THE DREADED BAY. 13 



Dickens drew his picture from life, and although an extreme case, there are many 

 Mark Tapleys yet to ba met. And indeed, unless the emigrant can remain happy and jovial 

 amid the unmistakable hardships of even the best regulated steerage, he had better have 

 stopped at home. If he can stand them well, he is of the stuff that will make a good 

 colonist or settler, ready to " rough it " at any time. Before leaving the subject of steerage 

 passengers and emigrants, it may be well to note that the United States Government does 

 all in its power on their arrival in New York to protect them from imposition and 

 furnish them with trustworthy information. At the depot at Castle Gardens, where third- 

 class passengers land, there are interpreters, money-changers, railway-ticket offices, and 

 rooms for their accommodation ; and it is very much their own fault if they slide into 

 the pitfalls of New York for New York has pitfalls, like every other great city. 



The risks of the voyage across the Atlantic are not really as great as those of ships 

 passing southwards through the Bay of Biscay, which is the terror of passengers to Australia, 

 India, China, and other points in the Orient. At the beginning of 1880 the fine s.s. 

 Ckimborazo returned with difficulty to Plymouth, three persons having been washed over- 

 board, and one killed from injuries received on board. Off Ushant a formidable gale arose, 

 and the vessel began to roll heavily, "while on the following morning the storm had become 

 a hurricane, and the water was taken on board and below in volumes, threatening a fate similar 

 to that experienced by the London. Just before 9 A.M. an enormous sea broke over the 

 ship, heeling her over and washing the deck with resistless force. The steam launch, 

 six heavy boats, the smoking room, saloon companion, and everything on the spar deck, 

 were in three seconds carried overboard among the breakers as though they were mere children's 

 toys, while, in addition to the losses of life already mentioned, seventeen other passengers 

 were more or less injured. Just before the ship was struck the smoking-room was full 

 of passengers, who were requested by the captain to leave it to give place to some helpless 

 sheep who were floundering about, and to this fact they owed their lives. "As," said a 

 leading journal, "the stricken ship entered Plymouth Harbour on Tuesday morning, her 

 shattered stanchions and skylights, her damaged steering apparatus, and the heap of 

 wreckage lying upon her deck, proclaimed the fury of the tremendous ordeal through which 

 she had passed, and awakened many a heartfelt and silent prayer of gratitude among her 

 rescued passengers, as they contemplated the evidences of the peril from which they had 

 so narrowly escaped." It is in moments such as these that the poverty of human words 

 is keenly felt. There can be no doubt that, but for the excellent seamanship displayed by 

 Captain Trench and his officers there would have been a sadder story to relate. 



