“I was the only one of the party at table that day, and there was an amount of vivacity among the dishes such as I never saw before. I took my soup by the process of absorption, the whole of it having suddenly leaped out of my plate into my lap. The table was literally at an angle of 45° all the time, with occasional eccentricities of the horizontal and the perpendicular, every change of level (or dip rather) being accomplished with a sudden jerk, which gave us a fine opportunity for studying the force of projectiles. Imagine the Captain, the First Mate, and myself at every one of these sudden hiccoughs (as it were) of the vessel, each endeavoring to think that he has six hands and finding too late that he has only two, during which interval between doubt and certainty, I have seen the contents of three dishes, A B C, change places, A taking the empty space left by B, B in like manner ejecting C, and C very naturally, having nowhere else to go, is thrown loose upon society and leads a nomadic life, first upon the tablecloth, then upon the seat, then upon the floor, every new position being a degradation, until at last it finds precarious lodging in one of the lee staterooms. You find your legs in a permanent condition of drunkenness, and that without any of the previous exhilaration. The surface of the country is such as I never saw described in any geographical work; the only thing at all approaching it which I have met with was the state of affairs during the great earthquake at Lisbon. You have just completed your arrangements for descending an inclined plane, when you find yourself climbing an almost perpendicular precipice, the surface of which being, by a curious freak of nature, of painted floor-cloth, renders your foothold quite precarious. It is like nothing but a nightmare.