'You'll not be your mother's son, Davie,' were his last words, 'if you don't come home with it multiplied by a thousand.' I thought at the time that I would give more than twenty thousand pounds to be allowed to bide on the windy shores of Forth.
I sailed from Southampton by an intermediate steamer, and went steerage to save expense.

Happily my acute homesickness was soon forgotten in another kind of malady.

It blew half a gale before we were out of the Channel, and by the time we had rounded Ushant it was as dirty weather as ever I hope to see.

I lay mortal sick in my bunk, unable to bear the thought of food, and too feeble to lift my head.

I wished I had never left home, but so acute was my sickness that if some one had there and then offered me a passage back or an immediate landing on shore I should have chosen the latter.
It was not till we got into the fair-weather seas around Madeira that I recovered enough to sit on deck and observe my fellow-passengers.
There were some fifty of us in the steerage, mostly wives and children going to join relations, with a few emigrant artisans and farmers.