The emigrants were from many countries, though the majority were Scotch and Irish bound for the new world with the hope of meeting with better fortune than they had had in the old, and they whiled away the days at sea in their several ways, making the best of their discomforts and cheering one another when they grew lonely or homesick for those they had left behind.

When the weather was good their spirits rose and there were many rounds of singing and story-telling as they sat clustered together like bees under the lee of the deck-house, and in all of these Stevenson joined heartily.

“We were indeed a musical ship’s company,” he says, “and cheered our way into exile with the fiddle, the accordion, and the songs of all nations, good, bad or indifferent—­Scottish, English, Irish, Russian or Norse—­the songs were received with generous applause.  Once or twice, a recitation, very spiritedly rendered in a powerful Scotch accent, varied the proceedings; and once we sought in vain to dance a quadrille, eight men of us together, to the music of the violin.  The performers were humorous, frisky fellows, who loved to cut capers in private life; but as soon as they were arranged for the dance, they conducted themselves like so many mutes at a funeral.  I have never seen decorum pushed so far; and as this was not expected, the quadrille was soon whistled off, and the dancers departed.

“But the impulse to sing was strong, and triumphed over modesty and even the inclemencies of the sea and sky.  On one rough Saturday night, we got together by the main deck-house, in a place sheltered from the wind and rain.  Some clinging to the ladder which led to the hurricane-deck and the rest knitting arms or taking hands, we made a ring to support the women in the violent lurching of the ship, and when we were thus disposed, sang to our hearts’ content.

“There was a single chess-board and a single pack of cards.  Sometimes as many as twenty of us would be playing dominoes for love.  There were feats of dexterity, puzzles for the intelligence and a regular daily competition to guess the vessel’s progress; at twelve o’clock when the result was published in the wheel house, came to be a moment of considerable interest....  We had beside, romps in plenty.  Puss in the Corner, which we rebaptized, in more manly style, Devil and Four Corners, was my favorite game; but there were many who preferred another, the humor of which was to box a person’s ears until he found out who cuffed him.”

The voyage, which lasted ten days, was uneventful except for some rough weather when Stevenson found his cabin most stuffy and uncomfortable.  He was not really ill, however, and spent much of the time finishing a tale called “The Story of a Lie,” while his table played “Bob Jerry with the ink bottle.”  On his arrival in New York the story was sent back to London with the following letter to Sidney Colvin: 

“On Board S.S.  Devonia an hour or two out of New York, Aug., 1879.