IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA.
EUROPE.
THE EVE OF SAILING.
In youth's wild days, it cannot but be pleasant
This idle roaming round and round the world,
With wildfire spirits and heart disengaged.
Anster's Faustus.
When one first contemplates a voyage of many thousand miles, attended with long absence, loss of old associates, together with all the charms of home, country, and friends, often too lightly estimated whilst possessed, but always sorely missed when no longer within call; one is yet, and this through no lack of sensibility, apt to regard the sacrifice about to be made to duty as sufficiently light, and, with the aid of manhood and a little philosophy, easy of endurance. The very task, which a resolution of this grave nature necessarily imposes, of making as little of the matter as possible to those dear ones who yield up their fears, and subdue their strong affections, in obedience to your judgment, serves for a time the double purpose of hoodwinking oneself as well as blinding those on whom we seek to practise this kind imposition. Next comes the bustle of getting ready, assisted and cheered by the redoubled attentions of all who love, or feel an interest in one's fortunes. Amidst the excitement, then, of these various feelings, the deep-seated throb of natural apprehension, or home regret, if even felt, struggling for expression, is checked or smothered in the loud note of preparation. The day of departure is fixed at length, it is true; but then it is not yet come: even when contemplating its near approach, one feels wondrous firm and most stoically resolved: at last, however, come it does; and now our chief friend Philosophy, like many other friends, is found most weak when most needed. In vain do we invoke his approved maxims, hitherto so glibly dealt out to silence all gainsayers; yet now, they are either found inapt or are forgotten wholly, until, after a paltry show of defence, braggart Philosophy fairly takes to his heels, and leaves us abandoned to the will of old mother Nature. Now, indeed, arrives the tug; and I, for my part, pity the man who, however savagely resolute, does not feel and own her power. The adieus of those one loves are, at best,—that is, for the shortest absence,—sufficiently unpleasant; but when there lie years, and, to the eye of affection, dangers, in the way of the next meeting, as the old Scotch ballad has it, "O but it is sair to part!" I should, I confess, were I free to choose, prefer the ignominy of cowardly flight, to the greatest triumph firmness ever yet achieved, and be constrained to hear and respond to that last long "good-b'ye!"
As I honestly own that, for various good reasons, I set out with the intention of keeping such a close record of my feelings and doings as my errant habits might permit, with the premeditated design also of giving them to that public which from the beginning had decided that I should do so, I concluded there was nothing like an early start; and finding these thoughts preface, or rather commence, my journal, so do I give them like precedence here.
SAILING DAY.
Liverpool, Tuesday, July 16th, 1833.
I am not usually very particular about dates; but, as there is an odd coincidence connected with the 16th, I desire to note it. On this day, then, about 3 P.M. I was rumbled from Bold-street down to St. George's Dock, accompanied by a few friends, who were resolute to extend their kindness to the latest limit time and tide, those unyielding agents, might allow.
Arrived at the ship's side, I found a number of my own poor countrymen, agricultural speculators, filling up a leisure moment before seeking harvest, in seeing "Who in the world was going to America, all that way," with which country there are now few of the humbler class of Irish but have some intimate associations. Disposing amongst the boys the few shillings I had left in my pocket, I jumped on board the packet-ship Europe, without cross or coin, saving only a couple of luck-pennies, the one an American gold eagle, the present of an amiable gentlewoman; the other a crooked sixpence, suspended by a crimson ribbon, the offering of a fair "maid of the inn," given to me on the very eve of sailing-day with many kind wishes, all of which have been realized.
The wind had been all the morning, and was still, away from the south-west; that is, right into the harbour; and I had heard many doubts expressed whether or not we should sail at all before night tide; doubts which, I am almost ashamed to confess, did not offend my ears so very much, considering my avowed impatience to be gone; nay, I do further admit having observed carelessly that I would as soon we did not sail until night tide, though wherefore I should thus have sought to keep chords on the stretch already too painfully braced, I leave to the wise to resolve.
Once on board, however, doubt was at an end; since the task of warping out from the tier was already commenced, and the noisy steamer might be heard bellowing and fuming, impatient of delay, from where she awaited us without the pier. We were moored inside several other ships; and the dock being quite full of craft, to the unpractised eye there appeared no possibility of winning a passage without doing or sustaining damage. However, what with warps and checks, careful and well-timed hauling, and ready backing, the gallant-looking Europe was quickly and safely handed over to the turbid waters of the Mersey without suffering a rub on her bright sides.
The steamer now took us in tow, and in a few minutes the busy docks and crowded pier-heads had passed away. Our companion vessels at parting were three only—a large private Indiaman, (the Albion,) a smaller ship for the coast of Africa, and a little gaily-painted Irish schooner called the Shamrock. These, it appeared, were dependent upon their own resources, and were soon left behind contending hardily with a strong beating wind; whilst the Europe, with yards pointed and sails closely furled, steadily and swiftly followed in the wake of the George the Fourth, looking like a noble giant led captive by some sooty dwarf. The Black Rock was soon gained, Crosby and its pretty cottages showed dimly distant; the mountains of Wales opened grandly forth before us; and, after one last long look, I dived to my state-room, partly to busy myself with seeing all my traps arranged and set in trim for sea, and partly to be alone.
THE EUROPE PACKET.
"This goodly ship our palace is,
Our heritage the sea."
It will doubtless appear to many who shall win their way thus far into this book, a work of impertinent supererogation to describe at large an American packet-ship, together with the mode of living on board a regular Liner, considering that there are some three or four of these departing every week from Liverpool, London, and Havre, and at this same point I can fancy some hot fellow, who has performed his twentieth trip, here toss by my unoffending volume, with "Devil take the chap! does he think he knows about all this better than us?"
But, hold hard, my fiery friend, whilst I remind your worship that there are some thousands of the lieges out of the countless numbers who will be our readers, who, insular though they be, and well used to ships, have yet no conception of these wonders of the water; that is, provided the "Europe" is to be taken as a true sample of the service she belongs to: not to mention that what was new and notable to me, who have voyaged much, can hardly fail to interest some gentlemen "who live at home at ease."
Let, then, the reader who knows what a "between-decks" is, step below with me, and there picture to himself a room forty feet long, not taking in the deep transom, by sixteen in breadth, having on either hand a range of inclosed state-rooms about eight feet square, each with its own door and window, of bird's-eye maple curiously inlaid with variously grained wood, polished as glass. The upper part of the door and the whole of the side window are latticed; so that on both being closed, the occupant is hidden, yet the air admitted freely.
Each of these state-rooms is furnished with a washhand stand, containing a double service, a chest of drawers, with handles of cut glass, a shelf or two for books, &c. and a brace of berths or bed-places of ample dimensions, well appointed with mattress and linen, white as ever lassie lifted off the sunny side of a brae, at whose foot brawled the burn to which her labour owed its freshness.
Now, although each room is fitted up for two insides, you may nevertheless conserve your individuality,—the which I recommend,—at the cost of an additional half-fare, or, in all, about fifty-five pounds sterling.
Being here installed, then, solus, you will be roused from your sound night's sleep in the morning at eight bells, or eight o'clock A.M., by the tinkling of a shrewish-sounding hand-bell, which says, as plainly as ever the chimes of Bow hailed Whittington lord mayor of London, "Arise, and shave, and make your toilet, and prepare to come forth; for the cow is milking, and the kettle is screeching, and the hot rolls beginning to get over-brown."
Upon this welcome summons, if you are not sea-sick, which Heaven forbid! or insensible to the goods here by the gods provided for you, you will bounce or creep out of your crib, according as the waves and your agility may determine; and popping your head out of window, loudly bawl "Thomas!" or plain "Tom!" or "Steward!" according to the terms of friendship and familiarity on which you may stand with this dignitary, who, by the way, has a vote on board worth canvassing for;—I say bawl out, because, firstly, your mincing and Clarendon-like lisp of "Waiter!" would not be heard by one used to listen to the rush of the tempest and the shriek of the scourged Atlantic; also, for that your stirring call may remind some wretched skulker of a circumstance which he is miserably dozing out of remembrance, viz. that breakfast is under weigh. "Yes, sir!" is the prompt response from the larboard corner of the cabin, where the steward and his gang are installed with all their appointment of glass and crockery ranged neatly within reach. Your next call will be, "Bring me a bottle of Saratoga water"—a chalybeate, cool and brisk on the palate as soda water, a commendable morning draught, and such a trumpet to appetite!—well, having swallowed of this, your pint or so, dress, mount the deck, and inquire "how she heads," and what she has done during the long hours of night whilst you lay sleeping like a sea-bird in your wave-borne nest.
You next take a look over the weather quarter, sweep the horizon knowingly with your best eye, and after, walk forward towards the galley or kitchen, pricking your ears at certain sputtering and hissing sounds, the which, backed up by sundry savoury sniffs caught under the tack of the main-sail, give you foretaste of broiled ham, spitch-cock, eggs, frizzled bacon, and mutton cutlets.
One by one your messmates tumble up the companion, or cabin-stair; some hungry and blooming as sound stomachs and clear consciences can make them, others showing a leetle blue and bilious-like; but each and all resolute to essay the onslaught, which the train of polished covers, making rapid transit from the caboose down the steward's hatchway, proclaim about to begin.
Tinkle, tinkle, ting! again sounds the steward's bell; and, without any pauses of ceremony, down dive the convives, turning en qûe the foot of the stair, some to windward, others to leeward, but all facing right aft—a double game of "follow my leader."
"Oh! 'tis a goodly sight to see," the show which here presents itself;—covers of all sizes glisten under the flickering rays of the morning sun, stealing in through the open deck-light, and dancing about to the heave of the ship over a well-laid cloth flanked by ready plates and the weapons of attack.
The signal is made, the covers drawn; and, appetite or no appetite, here is temptation for all. If the incipient voyager will benefit by my experience, as he might well have done by my example had we been happy enough to have possessed his amiable society on board the Europe, he will develope his main battle against the mutton chops au naturel; then gossip over a slice of broiled Virginy ham, with an egg or twain, whilst his souchong is getting pleasantly cool; then, having emptied his cup, flirt with a couple of delicate morsels raised from the thin part of a salted shad-fish, the which shad, for richness and flavour is surpassing.
To his second cup he will dedicate the upper crust of a well-baked roll with cold butter; and, after having duly paused a while, choose between Cognac and Schiedam for a chasse. If he will yet walk with me, I say unhesitatingly, try Schiedam, in the absence, reverently be it spoken, of Isla or Innishowen.
Now, my pupil, if this breakfast would, which it could not fail to do, raise the bastard appetite of your close-curtained, feather-bedded coal-smoked, snivelling in-dweller of the city, judge of the influence it must exercise over a child of ocean, who inhales the breath of heaven freshly as generated beneath the blue sky that vaults his watery world, pure, uncorrupted, untainted by touch of anything more earthly.
Why, man, it is worth a life of ordinary vegetation to be stirred but for once by the sensations, such a morning as I draw from, in such a place, create; and to those who sagely shake the head and doubt, if any such cavillers there be, I say, "Pay your just debts; make your tenants easy, that their prayers may be in your sails; forgive your enemies, kiss your wife, draw up and add in her favour a codicil to your testament; and your duties being thus fulfilled, with a clean heart, backed by forty-eight clean shirts, go and try; and if you 'fall not' of my advice before you again embrace your mother country, curse Fortune for a perverse wench, and set your humble servant down for false counsel."
Leaving you now, my pupil, to write, to read, to practise shooting with ball at a bottle swinging from some outstanding spar, or to follow whatever pursuit most engages your fancy, for the space of some four hours, we will just name an intermediate and somewhat tempting meal, ycleped luncheon, chiefly indeed for the purpose of advising you to eschew it as you value unimpaired digestion, and would appreciate a four o'clock dinner. If, however, you are obstinately self-willed, and choose to obey a villanous unappeasable appetite, in place of following my wholesome advice, I pray you, at least, not to sit down knife in hand, as I have noted "some shameless creatures do;" but lift a piece of pilot biscuit, request some kind soul to shave the under side of the corned round for you, then desiring the steward to follow with a tumbler of Guiness's porter, fly the place and seek the deck.
Shuffle-board, chess, and backgammon, with exercise and pleasant converse, will while away the intervening hours so quickly, that, if you do not keep a bright look-out, you will be surprised by the dinner-bell before you think of your toilet, which, if a luxury to you on shore, will be thrice welcome at sea, besides being a pleasant way of disposing of twenty minutes; not to mention the ladies, who, at all times sensibly alive to any neglect in us, become doubly so here, where there is so much to remind them that they are not ruling in their own pretty drawing-rooms, though, as the old song has it,
"Queens they be
On the boundless sea,"
as indeed they are, and ought to be, everywhere.
Mem.—Do not trust your appetite to forewarn you of approaching dinner, since I have been more than once deceived by over-confidence in that quarter: truth is, you have the cry of "wolf" from that insatiable look-out so early and so often, that you learn after a time to treat the call as impertinent and troublesome, and so strive to cut it until the cutting moment really and unexpectedly comes upon you.
I have been so elaborate upon the head of breakfast, which meal, I freely confess to be my foible, that I feel as though any description of dinner would now come comparatively weak; besides, to speak verily, one might, with time and prudent choice, get as good a dinner, perhaps, a-shore in favoured countries: but for a breakfast, pho! the thing is beyond reach, away from the stores of a well-regulated Yankee packet. I challenge Europe, including Scotland, with all her Finnanhaddies, herrin's, cakes, and preserves, to back her.
Suffice it then to say, that here is a dinner of three courses, with pastry and various confitures which would not shame Gunter; and, for boisson, sherry, madeira, hock, and claret, with port for those who indulge in strong potations, and three or four times a week well-iced champagne.
