It was an extremely hot night, and, though I was weary almost to exhaustion, the air in the crowded compartment was so foul that I could not sleep. The men and boys about me lay for the most part like logs, hats, coats, and shoes off, and no more, sleeping the sleep of the ineffably tired. I rolled and tossed on the hard pallet till at last I went on deck, and, seeking a deeply shaded corner on a hatch, I sat watching the sea and the night. Possibly twenty minutes had passed when from the mouth of the alley-way that led to the companion-way of the women’s compartment a figure emerged and made its way forward cautiously; for after certain hours all steerage passengers are supposed to be below decks. As the figure came near me, I saw that it was my wife. She, too, had been unable to breathe the air below, and had stolen up, bringing with her a heavy shawl. She said the babies in her compartment were crying in relays of six, and that she had had a grand row with the women of the group who occupied the section of bunks next to the women of our party. The trouble arose over the filthy habits of the other women. They were Neapolitans of the lowest class, and when they were eating their supper had chosen to portion it out while they sat in their bunks, and the result was that bits of macaroni, meat, and potatoes were scattered all over their beds, the beds of their neighbors, and on the floor. The other women who were minded to be cleanly made no protest, merely looking askance, but my wife interposed. She brought down a storm of Neapolitan vituperation on her head. The climax came when the Neapolitans, too lazy to take their dishes up on deck to wash them, rinsed them with a cupful of drinking-water in bed and then endeavored to pour water and pertaining refuse out of the port-hole. A little girl of eleven was engineering the job, and, regardless of the fact that her shoes were filthy with deck slime, used my wife’s bed as a step to climb up to the port-hole, where, failing to get all the water and waste outside, she allowed the remainder to spill inside, down the wall and on the edges of the two nearest beds. I do not know just what happened, but I have an adequate fancy, and at least there was no more dish-washing or filth-spilling in that corner of the compartment. Just as we had observed on the _Lahn_, the men of the emigrants were reasonably cleanly, as were also about two thirds of the women; but the other third were so grossly dirty that they littered every place they passed in a way that the sailors and stewards would not have been able to keep pace with even had they put forth their best efforts, which they certainly did not. All of the other steerage passengers, a majority by far, had to submit to the reign of uncleanliness.