Struggling up the steep incline of the gangplank, set from the masonry of the quay of the Capitaneria of the port of Naples to the gap in the railing of the after deck of the Prinzessin Irene, came hundreds of men, women, and children, one and all weighted with luggage. Some staggered under the weight of great cloth-wrapped bundles; others lugged huge valises by the grass ropes which kept them from bursting open because of their flimsy construction; and even the tots carried fibre-baskets of fruit, straw-cased flasks of wine, cheese forms looped with string, and small rush-bottomed chairs for deck sitting, bought on the quay for twenty cents each, or home-made ones from the villages.
There were people of all the bloods of southern Europe, though the southern Italian predominated in the shipload, just as they predominate in every shipload from Mediterranean and even from French ports at times. His nose and upper lip wrinkled up with too much sunlight, there came an Oriental youth, nominally a Turk, probably a hybrid, and in addition to a fez and a pair of yellow slippers his array was naught but an embroidered jacket and a pair of voluminous silk trousers. I found myself wondering what the temperature in New York would be on the 14th of October, the day we were due.
172If one looked carefully there were to be seen twenty different sorts of costumes of the contadini. The Tuscan, the Trans-teveran, the Calabrese, the Sicilian, in-denominate Swiss, Genovese, and so on; and sprinkled thickly through the lot was a cheap attempt at the European mode. The women were to be found wearing their head-dresses much more frequently than the men. The male contingent seemed to have had enough money to buy for each a new cap or hat. Here and there was to be seen an emigrant attired in the best style of Rome, and, despite the heat of the late afternoon, wearing a heavy cape overcoat. Some few were barefooted, and others showed that they had come down to Naples dressed just as they did at their every-day labor. Altogether it was a motley assemblage, and nine babies out of every ten came aboard crying. I feel convinced that a portion of these never ceased until the voyage was over.
The most notable feature was the ease with which one could detect that every seventh or eighth person had been to America before, and now had gathered around him a group of from two to thirty friends, relatives, and neighbors, going over in his care, just as our party was going in the care of Antonio Squadrito and myself. When the steerage passengers had all been herded on, the late-coming first-cabin voyagers arrived, and the crowd of friends outside the iron fence was admitted to the quay.
It chanced that a piece of baggage belonging to Genino was missing, and I was by the gangway aft, keeping an eye out for it, and ready to tip a porter to bring it on. It was one of those which had been fraudulently passed, and the doctor of the port was minded to hold it for evidence. Just before I spied it, a woman 173standing just behind me said in English so plainly that she knew I could hear, but never dreamed that I understood:
“These dirty, repulsive creatures really seem to show traces of the finer feelings; do you not think so, Agnes? See that old man,—yes, the two other old men with him, down there on the dock, looking up at those people over there. I should think it was a family going over. See them wave their hands and throw kisses, and see the tears running down their faces. As I told my husband when we came over, some of them are far less heavy and embruted than one would think to look at them.”
I regret to say that woman is the daughter of a noted Philadelphia clergyman, and her husband is an employer of many hundreds of these seemingly “embruted” creatures.
As soon as ever I could be perfectly sure that all of our party from Gualtieri-Sicamino and the newest additions to our group from Potenza, Avellino, Scilla, etc., were all aboard, and that none of the baggage had been left behind, I went forward through the alley-way that led between the galley, bakery, blacksmith shop, and the cooks’ and petty officers’ quarters, to the forward deck, where a terrific hubbub was in progress. The thousand and more persons there, with their baggage heaped about the deck, were all talking and all endeavoring to do something which mad, wild impulse bade them attempt. It was turmoil and tumult, and what made matters worse was that two of the forward hatches were open, and late cargo was being heaved in as fast as six derricks could do it. The slings with a ton or two in each would come swinging and crashing over the side, and a half-dozen men by shouts, 174oaths, and blows kept the bewildered emigrants from crossing the danger-spaces between the ports in the railings and the hatches.
