CHAPTER I.

THE GREAT ATLANTIC FERRY. PAGE The “Grand Tour” of Former Days—The only Grand Tour left—Round 1 the World in Eighty Days—Fresh‐water Sailors and Nautical Ladies—Modern Steamships and their Speed—The _Orient_—Rivals—Routes round the Globe—Sir John Mandeville on the Subject—Difficulties in some Directions—The Great Atlantic Ferry—Dickens’s Experiences—Sea Sickness—Night at Sea—The Ship Rights—And then Wrongs—A Ridiculous Situation—Modern First‐class Accommodation—The Woes of the Steerage—Mark Tapley—Immense Emigration of Third‐class Passengers—Discomfort and Misery—Efforts to Improve the Steerage—“Intermediate”—Castle Garden, New York—Voyage Safer than by the Bay of Biscay—The _Chimborazo_ in a Hurricane