second-class or third-class English steamer, which charges
fifteen shillings to a sovereign per diem; here, however, we were
paying between L2 and L3.

The Alexandrian agent had been asked to lodge us decently. My
wife found herself in a cabin occupied by two nurses. I was
placed in a manner of omnibus, a loose box for six, of whom one
was an Armenian and two were Circassians from Daghistan--good men
enough, but not pleasant as bedroom fellows. No extra service had
been engaged for an extra cargo of seventy-two; that is,
forty-two first, and thirty second class. There were only three
stewards, including the stewardess; and the sick were left to
serve themselves. At least half a dozen were required; and, in
such places as Trieste and Alexandria, a large staff of cooks and
waiters can always be engaged in a few hours. On board any
English ship some of the smartest and handiest seamen would have
been converted into temporary attendants--here no one seemed to
think of a proceeding so far out of the usual way. There was only
one, instead of three or four cooks; and the unfortunate had to
fill a total of one hundred and thirty-five mouths, the crew
included, three times a day. The other tenant of the close and
wretched little galley lay sick with spotted typhus; and, after
barbarous neglect, he died on the day following our arrival at
Trieste--I did not hear that the surgeon of the screw-steamer
Austria had met with his deserts by summary dismissal from the
service. The Austro-Hungarian Lloyd's was once famed for good
living; over-economy and high dividends have now made the cuisine
worse than the cheapest of tables d'hote. Provisions as well as
their preparation were so bad that Sefer Pasha, an invalid,
confined himself to a diet of potatoes and eggs.