IN January, 1865, I concluded to visit the New England—otherwise called the “Yankee” or “Eastern”—States; and thought I would at once strike for Boston, Massachusetts, which is called the “Hub of the Universe,” and make that city my head-quarters during my stay in the “land of steady habits:” that means the six New England States: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. The habits of the people of all the rest of the United States are very unsteady.

I fancied that a “sea voyage” must be a delightful thing, according to all that poets and novelists had said about the “deep blue sea,” the “ocean wave,” the “rolling deep,” and the like; so, I determined to go by sea. I took passage aboard a large propeller one squally day, and away we went, amid the ice and snow, down the Delaware river, down the bay, and out upon the bosom of the “mighty deep.” Yes, and it is “mighty deep,” as Davie Crockett would have said—a “mighty sight” deeper than is really necessary, merely for the encouragement of navigation and the cultivation of whales and sharks!

I had heard of such a thing as “sea-sickness,” but I believed it was half imagination, and that any brave heart could bear up against it. In a word, I resolved not to get “sea-sick” myself. The mate of the vessel told me that it was “more than likely” I would feel a little “squeamish” when we should get out where it was “rough”—that was, if I had never been to sea before. I didn’t believe it, though.

We started on Saturday morning, and it took us all day to get “outside.” During that time I ate three hearty meals on board the propeller, for traveling on the water lent me an appetite. It was only lent, for I returned it.

Well, about dark that evening, we got out where it was “rough.” The vessel began to roll, pitch, and plunge, and I heard the sea roaring, the waves splashing over the deck, a few loose articles on board rattling and tumbling about; and I began to wonder if everything about the vessel was secure. I sat on a sofa in the cabin, and presently, I began to feel—well, I felt, in a word, that a “voyage” was, like all other enjoyments, not quite what one anticipates; but still, well enough. Then, immediately, I felt a little—just a little—“worse.” I didn’t like the way the cabin was throwing itself around: it made my head feel queer. I thought that if the vessel would just stop rolling for half-a-minute, I would feel all right again. It didn’t stop, though, and I rapidly began to feel all wrong. In a word, I grew dizzy.

Dizzy? O, no! That’s no fair expression. I rather felt as though I was a large cask filled a little too full of mixed white lead, putty, or something heavy that way, and that the head was forced down upon it with considerable pressure—especially about the stomach, where I fancied one of the hoops of the imaginary cask might be located, and about the “brow,” where the upper hoop might be, did I experience this indescribable heaviness. I imagined the heavy cask (myself, John Smith,) to be rolling and tumbling about loose, and the white lead or putty straining to get out. I couldn’t stand that thought. The mate came into the cabin, asked me if I wasn’t sick, remarked that I looked “deathly pale,” and advised me to “turn in” as quickly as “the law would allow me.”

“Where?” I asked, as I rapidly grew sicker. “O, dear! Where’ll I sleep?”

“Here!” he said, hastily opening a stateroom door very near me. “Get in there. I’ll help you. Take the lower bunk. You will be the only passenger in this room.” In fact, there were but few passengers aboard.

As I attempted to rise, the ship gave a playful lurch, laid over on her side, then quickly tossed herself upon the other side, and if the mate had not caught me, I should have plunged clear across the cabin and tumbled back again, far more quickly than a man could have walked it. My crutch and cane escaped me, however, striking an opposite stateroom door in less than a second, and throwing themselves savagely about over the cabin floor.

“Never mind them just now,” said the mate. “I’ll help you in.” And he helped me in.

“There’s a bucket hanging to the side of the berth,” said he. “If you should feel a little sick——”

Ugh! Human nature couldn’t stand it any longer. I tumbled recklessly into the berth, and—O, wasn’t I sick! Even now, after the lapse of several years, I shudder to think of it! Supper, dinner, breakfast—all eaten in vain! Bauh-gosh-gslish-shesh! O, lordy! The ship was tossing about like a man intoxicated, and I, worse still, was tossing about like a man sick drunk; I heard the wind howling, for it was blowing hard, the waves dashing overhead, the ship creaking and groaning; and I groaned, and prayed for land or death! Then I regretted that I had ever been born. I also reproached the fates for having sent me to sea in such stormy weather, and solemnly vowed—and I kept that vow for nearly a year—that, in case I ever reached land, (which I now thought rather unlikely), I would never, never, never venture out upon the broad ocean again! O, O, O, O, Ugh! Gushshshsh!

