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We were all not very busy in getting things ready for sea. The cargo had been already stowed in the hold by the stevedores and lumpers from shore; but it became the crew's business to clean away the Between decks, extending from the cabin bulkhead to the forecastle, for the reception of about five hundred emigrants, some of whose boxes were already littering the decks. To provide for their wants, a far larger supply of water was needed than upon the outward-bound passage. Accordingly, besides the usual number of casks on deck, rows of immense tierces were lashed amid-ships, all along the between decks, forming a sort of aisle on each side, furnishing access to four rows of bunks, three tiers, one above another, against the ship's sides; two tiers being placed over the tierces of water in the middle. These bunks were rapidly knocked together with coarse planks. They looked more like dog-kennels than anything else; especially as the place was so gloomy and dark; no light coming down except through the fore and after hatchways, both of which were covered with little housed called "booby-hatches."
Upon the main-hatches, which were well calked and covered over with heavy tarpaulins, the "passengers' galley" was solidly lashed down.
This galley was a large open stove, or iron range-made expressly for emigrants ships, wholly unprotected from the weather and where alone the emigrants are permitted to cook their food while at sea.
The wind was fair; the weather mild; the sea most smooth; and the poor emigrants were in high spirits at so auspicious a beginning of their voyage. They were reclining all over the decks, talking of soon seeing America, and relating how the agent had told them, that twenty days would be an uncommonly long voyage. Here it must be mentioned, that owing to the great number of ships sailing to the Yankee ports from Liverpool, the competition among them in obtaining emigrant passengers, who as a cargo are much more remunerative than crates and bales, is exceedingly great; so much so that some of the agents they employ, do not scruple to deceive the poor applicants for passage, with a manner of fables concerning the short space of time, in which their ships make the run across the ocean.
This often induces the emigrants to provide a much smaller stock of provisions than they otherwise would; the effect of which sometimes proves to be in the last degree lamentable; as will be seen further on. And though benevolent societies have been long organized in Liverpool. For the purpose of keeping offices, where the emigrants can obtain reliable information and advice, concerning their best mode of embarkation, and other matters interesting to them; and though the English authorities have imposed a law, providing that every captain of an emigrant ship bound for any port of America shall see to it, that each passenger is provided with rations of food for sixty days; yet, all this has not deterred mercenary shipmasters and unprincipled agents from practicing the grossest deception; nor exempted the emigrants themselves from the very sufferings intended to be averted.
No sooner had we fairly gained the expanse of the Irish Sea, and, one by one, lost sight of our thousand consorts, than the weather changed into the most miserable cold, wet, and cheerless days and nights imaginable. The wind was tempestuous and dead in our teeth; and the hearts of the emigrants fell. Nearly all of them had now hied below, to escape the uncomfortable and perilous decks: and from the two "booby-hatches" came the steady hum of a subterranean wailing and weeping. That irresistible wrestler; sea-sickness, had overthrown the stoutest of their number, and the women and children were embracing and sobbing of all the agonies of the poor emigrants first storm at sea.
Bad enough is it at such times with ladies and gentlemen in the cabin, who have nice little state-rooms; and plenty of privacy; and stewards to run for them at a work, and put pillows under their heads, and tenderly inquire how they are getting along, and mix them a possett: and even then, in the abandonment of this soul and body subduing malady; such ladies and gentlemen will often give up life itself as unendurable, and put up the most pressing petitions for a speedy annihilation; all of which, however, only arises from their intense anxiety to preserve their valuable lives.
How, then, with the friendless emigrants, stowed away like bales of cotton, and packed like slaves in a slave-ship; confined in a place that, during storm time, must be closed against both light and air; who can do no cooking, nor warm so much as a cup of water; for the drenching seas would instantly flood their fire in their exposed galley on deck.
We had not been at sea one week, when to hold your head down the fore hatchway was like holding it down a suddenly opened cesspool.
I have made some mention of the "Galley," or great stove for the steerage passengers, which was planted over the main hatches.
