THE SEA.

[pg 1]THE SEA.CHAPTER I.The Great Atlantic Ferry.The“Grand Tour”of Former Days—The only Grand Tour left—Round the World in Eighty Days—Fresh-water Sailors and Nautical Ladies—Modern Steamships and their Speed—TheOrient—Rivals—Routes round the Globe—Sir John Mandeville on the Subject—Difficulties in some Directions—The Great Atlantic Ferry—Dickens’s Experiences—Sea Sickness—Night at Sea—The Ship Rights—And then Wrongs—A Ridiculous Situation—Modern First-class Accommodation—The Woes of the Steerage—Mark Tapley—Immense Emigration of Third-class Passengers—Discomfort and Misery—Efforts to Improve the Steerage—“Intermediate”—Castle Gardens, New York—Voyage safer than by the Bay of Biscay—TheChimborazoin a Hurricane.“Come, all ye jovial sailors,And listen unto me,While I do sing thetroublesOf those that plough the sea.”We all know what the“Grand Tour”meant a few generations ago, and how without it no gentleman’s education was considered complete. Now-a-days the journey can be made by almost any one who can command thirty or forty pounds, and the only really grand tour left is that around[pg 2]the world. M. Verne tells us—inferentially, at all events—that it can be made in eighty days, while Puck, as we know, speaks of putting a“girdle round the earth in forty minutes.”But this statement of the popular French author, like many others put forth in his graphic and picturesque works, must be takencum grano salis. Itcouldbe, undoubtedly, but it is very questionable whether any one has yet accomplished the feat. Could one ensure the absolute“connection”as it is technically termed, of all the steamship lines which would have to be employed it might be done; or better, one vessel with grand steaming and sailing qualities might perform the“Voyage Round the World”in the given time. But M. Jules Verne, it will be remembered, paints his hero as landing at various points, and as performing acts of bravery and chivalryen route, such as the episode of rescuing a Hindoo widow from the Suttee; finding time to lounge and drink in San Francisco“saloons,”and being attacked by Indians, who would wreck the overland train; and still, with all delays, he is able to reach London in time to win his wager. The very idea of describing a journey round the world as an act of eccentricity is peculiarly French. The Englishman who can afford to make it is especially envied by his friends, and not considered mildly mad. We have before us a list of books of travel, all published within the last few years, and in circulation at the ordinary libraries. Thirteen of these works describe voyages round the world, and they are mostly the productions of amateur rather than of professional writers. So easy, indeed, is the trip now-a-days, that two of these records are modestly and deprecatingly described as“Rambles,”while one of the best of them is the work of a clever and enthusiastic lady,1whose excellent husband, in and out of Parliament, has earnestly and persistently studied“poor Jack’s”best interests. This lady is evidently no fresh-water sailor, and would put to shame the land-lubber described in a very old song:—“A tar, all pitch, did loudly bawl, sir,‘All hands aloft!’—‘Sweet sir, not I.Though drowning I don’t fear at all, sir,I hate a rope exceedingly.’”2Another work, by a young lady in her teens, is entitled,“By Land and Ocean; or, the Journals and Letters of a Young Girl who went to South Australia with a Lady, thencealoneto Victoria, New Zealand, Sydney, Singapore, China, Japan, and across the Continent of America.”Perhaps the most remarkable, however, of modern female travellers is a German lady,3who left Paris with only seven and a half francs in her pocket, and yet managed to go round the entire globe. It must be admitted that she had many friends abroad who helped her, and passed her on to others who could and did assist her in every way. Still, the voyages and travels she made denote the possession of a goodly amount of pluck.The item of speed is of great importance, and may well be considered in connection with a voyage round the globe. Verne’s title would have been deemed the raving of a[pg 3]lunatic had it been published before the age of steam, while in the first days of that great power which has now revolutionised the world it would have been regarded as absurd. The wooden Cunarder which, forty years ago, conveyed Charles Dickens on his first trip to America took double the ordinary time occupied now in making the voyage; and as a journalist has said, between such a vessel“and such ships as theArizona(Guion line), theGermanic(White Star line), theCity of Berlin(Inman line), and theGallia(Allan line), there is undoubtedly not less difference than between the Edinburgh or Glasgow mail-coaches and a modern express train.”TheArizonahas made theroundtrip—that is, the voyage from Queenstown, Ireland, to Sandy Hook, New York, and back again—in fifteen days. The Inman line has been specially celebrated for quick passages, whilst their“crack”steamer, theCity of Berlin, has made the single trip outwards in seven days, fourteen hours, and twelve minutes, and inwards in seven days, fifteen hours, and forty-eight minutes. TheCity of Brusselsand theCity of Richmondhave done nearly as well, while other steamships of the same line have made the trip in a very few hours and minutes more time. Think of considering minutes in a voyage of 3,000 miles! The magnificent steamship named after the Orient Company has made the voyage from England to Australia in thirty-seven and a half days, or not very far from half the time occupied by other steamships a few years ago. This grand vessel is said to be only exceeded in size by theGreat Eastern; she has a displacement of 9,500 tons and indicated horse-power of 5,400, and carries coal enough for her entire voyage—some 3,000 to 4,000 tons. But she is not to remain unchallenged, for, at the time these pages are being written, the Barrow Shipbuilding Company is constructing for the Inman line Atlantic service a still larger iron vessel, with engines of 8,500 horse-power, capable of propelling her at the rate of sixteen or seventeen knots; she will have four masts and three funnels. And yet another vessel of equal or greater power has been put on the stocks for the Cunard Company. Again, the largeststeelsteamship, or ship of any kind, has been launched at Dumbarton. She is intended largely for the cattle trade between the River Plate, Canada, and England. She is over 4,000 gross tonnage, and has been christened theBuenos Ayrean. The sums of money invested in the construction of these superb vessels are enormous. TheOrientis said to have cost,withouther fittings, little less than £150,000, her engines alone involving the expenditure of one-third of that amount. And yet a third-class or steerage ticket to the Antipodes by her costs only fifteen guineas, while the emigrant can go out to the United States or Canada by almost any one of the finest steamships of the various Atlantic services for six guineas.Many routes might, of course, be taken round the world, England being the eventual goal in all cases. As quaint Sir John Mandeville says, in the first chapter of his“Travels”:—“In the Name of God Glorious and Allemyghty, he that wil passe over the See to go to the City of Jerusalem, he may go by many Weyes, bothe on See and Lande, aftre the Contree that hee cometh fro: manye of hem comen to an ende. But troweth not that I wil telle you alle the Townes and Cytees and Castelles that Men schaslle go by: for then scholde I make to longe a Tale; but alle only summe Contrees and most princypalle Stedes that Men schulle gone thorgh, to gon the righte Way.”“Although,”says Mr. Simpson, the popular artist, in his work entitled“Meeting[pg 4]the Sun,”“the reference here is to Jerusalem only, yet in the Prologue he states that he was born in the‘Town of Seynt Albanes,’and‘passed the See in the Yeer of Lord Jesu ChristMCCCXII, in the Day of Seynt Michelle, and hidne to have ben longe tyme over the See, and have reign and gon thorgh manye diverse Landes and many Provynces and Kingdomes and Iles, and have passed throghe Tartarye, Percye, Ermonye, the litylle and the gret; throghe Lybye, Caldee, and a gret partie of Ethiope, throghe Amazoyne, Inde the lasse and the more, a gret partie; and thorghe out many others Iles, that ben abouten Inde; where dwellen many dyverse Folkes, and of dyverse Maneres and Lawes, and of dyverse Schappes of Men.’”He adds further on in his“Boke”that going all round the world was not unknown even before his time.“The world is wide,”yet the practical lines for a journey of this sort are very limited. There is the Siberian overland route, leading by St. Petersburg, Moscow, from which it goes about straight east through Siberia to Lake Baikal; and then there is about a month’s journey south, over the Mongolian Desert to Peking; or it may be varied by descending the great Amoor River, on which the Russians have a number of steamers, to Nicolaiefsk; thence sailing to San Francisco, and home by America and the Atlantic.“When,”says Mr. Simpson,“the Shah and Baron Reuter have made railways through Persia it may[pg 5]add slightly to the choice; perhaps when Russia civilises the whole of Central Asia it may open up a new route as far as China; but till that happy period, unless the traveller is willing, and at the same time able, to become a dervish, or something of that sort, like M. Vambéry, he had better not take the chance of risk in these regions. Many attempts have been made to pass from India to China, andvice versâ, but as yet no one has succeeded. The difficulties of such an enterprise are very great, not so much from the races of people as from the physical character of that region of the earth. These difficulties can, however, be overcome; and in evidence of this, we have perhaps one of the most wonderful expeditions of modern times in the journey of the two Jesuit missionaries, Huc and Gabet, from Peking to Lhassa. When they were ordered to leave the capital of the Great Lama, they wished to do so in the direction of Calcutta, as being by far the nearest, and, at the same time, the easiest way; but in vain. By a policy rigidly insisted upon by the Chinese Government, no one is allowed to pass anywhere along the frontiers between China and India.”This writer adds, that when travelling in Tibet he heard of many parties who wished to cross the frontier in that quarter, with the purpose only of having a few days’ shooting of some particular animal which they wanted to bring home; but he never knew of any one who was able to gratify his wish. One man told him that he had taken some pieces of very bright red cloth and other tempting bribes for the officials on the Chinese side, but it was all to no purpose.“It is not easy to understand why this intense jealousy should exist, but about the fact there can be no doubt.”But dismissing any and all ideas of journeying by land through Europe, Asia, or Africa, our trip will be almost entirely by sea, the trans-continental route across America being excepted. Practically that route is to-day the best if you would reach quickly and pleasantly any part of the Pacific. The great railway is an enormous link binding the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans together. The Suez Canal and the Panama route have been mentioned in these pages—the first very fully; and place must certainly be had for a description of a railroad which is so intimately connected with the sea. But first we must reach it.The passage across the“Great Atlantic Ferry”is now one of ease, and in the case of first-class passengers almost luxury. How different was it about forty years ago, even on the best steamships of that period! Charles Dickens has graphically described his experiences on board theBritannia, one of the earliest of the Cunard fleet, in one of his least-read works4—at least in the present generation. The little cupboard dignified by the name of“state-room;”the dingy saloon likened“to a gigantic hearse with windows in the sides;”the melancholy stove at which the forlorn stewards were rubbing their hands; the stewardess, whom Dickens blesses“for her piously fraudulent account of January voyages;”the excitement before leaving the dock; the captain’s boat and the dapper little captain; the last late mail bags, and the departure, are all sketched from nature, as the great novelist alone could depict them. And now they are off.“‘The sea! the sea! the open sea!That is the place where we all wish to be,Rolling about so merrily!’So all sing and say, by night and by day,[pg 6]In theboudoir, the street, at the concert, and play,In a sort of coxcombical roundelay.You may roam through the City, transversely or straight,From Whitechapel turnpike to Cumberland Gate,And every young lady who thrums a guitar,Every mustachioed shopman who smokes a cigar,With affected devotion, promulgates his notion,Of being a“Rover”and“Child of the Ocean”—Whate’er their age, sex, or condition may be,They all of them long for the“Wide, wide sea!”But however they dote, only set them afloat,In any craft bigger at all than a boat,Take them down to the Nore, and you’ll see that beforeThe“wessel”they“woyage”in has made half her wayBetween Shellness Point and the pier at Herne Bay,Let the wind meet the tide in the slightest degree,They’ll be all of them heartily sick of the sea!”So says“Ingoldsby,”and it is, no doubt, true of some London Jack Tars and Cheapside buccaneers, who, on leaving port, are much more nautically“got up”than any of the crew. These stage sailors become very limp when the sea-water takes the starch out of them. Barham tells us of one Anthony Blogg:—“So I’ll merely observe, as the water grew rougherThe more my poor hero continued to suffer,Till the sailors themselves cried, in pity,‘Poor buffer!’”The great steamships of most lines running to distant foreign parts arecomparativelyeasy and steady in their motions, and there is really more chance of being attacked by themal de meron an English or Irish Channel boat than there is on the voyage across the Atlantic. The waves in such channels are more cut up and“choppy”than are those of the broad ocean. The employment of the twin-boat,Calais-Douvres, has mitigated much of the horrors of one of our Channel lines. It is curious to note the fact that Indians often use a couple of canoes in very much the same manner as did the designer of the doubled-hulled vessel just mentioned. The writer has seen, in the Straits of Fuca, natives conveying all their possessions on the top of planks, placed over and lashed to two canoes. One suggestion for the improvement of the steamboat service across the Channel to France is to construct an enormous vessel, 650 feet long and 150 wide, a ship as long as theGreat Easternand twice her beam, to be propelled by both paddles and screws. She is to be capable of carrying several trains, and is to have a roofed station on board, with all the necessary saloons. Floating platforms are to connect this great steam ferry-boat with the shore rails, so that it can start or arrive at any time of the tide.“Are you a good sailor?”asks one passenger of another just after leaving Liverpool.“Oh, I suppose I’m no worse than anybody else,”is, perhaps, the answer; while some are bold enough to answer,“Yes.”But Dickens noticed that the first day very few remained long over their wine, and that everybody developed an unusual love of the open air. Still, with the exception of one lady,“who had retired with some precipitation at[pg 7]dinner-time, immediately after being assisted to the finest cut of a very yellow boiled leg of mutton with very green capers,”there were few invalids the first night.The subject of sea sickness is an unpleasant one, and cannot occupy much space here. Every old and many a new traveller has a remedy for it, so possibly the mention of our mode of prevention may be permitted here. It is simply for the sufferer to wear a very tight belt round the waist. It has been recommended to many fellow-passengers, and its use has proved invariably beneficial. The unusual motion, and sometimes the smells of the vessel, are the cause of the nausea felt. The tightened belt steadies the whole body, and, provided the sufferer be not bilious, soon braces him up corporally and mentally. If heisbilious (which he often is on account of leave-takings and festivities prior to his departure) the worst thing possible is generally recommended him—the ordinary brandy on board.Veryfine old liqueur cognac in small doses can, however, be taken with advantage. An authority (Dr. Chapman) recommends the application of ice, enclosed in an india-rubber bag, to the spinal cord. In various travellers’ works, marmalade, cayenne pepper, port wine, chutnee, and West India pickles, are prescribed for the malady. The invalid would do much better by eating fresh or canned fruits of a cooling nature. But to return to the voyage. Dickens describes the first night at sea in feeling language.