Our party was scattered all about. Little Nastasia I found perched in a perilous nook in the shrouds, eating a musk-melon down to the hard skin, as happy as he could be. My wife, knowing that the first thing to look out for was the best sleeping location, had taken Camela Squadrito and her little daughter Ina, and Concetta Fomica, below into the women’s compartment, so Giovanni Pulejo informed me; and, leaving Antonio Squadrito to round up the men and get them and their baggage below into the second men’s compartment,—it being the best ventilated, I knew,—I plunged below to take advantage of the confusion and secure a section of beds for the women and children nearest amidships, on account of it being steadier there in rough weather, and near the port-holes for air and light.
I could barely get down the big double companion-way, so choked was it with women, children, and baggage, and when I did succeed I found my wife and her charges huddled on top of Camela’s bundles, waiting in despair for order to come out of chaos. On every hand were screaming babies and shouting women, with a few men going about as if mad; and at the approaches to the beds were dirty, heavy-handed steerage stewards, who refused to allow the women to take beds until they were sorted out according to their numbers on the ship’s manifest and the numbers on each bed. I saw at a glance that that would be a work of half the night, and I asked him why they were so particular. He answered that “a company inspector was aboard this trip.”
However, in a few minutes I observed that a Genovese 175approached him, and, after a moment’s parley, gave him a five-lire note, and was allowed with all his people to take the choice of the locations. Despite his dread of the inspector, he could not resist my money also, and in five minutes I had the women of our party in the most secluded corner, where they could get both light and air, that was to be found in the place.
In a compartment from nine to ten feet high and having a space no larger than six ordinary-sized rooms, were beds for 195 persons, and 214 women and children occupied them. The ventilation was merely what was to be had from the companion-way that opened into the alley-way, and not on the deck, the few ports in the ship’s sides, and the scanty ventilating shafts.
The beds were double-tiered affairs in blocks of from ten to twenty, constructed of iron framework, with iron slats set in checker fashion to support the burlap-covered bag of straw, grass, or waste which served as a mattress. Pillows there were none, only cork-jacket life-preservers stuck under one end of the pseudo-mattress to give the elevation of a pillow. As each emigrant had passed through the alley-way to come forward when boarding the ship, he or she had been given a blanket as the storeroom door was passed. This blanket served the purpose of all bedclothing, and any other use to which the emigrant might be forced to put it. In material it was a mixture of wool, cotton, and jute, with the latter predominant. In extent it was the length of a man’s body and a little over a yard and a half wide. For such quarters and accommodations as I have described the emigrant pays half the sum that would buy a first-class passage. A comparison 176of the two classes shows where the steamship company makes the most money.
As soon as ever the women were settled I made my way up and forward through the mob to the men’s compartment, where I found my 183 sleeping-companions already busily engaged in stowing their hand baggage, getting their new shoes off their blistered feet, changing their fine raiment for old clothes for ship wear, on the advice of those who had crossed the ocean before, or twanging away on guitar or mandolin and thumping the tambourine.
The great ship was to have left her dock at five o’clock; but it was after six, and cargo was still coming aboard. The sun filtering through the red haze of the west turned the dull blue of Vesuvius to purple, and the cream of the line of the city’s expanse was touched with pink. As I came on deck into the babel after seeing all the men allotted into beds, the scene about was one of extreme beauty. With the wonderfully colored background I have mentioned, put hurrying small steamers and harbor boats in the middle distance, and for the centre of the composition of your picture behold the enormous bulk of the steamer, her decks black with humanity, and clustered about the sides scores of bumboats selling melons, fico-indias, ship-slippers, caps, mirrors, razors, brushes, candy, wine, shawls, seasickness charms, toothache and stomach-ache medicine, knives, pipes, and numberless other things which the childish-minded emigrant imagines are necessary to life aboard ship.
At last the whistle blew, the American vice-consul went ashore with his official papers, the lighters cast off, the ports in the railing were closed, and the after gangplank withdrawn. Then the screw began its 177slow thrashing, and soon we slid out by the light on the end of the breakwater, leaving behind a dim vision of a city of rose and white towers clasped in bold hills with artificed faces that heaved up and rolled backward until lost in the bosom of the night rushing on from the east.
The great ship attained its full speed, and we glided by Ischia, Capri, the fortresses, the prisons, and the vineyards, till............