At making the fire, the emigrants take turns;, as it is often very disagreeable work, owing to the pitching of the ship, and the heaving of the spray over the uncovered "galley." Whenever I had the morning watch, from four to eight, I was sure to see some poor fellow crawling up from below about day break, and go groping over the decks after bits of rope-yarn or tarred canvas, for kindling-stuff. And no sooner would the fire be fairly made, than up came the old women, and men, and children; each armed with an iron pot or saucepan; and invariably a great tumult ensued, as to whose turn to cook came next; sometimes the more quarrelsome would fight, and upset each other's pots and pans.
Many similar scenes occurred every day; nor did a single day pass, but scores of the poor people got no chance whatever to do their cooking.
This was bad enough; but it was a still more miserable thing, to set these poor emigrants wrangling and fighting together for the want of the most ordinary accommodations, but thus it is, that the very hardships to which such beings are subjected, instead of uniting them, only tends, but embittering their tempers, to set them against each other; and this they themselves drive the strongest rival into the chain by which their social superiors hold them subject.
Many of them at least went aft to the mate, saying that they had nothing to eat, their provisions were expended, and they must be supplied from the ship's stores, or starve. This was told to the captain, who was obliged to issue a ukase from the cabin, that every steerage passenger, whose destitution was demonstrable, should be given one sea-biscuit and two potatoes a day; sort of substitute for a muffin and a brace of poached eggs.
But this scanty ration was quite insufficient to satisfy their hunger hardly enough to satisfy the necessities of a healthy adult. The consequences were that all day long, and all through the night, scores of emigrants went about the decks, seeking what they might devour. They plundered the chicken coop; and disguising the fowls, cooked them at the public galley. They made inroads upon the pigpen in the boat, and carried off a promising your shoat; him they devoured raw, not venturing to make an incognito of his carcass; they prowled about the cook's caboose, till he threatened them with a ladle of scalding water; they way laid the steward on his regular excursions from the cook to the cabin, they hung around the forecastle, to rob the bread barrel they beset the sailors, like beggars in the street, carving a mouthful in the name of the Church.
We had been outside of Cape Clear upward of twenty days, still harassed by head winds, though with pleasant weather upon the whole, when we were visited by a succession of rainstorms, which lasted the greater part of a week.
At length, to such excesses were they driven, that the Grand Russian, Captain Riga, issued another ukase, and to this effect: Whatsoever emigrant is found guilty of stealing, the same shall be tied into the rigging and flogged.
We had been outside of Cape Clear upward of twenty days, still harassed by head winds though with pleasant weather upon the whole, when we were visited by a succession of rainstorms, which lasted the greater part of a week.
During this interval, the emigrants were obliged to remain below; but this was nothing strange to some of them who, not recovering, while at sea, from their first attack of seasickness, seldom or never made their appearance on deck, during the entire passage.
Nevertheless, it was beyond question, this noisome confinement in so close, unventilated, and crowded a den; joined to the deprivation of sufficient food, from which helped by their personal uncleanliness, brought on a malignant fever.
The first report was that two persons were affected. No sooner was it known, than the mate promptly repaired to the medicine chest in the cabin and with remedies deemed suitable, descended into the steerage. But the medicines proved of no avail; the invalids rapidly grew worse and two more of the emigrants became infected.
The sight that greeted us, upon entering, was wretched indeed. It was like entering a crowded jail. From the rows of rude bunks, hundreds of meager, begrimed faces were turned upon us, while seated upon the chests, were scores of unshaven men, smoking tealeaves, and creating a suffocating vapor. But this vapor was better than the native air of the place, which from almost unbelievable causes was fetid in extreme. In every corner, the females were huddled together, weeping and lamenting; children were asking bread from their mothers, who had none to give; and old men, seated upon the floor, were leaning back against the heads of the water casks, with closed eyes and fetching their breath with a gasp.
About four o'clock that morning, the first four died
On land, a pestilence is fearful enough; but there, many can flee from an infected city whereas, in a ship, you are locked and bolted in the very hospital itself. Nor is there any possibility of escape from it; and in so small and crowded a place, no precaution can effectually guard against contagion.
On the second day, seven died, on the third, four; on the fourth, six, of whom one was the Greenland sailor, and another, a women in the cabin, whose death, however, was afterward suppose to have been purely induced by her fears. These last deaths brought the panic to its height; and sailors, officers, cabin passengers, and emigrants, all looked upon each other like lepers.