“To one accustomed to such scenes,”says he,“this is a very striking time on shipboard. Afterwards, and when its novelty had long worn off, it never ceased to have a peculiar interest and charm for me. The gloom through which the great black mass holds its direct and certain course; the rushing water, plainly heard, but dimly seen; the broad white glistening track that follows in the vessel’s wake; the men on the look-out forward, who would be scarcely visible against the dark sky but for their blotting out some score of glistening stars; the helmsman at the wheel, with the illuminated card before him shining, a speck of light amidst the darkness, like something sentient and of Divine intelligence; the melancholy sighing of the wind through block and rope and chain; the gleaming forth of light from every crevice, nook, and tiny piece of glass about the decks, as though the ship were filled with fire in hiding, ready to burst through any outlet, wild with its resistless power of death and ruin.”Irresistibly comic, as well as true, is his description of the ship during bad weather.“It is the third morning. I am awakened out of my sleep by a dismal shriek from my wife, who demands to know whether there’s any danger. I rouse myself and look out of bed. The water-jug is plunging and leaping like a lively dolphin; all the smaller articles are afloat, except my shoes, which are stranded on a carpet-bag, high and dry, like a couple of coal-barges. Suddenly I see them spring into the air, and behold the looking-glass, which is nailed to the wall, sticking fast upon the ceiling. At the same time the door entirely disappears, and a new one is opened in the floor. Then I begin to comprehend that the state-room is standing on its head.“Before it is possible to make any arrangement at all compatible with this novel state of things the ship rights. Before one can say‘Thank Heaven!’she wrongs again. Before one can cry sheiswrong, she seems to have started forward, and to be a creature actively running of its own accord, with broken knees and failing legs, through every variety of[pg 8]hole and pitfall, and stumbling constantly. * * * And so she goes on staggering, heaving, wrestling, leaping, diving, jumping, pitching, throbbing, rolling, and rocking, and going through all these movements sometimes by turns, and sometimes all together, until one feels disposed to roar for mercy.”Dickens gives a droll account of a ridiculous situation in which he was placed.“About midnight we shipped a sea, which forced its way through the skylights, burst open the doors above, and came raging and roaring down into the ladies’ cabin, to the unspeakable consternation of my wife and a little Scotch lady—who, by the way, had previously sent a message to the captain by the stewardess, requesting him, with her compliments, to have a steel conductor immediately attached to the top of every mast and to the chimney, in order that the ship might not be struck by lightning. They and the handmaid before-mentioned, being in such ecstasies of fear that I scarcely knew what to do with them, I naturally bethought myself of some restorative or comfortable cordial; and nothing better occurring to me at the moment than hot brandy-and-water, I procured a tumblerful without delay. It being impossible to stand or sit without holding on, they were all heaped together in one corner of a long sofa—a fixture extending entirely across the cabin—where they clung to each other, in momentary expectation of being drowned. When I approached this place with my specific, and was about to administer it, with many consolatory expressions, to the nearest sufferer, what was my dismay to see them all roll slowly down to the other end! And when I staggered to that end, and held out the glass once more, how immensely baffled were my good intentions by the ship giving another lurch, and their all rolling back again! I suppose I dodged them up and down this sofa for at least a quarter of an hour, without reaching them once; and by the time I did catch them the brandy-and-water was diminished by constant spilling to a tea-spoonful.”What a difference to the accommodations and comfort of most modern steamships, with their luxurious saloons placed amidships, where there is least motion; their spacious and airy state-rooms, warmed by steam, water laid on, and fitted with electric bells; their music-room with piano and harmonium, their smoking-room, bath-rooms, library, and even barber’s shop. The table is as well served as at the best hotel ashore, and themenufor the day is as extensive as that of a first-class restaurant, while everything that may be required in the drinkables, from modest bottled beer to rare old wine, is to be obtained from the steward. And provided that the passengers assimilate reasonably well, there will be enjoyable games, music, and possibly private theatricals and other regularly organised entertainments. The idea of a“Punch and Judy”in the middle of the Atlantic seems rather funny; but we have known of an instance in which even this form of amusement has been provided on board a great steamship! On long voyages it is not by any means uncommon for some one to start a MS. daily or weekly journal, to which many of the passengers contribute. Such have often been published afterwards for private circulation, as affording reminiscences of a pleasant voyage.Then there is the pleasure of discovering“a sail in sight,”and of watching it grow larger by degrees as the vessels approach each other. The“look out”is kept by some passengers almost as persistently as by the sailors detailed for the purpose. Perhaps, again, the captain or officers have let out the fact that they should pass one of their own or some rival company’s[pg 10]vessel that day. How many eyes are strained after that first mere thread of smoke on the horizon! What ringing cheers as the two great steamships near each other! What an amount of anxious enthusiasm when it is known that a boat is coming off from the other vessel, and what feverish excitement to learn all the news! They may have been seven or eight days without any, and in that time what may not have occurred in the history of nations!Then, again, the sea itself, in its varying beauty or grandeur, has for most travellers a great interest. Is there not a chance of seeing an iceberg, a whale, or even the great sea serpent?In March-April, 1869, the writer crossed the Atlantic in splendid weather. The ocean was, for the ten days occupied on the passage, almost literally as calm as a lake; even the lady passengers emerged from their cabins two or three days before they would otherwise have ventured forth. Among them was one lady seventy-five years of age, who was running away—so she informed the passengers—from her husband, and going to join her children in the States. This female had“stood it”for fifty years, but now, she said, she was going to end her days in peace. Here was a champion of“woman’s rights!”Alas! on arrival in New York there was no one to receive her, and she was taken back on board the steamer. What became of her afterwards we know not.THE STEERAGE OF AN ATLANTIC STEAMSHIP FORTY YEARS AGO.THE STEERAGE OF AN ATLANTIC STEAMSHIP FORTY YEARS AGO.The woes of steerage passengers have been graphically described by Charles Dickens. He tells us that“unquestionably any man who retained his cheerfulness among the steerage accommodations of that noble and fast-sailing packet, theScrew, was solely indebted to his own resources, and shipped his good humour like his provisions, without any contribution or assistance from the owners. A dark, low, stifling cabin, surrounded by berths filled to overflowing with men, women, and children, in various stages of sickness and misery, is not the liveliest place of assembly at any time; but when it is so crowded, as the steerage cabin of theScrewwas every passage out, that mattrasses and beds are heaped on the floor, to the extinction of everything like comfort, cleanliness, and decency, it is liable to operate not only as a pretty strong barrier against amiability of temper, but as a positive encourager of selfish and rough humours.”Dickens follows with a dismally correct picture of the passengers, with their shabby clothes, paltry stores of poor food and other supplies, and their wealth of family. He adds that every kind of suffering bred of poverty, illness, banishment, and tedious voyaging in bad weather was crammed into that confined space, and the picture, almost revolting in its naked truthfulness, was not overdrawn in those days. It could not be written, however, of any steerage whatever in our times, for partly from governmental care, partly from the general improvement in means of travel, partly from competition and the praiseworthy desire of the owners to earn a high character for their vessels’ accommodations, the steerage of to-day iscomparativelydecent; although it is not yet that which it should be, nor has the progress of improvement kept anything like pace with railway accommodation of the cheaper kind. Yet one would think it to the interest of owners5to make the steerage an endurable place of temporary abode.[pg 11]In 1879 nearly 118,000 steerage passengers left the port of Liverpool for the United States. It should be noted that this was fromoneport, undeniably the principal one for emigration, but still by no means the only British one used for that purpose. Observe further that it was for America alone that these emigrants were bound. According to the United States census of 1870, there were at that time 5,600,000 human beings in the country who were foreign born, and this number has since gone on increasing to a very large extent. Nine-tenths of them at the least crossed the Great Ferry in ships bearing the Union Jack, and of these, three-fourths or more crossed as steerage passengers. Hence the importance of the question.Latterly a considerable amount of attention has been given to the sub-division of the steerage space, so that, when practicable, friends and families may remain together. Married people and single women have now separate quarters. The sleeping accommodations are the weak point. They are simply rough wooden berths, and the passenger has to furnish his own bedding, as well as plate, mug, knife, fork, spoon, and water-can. The provisions are now-a-days generally ample, and on some lines are providedad libitum. The bill of fare is pretty usually as follows. Breakfast: coffee, fresh bread or biscuit, and butter,oroatmeal porridge and molasses; Dinner: soup, beef or pork, and potatoes—fish may be substituted for the meat; on Sunday pudding is often added; Tea: tea, biscuit and butter. Three quarts of fresh water are allowed daily. A passenger who has a few shillings to spend can often obtain a few extras from the steward, and many, of course, take a small stock of the minor luxuries of life on board with him.To those of small means who are contemplating emigration, the“Intermediate”(second-class) on board some of the Atlantic steamers to the States and Canada can be commended. For a couple of guineas over the steerage rates, excellent state-rooms, generally with four to six berths in each, furnished with bedding and lavatory arrangements, are provided. The intermediate passenger has a separate general saloon, and the table is well provided with good plain living. As the steerage passenger has to provide so many things for himself, it is almost as cheap to travel second-class.AT DINNER IN THE FIRST-CLASS DINING SALOON OF AN ATLANTIC STEAMSHIP DURING A STORM.AT DINNER IN THE FIRST-CLASS DINING SALOON OF AN ATLANTIC STEAMSHIP DURING A STORM.Almost every reader will remember Martin Chuzzlewit and Mark Tapley on board the wretchedScrew. How, for example,“the latter awoke with a dim idea that he was dreaming of having gone to sleep in a four-post bedstead which had turned bottom upwards in the course of the night,”for which there seemed some reason, as“the first objects he recognised when he opened his eyes were his own heels looking down at him, as he afterwards observed, from a nearly perpendicular elevation.”“This is the first time as ever I stood on my head all night,”observed Mark.The lesson taught by Dickens regarding the necessity of keeping up one’s spirits on board ship, and better, of helping to keep up those of others, as exemplified by poor Tapley, is a very important one. If anything willtestcharacter, life on board a crowded ship will do it. Who that has read can ever forget Mark, when he calls to the poor woman to“hand over one of them young ’uns, according to custom.”“‘I wish you’d get breakfast, Mark, instead of worrying with people who don’t belong to you,’observed Martin,petulantly.”“‘All right,’said Mark;‘she’lldo that. It’s a fair division of labour, sir. I wash her[pg 12]boys and she makes our tea. I nevercouldmake tea, but any one can wash a boy.’The woman, who was delicate and ill, felt and understood his kindness—as well she might, for she had been covered every night with his great coat, while he had for his own bed the bare boards and a rug.”“If a gleam of sun shone out of the dark sky,”continues Dickens,“down Mark tumbled into the cabin, and presently up he came again with a woman in his arms, or half-a-dozen children, or a man, or a bed, or a saucepan, or a basket, or something animate or inanimate that he thought would be the better for the air. If an hour or two of fine weather in the middle of the day tempted those who seldom or never came on deck at other times to crawl into the long-boat, or lie down upon the spare spars and try to eat, there in the centre of the group was Mr. Tapley, handing about salt beef and biscuit, or dispensing tastes of grog, or cutting up the children’s provisions with his pocket-knife for their greater ease and comfort, or reading aloud from a venerable newspaper, or singing some roaring old song to a select party, or writing the beginnings of letters to their friends at home for people who couldn’t write, or cracking jokes with the crew, or nearly getting blown over the side, or emerging half-drowned from a shower of spray, or lending a hand somewhere or other: but always doing something for the general entertainment.”NEW YORK BAY, LOOKING ACROSS TO STATEN ISLAND.NEW YORK BAY, LOOKING ACROSS TO STATEN ISLAND.[pg 13]Dickens drew his picture from life, and although an extreme case, there are many Mark Tapleys yet to be met. And indeed, unless the emigrant can remain happy and jovial amid the unmistakable hardships of even the best regulated steerage, he had better have stopped at home. If he can stand them well, he is of the stuff that will make a good colonist or settler, ready to“rough it”at any time. Before leaving the subject of steerage passengers and emigrants, it may be well to note that the United States Government does all in its power on their arrival in New York to protect them from imposition and furnish them with trustworthy information. At the depôt at Castle Gardens, where third-class passengers land, there are interpreters, money-changers, railway-ticket offices, and rooms for their accommodation; and it is very much their own fault if they slide into the pitfalls of New York—for New Yorkhaspitfalls, like every other great city.The risks of the voyage across the Atlantic are not really as great as those of ships passing southwards through the Bay of Biscay, which is the terror of passengers to Australia, India, China, and other points in the Orient. At the beginning of 1880 the fineS.S.Chimborazoreturned with difficulty to Plymouth, three persons having been washed overboard, and one killed from injuries received on board. Off Ushant a formidable gale arose, and the vessel began to roll heavily, while on the following morning the storm had become a hurricane, and the water was taken on board and below in volumes, threatening a fate similar to that experienced by theLondon. Just before 9A.M.an enormous sea broke over the ship, heeling her over and washing the deck with resistless force. The steam launch, six heavy boats, the smoking room, saloon companion, and everything on the spar deck, were in three seconds carried overboard among the breakers as though they were mere children’s toys, while, in addition to the losses of life already mentioned, seventeen other passengers were more or less injured. Just before the ship was struck the smoking-room was full of passengers, who were requested by the captain to leave it to give place to some helpless sheep who were floundering about, and to this fact they owed their lives.“As,”said a leading journal,“the stricken ship entered Plymouth Harbour on Tuesday morning, her shattered stanchions and skylights, her damaged steering apparatus, and the heap of wreckage lying upon her deck, proclaimed the fury of the tremendous ordeal through which she had passed, and awakened many a heartfelt and silent prayer of gratitude among her rescued passengers, as they contemplated the evidences of the peril from which they had so narrowly escaped.”It is in moments such as these that the poverty of human words is keenly felt. There can be no doubt that, but for the excellent seamanship displayed by Captain Trench and his officers there would have been a sadder story to relate.