A variety of dried fruits compose the dessert, since, although they sometimes raise small salad, I feel bound to admit that they have not yet attained to the comfort of a pinery on board: nor, let me add, did I see finger-glasses in use; and how persons get on who have never dined without them, I cannot guess, this not being my case, since luckily, even in England, I had sometimes roughed it in very good society without these necessaries. Once seated to dinner, there you remain, and imbibe until discretion bids you hold your hand, for other check have you none, cellar and servants remaining at your disposal.
After a walk on deck, and a cup of tea or coffee, you form your party for whist or some round game, or join the ladies in their boudoir, which I ought to have mentioned before as leading out of the great room forward, being a pretty square apartment, fitted up with sofas, mirrors, loo-table, and other little elegancies which ladies love to look upon and be surrounded by. Entre nous, between the lights this snuggery affords tolerable convenience for a little flirtation, if you are lucky enough to get one up;—this broken off, you play your play, and at the conclusion of your rubber of whist, or parti d'ecarté, you prepare for bed,—early hours forming here one of those sanitary laws which the wise feel little inclined to impinge.
Now I am quite well aware that on the head of night-caps every biped has his own fancy, and most of the genus I also know to be infernally pig-pated on this seemingly simple point; such incurables I abandon, to supper, porter, night-mare, and all the other nameless horrors that rouse them to avenge an ill-used stomach; but to the willing ear and ductile mind I whisper again, "try mine." Imprimis—one cigar, one tumbler of weak Hollands' grog, better named swizzle, all to be disposed of in pleasant company during some half-hour's walk on deck; when, if you should sometimes, as I hope you often may, fall in with a soft downy south-west breeze, a clear deep-blue sky over head, gemmed full with little stars, and fringed about, down into the watery round, by a broad border of jet-black cloud, against which each curling wave appears to break, and the goodly ship seems as though delving through a lake of quick-silver—when the track of the swift porpoises show like long furrows of dazzling flame, and over the whirling eddies of the keel's deep wake is seen to hover a strange unearthly light,—a thin bluish, devilish, vaporous haze, which, in the silent watch of night, maketh the lonely gazer's flesh to creep, and conjures through the brain every wild legend whispered of the "vasty deep," fascinating the eyes, and holding them with spell-like power, until—until what?—why, until a sharp twitch on the lip from the fire of the close-burned cigar we recommended awakens you to a due sense of such a "lame and most impotent conclusion."
Jump off the spare spar on which you have been perched whilst gazing so dreamily over the ship's quarter, give the last half of your grog to the old lad at the wheel, peep in on the compass, find she heads about west-north-west, and, well satisfied, descend the stair. The steward lights the waxen taper which fixes on a branch before your glass; when, having performed such ceremonies as you delight in, thank God and sleep: and thus ends the chapter of a day.
And, gentle pupil, if you would learn yet more especially to enjoy all this, which I have for your benefit somewhat lengthily detailed, give directions to the steward to rouse you at deck-washing; that is, about six A.M.; put on drawers and jacket of fine cotton, and, sunshine or cloud, calm or squall, run on deck, leave your robe de chambre in the round-house, and slide down into the lee gangway, where, according to previous contract, you see a grim-looking seven-foot seaman—pick out the tallest—waiting for you with a couple of buckets of sea-water, one held ready in his claw, with a half-grin upon his puckered phiz as he inwardly blesses the simplicity of the landsman who turns out of his hammock in the morning-watch to be soused like the captain's turtle in cold salt water; and i' faith! startlingly cold it gets when on the Banks, even in July, especially if within the influence of an ice-berg or twain: think not, however, of this, the infliction is light in comparison with the after enjoyment.
Being seated in the lee-scuppers, give the word; up goes the bucket, and wush! down pours the deluge on your oil-capped crown. "Hah!" you cry involuntarily, for the flesh will quiver, &c. You then compress your lips a little closer, whilst Jack's giggle expands into a broad grin, and in a steadier stream descends the second shower; which, having abided to the last drop, away you scurry along the wet deck, that is, always provided you avoid a fall or two by the way, into the round-house, on gown, and down to your little den; where a coarse towel, and a couple of flesh-brushes smartly applied for five minutes, will produce such a circulation throughout your inward man, that, like bold Waterton, you feel as though you could back an alligator, take the sea-serpent by the beard, or kick a noisy steamboat fairly out of water.
I have, since I am at confession, sometimes in very bad weather been tempted into bed after this ablution, when such an hour's nap awaits one! But this is a luxury Xerxes would have given a Satrapie to have tasted, and not to be indulged in over-often, lest it lead to effeminacy, which is as far removed from comfort as is sensuality from pleasure.
I have often heard objected to these fine ships the discomfort and difficulty attending toilet; but, for my own part, I did not discover these. Having a state-room, and possessed of the same appliances, with perhaps a little more trouble, a man may be as scrupulously nice as in any other dressing-room; provided always he be not prostrated by that unsparing nausea, sea-sickness; from the which I wish you, gentle reader, the full exemption I enjoy, and so commend you to repose.
THE EUROPE CONTINUED.—CHANGE OF AFFAIRS.
"Life's like a ship in constant motion:
Sometimes smooth, and sometimes rough."—Song.
"Oh! the pleasures of a summer trip across the Atlantic!" Thus sung and chorused my good friends one and all; some from experience, most from hearsay, but ever in unison.
"You'll have quite a party of pleasure," says one. "The only thing to be dreaded will be the ennui arising out of long calms, gentle breezes, eternal sunshine by day and moonlight by night," says another.
One would have fancied, according to their account, that sun and moon alternated like buckets in a well, one up, the other down, with the exception that both were to be always at full.
So constant, however, were these remarks about heat, and sun, and summer air, that I packed up every article of clothing heavier than duck or cachmere; nay, had not some worthy matter-of-fact soul let slip a stray hint about ice and sleighing parties in December, I verily believe, hating as I do all superfluous baggage, I should have left my greatcoats to the moth and fog of Old England.
But whew! from such airs the Lord preserve me!—whilst at the tail of our honest, grimy, grumbling steamer, cutting through the Mersey or along the coast of Wales, we were, I admit, tolerably sunned and warm enough, though not even here bedazzled or over-heated; but on the second morning out, what a change!
I came on deck just before six A.M. to take my shower-bath; the wind was about west by south, blowing a brisk gale, the ship under double-reefed topsails, with top-gallant sails set over them, making all smoke again—on one hand lay the Isle of Rathlin, with the north coast of Ireland, bleak and bare; on the other, the Mull of Kyntyre, with a tide of its own rushing by like a mill-race, and over it the cloudy crest of Isla, looming through the flitting vapours, cold, dark, and hard-visaged, as though no drop of whisky had ever been brewed therein. One could not recognise the misty monster, thus grimly shadowed forth, to be the parent of that glorious sunny spirit.
We had full time afforded to become well acquainted with the changing aspects of these and the other localities hereabouts, for we had to battle it with their ally the wind, and with their waters, for full sixty hours; and although we at length fought our course seaward, it was to feel that such another victory would be anything but serviceable to the gallant ship.
Oh that infernal Rathlin! I shall not soon forget it; it is a spot I always held in ill odour ever since Miss Porter's "Scottish Chiefs" taught my unsophisticated youth to weep over the wrongs of Wallace wight. Now, although I abominate the place more, I have learned to compassionate her ill-starred hero less, since to have been carried southward through "merrie England" from such a place of exile, albeit the journey ended in hanging, was yet a deliverance especially to be rejoiced in.
We had a near view of the natives too, one day, trying to catch us in a whale-boat, whilst we were hugging the land sculking from the strength of the tide of flood: but, thank Heaven! they missed taking us as we went about on the opposite tack, the which I shall ever consider a providential escape, although at the time, a heedless confidence in our numbers led Captain Maxwell to throw them the end of a rope. They failed to lay hold on it, however, and away we dashed by them like a whirlwind; whilst the disappointed men gesticulating fiercely, with their red "fell o' hair" blowing to the four corners of the earth, and their wild eyes and ogre mouths agape, yelled forth a volley of strange sounds, soon drowned by the louder roar of these summer waves. This was happily the only danger we incurred from the natives; we saw no more of them,[2] and right glad were all-hands when the last glimpse of the Hebrides, or Western Isles, as they are called in their charts, faded away in their mist.
After this date one heavy blow succeeded another until the first of August, with seldom sun enough to afford an observation: yet it mattered not; like sea-birds we "rode and slept," for the excellence of the boat, and the way in which she was handled, was evident enough to inspire even the nervousness of inexperience with confidence; and the efficiency of our domestic arrangements bade defiance to the anger of the elements;—uninfluenced by their frowns as by their smiles, on went the work, and meal succeeded meal with faultless regularity.
On the second of August we passed within the immediate atmosphere of a huge iceberg. We had for some time previous been enveloped in fog, which suddenly lifting, showed us this isle of ice, and two other smaller ones.
The main island, by which we were most attracted, lay about a quarter of a mile to leeward, of dazzling whiteness, and picturesque of form, having at one end a lofty cone-shaped mountain, and at the other an angular bold mound, crowned by what we decided to be an extensive Gothic fortalice or castle, not unworthy the Ice-king himself if bent on a summer trip round the gulf stream: between these promontories lay a deep valley thickly tenanted by tribes of the white gull.
Three sides of Castle-hill were regularly scarped, the fourth communicated by a neatly kept slope with the valley, and along this radiated a number of well-trodden paths, all uniting at the castle gate, at once giving evidence of considerable population, and great hospitality on the part of the worthy castellan.
The position of these islands was unusual, and their appearance occasioned a little surprise, although the fall of the thermometer, and the change in the temperature of the water, had led Captain Maxwell, some hours before we met them, to decide upon their vicinity.
On the banks of Newfoundland they are common at this season of the year, and form, indeed, the danger most to be dreaded of the voyage; since, if the weather should prove thick, and the ice swim deep, scarce showing above the surface, as is commonly the case, a ship going quickly through the water may strike before any measures can be taken to avoid the encounter.
A fine packet, the Liverpool, but nine days out, on her first trip was totally lost on one of these in the summer of 1822; and this very year our captain coasted to the southward for seventy miles along the edge of a field of ice, in which he had previously been locked-up for fifty hours, till released by a lucky shift of wind. On this occasion he had one on board whose experience among ice had been well tested, and was about to be yet again tried; for Lieutenant Back was here on his perilous adventure in quest of the long lost Captain Ross and his crew.
For the succeeding sixteen or seventeen days of our voyage the weather was generally fine. Upon the western edge of the Banks we had a few days' calm, which taking advantage of, I turned my morning shower-bath into a plunge from the bowsprit, and had a delicious swim round the ship. The passengers, however, got wind of my fun, and in obedience to the kindly meant remonstrances of one or two of them, I forbore a pleasure which never occurred to me to be perilous, for I have practised it in many parts of the ocean, always taking care that there was no way upon the ship.
We had no casualties except amongst the pigs, sheep, and poultry; and as yet no great loss of spars, indeed in all our blows, we only sprung a main-topsail yard, carried away a fore-topmast, and made a few stu'n-sail booms,—for the latter, we had very little use, not having the wind abaft the beam over five days, all counted, out of a passage of thirty-five; and how it was accomplished in the time under the circumstances, is yet to me a matter of some wonderment.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] To homeward-bound ships these visits of the Rathlineans, often prove sufficiently welcome, as they generally provide themselves with a cargo of ancient, fish-like milk, and fine potatoes. The Europe having an excellent dairy and a poultry-yard of her own, stood in no need of their supplies.
JOURNAL AT SEA.
This is usually a very monotonous task to the journalist, and can hardly fail of soon becoming tiresome to the reader, since a voyage away from the land affords but little to record; still, as it is my intention occasionally to refer to this current report of my Impressions and every-day-doings, I may as well transcribe literally a page or two illustrative of every-day life in this, our "Europe."
July 31st.—Sixteen days out this afternoon; during which time, with but forty-four hours that we could fairly lay our course, the good ship has knocked off forty degrees of westing, a prodigious slant under the circumstances. The last two days up to meridian, we have run ten degrees of longitude and two of latitude.
Thursday, August 1st.—Going about seven knots, heading west by north; all well and mighty agreeable. Rifle-shooting and backgammon the great antagonists of time before dinner—whist after. Various wagers are daily made against time, as to the length of our passage, as well as for or against certain ships that preceded or were to follow us. Most persons have named some date for our arrival at New York, and backed it for more or less; finding that these days were selected more in accordance with the desires of the betters than their judgment, I selected an outsider, and took the longest date named for my day, August 20th. The odds fluctuate daily in the market, according to the view the knowing ones take of the weather: these bets form a subject of interest and banter which daily rises in importance.
Wednesday, 7th.—About meridian carried away our main-topsail yard, whilst two hands were employed rigging in the studding-sail boom; one fell into the top, and the other caught hold of the rigging, receiving much fright but small damage. Had they fallen on the deck or over-board, why their chance would have been exceeding small. There surely is "a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft," &c. or these careless rogues could not escape so often scot-free.
To-day we have a rattling north-easter with sunshine: and the sea, which yesterday was wild, dreary, and dark, is now beaming and light as a beauty at a birth-day ball; and as radiant, for it sparkles in diamonds of its own.
All hands in high spirits, the ship the favourite for odds; Time gone back sadly; the 13th inst. named for very long odds; I offered eight to one against it, and was taken up at a word. Made two or three entries in my book after dinner; against the 20th, my day; take all that offers, but have made a leetle hedge on the 18th by way of a break-water.
