They pacified him with a little brandy, and for the next twenty-four
hours he scarcely opened his mouth, except for a purpose it is
needless to dwell on. We can trust to our terrestrial readers' personal
reminiscences of lee-lurches, weather-rolls, and their faithful
concomitant.
At last they wriggled out of the Channel, and soon after that the wind
abated, and next day veered round to the northward, and the ship sailed
almost on an even keel. The motion became as heavenly as it had been
diabolical, and the passengers came on deck.
Staines had suffered one whole day from sea-sickness, but never
complained. I believe it did his mind more good than harm.
As for Tadcaster, he continued to suffer, at intervals, for two days
more, but on the fifth day out he appeared with a little pink tinge
on his cheek and a wolfish appetite. Dr. Staines controlled his diet
severely, as to quality, and, when they had been at sea just eleven
days, the physician's heavy heart was not a little lightened by the
marvellous change in him. The unthinking, who believe in the drug
system, should have seen what a physician can do with air and food,
when circumstances enable him to ENFORCE the diet he enjoins. Money will
sometimes buy even health, if you AVOID DRUGS ENTIRELY, and go another
road.
Little Tadcaster went on board, pasty, dim-eyed, and very subject to
fits, because his stomach was constantly overloaded with indigestible
trash, and the blood in his brain-vessels was always either galloping or
creeping, under the first or second effect of stimulants administered,
at first, by thoughtless physicians. Behold him now--bronzed, pinky,
bright-eyed, elastic; and only one fit in twelve days.
The quarter-deck was hailed from the “look-out” with a cry that is
sometimes terrible, but in this latitude and weather welcome and
exciting. “Land, ho!”
“Where away?” cried the officer of the watch.
“A point on the lee-bow, sir.”
It was the island of Madeira: they dropped anchor in Funchal Roads,
furled sails, squared yards, and fired a salute of twenty-one guns for
the Portuguese flag.
They went ashore, and found a good hotel, and were no longer dosed, as
in former days, with oil, onions, garlic, eggs. But the wine queer, and
no madeira to be got.
Staines wrote home to his wife: he told her how deeply he had felt the
bereavement; but did not dwell on that; his object being to cheer her.
He told her it promised to be a rapid and wonderful cure, and one that
might very well give him a fresh start in London. They need not be
parted a whole year, he thought. He sent her a very long letter, and
also such extracts from his sea journal as he thought might please her.
After dinner they inspected the town, and what struck them most was to
find the streets paved with flag-stones, and most of the carts drawn by
bullocks on sledges. A man every now and then would run forward and drop
a greasy cloth in front of the sledge, to lubricate the way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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