[pg 1]THE SEA.CHAPTER I.The Great Atlantic Ferry.The“Grand Tour”of Former Days—The only Grand Tour left—Round the World in Eighty Days—Fresh-water Sailors and Nautical Ladies—Modern Steamships and their Speed—TheOrient—Rivals—Routes round the Globe—Sir John Mandeville on the Subject—Difficulties in some Directions—The Great Atlantic Ferry—Dickens’s Experiences—Sea Sickness—Night at Sea—The Ship Rights—And then Wrongs—A Ridiculous Situation—Modern First-class Accommodation—The Woes of the Steerage—Mark Tapley—Immense Emigration of Third-class Passengers—Discomfort and Misery—Efforts to Improve the Steerage—“Intermediate”—Castle Gardens, New York—Voyage safer than by the Bay of Biscay—TheChimborazoin a Hurricane.“Come, all ye jovial sailors,And listen unto me,While I do sing thetroublesOf those that plough the sea.”We all know what the“Grand Tour”meant a few generations ago, and how without it no gentleman’s education was considered complete. Now-a-days the journey can be made by almost any one who can command thirty or forty pounds, and the only really grand tour left is that around[pg 2]the world. M. Verne tells us—inferentially, at all events—that it can be made in eighty days, while Puck, as we know, speaks of putting a“girdle round the earth in forty minutes.”But this statement of the popular French author, like many others put forth in his graphic and picturesque works, must be takencum grano salis. Itcouldbe, undoubtedly, but it is very questionable whether any one has yet accomplished the feat. Could one ensure the absolute“connection”as it is technically termed, of all the steamship lines which would have to be employed it might be done; or better, one vessel with grand steaming and sailing qualities might perform the“Voyage Round the World”in the given time. But M. Jules Verne, it will be remembered, paints his hero as landing at various points, and as performing acts of bravery and chivalryen route, such as the episode of rescuing a Hindoo widow from the Suttee; finding time to lounge and drink in San Francisco“saloons,”and being attacked by Indians, who would wreck the overland train; and still, with all delays, he is able to reach London in time to win his wager. The very idea of describing a journey round the world as an act of eccentricity is peculiarly French. The Englishman who can afford to make it is especially envied by his friends, and not considered mildly mad. We have before us a list of books of travel, all published within the last few years, and in circulation at the ordinary libraries. Thirteen of these works describe voyages round the world, and they are mostly the productions of amateur rather than of professional writers. So easy, indeed, is the trip now-a-days, that two of these records are modestly and deprecatingly described as“Rambles,”while one of the best of them is the work of a clever and enthusiastic lady,1whose excellent husband, in and out of Parliament, has earnestly and persistently studied“poor Jack’s”best interests. This lady is evidently no fresh-water sailor, and would put to shame the land-lubber described in a very old song:—“A tar, all pitch, did loudly bawl, sir,‘All hands aloft!’—‘Sweet sir, not I.Though drowning I don’t fear at all, sir,I hate a rope exceedingly.’”2Another work, by a young lady in her teens, is entitled,“By Land and Ocean; or, the Journals and Letters of a Young Girl who went to South Australia with a Lady, thencealoneto Victoria, New Zealand, Sydney, Singapore, China, Japan, and across the Continent of America.”Perhaps the most remarkable, however, of modern female travellers is a German lady,3who left Paris with only seven and a half francs in her pocket, and yet managed to go round the entire globe. It must be admitted that she had many friends abroad who helped her, and passed her on to others who could and did assist her in every way. Still, the voyages and travels she made denote the possession of a goodly amount of pluck.The item of speed is of great importance, and may well be considered in connection with a voyage round the globe. Verne’s title would have been deemed the raving of a[pg 3]lunatic had it been published before the age of steam, while in the first days of that great power which has now revolutionised the world it would have been regarded as absurd. The wooden Cunarder which, forty years ago, conveyed Charles Dickens on his first trip to America took double the ordinary time occupied now in making the voyage; and as a journalist has said, between such a vessel“and such ships as theArizona(Guion line), theGermanic(White Star line), theCity of Berlin(Inman line), and theGallia(Allan line), there is undoubtedly not less difference than between the Edinburgh or Glasgow mail-coaches and a modern express train.”TheArizonahas made theroundtrip—that is, the voyage from Queenstown, Ireland, to Sandy Hook, New York, and back again—in fifteen days. The Inman line has been specially celebrated for quick passages, whilst their“crack”steamer, theCity of Berlin, has made the single trip outwards in seven days, fourteen hours, and twelve minutes, and inwards in seven days, fifteen hours, and forty-eight minutes. TheCity of Brusselsand theCity of Richmondhave done nearly as well, while other steamships of the same line have made the trip in a very few hours and minutes more time. Think of considering minutes in a voyage of 3,000 miles! The magnificent steamship named after the Orient Company has made the voyage from England to Australia in thirty-seven and a half days, or not very far from half the time occupied by other steamships a few years ago. This grand vessel is said to be only exceeded in size by theGreat Eastern; she has a displacement of 9,500 tons and indicated horse-power of 5,400, and carries coal enough for her entire voyage—some 3,000 to 4,000 tons. But she is not to remain unchallenged, for, at the time these pages are being written, the Barrow Shipbuilding Company is constructing for the Inman line Atlantic service a still larger iron vessel, with engines of 8,500 horse-power, capable of propelling her at the rate of sixteen or seventeen knots; she will have four masts and three funnels. And yet another vessel of equal or greater power has been put on the stocks for the Cunard Company. Again, the largeststeelsteamship, or ship of any kind, has been launched at Dumbarton. She is intended largely for the cattle trade between the River Plate, Canada, and England. She is over 4,000 gross tonnage, and has been christened theBuenos Ayrean. The sums of money invested in the construction of these superb vessels are enormous. TheOrientis said to have cost,withouther fittings, little less than £150,000, her engines alone involving the expenditure of one-third of that amount. And yet a third-class or steerage ticket to the Antipodes by her costs only fifteen guineas, while the emigrant can go out to the United States or Canada by almost any one of the finest steamships of the various Atlantic services for six guineas.Many routes might, of course, be taken round the world, England being the eventual goal in all cases. As quaint Sir John Mandeville says, in the first chapter of his“Travels”:—“In the Name of God Glorious and Allemyghty, he that wil passe over the See to go to the City of Jerusalem, he may go by many Weyes, bothe on See and Lande, aftre the Contree that hee cometh fro: manye of hem comen to an ende. But troweth not that I wil telle you alle the Townes and Cytees and Castelles that Men schaslle go by: for then scholde I make to longe a Tale; but alle only summe Contrees and most princypalle Stedes that Men schulle gone thorgh, to gon the righte Way.”“Although,”says Mr. Simpson, the popular artist, in his work entitled“Meeting[pg 4]the Sun,”“the reference here is to Jerusalem only, yet in the Prologue he states that he was born in the‘Town of Seynt Albanes,’and‘passed the See in the Yeer of Lord Jesu ChristMCCCXII, in the Day of Seynt Michelle, and hidne to have ben longe tyme over the See, and have reign and gon thorgh manye diverse Landes and many Provynces and Kingdomes and Iles, and have passed throghe Tartarye, Percye, Ermonye, the litylle and the gret; throghe Lybye, Caldee, and a gret partie of Ethiope, throghe Amazoyne, Inde the lasse and the more, a gret partie; and thorghe out many others Iles, that ben abouten Inde; where dwellen many dyverse Folkes, and of dyverse Maneres and Lawes, and of dyverse Schappes of Men.’”He adds further on in his“Boke”that going all round the world was not unknown even before his time.“The world is wide,”yet the practical lines for a journey of this sort are very limited. There is the Siberian overland route, leading by St. Petersburg, Moscow, from which it goes about straight east through Siberia to Lake Baikal; and then there is about a month’s journey south, over the Mongolian Desert to Peking; or it may be varied by descending the great Amoor River, on which the Russians have a number of steamers, to Nicolaiefsk; thence sailing to San Francisco, and home by America and the Atlantic.“When,”says Mr. Simpson,“the Shah and Baron Reuter have made railways through Persia it may[pg 5]add slightly to the choice; perhaps when Russia civilises the whole of Central Asia it may open up a new route as far as China; but till that happy period, unless the traveller is willing, and at the same time able, to become a dervish, or something of that sort, like M. Vambéry, he had better not take the chance of risk in these regions. Many attempts have been made to pass from India to China, andvice versâ, but as yet no one has succeeded. The difficulties of such an enterprise are very great, not so much from the races of people as from the physical character of that region of the earth. These difficulties can, however, be overcome; and in evidence of this, we have perhaps one of the most wonderful expeditions of modern times in the journey of the two Jesuit missionaries, Huc and Gabet, from Peking to Lhassa. When they were ordered to leave the capital of the Great Lama, they wished to do so in the direction of Calcutta, as being by far the nearest, and, at the same time, the easiest way; but in vain. By a policy rigidly insisted upon by the Chinese Government, no one is allowed to pass anywhere along the frontiers between China and India.”This writer adds, that when travelling in Tibet he heard of many parties who wished to cross the frontier in that quarter, with the purpose only of having a few days’ shooting of some particular animal which they wanted to bring home; but he never knew of any one who was able to gratify his wish. One man told him that he had taken some pieces of very bright red cloth and other tempting bribes for the officials on the Chinese side, but it was all to no purpose.“It is not easy to understand why this intense jealousy should exist, but about the fact there can be no doubt.”But dismissing any and all ideas of journeying by land through Europe, Asia, or Africa, our trip will be almost entirely by sea, the trans-continental route across America being excepted. Practically that route is to-day the best if you would reach quickly and pleasantly any part of the Pacific. The great railway is an enormous link binding the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans together. The Suez Canal and the Panama route have been mentioned in these pages—the first very fully; and place must certainly be had for a description of a railroad which is so intimately connected with the sea. But first we must reach it.The passage across the“Great Atlantic Ferry”is now one of ease, and in the case of first-class passengers almost luxury. How different was it about forty years ago, even on the best steamships of that period! Charles Dickens has graphically described his experiences on board theBritannia, one of the earliest of the Cunard fleet, in one of his least-read works4—at least in the present generation. The little cupboard dignified by the name of“state-room;”the dingy saloon likened“to a gigantic hearse with windows in the sides;”the melancholy stove at which the forlorn stewards were rubbing their hands; the stewardess, whom Dickens blesses“for her piously fraudulent account of January voyages;”the excitement before leaving the dock; the captain’s boat and the dapper little captain; the last late mail bags, and the departure, are all sketched from nature, as the great novelist alone could depict them. And now they are off.“‘The sea! the sea! the open sea!That is the place where we all wish to be,Rolling about so merrily!’So all sing and say, by night and by day,[pg 6]In theboudoir, the street, at the concert, and play,In a sort of coxcombical roundelay.You may roam through the City, transversely or straight,From Whitechapel turnpike to Cumberland Gate,And every young lady who thrums a guitar,Every mustachioed shopman who smokes a cigar,With affected devotion, promulgates his notion,Of being a“Rover”and“Child of the Ocean”—Whate’er their age, sex, or condition may be,They all of them long for the“Wide, wide sea!”But however they dote, only set them afloat,In any craft bigger at all than a boat,Take them down to the Nore, and you’ll see that beforeThe“wessel”they“woyage”in has made half her wayBetween Shellness Point and the pier at Herne Bay,Let the wind meet the tide in the slightest degree,They’ll be all of them heartily sick of the sea!”So says“Ingoldsby,”and it is, no doubt, true of some London Jack Tars and Cheapside buccaneers, who, on leaving port, are much more nautically“got up”than any of the crew. These stage sailors become very limp when the sea-water takes the starch out of them. Barham tells us of one Anthony Blogg:—“So I’ll merely observe, as the water grew rougherThe more my poor hero continued to suffer,Till the sailors themselves cried, in pity,‘Poor buffer!’”The great steamships of most lines running to distant foreign parts arecomparativelyeasy and steady in their motions, and there is really more chance of being attacked by themal de meron an English or Irish Channel boat than there is on the voyage across the Atlantic. The waves in such channels are more cut up and“choppy”than are those of the broad ocean. The employment of the twin-boat,Calais-Douvres, has mitigated much of the horrors of one of our Channel lines. It is curious to note the fact that Indians often use a couple of canoes in very much the same manner as did the designer of the doubled-hulled vessel just mentioned. The writer has seen, in the Straits of Fuca, natives conveying all their possessions on the top of planks, placed over and lashed to two canoes. One suggestion for the improvement of the steamboat service across the Channel to France is to construct an enormous vessel, 650 feet long and 150 wide, a ship as long as theGreat Easternand twice her beam, to be propelled by both paddles and screws. She is to be capable of carrying several trains, and is to have a roofed station on board, with all the necessary saloons. Floating platforms are to connect this great steam ferry-boat with the shore rails, so that it can start or arrive at any time of the tide.“Are you a good sailor?”asks one passenger of another just after leaving Liverpool.“Oh, I suppose I’m no worse than anybody else,”is, perhaps, the answer; while some are bold enough to answer,“Yes.”But Dickens noticed that the first day very few remained long over their wine, and that everybody developed an unusual love of the open air. Still, with the exception of one lady,“who had retired with some precipitation at[pg 7]dinner-time, immediately after being assisted to the finest cut of a very yellow boiled leg of mutton with very green capers,”there were few invalids the first night.The subject of sea sickness is an unpleasant one, and cannot occupy much space here. Every old and many a new traveller has a remedy for it, so possibly the mention of our mode of prevention may be permitted here. It is simply for the sufferer to wear a very tight belt round the waist. It has been recommended to many fellow-passengers, and its use has proved invariably beneficial. The unusual motion, and sometimes the smells of the vessel, are the cause of the nausea felt. The tightened belt steadies the whole body, and, provided the sufferer be not bilious, soon braces him up corporally and mentally. If heisbilious (which he often is on account of leave-takings and festivities prior to his departure) the worst thing possible is generally recommended him—the ordinary brandy on board.Veryfine old liqueur cognac in small doses can, however, be taken with advantage. An authority (Dr. Chapman) recommends the application of ice, enclosed in an india-rubber bag, to the spinal cord. In various travellers’ works, marmalade, cayenne pepper, port wine, chutnee, and West India pickles, are prescribed for the malady. The invalid would do much better by eating fresh or canned fruits of a cooling nature. But to return to the voyage. Dickens describes the first night at sea in feeling language.