Things will soon be too bad with you; you were going to 
write to me as soon as you arrived in Mannheim, and now I have 
been sitting here three weeks already and still no letter from you. 
If that goes on I shall have to make up my mind to write di- 
rect to Fraulein Jung so that you will be more or less made to 
prove. your sisterly love for me. 

I hope you are having better weather than we are, nothing 
but storm and rain, as in September and November. At sea ships 
are going down like flies which drop into a glass of water, and 
the Norderney steamer was barely able to get there. The day 
before yesterday I was in Bremerhaven,° and there also it rained 
all morning. I was on the ships which take emigrants to America; 
they lie all together in the steerage, which is a large space as 
wide and long as the whole ship, the berths (that is what the 
beds are called) in sets of six side by side, and above them 
another six. There they all lie, men, women and children, and 
how horrible this stuffy place is, where there are often 200 peo- 
ple lying, especially during the first days of seasickness, you can 
well imagine. The air is in any case suffocating. Cabin passengers 
are better off, however, they have more room and a very elegant- 
ly furnished cabin. But when a storm breaks and the waves 
come over the ship, they are worse off; for the cabin has a 
glass skylight through which the light comes in; and when it is 

* The back of the letter bears the inscription: “Fraulein Marie Engels im 
grossherzoglichen Institut, frei. Mannheim.” — Ed. 

> See this volume, pp. 112-20—~ Ed. 

To Marie Engels, July 7-9, 1840 499 

hit by a heavy wave, the glass comes ringing most politely into 
the cabin and the water after it. Then the whole cabin gen- 
erally gets full of water, but the beds are so high that they 
remain dry. Just as we were leaving again at midday a great 
three-master called Marie, like you, and coming from the island 
of Cuba, sailed into the roads. Because of the low tide it could not 
enter the port and anchored in the roads. We went close to it in 
our steamer, and took off the captain; but there were already 
beginning to be waves in the roads, and the ship pitched a little. 
At once all the ladies grew pale and made faces as if they were 
going to be drowned; we had a couple of pretty tailor’s daughters 
on board to whom we behaved extremely gallantly, and with the 
straightest face in the world I made the geese believe the rolling 
and pitching would go on as far as Brake, which we were to reach 
only in an hour and a half. Unfortunately, however, it stopped 
again directly after Bremerhaven. Three unripe hats blew off into 
the water and were probably carried away to America, as well as a 
whole lot of empty wine and beer bottles. Apart from that I did 
not see much that was remarkable except a dead cat in the Weser 
which was making a voyage to the United States all on its own. I 
spoke to it, but it was rude enough not to reply. 

Here you have a hasty sketch of Bremerhaven. On the left is the 
fort which guards the harbour, an old brick-built thing which the 
wind will soon blow over; next the locks through which ships are 
let into the harbour, which is a long narrow canal a little wider 
than the Wupper; behind that is the town, and farther to the right 
the Geest, a kind of river, and the church spire above it in the air, 
that is the church which has yet to be built. On the right in the 
distance is Geestendorf. 

A few days ago I made the acquaintance of a man whose father 
is a Frenchman born in America, his mother a German, he himself 
was born at sea and his native tongue, since he lives in Mexico, is 
Spanish. So what is his Fatherland? 

We now have a complete stock of beer in the office; under the 
table, behind the stove, behind the cupboard, everywhere are beer 

bottles, and when the Old Man? is thirsty he borrows one and has 
it filled up again for us later. That is now done quite openly, the 
glasses stand on the table all day and a bottle nearby. In the 
right-hand corner are the empty bottles, in the left the full ones, 
next to them my cigars. It is really true, Marie, the young people 
are getting worse and worse every day, as Dr. Hantschke says; who 
would have thought 20 or 30 years ago of such terrible wickedness 
as drinking beer in the office? 

What is most convenient for you, shall I pay the postage for our 
correspondence and frank my letters and also pay for yours, 
which you will then send unfranked? If you have already written 
before this letter arrives, I shall not write to you again until you 
write me a sensible, long letter in reply to this one. 

Adieu. i 
With true love, 
Your brother 

Friedrich 
Bremen, July 7, 40 is 

Fortunately, this letter has again been left lying around and thus 
gives me the opportunity to reply to your letter, which has just 
arrived. “I wish I too could play as well as she does! If I practise 
very hard, I shall get that far too?” You? Play a sonata of 20 
pages? Goose that you are! Schornstein would, of course, be 
pleased. What wishes have I for Christmas? I have lost my cigar 
case, and if I don’t find it soon, can you make a new one for me? 
Thank Ada for her greetings and greet her heartily from me; tell 
her she is the first to call me amiable, and I am not at all a cousin, 
but at most her very respectful kinsman.— When you write again, 
don’t address the letter to Treviranus, as I then get it later, but to 
F. E., Bremen, Martini No. 11. Then it will be brought to me in 
the office. 

Farewell.© 
Yours, 
Friedrich 
Bremen, July 9, 1840