Saturday, 9th.—A very heavy gale from north-west, a rare occurrence at this season; it stuck to us for fifty hours, hauling gradually round to the south'ard. No business done to-day; 'change deserted; not a time-bargain to be had for love or money; most of the bulls in bed.
Tuesday, 13th.—One of the most lovely days possible: all the morning we have been observing a large ship right a-head, on which we draw rapidly, though a stern chase is proverbially a long chase. The alley all alive, books and pencils in great demand: odds offered freely that this ship is the Tallahassie, Captain Glover, which sailed from Liverpool on the morning of the day we left; but owing to our taking the north channel, whilst she pursued the south, had thus gotten a decided pull upon us, besides being a very fine ship. Consultations frequent, as we neared, between the mate and the backers of the Tallahassie, adjournments to the top-gallant forecastle constant; every spy-glass in requisition.
We drew near; the odds rose in favour of this being the ship in question—she was a large ship, square-built and long, so was Tallahassie—she was flush deck, so was Tallahassie—had stump-royal masts, and a storm-house abaft, so had Tallahassie, hurrah! Nearer we came, less ardour amongst the backers of Tal.—nearer still, they are all silent; the alley is deserted for the forecastle—a straggler now comes aft, with a sneaking offer of a hedge: no takers.
One of the opposite side's scouts next comes aft. "This can't be the Tallahassie—this ship has no copper, Tallahassie had; she has a white line over her bright side, Tallahassie had not—her top-rail is white, and the yards tipped with the same colour, the Tallahassie's were black.—In short, it could not be the Tallahassie, as any one with half an eye might have seen from the first, and might see now."
The latter part of the proposition was already demonstrated, for we were by this time right a-beam; the former might have been disputed, although it certainly was not the Tallahassie.
Trifles like this were all-sufficient occupation for the day, and served as subjects of conversation after. On this occasion we had for nearly the first time a complete muster of our crew, the exceeding fineness of the day brought out even our sick, and there they lounged about in the sun, like weary birds plumeing their ruffled feathers.
Sunday, 18th.—Wind north-west; weather fine. We are now within one hundred and sixty miles of our port. Betting-market a little anxious, but a good deal of business doing in a quiet way; my odds looking well, but to-morrow, the 19th, by far the favourite, Captain Maxwell himself indeed, considering it a hollow thing. Got a notion in my head, however, in favour of my day, and accordingly took the odds; resolute to abide by the 20th, and either "mak' a spune or spoil a horn."
All hands well and in motion; the crew busily employed getting the sea-service off the rigging, and setting it all up in holiday order. The mate is peering about jealously on all sides, eyeing his ship as a mother would a beauty dressing for her first drawing-room, and to the full as anxious about her appearance.
Monday, 19th.—In the middle watch had a heavy squall, and carried away our foretop-gallant mast. At nine o'clock, A.M. made the American shore off Jersey, to the southward of Barney Gat. Wind light, no betting, but anxious speculations on the probability of our getting within Sandy Hook this day. Tuesday a hollow thing, feel "cock sure:"—about noon, wind died away; and, right enough, it was not until
Tuesday, August 20th, that at three o'clock, A.M. I was called on deck to look upon the Hook lights, and count my wagers won. I received the omen as a good one, and so it proved.
LAND, HO!
I had often, and with much pleasure, heard intelligent Americans describe the restless anxiety with which they approached the shores of Britain; the almost painful degree of excitement created by the various associations crowding on the imagination, and jostling each other for supremacy, as they looked for the first time on their father-land.
The veneration with which they pictured her ivy-clad towers, and the throb with which they caught the names of places long familiar to memory and hallowed by historical events, to all of which they felt their claim inherited from their ancestors, whether from Thames, or Tweed, or Shannon.
To all of this I have, I say, listened with great pleasure, and with a full sympathy in feelings at once natural and generous, yet can I hardly admit them to possess more force, or their nature to be more exciting, or richer in the material whence Fancy frames her chequered web, than the recollections awakened in a well-stored imagination by a near approach to the shores of America. Although differing widely, these are to every philosophic mind, especially to a subject of Britain, at least equally stirring.
When it is first remembered, that on all the long line of coast extending from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico there was not, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, one European family settled, or a Christian voice that woke the forest with the name of God,—not a civilized man from Canada to Florida, who placed his foot upon the soil to call it home. Yet now, within this immense range may be reckoned the mightiest States of the Union; and over its wide circumference are scattered great cities, towns aspiring to be cities, and villages fast growing into busy towns—possessing a population which for wealth hardly need yield to the oldest countries of Europe, and in the general diffusion of intelligence and education offering indeed to most of these an example worthy of their imitation.
When it is called to mind that the waters of her vast line of coast, now daily ploughed by thousands of busy prows, were at this same not very distant day as desert as her swamps and as unfurrowed, except where the canoe of the scared Indian left its light track behind, when driven from the shelter of some near river:—silent and shadowless, except when the sail of the adventurous explorer flitted slowly over the waves, as he steered his doubtful course filled with the many wonders seen and fancied by his watchful, credulous crew,—some band of daring spirits tempted hither in search of gold, or wild adventure, perhaps to perish suddenly by the arrow of the savage, or slowly to wither beneath the influence of the climate—God! what wonderful changes have been wrought here, and what a living marvel is this land! Changes, which it has required the labour of ages to accomplish elsewhere, have here been effected by the energy of a few busy generations, whose toil was begun and carried on amid want, and sickness, and a struggle against ignorance and neglect without, as well as a war of extermination within; a war which may be said to exist even to this day, for yet is the ever-growing frontier from time to time awakened by the night whoop of the savage and the answering shot of the hardy pioneer.
Then come the recollections connected with the war of the Revolution,—the noble declaration of independence, for truly noble it was: no dark compact of a crew of ruffian conspirators, but a generous bond that their aggrieved country should be freed, given by a band of citizen gentlemen, husbands, fathers, and brothers, to the fulfilment of the which they pledged unto each other their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honour; and having placed their hands to this bold deed, they gave it to their people and the world.
Their bond is cancelled, and they are dismissed beyond the hearing of praise or censure; yet shall these, the names of their country's fathers, be read and blessed by ages yet to come, and shall stand for ever, each a synonyme for patriot honour.
Washington, and the long wars he conducted through defeat and disaster to such a glorious end for his country, together with that large list of famous names connected with those and later events formed no mean subject for reverie, and these were the fancies conjured through my brain by a near approach to the shores of America. I confess I contemplated her triumphs with a participation in her glory where England was not a party, with no other feeling than regret when she was,—with regret that the hands of brothers should ever have been opposed in deadly enmity.
I give back in love of country to no man, and to no foe under heaven would I yield up one jot due to Britain's well-won supremacy, but to the United States we may surely spare without envy the leaf she so hardily plucked from our thick laurels. The glory of having given her birth, language, and laws, she cannot rob us of; this will endure until her mountains crumble: and all else she has acquired at the expense of Britain, Britain can well spare, and still stand foremost on the roll of Fame.
PORT.
On the morning of Tuesday, August 20th, I was roused, according to a request I had left to that effect with Captain Maxwell, to look on the Hook Lights, the entrance to the outer bay and harbour of New York. It was three o'clock in the morning, a fresh yet bland breeze was just giving motion to the smooth sea, and above, the firmament showed thickly studded with heaven's lights; but the dazzling pharos of the Hook, to my mind, were brighter at this hour than the best twinklers on the floor of heaven,—so welcome were they.
While waiting on deck, a couple of sky-rockets were discharged from the storm-house by way of signal for a pilot. The effect of the sudden blaze was fine; and the rush of each fiery messenger on its upward mission, as it burst away from the Europe's deck, seemed a glad sound of welcome, for it spoke of safe arrival, and consequent freedom from our present thrall; for, however pleasant a ship may be, and however poetical our notions about the "deep sea," after having been in the one and on the other for five or six weeks, there are few bipeds who do not hail the shore as a type of recovered liberty, and, however barren it may be, right joyfully embrace it.
About 7 A.M.—for here it appears pilots do not hurry themselves—we made out a couple of schooner-rigged boats standing right for us, which were at first taken for pilots, but proved to be news-boats. Several such are, as it appears, kept in commission by the New York journals, and the struggle for early intelligence between the rivals occasions a display of considerable adventure not unattended with risk, since these news-boats are out in all weathers, and from a great distance often bring to the city a ship's letters, &c. many days before she makes her own appearance.
The news-collectors were welcomed civilly by our captain, bagged their papers, made out a list of the passengers, and in a few moments were again on the wing for shore, looking right into the wind, and with smooth water and a light breeze, they drew rapidly away from the heavier ship. I must observe that our Mercury's correctness was by no means commensurate with his activity; for such ingenious changes did this worthy contrive in the names of the passengers, that the mothers of some would have failed to have discovered the arrival of their sons, except upon instinct.
At length, after long watching, a couple of pilot-schooners were discovered standing out from under the high land, and in due time their boats boarded us nearly together; and hence arose a dispute as to whose particular prey the good Europe was to be considered.
Each Pilot was voluble, and accused the other of violating the laws made and provided in such cases for their better government: who was wrong in this case it was difficult to say, but I very clearly made out that both parties had cheated on former occasions, were willing to cheat in this, and resolute to continue a like commendable practice in all others that might offer, as far as in them lay. What arrant rogues are we in all climes and under whatever rule, quoth I, internally, as I listened to these wordy disputants; for, to do messieurs the pilots justice, the matter was conducted in a manner more worthy the courts, better argued, and in language less offensively figurative, than similar disputes at which it has been my chance to assist between angry members of our own bars.
At length the elder pilot left the deck, and returned to his attendant yawl, in evident dudgeon and disgust; when the junior, being hailed by his comrades in the schooner on the opposite quarter, was advised to give up the Europe, since they had made out a second ship quite as large in the offing.
Whether this information, or a latent sense of justice prevailed, it is hard to say; but on the tidings our man hailed his irate senior—who was borne away amidst deeply-muttered vows of vengeance—desired him to return, and told him he would give up the ship. Thereon, back rowed our ancient mariner; and after a few explanatory sentences, mutually offered as salvos to their hurt honour, the rivals parted, to all outward seeming as good friends as ever.
Which had right I know not, but one of them had fish, and we of the Europe had no cause to mourn the departure of that one, since, having gained his deck, he sent us back a basket of newly-taken porgies, and various other fishes with unpoetical names but of marvellous sweetness, and sumptuous was our déjeuner in consequence of this unlooked-for addition.
Henceforward, all between-decks presented a scene of bustle and preparation; the most sluggish natures amongst us appeared now inspired, whilst on all sides were heard good-humoured congratulations and glad anticipations. I confess, although a very experienced voyager, I felt a little touch of softness striving to sneak into and coil about my heart, as the words,—home—friends, with other household sounds, fell thick upon my hearing; for, all our passengers being American, I stood alone here on this day of happy greeting, a stranger amongst strangers.
Let me add, that this was the last day on which I felt so during my long sojourn in the hospitable land; and even on this I possessed buoyancy enough of spirit to keep down these selfish reflections, and, I thank Heaven, sympathy enough to rejoice in the gladness of my comrades.
I did not lack amusement, either after the first hurry was past; an intelligent friend or two busied themselves pointing out to me the various localities in detail, with whose general character Carey's excellent atlas had already made me tolerably conversant.
The day was clear and cloudless; and when to this advantage is added a light head wind, which compelled us to work our way inward, no harbour could be approached under auspices more favourable, or better calculated to afford a complete and varying view of its beauties.
Just as we had opened the Narrows, the entrance to the inner bay so called, the wind grew so unpromising that a party of us decided to engage the pilot vessel to take us as far as Staten Island, which they "calculated" they could reach before the departure of the steamer for New York.
Bidding adieu to the Europe, away we dashed in the little witch of a pilot, a craft of some eighty tons' burthen, but, viewed from a short distance, not looking more than half that size, so snug was her build, as well as from the absence of every kind of hamper; her shrouds were without ratlins, and her deck without even the protection of a rough-tree—a nakedness I should by no means like in bad weather. The afterpart, however, or stern-sheets, is sunk about four feet; and as the bowsprit is a mere stump, and the sheets of both foresail and jib lead aft, all the work may be done here when under snug sail.
The necessity, during our trip in the schooner, of working up between the shores of Long and Staten Islands, was a chance that added to the charm of our approach.
Standing into the Narrows, under the guns of a formidable fort, the pretty-looking village of Staten, where quarantine is performed, first presented itself: the smoke of the steamer assured us she had not yet departed, and two or three tacks brought us within signaling distance, just as she broke away from the shore: our desire was readily understood, and, slightly changing her course, she soon after received us in addition to her already crowded freight.
I found the upper deck of the Bolivar, the name of our steamer, uncommonly hot, but it afforded a good place from which to view the harbour and city as they were now rapidly unfolded: here, therefore, I planted myself, all eyes; and certainly have rarely been better repaid for a broiling.
As we neared the Battery, we were afforded a passing glance up the East and North Rivers,—the great waters which give wealth to Manhattan, and jealously clip her beauty about, in equal participation. The coup d'œil thus taken is very imposing, and at once awakens the stranger to a sense of the commercial importance of the entrepôt whose walls he perceives shaded by such a forest of lofty masts.
NEW YORK.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE CITY.
On landing at the Battery, our first visit was to an office of the customs here; and, instead of the dogged, sulky, bribe-demanding scowl, too commonly encountered from our own low-class officials, who seem to consider the custom-house as a means rather of annoyance to the lieges than a protection to trade, we were met by civility, respect, and prompt despatch. The luggage we had brought with us on shore was not subjected to the least examination, and we went on our way highly pleased. First impressions give their colour to succeeding matters; and surely those derived from my encounter with the officials of a service at best annoying, were much in favour of the land.
