A Womans Impression of the Philippines | Page 3

army bugles blowing there. The irregular
outline of the city with its sky-scrapers printed itself against a
background of dazzling blue, with here and there a tufty cloud. The day
was symbolic of the spirit which sent young America across the
Pacific--hope, brilliant hope, with just a cloud of doubt.
We passed the Golden Gate just as our own luncheon gong sounded,
and the Buford was rolling to the heave of the outside sea as we sat
down to our meal. At our own particular table we were eight--eight nice
old (and young) maid schoolteachers. Some of us were plump and
some were wofully thin. One was built on heroic lines of bone, and
those sinners from Radcliffe were pretty.
Toward the end of luncheon the Buford began to roll and pitch and
otherwise behave herself "most unbecoming," and my room-mate,
declining to finish her luncheon, fled to the deck, where the air was
fresher. Feeling no qualms myself, and secretly triumphing in her
disillusion, I followed with her golf cape and rug, of which she had
been too engrossed to think. My San Francisco acquaintance coming to
my assistance, we established her in a steamer chair and sat down, one
on each side, to cheer her up,--and badly she needed it, for her courage
was fast deserting her.
The sea was running heavily, and the wind was cold; I had not thought
there could be such cold in July. The distance was obscured by a
silvery haze which was not thick enough to be called a fog, but which
lent a wintry aspect to sea and sky--a likeness increased by the
miniature snow-field on each side of the bow as the water flung up and
melted away in pools like bluish-white snow ice.
As the Buford waded into the swell, wave after wave dashed over the
forward deck, drenching a few miserable soldiers there, who preferred
to soak and freeze rather than to go inside and be seasick. Sometimes
the spray leaped hissing up on the promenade deck, and our weather
side was dripping, as I found when I went over there. I also slipped and

fell down, but as that side of the ship was deserted, nobody saw me--to
my gratification. I petted a bruised shin a few minutes and went back to
the lee side a wiser woman.
About three o'clock, when Miss R----'s face was assuming a fine,
corpse-like green tint, I began to have a hesitating and unhappy
sensation in the pit of the stomach, a suggestion of doubt as to the
wisdom of leaving the solid, reliable land, and trusting myself to the
fickle and deceitful sea. In a few moments these disquieting hints had
grown to a positive clamor, and my head and heels were feeling very
much as do those of gentlemen who have been dining out with "terrapin
and seraphim" and their liquid accompaniments. At this time Miss R----
gave out utterly and went below, but I was filled with the idea that
seasickness can be overcome by an effort of will, and stayed on,
making an effort to "demonstrate," as the Christian Scientists say, and
trying to look as if nothing were the matter. The San Francisco man
remained by me, persistent in an apparently disinterested attempt to
entertain me; but I was not deluded, for I recognized in his devotion the
fiendish joy of the un-seasick watching the unconfessed tortures of
those who are.
It was five o'clock when I gasped with a last effort of facetious misery,
"And yet they say people come to sea for their health," and went below.
The Farralones Islands, great pinky-gray needles of bleak rock, were
sticking up somewhere in the silvery haze on our starboard side, and I
loathed the Farralones Islands, and the clean white ship, and myself
most of all for embarking upon an idiotic voyage.
Arrived in the stateroom, it was with little less than horror that I saw
Miss R---- in the lower berth--my berth. Such are the brutalizing
influences of seasickness that I immediately reminded her that hers was
above. She dragged herself out, and, in a very ecstasy of selfish misery,
I discarded my garments and burrowed into the warmth of my bed.
Never had blankets seemed more comfortable, for, between the wind
and the seasickness, I was chilled through and through.
I fell asleep through sheer exhaustion, and wakened some time after in
darkness. The waves were hissing and slapping at the porthole; the

second steward was cursing expertly in the linen closet, which
happened to be opposite our stateroom; and somewhere people in good
health were consuming viands, for cooking odors and the rattle of
dishes came to us. A door in the corridor opened, and the sound of a
cornet was wafted back from the