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.
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