ave
been awful.

There would seem something in the very attitude of lying down that
induces reflection, and, thus stretched at full length in my berth, I
could not help ruminating upon the land I was approaching, in a spirit
which, I confess, accorded much more with my mother's prejudices than my
father's convictions. From the few chance phrases dropped around me,
it appeared that even the peaceful pursuits of a country market, or
the cheerful sports of the field, were followed up in a spirit of
recklessness and devilment; so that many a head that left home without
a care, went back with a crack in it. But to return once more to the
cabin. It must be borne in mind that some thirty odd years ago the
passage between Liverpool and Dublin was not, as at present, the rapid
flight of a dozen hours, from shore to shore; where, on one evening,
you left the thundering din of waggons, and the iron crank of cranes
and windlasses, to wake the next morning with the rich brogue of Paddy
floating softly around you. Far from it! the thing was then a voyage.
You took a solemn leave of your friends, you tore yourself from the
embraces of your family, and, with a tear in your eye and a hamper on
your arm, you betook yourself to the pier to watch, with an anxious and
a beating heart, every step of the three hours' proceeding that
heralded your departure. In those days there was some honour in being
a traveller, and the man who had crossed the Channel a couple of times
became a kind of Captain Cook among his acquaintances.

The most singular feature of the whole, however, and the one to which
I am now about to allude, proceeded from the fact that the steward in
those days, instead of the extensive resources of the present period,
had little to offer you, save some bad brandy and a biscuit, and
each traveller had to look to his various wants with an accuracy and
foresight that required both tact and habit. The mere demands of hunger
and thirst were not only to be considered in the abstract, but a point
of far greater difficulty, the probable length of the voyage, was to be
taken into consideration; so that you bought your beefsteaks with your
eye upon the barometer, and laid in your mutton by the age of the moon.
While thus the agency of the season was made to react upon your stomach,
in a manner doubtless highly conducive to the interests of science, your
part became one of the most critical nicety.

Scarcely were you afloat, and on the