On entering the quiet Bowling Green, where many of the houses have coloured fronts, and all gaily painted jalousies, with trees shadowing the stoups, I was reminded of Cape Town: but the impression was momentary; a few yards on, and the long line of Broadway, with its crowded side walks, showy shops, and numerous hotels, at once transports you back to Europe; and, were it not for the sprinkling of black faces with which the mass is chequered, one might swear oneself in Paris on some portion of the Boulevards not altogether familiar to the eye, but offering most of the points needful to prove identity, from the monkey and hurdy-gurdy of the Savoyard, the blouse of the carman and Conducteur, to the swagger of the citizen-soldier, and the mincing step and "tournure charmante" of the belles. The fronts of the cafés and hotels, too, as you pass along, you perceive to be covered by chairs occupied by similar loungers to those on the Boulevards.
Such were my impressions whilst moving on a hot day from the Battery to the City Hotel, and so give I them place here; since I have often, after a long residence in a place, found myself referring back to these first glimpses, when desirous to present it at once fresh and comprehensive to the eye of the stranger, and for such these sketches are chiefly designed.
A BIVOUAC.
The day after my arrival, I was both interested and amused by accidentally falling on the bivouac of a Swiss family of emigrants.
I had risen early for the purpose of bathing, and was making my way to the fort through the grounds of the Battery as the rising sun was just adding new light and life to the most beautiful of harbours, when I came suddenly upon the barriers of a little encampment perfectly Teutonic in its arrangement; it was, however, no surprisal to the hive within, for their morning operations had already begun.
Within a circular rampart, formed out of various articles of household gear,—three or four antique-looking spinning-wheels, a pair of churns, a few clumsy chairs, a large chest, together with a couple of small heavy waggons not yet placed upon the wheels,—were a few as lively recruits as any land desirous of population could wish to welcome.
The party consisted, first, of a right venerable-looking old man, the patriarch of the tribe, as he told me, seventy-four years old; six men, his sons and grandsons; seven lively boys, his great-grandchildren, and about an equal number of girls, the patriarch's wife, nearly as aged as himself, but with a shrill piercing voice and the activity of a girl of nineteen, with four other women, the wives of the ancient's sons.
At the moment I came upon them the whole camp was rousing into full activity. The grandmother, assisted by a couple of her young women, found ample occupation in first catching and next washing the junior branches of the colonists: these appeared already aware of their being in a country where every individual thinks for himself, or at least thinks he does, which comes to the same thing, for they stoutly resisted, to the last extremity, the soapless saline ablutions profusely administered by their great grandam.
Meantime a couple of the more staid of the youngsters, who had been passed outside the lines, were busied beneath the trees collecting fallen sticks, leaves, &c. for keeping up the fire already lighted and presided over by one of the females, whose task it evidently was to prepare breakfast.
A couple of the men yet slept soundly; another pair were composedly leaning against a waggon smoking their pipes; whilst a third, the youngest of the grown men, and evidently the beau-garçon of the party, was busied about the completion of a careful toilet before six square inches of looking-glass, held up to him by a young lass, rather good-looking, who, kneeling before this Adonis in evident admiration, most patiently abided the completion of his equipment previous to commencing her own.
My course was at once arrested by a scene so new and unexpected; and I stood for a long time contemplating the repose of this little group, camping here in the midst of a busy population on the banks of the Hudson, in the same manner and after the same fashion their ancestors are described to have followed by the Rhone and the Danube in the time of Cæsar.
There was an air of confident security about the whole arrangement, that spoke equally in favour of the hardy simplicity of these strangers and the courtesy and honesty of their adopted country; for I know no European capital wherein such a group could have sat them down and passed a summer night, unhoused and unwatched, without receiving annoyance, if not suffering loss.
I learned that the family had been landed late on the preceding afternoon from a French ship; so that, not being able, as is the wont of this people, to depart for their destination immediately, they had in the most prompt and orderly manner pitched their tents here for the night, and were now preparing for their march into the wilderness.
This sight, striking in itself, was no less illustrative of the country and the time: these arrivals are of daily occurrence here during the season; every one of the northern nations of Europe is contributing her quota out of the most enterprising of her children to swell the numbers, and give additional pith and vigour to the population, of this land of wonder.
About three hours after this first rencounter, whilst seated in our parlour at breakfast, I pointed out to my friend P—— the whole family passing the city hotel en route.
They had now gotten one of their clumsy waggons mounted, and rudely harnessed to a stout-looking horse, and on this vehicle was piled all their worldly store. The males, pipe in hand and marching four abreast, strode boldly on before; next came the waggon, surrounded and followed by the women and children: the heads of one or two of the youngest of these, by the bye, might just be seen poking out from the lumber amongst which they were ensconced upon the car.
I observed that the old dame now carried in her hand a wicker-cage, containing a little captive of the goldfinch tribe, some home-bred favourite, whose simple notes will often call up the memory of father-land, when this family of humble adventurers shall be located, happily I trust, on some wild stream of the far west, for thither were they bound, and, with the appliances I have sketched, were cheerfully setting forth to perform a journey of some two thousand miles. These, however, are the sort of persons who may look most to benefit by such a change; after a few to them trifling privations, and an industrious struggle, they have the certain satisfaction of beholding their offspring surrounded by comfort, and their means yearly increasing. They presently exchange want for plenty, and cease to look upon the coming time with fear or doubt for even their children's children; since generations must rise and pass away before enterprise and honest industry will feel any lack of elbow-room here.
The weather was awfully hot during the last week of this month; and great was my delight, on entering the parlour of a morning, to look upon the butter luxuriating beneath a large wedge of clear ice: only for the cutting up, I should have gloried in being a Pat of butter myself. This article of ice is presented here in a purity of form, and is withal so plentiful, that it almost makes amends for the dog-days.
Our breakfasts were excellent—fish, fruit in abundance, chickens, omelette, &c. with good coffee, and the best black tea I ever drank. The parlour was a very large well-furnished room, level with and fronting on the busiest part of Broadway; and a more amusing stand than one of the windows, for a stranger, it would be difficult to select. The whole busy population, I should imagine, passed in review here once, at least, in six hours; together with samples of all the nondescript vehicles city or country rejoices in.
To one worthy I owe many a hearty laugh,—who knows but I may have repaid the good soul in kind?—I hope I have, for my gratitude is his. Let the reader imagine a long street, very crowded, and about noon shadeless, with the thermometer at 98° in the sun. In the very middle of this broiling thoroughfare, fancy a low carriage on four wheels, ycleped a Jersey waggon, having a seat with a high back hung by straps athwart-ships; over this seat a buffalo robe of vast dimensions, the thick fur outside and a red lining within, falling in heavy folds to the waggon floor; upon this buffalo skin, seated right in the centre, with knees and elbows spread as far apart as possible, a huge mass of humanity clothed in a dark jacket of home-spun cloth, with vest and trousers of blue cotton; his pumpkin-like head covered by a broad-leafed straw hat, a Dutch pipe on his lip, and before him a hard-mouthed awkward little horse pulled about by both hands, now right, now left, but rarely going out of a walk. Above a high shirt-collar his full-blown cheeks might be seen, as he sucked in the hot air and rejected it again like a blowing porpoise: cravat he had none, because he had no neck to tie it about; but in lieu of this article he carried, knotted over his broad shoulders, a little red handkerchief. Daily did I ask myself for a whole week "Will it walk again?" and, so surely as the shadeless hour of noon arrived, did my Dutch fire-king arrive with it, steering his waggon through the sweltering mass with a composure—coolness I could not call it—most enviable.
I would have given anything to have known him and his history; but though I had opportunities of pointing him out to my friends occasionally, no one knew him. Son of a thousand burgomasters, may your shadow never grow less! for I owe to you the beguilement of many a hot hour: but I fear me my friend must be "larding six feet of lean earth," somewhere in the vicinity of Manhattan, since for the last year I have, on every day that the sun shone intensely with the glass over 90°, watched in vain for his coming.
In the cool of the afternoon, if there chance to be any cool, it is a common custom for the young men of all classes to drive or ride some five or six miles along the north avenue,—an excellent road leading to the pretty village of Harlaem; and on this line, about sunset, the amateur of horse-flesh may see done, the fastest pace in the trotting world; double-horse waggons of the neatest and lightest construction, gig, sulky, and saddle, all are alike borne along by trotters or pacers at a speed varying from the pair that are doing their mile in three minutes, to the sulky or saddle nag flying at the rate of a mile in two minutes, thirty seconds.
The first time I was whirled along this road at the heels of one of the crack goers of the city, amidst clouds of dust through which the rushing of other vehicles might be dimly made out, and startled by the wild cries used by the rival drivers, at once to encourage their horses and prove the impossibility of scaring them into breaking up, I thought it one of the most exciting things I had ever met; and on getting down at Cato's, involuntarily found myself drawing a long breath.
CATO'S!
And what is Cato's? and who is Cato? Shade of Rome's patriot and sage, anger not! for Cato is a great man, foremost amongst cullers of mint, whether for julep or hail-storm; second to no man as a compounder of cock-tail, and such a hand at a gin-sling!
Cato is a gentleman of colour who presides at a little tavern, named after its proprietor, lying just off the dust of the road between two sharp hills, and situated some four miles from New York—a good breathing distance for a fast burst—and here consequently most men halt to give their horses breath, and wash the dust out of their own throats with some one of Cato's many excellent compounds. The convenience of the place is enhanced by the manner of its master, who for courtesy and bienséance might serve as a model to most of his young friends. His society indeed is of the very best, including all the first sporting youths of the city; and his liquors are equal to his breeding.
Cato will give a few select friends breakfast too on a hot morning, if it be especially ordered; and, certes, a woodcock and toast as served up by him on these occasions is a thing not to be forgotten. It was my fortune, under the auspices of my friend, Mr. M'L—d, an especial favourite of "mine host," to pay several visits to Cato's, and to come away at each with added respect for the great man, and increased regard for his excellent entertainment.
THEATRE.
Great heat—doubts, dubitations, and début.
I do not intend to bore my readers with a series of play-bills, or a journal of my theatrical career; but I feel that on this head there may be some little curiosity, and that it would on my part be an affectation to eschew the subject, as well as an injustice to my American comrades of the buskin, to whom I owe some kind mention, since it was my lot to add considerably to their labours. I will therefore just notice my appearance in each city as it occurred, and that as briefly as may be consistent; when any fun turns up, I promise the reader the benefit of it. I shall also give my impressions of the various audiences I encountered; because I think there is no place where the characteristics of a people are more clearly shown than at a theatre, where all mix upon a footing more purely democratic than in any other whatever, and each man having a right to evince his taste after his own fashion, opinion becomes the only conservation of propriety.
To my first night at New York, then, I looked with much anxiety, and not without reason. I had, contrary to the advice of many friends, given up a large income, the continuance of which the increasing favour of the public gave me reasonable promise of. I had vacated my seat and quitted my country on no other engagement than one for twelve nights at New York, the profits of which were wholly dependent upon my success, as were my engagements in other cities dependent upon my reception in this.
One kind soul assured me that every drama I possessed had been already anticipated; another, that they had no taste for Irish character, or that accustomed, as they had long been, to associate with the representative of my poor countrymen a ruffian with a black eye, and straw in his shoes, the public taste was too vitiated to relish a quiet portrait of nature undebased.
This was flattering, but not pleasant: the only man whose views appeared sanguine was Mr. P——, who had been my companion on the voyage, and whose cheering reply to all doubters was, "I tell you, sir, it must do."
The theatre was announced to be re-opened on the 28th of August, with the "Irish Ambassador" and "Teddy the Tiler." The day was one of the hottest we had known, and towards night it became oppressively close.
No strange actor of the least note could open in New York, to anything short of a full house; it seems to be a hospitable principle to give the aspirant for fame a cordial welcome and a fair hearing; let it not be considered egotistical, therefore, when I say that the house was crowded; from pit to roof rose tier on tier one dark unbroken mass; I do not think there were twenty females in the dress circle; all men, and enduring, I should imagine, the heat of the black hole at Calcutta. I at the time regretted the absence of the ladies, when, had I been less selfish, I should have rejoiced at it.
The moment came when "Sir Patrick" was announced; and amidst greetings as hearty as ever I received in my life, I made my first bow to the Park audience. I saw no coats off, no heels up, no legs over boxes—these times have passed away; a more cheerful, or apparently a more English audience, I would not desire to act before.
I was called for at the end of the play, and thanked the house for its welcome. If the performance had not gone off with that electric and constant laughter and applause to which I had grown accustomed at home, I had received positive assurance that my new clients were intelligent and very attentive, and I therefore no longer entertained fears for the result.
Not so, however, one or two of my friends, whose anxiety and kind wishes it would have been hard indeed for any measure of applause to have satisfied: amidst the congratulations they brought me were therefore mixed up little cautionary drawbacks.
"It was capital," said one; "but you must not be so quiet: give them more bustle."
"In some other piece," replied I; "here it is not in the bond."
"You must paint a little broader, my dear fellow," says another:—"you're too natural for them; they don't feel it."
"If it's natural they must feel it," said I, adding, "each of my characters are, according to my ability, painted from nature; they are individual abstractions with which I have nothing to do; the colouring is a part of each, and I can't change it as I change my audience:—'tis only for me to present the picture as it is; for them to like or dislike it."
