ON THE EMIGRANT SHIP--THE JOURNEY TO QUEENSLAND.
What a motley crew we were: Germans, Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, a
Russian Finn, and an Icelander. There were many nationalities, but in
the majority of cases extreme poverty was evident in their dress and
stamped upon their faces, and it was easy to see that the same spirit of
recklessness which filled me had somehow also been instilled into them.
Nearly everybody had guns, revolvers, and knives, which were promptly
taken from us as we stepped on board. Then the Germans would sing in
their language of the Fatherland they had left, and in overflowing gush,
men, women, and children would hang about one another's necks. Everybody
acted in such a mad manner as, I am quite sure, he would never have
thought of behaving in any time before. Most of the men were drunk, and
as it grew dark at night one would seek for the other, and as no one
knew the way about, a perfect pandemonium was raging--singing, fighting,
blubbering in all languages. I do believe if I had had a sixpence left,
I should have spent it in schnapps too, because my courage had never
been tried so hard before. But I had spent my all, and so I made a
virtue of necessity, and stood aloof looking round me in silent wonder
as to what the end would be.
The prospectus said that the best and most wholesome food would be
served out to us in abundance, and to look at the bill of fare one would
think it enough to satisfy any gormandizer. But we got nothing at all
the first day, and I was unspeakably hungry. The prospectus said also
that bed-clothes were supplied to us, and these were already in the
bunks--it said mattrass, pillow, sheets, and blanket. The mattrass and
pillow were right enough. The sheets it did not matter much about--they
were no good at all for their purpose. But the blanket, the only thing
we had to cover ourselves with at night on a four months' voyage, was
smaller than the size of a little dining-table when it was spread out,
about the size of a saddle-cloth and much inferior in quality to
anything worthy of the name of blanket I have ever seen before or since.
As a consequence, those who had like myself put faith in that part of
the promises made us, and who had no other bed-clothes, were compelled
when we went to bed at night, to put on all the clothes we had and sleep
in them. I slept every night for months at a stretch in my overcoat,
woollen comforter around my neck, and the blanket, the all sufficient
bed-clothes, rolled round my head!
I did not, as it may be imagined, sleep at all the first night on board
the ship. At break of day the cook came in with a large wooden bowl of
hot potatoes, which he put on the table singing out, "Breakfast!" I was
thankful because I was very hungry, and I began at once to get out of
the bunk so as to lose no time, but I was not half way to the table
before a dozen Germans had rushed the dish and stuffed all the hot
potatoes into their pockets, their shirts, anywhere. There was not a
taste left! We were twenty-six men in that compartment, and now the row
of last night began again with renewed vigour. I looked upon it as a
lesson in smartness which I should have to learn, and I thought that if
I did not learn it soon it would be a bad job. Half of the twenty-six
men were Danes--in fact we were fourteen Danes in the compartment
against twelve Germans, because I, who hailed from Hamburg, had been
classified as a German although I am not. I believe it was a
premeditated assault on the potatoes by the Germans, because they were
all in it, and not one of the Danes had got a morsel to eat. The twelve
Germans gave nothing up. They ate the potatoes intended for us all with
great composure while we others were storming at them. Didn't I feel
wild!
While the dissatisfaction was at its highest point, somebody we had not
yet seen came into the cabin. He was a person with a decided military
air about him, and he was also dressed in a gorgeous uniform. Two of the
passengers who had already been sworn in to act as police constables
during the voyage came behind him, and in one of his uplifted hands he
held a document which he was waving at us. "Halt," cried he. "Halt,
Donnerwetter, I say, halt, while I read this paper." All the Germans
without an exception had just come from the Franco-German war, and the
sight of the uniform and the determined military air about the doctor,
as we soon discovered him to be, had the effect of shutting them up in
an instant. Some of the Danes were also old soldiers; anyhow, you might
have heard a pin drop while the doctor, who also came straight from the
war, where he had been army surgeon, read a proclamation, the exact
words of which I forget, but which was to the purpose that he had
supreme command over us all, and--"Donnerwetter," cried he,
"Donnerwetter, I will have order. If you are not amenable to discipline
I will handcuff every one of you. What sort of Knechte are you?" This
last remark was addressed to a big strapping-looking German who happened
to stand close to him. The German stood as stiff as a statute, saluting
with the one hand, while with the other he made a slight movement which
threw his overcoat a little to one side and displayed a silver cross
which he wore on his vest. "Ha!" cried the doctor, greatly mollified, "I
see you have served the Kaiser to some purpose. Don't forget you are not
outside the Kaiser's law yet. I hope we shall be friends." Then he
marched off to read his proclamation in other parts of the ship. These
Germans, I found out by degrees, were not at all bad fellows, but we
did not for a long time forgive them the assault on the potatoes, and I
have often thought what a peculiar sign of German thrift it was. They
had simply taken in the situation more quickly than we; indeed it has
become nearly a proverb in Queensland to say that a German will grow fat
where other men will starve. After that time order was restored, and no
disturbance worth mention occurred on the whole voyage.
