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, and the crockery