For the six following evenings the houses, though not great, were equal and good; each night I found my audience understanding me better, and felt that I was grappling them closer to me. The arrival of Mrs. and Mr. Wood earlier than the manager counted upon, created a difficulty; to obviate which I waived my claim to six of my nights, as my acting must have kept them idle.
A day or two before my departure for Philadelphia, I witnessed the first appearance of this lady and her husband. Her reception was enthusiastic, but Malibran had left impressions it was difficult to compete with; and, although her brilliant talent was on all hands admitted, I am not sure whether her husband's manly style of singing a ballad was not to the full as much considered as her execution of the most brilliant sçena.
The Park Theatre is, as well as I could judge, about the size of the old Lyceum, of the horse-shoe form; has three tiers of boxes; is handsome, and in all respects as well appointed as any theatre out of London.
The orchestra is at present excellent, and under the direction of a very clever man—Penson, formerly leader at Dublin. The company I found for my purpose a very fair one, my pieces requiring little save correctness from most of those concerned, except where old men, like "Aspen," "Frederick II." &c. occur, and all such parts found an excellent representative in an American actor, called Placide. Descended of a long line of talented players, he possesses a natural talent I have rarely seen surpassed, together with a chastity and simplicity of style that would do credit to the best school of comedy; yet he has never been away from his own country. I trust the model may not be lost on those who have to follow him.
There is a representative of old women here, too, a native, Mrs. Wheatley, an inartificial charming actress, with a perfect conception of all she does, and a humorous espièglerie of manner that is admirable. This lady has a daughter, a girl of fourteen, one of the cleverest mimics I ever saw: she would imitate Miss Fanny Kemble throughout a whole character, or think, talk, and walk, like her in private,—all with a slight dash of caricature, but in a spirit of truth and acute observation worthy of the inimitable Matthews himself.
With these exceptions, the company is, I think, made up of English actors, many of whom have held respectable situations in the London houses.
I had heard a good deal of the disorder of the American stage, and the intractability of American actors; with this specimen I had therefore every reason to be pleased. I am rather a hard drill, too; but I also know how painful is the task of studying and practising long parts for the star of the day, to be thrust out by some fresh stuff got up for his successor: I am aware of this, and therefore strive to make the pill less bitter by doing my "spiriting gently," where I see a desire to be attentive on the part of my friends.
As I may not have occasion to revert to New York theatrically again, let me here say that, after repeated renewal of my engagements during two years, my last were amongst the greatest I made in this city: how, after this, the American public can be called cold or fickle, I at least have no means of judging.
After a stay of three weeks in New York, rendered as agreeable as fine weather, kind friends, warm welcome, and success could make it, I took my departure for Philadelphia by the Camden and Amboy line of steam-boat and rail-road. Punctual to the minute advertised, we left the wharf; and, although the day was cold for the season, I was charmed with our trip across the harbour towards Raritan Creek.
From about half-way over this channel, which separates Staten Island from the city, I should say, after some experience, the best general view of New York and its most prominent environs may be obtained.
Behind you rise the heights of Brooklyn, undulating along your left to the passage of the Narrows, through which you catch a glimmer of the sea beyond; close on your right lies the picturesque-looking old city of Jersey; and immediately beyond, the village of Hoboken, famous for turtle and pistol-matches: its neighbourhood to the Elysian fields renders it a singularly lucky site for the fire-eaters, since, if shot, they have no Charon to pay; the turtle-eaters here find, no doubt, equal facilities. Far to the north, the dark promontory of the Palisadoes beetles broadly forth, marking the course of the Hudson.
In the middle distance lies the city, looking as though it floated deep upon the bosom of the ready waters that encompass it about. It is happier in its place of rest than most Dutch towns, and well merited the name of New Amsterdam, given it by its founders. The ground it covers was at one time divided into hill and dale; but with eyes wide open to business, and close sealed against taste, the conscript fathers of our infant Rome shaved smooth every ant-hill that rose in their path, and to their inheritors have bequeathed a love of their trim lines of beauty, for they are proceeding on the levelling system with a worthy pains-taking that will in due time render the whole island as flat as a tulip-bed.
The passage up the Raritan or Amboy Creek, between Staten Island and the main, is uninteresting enough; the channel reminding one very much of the left bank of the Thames about Erith,—swampy levels, with flat barges, and river-side public houses. The village of Perth Amboy is the first attractive object; it is built upon the face of a hill rising gently from the water, and is well shaded, looking healthy, fresh, and neat. Here the steamer stops for a minute to land or receive passengers, and then makes for Amboy landing, about a couple of miles distant. Here we left our boat, and were immediately transferred to the cars of the new railroad connecting the Raritan with the Delaware, and pursued our way to Bordentown, through a dreary, barren-looking country, whose only attractions were occasional orchards of a most fruitful kind, if one might judge by the plenteous gathering already in progress. In many places were piled up little mountains of apples, destined chiefly for the cider press.
The loco-motives not being in condition to do duty, the horses occupied as yet their legitimate station, going at the rate of about eight miles per hour.
Near the entrance to Bordentown, the present mansion of the ex-king of Spain was pointed out: it does not appear to be very happily located, but commands, I understand, an extensive view of the broad Delaware, and affords room enough to bustle in, even for one whose domain was once royal.
Here we once more embarked; and hence to Philadelphia the Delaware is a broad placid stream, with low banks of alternate wood and meadow, having sprinkled along them numbers of well-built houses of all sizes, from the shingle cottage to the imposing-looking mansion with its lofty portico of painted pine.
The boat touches on its way at two very charming-looking villages, Bristol and Burlington, situated at opposite angles of a fine bend of the river. On the quay of the latter I noticed, as we halted, a group of fairy-looking lassies watching for the landing of some friend; and their animated expression, delicate proportions, and graceful tournure, did much to bespeak favour for the girls of Pennsylvania.
It was night before we gained the Quaker city, and exceeding dark withal; so that the long dotted lines of lights, regularly intersecting each other until lost in distance, had the effect of a general illumination, whilst it gave evidence of a widely-spread and populous city.
We drove to Mr. Head's hotel, the Mansion House, where we were welcomed by the worthy host in person; although he had not bed-rooms for us that night, for we were three in company. We were, however, soon furnished with a most excellent supper; and after, two of us got, not "three chairs and a bolster," but a couple of camp bedsteads with good mattresses, and sheets white as snow. Our senior companion, Mr. P——, was provided with a bed-chamber; and what could the heart of weary traveller wish for more?
On the morrow I also was installed in a capital chamber; and if those incarnate demons the musquitoes would have made peace with me, I should have scorned comparisons with the Nabob of the Carnatic. But, oh! immortal gods, how they did hum and bom, and bite and buzz! and how I did fume, and slap, and snatch, and swear, partly in fear, and partly through sheer vexation of spirit, at having no means of vengeance against a foe whose audacity was open and outrageous, whose trumpets were for ever sounding a charge, yet who were withal, as impassable as Etna.
I would rather hear the roar of lions about my resting-place than the vicious hum of these infernal wee beasts; and I may be allowed to decide, having listened to both: the latter never failed to keep me wakeful through fair fright; but when well worn with fatigue, after a shiver and a start or two, I have slept sound, in safe company, although the crunch and roar of the nobler varmint sounded near enough to make our terrified horses press to the watch-fire with breathings thick and loud,—a neighbourhood anything but agreeable, but, I swear, infinitely preferable to an incursion of hungry musquitoes.
The next morning, Sept. 12th, rose early, took a hot bath, and dressed for a hot day; but the day was resolute not to be hot: a north-east wind had set in after breakfast, and down went the thermometer from seventy-nine to forty-five. "Zooks, what a tumble!" as Mister Poll says: all the time too the sky was cloudless, and the sun shining most treacherously. I wasn't to be done, however; so, after an hour, jumped again into my broad-cloth for comfort.
During my first week here I occupied private apartments,—which may be had at every hotel, by the way,—and being in company with a friend, we had our meals at our own hours, all of which were excellent and well served, with wines most unexceptionable. My friend leaving me, however, I took the advice of my good host, Mr. Head, and, quitting my sulky solitude, joined the public table,—a change I had every reason to be satisfied with, since, however, unpleasant the bustle occasioned by a hundred or a hundred and fifty persons dining ensemble, no such objection can apply here, where the guests rarely exceed twenty-five or thirty, including from time to time men of the first rank and intelligence in the States. This dinner-table indeed is as well appointed in every way as any gentleman could desire; the attendants numerous and well ordered; the service, including every luxury the season can furnish, is of three courses; and the cloth is never drawn under an hour. I am thus particular, because, as much has been said of the badness of hotels in America, it is but fair to give place to a notice of those which are good; and so essentially good a table d'hote as that of the Mansion House at Philadelphia, whether for variety, cooking, wine, or all these things combined, I never yet met in any country of Europe.
PHILADELPHIA.
I pity the man who, on a fine morning, can walk through the shady and clean streets of Phildelphia and cry, "all is barren!" In my eyes, it appeared, even at first sight,—and no place improves more upon acquaintance,—one of the most attractive-looking towns I had ever beheld.
Coming immediately out of the noise, bustle, and variety of Broadway, its general aspect appears quiet, almost triste; but the cleanliness, the neatness, the air of comfort, propriety, and health, that reigns on all sides, bespeaks immediate favour.
The progress of improvement, and enlargement too, are sufficiently evident, for at either extremity of the city, the fall of hammer and chisel give unceasing note of preparation. The circle designed and marked out as the limit of its future greatness by the sanguine mind of its sagacious founder has long since been overleaped; the wide Delaware on one side, and on the other the Schuylkill, seem incapable of bounding the ambitious city. Already does Market-street rest upon these two points, which cannot be less than three miles apart.
Touching Market-street I ought to know something, since, on two occasions, I got out of my bed to visit it at four A.M. I am curious in looking upon these interesting entrepôts whence we cull the dainties of a well-furnished larder, and a view over this was truly worth the pains; for in no place have I ever seen more lavish display of the good things most esteemed by this eating generation, nor could any market offer them to the amateur in form more tempting. Neatness and care were evident in the perfect arrangement of the poultry, vegetables, fruit, butter, &c.; and the display of well-fed beef, with the artist-like way in which it was dressed, might have excited our Giblets' spleen even in the Christmas week.
Poultry of all kinds here is equal to that of any country, and the butter almost as good as the best Irish, which I think the sweetest in the world. The market, at the early time I mentioned, offered a busy and amusing scene, and I passed away a couple of hours here very much to my satisfaction, besides cheating those souls of d——d critics, the musquitoes, out of a breakfast; for each day, about the first light, I used to be awakened by their assembling for a little déjeuner dânsant, whereat I was victim.
One of the pleasantest visits a man can pay in Philadelphia on a hot day, is to the water-works at Fair-mount, on the Schuylkill: the very name is refreshing with the mercury at 96° in the shade; and, if there be a breeze in Pennsylvania, you will find it here. No city can be better supplied with water than this; and I never looked upon the pure liquid, welling through the pipes and deluging the thirsty streets, without a feeling of gratitude to these water-works, and of respect for the pride with which the Philadelphians regard their spirited public labour. They have evinced much taste, too, in the quiet, simple disposition of the ground and reservoirs connected with the machinery; the trees and plants are well selected for the situation, and will soon add to the natural beauty of this very fine reach of the river.
Mounting the east bank of the stream, from this to the village of Manayunk, you have a very pretty ride; and crossing the bridge at the "Falls of the Schuylkill,"—falls no longer, thanks to the dam at Fair-mount,—the way back winds along by, or hangs above, the canal and river, here marching side by side; offering, in about four miles, as charming a succession of river views as painter or poet could desire. It is a lovely ramble by all lights, and I have viewed it by all,—in the blaze of noon, and by the sober grey of summer twilight; I have ridden beneath its wooded heights, and through its overhanging masses of rare foliage, in the alternate bright cold light and deep shade of a cloudless moon; and again, when tree, and field, and flower were yet fresh and humid with the heavy dew, and sparkling in the glow of early morning.
At the period of my first visit, the huge piers of a new bridge, projected by the Columbian Railroad Company, were just appearing in different degrees above the gentle river's surface. The smoke of the workmen's fires rising from the wood above, and the numerous attendant barges moored beneath the tall cliff from which the road was to be thrown, added no little to the effect. I have since seen this viaduct completed, and have been whirled over it in the train of a locomotive; and, although it is a fine work, I cannot but think every lover of the picturesque will mourn the violation of the solitude so lately to be found here.
I could not refrain from picturing to myself the light canoes of the Delaware Indians as at no very remote period they lay rocking beneath the shelter of that very bluff where now were moored a fleet of deep-laden barges: indeed these ideas were constantly forcing themselves, as it were, into my mind as I wandered over the changeful face of this singular land, where the fresh print of the moccasin is followed by the tread of the engineer and his attendants, and the light trail of the red man is effaced by the road of iron: hardly have the echoes ceased to repeat through the woods the Indian's hunter-cry before this is followed by the angry rush of the ponderous steam-engine, urged forward! still forward! by the restless pursuer of his fated race.
Wander whither you will,—take any direction, the most frequented or the most secluded,—at every and at all points do these lines of railway intercept your path. Each state, north, south, and west, is eagerly thrusting forth these iron arms, to knit, as it were, in a straiter embrace her neighbours; and I have not a doubt but, in a very short time, a man may journey from the St. Lawrence to the gulf of Mexico coastwise with as much facility as he now does from Boston to Washington, a distance of four hundred and fifty miles, which may be at this day performed within forty hours, out of which you pass a night in New York.
