Three men in a boat / Трое в лодке, не считая собаки. Книга для чтения на английском языке

At sea, you come across plenty of people[12 - you come across plenty of people – ты сталкиваешься со множеством людей] very bad indeed, whole boat-loads of them; but I never met a man yet, on land, who had ever known at all what it was to be sea-sick. Where the thousands upon thousands of bad sailors that swarm in every ship hide themselves when they are on land is a mystery.

If most men were like a fellow I saw on the Yarmouth boat one day, I could account for the seeming mystery easily enough.

It was just off Southend Pier, I recollect, and he was leaning out through one of the port-holes in a very dangerous position. I went up to him to try and save him.

“Hi! come further in,” I said, shaking him by the shoulder. “You’ll be overboard.”

“Oh my! I wish I was,” was the only answer I could get; and there I had to leave him.

Three weeks afterwards, I met him in the coffee-room of a Bath hotel, talking about his voyages, and explaining, with enthusiasm, how he loved the sea.

“Good sailor!” he replied in answer to a young man’s envious question; “well, I did feel a little queer once, I confess. It was off Cape Horn. The vessel was wrecked the next morning.”

I said:

“Weren’t you a little shaky by Southend Pier one day, and wanted to be thrown overboard?”

“Southend Pier!” he replied, with a puzzled expression.

“Yes; going down to Yarmouth, last Friday three weeks.”

“Oh, ah – yes,” he answered, brightening up; “I remember now.

I did have a headache that afternoon. It was the food, you know. It was the most disgraceful food I ever tasted in a respectable boat. Did you have any?”

For myself, I have discovered an excellent remedy against sea-sickness, in balancing myself. You stand in the centre of the deck, and, as the ship goes up and down, you move your body about, so as to keep it always straight. When the front of the ship rises, you lean forward, till the deck almost touches your nose;

and when its back end gets up, you lean backwards.

This is all very well for an hour or two; but you can’t balance yourself for a week.

George said: “Let’s go up the river.”

He said we should have fresh air, exercise and quiet, and the hard work would give us a good appetite, and make us sleep well.

Harris and I both said it was a good idea of George’s. The only one who wasn’t inspired with the suggestion was Montmorency.