C3 - Twain - Innocents Abroad

C3 - Twain - Innocents Abroad - 1869 1 All day Sunday at anchor. The storm had gone down a great deal, but the sea had not. It was still piling its frothy hills high in air ``outside,'' as we could plainly see with the glasses. We could not properly begin a pleasure excursion on Sunday; we could not offer untried stomachs to so pitiless a sea as that. We must lie still till Monday. And we did. But we had repetitions of church and prayer-meetings; and so, of course, we were just as eligibly situated as we could have been any where.
2 I was up early that Sabbath morning, and was early to breakfast. I felt a perfectly natural desire to have a good, long, unprejudiced look at the passengers, at a time when they should be free from self-consciousness-which is at breakfast, when such a moment occurs in the lives of human beings at all.
3 I was greatly surprised to see so many elderly people-I might almost say, so many venerable people. A glance at the long lines of heads was apt to make one think it was all gray. But it was not. There was a tolerably fair sprinkling of young folks, and another fair sprinkling of gentlemen and ladies who were non-committal as to age, being neither actually old or absolutely young.
4 The next morning, we weighed anchor and went to sea. It was a great happiness to get away, after this dragging, dispiriting delay. I thought there never was such gladness in the air before, such brightness in the sun, such beauty in the sea. I was satisfied with the picnic, then, and with all its belongings. All my malicious instincts were dead within me; and as America faded out of sight, I think a spirit of charity rose up in their place that was as boundless, for the time being, as the broad ocean that was heaving its billows about us. I wished to express my feelings-I wished to lift up my voice and sing; but I did not know any thing to sing, and so I was obliged to give up the idea. It was no loss to the ship though, perhaps.
5 It was breezy and pleasant, but the sea was still very rough. One could not promenade without risking his neck; at one moment the bowsprit was taking a deadly aim at the sun in mid-heaven, and at the next it was trying to harpoon a shark in the bottom of the ocean. What a weird sensation it is to feel the stern of a ship sinking swiftly from under you and see the bow climbing high away among the clouds! One's safest course, that day, was to clasp a railing and hang on; walking was too precarious a pastime.
6 By some happy fortune I was not seasick.-That was a thing to be proud of. I had not always escaped before. If there is one thing in the world that will make a man peculiarly and insufferably self-conceited, it is to have his stomach behave itself, the first day at sea, when nearly all his comrades are seasick. Soon, a venerable fossil, shawled to the chin and bandaged like a mummy, appeared at the door of the after deck-house, and the next lurch of the ship shot him into my arms. I said:
7 ``Good-morning, Sir. It is a fine day.''
8 He put his hand on his stomach and said, ``Oh, my!'' and then staggered away and fell over the coop of a skylight.
9 Presently another old gentleman was projected from the same door, with great violence. I said:
10 ``Calm yourself, Sir-There is no hurry. It is a fine day, Sir.''
11 He, also, put his hand on his stomach and said, ``Oh, my!'' and reeled away.
12 In a little while another veteran was discharged abruptly from the same door, clawing at the air for a saving support. I said:
13 ``Good-morning, Sir. It is a fine day for pleasuring. You were about to say-''
14 ``Oh, my!''
15 I thought so. I anticipated him, any how. I staid there and was bombarded with old gentlemen for an hour perhaps; and all I got out of any of them was ``Oh, my!''
16 I went away, then, in a thoughtful mood. I said, this is a good pleasure excursion. I like it. The passengers are not garrulous, but still they are sociable. I like those old people, but somehow they all seem to have the ``Oh, my'' rather bad.
17 I knew what was the matter with them. They were seasick. And I was glad of it. We all like to see people seasick when we are not, ourselves. Playing whist by the cabin lamps when it is storming outside, is pleasant; walking the quarter-deck in the moonlight, is pleasant; smoking in the breezy foretop is pleasant, when one is not afraid to go up there; but these are all feeble and commonplace compared with the joy of seeing people suffering the miseries of seasickness.
18 I picked up a good deal of information during the afternoon. At one time I was climbing up the quarter-deck when the vessel's stern was in the sky; I was smoking a cigar and feeling passably comfortable. Somebody ejaculated:
19 ``Come, now, that won't answer. Read the sign up there-No smoking abaft the wheel!''
20 It was Capt. Duncan, chief of the expe***ion. I went forward, of course. I saw a long spy-glass lying on a desk in one of the upper-deck state-rooms back of the pilot-house, and reached after it-there was a ship in the distance:
21 ``Ah, ah-hands off! Come out of that!''
22 I came out of that. I said to a deck-sweep-but in a low voice:
23 ``Who is that overgrown pirate with the whiskers and the discordant voice?''
24 ``It's Capt. Bursley-executive officer-sailing-master.''
25 I loitered about awhile, and then, for want of something better to do, fell to carving a railing with my knife. Somebody said, in an insinuating, admonitory voice:
26 ``Now say-my friend-don't you know any better than to be whittling the ship all to pieces that way? You ought to know better than that.''
27 I went back and found the deck-sweep:
28 ``Who is that smooth-faced animated outrage yonder in the fine clothes?''
29 ``That's Capt. L****, the owner of the ship-he's one of the main bosses.''
30 In the course of time I brought up on the starboard side of the pilot-house, and found a ***tant lying on a bench. Now, I said, they ``take the sun'' through this thing; I should think I might see that vessel through it. I had hardly got it to my eye when some one touched me on the shoulder and said, deprecatingly:
31 ``I'll have to get you to give that to me, Sir. If there's any thing you'd like to know about taking the sun, I'd as soon tell you as not-but I don't like to trust any body with that instrument. If you want any figuring done-Aye-aye, Sir!''
32 He was gone, to answer a call from the other side. I sought the deck-sweep:
33 ``Who is that spider-legged gorilla yonder with the sanctimonious countenance?''
34 ``It's Capt. Jones, Sir-the chief mate.''
35 ``Well. This goes clear away ahead of any thing I ever heard of before. Do you-now I ask you as a man and a brother-do you think I could venture to throw a rock here in any given direction without hitting a captain of this ship?''
36 ``Well, Sir, I don't know-I think likely you'd fetch the captain of the watch, may be, because he's a-standing right yonder in the way.''
37 I went below-me***ating, and a little down-hearted. I thought, if five cooks can spoil a broth, what may not five captains do with a pleasure excursion.



<font size=4 color=green>
Angelique</font>