Nothing can well be more tedious than a sea voyage of four months under
our circumstances. The food was wretched and insufficient, and, as I
have already mentioned, most of us had to sleep with all our clothes on
us. We did not undress; we rather dressed to go to bed!
There was not a single individual among the passengers who understood
English. It is true I had learned English for seven years in school, but
when we came ashore it proved that I could scarcely make myself
understood in a single sentence. None of us knew anything about
Queensland, and many were the surmises and guesses at what the country
was like and what we were going to do there. I remember distinctly once
a number of us were sitting talking about the colony, and that one
ventured to say that he had heard how in Queensland, when journeymen
tradesmen were travelling about looking for work, they needed no
"wander-book," and travelled about on horseback; whereupon another got
up much offended, and said that he had heard many lies about
Queensland, but this last beat all. He did not know so much about the
"wander-book," although he had taken good care to have his own in order,
but if any one tried to make him believe that beggars went about on
horseback over there, then it was time to cry stop. "No," said he, "he
knew we should have to walk." We others concurred.
One of my companions, I remember, was a shoemaker, and a religious
maniac besides. He would lie in his bunk and pray aloud night and day.
It was quite startling sometimes in the middle of the night when all
were asleep to hear him in a sanctimonious voice chanting a hymn. If the
spirit moved him that way, then it was good-bye to sleep for us for a
long time after. He would be quite irresistible. Most of us in the cabin
were a phlegmatic set who did not mind, but one, a Swiss, was of a very
excitable temperament. He was "down" on the shoemaker. When the hymns
began in the night one might be quite sure to hear after a minute, from
the bunk in which the Swiss lay, a smothered whispered little oath like
"Gottferdam." Then ten seconds after he would exclaim in an everyday
voice, with, however, an affected resignation, "Gottferdam"; and as the
full burden of the sacred song kept rolling on, he would start screaming
out of his bunk with a real big "Gottferdam." But the others did not
allow him to hurt his enemy. They seemed to agree that even if it was
not very nice, yet it must be wicked to hurt any one for practising his
religion; but I believe that their motives were not quite so pure,
because this shoemaker had an inexhaustible fund of anecdote, and if
anything were allowed to annoy him in the night, he would tell them no
stories during the day. When all went smooth, it was the practice for
him to gather a score or two around, the numbers swelling as he
proceeded, and then tell a story, something of a sensational sort about
love and murder. His whole soul would then be in it, and he gesticulated
as if he felt and believed it all. Every Sunday he was always more or
less ready to cry out for hunger, and would at such times sit and look
right before him straight out into space. Then he would say, "I wish I
had a dish of German dumplings. With cherry-sauce, with cherry-sauce.
Not the way one gets in the steam-kitchens, but the way my mother used
to make it." Then we would get a long description of his mother's recipe
for German dumplings. There is no mistake about it, too, we _did_ fast
on that ship.
In reading over to myself some of these last pages, I am afraid I have
given my readers the impression that the people on board, taken as a
whole, were a bad lot. If I have done so, it is erroneous. It is true
that my first impression of the emigrants was not a good one, and
perhaps few among us excelled or were remarkable for anything in
particular, but taken as a whole they were honest, hard-working people,
and as I became acquainted with them one after another I found that men
of whom I had a very low opinion when we first came on board, were in
reality entitled to very much higher estimation.
