impostor in remaining in England; and it ended
in my feeling this so strongly that I used to lurk
through back streets, with a view of keeping
out ot sight, and I had altogether such a nasty
time of it, that I determined at last to compromise
the continental tour by setting off to Paris
without delay.

If nothing else comes of this resolution, it
will be at least something that it has enabled me
to make a discovery, the publication of which
cannot fail to render me a public favourite for
the rest of my life.

It is nothing less than an infallible preservative
against SEA-SICKNESS in short journeys,
even during the roughest weather.

But this deserves a chapter to itself.

CHAPTER THE SECOND.

The preparations are all complete. I have
ruined myself in indispensable purchases, half
of which turn out failures, and have spent a
week (as is my habit on leaving England) in
breaking my stomach in gradually to French
cookery, by dining daily at certain foreign
restaurants in the immediate neighbourhood of
Leicester-square.

I start, then, on my expedition, and reach
Folkestone just as it is getting dark, having
experienced nothing more remarkable during the
journey than an excessive distress caused by a
lady opposite me in the carriage, who would go
to sleep with her face propped in such wise
against her clenched fist that the whole weight
of her head as it sank forward rested entirely
upon her nose, which feature was in consequence
forced up at the tip for half an hour together in
a manner horrible to contemplate. This lady
was one of an excursion party going over to
Paris for a fortnight, and as soon as she woke
up she began making an entry in her journal in
pencil. Perhaps it was to say that one of the
characteristics of a continental tour is an intense
aching of the nose on waking up from short
naps.

I wonder why it is so light now we have got
to sea. It was pitch dark on shore. There is
no moon. The stars are hidden, and yet it is so
light that I can make out all the rigging of the
schooner which we are towing out of Folkestone
harbour, and which is a cable's length astern.
We soon cast her loose and leave her far behind,
spreading her mainsail to the wind—a good stiff
breeze, and from the chill north-east.

It was from the moment of our parting
company with the schooner, when getting into
rougher water the steamer began to pitch and
labour heavily, that the conviction forced itself
upon me that something must be done.

First of all, then, I went below and was served
by an animated but surly corpse, which acted as
steward, with one wine-glass (large) full of raw
and fiery brandy. Having swallowed this I
abandoned for ever the cabin regions of the
vessel, and, ascending on deck, set myself, with
great energy and a cheerfulness of mind which
I am at a loss to account for (unless by the
brandy),to the execution of a series of manœuvres,
having for their object the averting of that
sea-sickness which my soul dreads, and to which I
am ordinarily a victim. Manœuvres, let me
add, which were the result of long study, and
the carrying out of which was attended, as will
be seen, with results so satisfactory, that I shall
proceed at once to give the reader directions
as to their proper performance, merely premising
that they require for their execution a strong
will, some moral courage, and that they are not
consistent with travelling by daylight.

It is needful—and this portion of the recipe
is only intended for the sterner sex, it being
quite unnecessary to recommend it to the ladies
—it is needful that the traveller should be
tightly laced, and girt about the body with some
degree of compression, be it with a belt, as some
will perhaps prefer, or be it (as in the case of
the author) by the tightening of the girths of
those garments which he would die rather than
name, and the buckling in of his waistcoat, to
the utmost bearable degree. The traveller
should betake him to the middle of the vessel,
and since he is to stand throughout the voyage
—a proceeding which when it is rough is
attended with some degree of difficulty—let him
look out, at an early period of the start, for
some such knob, or handle, or rail, or rope as
may be convenient to his grasp to steady himself
withal, and let him choose one (if he can) from
which he shall not be told by the marine
authorities to separate himself lest he interfere
with the fit and proper working of the ship.

The author of these remarks is of opinion—
and a long experience enables him to deliver
himself with the more confidence—that the sickness
which is produced by sea voyages is mainly
attributable to that peculiar action of the vessel
—I sicken while I write—in which dropping
from under you as it were with a deadly swoop,
it leaves the stomach in the lurch. Now, let
the traveller, holding on by some convenient
grip, keep his eye upon the vessel's prow. He
is standing a little aft of the middle of the ship,
so that when he sees the prow ascending he will
know for certain that the after portion of the
vessel must be going down. Let him then, as
it sinks, sink with it—Crouch, man alive!
crouch! and go on crouching as she descends
even till you find yourself sitting on your heels.
Then as she rises, rise with her, and you make a
voluntary action of what would be an involuntary
one, and alter the whole condition of
affairs.

This is all. Told in half a dozen lines. Simple
and obvious as other great inventions are.

I have said that the advantages of this
extraordinary discovery are only available for short
journeys; it being evident that to duck and rise
alternately during a voyage, for instance, to the
United States, would require a strength of the
muscles about the knee joints such as is not
ordinarily to be met with. I have also said that
darkness is indispensable, and I repeat it,
inasmuch as I do not believe that any person would
have the moral courage to perform in broad
daylight the evolutions I have described, before