ing 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.
Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 1.djvu/45
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1853]
AT PITTSBURGH
19