As far as I saw, drink, idleness, and incompetency were the three great causes of emigration, and for all of them, and drink first and foremost, this trick of getting transported overseas appears to me the silliest means of cure. You cannot run away from a weakness; you must some time fight it out or perish; and if that be so, why not now, and where you stand?...emigration has to be done before we climb the vessel; an aim in life is the only fortune worth the finding; and it is not to be found in foreign lands, but in the heart itself.

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote about his trip from Scotland to New York in 1879. He had received word that his future American wife was ready to re-marry after her divorce, but that she was seriously ill. He left immediately.

This travelogue is not as good as [Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes], but it's short and I enjoyed the trip across the Atlantic. He travelled in steerage class to see how the working class fared. It's a good insight into how it was for to travel to New York during the mass migrations in the 19th century.

It is indeed a glimpse into the lives of very poor and destitute immigrants - there's also an interesting incident of a very sick stowaway that Stevenson helps. ( )

Paul Therox called this "One of the ten essential travel books.". It details the first leg of Stevensons journey from Scotland to meet and marry Fanny in CA, it recounts his time on board a ship in the steerage compartment (lower-class). Stevenson described the crowded weeks in steerage with the poor and sick, as well as stowaways, and his initial reactions to New York City where he spent a few days. Filled with sharp-eyed observations, it brilliantly conveys Stevenson's perceptions of America and Americans. It also provides a very detailed and enjoyable account of what it was like to travel to America as an emigrant in the 19th century, during a time of mass migrations to the New World. Details such as the bedding arrangements, daily food rations, relationships with the crew, with other grade ticket holders, passengers of other nationalities, entertainment, children - all provide a rich and colorful tapestry of life on-board the ship. ( )

"Love launched the haphazard six-thousand-mile odyssey that the twenty-five-year-old Robert Louis Stevenson recounts in this memoir and travel book. For it was during a trip to France that Stevenson fell so totally in love with the vivacious Fanny Osbourne that he determined to follow her to America and make her his wife. No matter that an ocean and a continent, not to mention Fanny's difficult husband, stood between Stevenson and his amorous aim." "Sailing from Scotland in 1879 as a steerage passenger on a steamer of dubious seaworthiness, the sickly Stevenson first endured a turbulent Atlantic crossing and then, after a frenetic stopover in New York City, embarked on the two-week trip of three thousand miles across the continent the fastest and cheapest way possible - by emigrant train. He arrived finally in the frontier town of San Francisco, there to woo his future wife, and found himself enchanted by California as well." In his record of this journey Stevenson captures the spirit of the young country he traveled, relishes the antics of the rambunctious inhabitants he encountered, and renders in vivid and often hilarious detail his impressions of the awesome, still-untamed American continent he discovered.

7.7