We did not know anything about the country to which we were going. We
had an idea that we were to begin a new life somewhat freer than in the
old world, and, simpleminded as we were--because I was just as bad as
anybody--thought that when we came on board ship we could dispense with
such formalities as those the old world had taught us. That is, I am
sure, the true reason why so many emigrants, when they leave home as
well as when they arrive in a colony, behave so foolishly as to make one
think that they never had known the decencies of life before. It is the
same with the English emigrants, only they are more quickly absorbed
into the general population. Still the word "New Chum" has in Australia
much the same meaning as the word "fool." I never felt more bitterly
ashamed than once, several years after I came to Queensland, when I saw
a number of Danish immigrants just arrived. It was in Toowoomba, and I
had come down there from up country on some business, when one of the
first things I was told was that there were a lot of my countrymen in
the depot waiting for engagements. Toowoomba is about a hundred miles
inland, and they had been sent up from Brisbane. Well, I felt quite
pleased, and decided at once to go and see them and to speak a kind word
to some of them, if I could not do them any other service. But I came
away a great deal less pleased than I had gone. There were some long
forms outside the building, and on those forms sat as close as they
could find room a score or so of men. Each man had wooden clogs on his
feet and a long pipe in his mouth. On his knees sat his girl with her
arm round his neck, and there they sat smoking and kissing perfectly
regardless of ladies and gentlemen who would walk about looking at them
and going on again. One I stood glaring at seemed to me the worst. He
was a big ugly fellow, dressed in a blue calico blouse, black trousers
and wooden clogs. In his hand he had a pipe five feet long, but on his
head he had a sugar-bag. These sugar-bags are of straw and about two
feet six inches in length. He had tied in the corners to fit his head.
This gentleman would rush about and look in at the doors of houses,
throwing side glances in all directions with the evident desire to
attract attention. At last he stood in the middle of the street singing
an old Danish song and jerking his body about like a maniac. I could not
contain myself, so I went up to him and asked him if he did not think he
was ugly enough already without trying to make himself still more so,
and what did he mean by sticking that sugar-bag on his head?
"Oh," cried he, quite unconcerned, "here we are right up on the top of
these blue mountains, that does not matter. It is a first-rate
straw-hat. Does it not look nice? Why! this is a free country," &c.
One very conspicuous figure on board the emigrant ship was the
Icelander, Thorkill; he was so unlike anybody else that I would like to
describe him, especially as he became my mate in Queensland and we
became close friends. His eyes were bluer and his complexion clearer
than that of any one else I ever saw. He had long yellow curly hair, and
a big yellow beard. He was himself also big and strong, and about
twenty-eight years of age--altogether I should say, as far as appearance
went, the beau ideal of a man. But as no one is perfect, so had he also
a grievous fault, viz., a certain softness, like a woman. He always
spoke as with a comma between each word, and although he had plenty of
good sense and was, like all Icelanders, well educated, yet he would, I
believe, give most people the impression that he was not fit to battle
with a wicked world. I often wondered what might have brought him on
board that ship, but he was very reticent about his own affairs.
Meanwhile I have never known anybody whose mind was so pure, whose
thoughts were so lofty as his. But he was unpractical, to a degree. He
claimed to know all his ancestors from the twelfth century, when they
had emigrated from Norway to Iceland, and he said his father still
farmed the same land. Unless as a professor in ancient folklore, I do
not know what Thorkill was good for. I had, in school, learned much
Icelandic folklore, and to see his eyes sparkle with joy when he
discovered this and knew that I was interested in it besides, did me
real good, and so we agreed that during the voyage we would refresh each
other's memory in "Sagamaal." He arranged to teach me the whole complete
"Rumi Kronike." So we bribed the fellow who lay next to me (we had
double bunks) to exchange berths with Thorkill, and he and I then lay
together, and there we were telling "Sagamaal" from morning to night and
sometimes the whole night through. He would make me tell him one of the
"Sagas" I knew, although he knew it far better himself, just to see if I
had mastered it properly. He would listen with all his might, then he
would say: "Excuse--me--for--interrupting you--but--are--you--sure--that
--you--are--correct--in--describing--Sharpedin--the--son--of--Hakon--as
--a--longbearded--man. The--Rumi Kronike--does--not--say--so--on--the
--contrary." Then we would have a long argument about that, Thorkill
insisting upon the importance of being exact.
