PART I




I


The German fast mail steamer, _Roland_, one of the older vessels of the
North German Steamship Company, plying between Bremen and New York, left
Bremen on the twenty-third of January, 1892.

It had been built in English yards with none of those profuse, gorgeous
gold decorations in a riotous rococo style which are so unpleasant in the
saloons and cabins of ships more recently built in German yards.

The crew of the vessel included the captain, four officers, two engineers
of the first rank, assistant engineers, firemen, coal-passers, oilers, a
purser, the head-steward and the second steward, the chef, the second
cook, and a doctor. In addition to these men with their assistants, to
whom the well-being of that tremendous floating household was entrusted,
there were, of course, a number of sailors, stewards, stewardesses,
workers in the kitchen, and so on, besides two cabin-boys and a nurse.
There was also an officer in charge of the mail on board. The vessel was
carrying only a hundred cabin passengers from Bremen; but in the steerage
there were four hundred human beings.

Frederick von Kammacher, to whom, the day before, the _Roland_ had been
non-existent, telegraphed from Paris to have a cabin on it reserved for