{ 036} “What a fool a man is to come to sea,” he gasped in the intervals of his wretchedness. “I was an idiot not to have gone travelling in Pennsylvania, instead of coming out here. I would give a thousand dollars to be safe back in New York.”
I endeavored to console him, but he would not be comforted. While I poured soothing words into his ear, and brandy down his throat, the ship gave an extra lurch that brought a fresh discharge from the Judge’s mouth. Something dark and solid fell into the basin, and as the Judge contemplated it, his face assumed an expression of horror.
“I will be hanged,” said he, “if I have not thrown up a piece of my liver; just look at it; everything inside of me will be up next. In fifteen minutes you can look for my toe-nails.”
He sank back fainting, but brightened up a little when I told him that what he supposed to be his liver was nothing more than a piece of corned beef which he swallowed at dinner and his stomach had failed to digest.
He grew better next day, but persisted in declaring the ocean a humbug, and said that when he once got back, nothing should tempt him to come abroad again.
People are differently affected by the ocean. Some are never sea-sick, while others can never go on the water without being laid up. I have known persons who kept their rooms an entire voyage; they went below when leaving land on one side, and did not come out again till it was sighted on the other. Women are the weaker vessels, when it comes to an ocean experience, however strong they may be in domestic griefs and family jars. In sea-sickness, they fall much sooner than men, and are slower to recover their appetites. Children recover more quickly than adults, and sometimes they are well and running about long be{ 037}fore their parents are able to get away with a cup of tea or a cracker.
To those who contemplate going to sea, I have a piece of advice to offer that may save them the pangs of the marine malady.
The night before you are to sail, take a blue pill--ten grains--just before going to bed, and when you get up in the morning take, the first thing, a dose of citrate of magnesia. Then eat your breakfast and go on board, and I will wager four to one, that you will not be sea-sick a moment, though the water may be as rough as an Arkansas traveller’s manners.