“To one accustomed to such scenes,”says he,“this is a very striking time on shipboard. Afterwards, and when its novelty had long worn off, it never ceased to have a peculiar interest and charm for me. The gloom through which the great black mass holds its direct and certain course; the rushing water, plainly heard, but dimly seen; the broad white glistening track that follows in the vessel’s wake; the men on the look-out forward, who would be scarcely visible against the dark sky but for their blotting out some score of glistening stars; the helmsman at the wheel, with the illuminated card before him shining, a speck of light amidst the darkness, like something sentient and of Divine intelligence; the melancholy sighing of the wind through block and rope and chain; the gleaming forth of light from every crevice, nook, and tiny piece of glass about the decks, as though the ship were filled with fire in hiding, ready to burst through any outlet, wild with its resistless power of death and ruin.”Irresistibly comic, as well as true, is his description of the ship during bad weather.“It is the third morning. I am awakened out of my sleep by a dismal shriek from my wife, who demands to know whether there’s any danger. I rouse myself and look out of bed. The water-jug is plunging and leaping like a lively dolphin; all the smaller articles are afloat, except my shoes, which are stranded on a carpet-bag, high and dry, like a couple of coal-barges. Suddenly I see them spring into the air, and behold the looking-glass, which is nailed to the wall, sticking fast upon the ceiling. At the same time the door entirely disappears, and a new one is opened in the floor. Then I begin to comprehend that the state-room is standing on its head.“Before it is possible to make any arrangement at all compatible with this novel state of things the ship rights. Before one can say‘Thank Heaven!’she wrongs again. Before one can cry sheiswrong, she seems to have started forward, and to be a creature actively running of its own accord, with broken knees and failing legs, through every variety of[pg 8]hole and pitfall, and stumbling constantly. * * * And so she goes on staggering, heaving, wrestling, leaping, diving, jumping, pitching, throbbing, rolling, and rocking, and going through all these movements sometimes by turns, and sometimes all together, until one feels disposed to roar for mercy.”Dickens gives a droll account of a ridiculous situation in which he was placed.“About midnight we shipped a sea, which forced its way through the skylights, burst open the doors above, and came raging and roaring down into the ladies’ cabin, to the unspeakable consternation of my wife and a little Scotch lady—who, by the way, had previously sent a message to the captain by the stewardess, requesting him, with her compliments, to have a steel conductor immediately attached to the top of every mast and to the chimney, in order that the ship might not be struck by lightning. They and the handmaid before-mentioned, being in such ecstasies of fear that I scarcely knew what to do with them, I naturally bethought myself of some restorative or comfortable cordial; and nothing better occurring to me at the moment than hot brandy-and-water, I procured a tumblerful without delay. It being impossible to stand or sit without holding on, they were all heaped together in one corner of a long sofa—a fixture extending entirely across the cabin—where they clung to each other, in momentary expectation of being drowned. When I approached this place with my specific, and was about to administer it, with many consolatory expressions, to the nearest sufferer, what was my dismay to see them all roll slowly down to the other end! And when I staggered to that end, and held out the glass once more, how immensely baffled were my good intentions by the ship giving another lurch, and their all rolling back again! I suppose I dodged them up and down this sofa for at least a quarter of an hour, without reaching them once; and by the time I did catch them the brandy-and-water was diminished by constant spilling to a tea-spoonful.”What a difference to the accommodations and comfort of most modern steamships, with their luxurious saloons placed amidships, where there is least motion; their spacious and airy state-rooms, warmed by steam, water laid on, and fitted with electric bells; their music-room with piano and harmonium, their smoking-room, bath-rooms, library, and even barber’s shop. The table is as well served as at the best hotel ashore, and themenufor the day is as extensive as that of a first-class restaurant, while everything that may be required in the drinkables, from modest bottled beer to rare old wine, is to be obtained from the steward. And provided that the passengers assimilate reasonably well, there will be enjoyable games, music, and possibly private theatricals and other regularly organised entertainments. The idea of a“Punch and Judy”in the middle of the Atlantic seems rather funny; but we have known of an instance in which even this form of amusement has been provided on board a great steamship! On long voyages it is not by any means uncommon for some one to start a MS. daily or weekly journal, to which many of the passengers contribute. Such have often been published afterwards for private circulation, as affording reminiscences of a pleasant voyage.Then there is the pleasure of discovering“a sail in sight,”and of watching it grow larger by degrees as the vessels approach each other. The“look out”is kept by some passengers almost as persistently as by the sailors detailed for the purpose. Perhaps, again, the captain or officers have let out the fact that they should pass one of their own or some rival company’s[pg 10]vessel that day. How many eyes are strained after that first mere thread of smoke on the horizon! What ringing cheers as the two great steamships near each other! What an amount of anxious enthusiasm when it is known that a boat is coming off from the other vessel, and what feverish excitement to learn all the news! They may have been seven or eight days without any, and in that time what may not have occurred in the history of nations!Then, again, the sea itself, in its varying beauty or grandeur, has for most travellers a great interest. Is there not a chance of seeing an iceberg, a whale, or even the great sea serpent?In March-April, 1869, the writer crossed the Atlantic in splendid weather. The ocean was, for the ten days occupied on the passage, almost literally as calm as a lake; even the lady passengers emerged from their cabins two or three days before they would otherwise have ventured forth. Among them was one lady seventy-five years of age, who was running away—so she informed the passengers—from her husband, and going to join her children in the States. This female had“stood it”for fifty years, but now, she said, she was going to end her days in peace. Here was a champion of“woman’s rights!”Alas! on arrival in New York there was no one to receive her, and she was taken back on board the steamer. What became of her afterwards we know not.THE STEERAGE OF AN ATLANTIC STEAMSHIP FORTY YEARS AGO.THE STEERAGE OF AN ATLANTIC STEAMSHIP FORTY YEARS AGO.The woes of steerage passengers have been graphically described by Charles Dickens. He tells us that“unquestionably any man who retained his cheerfulness among the steerage accommodations of that noble and fast-sailing packet, theScrew, was solely indebted to his own resources, and shipped his good humour like his provisions, without any contribution or assistance from the owners. A dark, low, stifling cabin, surrounded by berths filled to overflowing with men, women, and children, in various stages of sickness and misery, is not the liveliest place of assembly at any time; but when it is so crowded, as the steerage cabin of theScrewwas every passage out, that mattrasses and beds are heaped on the floor, to the extinction of everything like comfort, cleanliness, and decency, it is liable to operate not only as a pretty strong barrier against amiability of temper, but as a positive encourager of selfish and rough humours.”Dickens follows with a dismally correct picture of the passengers, with their shabby clothes, paltry stores of poor food and other supplies, and their wealth of family. He adds that every kind of suffering bred of poverty, illness, banishment, and tedious voyaging in bad weather was crammed into that confined space, and the picture, almost revolting in its naked truthfulness, was not overdrawn in those days. It could not be written, however, of any steerage whatever in our times, for partly from governmental care, partly from the general improvement in means of travel, partly from competition and the praiseworthy desire of the owners to earn a high character for their vessels’ accommodations, the steerage of to-day iscomparativelydecent; although it is not yet that which it should be, nor has the progress of improvement kept anything like pace with railway accommodation of the cheaper kind. Yet one would think it to the interest of owners5to make the steerage an endurable place of temporary abode.[pg 11]In 1879 nearly 118,000 steerage passengers left the port of Liverpool for the United States. It should be noted that this was fromoneport, undeniably the principal one for emigration, but still by no means the only British one used for that purpose. Observe further that it was for America alone that these emigrants were bound. According to the United States census of 1870, there were at that time 5,600,000 human beings in the country who were foreign born, and this number has since gone on increasing to a very large extent. Nine-tenths of them at the least crossed the Great Ferry in ships bearing the Union Jack, and of these, three-fourths or more crossed as steerage passengers. Hence the importance of the question.Latterly a considerable amount of attention has been given to the sub-division of the steerage space, so that, when practicable, friends and families may remain together. Married people and single women have now separate quarters. The sleeping accommodations are the weak point. They are simply rough wooden berths, and the passenger has to furnish his own bedding, as well as plate, mug, knife, fork, spoon, and water-can. The provisions are now-a-days generally ample, and on some lines are providedad libitum. The bill of fare is pretty usually as follows. Breakfast: coffee, fresh bread or biscuit, and butter,oroatmeal porridge and molasses; Dinner: soup, beef or pork, and potatoes—fish may be substituted for the meat; on Sunday pudding is often added; Tea: tea, biscuit and butter. Three quarts of fresh water are allowed daily. A passenger who has a few shillings to spend can often obtain a few extras from the steward, and many, of course, take a small stock of the minor luxuries of life on board with him.To those of small means who are contemplating emigration, the“Intermediate”(second-class) on board some of the Atlantic steamers to the States and Canada can be commended. For a couple of guineas over the steerage rates, excellent state-rooms, generally with four to six berths in each, furnished with bedding and lavatory arrangements, are provided. The intermediate passenger has a separate general saloon, and the table is well provided with good plain living. As the steerage passenger has to provide so many things for himself, it is almost as cheap to travel second-class.AT DINNER IN THE FIRST-CLASS DINING SALOON OF AN ATLANTIC STEAMSHIP DURING A STORM.AT DINNER IN THE FIRST-CLASS DINING SALOON OF AN ATLANTIC STEAMSHIP DURING A STORM.Almost every reader will remember Martin Chuzzlewit and Mark Tapley on board the wretchedScrew. How, for example,“the latter awoke with a dim idea that he was dreaming of having gone to sleep in a four-post bedstead which had turned bottom upwards in the course of the night,”for which there seemed some reason, as“the first objects he recognised when he opened his eyes were his own heels looking down at him, as he afterwards observed, from a nearly perpendicular elevation.”“This is the first time as ever I stood on my head all night,”observed Mark.The lesson taught by Dickens regarding the necessity of keeping up one’s spirits on board ship, and better, of helping to keep up those of others, as exemplified by poor Tapley, is a very important one. If anything willtestcharacter, life on board a crowded ship will do it. Who that has read can ever forget Mark, when he calls to the poor woman to“hand over one of them young ’uns, according to custom.”“‘I wish you’d get breakfast, Mark, instead of worrying with people who don’t belong to you,’observed Martin,petulantly.”“‘All right,’said Mark;‘she’lldo that. It’s a fair division of labour, sir. I wash her[pg 12]boys and she makes our tea. I nevercouldmake tea, but any one can wash a boy.’The woman, who was delicate and ill, felt and understood his kindness—as well she might, for she had been covered every night with his great coat, while he had for his own bed the bare boards and a rug.”“If a gleam of sun shone out of the dark sky,”continues Dickens,“down Mark tumbled into the cabin, and presently up he came again with a woman in his arms, or half-a-dozen children, or a man, or a bed, or a saucepan, or a basket, or something animate or inanimate that he thought would be the better for the air. If an hour or two of fine weather in the middle of the day tempted those who seldom or never came on deck at other times to crawl into the long-boat, or lie down upon the spare spars and try to eat, there in the centre of the group was Mr. Tapley, handing about salt beef and biscuit, or dispensing tastes of grog, or cutting up the children’s provisions with his pocket-knife for their greater ease and comfort, or reading aloud from a venerable newspaper, or singing some roaring old song to a select party, or writing the beginnings of letters to their friends at home for people who couldn’t write, or cracking jokes with the crew, or nearly getting blown over the side, or emerging half-drowned from a shower of spray, or lending a hand somewhere or other: but always doing something for the general entertainment.”NEW YORK BAY, LOOKING ACROSS TO STATEN ISLAND.NEW YORK BAY, LOOKING ACROSS TO STATEN ISLAND.[pg 13]Dickens drew his picture from life, and although an extreme case, there are many Mark Tapleys yet to be met. And indeed, unless the emigrant can remain happy and jovial amid the unmistakable hardships of even the best regulated steerage, he had better have stopped at home. If he can stand them well, he is of the stuff that will make a good colonist or settler, ready to“rough it”at any time. Before leaving the subject of steerage passengers and emigrants, it may be well to note that the United States Government does all in its power on their arrival in New York to protect them from imposition and furnish them with trustworthy information. At the depôt at Castle Gardens, where third-class passengers land, there are interpreters, money-changers, railway-ticket offices, and rooms for their accommodation; and it is very much their own fault if they slide into the pitfalls of New York—for New Yorkhaspitfalls, like every other great city.The risks of the voyage across the Atlantic are not really as great as those of ships passing southwards through the Bay of Biscay, which is the terror of passengers to Australia, India, China, and other points in the Orient. At the beginning of 1880 the fineS.S.Chimborazoreturned with difficulty to Plymouth, three persons having been washed overboard, and one killed from injuries received on board. Off Ushant a formidable gale arose, and the vessel began to roll heavily, while on the following morning the storm had become a hurricane, and the water was taken on board and below in volumes, threatening a fate similar to that experienced by theLondon. Just before 9A.M.an enormous sea broke over the ship, heeling her over and washing the deck with resistless force. The steam launch, six heavy boats, the smoking room, saloon companion, and everything on the spar deck, were in three seconds carried overboard among the breakers as though they were mere children’s toys, while, in addition to the losses of life already mentioned, seventeen other passengers were more or less injured. Just before the ship was struck the smoking-room was full of passengers, who were requested by the captain to leave it to give place to some helpless sheep who were floundering about, and to this fact they owed their lives.“As,”said a leading journal,“the stricken ship entered Plymouth Harbour on Tuesday morning, her shattered stanchions and skylights, her damaged steering apparatus, and the heap of wreckage lying upon her deck, proclaimed the fury of the tremendous ordeal through which she had passed, and awakened many a heartfelt and silent prayer of gratitude among her rescued passengers, as they contemplated the evidences of the peril from which they had so narrowly escaped.”It is in moments such as these that the poverty of human words is keenly felt. There can be no doubt that, but for the excellent seamanship displayed by Captain Trench and his officers there would have been a sadder story to relate.

