"Keep up your heart, to be sure," answers a tall, rough son of a gun. "There, she has righted again, only a bit of a swoon ye see. I've got neither sister, wife, nor mother, so surely it's _me_ that ought to be making a noodle of myself; but where's the use?" An hour or two later we were steaming across channel, with nothing visible but the blue sea all before us, and the chalky cliffs of Cornwall far behind, with the rosy blush of the setting sun lingering on their summits. Then the light faded from the sky, the gloaming star shone out in the east, big waves began to tumble in, and the night breeze blew cold and chill from off the broad Atlantic Ocean. Tired and dull, weary and sad, I went below to the wardroom and seated myself on a rocking chair. It was now that I began to feel the discomfort of not having a cabin. Being merely a supernumerary or passenger, such a luxury was of course out of the question, even had I been an admiral. I was to have a screen berth, or what a landsman would call a canvas tent, on the main or fighting deck, but as yet it was not rigged. Had I never been to sea before, I would have now felt very wretched indeed; but having roughed it in Greenland and Davis Straits in small whaling brigs, I had got over the weakness of sea-sickness; yet notwithstanding I felt all the thorough prostration both of mind and body, which the first twenty-four hours at sea often produces in the oldest and best of sailors, so that I was only too happy when I at last found myself within canvas.