But to leave anticipations and imaginings,—which, by the way, is a forbearance hard of practice in a region where all things are on the whirl of speculative change, and where practical results outrun the projections of even the most visionary theorist,—and return to make such rapid survey of this interesting city as may be ventured on during a first visit of some twenty days. I feel, indeed, that but little can be really known in so short a time of a place containing two hundred and twenty thousand souls, and having in a rapid state of advancement various alterations and improvements, including nearly five thousand new buildings all immediately required: although there are persons gifted with such power of intuition, that, as I learn from their own showing, they are enabled in half the period to decide upon the condition of the whole state of Pennsylvania; to discover the wants of its capital, the defects of its institutions, the value of its commerce, the drift of its policy; to gauge its morals, become intimate with its society, and make out a correct estimate of its relative condition and prospects compared with the other great divisions of the Union, surveyed, I presume, with equal rapidity, judged with equal candour, and estimated with equal correctness.
Each in his degree: and so, in my way, good reader, I will endeavour to give you some notion of this capital of old Penn's Sylvania; but if your own imagination come not to the help of my outline, I fear, after all my painstaking, your notion of the subject will be only a faintish one.
Philadelphia is built upon a peninsula formed by two rivers, the Delaware and the Schuylkill, having a long graduated rise from each, the highest point being about the centre of the city. It is laid out in squares, and the streets run in parallel lines of two and three miles in length, retaining the same names throughout, only divided by Market-street into north, and south: with the exception of this dividing street, those running east and west are named after trees, flowers, and fruits,—as chestnut, walnut, peach, &c.; and those parallel with the rivers, first, Front-street, or that facing the water; next, Second-street, third, fourth, fifth, &c. distinguished as, divided by Market-street, into South-second, North-second, &c.; a simplicity of arrangement which is unique, and renders the stranger's course an exceeding easy one: all he has to do is, first, to run down the latitude of his street by any of the great avenues, and, having fairly struck it, steer north or south, as may be, till he hits upon the friendly number.
The side-walks throughout are broad and well-ordered, neatly paved with brick, and generally bordered by rows of healthful trees of different kinds, affording in hot weather a most welcome shade, and giving to the houses an air of freshness and repose rarely to be met with in a populous city.
The dwellings are chiefly of brick, of a good colour, very neatly pointed; and nothing can be more tasteful than their fitting-up externally. The windows are furnished with latticed shutters; these, when not closed, fold back on either hand against the wall, and being painted green, and kept with much care and freshness, would invest humbler dwellings with an attractive air, especially in the eyes of an Englishman, accustomed to the dingy aspect of our city residences, which look as though the owners had resolved on making them as forbidding as possible without, in order to enhance the excelling comforts within.
Now the houses of Philadelphia are as clean and neat in all the detail of the exterior, as they are well-ordered and admirably furnished. The mountings of the rails and doors are either of polished silver plating or brass, and kept as bright as care can make them. The solid hall-door, in hot weather, is superseded by one of green lattice-work, similar to the window-shutters, which answers the purpose of keeping out every intrusive stranger, except the air,—air being at such seasons, as most strangers are at all times, especially welcome to Philadelphia, which is about the hottest place I know of in the autumn; the halls are commonly flagged with fine white marble, are spacious, lofty, and well fitted-up.
The houses average three stories, but in the best streets, those of the first class are run up to five, and even six, and are of great depth: indeed, I should say, the inhabitants of this city generally enjoy greater space in their lodgings than is afforded to those of any other large capital. Where population increases rapidly rents are necessarily high; and a good house in Philadelphia costs about as much, independent of taxation, as a dwelling of the same class in London.
Besides the great market, which gives its name to the dividing line of the city, and runs through its whole breadth, there are several others, less extensive perhaps, but all alike under cover, well adapted to the purpose, and boasting a due proportion of the abundance of good things, which, profusely displayed on all sides, give ready evidence of the agricultural wealth of the neighbourhood.
Numbers of the best market-farmers for vegetables, poultry, butter, &c. are Germans, who, although most earnest in enriching the country by their labour, yet cling with strange tenacity to the customs and language of "Fader-land." Their costume and manner yet continues as distinct and recognizable as was the appearance of their progenitors on landing here some eighty years back, for the colony from which they are chiefly derived had existence about the middle of the eighteenth century; and many of these men, yet speaking no word of English, are of the third generation. They have German magistrates, an interpreter in courts when they act as jurors, German newspapers, &c.; and are the stoutest, if not the promptest, asserters of democracy.
They are usually found a little in arrear on the subject of all passing events; and at election times, or on occasions of extraordinary stir, when a man is striving to render them au courant with late occurrences, they will now and then interrupt their informant with, "Bud why de teufel doesn't Vashington come down to de Nord and bud it all to rights?"
The public buildings are here of a more ambitious style of architecture than any of the other cities can boast, and some of them are built in exceeding good taste; but the one which had most interest in my eyes was the old State-house, wherein the "Declaration of Independence" was signed. The Senate-chamber is, I fancy, little changed since that period; and contained, when I was last within it, models for various public works: amongst others, several for a heroic statue of Washington, about to be erected, somewhat late in the day to be sure, by the city; others for the new college, now building, according to the will of the late S. Girard, and intended to assist in perpetuating his name and wealth to all posterity.
Such appears to have been the great object of the will of this worthy citizen, and there is every prospect of its fully answering the purpose, since it has already set the whole community by the ears, and promises to prove as prolific of evils as the strong box of Miss Pandora, without having even Hope at the bottom.
This man, who has been so much eulogized dead, seems, as well as I could glean amongst his contemporaries, to have been anything but estimable in his living character. He is universally described as having been tricky, overreaching, and litigious in his dealings as a merchant; an unfeeling relation, an exacting, ungrateful, and forgetful master; and a selfish, cold-hearted man: unoccupied with any generous sympathy, public or private, throughout a long life, devoted to one purpose with sleepless energy, and to one purpose only—making and hoarding money; which, living, he contrived, as far as in him lay, to render as little beneficial to any as possible, and, dying, disposed of to his own personal glorification, but to the vexation of the community, amongst which he appeared to have lived unhonoured, and certainly died unregretted!
I am aware that "de mortuis nil nisi bonum" has usually been applied to cases similar to the above; "nil nisi justem" I think a sounder reading where a man is held up as a public example, and deem that the selection of a church or a college for a monument should not be permitted to shield the base from animadversion, or call for honours to the worthless.
THE THEATRES—WALNUT AND CHESTNUT:
So called were the houses at which I first acted here, situated in the two fine streets bearing the same names.
The Walnut is a summer theatre, and the least fashionable; and here it was my fortune to make my début to the Philadelphians with good success: a French company occupied at the same time the Chestnut, where, after a seven nights' engagement at the other house, I succeeded them; the proprietors being the same at both.
These houses are large, handsome buildings, marble-fronted, having ample and well-arranged vomitories; and are not stuck into some obscure alley, as most of our theatres are, but standing in the finest streets of the city, and every way easy of approach: within, they are fitted up plainly, but conveniently, and very cleanly and well kept. I prefer the Chestnut, as smaller, and having a pit—as I think all pits ought to be—nearly on a level with the front of the stage, instead of being sunk deep below, looking, when filled, like a huge dark pool, covered with upturned faces.
A crowded audience here presents as large a proportion of pretty, attractive women as are anywhere to be seen; and the male part is singularly respectable and attentive. Here again I must protest against the charge of insensibility being laid at their doors; that is, as far as my own feeling and experience goes.
If by applause, a constant clapping of palms or hammering of sticks is only meant, interspersed with cries of "Bravo!" I admit they are deficient; but if an evident anxiety to lose no word or look of the artist, an evident abstraction from everything but the scene, with demonstrations of admiration discriminating and well applied, may be accepted as sufficient marks of approval, then has the actor no cause of complaint.
With the tragedian, who strains after what in stage parlance are called points, and calculates on being interrupted by loud clapping before the sense of the sentence be complete, or else wants breath to finish it, a Philadelphian audience might prove a slippery dependence, since they come evidently to hear the author as well as see the actor, and are "attentive, that they may hear."
For myself, the unreserved laughter in which they indulged I found abundant applause, and in well-filled houses the best assurance that they were pleased. The company here was a very good one, and the pieces as well gotten up as anywhere in the States.
I paid frequent visits to this charming city, and shall have occasion again to refer to it. My first impressions are here set down, and favourable as these were, a more intimate knowledge only served to confirm them.
JOURNEY TO BOSTON.
THE EAST RIVER.—HURL-GATE.—THE SOUND.—POINT JUDITH.—NEWPORT HARBOUR.—PROVIDENCE.
On Saturday morning, at 7 A.M. Sept. 28th, quitted Philadelphia; arrived in New York at 2 P.M.; and transferring my baggage from the steamer on the North River to the one about to depart for Providence, and whose wharf lay upon the East River, I had a couple of hours' leisure, which I employed in writing home, for the packet of the 1st of October; and at five o'clock P.M. left the city, in the noblest steam-vessel I had yet seen.
The view of Brooklyn, the Navy Yard, and this part of the harbour, is very attractive from the point of departure; and the numerous little steamers, actively plying to and fro at the various ferries, give an unceasing air of bustle to the scene. I was greatly charmed by our sail up this passage into the Sound dividing Long Island from the continent, which it flanks and protects for a distance of one hundred miles.
The banks on either side do not vary a great deal in elevation, but are of a slightly undulating character, beautifully wooded, and sprinkled with the attractive-looking villas of the country. Mr. Cooper's graphic description of Hurl-gate, in his novel of the "Red Rover," led me to look out for it with an interest which the reality did not repay, although the tide was in a favourable state. I confess, however, I think that my imagination rather outran discretion than that the whirlpool lacked grandeur: that it was not to be encountered without some peril we had very good evidence; for, on a rocky islet to the southward of the worst part of the fall, a large schooner lay hove up on her beam-ends, with all her spars aloft and her sails half furled, as she had been abandoned by her crew. Our pilot informed me that the accident had occurred the day previous, and was by no means a rare example, the downward passage at the last of the ebb requiring great care and experience.
Our powerful engines forced the vessel through the dark eddies, apparently without difficulty; and in a little while this long looked-for wonder was forgotten.
I remained on deck until after midnight; for there was a bright moon and a calm clear sky, and the Sound was sprinkled with craft of all kinds.
I must not omit to notice supper, or tea,—for it was both, and an excellent meal it was,—served about eight o'clock upon two parallel tables, which ran the whole length of the cabin, at least one hundred and eighty feet; and to which sat down about one hundred persons of all ranks,—the richest merchants, the most eminent statesmen, and the humblest mechanic who chose to pay for a cabin fare, as most of these persons who travel do. I was seated with an exceeding lady-like and well-bred woman on my left hand, and on my right sat a man who, although decently dressed, was evidently a working operative of the humblest class; yet was there nothing in either his manner or appearance to annoy the most refined female: he asked for what he wanted respectfully, performed any little attention he could courteously, and evinced better breeding and less selfishness than I have witnessed at some public dinners at home, where the admission of such a person would have been deemed derogatory.
I do not mean by this description to infer that a crowded table of this kind is as agreeable as a party whose habits, education, and sympathies, being on a level, render intercourse a matter of mutual pleasure: what I would show is, that in this mingling of classes, which is inevitable in travelling here, there is nothing to disgust or debase man or woman, however exclusive; for it would really be impossible to feed a like multitude, of any rank or country, with slighter breaches of decency or decorum, or throw persons so wholly dissimilar together with less personal inconvenience either to one class or another.
I had been accustomed to see this set down as one of the chief nuisances of travelling in this country, and the consequences greatly exaggerated: things must have improved rapidly; since, as far as I have hitherto gone, I protest I prefer the steam-boat arrangements here to our own, and would back them to be considered less objectionable by any candid traveller who had fairly tested both.
During the night it blew fresh, and the vessel pitched a little, the consequence of which movement was evident in the desertion of the upper deck in the morning. I had noticed it, the evening previous, occupied by sundry little groups reading or chatting, and with more than one couple of merry promenaders: I now made its circuit, meeting with but one adventurer, a lively-looking old gentleman, of whom I inquired where all our passengers were vanished to.
"Most of them in bed yet," said the old gentleman, "or keeping out of the way in one hole or another. If there's any wind or sea, you always find the deck pretty clear till we get round Point Judith. Once let us get to the other side that hill yonder, and you'll see the swarm begin to muster pretty smart."
I had often heard "Point Judith" mentioned by the New-Yorkers, as the Cockney voyager talks of Sea-reach, or the buoy at the Nore; and here it was close under our lee,—a long, low point of land, with a lighthouse upon it.
We soon after opened the entrance to the fine harbour of Newport, and, as my informant predicted, the deck gradually recovered its population: some came up because they felt, and others because they were told, we had passed Point Judith.
It was about seven o'clock A.M. that we ran alongside the wharf at Newport to land passengers. The appearance of the town, rising boldly from the water's edge, was imposing enough; but trade, judging from the deserted state of the wharves, is now inconsiderable, although formerly of much importance.
After a delay of a quarter of an hour, we once more got under weigh; and one of the chief advantages of a steamer is the ease and facility with which this important movement is effected: nowhere is the management of these immense bodies, in my thinking, so perfect: the commanding position of the wheel, clear of all obstruction, and under the hand of the pilot, whose finger also directs the machinery below, through the medium of a few well-arranged bells,—the absence of all bawling and shouting, and the being independent of transmitted directions, gives these craft facilities which make their movements appear like inspiration.
This system I found prevailing all through the States; and, as far as possible, it would be well to adopt it here. The arrangement of the wheel, or steering apparatus, if I remember rightly, was fully and technically described by Captain Hall. I do not know whether it has in any case been adopted; but if it were enforced upon our crowded rivers, there would, I feel assured, be fewer accidents.
