AR To New York

In Liverpool it rained, and I remember that metropolis as a city of muddy streets. The transatlantic steamer we boarded there was a palace compared to the ship on which we had reached England. The name of this ship was Regina, operated by the White Star Line, I believe, and having previously plied the route to Halifax, was now to make its first run to New York and to the United States. Here we found our third class cabins spotlessly clean, and barring seasickness, very comfortable. I was intrigued that all along the edges of the large, white cloth-covered dining tables there was a nearly two-inch high, wooden-post fence to keep the dinnerware from sliding off the tables!

The ship Regina hove anchor and gradually began to slide from its berth. Liverpool lies on the west coast of England, across the Irish Sea from Ireland. And so we made our way southward to the open Atlantic. All in all, as I remember, the sea voyage took a total of about nine days, and we were thus on the high seas for well over a week. And we did not avoid the winter storms of the North Atlantic. Nor did we avoid seasickness, although in the spotless environment we now enjoyed it was a deep embarrassment when, hurrying to the rail, I had to go to heave just before I reached the top of the stairs, and trying to keep my mouth shut by all means. The effect was a fine spray of vomit over the top steps!

And oh, were the waves huge! The great ship rolled from side to side, so that walking the deck was like ascending a hill, and then running down again. Sometimes it seemed that the ship was about to plough into a great mountain of water and a bit later to be reaching for the sky. And at one moment, I did fleetingly see my first dolphin.

As we reached the western Atlantic, the great storm subsided and the ocean became fairly smooth. Soon, we sighted land and, not much later, land flanked us on both sides as we glided up Long Island Sound and ended our sea voyage when the skyscrapers of New York reached up to the sky before our eyes. We had reached America!