Essays of Travel Tale 1 - The Amateur Emigrant. Part A

Robert Louis Stevenson (0:00)

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Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson. Chapter 1, The Amateur Emigrant, Part A.

To Robert Alan Mowbray Stevenson. Our friendship was not only founded before we were born by a community of blood, but is in itself near as old as my life. It began with our early ages, and like a history, has been continued to the present time. Although we may not be old in the world, we are old to each other, having so long been intimates. We are now widely separated, a great sea and continent intervening, but memory, like care, mounts into iron ships and rides post behind the horsemen. Neither time nor space nor enmity can conquer old affection. And as I dedicate these sketches, it is not to you only, but to all in the old country, that I send the greetings of my heart. R. L. S. 1879 The Second Cabin I first encountered my fellow passengers on the Brumelaw in Glasgow. Thence we descended the Clyde and 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. Anyone 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 a greenuck, 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 deckhouses, an aspiring forest of spars, larger than a church, and soon to be as populous as many an incorporated town and the land to which she was to bear us.

I was not, in truth, a steerage passenger. Although anxious to see the worst of immigrant 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 number one, down two pair of stairs. A little abhaft, another companion, labeled steerage number two and three, gives admission to three galleries, two running forward towards steerage number one, and the third aft towards the engines. The starboard forward gallery is the second cabin. Away abhaft the engines and below the officers' cabins to complete our survey of the vessel, there is yet a third nest of steerages, labeled four and five. 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 10 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, and the 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 plates from which we ate. But lest I should show myself ungrateful, let me recapitulate every advantage. At breakfast we had a choice between tea and coffee for beverage, a choice not easy to make. The two were so surprisingly alike. I found that I could sleep after the coffee and lay awake after the tea, which is proof conclusive of some chemical disparity. And even by the palate I could distinguish a smack of snuff in the former from a flavor of boiling and dishcloths in the second. As a matter of fact, I have seen passengers, after many sips, still doubting which had been supplied them. In the way of eatables, at the same meal, we were gloriously favored, for in addition to porridge, which was common to all, we had Irish stew, sometimes a bit of fish and sometimes risollas.