I was making up my mind to an Indian trip, and the pure pleasure of Daniel Catoson Snout, Esquire's company for two blessed months, when all of a sudden I felt the ship bring her wind a-quarter, with a furious plunge of the Channel water along her bends, that made every landsman's bowels yearn as if he felt it gurgle through him. One young fellow, more drunk than sick, gave a wild bolt right over the cuddy table, striking out with both arms and legs as if afloat, so as to sweep half of the glasses down on the floor. The planter, who was three cloths in the wind himself, looked down upon him with a comical air of pity as soon as he had got cushioned upon the wreck. "My dear fellow," said he, "what do you feel--eh?" "Feel, you--old blackguard!" stammered the griffin, "de--dam--dammit, I feel _everything_! Goes through--through my vitals as if--I was a con--founded _whale_! C--can't stand it!" "You've drunk yourself aground, my boy!" sung out the indigo man; "stuck fast on the coral--eh? Never mind, we'll float you off, only don't flounder that way with your tail!--by Jove, you scamp, you've ruined my toe--oh dear!" I left the planter hopping round on one pin, and holding the gouty one in his hand, betwixt laughing and crying: on deck I found the floating Nab Light bearing broad on our lee-bow, with Cumberland Fort glimmering to windward, and the half moon setting over the Isle of Wight, while we stood up for Portsmouth harbour. The old captain, and most of the officers, were on the poop for the first time, though as stiff and uncomfortable from the sort of land-sickness and lumber-qualms that sailors feel till things are _in_ their places, as the landsmen did until things were _out_ of them. The skipper walked the weather side by himself and said nothing: the smart chief officer sent two men, one after another, from the wheel for "cows" that didn't know where their tails were; and as for the middies, they seemed to know when to keep out of the way. In a little, the spars of the men-of-war at Spithead were to be seen as we rose; before the end of the first watch, we were running outside the Spit Buoy, which was nodding and plashing with the tide in the last slant of moonshine, till at last we rounded to, and down went the anchor in five fathoms, off the Motherbank. What the Indiaman wanted at Portsmouth I didn't know; but, meantime, I had given up all hopes of the Nabob being in her, and the only question with me was, whether I should take the opportunity of giving all hands the slip here, even though I left my Yankee friend disconsolate, and a clear gainer by dollars beyond count.