It is no time, when you cannot keep your legs, to “stand bandying compliments with your sovereign,” that is, Neptune. If he were present at this moment, in this cabin, I would tell him, from this my seat on its floor, that he might very much improve his paternal estate, to wit, by levelling, and still more by draining it. I would flatly say to him, lying flat on my face as it now happens, that a few little gravel walks, merely across and across it, would be of rare advantage both for show and use. For ’tis a sorry pleasure-garden that is all fish-pond; and, finally, I would broadly hint to him, from the broad of my back, as I am at this present---- But this is bullying Taurus behind his back. There is no sea-god present, only the Skipper. How he skips in such weather, give him his pick of all the ropes in the ship, is a miracle I would fain see ere I believe in it. For my own part I cannot even step deliberately over a thread. Perhaps, without going too curiously into the Doctrine of Predestination, as regards the soul, it may hold good as concerns the body. Undoubtedly there be some men born to sit fast upon horses; others to fall off therefrom as if they had soaped saddles. Some to slide and skate upon the ice; others only to slip, straddle, and sprawl upon it. Some to walk, or at least waddle, on ships’ decks; others to flop, flounder, wallow, and grovel thereon. That is my destiny. None can be more safe on the Serpentine, or sure in the saddle;--but Fate, long before my great-great-great-grandfather was put to his feet, forbade me sea-legs. An average pedestrian on land, on the caulked plank I am a born cripple, hopeless of cure. Put me apprentice to the Goodwin, or the Dudgeon Light, at the end of my term you shall find me as unsafe on my soles as when I first paid my footing. Even now, whilst Hans Vandergroot and his crew are comfortably promenading, I rock and totter, balancing one end against the other, like a great rickety babe, until, after some posturing and scrambling, I trip up over nothing, and fall flat on everything. An earthquake in London, when its streets are what is called greasy, could not more puzzle my centre of gravity; if, indeed, I was not born a mathematical monster, devoid of that material point! By way of clincher, Fate, who never does things by halves, whilst foredooming me incapable of standing my ground at sea, has also denied me the power of settling it. A camp-stool is sure to decamp with me; a chair, as if it stood on Siberian ice, suddenly throws itself on its back, and behold me in an extempore sledge! Barrels roll from under me; coils of rope shuffle me off. Even on the plain bare hard deck, or cabin floor, I throw demi-summersets, as if I had been returned to Parliament to represent the Antipodes by sitting on the back of my head.