learned that many vessels went down in the gale. At the thin breakfast tables, where dishes danced a Virginia reel, the passengers looked worn and haggard; but jested about the prospect with true national nonchalance. After lasting two days the gale abated.

Go outside in a storm, insure safety by clinging or being lashed to a safe object, and watch the wonderful seas. It makes one quite forget his terror to look out upon vast mountains of waves instantaneously changing in form, and in richness and variety of colors which no brush nor canvas can reproduce.

On the tenth evening from Aspinwall we saw Barnegat light off the New Jersey coast. The next morning our ship plowed the ice of New York harbor, among a hundred familiar scenes; and threw out her cable at the foot of Canal street, twenty-two days from San Francisco.

Ended were my eight months' wanderings, from the Missouri to the Pacific, and back to the Atlantic. I wish every American, before going abroad, might make the trans-continental journey. Without it he can have no creditable knowledge or intelligent appreciation of his own country. New York, New England, Pennsylvania, Ohio, the Atlantic slope-these are not wholly nor chiefly the United States. Let him view the great river, with its magnificent valley; the prairies which look up at the mountains; the mountains which look out on the sunset sea. They will give him home standards of comparison for every foreign scene; glimpses of our strongest national traits, both virtues and faults; suggestions of the vastness of our domain, our pageants of beauty and sublimity, our abounding resources and our great destiny.

548

A RIDE THROUGH ILLINOIS.

[1866

CHAPTER XLV.

IN September, 1866, a new line of sleeping-cars on all the routes radiating from Chicago, was paying forty thousand dollars per month to its chief owner-an old quartz miner from the Rocky Mountains. Thus he earned a frugal livelihood until Colorado mining should become an established success.

The cars each cost from twenty-eight thousand to forty thou sand dollars, and are incomparably the finest in the world. A new improvement combines a sleeping, eating and saloon carriage. In its little apartments the passenger, by touching a bell-tassel, summons a waiter to serve him with coffee, oysters, chicken, or any thing else to be had at an ordinary restaurant.

I left Chicago upon a palatial sleeping-car, richly furnished, and running like a pair of skates upon even ice. The ample beds are as inviting as those of our best hotels. The masculine passenger undresses as at home, and sleeps soundly, unless on very bad terms with his conscience or his nerves.

Morning found us on a vast ocean of prairie, with great islands of corn rising from its depths, and white fleets of villages, neat clippers of country churches, and snowy schooners of farm-houses resting upon its bosom. The Illini Indians greeted old Father Marquette:

'How beautiful is the sun, O Frenchman, when thou comest among us!'

The scene is fair to-day; and no man can measure the richness of the Prairie State. The southern half is almost as level as a floor. I have personal prejudices in favor of regions where water will run one way or the other; but these endless sweeps, mellowed by laughing sunflower, rippling grass and tasseled corn, are the granary and garden of the world.