Arthur Oleary His Wanderings And Ponderings in Many Lands

ll the horrors of shipwreck. Let him who has felt the agonies of that internal earthquake which the " pitch and toss " motion of a ship communicates, who knows what it is to have his diaphragm vibrating between his ribs and the back of his throat, confess how little to him was all the confusion which he listened to overhead, how poor the interest he took in the welfare of the craft wherein he was " only a lodger," and how narrowed were all his sympathies within the small circle of bottled porter and brandy and water, the steward's infallibles in suffering. I lay in my narrow crib, moodily pondering over these things; now wondering within myself what charms of travel could recompense such agonies as these; now muttering a curse, " not loud, but deep," on the heavy gentleman whose ponderous tread on the quarter-deck seemed to promenade up and down the surface of my own pericranium. The greasy steward, the jolly captain, the brown- faced, black-whiskered king's messenger, who snored away on the sofa, all came in for a share of my maledictions, and I took out my cares in curses upon the whole party. Meanwhile I could distinguish, amid the other sounds, the elastic tread of certain light feet that pattered upon the quarter-deck; and I could not mistake the assured footstep which accompanied them; nor did I need the happy roar of laughter that mixed with the noise to satisfy myselfthat the Honorable Jack was then cultivating the alderman's daughters, discoursing ... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.