O, how I wished the ship would stop rolling for just a moment! But it wouldn’t stop at all. It rolled, and plunged, and tossed, and tumbled, and pitched; and I got sicker, and sicker, and sicker, till I imagined myself at “death’s door,” with my hand on the bell-handle.

To gain a slight conception as to how I felt, fancy how a boy would feel, if, when sick on his first cigar, he were not allowed to throw it away, but forced to retain it in his mouth and smoke away! Thus it is with one who is sea-sick. The motion of the vessel causes it, and when a fellow grows dizzy, and feels wretched about the bottom of the vest, he can’t throw that motion away, like a cigar. It has made him sick, it makes him sicker, and don’t even stop when he gets “deathly sick.” To treat a patient scientifically, physicians remove the cause of his illness; but in this case, the cause—that is, the motion of the vessel—cannot be removed, and there is nothing left for the unhappy patient but to get “used to it.”

The only thing I remember of that fearful night, except pure, unbroken, unalloyed misery, is that I asked the captain, as he passed through the cabin, if it was actually storming. He carelessly replied:

“O, it’s only blowing a fresh little nor’-wester;” and passed on.

A fresh little nor’-wester! I groaned in agony, and rolled about in my berth, thinking that if that was only a fresh little nor’-wester, what a fearful thing a stale big nor’-wester would be!

Next morning at daylight the steward came to my berth and asked me if I could “eat something?” Eat! Whew? Ugh! The very thought came near bringing on a relapse. “No, no, no!” I shuddered; and buried my face in my bunk.

About ten o’clock he passed through the cabin, and I asked him if we were “out of sight o’ land?”

“Out o’ sight?” he returned. “Yes, and have been for ten hours!”

I felt somewhat better—in fact, a good deal better than during the terrible night just passed—and I determined to make my way to the deck to view a scene that had never before blessed my eyes. The wind had abated, but the waves ran high, and the vessel was still rolling considerably. Feeling light-headed and queer, I got out of my berth, grasping something all the time to keep from being spilled out into the cabin, got my crutch, left my state-room, and began to move toward the companion-way. By hugging the wall, grasping state-room door-knobs, and the like, I reached the foot of the staircase without falling, and looking up—the hatch being open—I saw the blue sky staggering about overhead. Holding firmly to a polished brass railing, I ascended to the deck and took a seat on the companion-hatch.

Before me and all around me was the long wished-for sight. Our ship, the dark-green sea, the sun, the clear blue sky and a few wild sea-birds flitting about, were all that the eye could find to rest on. The sea and sky met on all sides, forming a grand and mighty circle around us. I remember remarking to myself, in my enthusiasm, that to see such a sight as this, was “worth risking a fellow’s life!”

To do “old ocean” justice, I must say that there is nothing in the world more delightful than to be at sea a little while in mild weather; but when a gale is blowing, as I have since seen it, the ship going to pieces every hour, and the waves foaming, and snarling, and gnashing their teeth, as it were, in their impatience to get you and strangle you; then you naturally wish there wasn’t such a thing as a sea in the world; or that your lot had been cast in the “new world,” where “there was no more sea.” (Revelations xxi. 1.)

On Monday we came in sight of Cape Cod, and I thought we should never get round it. Those who have noticed Cape Cod on the map have no doubt observed that it is shaped like a human foot; and we went gliding along near its sole, traveling from heel to toe. For hours, I was every moment expecting to go “round the point,” which I imagined I could see all the time a little way ahead: but it kept receding all the while, like an ignis fatuus, till I began to fancy that the foot belonged to some great giant, who was bending his knee, and drawing it back stealthily, in order to straighten it out again and give us a kick.