The fogs of the Sound, in this passage,—a highway as much travelled as the Clyde,—and indeed on all the great American rivers, are only to be paralleled by a London specimen about Christmas, in addition to the former being more frequent; yet accidents arising from running foul are of very rare occurrence, although the desire to drive along is yet stronger than with ourselves.
The river up to Providence is of a breadth and character to command the voyager's attention, but offers little in detail to repay him for it. With the exception of the time devoted to breakfast, which a supply of newly-caught fish, taken on board at Newport, rendered a positive treat to me, I paced the upper deck, according to my custom, until we arrived at Providence, a very thriving place, seated on a commanding ridge, and already having, as viewed from the river, an air and aspect quite city-like.
Here we found a line of coaches drawn up upon the wharf, awaiting our arrival. I had already secured a ticket for the Mail Pilot: and in a few minutes the luggage was packed on; the passengers, four in number, were packed in; and away we went, rolling and pitching, at the heels of as likely a team of four dark bays as I would wish to sit behind. At our first halt, I left the inside to the occupation of my companions,—a handsome girl, with, "I guess," her lover, and a rough specimen of a Western hunter or trader, who had already dubbed my younger companion Captain and myself Major, and invited us both to "liquor with him." I declined, but the Captain, to his evident satisfaction, frankly accepted his offer; and whilst I mounted the box, and the horses were changing, they entered the house together.
This is a courtesy the traveller to the South will find constantly proffered to him by a class of honest souls, whose good-fellowship sometimes exceeds their discretion; and I had been told it was not at all times possible to decline the offer without risking insult. I discovered by experience this to be one of the numerous imaginary grievances conjured up to affright the innocent. In this, as in all other points, I have never departed from my own habits; and although often in remote parts of the Union strongly urged "to liquor," have always found my declaration that it was a custom which disagreed with me, an excuse admitted without hesitation or ill-humour.
In this, my first experiment, indeed, I had to deal with the most punctilious specimen I ever afterwards encountered; for when, some two hours after I had declined his request, I called for a glass of lemonade, my friend popped his head out of the coach-window, calling out with a most beseeching air—
"Well but, Major, I say; stop till I get out: you'll drink that with me any how, won't you?"
He was in the bar-room at my heels in a twinkling, and I need hardly say we emptied our glasses together very cordially, although their contents would, I fancy, in my friend's opinion, have assimilated best in a mixed state; for, giving his sling a knowing twist as I swallowed my excellent lemonade, he observed:
"Now that's a liquor I never could bring myself to try nohow, though I'm sometimes rather speculatin' in drink, when I'm travellin' or out on a frolic. Poorish stuff, I calculate: but you hav'nt got the dyspepsy, have you, Major?"
I assured my friend that I was perfectly free from dyspepsia, and that it was because I desired to continue so that I avoided any stronger drink before dinner.
We were now summoned to our places, my companion declaring—
"It is past my logic how lemon and water can prevent dyspepsy better than brandy and water;" adding, with a look half comic, half serious—
"But I suppose everybody will go for the Temperance-ticket soon, and I shall be forced to clear out of all my spirits; for I never can drink by myself, if I'm forced to take to the milk and water line for company."
Our road was a tolerably good one as roads go here, and the horses excellent. We arrived in Boston about half-past three, having performed forty miles in five hours, all stoppages included; and the whole distance from Philadelphia, being three hundred and twenty miles, in thirty-two hours and a half, including about three hours passed in New York. Quick as this travelling is, they contemplate, when the railroad to Providence shall be opened, by the aid of that and an improved steam-boat, to deduct eight or nine hours from the time between this and New York.
Alighting at the Tremont hotel, I found dinner over, as on Sunday they accommodate the hour of dining to the time of church service: I was, however, quickly provided with a good meal, which a keen breeze, a long ride, and a long fast enabled me to do good justice to. In the afternoon, malgré a cutting east wind, which was anything but agreeable after the hot weather I had been living in, I took a long walk about the town, accompanied by an old friend of mine and a constitutional grumbler, who yet joined with me in declaring that a first impression of Boston could hardly fail pleasing any man who could be pleased by a near view of a city, well and substantially built, as it is undoubtedly nobly situated.
BOSTON.
The approach to Boston, either by sea or land, gives to it an extremely bold and picturesque character. It is spread over a series of lofty heights, nearly insulated, and is surrounded by a marshy level running from the highlands on the main, to which the city is united by a very narrow isthmus to the southward.
The lofty dome of its State-house, and the numerous spires and towers of its churches, rising between two and three hundred feet above the surrounding level of either land or sea, combine to produce a coup d'œil more imposing than is presented by either New York or Philadelphia.
The streets of the city generally are narrow and irregular, following the windings of the lofty hills over which it is spread, and having more the air of an old English county-town than any place I have yet seen in the country.
Its wharfs are spacious and well constructed, and it is not without surprise that one views the evidently rapid growth of these best evidences of prosperous commerce. I observed in my walks lines of substantial granite-built warehouses and quays, newly redeemed from the water: all were in occupation; tiers of vessels of every kind thronged them; and the inner harbour was thick with masts.
The most modern quarter of the city lies to the west, surrounding the park, or common, as it is termed,—an ancient reserve of some sixty acres, the property of the citizens, beautifully situated and tastefully laid out. It is bordered on the lower side by a mall of venerable-looking elms; has a pretty pond of water under a rising ground near its centre, the remains of an English fort; and open to the front is the Charles River.
On three sides, this common is flanked by very fine streets, having houses of the largest class, well built, and kept with a right English spirit as far as regards the scrupulous cleanliness of the entrances, areas, and windows. The English are a window-cleaning race, and nowhere have I observed this habit so closely inherited as here. Overlooking this common, too, is the State-house; and, on a line with it, the mansion of its patriot founder, Mr. Hancock, a venerable stone-built edifice, raised upon a terrace withdrawn a few yards from the line of the present street. The generous character of its first owner has made this house an object of great interest, and it is to be hoped the citizens will look carefully to its preservation as a worthy fellow to Fanieul Hall, for by no one was the "cradle of Liberty"[3] more carefully tended than by the owner of "Hancock House."
Here, as in the other great cities of the Union, upon a close survey, I found the prevailing impression on my mind to be surprise at the apparent rapidity of increase made manifest in the great number of buildings either just completed or in progress. If the possession of inexhaustible supplies of the finest granite, marble, and all other material, be accompanied with taste and spirit in their use, the future buildings of this city will have an air of grandeur and stability superior to those of any other in the States.
To reach the surrounding country in any direction from the peninsula the city occupies, one of its great bridges must be crossed. Of these there are six, besides the Western Avenue as it is called, a dam of vast extent; and they form the peculiarities of this place, to a stranger, most curious, and, in truth, most pleasing. By day, they form agreeable walks or rides, offering a variety of charming views; and, if crossed on a dark night, when their interminable lines of lamps are beheld radiating, as it were, from one centre, and multiplied by reflection on the surrounding waters, the effect is perfectly magical. The stars show dimly in comparison: and casting your eyes downward, it appears as though you beheld another and a brighter sky glittering beneath your feet.
The great dam rises about five feet above the tide, is provided with enormous flood-gates, and in length is something over a mile and a half. The length of the other bridges varies from two thousand five hundred to one thousand four hundred feet.
Crossing at any one of these points, you gain the open heights upon the main. Here you are first struck by the aspect of the soil, everywhere having huge masses of dark rock protruded above its surface. The country is said to be poor: of this I cannot judge, but I know it to be beautiful. It is everywhere undulating, and often broken in the wildest and most tropical manner. Like the interior of Herefordshire, it is cut up in all directions by rural lanes, bordered by stone walls and high hedges, and dotted thickly with handsome houses, whose verandahs of bright green, and whitened walls, show well amidst the luxuriant foliage by which they are commonly surrounded.
About five miles from the city are a couple of delightful pieces of water, called Jamaica and Fresh-ponds; each bordered by wood, lawn, and meadow, naturally disposed in the most attractive manner. At the last-named pond,—which sounds unworthily on my ear when applied to a piece of water covering a surface of two hundred and fifty acres,—I passed an afternoon during the period of my first visit here.
We sailed about, exploring every harbour of the little sea, caught our fish for dinner, and by the hotel were furnished with a well-broiled chicken and a good glass of champagne, with ice worthy of being dissolved in such liquor. I fell premeditatedly in love with the place; and D——, who was on the look-out for a location, and something hard to please withal, had already selected a site for building: but, alas! even Paradise, before the mission of St. Patrick, had serpents; and the delightful copses and rich meadows of Fresh-pond are, it appears, the haunts especially favoured by the incarnation of all Egyptian plagues, musquitoes.
During the winter this is a great resort of the lovers of bandy and skating; and from this ample reservoir is taken that transparent ice which gladdens the eyes and cools the throat of the dust-dried traveller throughout this part of the State. Nor is its grateful service confined to these limits; for cargoes of it are, during the spring, regularly shipped to the Havannah, New Orleans, Mobile, &c.; and,—for where will enterprise find limits?—this very season has a shipment of three hundred tons of the congealed waters of this pond of Massachusetts been consigned to Calcutta. Ice floating on the Ganges! How old Gunga will shiver and shake his ears when the first crystal offering is dropped on his hot bosom!
Wild as the idea may at first appear of keeping such a commodity for a voyage of probably a hundred days in such latitudes, I am informed the speculator is assured, that with an ordinary run, enough of his cargo may be landed to pay a good freight.[4]
Near to this pond lies another favourite spot of mine, "Mount Auburn;" a tract of woodland, bordering on Charles River, appropriated and consecrated as a cemetery, on the plan of "Pere la Chaise," but having natural attributes for such a purpose infinitely superior. It is covered by a thick growth of the finest forest-trees, of singular variety; and presents a surface, now gently undulating in hill and dale, now broken into deep ravines, or towered over by bold rocky elevations; and, intersecting the whole space from north to south, runs a natural terrace, having a surface so well and evenly levelled that one almost doubts its being other than the work of art.
It takes its name from a lofty eminence, which, rising high over the surrounding level, commands as fine a view as any spot in the vicinity. Winding and well-kept avenues intersect the ground in all directions, giving it an appearance of much greater extent than it in reality possesses, and rendering the most secluded spot easy of access to those who desire to
"Choose their ground,
And take their rest."
The ostentatious mausoleum may be placed by a broad carriage avenue, where its hollow walls will reverberate to every passing triumph of the tomb; the quiet and the lowly can build their humbler dwelling in some secluded nook, bordered by a narrow path the foot of affection alone will seek to tread, and where no heavier sound will ever echo!
The perpetual right of sepulture may be purchased of the company whose property the place is; and already a number of monuments, in marble and granite, betoken the favour with which this place of "everlasting rest" is viewed. Most of these monuments are of a simple, unassuming character, and some of them gracefully appropriate.
A wooden fence encircles the cemetery, and a lofty gateway leads into it, of Egyptian fashion, but of the like American material, which, it is to be presumed, will speedily be superseded by suitable erections of the fine dark granite found here in abundance.
This spot, if presided over by anything like taste, must become, in a very few years, one of the places one might reasonably make a pilgrimage to look upon; so lavish has Nature been in its adornment, and so admirably are its accessories fitted to its present purpose.
Boston and its neighbourhood possess, in the eyes of a British subject, a number of sites of singular historical interest.
On Hancock's Wharf that tea-party was held which cost Britain ten millions of gold, and reft from the empire one quarter of the globe. The lines of the American army at Cambridge are still to be readily traced throughout their whole extent; the forts at the extremities, north and south, are yet perfect in form as when designed by the engineer.
Across the peninsula, to the west of the isthmus, may be traced the British lines and the broad deep fosse which, filled by the tide, insulated the city these were projected to defend: their remains testify to the care and labour bestowed upon their completion.
Bunker's Hill and the Breeds, where the first determined stand was made against the British army, is commanded from the steeples and many house-tops of the city.
If the defenders of these miserable lines knew that they were observed by their kindred on this day, they took, at least, especial care that the lookers-on should have no cause to blush for their lack of manhood. Under cover of a hastily thrown-up breastwork, of which no trace remains, did those hardy yeomen abide and repulse several assaults of a regular and well-officered force; nor was it until their last charge of ammunition was delivered that they turned from the defences their courage alone had made good. The result proved how few charges of theirs were flung away; these men knew the value of their ammunition, they were excellent shots, and the word was constantly passed amongst them to "take sure aim."
On Bunker's Hill a national monument is in progress, which, when completed, will form an obelisk of fine granite, according to the published plan, thirty feet square at the base, two hundred and twenty feet high, and fifteen feet square at the summit. After considerable progress had been made in this most durable memorial, the funds ran out and the work stood still; however, the reproach of its remaining unfinished is now likely to be speedily removed, for during this last year, I believe, the necessary sum has been raised, and the national monument of Massachusetts put en train for completion.
Below this celebrated hill lies one of the most complete and extensive navy-yards in the States. At the period of my visit its dry dock was occupied by a pet ship of the American navy, "the Constitution," or, as this fine frigate is familiarly called, "Old Ironsides." She was stripped down to her kelson outside and in, for the purpose of undergoing a repair that will make her, to all intents, a new ship.
She is what would now be called a small frigate, but one of the prettiest models possible as high as the bends; above, she tumbles in a little too much to please the eye. Nor did her gun-deck appear to me particularly roomy for her burthen.
She was logged nearly eleven feet during the whole of the period she was last afloat, yet is said to have sailed faster than anything she met; this defect the builders have now remedied, and expect that, on a straight keel, she will prove the fastest ship afloat.
