The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1914-04-23

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sinks, something inside sinks, and
every time the floor comes up some
thing inside wants to come up too.
And the worst of 1t 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. l have talk
ed 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 sen
sation of sea sickness, and then Of a
sudden comes a time when you get
yours good and proper. Again you
may have it for a 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 sus-
pended on ball bearings which are alb
solutely as level as a house floor, but
the result, so far as curing sea sick
ness, 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 affliction.
And so we will sail on our way into
the third day, pausing on the aft deck
to watch a 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 a voyage into the tropics. Unlike
a 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 outside of
New York, the colors softly change to
a blue, bluer, bluest. Why this Is do
not know, nor have | ever had a salts
factory explanation. 1t is the same old
salt ocean all the way, but it is a diff
ferent colored ocean in the tropics.
The blue Caribbean" is all that its
name implies. l know of no color
exactly like it. Something 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 unrival-
ed in it's beauty. This change comes
gradually and only opens in its full
ness when below the frost line, but it
is a gradual softening of the hard
lines of the north, and a constant de-
light to the beholder. And so at sea
one finds a 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 acquaintances, which
would take years of time on land. No
matter If W. forget once we land. 1t Is
established that ship acquaintance
are for the ship only, but this matters
not. We are now on the ship and ap.
preaching the tropics where they
never worry, and where they live for
the day only. when in the tropics,
sit down." says Bill, dropping into a
chair, land get acquainted" says l.
dropping into another.
Let us close this letter at the point
where the sea gulls leave off and the
flying fish begin, for in all the voy
age we are never without winged
company. When the gulls leave, the
flying fish appear and many other
strange sea fowl are noticed. 1t is
farther on that we come to the pelican
of whom Swan, the travelling man
chanted,
"a rare old bird is the pelican,
His bill holds more than his belly can,
He can fill up his beak,
With food for a week,
Tho I don't see how the helhecan.'
We are now in latitude rs, the third
morning out and we will soon sight
our first land, which happens to be the
island Of San Salvador the first land
of the new continent which Columbus
discovered on that Friday morning
over four hundred years ago. 1t is one
of the Bahama group and we will re
serve it for another week when We
will pause on our way to Panama Ions
enough to investigate Coral Isles o.
America.