across the seas. What shall I find over here? I dare not wonder.--Ever
yours R.L.S."


As California was the goal he aimed for, in spite of his fatigue after
ten days of poor living and the sea, he determined to push on
immediately in an emigrant train bound for the Pacific coast.

On reaching port he and a man named Jones, with whom he had had more in
common than with any of his other fellow passengers, landed together.

"Jones and I issued into West Street, sitting on some straw in the
bottom of an open baggage wagon. It rained miraculously, and from that
moment till on the following night I left New York, there was scarce a
lull, and no cessation of the downpour....

"It took but a few moments, though it cost a good deal of money, to be
rattled along West Street to our destination: Reunion House, No. 10 West
Street, 'kept by one Mitchell.'

"Here I was at last in America and was soon out upon the New York
streets, spying for things foreign....

"The following day I had a thousand and one things to do; only the day
to do them in and a journey across the continent before me in the
evening.... It rained with potent fury; every now and then I had to get
under cover for a while in order, so to speak, to give my mackintosh a
rest; for under this continued drenching it began to grow damp on the
inside. I went to banks, post-offices, railway offices, restaurants,
publishers, book sellers and money changers.