The cabin assigned to us was a small closet off the chief one, containing ten berths, with a space of floor about seven feet by five, which they surrounded. We were quite full, and when each passenger had brought in his carpet-bag or hat-box—aid one light-hearted foreigner appeared to be travelling from Marseilles to Smyrna with no more luggage than the latter contained—there was little room to turn round; indeed, that cruel feat with a cat, traditionally performed to determine habitable space, was here practically impossible.
So we were obliged to go to bed and get up one at a time; and when undressed, we had to pack our clothes up at our feet as well as we could, only to find that they had all got down into the depths of the mattresses, and underneath them even, by the morning. We were fortunate, however, in having a species of stout cucumber frame for a skylight, which could be lifted right away; and but for this, there is no telling how any one of us might have survived asphyxiator to recount our voyage. For having crept on to my shelf, which was one of the lower ones, about ten o’clock, with a very stout Armenian above me, who weighed so heavily on his sacking, that I was constantly knocking my head against it whenever I moved, I could not very readily get to sleep. The night was uncommonly sultry, even for the parallel of Malta, and I could not shake off a horrible impression that the stout Armenian would break through his sacking, and smother me at some remote period of the night.
I could not get the fearful story I once read, of a man who was in a prison that got smaller every day until it crushed him, out of my head; and this suffocating notion followed me into a troubled doze; so that when I awoke about twelve, almost stifled by the heat, and looking up, saw the skylight above-mentioned, with the stars shining through the opening, I had some hazy impression that this was the last window of the six that had disappeared, one by one, and day by day, in the story alluded to. In an agony of terror, such as I had never before experienced, I scrambled from my berth, and springing on a portmanteau, contrived to raise myself through the hatchway, and get a little breath of such air as was stirring tour bulgaria.
A small impression
On the foreigners, the close and stifling heat appeared to make but a small impression. Not only had some of them gone to bed with the greater part of their clothes on, but one or two had even drawn closely together the blue curtains that ran on rods along the top of the berths, and so almost hermetically closed themselves up, to stew and swelter, as is their wont in diligences, steamers, and even rooms of hotels, or anywhere in fact, wherever an opportunity can be found of excluding such fresh air as might otherwise intrude.
To me the sensation was so indescribably distressing, that I shuffled on some clothes, and pulling myself up through the opening, once more laid down upon the deck, amidst a dozen fourth class passengers, scarcely disturbed by the occasional visits of an enormous rat, who was scuffling about, picking up such few scraps as had fallen from the deck suppers. Here I remained until six in the morning, when I went below for my toilet. The four ladies had a cabin opposite to ours, and about the same size, but it had no hatchway. There was only a thick plate of ground glass to light it, and they had opened the door into the saloon for as much ventilation as they could get.
They appeared to care but little about privacy—air was evidently the chief consideration ; so that, as it happened, a man might have looked upon far more disagreeable objects than the dark-eyed Marseillaise, as she was lying in her berth and fanning herself, with her black hair floating about her pillow, and—if such may be mentioned—half-uncovered shoulders. She did not appear to think anything of the display, nor indeed did any body else—her Janice and her brother included, with the latter of whom she kept conversing all the time he was dressing.
Private Balkan Tours 