He wrote a splendid hand, but from the pedantic ungainly way in which he
took hold of anything, I made sure he was not a good worker. He had
studied scientific farming at the agricultural college in Copenhagen,
and afterwards had been, he said, a sort of overseer on a large farm on
the island of Als. Whether he had given satisfaction at that or not, I
did not know, but what was the good of all his knowledge, supposing he
had any, when he did not understand English, had no friend nor money,
and was a bad worker? One day I said to him:
"Thorkill, do you ever try to draw a real picture to yourself of how we
shall get on when we come to Queensland? I am thinking of this, there
are, according to what we have been told, no more people in all
Queensland than there is in a good-sized street in Copenhagen, and here
are all these people on board ship who will be, the moment they land,
ravenous in their competition for something to do, and another ship has
sailed from Hamburg a week after us. How will they fare? I cannot solve
it. But it strikes me very forcibly that if the sail of this ship were
set for Copenhagen harbour instead of Queensland, the only solution to
the problem there would be for the police to have some large vans in
readiness and to give us a drive in them straight out to the workhouse."
"Oh say not so," cried Thorkill, "say not so. God will protect us. You
and I will never part." "No," cried I, in the fulness of my heart, "we
will stick together, and we will get something to do too, you will see."
And then, with a new sense of responsibility on me, I would talk to him
cheerfully about Queensland, and the opportunities there would be to do
well for both of us, which could not fail, but meanwhile I would rack my
brain with thinking about how to make a few shillings to land with. I
had not got a cent, and I knew very well that Thorkill had nothing
either. It was a bad place I was in for making money, for there was not
much of it on the ship, but I now very much regretted that I had spent
all that I had before I came on board. Here were all these empty
bottles lying about the ship which nobody seemed to claim. Why, thought
I, they must be worth a little fortune in Queensland. Good idea! We will
collect them all. I communicated with Thorkill. "Oh," said he, "you--
will--make--your--fortune--in--Queensland. They must be worth a mint of
money. But is it right to take them? What--a--business--ability--you
--have--got. Nobody seems to want them. I think we might have them."
So then we went about begging and borrowing empty bottles everywhere,
without letting anybody know for what we wanted them, and we piled them
up in our bunks so that we could scarcely get into them; then people,
when they saw what we were after, put a price on the bottles and came to
us to sell. So Thorkill bought five shillings' worth on my
recommendation, all the money he had, and still they came with bottles,
but the firm was compelled to suspend payment. Then I, who was
understood to know a little English, opened a class for teaching that
language. My pupils had no money, but I took it out in empty bottles,
and by and by we had them stacked by the hundred all round about ready
for market.
The food we got was so wretched and insufficient that it was scarcely
possible to keep body and soul together upon it. I have asked many
people since how they fared in other ships, and I have come to the
conclusion that our ship was the worst provided of any in that respect.
Indeed, the emigrant ships which leave England are well supplied with
everything, even luxuries, for their passengers. But in this ship we
were sometimes on the point of despair with hunger. We got our week's
supply of biscuits served out once a week. Those who were unable to
practise self-restraint, generally ate them in a couple of days, and for
the rest of the week subsisted on the so-called dinner which consisted
of a couple of mouthfuls of salt pork or mutton, with a little
sauer-krout to keep it company. Our ration of sugar was a small
table-spoonful per week to each man. The tea and coffee we got morning
and evening was served in the same wooden trough in which we fetched our
dinner, and as the sugar ration was, as already stated, served
separately once a week and quickly consumed, our beverage was void of
any sweetening. But as for me, I never fooled about all the week with my
spoonful of sugar; I always put it into the first pint of tea I got. We
also got some butter, and we never troubled much either about the
quantity or quality of that article. The trouble was that we had seldom
a biscuit to spread it on. The prospectus had said that cordials were
served out, and in conformity with that every sixteen men received one
bottle of lime-juice per week. These were our rations. There was on that
account an amount of dissatisfaction on board verging sometimes on open
mutiny. The water was also fearfully bad, with inches of froth on it,
but bad as it was, we would drink it as soon as we got it and then feel
like dying of thirst sometimes before the time came to serve out the
next rations. As a sort of proof of the correctness of this statement, I
might mention that one of the passengers had a canary bird which died of
thirst because some of us would steal the drop of water in its glass!
I have already written that no disturbance worth mentioning occurred on
the voyage. When I wrote that, I forgot an incident which happened when
we had been out to sea about a couple of months. The doctor, as I have
already stated, was also in command of us. He had been an army doctor in
the German army during the Franco-German war, and came straight thence.
