Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/379

 port. His agony seemed to him intolerable. Had he escaped from prison to die such a wretched death? It is recognized as one of the peculiarities of seasickness that those who do not suffer from it do not appreciate the sufferings of those who do, and that the sufferer considers the indifference of the well person as especially hardhearted and exasperating. That was the case with us. I felt myself uncommonly well. The more the “Little Anna” bobbed up and down in the waves, the higher rose my spirits. I felt an inordinate appetite which did the fullest justice to the accomplishments of our cook. This joyous feeling I could not entirely conceal from Kinkel, although I deplored very sincerely his sufferings, which probably were aggravated through the nervous condition resulting from his long imprisonment. I thought I could raise him up by making fun of his fear of immediate death, but that would not do at all, as Kinkel believed in all seriousness that his life was in danger. My jokes sounded to him like unfeeling recklessness, and I had soon to change my tone in order to cheer him.

In this condition we passed Helsingoer, the toll-gate of the Sound dues, and with it the last place in which our liberty might possibly have been in danger, and so we entered the Kattegat. The sea had been wild enough in the Sound, but in the Kattegat it was much wilder. The winds seemed to blow alternately from all points of the compass, and we cruised two days between the Skagen, the projecting headland of Denmark, and the high rocks of Sweden and Norway, until we reached the more spacious basin of the Skagerack. But there too, and as we at last entered the open North Sea, the “dirty weather,” as our sailors called it, continued without change. At times the wind grew so violent that Captain Niemann recognized it as a real gale. Like a nutshell the “Little