“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: