Student

CHAPTER I--THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT

THE SECOND CABIN

I first encountered my fellow-passengers on the Broomielaw in

Glasgow. Thence we descended the Clyde in no familiar spirit, but

looking askance on each other as on possible enemies. A few

Scandinavians, who had already grown acquainted on the North Sea,

were friendly and voluble over their long pipes; but among English

speakers distance and suspicion reigned supreme. The sun was soon

overclouded, the wind freshened and grew sharp as we continued to

descend the widening estuary; and with the falling temperature the

gloom among the passengers increased. Two of the women wept. Any

one who had come aboard might have supposed we were all absconding

from the law. There was scarce a word interchanged, and no common

sentiment but that of cold united us, until at length, having

touched at Greenock, a pointing arm and a rush to the starboard now

announced that our ocean steamer was in sight. There she lay in

mid-river, at the Tail of the Bank, her sea-signal flying: a wall

of bulwark, a street of white deck-houses, an aspiring forest of

spars, larger than a church, and soon to be as populous as many an

incorporated town in the land to which she was to bear us.

I was not, in truth, a steerage passenger. Although anxious to see

the worst of emigrant life, I had some work to finish on the

voyage, and was advised to go by the second cabin, where at least I

should have a table at command. The advice was excellent; but to

understand the choice, and what I gained, some outline of the

internal disposition of the ship will first be necessary. In her

very nose is Steerage No. 1, down two pair of stairs. A little

abaft, another companion, labelled Steerage No. 2 and 3, gives

admission to three galleries, two running forward towards Steerage

No. 1, and the third aft towards the engines. The starboard

forward gallery is the second cabin. Away abaft the engines and

below the officers' cabins, to complete our survey of the vessel,

there is yet a third nest of steerages, labelled 4 and 5. The

second cabin, to return, is thus a modified oasis in the very heart

of the steerages. Through the thin partition you can hear the

steerage passengers being sick, the rattle of tin dishes as they

sit at meals, the varied accents in which they converse, the crying

of their children terrified by this new experience, or the clean

flat smack of the parental hand in chastisement.

There are, however, many advantages for the inhabitant of this

strip. He does not require to bring his own bedding or dishes, but

finds berths and a table completely if somewhat roughly furnished.

He enjoys a distinct superiority in diet; but this, strange to say,

differs not only on different ships, but on the same ship according

as her head is to the east or west. In my own experience, the

principal difference between our table and that of the true

steerage passenger was the table itself,