CHAPTER I.The Great Atlantic Ferry.The“Grand Tour”of Former Days—The only Grand Tour left—Round the World in Eighty Days—Fresh-water Sailors and Nautical Ladies—Modern Steamships and their Speed—TheOrient—Rivals—Routes round the Globe—Sir John Mandeville on the Subject—Difficulties in some Directions—The Great Atlantic Ferry—Dickens’s Experiences—Sea Sickness—Night at Sea—The Ship Rights—And then Wrongs—A Ridiculous Situation—Modern First-class Accommodation—The Woes of the Steerage—Mark Tapley—Immense Emigration of Third-class Passengers—Discomfort and Misery—Efforts to Improve the Steerage—“Intermediate”—Castle Gardens, New York—Voyage safer than by the Bay of Biscay—TheChimborazoin a Hurricane.“Come, all ye jovial sailors,And listen unto me,While I do sing thetroublesOf those that plough the sea.”We all know what the“Grand Tour”meant a few generations ago, and how without it no gentleman’s education was considered complete. Now-a-days the journey can be made by almost any one who can command thirty or forty pounds, and the only really grand tour left is that around[pg 2]the world. M. Verne tells us—inferentially, at all events—that it can be made in eighty days, while Puck, as we know, speaks of putting a“girdle round the earth in forty minutes.”But this statement of the popular French author, like many others put forth in his graphic and picturesque works, must be takencum grano salis. Itcouldbe, undoubtedly, but it is very questionable whether any one has yet accomplished the feat. Could one ensure the absolute“connection”as it is technically termed, of all the steamship lines which would have to be employed it might be done; or better, one vessel with grand steaming and sailing qualities might perform the“Voyage Round the World”in the given time. But M. Jules Verne, it will be remembered, paints his hero as landing at various points, and as performing acts of bravery and chivalryen route, such as the episode of rescuing a Hindoo widow from the Suttee; finding time to lounge and drink in San Francisco“saloons,”and being attacked by Indians, who would wreck the overland train; and still, with all delays, he is able to reach London in time to win his wager. The very idea of describing a journey round the world as an act of eccentricity is peculiarly French. The Englishman who can afford to make it is especially envied by his friends, and not considered mildly mad. We have before us a list of books of travel, all published within the last few years, and in circulation at the ordinary libraries. Thirteen of these works describe voyages round the world, and they are mostly the productions of amateur rather than of professional writers. So easy, indeed, is the trip now-a-days, that two of these records are modestly and deprecatingly described as“Rambles,”while one of the best of them is the work of a clever and enthusiastic lady,1whose excellent husband, in and out of Parliament, has earnestly and persistently studied“poor Jack’s”best interests. This lady is evidently no fresh-water sailor, and would put to shame the land-lubber described in a very old song:—“A tar, all pitch, did loudly bawl, sir,‘All hands aloft!’—‘Sweet sir, not I.Though drowning I don’t fear at all, sir,I hate a rope exceedingly.’”2Another work, by a young lady in her teens, is entitled,“By Land and Ocean; or, the Journals and Letters of a Young Girl who went to South Australia with a Lady, thencealoneto Victoria, New Zealand, Sydney, Singapore, China, Japan, and across the Continent of America.”Perhaps the most remarkable, however, of modern female travellers is a German lady,3who left Paris with only seven and a half francs in her pocket, and yet managed to go round the entire globe. It must be admitted that she had many friends abroad who helped her, and passed her on to others who could and did assist her in every way. Still, the voyages and travels she made denote the possession of a goodly amount of pluck.The item of speed is of great importance, and may well be considered in connection with a voyage round the globe. Verne’s title would have been deemed the raving of a[pg 3]lunatic had it been published before the age of steam, while in the first days of that great power which has now revolutionised the world it would have been regarded as absurd. The wooden Cunarder which, forty years ago, conveyed Charles Dickens on his first trip to America took double the ordinary time occupied now in making the voyage; and as a journalist has said, between such a vessel“and such ships as theArizona(Guion line), theGermanic(White Star line), theCity of Berlin(Inman line), and theGallia(Allan line), there is undoubtedly not less difference than between the Edinburgh or Glasgow mail-coaches and a modern express train.”TheArizonahas made theroundtrip—that is, the voyage from Queenstown, Ireland, to Sandy Hook, New York, and back again—in fifteen days. The Inman line has been specially celebrated for quick passages, whilst their“crack”steamer, theCity of Berlin, has made the single trip outwards in seven days, fourteen hours, and twelve minutes, and inwards in seven days, fifteen hours, and forty-eight minutes. TheCity of Brusselsand theCity of Richmondhave done nearly as well, while other steamships of the same line have made the trip in a very few hours and minutes more time. Think of considering minutes in a voyage of 3,000 miles! The magnificent steamship named after the Orient Company has made the voyage from England to Australia in thirty-seven and a half days, or not very far from half the time occupied by other steamships a few years ago. This grand vessel is said to be only exceeded in size by theGreat Eastern; she has a displacement of 9,500 tons and indicated horse-power of 5,400, and carries coal enough for her entire voyage—some 3,000 to 4,000 tons. But she is not to remain unchallenged, for, at the time these pages are being written, the Barrow Shipbuilding Company is constructing for the Inman line Atlantic service a still larger iron vessel, with engines of 8,500 horse-power, capable of propelling her at the rate of sixteen or seventeen knots; she will have four masts and three funnels. And yet another vessel of equal or greater power has been put on the stocks for the Cunard Company. Again, the largeststeelsteamship, or ship of any kind, has been launched at Dumbarton. She is intended largely for the cattle trade between the River Plate, Canada, and England. She is over 4,000 gross tonnage, and has been christened theBuenos Ayrean. The sums of money invested in the construction of these superb vessels are enormous. TheOrientis said to have cost,withouther fittings, little less than £150,000, her engines alone involving the expenditure of one-third of that amount. And yet a third-class or steerage ticket to the Antipodes by her costs only fifteen guineas, while the emigrant can go out to the United States or Canada by almost any one of the finest steamships of the various Atlantic services for six guineas.Many routes might, of course, be taken round the world, England being the eventual goal in all cases. As quaint Sir John Mandeville says, in the first chapter of his“Travels”:—“In the Name of God Glorious and Allemyghty, he that wil passe over the See to go to the City of Jerusalem, he may go by many Weyes, bothe on See and Lande, aftre the Contree that hee cometh fro: manye of hem comen to an ende. But troweth not that I wil telle you alle the Townes and Cytees and Castelles that Men schaslle go by: for then scholde I make to longe a Tale; but alle only summe Contrees and most princypalle Stedes that Men schulle gone thorgh, to gon the righte Way.”“Although,”says Mr. Simpson, the popular artist, in his work entitled“Meeting[pg 4]the Sun,”“the reference here is to Jerusalem only, yet in the Prologue he states that he was born in the‘Town of Seynt Albanes,’and‘passed the See in the Yeer of Lord Jesu ChristMCCCXII, in the Day of Seynt Michelle, and hidne to have ben longe tyme over the See, and have reign and gon thorgh manye diverse Landes and many Provynces and Kingdomes and Iles, and have passed throghe Tartarye, Percye, Ermonye, the litylle and the gret; throghe Lybye, Caldee, and a gret partie of Ethiope, throghe Amazoyne, Inde the lasse and the more, a gret partie; and thorghe out many others Iles, that ben abouten Inde; where dwellen many dyverse Folkes, and of dyverse Maneres and Lawes, and of dyverse Schappes of Men.’”He adds further on in his“Boke”that going all round the world was not unknown even before his time.“The world is wide,”yet the practical lines for a journey of this sort are very limited. There is the Siberian overland route, leading by St. Petersburg, Moscow, from which it goes about straight east through Siberia to Lake Baikal; and then there is about a month’s journey south, over the Mongolian Desert to Peking; or it may be varied by descending the great Amoor River, on which the Russians have a number of steamers, to Nicolaiefsk; thence sailing to San Francisco, and home by America and the Atlantic.“When,”says Mr. Simpson,“the Shah and Baron Reuter have made railways through Persia it may[pg 5]add slightly to the choice; perhaps when Russia civilises the whole of Central Asia it may open up a new route as far as China; but till that happy period, unless the traveller is willing, and at the same time able, to become a dervish, or something of that sort, like M. Vambéry, he had better not take the chance of risk in these regions. Many attempts have been made to pass from India to China, andvice versâ, but as yet no one has succeeded. The difficulties of such an enterprise are very great, not so much from the races of people as from the physical character of that region of the earth. These difficulties can, however, be overcome; and in evidence of this, we have perhaps one of the most wonderful expeditions of modern times in the journey of the two Jesuit missionaries, Huc and Gabet, from Peking to Lhassa. When they were ordered to leave the capital of the Great Lama, they wished to do so in the direction of Calcutta, as being by far the nearest, and, at the same time, the easiest way; but in vain. By a policy rigidly insisted upon by the Chinese Government, no one is allowed to pass anywhere along the frontiers between China and India.”This writer adds, that when travelling in Tibet he heard of many parties who wished to cross the frontier in that quarter, with the purpose only of having a few days’ shooting of some particular animal which they wanted to bring home; but he never knew of any one who was able to gratify his wish. One man told him that he had taken some pieces of very bright red cloth and other tempting bribes for the officials on the Chinese side, but it was all to no purpose.“It is not easy to understand why this intense jealousy should exist, but about the fact there can be no doubt.”But dismissing any and all ideas of journeying by land through Europe, Asia, or Africa, our trip will be almost entirely by sea, the trans-continental route across America being excepted. Practically that route is to-day the best if you would reach quickly and pleasantly any part of the Pacific. The great railway is an enormous link binding the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans together. The Suez Canal and the Panama route have been mentioned in these pages—the first very fully; and place must certainly be had for a description of a railroad which is so intimately connected with the sea. But first we must reach it.The passage across the“Great Atlantic Ferry”is now one of ease, and in the case of first-class passengers almost luxury. How different was it about forty years ago, even on the best steamships of that period! Charles Dickens has graphically described his experiences on board theBritannia, one of the earliest of the Cunard fleet, in one of his least-read works4—at least in the present generation. The little cupboard dignified by the name of“state-room;”the dingy saloon likened“to a gigantic hearse with windows in the sides;”the melancholy stove at which the forlorn stewards were rubbing their hands; the stewardess, whom Dickens blesses“for her piously fraudulent account of January voyages;”the excitement before leaving the dock; the captain’s boat and the dapper little captain; the last late mail bags, and the departure, are all sketched from nature, as the great novelist alone could depict them. And now they are off.“‘The sea! the sea! the open sea!That is the place where we all wish to be,Rolling about so merrily!’So all sing and say, by night and by day,[pg 6]In theboudoir, the street, at the concert, and play,In a sort of coxcombical roundelay.You may roam through the City, transversely or straight,From Whitechapel turnpike to Cumberland Gate,And every young lady who thrums a guitar,Every mustachioed shopman who smokes a cigar,With affected devotion, promulgates his notion,Of being a“Rover”and“Child of the Ocean”—Whate’er their age, sex, or condition may be,They all of them long for the“Wide, wide sea!”But however they dote, only set them afloat,In any craft bigger at all than a boat,Take them down to the Nore, and you’ll see that beforeThe“wessel”they“woyage”in has made half her wayBetween Shellness Point and the pier at Herne Bay,Let the wind meet the tide in the slightest degree,They’ll be all of them heartily sick of the sea!”So says“Ingoldsby,”and it is, no doubt, true of some London Jack Tars and Cheapside buccaneers, who, on leaving port, are much more nautically“got up”than any of the crew. These stage sailors become very limp when the sea-water takes the starch out of them. Barham tells us of one Anthony Blogg:—“So I’ll merely observe, as the water grew rougherThe more my poor hero continued to suffer,Till the sailors themselves cried, in pity,‘Poor buffer!’”The great steamships of most lines running to distant foreign parts arecomparativelyeasy and steady in their motions, and there is really more chance of being attacked by themal de meron an English or Irish Channel boat than there is on the voyage across the Atlantic. The waves in such channels are more cut up and“choppy”than are those of the broad ocean. The employment of the twin-boat,Calais-Douvres, has mitigated much of the horrors of one of our Channel lines. It is curious to note the fact that Indians often use a couple of canoes in very much the same manner as did the designer of the doubled-hulled vessel just mentioned. The writer has seen, in the Straits of Fuca, natives conveying all their possessions on the top of planks, placed over and lashed to two canoes. One suggestion for the improvement of the steamboat service across the Channel to France is to construct an enormous vessel, 650 feet long and 150 wide, a ship as long as theGreat Easternand twice her beam, to be propelled by both paddles and screws. She is to be capable of carrying several trains, and is to have a roofed station on board, with all the necessary saloons. Floating platforms are to connect this great steam ferry-boat with the shore rails, so that it can start or arrive at any time of the tide.“Are you a good sailor?”asks one passenger of another just after leaving Liverpool.“Oh, I suppose I’m no worse than anybody else,”is, perhaps, the answer; while some are bold enough to answer,“Yes.”But Dickens noticed that the first day very few remained long over their wine, and that everybody developed an unusual love of the open air. Still, with the exception of one lady,“who had retired with some precipitation at[pg 7]dinner-time, immediately after being assisted to the finest cut of a very yellow boiled leg of mutton with very green capers,”there were few invalids the first night.The subject of sea sickness is an unpleasant one, and cannot occupy much space here. Every old and many a new traveller has a remedy for it, so possibly the mention of our mode of prevention may be permitted here. It is simply for the sufferer to wear a very tight belt round the waist. It has been recommended to many fellow-passengers, and its use has proved invariably beneficial. The unusual motion, and sometimes the smells of the vessel, are the cause of the nausea felt. The tightened belt steadies the whole body, and, provided the sufferer be not bilious, soon braces him up corporally and mentally. If heisbilious (which he often is on account of leave-takings and festivities prior to his departure) the worst thing possible is generally recommended him—the ordinary brandy on board.Veryfine old liqueur cognac in small doses can, however, be taken with advantage. An authority (Dr. Chapman) recommends the application of ice, enclosed in an india-rubber bag, to the spinal cord. In various travellers’ works, marmalade, cayenne pepper, port wine, chutnee, and West India pickles, are prescribed for the malady. The invalid would do much better by eating fresh or canned fruits of a cooling nature. But to return to the voyage. Dickens describes the first night at sea in feeling language.“To one accustomed to such scenes,”says he,“this is a very striking time on shipboard. Afterwards, and when its novelty had long worn off, it never ceased to have a peculiar interest and charm for me. The gloom through which the great black mass holds its direct and certain course; the rushing water, plainly heard, but dimly seen; the broad white glistening track that follows in the vessel’s wake; the men on the look-out forward, who would be scarcely visible against the dark sky but for their blotting out some score of glistening stars; the helmsman at the wheel, with the illuminated card before him shining, a speck of light amidst the darkness, like something sentient and of Divine intelligence; the melancholy sighing of the wind through block and rope and chain; the gleaming forth of light from every crevice, nook, and tiny piece of glass about the decks, as though the ship were filled with fire in hiding, ready to burst through any outlet, wild with its resistless power of death and ruin.”Irresistibly comic, as well as true, is his description of the ship during bad weather.“It is the third morning. I am awakened out of my sleep by a dismal shriek from my wife, who demands to know whether there’s any danger. I rouse myself and look out of bed. The water-jug is plunging and leaping like a lively dolphin; all the smaller articles are afloat, except my shoes, which are stranded on a carpet-bag, high and dry, like a couple of coal-barges. Suddenly I see them spring into the air, and behold the looking-glass, which is nailed to the wall, sticking fast upon the ceiling. At the same time the door entirely disappears, and a new one is opened in the floor. Then I begin to comprehend that the state-room is standing on its head.“Before it is possible to make any arrangement at all compatible with this novel state of things the ship rights. Before one can say‘Thank Heaven!’she wrongs again. Before one can cry sheiswrong, she seems to have started forward, and to be a creature actively running of its own accord, with broken knees and failing legs, through every variety of[pg 8]hole and pitfall, and stumbling constantly. * * * And so she goes on staggering, heaving, wrestling, leaping, diving, jumping, pitching, throbbing, rolling, and rocking, and going through all these movements sometimes by turns, and sometimes all together, until one feels disposed to roar for mercy.”Dickens gives a droll account of a ridiculous situation in which he was placed.“About midnight we shipped a sea, which forced its way through the skylights, burst open the doors above, and came raging and roaring down into the ladies’ cabin, to the unspeakable consternation of my wife and a little Scotch lady—who, by the way, had previously sent a message to the captain by the stewardess, requesting him, with her compliments, to have a steel conductor immediately attached to the top of every mast and to the chimney, in order that the ship might not be struck by lightning. They and the handmaid before-mentioned, being in such ecstasies of fear that I scarcely knew what to do with them, I naturally bethought myself of some restorative or comfortable cordial; and nothing better occurring to me at the moment than hot brandy-and-water, I procured a tumblerful without delay. It being impossible to stand or sit without holding on, they were all heaped together in one corner of a long sofa—a fixture extending entirely across the cabin—where they clung to each other, in momentary expectation of being drowned. When I approached this place with my specific, and was about to administer it, with many consolatory expressions, to the nearest sufferer, what was my dismay to see them all roll slowly down to the other end! And when I staggered to that end, and held out the glass once more, how immensely baffled were my good intentions by the ship giving another lurch, and their all rolling back again! I suppose I dodged them up and down this sofa for at least a quarter of an hour, without reaching them once; and by the time I did catch them the brandy-and-water was diminished by constant spilling to a tea-spoonful.”What a difference to the accommodations and comfort of most modern steamships, with their luxurious saloons placed amidships, where there is least motion; their spacious and airy state-rooms, warmed by steam, water laid on, and fitted with electric bells; their music-room with piano and harmonium, their smoking-room, bath-rooms, library, and even barber’s shop. The table is as well served as at the best hotel ashore, and themenufor the day is as extensive as that of a first-class restaurant, while everything that may be required in the drinkables, from modest bottled beer to rare old wine, is to be obtained from the steward. And provided that the passengers assimilate reasonably well, there will be enjoyable games, music, and possibly private theatricals and other regularly organised entertainments. The idea of a“Punch and Judy”in the middle of the Atlantic seems rather funny; but we have known of an instance in which even this form of amusement has been provided on board a great steamship! On long voyages it is not by any means uncommon for some one to start a MS. daily or weekly journal, to which many of the passengers contribute. Such have often been published afterwards for private circulation, as affording reminiscences of a pleasant voyage.Then there is the pleasure of discovering“a sail in sight,”and of watching it grow larger by degrees as the vessels approach each other. The“look out”is kept by some passengers almost as persistently as by the sailors detailed for the purpose. Perhaps, again, the captain or officers have let out the fact that they should pass one of their own or some rival company’s[pg 10]vessel that day. How many eyes are strained after that first mere thread of smoke on the horizon! What ringing cheers as the two great steamships near each other! What an amount of anxious enthusiasm when it is known that a boat is coming off from the other vessel, and what feverish excitement to learn all the news! They may have been seven or eight days without any, and in that time what may not have occurred in the history of nations!Then, again, the sea itself, in its varying beauty or grandeur, has for most travellers a great interest. Is there not a chance of seeing an iceberg, a whale, or even the great sea serpent?In March-April, 1869, the writer crossed the Atlantic in splendid weather. The ocean was, for the ten days occupied on the passage, almost literally as calm as a lake; even the lady passengers emerged from their cabins two or three days before they would otherwise have ventured forth. Among them was one lady seventy-five years of age, who was running away—so she informed the passengers—from her husband, and going to join her children in the States. This female had“stood it”for fifty years, but now, she said, she was going to end her days in peace. Here was a champion of“woman’s rights!”Alas! on arrival in New York there was no one to receive her, and she was taken back on board the steamer. What became of her afterwards we know not.THE STEERAGE OF AN ATLANTIC STEAMSHIP FORTY YEARS AGO.THE STEERAGE OF AN ATLANTIC STEAMSHIP FORTY YEARS AGO.The woes of steerage passengers have been graphically described by Charles Dickens. He tells us that“unquestionably any man who retained his cheerfulness among the steerage accommodations of that noble and fast-sailing packet, theScrew, was solely indebted to his own resources, and shipped his good humour like his provisions, without any contribution or assistance from the owners. A dark, low, stifling cabin, surrounded by berths filled to overflowing with men, women, and children, in various stages of sickness and misery, is not the liveliest place of assembly at any time; but when it is so crowded, as the steerage cabin of theScrewwas every passage out, that mattrasses and beds are heaped on the floor, to the extinction of everything like comfort, cleanliness, and decency, it is liable to operate not only as a pretty strong barrier against amiability of temper, but as a positive encourager of selfish and rough humours.”Dickens follows with a dismally correct picture of the passengers, with their shabby clothes, paltry stores of poor food and other supplies, and their wealth of family. He adds that every kind of suffering bred of poverty, illness, banishment, and tedious voyaging in bad weather was crammed into that confined space, and the picture, almost revolting in its naked truthfulness, was not overdrawn in those days. It could not be written, however, of any steerage whatever in our times, for partly from governmental care, partly from the general improvement in means of travel, partly from competition and the praiseworthy desire of the owners to earn a high character for their vessels’ accommodations, the steerage of to-day iscomparativelydecent; although it is not yet that which it should be, nor has the progress of improvement kept anything like pace with railway accommodation of the cheaper kind. Yet one would think it to the interest of owners5to make the steerage an endurable place of temporary abode.[pg 11]In 1879 nearly 118,000 steerage passengers left the port of Liverpool for the United States. It should be noted that this was fromoneport, undeniably the principal one for emigration, but still by no means the only British one used for that purpose. Observe further that it was for America alone that these emigrants were bound. According to the United States census of 1870, there were at that time 5,600,000 human beings in the country who were foreign born, and this number has since gone on increasing to a very large extent. Nine-tenths of them at the least crossed the Great Ferry in ships bearing the Union Jack, and of these, three-fourths or more crossed as steerage passengers. Hence the importance of the question.Latterly a considerable amount of attention has been given to the sub-division of the steerage space, so that, when practicable, friends and families may remain together. Married people and single women have now separate quarters. The sleeping accommodations are the weak point. They are simply rough wooden berths, and the passenger has to furnish his own bedding, as well as plate, mug, knife, fork, spoon, and water-can. The provisions are now-a-days generally ample, and on some lines are providedad libitum. The bill of fare is pretty usually as follows. Breakfast: coffee, fresh bread or biscuit, and butter,oroatmeal porridge and molasses; Dinner: soup, beef or pork, and potatoes—fish may be substituted for the meat; on Sunday pudding is often added; Tea: tea, biscuit and butter. Three quarts of fresh water are allowed daily. A passenger who has a few shillings to spend can often obtain a few extras from the steward, and many, of course, take a small stock of the minor luxuries of life on board with him.To those of small means who are contemplating emigration, the“Intermediate”(second-class) on board some of the Atlantic steamers to the States and Canada can be commended. For a couple of guineas over the steerage rates, excellent state-rooms, generally with four to six berths in each, furnished with bedding and lavatory arrangements, are provided. The intermediate passenger has a separate general saloon, and the table is well provided with good plain living. As the steerage passenger has to provide so many things for himself, it is almost as cheap to travel second-class.AT DINNER IN THE FIRST-CLASS DINING SALOON OF AN ATLANTIC STEAMSHIP DURING A STORM.AT DINNER IN THE FIRST-CLASS DINING SALOON OF AN ATLANTIC STEAMSHIP DURING A STORM.Almost every reader will remember Martin Chuzzlewit and Mark Tapley on board the wretchedScrew. How, for example,“the latter awoke with a dim idea that he was dreaming of having gone to sleep in a four-post bedstead which had turned bottom upwards in the course of the night,”for which there seemed some reason, as“the first objects he recognised when he opened his eyes were his own heels looking down at him, as he afterwards observed, from a nearly perpendicular elevation.”“This is the first time as ever I stood on my head all night,”observed Mark.The lesson taught by Dickens regarding the necessity of keeping up one’s spirits on board ship, and better, of helping to keep up those of others, as exemplified by poor Tapley, is a very important one. If anything willtestcharacter, life on board a crowded ship will do it. Who that has read can ever forget Mark, when he calls to the poor woman to“hand over one of them young ’uns, according to custom.”“‘I wish you’d get breakfast, Mark, instead of worrying with people who don’t belong to you,’observed Martin,petulantly.”“‘All right,’said Mark;‘she’lldo that. It’s a fair division of labour, sir. I wash her[pg 12]boys and she makes our tea. I nevercouldmake tea, but any one can wash a boy.’The woman, who was delicate and ill, felt and understood his kindness—as well she might, for she had been covered every night with his great coat, while he had for his own bed the bare boards and a rug.”“If a gleam of sun shone out of the dark sky,”continues Dickens,“down Mark tumbled into the cabin, and presently up he came again with a woman in his arms, or half-a-dozen children, or a man, or a bed, or a saucepan, or a basket, or something animate or inanimate that he thought would be the better for the air. If an hour or two of fine weather in the middle of the day tempted those who seldom or never came on deck at other times to crawl into the long-boat, or lie down upon the spare spars and try to eat, there in the centre of the group was Mr. Tapley, handing about salt beef and biscuit, or dispensing tastes of grog, or cutting up the children’s provisions with his pocket-knife for their greater ease and comfort, or reading aloud from a venerable newspaper, or singing some roaring old song to a select party, or writing the beginnings of letters to their friends at home for people who couldn’t write, or cracking jokes with the crew, or nearly getting blown over the side, or emerging half-drowned from a shower of spray, or lending a hand somewhere or other: but always doing something for the general entertainment.”NEW YORK BAY, LOOKING ACROSS TO STATEN ISLAND.NEW YORK BAY, LOOKING ACROSS TO STATEN ISLAND.[pg 13]Dickens drew his picture from life, and although an extreme case, there are many Mark Tapleys yet to be met. And indeed, unless the emigrant can remain happy and jovial amid the unmistakable hardships of even the best regulated steerage, he had better have stopped at home. If he can stand them well, he is of the stuff that will make a good colonist or settler, ready to“rough it”at any time. Before leaving the subject of steerage passengers and emigrants, it may be well to note that the United States Government does all in its power on their arrival in New York to protect them from imposition and furnish them with trustworthy information. At the depôt at Castle Gardens, where third-class passengers land, there are interpreters, money-changers, railway-ticket offices, and rooms for their accommodation; and it is very much their own fault if they slide into the pitfalls of New York—for New Yorkhaspitfalls, like every other great city.The risks of the voyage across the Atlantic are not really as great as those of ships passing southwards through the Bay of Biscay, which is the terror of passengers to Australia, India, China, and other points in the Orient. At the beginning of 1880 the fineS.S.Chimborazoreturned with difficulty to Plymouth, three persons having been washed overboard, and one killed from injuries received on board. Off Ushant a formidable gale arose, and the vessel began to roll heavily, while on the following morning the storm had become a hurricane, and the water was taken on board and below in volumes, threatening a fate similar to that experienced by theLondon. Just before 9A.M.an enormous sea broke over the ship, heeling her over and washing the deck with resistless force. The steam launch, six heavy boats, the smoking room, saloon companion, and everything on the spar deck, were in three seconds carried overboard among the breakers as though they were mere children’s toys, while, in addition to the losses of life already mentioned, seventeen other passengers were more or less injured. Just before the ship was struck the smoking-room was full of passengers, who were requested by the captain to leave it to give place to some helpless sheep who were floundering about, and to this fact they owed their lives.“As,”said a leading journal,“the stricken ship entered Plymouth Harbour on Tuesday morning, her shattered stanchions and skylights, her damaged steering apparatus, and the heap of wreckage lying upon her deck, proclaimed the fury of the tremendous ordeal through which she had passed, and awakened many a heartfelt and silent prayer of gratitude among her rescued passengers, as they contemplated the evidences of the peril from which they had so narrowly escaped.”It is in moments such as these that the poverty of human words is keenly felt. There can be no doubt that, but for the excellent seamanship displayed by Captain Trench and his officers there would have been a sadder story to relate.

