The Travels and Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson - The Amateur Emigrant; Across the Plains; The Silverado Squatters #265094

I was not, in truth, a steerage passenger. Although anxious to see the worst of emigrant life, I had some work to finish on the voyage, and was advised to go by the second cabin, where at least I should have a table at command. The advice was excellent; but to under stand the choice, and what I gained, some outline of the internal disposition of the ship will first be necessary. In her very nose is Steerage No. I, down two pair of stairs. A little abaft, another companion, labelled Steer age No. 2 and 3, gives admission to three galleries, two running forward towards Steerage No. I, and the third aft towards the engines. The starboard forward gallery is the second cabin. Away abaft the engines and below the officers' cabins, to complete our survey of the vessel, there is yet a third nest of steerages, labelled 4 and 5. The second cabin, to return, is thus a modified oasis in the very heart of the steerages. Through the thin par tition you can hear the steerage passengers being Sick, the rattle of tin dishes as they sit at meals, the varied accents in which they converse, the crying of their chil dren terrified by this new experience, or the clean flat smack of the parental hand in chastisement.