In Fact, I Cannot Conceive How A Lady Manages; We Have, However, Five.

There are only seven very small cabins, into each of which two people are crammed; no room to swing cats.

Eight other deluded individuals, of whom I am one, are given to understand that a cabin-passage is included in permission to sleep on the benches and table of the cuddy. For this you pay Rs. 200 extra. The vessel is dirty beyond measure, from the soot, and with the difficulty of copious ablution and private accommodation, is almost worse, to a lover of Indian habits, than the journey to Bombay from Agra upon camels. No civility is to be got from the officers. If they are not directly uncivil, the passengers are luckier than we have been. They declare themselves disgusted with passenger ships, but do not take the proper way of showing their superiority to the duty."

The only officer of the Berenice who dined at the captain's table was the surgeon of the vessel, and in justice to him it must be said, that he left no means untried to promote the comfort of the passengers. It is likewise necessary to state, that we were never put upon an allowance of water, although, in consequence of late alterations made in the dockyard, the vessel had been reduced to about half the quantity she had been accustomed to carry in iron tanks constructed for the purpose. Notwithstanding this reduction, we could always procure a sufficiency, either of hot or cold water, for ablutions, rendered doubly necessary in consequence of the atmosphere of coal-dust which we breathed.

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