Читать книгу The Fair Dominion: A Record of Canadian Impressions - R. E. Vernede - Страница 4

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Apart from its other merits the steerage has this to its credit—every one is very friendly and affable. No one required an introduction before entering into conversation, and the suspicion that we might be making the acquaintance of some doubtful and inferior person who would perhaps presume upon it later did not worry any of us. I sat at a delightful table. Some one who knew the ins and outs of a steerage passage had advised me to go in to meals with the first 'rush,' instead of waiting for the second or third. His theory was that the first relay got the pick of the food. So my two friends and I had taken care to answer the very first call to the saloon, which happened to be for high tea, and, seating ourselves at random, found that we were thereby self-condemned to take every meal in the same order—including breakfast at the unaccustomed and somewhat dispiriting hour of 7 A.M. I do not know that it greatly mattered. In the cabin next ours there were several small children, who appeared to wake and weep about 4 A.M., and either to throw themselves or be thrown out of their berths on to the floor a little later. Their lamentations then became so considerable, that we were not sorry to rise and go elsewhere.

Besides the three of us, there were at our table the following:—

(1) A Norwegian peasant. Going on to the land. Quiet and rapid in his eating.

(2) Another Norwegian peasant, also going on to the land. He must have arrived on board very hungry, and he remained so throughout the voyage. He used to help himself to butter with his egg spoon, after he had finished most of his egg with it. Moreover, he would rise and stretch a red and dusky arm all down the table, if he sighted something appetising afar off. As we had a most excellent table steward, whose waiting could not have been beaten in the first-class, we all rather resented this behaviour, and I—as his next door neighbour—was deputed to hold him courteously in his seat until the desired eatables could be passed him.

(3) A Durham miner going to a mine in northern Ontario. A cheery red-faced person. He had bought a revolver before starting for Canada, because friends had told him that they were rough sort of places up there. I afterwards stayed a night in a mining town, and the only row that I heard was caused by a young Salvation Army girl, who beat a drum violently for hours outside the bar. We advised the miner to practise with his revolver in some isolated spot, these weapons being tricky.

(4) A small shy cockney boy who was going out to his dad at Winnipeg. I don't know what his dad was, but I should think a clerk of sorts.

(5) A brass metal worker from the North. Going to a job in Peterborough. A quiet pleasant young man.

(6) A chauffeur who had also been in the Royal Engineers. Had been in the South African War, and told stories about it much more interesting than those you see in books.

(7) A horse-breaker, with whom I spent many hours learning about bits and bridles and shoes. He was the only married man among these seven. He hoped to bring his wife and family out within the year, and was not going to be happy until he did, even though the kids would have to be vaccinated, and he had most conscientious objections to this process.

All these men—even the Norwegian with his egg-spoon habits—would be, I could not help thinking, a distinct gain to any country. I fancy too that they represented the steerage generally. Of course there were other types. I remember some characteristic Londoners of the less worthy sort—gummy-faced youths in dirty clothes that had been smart. There was one in particular, whom the horse-breaker would refer to as 'that lad that goes about in what was once a soot o' clothes,' who had a perfect genius for card tricks and making music on a comb. His career in Canada, judging by criticisms passed upon him by returning Canadians, was likely to be brief and unsuccessful.

The food—to turn to what is always of considerable interest on a voyage—was good but solid. Pea soup, followed by pork chops and plum-pudding, makes an excellent dinner when you are hungry. Everybody was hungry the first day and also the last three days. In between there was a cessation of appetites. The sea was never in the least rough, but there was some slight motion on the second day out, and the majority of the nine hundred had probably never been to sea before. The strange affliction took them unawares, and they did not know how to deal with it. Where they were first seized, there they remained and were ill. The sides of the ship which appealed to more experienced travellers did not allure them. It was during this affliction that a device which had struck me as a most excellent idea upon going on board seemed in practice less good. This was a railed-in sand-pit which the paternal company had constructed between decks for the entertainment of the emigrant children. I had seen a dozen or more at a time playing in it with every manifestation of delight. Even now while they were ailing there, they did not seem to mind it.

