As the _Buford_ waded into the swell, wave after wave dashed over the
forward deck, drenching a few miserable soldiers there, who preferred
to soak and freeze rather than to go inside and be seasick. Sometimes
the spray leaped hissing up on the promenade deck, and our weather
side was dripping, as I found when I went over there. I also slipped
and fell down, but as that side of the ship was deserted, nobody saw
me--to my gratification. I petted a bruised shin a few minutes and
went back to the lee side a wiser woman.

About three o'clock, when Miss R----'s face was assuming a fine,
corpse-like green tint, I began to have a hesitating and unhappy
sensation in the pit of the stomach, a suggestion of doubt as to the
wisdom of leaving the solid, reliable land, and trusting myself to the
fickle and deceitful sea. In a few moments these disquieting hints had
grown to a positive clamor, and my head and heels were feeling very
much as do those of gentlemen who have been dining out with "terrapin
and seraphim" and their liquid accompaniments. At this time Miss R----
gave out utterly and went below, but I was filled with the idea that
seasickness can be overcome by an effort of will, and stayed on,
making an effort to "demonstrate," as the Christian Scientists say,
and trying to look as if nothing were the matter. The San Francisco man
remained by me, persistent in an apparently disinterested attempt to
entertain me; but I was not deluded, for I recognized in his devotion
the fiendish joy of the un-seasick watching the unconfessed tortures
of those who are.

It was five o'clock when I gasped with a last effort of facetious
misery, "And yet they say people come to sea for their health," and
went below. The Farralones Islands, great pinky-gray needles of bleak
rock, were sticking up somewhere in the silvery haze on our starboard