Henry Parkes,
An emigrant's home letters — Letter Twenty-One
(1896)
“ We fare very well, considering all things, on board the Strathfieldsaye, but the steerage of an emigrant ship is of necessity a most miserably uncomfortable place to me. I am more solitary and companionless than I ever was in all my life in this stagnant crowd of human beings. ”
Henry Parkes,
An emigrant's home letters — Letter Twenty-One
(1896)
“ They are separated from each other by a slight, low deal board, about ten inches high, so that when we are all in bed, our bodies, rising higher than these boards which separate us, it seems as if we were ranged side by side in one immense bed all round the place. We sleep on straw mattresses, with a double blanket and a rug. We live at present on nothing but beef and soup and biscuit, but there is plenty of that. We are divided into messes—eight persons to a mess. ”
Henry Parkes,
An emigrant's home letters — Letter Twenty-One
(1896)
“ The large hold of the ship, where the goods generally are stored, is divided in about the middle by a deal partition. The apartment towards the forecastle, or front of the ship, is allotted to the male steerage passengers ”
