Every time that a ship began a layover, moreover, the question of who could disembark meant that these hierarchies had to be rearranged. These groups might have different food regimes, cabins, and levels of access to the deck. To varying degrees, passengers were divided by class, gender, age, race, profession, rank, and health. In dividing these groups into intricate social and spatial orders, shipboard authorities had a complex job cut out for them. Steamships heading “beyond Suez” intertwined the paths and aspirations of military men and bureaucrats, entrepreneurs and entertainers, tourists, servants, and migrants, men, women, and children, animals and cargo, convicts, and the mentally and physically ill – not to mention the maritime laborers who kept the entire operation running. The diagram comes from a book of commercial publicity and imperial propaganda written by a Messageries ship-captain, Louis Tillier, and a famous journalist, novelist, and veteran of French colonial wars, Paul Bonnetain. This ship plan from the late-19th century offers a partial view of spatial arrangements within a Messageries steamship.
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