I fancied that a “sea voyage” must be a delightful thing, according to all that poets and novelists had said about the “deep blue sea,” the “ocean wave,” the “rolling deep,” and the like; so, I determined to go by sea. I took passage aboard a large propeller one squally day, and away we went, amid the ice and snow, down the Delaware river, down the bay, and out upon the bosom of the “mighty deep.” Yes, and it is “mighty deep,” as Davie Crockett would have said—a “mighty sight” deeper than is really necessary, merely for the encouragement of navigation and the cultivation of whales and sharks! I had heard of such a thing as “sea-sickness,” but I believed it was half imagination, and that any brave heart could bear up against it. In a word, I resolved not to get “sea-sick” myself. The mate of the vessel told me that it was “more than likely” I _would_ feel a little “squeamish” when we should get out where it was “rough”—that was, if I had never been to sea before. I didn’t believe it, though. We started on Saturday morning, and it took us all day to get “outside.” During that time I ate three hearty meals on board the propeller, for traveling on the water lent me an appetite. It was only _lent_, for I returned it. Well, about dark that evening, we got out where it was “rough.” The vessel began to roll, pitch, and plunge, and I heard the sea roaring, the waves splashing over the deck, a few loose articles on board rattling and tumbling about; and I began to wonder if everything about the vessel was secure. I sat on a sofa in the cabin, and presently, I began to feel—well, I felt, in a word, that a “voyage” was, like all other enjoyments, not quite what one anticipates; but still, well enough. Then, immediately, I felt a little—just a little—“worse.” I didn’t like the way the cabin was throwing itself around: it made my head feel queer. I thought that if the vessel would just stop rolling for half-a-minute, I would feel all right again. It didn’t stop, though, and I rapidly began to feel all wrong. In a word, I grew dizzy. Dizzy? O, no! That’s no fair expression. I rather felt as though I was a large cask filled a little too full of mixed white lead, putty, or something heavy that way, and that the head was forced down upon it with considerable pressure—especially about the stomach, where I fancied one of the hoops of the imaginary cask might be located, and about the “brow,” where the upper hoop might be, did I experience this indescribable heaviness. I imagined the heavy cask (myself, John Smith,) to be rolling and tumbling about loose, and the white lead or putty straining to get out. I couldn’t stand that thought. The mate came into the cabin, asked me if I wasn’t sick, remarked that I looked “deathly pale,” and advised me to “turn in” as quickly as “the law would allow me.” “Where?” I asked, as I rapidly grew sicker. “O, dear! Where’ll I sleep?”