too, that the decks will be surveyed by an
emigrant officer, before the ship sails; and I leave
the matter to his superior judgment.

I feel circumscribed in limit above deck; but,
in the steerage cabin below, my feeling is
simply suffocation, empty though it is, with
the exception of one poor girl in a rusty black
dress, who sits mournfully on a trunk beside
the door of a berth. The steerage is a long
low narrow apartment, with a very narrow,
immovable table and two benches running its
entire length; the height is more than the
minimum required by the act, which is six feet,
yet it makes me almost afraid of walking
upright; perhaps on the same principle that our
geese always bend their long necks when they
pass under the lofty doorway of the barn. The
light is dismal, for it is admitted only by the
open hatchway by which I have descended,
and through a few panes of glass an inch and a
half thick. Down each side of this room, are a
number of little closets, not half so spacious as
our country pantries, but looking very like
them, with substantial shelves, about twenty
inches wide, two on each side, and two along
the end; they are plain deal shelves, with a
board fastened along the outer edge to form
them into a kind of case, but there is no other
indication that these are designed for sleeping-
rooms; and the whole space for standing in
them is six feet by three, for six persons. The
girl, who has red eyes and a pale face, tells me
she has come from Halifax, in Yorkshire, to
start her only brother to Australia, but he is
standing on the landing stage, to look out for
some decent comrades to share his berth with
—a very wise precaution. For six persons to
inhabit a closet of this size day and night without
quarrelling, must require a miracle of good
sense and good temper.

The main deck is quiet; on the quarter-
deck the pilot saunters leisurely, whistling a
sentimental tune; a knot of sailors are gathered
in the forecastle; one of them a seaman after
my imagination, and after the model of nautical
pictures; middle height, sturdy, broad-chested
and muscular, with slender legs; a face
massive, but clearly moulded: grizzly hair, and
shaggy, overhanging eyebrows, like moustaches;
deep-set keen eyes and a humorous mouth, up
to the lower lip of which a strong dark beard is
growing. All the men look leisurely. There
is but one busy person visible above deck, and
he is the black cook in the galley opposite the
forecastle; he seems of a contented disposition,
and is cooking, by a species of magic, dinner
for three hundred, in a hole not larger than one
of our fireplaces at home. The cooking galley
forms part of a house on deck; it is a small
wooden lodge in the fore-part of the ship, and
contains the intermediate berths, which are similar
to those in the steerage below, but possess the
advantages of more air and light, and of ensurance
against being enclosed between decks in case of
storms. Yawning before the entrance to the
intermediate cabin, is a large square trap-door,
now open, which reveals to my astonished eyes
the immense depth and space of the hold of the
ship. Upon the brink of this opening stands
an anxious fretted-looking man, the ship's
husband, who has to bear all the minor worry of the
arrangements, and is bandied about from spot to
spot, to meet and remove every difficulty. He is
pensive just now, having time to be so; and
I stand for a few minutes beside him. The hold
is very like a left-luggage office on an immense
scale. There are boxes, chests, tubs, barrels,
sacks, and coffers, of every description. Here is
a piano, looking as little and insignificant as a
lady's work-box; there, is a steam-engine, packed
in a case, and labelled "To be kept dry," as if
it were only a plated teapot. The ship's
husband directs my attention to the barrels of pork,
and the great casks of water, provided for his
large family during their seventy or eighty days'
voyage. "Three quarts per day for statute
adult," he says, and repeats in a tone wavering
between high dudgeon and paternal satisfaction;
"three quarts per day for statute adult
at least, of sweet pure water; not to mention
what is used in cooking."

I leave him, still pensive and at leisure; and,
passing the sauntering pilot on the quarter-
deck, descend a narrow night of steps into the
saloon of the first cabin passengers; it appears
to me sumptuous, height and good size, with
panelled walls of white and gold, cushioned seats,
and a large dining-table. In one corner is
the door of the captain's cabin, which impresses
me as a very roomy place, after the berths
in the steerage and intermediate. There are a
chest of drawers, two or three chairs, a set of
bookshelves, and some ornaments: consisting
of ostrich eggs, an odd-looking weapon or two,
and a picture of a man overboard. There is
also a real bed—not a shelf—and the steward,
a slim agile man, with a head, covered with
black curly hair in such profusion as to make
it look out of all proportion to his body, is
laying on sheets and blankets with the
dexterity of a housemaid. This is the only token
of human residence I have seen, for it is a
received maxim that we live where we sleep; and
this is the only preparation for sleep I have
come upon. I turn, somewhat comforted, to the
doctor's cabin. To denote its size by a pleasant
word, it is snug; scarcely large enough to swing
a cat in, if our tender-hearted doctor could take
a fancy to such an amusement. And thinking
of cats in connexion with the doctor's pet
canary, which is to accompany him on his voyage,
and is now chirping plaintively over his last
fresh-gathered groundsel—I go back into the
saloon to speak to a custom-house officer,
concerning cats and rats. To be sure, there are
rats, as I suspected, with all my strong country
prejudice against them; rats in such numbers
that the officer informs me gravely, there were
nearly four hundred killed yesterday, and it
makes no perceptible diminution; only, to
reassure me tor the doctor's safety, he adds, that
they never gnaw the outer timbers of a vessel,
being too wise for that. "As for cats, bless
you! the seamen are that fond of them, that if