The Madras left on the next day, at 2 P.M., in the midst of a cheerless rain, which half blotted out the pleasant shores of Southampton Water, and the Isle of Wight.  The Madras was a singularly appropriate vessel for one bound on such a journey as mine.  The surgeon was Dr. Mungo Park, and one of my room-mates was Mr. R. Crusoe.  It was a Friday, which boded no good for the voyage; but then my journey commenced with my leaving London the day previous, and Thursday is a lucky day among the Arabs.  I caught a watery view of the gray cliffs of the Needles, when dinner was announced, but many were those (and I among them) who commenced that meal, and did not stay to finish it.

Is there any piece of water more unreasonably, distressingly, disgustingly rough and perverse than the British Channel?  Yes:  there is one, and but one—­the Bay of Biscay.  And as the latter succeeds the former, without a pause between, and the head-winds never ceased, and the rain continually poured, I leave you to draw the climax of my misery.  Four days and four nights in a berth, lying on your back, now dozing dull hour after hour, now making faint endeavors to eat, or reading the feeblest novel ever written, because the mind cannot digest stronger aliment—­can there be a greater contrast to the wide-awake life, the fiery inspiration, of the Orient?  My blood became so sluggish and my mind so cloudy and befogged, that I despaired of ever thinking clearly or feeling vividly again.  “The winds are rude” in Biscay, Byron says.  They are, indeed:  very rude.  They must have been raised in some most disorderly quarter of the globe.  They pitched the waves right over our bulwarks, and now and then dashed a bucketful of water down the cabin skylight, swamping the ladies’ cabin, and setting scores of bandboxes afloat.  Not that there was the least actual danger; but Mrs. ——­ would not be persuaded that we were not on the brink of destruction, and wrote to friends at home a voluminous account of her feelings.  There was an Irishman on board, bound to Italy, with his sister.  It was his first tour, and when asked why he did not go direct, through France, he replied, with brotherly concern, that he was anxious his sister should see the Bay of Biscay.

This youth’s perceptions were of such an emerald hue, that a lot of wicked Englishmen had their own fun out of him.  The other day, he was trying to shave, to the great danger of slicing off his nose, as the vessel was rolling fearfully.  “Why don’t you have the ship headed to the wind?” said one of the Englishmen, who heard his complaints; “she will then lie steady, and you can shave beautifully.”  Thereupon the Irishman sent one of the stewards upon deck with a polite message to the captain, begging him to put the vessel about for five minutes.