A. T. Quiller-Couch

“ But every tide has its backwash; and it so happened that the Cambuscan held as many second and third class passengers as she could stow. They were—their general air proclaimed it—the failures of South African immigration: men and women who had gone out too early, and given up the struggle just when the propitious moment arrived. Seediness marked the second class; the third class came from all parts, from the Cape up to Pietermaritzburg, but they might have conspired to assemble on the Cambuscan as a protest against high hopes and dreams of a promised land. ”

“ They and the sleepers hived beneath them belonged to another world; a world driven with ours through wave and darkness, urged by the same propellers, controlled by the same helmsman, separated only by thin partitions, which the touch of a rock would tear down like paper; yet, while the partitions stood, separated as, no city separates its rich and poor. ”

“ You fellows with lung trouble flock to a tepid hole like Madeira, when the Cape would cure you in half the time: why, the voyage itself only begins to be decent after you get south! But you won't see it; and the people who do see it are just the sort who don't pay us when they come, and damage us when they go back—hard cases, sent out to pick up a living as well as their health, who get stranded and hurry home half-cured."
A young Briton in the deck-chair next to mine rose and walked off abruptly, while I fumbled for a coin, ashamed to meet the collector's eye. ”