Of the outrageous antics performed by that ship next morning; which
made bed a practical joke, and getting up, by any process short of
falling out, an impossibility; I say nothing. But anything like
the utter dreariness and desolation that met my eyes when I
literally 'tumbled up' on deck at noon, I never saw. Ocean and sky
were all of one dull, heavy, uniform, lead colour. There was no
extent of prospect even over the dreary waste that lay around us,
for the sea ran high, and the horizon encompassed us like a large
black hoop. Viewed from the air, or some tall bluff on shore, it
would have been imposing and stupendous, no doubt; but seen from
the wet and rolling decks, it only impressed one giddily and
painfully. In the gale of last night the life-boat had been
crushed by one blow of the sea like a walnut-shell; and there it
hung dangling in the air: a mere faggot of crazy boards. The
planking of the paddle-boxes had been torn sheer away. The wheels
were exposed and bare; and they whirled and dashed their spray
about the decks at random. Chimney, white with crusted salt;
topmasts struck; storm-sails set; rigging all knotted, tangled,
wet, and drooping: a gloomier picture it would be hard to look
upon.

I was now comfortably established by courtesy in the ladies' cabin,
where, besides ourselves, there were only four other passengers.
First, the little Scotch lady before mentioned, on her way to join
her husband at New York, who had settled there three years before.
Secondly and thirdly, an honest young Yorkshireman, connected with
some American house; domiciled in that same city, and carrying
thither his beautiful young wife to whom he had been married but a
fortnight, and who was the fairest specimen of a comely English
country girl I have ever seen. Fourthly, fifthly, and lastly,