Subsequently, A Much Larger
Subscription Would Have Been Made In Order To Have Him Taken Away By
Anybody Or Anything.
Little by little the confusion subsided.
The emigration commissioner
left; at six we were at last allowed some victuals. Unpacking my books
and arranging them in my cabin filled up the remainder of the evening,
save the time devoted to a couple of meditative pipes. The emigrants
went to bed, and when, at about ten o'clock, I went up for a little time
upon the poop, I heard no sound save the clanging of the clocks from the
various churches of Gravesend, the pattering of rain upon the decks, and
the rushing of the river as it gurgled against the ship's side.
Early next morning the cocks began to crow vociferously. We had about
sixty couple of the oldest inhabitants of the hen-roost on board, which
were intended for the consumption of the saloon passengers - a destiny
which they have since fulfilled: young fowls die on shipboard, only old
ones standing the weather about the line. Besides this, the pigs began
grunting and the sheep gave vent to an occasional feeble bleat, the only
expression of surprise or discontent which I heard them utter during the
remainder of their existence, for now, alas! they are no more. I
remember dreaming I was in a farmyard, and woke as soon as it was light.
Rising immediately, I went on deck and found the morning calm and sulky-
-no rain, but everything very wet and very grey.
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