THE VOYAGE
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.
If 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 standing 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, oaths, 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 approached 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 of 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 slow
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 only a twinkling
light high up on a point told where the last land lay.
Never had the tumult on deck ceased. Singing, crying, laughing,
quarrelling, complaining of hunger, the fact that they were at last off
for America seemed to rouse in all a desire to say something or make a
noise. Some few women who fancied that already they were seasick, though
the ship merely quivered now and then from the motion of the screw, sat
about with their heads on their husbands’ shoulders.
Now a greater stir was brought about by the ringing of the bell that
announced supper for the steerage. The majority of the emigrants had had
but a hasty bite at breakfast-time twelve hours before, and, being
healthy and hearty, were ravenously hungry.
From the steerage galley, which was on the level of the main deck
forward under the fo’c’s’le head, the cooks and stewards began to lug
great tanks of food and baskets of bread. These they lined up in a
narrow passage-way between the hatch and the bulkhead of the galley. The
tanks were huge tinned things holding about twenty-five gallons each,
and from the first there was ladled out macaroni Neapolitan, from the
next chunks of beef the size of one’s fist, from the next red wine, and
then came the bread-baskets and the boiled-potato tank.
As we had come aboard and got the blankets, as I have told, we were each
handed a red card bearing an inscription that it was “Good for One
Ration,” just as on the _Lahn_, and advised that the passengers form
themselves into groups of six and elect a _capo di rancio_, who should
manage the mess, and would, when elected and given the six ration cards
of his group, be issued a two-gallon pan and a gallon flask-bucket for
coffee or wine. When the blanket was enrolled, each person found inside
a fork, spoon, pint tin cup, and a flaring six-inch-wide, two-inch-deep
pan out of which to eat, identical with those on the _Lahn_.
The plan, or rather the ship’s company’s ideal of it, is that the _capo
di rancio_ shall take the big pan and the bucket, get the dinner and the
drinkables, and distribute the portions to his group. But it works out
that one or two assistants are needed to carry the bread if it is not
desired to soak it by dropping it into the mess in the pan, and a woman
with a baby in her arms cannot very well carry a full pan and a full
bucket. When the meal is over, some one of the group is supposed to
collect the tin utensils from whatever part of the steerage quarters the
group has chosen to eat its meal in for that time, take them to a
wash-room under the fo’c’s’le head, where there are several tanks with
running water, and wash them ready for the next time. But the crowd in
the wash-room after meals was so great that about one third of the
people chose to rinse off the things with a dash of drinking-water;
others never washed their cups and pans; and still others waited till
the next meal and then washed their kit just before they ate. When I say
that the water supplied for washing kits was raw sea water and cold at
that, any housewife will understand instantly why none of the cups,
pans, spoons, or forks were clean and fit for use after the first meal,
if they were even then. Yet the emigrant pays half the first-cabin rate
for fighting for his food, serving it himself, and washing his own
dishes.
This night we had little trouble, for Antonio and I understood the order
about the groups of six, and we did everything in order; but the mob was
two hours in getting its supper satisfactorily, by which time that
portion of it which had been hot was unfit to eat.
Just before the bell was rung there came down from the boat deck a trim
young man in the uniform of an Italian naval officer, and as he passed
me I saw that he was of surgeon’s rank and knew he was Dr. Piazza, the
surgeon detailed by the government to the _Prinzessin Irene_ to look
after the welfare of the emigrants, just as an Italian naval doctor
travels on every emigrant ship leaving Italian ports. The Italian
government does about twenty times as much for the emigrants as the
United States, yet the condition of health and finance in which they
arrive in America is of concern here and not in Italy, for they become a
part of us. It is to our interests that they should not be oppressed,
underfed, robbed, or given unsanitary treatment.
The young officer went to the door of the galley. The chief steerage
cook threw a clean towel over the serving-board that barred it, and on
it set clean china dishes, into which the doctor put portions of each
sort of food, and ate enough to test the quality. He drank a little of
the wine. Every meal thereafter he did the same thing. I had had the
opportunity of watching the Italian doctor on the _Lahn_ on the voyage
to Italy, and I must say that both men did their work in a most
commendable manner. As to the food itself, it was in its quality as good
as the average Italian gets at home, but the manner in which it was
messed into one heap in the big pan was nothing short of nauseating.