The“Grand Tour”of Former Days—The only Grand Tour left—Round the World in Eighty Days—Fresh-water Sailors and Nautical Ladies—Modern Steamships and their Speed—TheOrient—Rivals—Routes round the Globe—Sir John Mandeville on the Subject—Difficulties in some Directions—The Great Atlantic Ferry—Dickens’s Experiences—Sea Sickness—Night at Sea—The Ship Rights—And then Wrongs—A Ridiculous Situation—Modern First-class Accommodation—The Woes of the Steerage—Mark Tapley—Immense Emigration of Third-class Passengers—Discomfort and Misery—Efforts to Improve the Steerage—“Intermediate”—Castle Gardens, New York—Voyage safer than by the Bay of Biscay—TheChimborazoin a Hurricane.“Come, all ye jovial sailors,And listen unto me,While I do sing thetroublesOf those that plough the sea.”

The“Grand Tour”of Former Days—The only Grand Tour left—Round the World in Eighty Days—Fresh-water Sailors and Nautical Ladies—Modern Steamships and their Speed—TheOrient—Rivals—Routes round the Globe—Sir John Mandeville on the Subject—Difficulties in some Directions—The Great Atlantic Ferry—Dickens’s Experiences—Sea Sickness—Night at Sea—The Ship Rights—And then Wrongs—A Ridiculous Situation—Modern First-class Accommodation—The Woes of the Steerage—Mark Tapley—Immense Emigration of Third-class Passengers—Discomfort and Misery—Efforts to Improve the Steerage—“Intermediate”—Castle Gardens, New York—Voyage safer than by the Bay of Biscay—TheChimborazoin a Hurricane.

