Tent Life in Siberia | Page 7

dark purple spheres of sea," and of
those "moonlight nights on lonely waters" with which poets have for
ages beguiled ignorant landsmen into ocean voyages. Fogs, storms, and
seasickness did not enter at all into my conceptions of marine
phenomena; or if I did admit the possibility of a storm, it was only as a
picturesque, highly poetical manifestation of wind and water in action,
without any of the disagreeable features which attend those elements
under more prosaic circumstances. I had, it is true, experienced a little
rough weather on my voyage to California, but my memory had long
since idealised it into something grand and poetical; and I looked
forward even to a storm on the Pacific as an experience not only
pleasant, but highly desirable. The illusion was very pleasant while it
lasted; but--it is over. Ten days of real sea life have converted the
"bright uncertainty of future joys" into a dark and decided certainty of

future misery, and left me to mourn the incompatibility of poetry and
truth. Burton is a humbug, Tennyson a fraud, I'm a victim, and Byron
and Procter are accessories before the fact. Never again will I pin my
faith to poets. They may tell the truth nearly enough for poetical
consistency, but their judgment is hopelessly perverted, and their
imagination is too luxuriantly vivid for a truthful realistic delineation of
sea life. Byron's London Packet is a brilliant exception, but I remember
no other in the whole range of poetical literature.
Our life since we left port has certainly been anything but poetical.
For nearly a week, we suffered all the indescribable miseries of
seasickness, without any alleviating circumstances whatever. Day after
day we lay in our narrow berths, too sick to read, too unhappy to talk,
watching the cabin lamp as it swung uneasily in its well-oiled gimbals,
and listening to the gurgle and swash of the water around the after
dead-lights, and the regular clank, clank of the blocks of the try-sail
sheet as the rolling of the vessel swung the heavy boom from side to
side.
We all professed to be enthusiastic supporters of the Tapleyan
philosophy--jollity under all circumstances; but we failed most
lamentably in reconciling our practice with our principles. There was
not the faintest suggestion of jollity in the appearance of the four
motionless, prostrate figures against the wall. Seasickness had
triumphed over philosophy! Prospective and retrospective reverie of a
decidedly gloomy character was our only occupation. I remember
speculating curiously upon the probability of Noah's having ever been
seasick; wondering how the sea-going qualities of the Ark would
compare with those of our brig, and whether she had our brig's
uncomfortable way of pitching about in a heavy swell.
If she had--and I almost smiled at the idea--what an unhappy
experience it must have been for the poor animals!
I wondered also if Jason and Ulysses were born with sea-legs, or
whether they had to go through the same unpleasant process that we did
to get them on.

Concluded finally that sea-legs, like some diseases must be a diabolical
invention of modern times, and that the ancients got along in some way
without them. Then, looking intently at the fly-specks upon the painted
boards ten inches from my eyes, I would recall all the bright
anticipations with which I had sailed from San Francisco, and turn over,
with a groan of disgust, to the wall.
I wonder if any one has ever written down on paper his seasick reveries.
There are "Evening Reveries," "Reveries of a Bachelor," and "Seaside
Reveries" in abundance; but no one, so far as I know, has ever even
attempted to do his seasick reveries literary justice. It is a strange
oversight, and I would respectfully suggest to any aspiring writer who
has the reverie faculty, that there is here an unworked field of
boundless extent. One trip across the North Pacific in a small brig will
furnish an inexhaustible supply of material.
Our life thus far has been too monotonous to afford a single noticeable
incident. The weather has been cold, damp, and foggy, with light head
winds and a heavy swell; we have been confined closely to our
seven-by-nine after-cabin; and its close, stifling atmosphere, redolent of
bilge-water, lamp oil, and tobacco smoke, has had a most depressing
influence upon our spirits. I am glad to see, however, that all our party
are up today, and that there is a faint interest manifested in the prospect
of dinner; but even the inspiriting strains of the Faust march, which the
captain is playing upon a wheezy old accordion, fail to put any
expression of animation into the woebegone faces around the cabin
table. Mahood pretends that he is all right, and plays checkers with the
captain with an air of assumed