The sea was running heavily, and the wind was cold; I had not thought there could be such cold in July.  The distance was obscured by a silvery haze which was not thick enough to be called a fog, but which lent a wintry aspect to sea and sky—­a likeness increased by the miniature snow-field on each side of the bow as the water flung up and melted away in pools like bluish-white snow ice.

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 side, and I loathed the Farralones Islands, and the clean white ship, and myself most of all for embarking upon an idiotic voyage.

Arrived in the stateroom, it was with little less than horror that I saw Miss R——­ in the lower berth—­my berth.  Such are the brutalizing influences of seasickness that I immediately reminded her that hers was above.  She dragged herself out, and, in a very ecstasy of selfish misery, I discarded my garments and burrowed into the warmth of my bed.  Never had blankets seemed more comfortable, for, between the wind and the seasickness, I was chilled through and through.