Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 3, 1895 - Travels and Excursions, Volume II

THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT
The wind hauled ahead with a head sea. By ten
at night heavy sprays were flying and drumming
over the forecastle ; the companion of Steerage
No. 1 had to be closed, and the door of communica-
tion through the second cabin thrown open. Either
from the convenience of the opportunity, or because
we had already a number of acquaintances in that
part of the ship, Mr. Jones and I paid it a late visit.
Steerage No. 1 is shaped like an isosceles triangle,
the sides opposite the equal angles bulging outward
with the contom' of the ship. It is lined with eight
pens of sixteen bunks apiece, four bunks below and
four above on either side. At night the place is lit
with two lanterns, one to each table. As the steamer
beat on her way among the rough billows, the hght
passed through violent phases of change, and was
thrown to and fro and up and down with starthng
swiftness. You were tempted to wonder, as you
looked, how so thin a ghmmer could control and
disperse such solid blackness. When Jones and I
entered we found a httle company of our acquaint-
ances seated together at the triangular foremost
table. A more forlorn party, in more dismal cir-
cumstances, it would be hard to imagine. The
motion here in the ship's nose was very violent ;
the uproar of the sea often overpoweringly loud.
The yellow flicker of the lantern spun round and
round and tossed the shadows in masses. The air
was hot, but it struck a chill from its foetor. From
all round in the dark bunks, the scarcely human
noises of the sick joined into a kind of farmyard
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