Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 1.djvu/45

1853] the long journey. We passed the larger towns on the route during the night, when my inability to speak English made me afraid to leave the car, especially as I could not find out the length of the stops. For the same reason, I was afraid to leave the train in search of food in the daytime. Thus I had to depend for sustenance upon the apples and cake that were offered for sale in the cars here and there. Dirty and tired as I was, I greeted our arrival in Pittsburg as a deliverance from much misery. But I had to fare still worse. I had bought a through ticket to Cincinnati, entitling me to a second-class passage down the Ohio on a certain steamboat-line from Pittsburg. Not knowing the time of the departure of the boats, I made at once for the landing-place. This I managed to find by inquiring my way in stores whose signs indicated the German origin of their owners. There were three boats of the same line loading. I could not find out which would leave first, although I discovered some countrymen among the deck-hands, whom I questioned on the subject. “Whichever will be loaded full first,” was the reply. So I felt obliged to spend all day waiting and watching in one of the low German lodging and beer-houses frequented by the deck-hands who crowded the levee. Being no wiser by evening, I thought it best to spend the night there, repulsive as it was. I was given a bed in a room with two others, lay down with my clothes on and slept soundly. In the morning I was told that one of the boats had a sign up that it would leave at noon. After breakfast, I went on board in order to see what accommodations I should have as a second-class passenger. This I soon found out with the aid of a German deck-hand. To my great disgust, I ascertained that my ticket only permitted me to claim a place on the lower deck-quarter occupied by the deck-hands, including a sooty, bare, rough bunk. Made wise by my railroad experience, I laid in a good supply of bread and meat, and betook myself and my bag, with anything but a light heart, to the boat.