“Come, all ye jovial sailors,And listen unto me,While I do sing thetroublesOf those that plough the sea.”

“Come, all ye jovial sailors,

And listen unto me,

While I do sing thetroubles

Of those that plough the sea.”

We all know what the“Grand Tour”meant a few generations ago, and how without it no gentleman’s education was considered complete. Now-a-days the journey can be made by almost any one who can command thirty or forty pounds, and the only really grand tour left is that around[pg 2]the world. M. Verne tells us—inferentially, at all events—that it can be made in eighty days, while Puck, as we know, speaks of putting a“girdle round the earth in forty minutes.”But this statement of the popular French author, like many others put forth in his graphic and picturesque works, must be takencum grano salis. Itcouldbe, undoubtedly, but it is very questionable whether any one has yet accomplished the feat. Could one ensure the absolute“connection”as it is technically termed, of all the steamship lines which would have to be employed it might be done; or better, one vessel with grand steaming and sailing qualities might perform the“Voyage Round the World”in the given time. But M. Jules Verne, it will be remembered, paints his hero as landing at various points, and as performing acts of bravery and chivalryen route, such as the episode of rescuing a Hindoo widow from the Suttee; finding time to lounge and drink in San Francisco“saloons,”and being attacked by Indians, who would wreck the overland train; and still, with all delays, he is able to reach London in time to win his wager. The very idea of describing a journey round the world as an act of eccentricity is peculiarly French. The Englishman who can afford to make it is especially envied by his friends, and not considered mildly mad. We have before us a list of books of travel, all published within the last few years, and in circulation at the ordinary libraries. Thirteen of these works describe voyages round the world, and they are mostly the productions of amateur rather than of professional writers. So easy, indeed, is the trip now-a-days, that two of these records are modestly and deprecatingly described as“Rambles,”while one of the best of them is the work of a clever and enthusiastic lady,1whose excellent husband, in and out of Parliament, has earnestly and persistently studied“poor Jack’s”best interests. This lady is evidently no fresh-water sailor, and would put to shame the land-lubber described in a very old song:—

“A tar, all pitch, did loudly bawl, sir,‘All hands aloft!’—‘Sweet sir, not I.Though drowning I don’t fear at all, sir,I hate a rope exceedingly.’”2

“A tar, all pitch, did loudly bawl, sir,

‘All hands aloft!’—‘Sweet sir, not I.

Though drowning I don’t fear at all, sir,

I hate a rope exceedingly.’”2

Another work, by a young lady in her teens, is entitled,“By Land and Ocean; or, the Journals and Letters of a Young Girl who went to South Australia with a Lady, thencealoneto Victoria, New Zealand, Sydney, Singapore, China, Japan, and across the Continent of America.”Perhaps the most remarkable, however, of modern female travellers is a German lady,3who left Paris with only seven and a half francs in her pocket, and yet managed to go round the entire globe. It must be admitted that she had many friends abroad who helped her, and passed her on to others who could and did assist her in every way. Still, the voyages and travels she made denote the possession of a goodly amount of pluck.

The item of speed is of great importance, and may well be considered in connection with a voyage round the globe. Verne’s title would have been deemed the raving of a[pg 3]lunatic had it been published before the age of steam, while in the first days of that great power which has now revolutionised the world it would have been regarded as absurd. The wooden Cunarder which, forty years ago, conveyed Charles Dickens on his first trip to America took double the ordinary time occupied now in making the voyage; and as a journalist has said, between such a vessel“and such ships as theArizona(Guion line), theGermanic(White Star line), theCity of Berlin(Inman line), and theGallia(Allan line), there is undoubtedly not less difference than between the Edinburgh or Glasgow mail-coaches and a modern express train.”TheArizonahas made theroundtrip—that is, the voyage from Queenstown, Ireland, to Sandy Hook, New York, and back again—in fifteen days. The Inman line has been specially celebrated for quick passages, whilst their“crack”steamer, theCity of Berlin, has made the single trip outwards in seven days, fourteen hours, and twelve minutes, and inwards in seven days, fifteen hours, and forty-eight minutes. TheCity of Brusselsand theCity of Richmondhave done nearly as well, while other steamships of the same line have made the trip in a very few hours and minutes more time. Think of considering minutes in a voyage of 3,000 miles! The magnificent steamship named after the Orient Company has made the voyage from England to Australia in thirty-seven and a half days, or not very far from half the time occupied by other steamships a few years ago. This grand vessel is said to be only exceeded in size by theGreat Eastern; she has a displacement of 9,500 tons and indicated horse-power of 5,400, and carries coal enough for her entire voyage—some 3,000 to 4,000 tons. But she is not to remain unchallenged, for, at the time these pages are being written, the Barrow Shipbuilding Company is constructing for the Inman line Atlantic service a still larger iron vessel, with engines of 8,500 horse-power, capable of propelling her at the rate of sixteen or seventeen knots; she will have four masts and three funnels. And yet another vessel of equal or greater power has been put on the stocks for the Cunard Company. Again, the largeststeelsteamship, or ship of any kind, has been launched at Dumbarton. She is intended largely for the cattle trade between the River Plate, Canada, and England. She is over 4,000 gross tonnage, and has been christened theBuenos Ayrean. The sums of money invested in the construction of these superb vessels are enormous. TheOrientis said to have cost,withouther fittings, little less than £150,000, her engines alone involving the expenditure of one-third of that amount. And yet a third-class or steerage ticket to the Antipodes by her costs only fifteen guineas, while the emigrant can go out to the United States or Canada by almost any one of the finest steamships of the various Atlantic services for six guineas.

Many routes might, of course, be taken round the world, England being the eventual goal in all cases. As quaint Sir John Mandeville says, in the first chapter of his“Travels”:—“In the Name of God Glorious and Allemyghty, he that wil passe over the See to go to the City of Jerusalem, he may go by many Weyes, bothe on See and Lande, aftre the Contree that hee cometh fro: manye of hem comen to an ende. But troweth not that I wil telle you alle the Townes and Cytees and Castelles that Men schaslle go by: for then scholde I make to longe a Tale; but alle only summe Contrees and most princypalle Stedes that Men schulle gone thorgh, to gon the righte Way.”

“Although,”says Mr. Simpson, the popular artist, in his work entitled“Meeting[pg 4]the Sun,”“the reference here is to Jerusalem only, yet in the Prologue he states that he was born in the‘Town of Seynt Albanes,’and‘passed the See in the Yeer of Lord Jesu ChristMCCCXII, in the Day of Seynt Michelle, and hidne to have ben longe tyme over the See, and have reign and gon thorgh manye diverse Landes and many Provynces and Kingdomes and Iles, and have passed throghe Tartarye, Percye, Ermonye, the litylle and the gret; throghe Lybye, Caldee, and a gret partie of Ethiope, throghe Amazoyne, Inde the lasse and the more, a gret partie; and thorghe out many others Iles, that ben abouten Inde; where dwellen many dyverse Folkes, and of dyverse Maneres and Lawes, and of dyverse Schappes of Men.’”He adds further on in his“Boke”that going all round the world was not unknown even before his time.

“The world is wide,”yet the practical lines for a journey of this sort are very limited. There is the Siberian overland route, leading by St. Petersburg, Moscow, from which it goes about straight east through Siberia to Lake Baikal; and then there is about a month’s journey south, over the Mongolian Desert to Peking; or it may be varied by descending the great Amoor River, on which the Russians have a number of steamers, to Nicolaiefsk; thence sailing to San Francisco, and home by America and the Atlantic.“When,”says Mr. Simpson,“the Shah and Baron Reuter have made railways through Persia it may[pg 5]add slightly to the choice; perhaps when Russia civilises the whole of Central Asia it may open up a new route as far as China; but till that happy period, unless the traveller is willing, and at the same time able, to become a dervish, or something of that sort, like M. Vambéry, he had better not take the chance of risk in these regions. Many attempts have been made to pass from India to China, andvice versâ, but as yet no one has succeeded. The difficulties of such an enterprise are very great, not so much from the races of people as from the physical character of that region of the earth. These difficulties can, however, be overcome; and in evidence of this, we have perhaps one of the most wonderful expeditions of modern times in the journey of the two Jesuit missionaries, Huc and Gabet, from Peking to Lhassa. When they were ordered to leave the capital of the Great Lama, they wished to do so in the direction of Calcutta, as being by far the nearest, and, at the same time, the easiest way; but in vain. By a policy rigidly insisted upon by the Chinese Government, no one is allowed to pass anywhere along the frontiers between China and India.”This writer adds, that when travelling in Tibet he heard of many parties who wished to cross the frontier in that quarter, with the purpose only of having a few days’ shooting of some particular animal which they wanted to bring home; but he never knew of any one who was able to gratify his wish. One man told him that he had taken some pieces of very bright red cloth and other tempting bribes for the officials on the Chinese side, but it was all to no purpose.“It is not easy to understand why this intense jealousy should exist, but about the fact there can be no doubt.”

But dismissing any and all ideas of journeying by land through Europe, Asia, or Africa, our trip will be almost entirely by sea, the trans-continental route across America being excepted. Practically that route is to-day the best if you would reach quickly and pleasantly any part of the Pacific. The great railway is an enormous link binding the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans together. The Suez Canal and the Panama route have been mentioned in these pages—the first very fully; and place must certainly be had for a description of a railroad which is so intimately connected with the sea. But first we must reach it.

The passage across the“Great Atlantic Ferry”is now one of ease, and in the case of first-class passengers almost luxury. How different was it about forty years ago, even on the best steamships of that period! Charles Dickens has graphically described his experiences on board theBritannia, one of the earliest of the Cunard fleet, in one of his least-read works4—at least in the present generation. The little cupboard dignified by the name of“state-room;”the dingy saloon likened“to a gigantic hearse with windows in the sides;”the melancholy stove at which the forlorn stewards were rubbing their hands; the stewardess, whom Dickens blesses“for her piously fraudulent account of January voyages;”the excitement before leaving the dock; the captain’s boat and the dapper little captain; the last late mail bags, and the departure, are all sketched from nature, as the great novelist alone could depict them. And now they are off.

“‘The sea! the sea! the open sea!That is the place where we all wish to be,Rolling about so merrily!’So all sing and say, by night and by day,[pg 6]In theboudoir, the street, at the concert, and play,In a sort of coxcombical roundelay.You may roam through the City, transversely or straight,From Whitechapel turnpike to Cumberland Gate,And every young lady who thrums a guitar,Every mustachioed shopman who smokes a cigar,With affected devotion, promulgates his notion,Of being a“Rover”and“Child of the Ocean”—Whate’er their age, sex, or condition may be,They all of them long for the“Wide, wide sea!”But however they dote, only set them afloat,In any craft bigger at all than a boat,Take them down to the Nore, and you’ll see that beforeThe“wessel”they“woyage”in has made half her wayBetween Shellness Point and the pier at Herne Bay,Let the wind meet the tide in the slightest degree,They’ll be all of them heartily sick of the sea!”

“‘The sea! the sea! the open sea!

That is the place where we all wish to be,

Rolling about so merrily!’

So all sing and say, by night and by day,

In theboudoir, the street, at the concert, and play,

In a sort of coxcombical roundelay.

You may roam through the City, transversely or straight,

From Whitechapel turnpike to Cumberland Gate,

And every young lady who thrums a guitar,

Every mustachioed shopman who smokes a cigar,

With affected devotion, promulgates his notion,

Of being a“Rover”and“Child of the Ocean”—

Whate’er their age, sex, or condition may be,

They all of them long for the“Wide, wide sea!”

But however they dote, only set them afloat,

In any craft bigger at all than a boat,

Take them down to the Nore, and you’ll see that before

The“wessel”they“woyage”in has made half her way

Between Shellness Point and the pier at Herne Bay,

Let the wind meet the tide in the slightest degree,

They’ll be all of them heartily sick of the sea!”

So says“Ingoldsby,”and it is, no doubt, true of some London Jack Tars and Cheapside buccaneers, who, on leaving port, are much more nautically“got up”than any of the crew. These stage sailors become very limp when the sea-water takes the starch out of them. Barham tells us of one Anthony Blogg:—

“So I’ll merely observe, as the water grew rougherThe more my poor hero continued to suffer,Till the sailors themselves cried, in pity,‘Poor buffer!’”

“So I’ll merely observe, as the water grew rougher

The more my poor hero continued to suffer,

Till the sailors themselves cried, in pity,‘Poor buffer!’”

The great steamships of most lines running to distant foreign parts arecomparativelyeasy and steady in their motions, and there is really more chance of being attacked by themal de meron an English or Irish Channel boat than there is on the voyage across the Atlantic. The waves in such channels are more cut up and“choppy”than are those of the broad ocean. The employment of the twin-boat,Calais-Douvres, has mitigated much of the horrors of one of our Channel lines. It is curious to note the fact that Indians often use a couple of canoes in very much the same manner as did the designer of the doubled-hulled vessel just mentioned. The writer has seen, in the Straits of Fuca, natives conveying all their possessions on the top of planks, placed over and lashed to two canoes. One suggestion for the improvement of the steamboat service across the Channel to France is to construct an enormous vessel, 650 feet long and 150 wide, a ship as long as theGreat Easternand twice her beam, to be propelled by both paddles and screws. She is to be capable of carrying several trains, and is to have a roofed station on board, with all the necessary saloons. Floating platforms are to connect this great steam ferry-boat with the shore rails, so that it can start or arrive at any time of the tide.

“Are you a good sailor?”asks one passenger of another just after leaving Liverpool.“Oh, I suppose I’m no worse than anybody else,”is, perhaps, the answer; while some are bold enough to answer,“Yes.”But Dickens noticed that the first day very few remained long over their wine, and that everybody developed an unusual love of the open air. Still, with the exception of one lady,“who had retired with some precipitation at[pg 7]dinner-time, immediately after being assisted to the finest cut of a very yellow boiled leg of mutton with very green capers,”there were few invalids the first night.

The subject of sea sickness is an unpleasant one, and cannot occupy much space here. Every old and many a new traveller has a remedy for it, so possibly the mention of our mode of prevention may be permitted here. It is simply for the sufferer to wear a very tight belt round the waist. It has been recommended to many fellow-passengers, and its use has proved invariably beneficial. The unusual motion, and sometimes the smells of the vessel, are the cause of the nausea felt. The tightened belt steadies the whole body, and, provided the sufferer be not bilious, soon braces him up corporally and mentally. If heisbilious (which he often is on account of leave-takings and festivities prior to his departure) the worst thing possible is generally recommended him—the ordinary brandy on board.Veryfine old liqueur cognac in small doses can, however, be taken with advantage. An authority (Dr. Chapman) recommends the application of ice, enclosed in an india-rubber bag, to the spinal cord. In various travellers’ works, marmalade, cayenne pepper, port wine, chutnee, and West India pickles, are prescribed for the malady. The invalid would do much better by eating fresh or canned fruits of a cooling nature. But to return to the voyage. Dickens describes the first night at sea in feeling language.

