I have used this prescription in my own case with success, and have
known it to benefit others.]

The voyage from New York to San Francisco has been so often 'done' and
is so well watered, that I shall not describe it in detail. Most of
the passengers on the steamer were old Californians and assisted in
endeavoring to make the time pass pleasantly. There was plenty of
whist-playing, story telling, reading, singing, flirtation, and a very
large amount of sleeping. So far as I knew, nobody quarreled or
manifested any disposition to be riotous. There was one passenger, a
heavy, burly Englishman, whose sole occupation was in drinking "arf
and arf." He took it on rising, then another drink before breakfast,
then another between Iris steak and his buttered roll, and so on every
half hour until midnight, when he swallowed a double dose and went to
bed. He had a large quantity in care of the baggage master, and every
day or two he would get up a few dozen pint bottles of pale ale and an
equal quantity of porter. He emptied a bottle of each into a pitcher
and swallowed the whole as easily as an ordinary man would take down a
dose of peppermint. The empty bottles were thrown overboard, and the
captain said that if this man were a frequent passenger there would be
danger of a reef of bottles in the ocean all the way from New York to
Aspinwall. I never saw his equal for swallowing malt liquors. To quote
from Shakspeare, with a slight alteration:

"He was a man, take him for half and half,
I ne'er shall look upon his like again."

[Illustration: ASPINWALL TO PANAMA.]

We had six hours at Aspinwall, a city that could be done in fifteen
minutes, but were allowed no time on shore at Panama. It was late at
night when we left the latter port. The waters were beautifully
phosphorescent, and when disturbed by our motion they flashed and
glittered like a river of stars. Looking over the stern one could half
imagine our track a path of fire, and the bay, ruffled by a gentle
breeze, a waving sheet of light. The Pacific did not belie its name.
More than half the way to San Francisco we steamed as calmly and with
as little motion as upon a narrow lake. Sometimes there was no
sensation to indicate we were moving at all.

[Illustration: SLIGHTLY MONOTONOUS.]

Even varied by glimpses of the Mexican coast, the occasional
appearance of a whale with its column of water thrown high into the
air, and the sportive action of schools of por