The daily gazette., 1878-05-31
Letter from Europe.
STEAMER "sUEvIA" OF THE HAMBURG
AMERICAN LINE.

(From our regular correspondent
HARBoR OF CHERBoURG,
FRANCE, May 16, 1873.
For an hour before the "Suevia" left
the pier at New York her broad deck and
splendid main saloon, were filled with the
hundreds, who had come to see their
friends and relatives off There were con-
gratulations and tender partings, laugh
ter and tears. AT 4 p. IN, the whistle
blew the signal for departure and those
who wished to remain in the Western
Hemisphere went ashore. The immense
steamer began to move almost imper-
ceptably at first, but with increasing
speed at every turn of the screw and we
left the wharf amid acclamations, wav-
ing handkerchiefs and q shower of
bouquets and oranges.
For two days the weather was delight
full. The ancient amateur mariners, of
whom we had many on board, those who
had crossed six or ten times, said they
had never seen any thing like it; but
next evening we were in the gulf steam;
while we were at dinner, the whistle
blew the signal for down brakes, and
those who had travelled much on south
ern railroads thought, for an instant,
that COW was on the track; but the an
cient mariner said "fog" When we
went on deck, we saw the fog, and for
two days we saw nothing else. The fog
whistle blew necessarily, the deck was
wet and disagreeable; the sea of an oily
inky color, and only two degrees of the
freezing point. On the second evening,
a breeze sprung up, and lifted the fog
The sea was rolling, and the ancient
| mariner said we were passing through
| the vestiges Of an old storm; before morn
| ing the old storm was reinforced by a
young one; we had anticipated someth.
| ing of the kind for the sailors had been
going about quietly lashing chairs to the
deck, and securing things generally; the
steward had also fixed "a walnut frame to
| the table, which divided it into small
| fenced sections, that afterwards proved
| "A curb to the dishes i'll their eccentric
antics us the vessel was tossed like an
| egg shell by the waves.
The fine weather of the first two days
had spoiled the passengers of the" Suevia'
! the fog put them out of humor; and the
storm made them sick. Sea-sickness is a
I most melancholy condition ofthe human
tstomach,a visceral inSurrection for which
no allaying specific has been found its
premouitory symptoms are disgust OF
| food, sullow complexion, and a woe be.
gon Yisage and these are followed by
vile and violent eructations without res
pect OF or to age, sex, condition or re-
| find society.
But the recovery from sea-sickness
| as the convalescent catches glimpses of
new horizons of health, and physical
validi ty is delicious. Like Colonel Sci
| lers the Hamburg line never economies
| on its nourishment, and fresh strawber
| rles, asparagus, green peas, everything
that the market on the vintages of Eu
rope affords reeled on the restless table
or We're sent to the cabin of every pas
senger that imagined himself indisposed
no dainty that the sea-sick soul conceiy
ed was the steward unable to furnish.
| Ruskin says that ship should never
be painted majestic and defiant, but only
as warlike and enduring, and no one car
have been at sea in storm without rea
lizing the truth of his dictltm, and feeling
how entirely at the mercy of the waves
is even the best of ships. For sixty hour
the "Suevia" struggle with the tremen
!dous energy of the sea, and when sh'
came into port, the top of her smok'
stack, twenty feet above her deck wa
white from the salt with which the vault
ing snow crested waves had wreathe'
It, Imagine an immense ship ascending
cubic acres of cone shaped, unstable
wave. She reaches the apex, begins t.
descend, and pitches stem foremost Il
the base, with terrific splash and splurge
tremor like shudder passes through
her entire bulk, but she does not creak "A
though she would go to pieces; there
too much endurance of iron, steel, an
oak in her for complaint. She simpl
J renews the engagement, every minute
i, for three days, until the most timi
woman has faith that the ship is warlik
and enduring able to hold her ow
against the majestic and demonical oceai
!, G. A S.