"Steward, bring me a glass of brandy as quick as you can."
Since the invention of steam, thousands have been tempted to inhale the
saline salubrity of the sea, that would never have been induced to try,
and be tried, by the experiment of a trip. Like hams for the market,
every body is now regularly salted and smoked. The process, too, is so
cheap! The accommodations are so elegant, and the sailors so smart! None
of the rolling roughness of quid-chewing Jack-tars. Jack-tars! pshaw!
they are regular smoke jacks on board a steamer! The Steward ("waiter"
by half the cockneys called) is so ready and obliging; and then the
provisions is excellent. Who would not take a trip to Margate? There's
only one thing that rather adulterates the felicity--a drop of gall in
the cup of mead!--and that is the horrid sea-sickness! learnedly called
nostalgia; but call it by any name you please, like a stray dog, it is
pretty sure to come.
The cold perspiration--the internal commotion--the brain's giddiness--the
utter prostration of strength--the Oh! I never shall forget the
death-like feel!--Fat men rolling on the deck, like fresh caught
porpoises; little children floundering about; and white muslins and
parasols vanishing below! The smoking-hot dinner sends up its fumes, and
makes the sick more sick. Soda-water corks are popping and flying about
in every direction, like a miniature battery pointed against the assaults
of the horrid enemy!
"Steward!" faintly cries a fat bilious man, "bring me a glass of brandy
as quick as you can."
But alas! he who can thus readily summon spirits from the vasty deep, has
no power over the rolling sea, or its reaches!
"O! my poor pa!" exclaims the interesting Wilhelmina; and is so overcome,
that she, sweet sympathizer! is soon below pa in the ladies' cabin. In
fact, the greater part of the pleasure-seekers are taken--at full length.
Even young ladies from boarding-school, who are thinking of husbands,
declare loudly against maritime delight! while all the single young men
appear double.
The pier at last appears--and the cargo of drooping souls hail it with
delight, and with as grateful a reverence as if they were received by the
greatest peer of the realm!
They hurry from the boat as if 'twere Charon's, and they were about
stepping into the fields of Elysium!
A change comes o'er the spirit of their dream--their nerves are braced;
and so soon are mortal troubles obliterated from the mind, that in a few
days they are ready again to tempt the terrors of sea-sickness in a
voyage homewards--notwithstanding many of them, in their extremity, had
vowed that they never would return by water, if they outlived the present
infliction; considering, naturally enough, that it was "all up" with
them!