This forecastle is occupied, for the most part, by the poorer passengers, especially emigrants. They have berths or shelves to recline on, but no bed-clothing; and their accommodations are generally very inferior.

On the next floor above are the cabins for the passengers in general. They are usually in two great—rather long—rooms, one at each end. One of them is used at meals as the dining-room. The berths or sleeping places are at their sides. They, too, are mere broad shelves, but they have bed-clothing and curtains.

On the upper deck the cabins are still more ample, as well as better furnished. There, instead of shelves at the sides, there are small rooms connected with the shelves, called state-rooms.

Were it not that the cabins on those upper decks are unusually long in proportion to their breadth, and did you not feel the motion of the boat while occupying[Pg 11] them, the traveler would hardly know that he was not in a large and comfortable hotel or dwelling-house.

There is still another deck or promenade above all these, but passengers are not usually allowed to occupy it. The helmsman of the boat is stationed here, and a crowd of people around him might obstruct his view.

I have thus described five stories or rows; but there is a difference in boats in this particular, even in the large ones. Some have only four stories—that is, three besides the hold. In the latter case, the lower or freight deck is at one end of the boat, formed into a cabin which communicates only by means of a stairway with the next deck above it.

The best cabins are carpeted as nicely as our best parlors, and the furniture is often as costly. The state-rooms are also well furnished, and sometimes well ventilated.