Every pound of food and ounce of drink is regulated by Italian law, both
as to amount per day and proportion of kind and variety. If there was a
failure to live up to the law on the _Lahn_ and _Prinzessin Irene_, it
was in the wine and fish.
Giovanni Pulejo was chosen _capo di rancio_ of our family group, and
Nicola Curro, the little cabinet-maker and trombonist, headed the one in
which were Nunzio Giunta, Gaetano Mullura, and the other
Gualtieri-Sicamino and Socosa boys, while Giuseppe Rota from Avellino,
who had joined us at Naples, headed a third group. The others were
divided among groups of other friends.
On the occasion of this first meal the emigrants began doing what is the
bane of life in the steerage; throwing the refuse from their meal on the
deck instead of over the side or into the scuppers. It being the first
night out of port, the deck watch was too busy securing derricks,
storing mooring-gear, and putting the ship to rights, to scrub the deck
with hose and soogey-mougie when supper was over, so that I remember
traversing the main deck on the port side about eleven o’clock that
night much as I would cross a slippery glacier, for it was covered with
a layer of unctuous filth that made footing very uncertain.
It was an extremely hot night, and, though I was weary almost to
exhaustion, the air in the crowded compartment was so foul that I could
not sleep. The men and boys about me lay for the most part like logs,
hats, coats, and shoes off, and no more, sleeping the sleep of the
ineffably tired. I rolled and tossed on the hard pallet till at last I
went on deck, and, seeking a deeply shaded corner on a hatch, I sat
watching the sea and the night. Possibly twenty minutes had passed when
from the mouth of the alley-way that led to the companion-way of the
women’s compartment a figure emerged and made its way forward
cautiously; for after certain hours all steerage passengers are supposed
to be below decks. As the figure came near me, I saw that it was my
wife. She, too, had been unable to breathe the air below, and had stolen
up, bringing with her a heavy shawl. She said the babies in her
compartment were crying in relays of six, and that she had had a grand
row with the women of the group who occupied the section of bunks next
to the women of our party.
The trouble arose over the filthy habits of the other women. They were
Neapolitans of the lowest class, and when they were eating their supper
had chosen to portion it out while they sat in their bunks, and the
result was that bits of macaroni, meat, and potatoes were scattered all
over their beds, the beds of their neighbors, and on the floor. The
other women who were minded to be cleanly made no protest, merely
looking askance, but my wife interposed. She brought down a storm of
Neapolitan vituperation on her head.
The climax came when the Neapolitans, too lazy to take their dishes up
on deck to wash them, rinsed them with a cupful of drinking-water in bed
and then endeavored to pour water and pertaining refuse out of the
port-hole. A little girl of eleven was engineering the job, and,
regardless of the fact that her shoes were filthy with deck slime, used
my wife’s bed as a step to climb up to the port-hole, where, failing to
get all the water and waste outside, she allowed the remainder to spill
inside, down the wall and on the edges of the two nearest beds. I do not
know just what happened, but I have an adequate fancy, and at least
there was no more dish-washing or filth-spilling in that corner of the
compartment.
Just as we had observed on the _Lahn_, the men of the emigrants were
reasonably cleanly, as were also about two thirds of the women; but the
other third were so grossly dirty that they littered every place they
passed in a way that the sailors and stewards would not have been able
to keep pace with even had they put forth their best efforts, which they
certainly did not. All of the other steerage passengers, a majority by
far, had to submit to the reign of uncleanliness.
I have not told the worst by any means. It could not be put in print.
The remedy for the whole matter is to pack fewer people in the same
ship’s space, and a regular service of food at tables. The chief
stewards of ships will cry, “How can 1,000 or 1,500 people be served at
tables?” A perfect argument; but no such number should ever be carried.
If the English lines going out to the Cape and Australia can give closed
cabins with served meals for a proportionately less third-class rate
than the Transatlantic lines, the big emigrant-carriers can do it, and
should be forced to give up a part of their profits, which are enormous,
in order that sanitary conditions at least may prevail.
It was nearing morning when we were found by the deck watch and driven
below. The air was far worse than when I had gone up, but in about half
an hour the wind shifted from the quarter to the bow and of course to
its velocity was added that of the ship, so that a fair draught was set
going below decks, and I fell asleep.
The noise made by the men and boys about awoke me in little more than an
hour later, and the second day of the voyage was begun.