Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1914-04-22
COUNTRY EDITOR ON
A TOUR TO PANAMA
Continued from page u


much interested in distance travelled
as in distance yet to come. The
weather was rough and the water
rougher.
There are some things about sea
voyage which might be overlooked,
and these things usually happen on
the first or second day out. [ might
as we'll be frank in the matter and
say at once that to me things hap
pened on both the first and second
day And | was out something be
sides days.
To the son of the soil who expects
to find floor under him when he
shakes off the dews of slumber, there
is something uncanny in stepping out
onto floor which may or may not be
there. When you gain your equili
brium you discover that you are los
ing and gaining weight so fast that
you haven't time to figure whether
you are above or below par. When
you are waited skyward just at the
turning point you weigh about as
much as thought and when you
sink, sink, sink, (oh the horror of
that word sink) you weigh about a
ton more or less. But before you
have chance to carry weight, up
you go again and possibly something
else. It's toss up whether you go
back to bed or crawl on deck. It's a
toss up anyway. But that sinking
motion is the worst. Every time the
floor sinks, something inside sinks,
and every time the floor comes up
something inside wants to come up
too. And the worst of it all is that
when you get tired of it the boat has
just commenced.
Sea sickness is another puzzler
which Solomon might have pondered
had he been so disposed. / have
talked to ship surgeons, globe trotters,
sailors in the forcastle, and they all
tell the same story. You may go to
sea for years and never know the
sensation of sea sickness, and then of
a sudden comes time when you get
yours good and proper. Again you
may have it for day or two on
every voyage, and then emerge from
the trouble and eat all there is on the
ship. Others never overcome it.
They have invented swinging rooms
suspended on bail bearings which are
absolutely as level as a house floor,
but the result, so far as curing sea
sickness, has proven to be an utter
failure. But it is only in extreme
cases that sea sickness interferes
with more than one or two days of
the journey, and there is added zest
in ones conduct in the presence of
food after emerging from the Attic
ton.
And so we will sail on our way
into the third day, pausing on the aft
deck to watch passenger shaking
his fist, at the sea gulls. Follow,
darn yer, but if you expect me to
feed you any longer you will starve
before you get back to New York. !"
And right here begins the pleasure
of voyage into the tropics. Unlike
voyage "across" there is change in
every hours travel.
The most striking change is the
change in the color of the water as
we pass south. From the sort of
jealous gray green of the ocean out
side of New York, the colors softly
change to a blue, bluer, bl Why
this is | do not know, MOI nave |
ever had satisfactory explanation.
It is the same old salt ocean all the
way, but it is different colored ocean
in the tropics. The ''Blue Caribbean
is all that its name implies. I know
of no color exactly like it. Some
thing of the blue in mothers wash
tub only deeper-bluer. Aft, as the
screw cuts the water it throws a
foamy lace over the blue, forming a
combination which no modiste ever
produced. Over this deep blue sea is
spread a blue canopy of another
shade, but just as unrivaled in it's
beauty. This change comes gradual
ly and only opens in its fullness when
below the frost line, but it is a
gradual softening of the hard lines
of the north, and a constant delight
TO the beholder. And so at sea one
finds new world, peopled by a new
people, for the mellowing climate
seems to find an echo in the human
consciousness, and men and women
unfold and form acquaintance, which
would take years of time on land.
No matter if we forget once we land.
1t is established that ship acquaint-
ances are for the ship only, but this
matters not. We are now on the