And still, beneath a gray, gloomy sky, the doomed craft beat on; now on this tack, now on that; battling against hostile blasts, and drenched in rain and spray; scarcely making an inch of progress toward her port.
On the sixth morning, the weather merged into a gale, to which we stripped our ship to a storm staysail. In ten hours time, the waves ran in mountains; and the Highlander rose and fell like some vast buoy on the water. Shrieks and lamentations were driven to leeward, and drowned in the roar of the wind among the cordage while we gave to the gale the blackened bodies of five more of the dead.
But as the dying departed, the places of two of them were filled in the rolls of humanity, by the birth of two infants, whom the plague, panic, and gale had hurried into the world before their time. The first cry of one of these infants was almost simultaneous with the splash of its father's body in the sea. Thus we come and we go. But, surrounded by death, both mothers and babes survived.
At midnight, the wind went down; leaving a long, rolling sea; and, for the first time in a week, a clear, starry sky. By afternoon of the of the next day this heavy sea subsided; and we bore down on the waves, with all our canvas set; stunsails alow and aloft and our best steersman at the helm; the captain himself at his elbow; bowing along, with a fair, cheering breeze over the taffrail.
The decks were cleared, and swabbed bone dry; and then, all the emigrants who were not invalids, poured themselves out on deck, snuffing the delightful air, spreading their damp bedding in the sun, and regaining themselves with the generous charity of the captain who of late had seen fit to increase their allowance of food. A detachment of them now joined a band of the crew, who proceeding into the steerage, with buckets and brooms, gave it a thorough cleansing, sending on deck, I know not how many bucketsful of defilements. It was more like cleaning out a stable, than a retreat for men and women. This day we buried three; the next day one, and then pestilence left us, with seven convalescent; who, placed near the opening of the hatchway, soon rallied under the skillful treatment, and even tender care of the mate.
Our days were now fair and mild, and though the wind abated, yet we still ran our course over a pleasant sea. The steerage passengers at least by far the greater number wore a still, subdued aspect, though a little cheered by the genial air, and the hopeful thought of soon reaching their port. But those who had lost fathers, husbands, wives, or children, needed no crape, to reveal to others, who they were. Hard and bitter indeed was their lot; for with the poor and desolate, grief is no indulgence of mere sentiment, however sincere, but a gnawing reality, that eats into their vital beings; they had no kind condolers, and bland physicians, and troops of sympathizing friends; and they must toil, though tomorrow be the burial, and their pall bearers throw down the hammer to lift up the coffin.
How, then, with these emigrants, who, three thousand miles from home, suddenly found themselves deprived of brothers and husbands, with but a few pounds, or perhaps but a few shillings, to buy food in a strange land?
The steerage was now as a bedlam; trunks and chests were locked and tied round with ropes; and a general washing and rinsing of faces and hands was beheld. While this was going on, forth came an order from the quarterdeck, for every bed, blanket, bolster, and bundle of straw in the steerage to be committed to the deep. A command that was received by the emigrants with dismay, and then with wrath. But they were assured that this was indispensable to the getting rid of an otherwise long detention of some weeks at the quarantine. They therefore reluctantly complied; and overboard went pallet and pillow. Following them, went old pots and pans, bottles and baskets. So, all around, the sea was strewn with stuffed bed ticks, that limberly floated on the waves, couches for all mermaids who were not fastidious. Numberless things of this sort, tossed overboard from emigrant ships nearing the harbor of New York, drift in through the Narrows, and are deposited on the shores of Staten Island; along whose eastern beach I have often walked, and speculated upon the broken jugs, torn pillows, and dilapidated baskets at my feet.
A second order was now passed for the emigrants to muster their forces, and give the steerage a final, thorough cleaning with sand and water. And to this they were incited by the same warning, which had induced them to make an offering to Neptune of their bedding. The place was then fumigated, and dried with pans of coals from the galley, so that by evening, no stranger would have imagined, from her appearance that the Highlander had made otherwise than a tidy and prosperous voyage. Thus some sea captains take good heed that benevolent citizens shall not get a glimpse of the true condition of the steerage while at sea.
Herman Melville, Redburn, His First Voyage (New York, 1849)
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