Travel Essays · Chapter
Fellow-Passengers explained
The narrator reflects on the diverse and often uncommunicative passengers aboard the emigrant train, noting the contrast between European and American travelers, the westward migration driven by economic hardship, and the social dynamics of
What happens
The narrator reflects on the diverse and often uncommunicative passengers aboard the emigrant train, noting the contrast between European and American travelers, the westward migration driven by economic hardship, and the social dynamics of the journey, including the persistent curiosity about his name and the general indifference to deeper human connection.
Themes in this chapter
Travel and Discovery
The narrator observes the diverse passengers and the lessons of travel, including the realization that strange races dwell next door at home.
Social Class and Inequality
The hard times and short commons driving emigration, the contrast between the emigrants' hopes and the reality of unemployment in California.
Human Connection and Community
The lack of genuine interest among passengers, the superficial curiosity about names, and the indifference to others' suffering, such as the man with epilepsy.
Characters to notice
- The Chinese
Noted as having the least offensive car on the train, representing one wave of emigration from the East.
- The Americans
The majority of passengers, from various states, fleeing hard times and seeking better wages westward.
- The English
Included a German family and Cornish miners, the latter described as a mysterious, esoteric race.
Key passages
“I think we are human only in virtue of open windows. Without fresh air, you only require a bad heart, and a remarkable command of the Queen's English, to become such another as Dean Swift; a kind of leering, human goat, leaping and wagging your scut on mountains of offence.”
Our humanity depends on fresh air; without it, even a skilled speaker can become as vile as Dean Swift, a lecherous figure reveling in filth.
The narrator reflects on the degrading conditions of the emigrant train and the importance of ventilation for maintaining human decency.
“Hungry Europe and hungry China, each pouring from their gates in search of provender, had here come face to face. The two waves had met; east and west had alike failed; the whole round world had been prospected and condemned; there was no El Dorado anywhere; and till one could emigrate to the moon, it seemed as well to stay patiently at home.”
Emigrants from Europe and China, both driven by hunger, converged in America, only to find that no promised land existed anywhere on Earth, making emigration futile.
The narrator observes the irony of global migration meeting in the American West, with no true haven to be found.
“If, in truth, it were only for the sake of wages that men emigrate, how many thousands would regret the bargain! But wages, indeed, are only one consideration out of many; for we are a race of gipsies, and love change and travel for themselves.”
If people emigrated solely for better pay, many would be disappointed; but the human love of change and travel is a deeper motive.
The narrator suggests that the desire for movement and novelty is as important as economic factors in driving migration.