Whether he made the mistake of thinking he was in command of a convict
ship full of criminals, or whether it was that his military training was
the cause of it, I cannot say, but in one word, he was boss of that
ship. Every now and then somebody would be handcuffed and shut up during
his pleasure, without anybody taking much notice; but one day he went a
good deal too far. One of the single girls had been accused by the woman
in charge of them of some fault, upon which I need not farther enlarge
more than to say that it was trifling, and that the culprit was a very
respectable girl, who shortly after her arrival in Queensland got
married to a good husband, and that both she and her husband are, and
always were, pre-eminently respectable people. The girl was tied with
ropes to the mast, with her hands fastened behind her in such a way that
she was exposed to the full view of all the six hundred people on board.
I was lying in my bunk when a fellow came in very excited, and said,
"Look here, chaps, is not this getting red hot? There is that poor girl,
so and so, chained to the mast and crying as if her heart would break.
What are we coming to?"
The moment I heard there was a girl chained to the mast and crying, I
jumped up and registered an oath aloud that she should not stand there
one second longer than it would take me to reach the mast. So did every
other man who was in the cabin; even meek Thorkill cried out, "It is too
bad, too bad." Then I grabbed the wooden trough in which the concoction
of roasted peas that passed for coffee was served out in the morning. So
did every other man grab at something to strike with--one would take a
wooden clog, one a long stick, another a boot, and all something, and in
less time than it takes to read this we were all on deck. But to reach
the mast was then impossible. The girl had not stood there yet for five
minutes, but there was already a surging, impenetrable crowd on the
scene of action. As I could not see, and could not content myself to
stand still, I jumped up in the rigging, and from there, right enough, I
saw the girl and four German constables (passengers who had been sworn
in as police) watching her. How shall I describe the scene. It all
seemed to me to happen in one instant. Hundreds of men were yelling from
behind at the top of their voices, "Throw them in the sea. Cut her down!
Where is the doctor? He shall not live another hour." A dozen men were
struggling round the girl, some with the constables, and some of the
more moderate among the passengers with the aggressors. One towering
fellow, a Dane, had one of the constables by the throat, and the wooden
bowl swinging over his head, and held back by another man, who implored
him to give the doctor a chance to order the girl's instant removal. The
doctor was not on deck, but he came running on now, with a revolver in
each hand. He kept on the quarter-deck, but he sang out to the
constables to cut her down and take her into the hospital. Somehow that
was done, and the doctor walked down the steps from the quarter-deck,
turned the key in the lock, put it in his pocket, and faced the crowd.
Did you ever notice two dogs when they meet, and before they begin to
fight? How unconcerned they try to look. They will look at anything,
anywhere but at one another. So looked the doctor as he stood there with
a cigar in his mouth, smoking away and looking at anything but the sea
of faces around him. Around him like a solid wall had the men closed,
armed with knives, wooden bowls, sticks, &c., and the howl, "Throw him
in the sea," kept on from the rear. No doubt the doctor realized that he
had gone too far, and he tried all he could while he stood there not to
give further offence, but I watched him particularly from my seat in the
rigging. Fear was not in that man. Not a muscle in his face shook, and
yet I am certain that his attention was strained to the uttermost, and
that the fingers which closed on the triggers of the two revolvers would
have caused them to blaze away the moment he had felt any one touch him
ever so gently. Behind him again, but up on the quarter-deck, stood the
captain and the first mate, with large overcoats on, and their hands in
their pockets. I had a suspicion that they also had revolvers--who knows
how many--within easy distance.
But it was one thing to see a young woman tied to the mast and crying,
and it was (the doctor and his revolver apart) quite another thing to
look at a closed door and know that she was there and that no further
harm would befall her. But most of the men had a few minutes ago been so
excited, that it was not in human nature for them to cool down at once.
The man who had when I came on the scene taken the most prominent part,
was still the foremost person. He stood within three feet of the doctor,
and, as I said already, like a solid wall stood the others armed with
divers things; but no one touched the doctor, and no one spoke to him,
and there was a sort of undecided silence. Then the leader cried, "Well,
what are you waiting for? You said throw him in the sea; just give the
word and he shall be overboard in a second." My heart beat violently. I
thought murder would be committed in an instant, and not a single life
either, but perhaps scores would be sacrificed. There was a dead
silence. The wind whistled through the rigging, but it was the only
sound heard. The doctor did not move; the captain did not move; the mate
did not move; and none of the men moved. None dared to give the
aggressive sign, and each seemed to feel it just as impossible to beat a
retreat. It might have lasted a couple of minutes, perhaps less. It
seemed an age to me. Then we all heard Thorkill's voice, he was
somewhere in the rigging too, and he cried, "Countrymen--listen--to--me!
