Odd Whims of Seasick People.

Otago Witness, Issue 2323, 8 September 1898, Page 61

Odd Whims of Seasick People.

Tlie captain of a big- liner &ays that he should consider himself a rich man if he had as many sovereigns as there were cures for sea sickness. E^ery person who sails with him knows just how to act when the " go-round-and-round sort of feeling" begins, to assert itself, aud there are so many certain remedies that mal de mer ought long ago to have lost its terrors. During a very rough trip across the Atlantic, a well-dressed gentleman &at down in the centre of the wave-washed deck, produced a photograph, and stared hard at it for hours. Passengers who v^evQ in a condition to notice his strange conduct thought he was gazing upon the face of his best girl, and winked knowingly at one another ; but their surmise was an erroneous one. The photograph was really a representation of the gentleman's worst enemy, and he firmlj believed that, if he glared at it long enough, the bitter thoughts aroused in his mind by the sight of it would ward off sea sickneds. " Fix your mind upon someone 3~ou hate," he explained, '" and you will never be ill when at sea." There was a wild commotion on board another vessel one morning, for the captain found that some thief had broken into his cabin in the night and stolen his best uniform. A hue and cry was at once raised, and the rough sailors, secretly enjoying the joke, questioned everyone on board, not even sparing the first-class passengers. At last, however, the missing uniform walked unsteadily from the cook's galley, and the person inside it made a bee-line for the bulwarks. " 1 always thought the togs captains wore were a preventive of sea .sickness," ho stuttered, "but I'm afraid I've been labouring under a delusion. Tell the skipper I'll let him have 'cm back in half a minute — they're no good to me ! " • Osie of the sailors on a vessel outward bound for India rushed on deck, with a livid face, and startled the captain by stating that seven passengers had been found dead i,n their berths. Instant'y assuming that there had been foul play, the captain aroused the doctor, and they wont together to vibit the stricken sleeping places. To ell appearance, the frightened sailor had spol'en the truth, -for the passengers lay whito and still, not a sign betraying that life still remained to them. The doctor examined them, and' then went away with a frown on his face, returning shortly with a dapper little Frenchman, who had made himself a favourite with everyone. " This gentleman will be able to set your mind at rest, captain," remarked the doctor, and the Frenchman, with a careless smile, rapidly proceeded to rouse all the quiescent passengers. It seemed that he was a professional hypnotist, and that for a fee of one guinea he -agreed to send anyone vi ho feared to undergo the pangs of soa sickness into a sound mesmeric sleep. But for the doctor's interference, he said, his patients would have slumbered until the shores of India were sighted.