Daylight discloses land already far out of sight, blue profundities below, and a sky thickly striped with clouds that cross our line of travel at a right angle and high overhead. The clouds are curdled white and grey or fine black like dirty little heaps of slush, all in rows. Nothing all around but a mind-cancelling low hill of water sloping off to the horizon, its subtle peak travels along just beneath us. I can’t tell if it is really peaceful or not. I mistrust it for its own sake and not as someone from the mountains.

I’ll describe the boat, but I lack nautical language. It doesn’t seem more than medium-sized to me, with a bridge up two or three ladders from the deck, that is the main deck or the one with the greatest area. There is a towerlike mast aft of the bridge, with a great profusion of riggings on it, but the ship really is powered by two impressive paddle-wheels amidships or nearly, covered in majestic sweeps of metal cowling. Paddleboxes is the word. These are driven by hinged pistons that periodically and in alternation thrust their acutely bent knees fantastically high into the air, rivalling the height of the mast; they look like the hind legs of grasshoppers taking slow thoughtful strides in alternation. The rhythmic churn of the wheels is lulling, the rotation of the frothing paddles is hypnotic, the meditative striding of the pistons is dreamy, the soft and fragrant air is narcotic. Across this reverence Saskia’s voice often cuts as she barks orders from the bridge. We seem to go in one reliable direction, and we seem to move fast.

While some of the madcaps in the ranks are seasick or huddled below decks, terrified of all the open space, the majority are beside themselves with delight and excitement. They rush from one end of the boat to another with their faces wide open to every sensation, dangling from the ropes, yipping and cawing, their clothes flapping and sloughing often in defiance of decency. We’re confined to the boat, smaller than the asylum was, with limitlessness all around us. After the first man overboard is retrieved at some expense of time, Saskia thunderously harangues the others:

“Go into the sea, and I swear to you you’ll stay there!” she bellowed.