The record-union., 1892-12-31
Especial Correspondence of the RECORD
UNION. Copyright 1921
LONDON, December 10, 1S9.

IN European jaunts never to cross the
English Channel between Dover and Ca
lais save by day. 1t has always been my
grewsome fortune to make the passage
by night and in storm.
1t is pleasant, surely from the time our
train leaves the grim London house tops,
all the way in the evening cleaning
through the lovely shire Of Kent, but the
roar Of the sea is always louder upon the
great stone quays than the din of our fast
night mail as we rush in upon quaint old
Dover town.
A moment at the station, and then we
creep along the docks and come along
side the royal mail steamer, hustled out
of our wheeled, half-Iighted cells and
driven like unwilling cattle down the
slippery descent and up over the gang
way which seesaws with desperate sug-
gestions OF danger, and are finally hauled
aboard the rocking craft like the faint
hearted land-lubbers we are.
''first-class aft! second-class for'd!''
Sorting us like sheep we are at last hud-
died aboard the "Foam"-most appro-
pirate name, for even here at the docks
the sea is so wild that its spume is dashed
over us, the luggage and continental
mail are somehow taken on, and, with
great lurch from which the steel-ribbed,
though diminutive, and shell-like craft,
only RECEIVERS 70 be hurled violently IN
another direction, our steamer fairly be-
gan its ricochetiug across the channel.
Behind us, nestled in one of the most
charming raVineS III all England, is an
cient Dover town, with its lights, winding
away TO the westward and blinking from
the sides of the cliff, while the great Do
Yer lighthouse flames out upon the chan
mel and brings into weird outlines the
stupendous castellated Notifications upon
mighty Dover flights.
on are instantly plunged into the
plain, Old-fashioned misery of sea-sick-
ness. You do not 90 indoors, for all
those nice people who must be quite as
used to a channel boat as a ferry would
surely notice you were becoming i'll. On
the other hand all the terrors OF the deep
and OF approaching physical nelplessness
are resultant from your enforced aero
battle feats upon deck.
Between humiliation and possible
death, i'll sheer desperation, you choose
disgrace. Your hand is upon the cabin
door, but seems palsied. No, you will
seek the second-class cabin ford"
They Will be less critical there. Its door
Is but fifty feet away, but where is drawer
pilgrimage than this? 1t seems an age
until you have been able to throw your
self down the winding stairway into the
strange triangular cabin below.
I gu / ne OuoI Vi Inc place. us subtle
dread and subtler qualms will always
possess you whenever your crossing OF
the English Channel returns as a hateful
blot upon your memory.
Under the stairway, from behind
crescent-shaped bar, two Tom Thumbs,
like tiny old boys, attired like men-of-
wars men. are dispensing liquors and
ales at a lively rate. Every male in the
cabin IS smoking, some at the same time
munching food at the sloppy lunch table
where the dishes click and slip with a
greasy grind with the lurching of the
vessel. Through the noxious vapors,
aud as If far away and in an oppressive
dream you see, at either side oil the cabin
and in tiers, each beyond and slightly
higher than another, in amphitheater
form OF arrangement, capaciOus hunks
Each is provided with a leather-encased
cushion, a seTge-covered pillow and a
sunken cuspidore, and nearly all of these
hunks are occupied by men and women
in every imaginable attitude of human
suffering, or of preparation against tor
turing experience.
Over there is party of Americans, ev-
identity an entire family. They are ours
ing everything outside of America. and
struggling with each other as,their phys-
zeal commissions increase. Beyond are
several friars in brown and gray, per
haps from some of the French cloisters
beyond Amiens, sober and grave in their
rough habit and cowls, bearing their
misery with wonderful fOrtitude. Oppo-
site are stolid commercial travellers, ST
lent Jews, and Frenchmen full of antics
in their torture, with Frenchmen. grace
full and pretty even III this most remorse-
lessly leveling of all human ills, an Eng
lish Channel sea-sickness.
The horrible air and scenes of this cabin
force you, with others, back upon deck,
where the steamer rail at one side catches
in trrIn fn b1at+
the iron netting embrace of the other.
There is no escape. All bravery, resolu-
ton and supreme will power are of no
avail. You recall in an ecstacy OF hope
Iessness that no channel steamer was ever
lost. With this thought all possibility of
relief is abandoned. For a good hour
every aspiration and ambition of life is
swept away. You grOVel and slide and
slop as limp as a strand of cold macconi
upon the night mail steamers desk. for
utter exhaustion has come.
But at last the bracing storm, which has
whipped the channel into foam, pounds
new life into you. The salt spray dashes
into your face and revives YOU. You
crawl TO where the four grim wheelmen
are, for in the cutting wind there is a
faint odor of the land. The chief wheel
man comforts you with
"Doan't mind it, mon. The best there
be doan't be able to stand on their leps
hereaboutr'
Away to the right is now seeen the LIGHT
at the French Cape of Griz Nez. soon
your steamer begins skirtiny the coast
Here and there are glintings and glim-
merings OF light from the eoastwise viii
lagos where the late revel or vigil is no
ing kept. The pier-head light at Calais
grows and glows. over the looming o1Iav
where the sea plays mad havoc. is a con,
tinuous wreathing of flashing phosphor-
essence. Speedily now your steamer lit
orally gallops into port.
Here, at one side, are the fantastic fish
ing craft and the bellying lighters, Al
the other. as the bedraggled passengers
crowd to the gangway opening, are rows
OF French porters bowling and scraping
and chattering glibly. The weird cres7
sets flare over the picture strangely, and
flavor of decaying, salty things, of half
digested Cognac and of penetrating garlic
Is over all.
And what din is therei
With swash and a bump the storm"
Is finally made fast. Then the perilous
midnight ascent to the docks, the keen
eyed customs officers, the skirmishes and
more serious engagements with porters,
the cries of the guards, the miserable en-
Engagements and wild-eyed sorties. and,
finally, the mad haste to the different
trains for Paris, for Vienna and for Ber-
lin. In half an hour everything has come
TO rights; you have with an hundred
'pardons" and ''remercies," been bus
tied into one carriage only to be hustled
out OF TINS INTO another, and at last you
are locked tightly within one which has
got you safely for a little time.
Then, certain of still being all wrong.
the train moves away from the docks,
weaving and swaying past where red
shlrted french boys play through long
summer days on golden SANDS. nasf
frowning battlements; past quaint old