American Notes eBook

To and fro, to and fro, to and fro again a hundred times!  This waiting for the latest mail-bags is worse than all.  If we could have gone off in the midst of that last burst, we should have started triumphantly:  but to lie here, two hours and more in the damp fog, neither staying at home nor going abroad, is letting one gradually down into the very depths of dulness and low spirits.  A speck in the mist, at last!  That’s something.  It is the boat we wait for!  That’s more to the purpose.  The captain appears on the paddle-box with his speaking trumpet; the officers take their stations; all hands are on the alert; the flagging hopes of the passengers revive; the cooks pause in their savoury work, and look out with faces full of interest.  The boat comes alongside; the bags are dragged in anyhow, and flung down for the moment anywhere.  Three cheers more:  and as the first one rings upon our ears, the vessel throbs like a strong giant that has just received the breath of life; the two great wheels turn fiercely round for the first time; and the noble ship, with wind and tide astern, breaks proudly through the lashed and roaming water.

CHAPTER II — THE PASSAGE OUT

We all dined together that day; and a rather formidable party we were:  no fewer than eighty-six strong.  The vessel being pretty deep in the water, with all her coals on board and so many passengers, and the weather being calm and quiet, there was but little motion; so that before the dinner was half over, even those passengers who were most distrustful of themselves plucked up amazingly; and those who in the morning had returned to the universal question, ‘Are you a good sailor?’ a very decided negative, now either parried the inquiry with the evasive reply, ‘Oh!  I suppose I’m no worse than anybody else;’ or, reckless of all moral obligations, answered boldly ‘Yes:’  and with some irritation too, as though they would add, ’I should like to know what you see in me, sir, particularly, to justify suspicion!’

Notwithstanding this high tone of courage and confidence, I could not but observe that very few remained long over their wine; and that everybody had an unusual love of the open air; and that the favourite and most coveted seats were invariably those nearest to the door.  The tea-table, too, was by no means as well attended as the dinner-table; and there was less whist-playing than might have been expected.  Still, with the exception of one lady, who had retired with some precipitation at dinner-time, immediately after being assisted to the finest cut of a very yellow boiled leg of mutton with very green capers, there were no invalids as yet; and walking, and smoking, and drinking of brandy-and-water (but always in the open air), went on with unabated spirit, until eleven o’clock or thereabouts, when ‘turning in’ — no sailor of seven hours’ experience talks of going to bed — became the order of the night.  The perpetual tramp of boot-heels on the decks gave place to a heavy silence, and the whole human freight was stowed away below, excepting a very few stragglers, like myself, who were probably, like me, afraid to go there.