Chapter Forty-Three: Amelia Ericsson's Journal

January 4, 1863, at sea.

The first day at sea we are struck by inclement weather. We are all retching violently from the constant motion by the ship, and I became ill just watching the furniture slide across the room, until that little Negro, Chip, pokes his nappy head into my cabin and announces that "Dinner is being served." Luckily, I have a large porcelain bowl next to my bed, so the instantaneous regurgitation is released into a proper receptacle. Chip then carries it out to be tossed overboard, sloshing the contents back and forth, until my stomach feels another wave of nausea, and I have no place to vomit! I soon retain another bowl, and thus I am prepared for the worst.

Captain Sinclair, Lieutenant Greene and my husband are the only members of our expedition who do not get ill from bad weather. They boast to us of their "sea legs," and their cocky behavior is enough to make one sick all over again. I once left my husband because of his poverty, and this voyage is not endearing itself to my Epicurean nature. It is my husband's bold personality that has caused him problems in the past, and I can see it becoming a problem on this adventure. I hope I am not correct in this assumption, but when I see him parading around the ship, issuing orders and discussing the "new philosophy of paradise" with the other men; I begin to suspect we are in for some inclement psychological weather as well.

For example, at dinner tonight, Mister Greene began the meal with one of his ghastly readings from his god-poet, Walt Whitman. John, my husband, encourages the young man, and thus we are trapped before dining, under a canopy of romantic images and tired leaps of unreal imaginings. As I was still quite queasy from the weather, these poetic musings added to the nausea, until my face must have turned an emerald-yellow colour, quite amusing to the others at dinner.

I do love my John, and if I must endure this as a punishment for my rather spoiled upbringing in London, then so be it. The others are quite encouraging, and full of humor, so my personal misgivings are often buffered. Penelope, in particular, is my best bulwark against this masculine environment, and we often share little jokes between ourselves, to soften the impetuous philosophies of our men. "Wait until the weather is back to normal, Amelia," says my darling Pen, lifting her eyebrow with coquetry. "We shall again hold sway over the parlor and the bedroom!"

We let little Anna Cameron in on our joke, but she is rather indifferent, as she is still too young to understand how we older women have learned to control our men. However, Penelope and I are both certain, after this voyage has come to its destination, we will have convinced Anna that it is much better to join our ranks than it is to follow her quixotic husband into some inauspicious escapade. Her Mister Greene often looks to me to have the gaze of some young bull in the pasture that has been struck by Cupid's arrow, and he thus begins to sniff flowers, instead of snorting and grinding his hoof into the earth. Penelope's Mister Sinclair, on the other hand, is all bull, through and through, and I have often wondered about his handling of Pen in the boudoir. My Dear John, heaven knows, must be drugged into a state of romance, and even then he has often fallen asleep before I am able to seduce him!

This shall be a long voyage, and I hope we are all able to get to know each other better. If we are to be living under primitive conditions on this Easter Island, then we indeed must learn to survive together. Even though I may come from austere surroundings, I am a fighter. We British have been able to conquer many foreign shores, and we can bring about a change that will make our reputations known all over the world. I plan to carry on this tradition of my relatives, and so does Pen, and thus our affiliation has begun! We secretly call our order, "The Amazon Women," although every time I utter the title, Pen begins to giggle uncontrollably.