Essays of Travel

by Robert Louis Stevenson
Contents

I. THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT: FROM THE CLYDE TO SANDY HOOK
THE SECOND CABIN

EARLY IMPRESSION
STEERAGE IMPRESSIONS

STEERAGE TYPES
THE SICK MAN

THE STOWAWAYS
PERSONAL EXPIERENCE AND REVIEW

NEW YORK
II. COCKERMOUTH AND KESWICK

COCKERMOUTH
AN EVANGELIST

ANOTHER
LAST OF SMETHURST

III. AN AUTUMN EFFECT
IV. A WINTER'S WALK IN CARRICK AND GALLOWAY

V. FOREST NOTES -
ON THE PLAINS

IN THE SEASON
IDLE HOURS

A PLEASURE-PARTY
THE WOODS IN SPRING

MORALITY
VI. A MOUNTAIN TOWN IN FRANCE

VII. RANDOM MEMORIES: ROSA QUO LOCORUM
VIII. THE IDEAL HOUSE

IX. DAVOS IN WINTER
X. HEALTH AND MOUNTAINS

XI. ALPINE DIVERSION
XII. THE STUMULATION OF THE ALPS

XIII. ROADS
XIV. ON THE ENJOYMENT OF UNPLEASANT PLACES

CHAPTER I - THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT
THE SECOND CABIN

I FIRST encountered my fellow-passengers on the Broomielaw in
Glasgow. Thence we descended the Clyde in no familiar spirit, but

looking askance on each other as on possible enemies. A few
Scandinavians, who had already grown acquainted on the North Sea,

were friendly and voluble over their long pipes; but among English
speakers distance and suspicion reigned supreme. The sun was soon

overclouded, the wind freshened and grew sharp as we continued to
descend the widening estuary; and with the falling temperature the

gloom among the passengers increased. Two of the women wept. 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. 2 and 3, gives admission to three

galleries, two running forward towards Steerage No. 1, 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

partition 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 children terrified by this new
experience, or the clean flat smack of the parental hand in

chastisement.
There are, however, many advantages for the inhabitant of this strip.

He does not require to bring his own bedding or dishes, but finds
berths and a table completely if somewhat roughly furnished. He

enjoys a distinctsuperiority in diet; but this, strange to say,
differs not only on different ships, but on the same ship according

as her head is to the east or west. In my own experience, the
principal difference between our table and that of the true steerage

passenger was the table itself, and the crockery plates from which we
ate. But lest I should show myself ungrateful, let me recapitulate

every advantage. At breakfast we had a choice between tea and coffee
for beverage; a choice not easy to make, the two were so surprisingly

alike. I found that I could sleep after the coffee and lay awake
after the tea, which is proof conclusive of some chemical disparity;

and even by the palate I could distinguish a smack of snuff in the
former from a flavour of boiling and dish-cloths in the second. As a

matter of fact, I have seen passengers, after many sips, still
doubting which had been supplied them. In the way of eatables at the

same meal we were gloriouslyfavoured; for in addition to porridge,
which was common to all, we had Irish stew, sometimes a bit of fish,

and sometimes rissoles. The dinner of soup, roast fresh beef, boiled
salt junk, and potatoes, was, I believe, exactly common to the

steerage and the second cabin; only I have heard it rumoured that our
potatoes were of a superior brand; and twice a week, on pudding-days,

instead of duff, we had a saddle-bag filled with currants under the
name of a plum-pudding. At tea we were served with some broken meat

from the saloon; sometimes in the comparativelyelegant form of spare
patties or rissoles; but as a general thing mere chicken-bones and

flakes of fish, neither hot nor cold. If these were not the
scrapings of plates their looks belied them sorely; yet we were all

too hungry to be proud, and fell to these leavings greedily. These,
the bread, which was excellent, and the soup and porridge which were

both good, formed my whole diet throughout the voyage; so that except
for the broken meat and the convenience of a table I might as well

have been in the steerage outright. Had they given me porridge again
in the evening, I should have been perfectlycontented with the fare.

As it was, with a few biscuits and some whisky and water before
turning in, I kept my body going and my spirits up to the mark.

The last particular in which the second cabin passenger remarkably
stands ahead of his brother of the steerage is one altogether of

sentiment. In the steerage there are males and females; in the
second cabin ladies and gentlemen. For some time after I came aboard

I thought I was only a male; but in the course of a voyage of
discovery between decks, I came on a brass plate, and learned that I

was still a gentleman. Nobody knew it, of course. I was lost in the
crowd of males and females, and rigorously confined to the same

quarter of the deck. Who could tell whether I housed on the port or
starboard side of steerage No. 2 and 3? And it was only there that

my superiority became practical; everywhere else I was incognito,
moving among my inferiors with simplicity, not so much as a swagger

to indicate that I was a gentleman after all, and had broken meat to
tea. Still, I was like one with a patent of nobility in a drawer at

home; and when I felt out of spirits I could go down and refresh
myself with a look of that brass plate.

For all these advantages I paid but two guineas. Six guineas is the
steerage fare; eight that by the second cabin; and when you remember