Every One Sought A Shelter For The Night, And
The Little Cabins Of The Engineer And Steersman Were Given Up To
Some, While Others Crept Into The Passages, Or Squatted Down On The
Steps Of The Stairs Leading To The Cabins.
A place was offered to
me in the engineer's cabin; but as three or four other persons were
to share the apartment calculated only for one person, I preferred
to bivouac night and day upon deck.
One of the gentlemen was kind
enough to lend me a thick cloak, in which I could wrap myself; and
so I slept much more comfortably under the high canopy of heaven
than my companions did in their sweating-room.
The arrangements in the vessels navigating the Gotha canal are by no
means the best. The first class is very comfortable, and the cabin-
place is divided into pretty light divisions for two persons; but
the second class is all the more uncomfortable: its cabin is used
for a common dining-room by day, and by night hammocks are slung up
in it for sleeping accommodation. The arrangements for the luggage
are worse still. The canal-boats, having only a very small hold,
trunks, boxes, portmanteaus, &c. are heaped up on the deck, not
fastened at all, and very insufficiently protected against rain.
The consequence of this carelessness on a journey of five or six
days was, that the rain and the high waves of the lakes frequently
put the after-deck several inches under water, and then the luggage
was wetted through.
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