hear--what--I--say! Disperse! Disperse!--quietly. Let--us--complain
--when--we--come--ashore! He--will--shoot--the--first--ten--or--twelve
--men--who--touch--him--and--those--who--escape--now--might--be--hung
--when--we--come--ashore. Let--us--complain--when--we--come--ashore
--and--we--will--get--justice." Thorkill still kept on talking, but the
outburst of relief from all sides completely drowned his voice. There
was an honourable way to get out of it. "We will complain when we come
ashore," "Disperse," "Let it be enough," and similar expressions, were
heard on all sides, and the doctor, I suppose nothing loth, had quite a
pleased appearance as he stepped up on the quarter-deck again as soon as
the road was clear, and disappeared out of sight simultaneously with the
dispersion of the men.
That day the doctor did not show up again, but on the next, I suppose
just to show that he did not consider himself beaten, all the single men
were ordered below at sundown as a punishment for insubordination, and
with that the matter ended. But now the men were pressing Thorkill to
write out a complaint which should embody all we had suffered, and all
our supposed wrongs. Thorkill, however, would do no such thing. It was
not in his line, he said. Many a talk he and I had about it, but he
could not see his way. "All these poor people," said he, "are treated
with contempt because they are poor, and I cannot help them for I am
just as poor. We do not know to whom to complain; we cannot write
English, and what we do will rebound on our own heads. Still," said he,
"it--is--a--shame--that--they--should--be--allowed--to--treat--people
--like--this." Then I wrote out a complaint in Danish addressed to the
Danish Consul, Australia. The exact contents of it I have long since
forgotten, but it was to the effect that we had been starved,
ill-treated, had had no sick accommodation, insufficient bed-clothes,
&c., and from that day I looked upon myself as an important personage on
board ship. All the single and married men, with about a dozen
exceptions, signed the statement. All the single girls wanted also to
sign it, but I feared the woman in charge might confiscate the document
(the matron in charge of the girls on our ship was only an ordinary
emigrant selected by the doctor, and in my opinion scarcely the best
that might have been selected. In English emigrant ships an educated
lady is engaged as matron.) Thus I could not bring myself to go among
them for the purpose of getting signatures, and so the females were not
represented in the complaint. (It might, however, be interesting to
English readers, as showing the standard of education on the continent
of Europe, that of all the people on board only one, an elderly man, had
to sign his name with a cross.)
One day while I was getting these signatures, and the men were coming to
where I held my levee as fast as they could, the doctor stormed the
cabin with two constables behind him and ordered me to give up the
document to him. Then the doctor and I talked, I in Danish and he in
German, and we had a wordy war. I liked the doctor in my heart, because
he was about as brave a man as one could wish to see, and very likely,
too, some of the severe discipline on board was not altogether uncalled
for; yet he was not going to have it all his own way, and to this day I
maintain that whatever else might have been right or wrong, to starve as
we starved was scandalous. I write about these things, and I do not know
whether my readers may think them of much interest, but all these little
incidents seem engraven upon my memory. On board ship there is nothing
to think about or to talk about but the same old things. One is cross,
perhaps, and everybody talks much about the same thing. "Where are we,
I wonder?" "I wonder how many knots we are running?" "I wonder how it
will go when we come to Queensland?" "I wonder if any one ever was so
hungry as I?" So it goes on, day out and day in, and one has to discuss
and answer these questions about five hundred times every day.
But now we are nearing Australia, and high time I dare say the reader
probably thinks it is; but if my readers are tired out, so were
we. Yet there is another of the passengers I must describe, as I
intend to mention him again. I will do so in a few words. He was a
quiet, gentlemanly man, about thirty years old. He told me he had
been a lieutenant in the Danish army, but had been dismissed for
insubordination. He managed, without giving offence to anybody, to keep
himself completely in the shadow in the ship, and one seemed not to know
he was there. I will call him "A." A. understood and spoke English
fluently, but nobody knew it. Indeed, when the complaint-fever was on,
he denied all knowledge of the language. A young lady was travelling
with him--that is, she went as a single girl, but they got married as
soon as we came ashore. They had quite a number of things with them to
set up house with, and lived for a short time very comfortably on their
means; when they went away again I lost sight of them.