Everywhere one went on that day of tribulation one had to walk warily.

Afterwards the sea settled down into a mill pond, and every one began to wear a cheerful and hopeful look. In the evenings, and sometimes in the afternoons as well, some of the Scandinavians would produce concertinas and violins, and the whole of them would dance their folk-dances for hours. It was extraordinary how gracefully they danced—the squat fair-haired women and the big men heavily clothed and booted. There was an attempt on the part of some of the English people to take part in these dances, but they soon realised their inferiority, and gave it up in favour of sports and concerts. The sports, though highly successful in themselves, led to a slight contretemps when the Bishop of London, who happened to be on board, came over by request to distribute the prizes. The Scandinavians, who quite wrongly thought they had been left out of the sports, seized the opportunity afforded by the bishop's address (which was concerned with our future in Canada), to form in Indian file, with a concertinist at their head, and march round and round the platform on which the bishop stood, making a deafening noise. It looked for a little as if there might be a scuffle between them and the prize-winners, but peace prevailed, though we were all prevented from hearing what was no doubt very sound advice. Apart from this, there was no horseplay to speak of until the last night but one, when a rowdy set, headed by a fat Yorkshireman, chose to throw bottles about in the dark, down in that part of the ship where about fifty men were berthed together. For this the ringleader was hauled before the captain and properly threatened.

Our concerts went with less éclat. They were held in the dining-saloon, and there were usually good audiences. It seemed however that we had only one accompanist, whose command of the piano was limited, and in any case self-consciousness invariably got the better of the performers at the last moment. Either they would not come forward at all when their turn arrived, or else, having come forward, they turned very red, wavered through a few notes and then lost their voices altogether. Our best English concertina player, a fat little Lancashire engineer, had his instrument seized with the strangest noises halfway through 'Variations on the Harmonica,' and after a manly effort to restrain them, failed and had to retire in haste. We generally bridged over these recurring gaps in the programme by singing 'Yip i addy.'

It was so fine most of the voyage, that one could be quite happy on deck doing nothing at all but resting and strolling and talking. A few of the girls skipped occasionally and some of the men boxed: there was no real zeal for deck games. The voyage was too short, and with the new life and the new world at the end of it we all wanted to find out from one another what we knew—or at least what we thought—Canada would be like. We stood in some awe of returning Canadians who talked of dollars as if they were pence, and we wondered if we should get jobs as easily as people said we should. Almost every type of worker was represented among us, and many types of people.

Chief among my own particular acquaintances made on the boat were a young lady-help from Alberta, two Russian Jews from Archangel, a Norwegian farm hand from somewhere near the Arctic circle, two miners from Ontario, and three small boys belonging to Perth, Scotland.

I do not know how the Russian Jews came to be on the boat. They had some Finnish, and I suppose slipped in with the Scandinavians. They also spoke a few words of German, which was the language we misused together. They were brothers, good-looking men with charming manners. The elder wore a frock coat and a bowler hat, and looked a romantic Shylock. The other was clothed in a smock, and was hatless. They said they had fled from the strife of Russia, and they wished particularly to know if Canada was a free country. The younger man was an ironworker and made penny puzzles in iron which, so far as I could make out, the elder brother invented. They had one puzzle with them, but it was very complicated, and I was afraid that the sale of such things in Canada might be limited, unless Canadians fancied bewildering themselves over intricate ironwork during the long winters. Still those two fugitives rolled Russian cigarettes very well too, which should earn them a living.

The Norwegian was a simple youth in a queer hat, which afterwards blew off into the sea much to his sorrow. He was very bent on acquiring the English language during the voyage, not having any of it to start with. I used to sit with him on one side and the small Perthshire boys on the other, while we translated Scottish into Norwegian and back again. The Scotch boys would inquire of me what 'hat' was in Norse, and I would point to the queer head-gear above-mentioned, and ask its owner to name its Norwegian equivalent. One of the things that stumped me—being a mere Englishman—was a question put by the smallest Perth boy: 'Whit is gollasses in Norwegian?'

It took me some time to find out what gollasses were in English, and I don't know how to spell them now.