“To one accustomed to such scenes,”says he,“this is a very striking time on shipboard. Afterwards, and when its novelty had long worn off, it never ceased to have a peculiar interest and charm for me. The gloom through which the great black mass holds its direct and certain course; the rushing water, plainly heard, but dimly seen; the broad white glistening track that follows in the vessel’s wake; the men on the look-out forward, who would be scarcely visible against the dark sky but for their blotting out some score of glistening stars; the helmsman at the wheel, with the illuminated card before him shining, a speck of light amidst the darkness, like something sentient and of Divine intelligence; the melancholy sighing of the wind through block and rope and chain; the gleaming forth of light from every crevice, nook, and tiny piece of glass about the decks, as though the ship were filled with fire in hiding, ready to burst through any outlet, wild with its resistless power of death and ruin.”

Irresistibly comic, as well as true, is his description of the ship during bad weather.“It is the third morning. I am awakened out of my sleep by a dismal shriek from my wife, who demands to know whether there’s any danger. I rouse myself and look out of bed. The water-jug is plunging and leaping like a lively dolphin; all the smaller articles are afloat, except my shoes, which are stranded on a carpet-bag, high and dry, like a couple of coal-barges. Suddenly I see them spring into the air, and behold the looking-glass, which is nailed to the wall, sticking fast upon the ceiling. At the same time the door entirely disappears, and a new one is opened in the floor. Then I begin to comprehend that the state-room is standing on its head.

“Before it is possible to make any arrangement at all compatible with this novel state of things the ship rights. Before one can say‘Thank Heaven!’she wrongs again. Before one can cry sheiswrong, she seems to have started forward, and to be a creature actively running of its own accord, with broken knees and failing legs, through every variety of[pg 8]hole and pitfall, and stumbling constantly. * * * And so she goes on staggering, heaving, wrestling, leaping, diving, jumping, pitching, throbbing, rolling, and rocking, and going through all these movements sometimes by turns, and sometimes all together, until one feels disposed to roar for mercy.”

Dickens gives a droll account of a ridiculous situation in which he was placed.“About midnight we shipped a sea, which forced its way through the skylights, burst open the doors above, and came raging and roaring down into the ladies’ cabin, to the unspeakable consternation of my wife and a little Scotch lady—who, by the way, had previously sent a message to the captain by the stewardess, requesting him, with her compliments, to have a steel conductor immediately attached to the top of every mast and to the chimney, in order that the ship might not be struck by lightning. They and the handmaid before-mentioned, being in such ecstasies of fear that I scarcely knew what to do with them, I naturally bethought myself of some restorative or comfortable cordial; and nothing better occurring to me at the moment than hot brandy-and-water, I procured a tumblerful without delay. It being impossible to stand or sit without holding on, they were all heaped together in one corner of a long sofa—a fixture extending entirely across the cabin—where they clung to each other, in momentary expectation of being drowned. When I approached this place with my specific, and was about to administer it, with many consolatory expressions, to the nearest sufferer, what was my dismay to see them all roll slowly down to the other end! And when I staggered to that end, and held out the glass once more, how immensely baffled were my good intentions by the ship giving another lurch, and their all rolling back again! I suppose I dodged them up and down this sofa for at least a quarter of an hour, without reaching them once; and by the time I did catch them the brandy-and-water was diminished by constant spilling to a tea-spoonful.”

What a difference to the accommodations and comfort of most modern steamships, with their luxurious saloons placed amidships, where there is least motion; their spacious and airy state-rooms, warmed by steam, water laid on, and fitted with electric bells; their music-room with piano and harmonium, their smoking-room, bath-rooms, library, and even barber’s shop. The table is as well served as at the best hotel ashore, and themenufor the day is as extensive as that of a first-class restaurant, while everything that may be required in the drinkables, from modest bottled beer to rare old wine, is to be obtained from the steward. And provided that the passengers assimilate reasonably well, there will be enjoyable games, music, and possibly private theatricals and other regularly organised entertainments. The idea of a“Punch and Judy”in the middle of the Atlantic seems rather funny; but we have known of an instance in which even this form of amusement has been provided on board a great steamship! On long voyages it is not by any means uncommon for some one to start a MS. daily or weekly journal, to which many of the passengers contribute. Such have often been published afterwards for private circulation, as affording reminiscences of a pleasant voyage.

Then there is the pleasure of discovering“a sail in sight,”and of watching it grow larger by degrees as the vessels approach each other. The“look out”is kept by some passengers almost as persistently as by the sailors detailed for the purpose. Perhaps, again, the captain or officers have let out the fact that they should pass one of their own or some rival company’s[pg 10]vessel that day. How many eyes are strained after that first mere thread of smoke on the horizon! What ringing cheers as the two great steamships near each other! What an amount of anxious enthusiasm when it is known that a boat is coming off from the other vessel, and what feverish excitement to learn all the news! They may have been seven or eight days without any, and in that time what may not have occurred in the history of nations!

Then, again, the sea itself, in its varying beauty or grandeur, has for most travellers a great interest. Is there not a chance of seeing an iceberg, a whale, or even the great sea serpent?

In March-April, 1869, the writer crossed the Atlantic in splendid weather. The ocean was, for the ten days occupied on the passage, almost literally as calm as a lake; even the lady passengers emerged from their cabins two or three days before they would otherwise have ventured forth. Among them was one lady seventy-five years of age, who was running away—so she informed the passengers—from her husband, and going to join her children in the States. This female had“stood it”for fifty years, but now, she said, she was going to end her days in peace. Here was a champion of“woman’s rights!”Alas! on arrival in New York there was no one to receive her, and she was taken back on board the steamer. What became of her afterwards we know not.

THE STEERAGE OF AN ATLANTIC STEAMSHIP FORTY YEARS AGO.THE STEERAGE OF AN ATLANTIC STEAMSHIP FORTY YEARS AGO.

THE STEERAGE OF AN ATLANTIC STEAMSHIP FORTY YEARS AGO.

The woes of steerage passengers have been graphically described by Charles Dickens. He tells us that“unquestionably any man who retained his cheerfulness among the steerage accommodations of that noble and fast-sailing packet, theScrew, was solely indebted to his own resources, and shipped his good humour like his provisions, without any contribution or assistance from the owners. A dark, low, stifling cabin, surrounded by berths filled to overflowing with men, women, and children, in various stages of sickness and misery, is not the liveliest place of assembly at any time; but when it is so crowded, as the steerage cabin of theScrewwas every passage out, that mattrasses and beds are heaped on the floor, to the extinction of everything like comfort, cleanliness, and decency, it is liable to operate not only as a pretty strong barrier against amiability of temper, but as a positive encourager of selfish and rough humours.”Dickens follows with a dismally correct picture of the passengers, with their shabby clothes, paltry stores of poor food and other supplies, and their wealth of family. He adds that every kind of suffering bred of poverty, illness, banishment, and tedious voyaging in bad weather was crammed into that confined space, and the picture, almost revolting in its naked truthfulness, was not overdrawn in those days. It could not be written, however, of any steerage whatever in our times, for partly from governmental care, partly from the general improvement in means of travel, partly from competition and the praiseworthy desire of the owners to earn a high character for their vessels’ accommodations, the steerage of to-day iscomparativelydecent; although it is not yet that which it should be, nor has the progress of improvement kept anything like pace with railway accommodation of the cheaper kind. Yet one would think it to the interest of owners5to make the steerage an endurable place of temporary abode.

In 1879 nearly 118,000 steerage passengers left the port of Liverpool for the United States. It should be noted that this was fromoneport, undeniably the principal one for emigration, but still by no means the only British one used for that purpose. Observe further that it was for America alone that these emigrants were bound. According to the United States census of 1870, there were at that time 5,600,000 human beings in the country who were foreign born, and this number has since gone on increasing to a very large extent. Nine-tenths of them at the least crossed the Great Ferry in ships bearing the Union Jack, and of these, three-fourths or more crossed as steerage passengers. Hence the importance of the question.

Latterly a considerable amount of attention has been given to the sub-division of the steerage space, so that, when practicable, friends and families may remain together. Married people and single women have now separate quarters. The sleeping accommodations are the weak point. They are simply rough wooden berths, and the passenger has to furnish his own bedding, as well as plate, mug, knife, fork, spoon, and water-can. The provisions are now-a-days generally ample, and on some lines are providedad libitum. The bill of fare is pretty usually as follows. Breakfast: coffee, fresh bread or biscuit, and butter,oroatmeal porridge and molasses; Dinner: soup, beef or pork, and potatoes—fish may be substituted for the meat; on Sunday pudding is often added; Tea: tea, biscuit and butter. Three quarts of fresh water are allowed daily. A passenger who has a few shillings to spend can often obtain a few extras from the steward, and many, of course, take a small stock of the minor luxuries of life on board with him.

To those of small means who are contemplating emigration, the“Intermediate”(second-class) on board some of the Atlantic steamers to the States and Canada can be commended. For a couple of guineas over the steerage rates, excellent state-rooms, generally with four to six berths in each, furnished with bedding and lavatory arrangements, are provided. The intermediate passenger has a separate general saloon, and the table is well provided with good plain living. As the steerage passenger has to provide so many things for himself, it is almost as cheap to travel second-class.

AT DINNER IN THE FIRST-CLASS DINING SALOON OF AN ATLANTIC STEAMSHIP DURING A STORM.AT DINNER IN THE FIRST-CLASS DINING SALOON OF AN ATLANTIC STEAMSHIP DURING A STORM.

AT DINNER IN THE FIRST-CLASS DINING SALOON OF AN ATLANTIC STEAMSHIP DURING A STORM.

Almost every reader will remember Martin Chuzzlewit and Mark Tapley on board the wretchedScrew. How, for example,“the latter awoke with a dim idea that he was dreaming of having gone to sleep in a four-post bedstead which had turned bottom upwards in the course of the night,”for which there seemed some reason, as“the first objects he recognised when he opened his eyes were his own heels looking down at him, as he afterwards observed, from a nearly perpendicular elevation.”“This is the first time as ever I stood on my head all night,”observed Mark.

The lesson taught by Dickens regarding the necessity of keeping up one’s spirits on board ship, and better, of helping to keep up those of others, as exemplified by poor Tapley, is a very important one. If anything willtestcharacter, life on board a crowded ship will do it. Who that has read can ever forget Mark, when he calls to the poor woman to“hand over one of them young ’uns, according to custom.”“‘I wish you’d get breakfast, Mark, instead of worrying with people who don’t belong to you,’observed Martin,petulantly.”“‘All right,’said Mark;‘she’lldo that. It’s a fair division of labour, sir. I wash her[pg 12]boys and she makes our tea. I nevercouldmake tea, but any one can wash a boy.’The woman, who was delicate and ill, felt and understood his kindness—as well she might, for she had been covered every night with his great coat, while he had for his own bed the bare boards and a rug.”“If a gleam of sun shone out of the dark sky,”continues Dickens,“down Mark tumbled into the cabin, and presently up he came again with a woman in his arms, or half-a-dozen children, or a man, or a bed, or a saucepan, or a basket, or something animate or inanimate that he thought would be the better for the air. If an hour or two of fine weather in the middle of the day tempted those who seldom or never came on deck at other times to crawl into the long-boat, or lie down upon the spare spars and try to eat, there in the centre of the group was Mr. Tapley, handing about salt beef and biscuit, or dispensing tastes of grog, or cutting up the children’s provisions with his pocket-knife for their greater ease and comfort, or reading aloud from a venerable newspaper, or singing some roaring old song to a select party, or writing the beginnings of letters to their friends at home for people who couldn’t write, or cracking jokes with the crew, or nearly getting blown over the side, or emerging half-drowned from a shower of spray, or lending a hand somewhere or other: but always doing something for the general entertainment.”

NEW YORK BAY, LOOKING ACROSS TO STATEN ISLAND.NEW YORK BAY, LOOKING ACROSS TO STATEN ISLAND.

NEW YORK BAY, LOOKING ACROSS TO STATEN ISLAND.

Dickens drew his picture from life, and although an extreme case, there are many Mark Tapleys yet to be met. And indeed, unless the emigrant can remain happy and jovial amid the unmistakable hardships of even the best regulated steerage, he had better have stopped at home. If he can stand them well, he is of the stuff that will make a good colonist or settler, ready to“rough it”at any time. Before leaving the subject of steerage passengers and emigrants, it may be well to note that the United States Government does all in its power on their arrival in New York to protect them from imposition and furnish them with trustworthy information. At the depôt at Castle Gardens, where third-class passengers land, there are interpreters, money-changers, railway-ticket offices, and rooms for their accommodation; and it is very much their own fault if they slide into the pitfalls of New York—for New Yorkhaspitfalls, like every other great city.

The risks of the voyage across the Atlantic are not really as great as those of ships passing southwards through the Bay of Biscay, which is the terror of passengers to Australia, India, China, and other points in the Orient. At the beginning of 1880 the fineS.S.Chimborazoreturned with difficulty to Plymouth, three persons having been washed overboard, and one killed from injuries received on board. Off Ushant a formidable gale arose, and the vessel began to roll heavily, while on the following morning the storm had become a hurricane, and the water was taken on board and below in volumes, threatening a fate similar to that experienced by theLondon. Just before 9A.M.an enormous sea broke over the ship, heeling her over and washing the deck with resistless force. The steam launch, six heavy boats, the smoking room, saloon companion, and everything on the spar deck, were in three seconds carried overboard among the breakers as though they were mere children’s toys, while, in addition to the losses of life already mentioned, seventeen other passengers were more or less injured. Just before the ship was struck the smoking-room was full of passengers, who were requested by the captain to leave it to give place to some helpless sheep who were floundering about, and to this fact they owed their lives.“As,”said a leading journal,“the stricken ship entered Plymouth Harbour on Tuesday morning, her shattered stanchions and skylights, her damaged steering apparatus, and the heap of wreckage lying upon her deck, proclaimed the fury of the tremendous ordeal through which she had passed, and awakened many a heartfelt and silent prayer of gratitude among her rescued passengers, as they contemplated the evidences of the peril from which they had so narrowly escaped.”It is in moments such as these that the poverty of human words is keenly felt. There can be no doubt that, but for the excellent seamanship displayed by Captain Trench and his officers there would have been a sadder story to relate.

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