10 WILD SPORTS IN THE' FAR WEST. 



I had now time to notice my bed-fellows : H., I have 

 already described ; the other three were a joiner, a 

 doctor, and an apothecary, the two latter big enough 

 to fill up one sleeping-place to themselves. As far as 

 I could judge on such short acquaintance, they seemed 

 to promise agreeable society. 



Boundless disorder still reigned around. No one 

 seemed to know where he ought to be ; everybody was 

 asking for a chest, a box, a trunk: the fair sex, of 

 whom we had about twenty-five, had made no arrange- 

 ments among themselves, so that, instead of only eight, 

 sixteen were speaking at the same time. I sincerely 

 pitied some among them, who seemed to have been in 

 better circumstances, but who, probably through insuf- 

 ficiency of means, were obliged to choose the cheaper 

 passage in the steerage, and to forego all the comforts 

 to which they had been accustomed from childhood. 

 A single man can rough it ; indeed, it is highly inter- 

 esting to take part in all this life and bustle, and I 

 would not on any account have tal^en my passage in 

 the cabin ; but for a woman, it is quite another thing ; 

 for what may serve as a joke and subject of conversa- 

 tion to a man, alarms and hurts the feelings of a 

 woman : it was, however, very different with some 

 Oldenburg lassies. They seemed as much at home as 

 in their ferry-boats; the greater the uproar and dis- 

 order, the more did they laugh and enjoy it. The race 

 of Israel had about sixty representatives on board, 

 among them some pretty Jewesses ; had they all been 

 dirty peddlers, I must have jumped overboard. 



After two days, the pilot came on board, the anchor 

 was weighed, all was life and mirth. None would remain 



