CHAPTER I.

P. & O. S. S.

I COMMENCED my journey on a cold foggy winter morning. Every one knows what it is to get up and breakfast, in winter and in London, three hours before the rest of the family have begun to awake. A sleepy servant, that you feel yourself a wretch to have called out of her warm bed; a gasping fire that is trying to go out; one gas jet illuminating the darkness of a big diningroom; weak tea, a drop of milk saved from the night before, blotchy toast, spotty bacon, etc., etc.

The first excitement of my journey was produced by the non-appearance of the cab which I had fondly supposed to have been ordered the night before by the boy-of-all-work of the establishment. I sent the sleepy servant out to look for one, but she returned unsuccessful. I then issued forth on the quest myself, and after wandering some time in the fog, round streets and squares that all looked alike in the grey pall in which they were enveloped, I found one. It was drawn by the lamest night-cab horse I have ever seen, but I was fain to take it. It required some persuasions, however, to induce the driver to take me; but moved either by compassion, or the baser feeling of the hope of gain, he at length consented; I got in, and

B

we drove to the house.

Day was then just beginning to glimmer, and by its light my boxes were dragged out and flung on the top of the cab with all speed, my smaller baggage tossed inside, and I set off.

The lame horse had more "go" in him than I thought, and my watch was a little fast, and in consequence I did not miss the train, as I had feared I should have done. There was a considerable disparity between the number of passengers going by the train, and the number of seats to accommodate them in it, and the competition was in consequence sharp. An elderly gentleman wanted to appropriate mine, and with it my black leather bag which I had had put in the netting above, and my roll of rugs and umbrella, which I had placed on the seat to mark it as mine while getting my ticket. He protested that all were his. I was obliged to summon the guard, who succeeded in convincing him that his black bag, rugs, and umbrella, were occupying exactly similar positions three carriages off. His apologies were profuse; he even insisted on taking me to his carriage, and showing me how precisely similar in appearance his property was to mine, which I readily admitted to be the case; though I was quite willing to have taken it for granted without personal inspection, knowing the strong family likeness between all black leather bags, and most rugs and umbrellas.

The weather was clear and bright and warm, for the season, at Southampton, though there was a stiff

breeze blowing. This latter was the remains of a fearful gale of the night before, and prognosticated a tolerably ruffled condition of the ocean, and all the unpleasing sensations accompanying it, to bad sailors.

There were a great number of people on board the Niger; and having nothing else to do, I occupied myself for some time with speculations as to which of these were to be my fellow-passengers, and which were only come to see friends off. There were evidently a great number of the latter.

At twenty minutes to two o'clock the mail train from London arrived. A few passengers for the Niger had come by it also, and the frantic exertions of some of these, who had a large quantity of baggage, to get it and themselves on board in time, afforded a pleasurable feeling of self-gratulation to those among us who had taken time by the forelock, and in obedience to the published injunctions of the P. & O. S. S. C. had come down by the earlier trains. The railway vans containing the mail bags were run alongside the steamer, and it supplied another little amusement to watch these being brought on board and tumbled down into the hold, a service which was performed with marvellous celerity and regularity of arrangement. We were taking the Australian and New Zealand mails, which, of course, gave an enormous addition in quantity. Before this was quite concluded, whistles began to sound, signals to shore-folks to quit the ship. I then found

that more than half the people who had crowded the deck belonged to this category. It took a good deal of whistling to get the farewells over and all ashore; but at last it was done, and then the anchor was weighed, and we were off.

Of the earlier part of the voyage I have nothing to relate. On that first day we were in comparatively smooth water until dinner was served. I descended with the rest, and made a noble effort to partake of the meal. A slight motion commenced towards the end of the soup. It increased with the entrées; but on the appearance of the legs of mutton and sirloins of beef, the Niger gave a roll that sent all the weaker vessels on board flying to their cabins, from which we only emerged one by one, at prolonged intervals, during the five following days that the voyage lasted. It would be needless cruelty to describe my sufferings during this period. It could serve no purpose but to remind some of my fellow-creatures of similar seasons of misery they have themselves undergone, and which they would doubtless prefer to let sink into oblivion.

By the fifth day I was sufficiently recovered to go on deck and mingle with the well people. There are always on board steamers a number of dreadfully stout strong people who never get sick; and who eat, drink, laugh, and talk, as if no such misery as that by which they are surrounded were in existence. We had several of these on board, particularly a number of horribly

hearty Australians, who had made the voyage several times, and frequently by long sea. They tried to look and speak commiseratingly to the wretched shadows of their fellow-passengers as they appeared among them; but it was evident that the feeling was not genuine. I am afraid that very few people who are not sea-sick, ever do feel the amount of compassion they ought, for those who are. Sea-sickness, like toothache, must be known to be appreciated. Those who have experienced them will acknowledge that they are two of the most distressing forms of suffering with which humanity can be afflicted.

On the sixth day, almost every one was up and about. On this day we began to indulge in playing "Bull," and other games on the deck. I can't say they were any of them of a very enlivening nature. Still they made us move about a little, and kept us warm: a good thing, as the weather was bitterly cold. One good point about them was that they did not require any great exertion of the intellect, or any particular dexterity, to take part in them; had they done so I fear they would not have suited all that joined in them. To people of a Gradgrind turn of mind it may indeed appear rather shocking that four rational human beings should spend two of the precious hours of their fleeting existence, in an endeavour to throw rope rings into buckets, placed at a certain distance, the only object in view to each being to get fifty rings in before any