Two of the women wept. Any
one who had come aboard might have supposed we were all absconding
from the law. There was scarce a word interchanged, and no common
sentiment but that of cold united us, until at length, having touched
at Greenock, a pointing arm and a rush to the starboard now announced
that our ocean steamer was in sight. There she lay in mid-river, at
the Tail of the Bank, her sea-signal flying: a wall of bulwark, a
street of white deck-houses, an aspiring forest of spars, larger than
a church, and soon to be as populous as many an incorporated town in
the land to which she was to bear us.
I was not, in truth, a steerage passenger. Although anxious to see
the worst of emigrant life, I had some work to finish on the voyage,
and was advised to go by the second cabin, where at least I should
have a table at command. The advice was excellent; but to understand
the choice, and what I gained, some outline of the internal
disposition of the ship will first be necessary. In her very nose is
Steerage No. 1, down two pair of stairs. A little abaft, another
companion, labelled Steerage No.
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