I also went on board a seventy-four, employed as a receiving ship; "a whapper! of her size," low between decks, but with a floor like a barn, and the greatest beam I ever saw in a two-decker. Here were also on the stocks a three and a two decker, both to be rated as seventy-fours; the latter a model of beauty.
From the roof of the house covering this ship I enjoyed the finest panoramic view imaginable. Boston, its long bridges, and the great dam connecting the blue hills of the main with the peninsulas of Boston, and that on which the populous village of Charleston stands, all lay beneath the eye on the land side; whilst looking seaward, the inner and outer harbours, together with their numerous islands, stretched away far beyond the ken; and, were these islands only wooded, no harbour in the world would excel this in beauty: at present, though grand, from its great extent it looks bleak and naked, so completely have the islands and the surrounding heights been denuded of wood.
I like this view better than either the one from the dome of the State-house or that from the summit of Mount Auburn: a few glances from this point affords one a good practical notion both of the city and the populous environs, which may be said to form a part of it, besides being in itself a varied and beautiful picture, viewed, as I first saw it, on the afternoon of a calm clear day.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Fanieul Hall, so called, the old Town Hall,—a spot dedicated by the Bostonians to the recollections of their country's first struggle for independence, and greatly venerated.
[4] This calculation was more than realised, the loss not exceeding one-fourth on the whole cargo shipped. The grateful epicures of Calcutta made an offering of a splendid cup to the merchant, in return for his spirited speculation, which I believe he has this year (1835) repeated.
STATE PRISON.
Whilst here, I visited the state-prison, the first I had seen where the Auburn system is pursued; that is, solitary night-cells, silence, and labour in gangs. The building itself is a fine one, having nearly four hundred cells, enclosed within external walls, round which run galleries that command a view of the interior of every cell without disturbing or annoying the confined; the whole covered by a common roof of the strongest kind, lighted and ventilated in the best manner.
The merits of this plan will be fairly set forth long before this trifle meets the public eye, a commission being now in progress throughout these States for the purpose of relieving England from the stigma of having no means of employment in her prisons less brutalizing than the tread-mill.
I here saw about two hundred convicts actively employed at various trades, preparing granite for building, doing smiths' work, making shoes, brushes, &c.; all very clean, but certainly not looking very healthy.
A single overseer went the rounds of each building or department, and kept the hive in motion, without a word spoken, unless in reference to the task in hand. Whilst passing through the masons' shed, I noticed two persons make inquiries of the superintendent: their questions were to the point, given in few words, but with an air perfectly free and unrestrained, and were replied to in the like manner.
Upon the value of this system as a preventive of crime, according to my view of human nature, I may be allowed to express a doubt, as well as of its applicability to the condition of Great Britain; but viewing it in the abstract, without such reference, I confess no philanthropic object ever struck me as so completely illustrative of the principles of true benevolence. This was, in fact, returning good for evil, in the most Christian sense of the word; "chastening as a father chasteneth." It would appear that a convict must be unnaturally hardened not to quit this abode a better man. Let him arrive here, however outcast, vile, ignorant, knowing no honest calling, broken in health and savage in spirit, here he will find teachers, masters, physicians, all provided for him by the community whose laws he has violated. His spirit is soothed, his health is recruited, his ignorance enlightened: he is made master of a sufficient calling; and, when restored to society, is able to contrast the value of the meal earned by the honest sweat of his brow with the bitter fruit of idleness and crime.
Such is the result contemplated by the benevolent promoters of the prison system of this country, which everywhere has societies of voluntary philanthropists who watch over and study to improve it. One is ashamed, after this, to avow a doubt of its success in practice, since it almost amounts to an admission that man is indeed the brute our European legislators appear to think him.
The subject is, at least, one that demands from England a rigid inquiry, when we call to mind what a den of debasement, what a sink of soul and body, a prison yet is amongst the most civilized and humane people in the world.
TREMONT HOTEL.
My last, though not least, lion of Boston is the "Tremont House," which being, in my opinion, the very best of the best class of large hotels in the Union, I shall select as a specimen.
With externals I have little to do, although the architecture of this fine building might well claim a particular description: its frontage is nearly two hundred feet, with two wings about one hundred each in depth: it is three stories high in front above the basement, and the wings are each of four stories: the number of rooms, its proprietor informed me, amount to two hundred, independent of kitchens, cellars, and other offices: it contains hot and cold baths, and is, in fact, wanting in nothing essential to the character of a well-contrived hotel.
The curious part of the affair, however, to a European, and more especially to an Englishman, is the internal arrangement of such a huge institution, the machinery by which it is so well and so quietly regulated.
Let the reader reflect, that here are two public tables daily, one for men resident in the house, together with many gentlemen of the city, who regularly dine here; the other for ladies, or families who have not private apartments: of the latter there are a dozen, consisting of two or more chambers attached to each parlour; these are seldom unoccupied, and have also to be provided for: add to all this an occasional dinner or supper to large public parties, and he will then be enabled to appreciate the difficulties and do justice to the system which works as I shall presently describe.
At half-past seven A.M. the crash of a gong rattles through the remotest galleries, to rouse the sleepers: this you may hear or not, just as you choose; but sound it does, and loudly. Again, at eight, it proclaims breakfast on the public tables: as I never made my appearance at this meal, I cannot be expected to tell how it may be attended. The lover of a late déjeûner may either order his servant to provide one in his own room, or at any hour, up to noon, direct it to be served in the common hall: it will, in either case, consist of whatever he may desire that is in the house.
At three o'clock, dinner is served in a well-proportioned, well-lighted room, seventy feet long by thirty-one wide, occupied by two parallel tables, perfectly appointed, and provided with every delicacy of the season, well dressed and in great abundance,—the French cooking the best in the country,—this par parenthèse. Meantime, the attendance is very sufficient for a man not in a "devouring rage," and the wines of every kind really unexceptionable to any reasonable gourmet.
At this same hour, let it be borne in mind, the same play is playing in what is called the ladies' dining-room, where they sit surrounded by their husbands, fathers, brothers, or lovers, as may be; and surely having no meaner table-service. As for the possessors of an apartment, these persons order dinner for as many as they please, at what hour they please, and in what style they please, the which is duly provided in their respective parlours.
In the public rooms tea is served at six, and supper at nine o'clock; it being yet a marvel to me, first, how all these elaborate meals are so admirably got up, and next, how the plague these good people find appetite to come to time with a regularity no less surprising.
It was a constant subject of no little amusement to me to observe a few of the knowing hands hanging about, as feeding-time drew near, their ears on the prick and their eyes on the door, which is thrown open at the first bellow of the gong.
As to the indecent pushing and driving, so amusingly described by some travellers, I never saw a symptom of it in any hotel I visited throughout the country: on the contrary, the absence of extraordinary bustle and confusion, where such numbers have to be provided for, is not the least striking part of the affair; and only to be accounted for by supposing that the habit of living thus together, and being in some sort accountable to one another, renders individuals more considerate and courteous than they can afford to be when congregated to feed amongst us.
I confess that, at first, a dinner of a hundred, or a hundred and fifty persons, on a hot day, alarmed me; but, the strangeness got over, I rather liked this mode of living, and, as a stranger in a new country, would certainly prefer it to the solitary mum-chance dinner of a coffee-room.
By eleven o'clock at night the hive is hushed, and the house as quiet as any well-ordered citizen's proper dwelling. The servants in this establishment were all Irish lads; and a civiller or better-conducted set of boys, as far as the guests were concerned, I never saw, or would desire to be waited on by. The bar was also well conducted, under the care of an obliging and very active person; and the proprietor, Mr. Boydon, or his father, constantly on the spot, both most active in all matters conducive to the ease and comfort of the visitors.
This city abounds in charitable institutions, and nowhere have more princely contributions been made for philanthropic purposes,—witness the recent gift of Colonel Perkins of a mansion, valued at thirty thousand dollars, as a permanent asylum for the blind; one of those institutions most interesting in themselves, and which confer dignity and honour upon the age and upon human nature.
The Bostonians are said to be proud of their literary character, and boast a number of societies whose object it is to justify their claim to this honourable distinction. The only one I can speak of from personal observation is the Athenæum, an excellently-supplied reading-room; having attached to it a library of thirty thousand volumes, a valuable collection of coins and medals, a gallery for the exhibition of pictures, and lecture-rooms well furnished with the necessary apparatus for philosophical and practical illustration.
This institution is provided for by subscription: the principal portion of the mansion it occupies being the free gift of the same open hand which so munificently endowed the asylum for the blind.
The private literary society here is said to be very superior to that of any other city of the States, and by no means small. Of society so called I nothing know, never having had the honour of being admitted of the community, or indeed having made any attempts upon their proper realm beyond an occasional rude foray on the border, uncontinued, and consequently little noted.
Private intercourse is gay and agreeable, and less restrained by the exclusive pretension to dress and fashion which prevails in society both at New York and Philadelphia; whilst, if attractive women are less numerous here than in those cities, beauty is by no means rare; indeed Boston boasts of one family whose personal attractions might serve to sustain the pretensions of a larger population.
THE TREMONT THEATRE.
In the same street, and immediately opposite the great hotel, is the Tremont Theatre, certainly the most elegant exterior in the country, and with a very well-proportioned, but not well-arranged salle, or audience part.
I commenced here on Monday the 30th of September, three days after closing at Philadelphia, to a well-filled house, composed, however, chiefly of men, as on my début at New York. My welcome was cordial and kind in the extreme; but the audience, although attentive, appeared exceedingly cold. On a first night I did not heed this much, especially as report assured me they were very well pleased; but throughout the week this coldness appeared to me to increase rather than diminish, and so much was I affected by it, that, notwithstanding the houses were very good, I, on the last day of my first engagement of six nights, declined positively to renew it, as was the custom in such cases, and as, in fact, the manager and myself had contemplated: on this night, however, the aspect of affairs brightened up amazingly; the house was crowded; a brilliant show of ladies graced the boxes; the performances were a repetition of two pieces which had been previously acted, and from first to last the mirth was electric; the good people appeared, by common consent, to abandon themselves to the fun of the scene, and laughed à gorge deployée. At the fall of the curtain, after, in obedience to the call of the house, I had made my bow, the manager announced my re-engagement; and from this night forth I never met a merrier or a pleasanter audience.
It was quite in accordance with the character ascribed to the New-Englanders that they should coolly and thoroughly examine and understand the novelty presented for their judgment, and that, being satisfied and pleased, they should no longer set limits to the demonstration of their feelings.
In matters of graver import they have always evinced the like deliberate judgment and apparent coldness of bearing; but beneath this prudential outward veil they have feelings capable of the highest degree of excitement and the most enduring enthusiasm.
I do not agree with those who describe the Yankee as a naturally cold-blooded, selfish being. From both the creed and the sumptuary regulations of the rigid moral censors from whom they sprung, they have inherited the practice of a close self-observance and a strict attention to conventional form, which gives a frigid restraint to their air that nevertheless does not sink far beneath the surface.
A densely-populated and ungrateful soil has kept alive and quickened their natural gifts of intelligence and enterprise, whilst the shifts poverty imposes upon young adventure may possibly at times have impelled prudence to degenerate into cunning. But look at their history as a community; they have been found ever ready to make the most generous sacrifices for the commonwealth. In their domestic relations they are proverbial as the kindest husbands and most indulgent fathers; whilst as friends they are found to be, if reasonably wary, at least steadfast, and to be relied on to the uttermost of their professions.
I can readily understand a stranger, having any share of sensibility, not liking a people whose observances are so peculiar and so decidedly marked; but I do think it impossible for an impartial person to spend any time in the country, or have any close intercourse with the community, without learning to respect and admire them, malgré their calculating prudence, and the many prejudices inseparable from a system of education even to this day sufficiently narrow and sectarian.
As far as my personal experience is worthy of consideration, I must declare that some of the kindest, gentlest, and most hospitable friends I had, and, I trust I may add, have, in the Union, were natives of New-England, or, as they say here, "real Yankee, born and raised within sight of the State-house of Bosting."
JOURNAL.
Oct. 20th, New York.—Began my second engagement here,—the weather divine. Procured a very good hack at Tattersal's, and daily "skir the country round." The environs of this city possess more variety of scenery than one would suppose from a cursory glance at the country, which appears tame and unbroken. The river views are most attractive to me.
Rode to the race-course on Long Island, this being the period of the "Fall Meeting," as it is termed. The assemblage thin on the first day—Appointments of the negro jockeys more picturesque than race-like,—ill-fitted jackets, trousers dirty, and loose, or stocking-net pantaloons ditto, but tight, with Wellingtons over or under, according to the taste of the rider; or shoes without stockings, or stockings without shoes, as weight may be required or rejected. They sit well forward on to the withers of the horses; do not seem over steady in their saddles, but cling like monkeys, their whole sleight-of-hand appears to consist of a dead pull; and their mode of running, with their time for lying back or making play, seems to be entirely governed by their masters, who, on a mile-course, they must frequently pass in heats, and who appear ever on the alert to direct them.
After the running, which was indifferent, went to see "Paul Pry," a trotting-horse of Mr. M'Leod's, now in training to do a match of eighteen miles in the hour.[5] With the exception of a few scratches on one of his legs, he looked in slapping order; a powerful grey horse, just sixteen hands, with a fine countenance, and appearing to be nearly, if not quite, thorough-bred.
Second day.—Witnessed a good race, which a little mare, called Trifle, won in two four-mile heats. She had, on a former occasion, run four heats, or twenty miles, over the central course at Baltimore, and was beaten by one of her present competitors, a fine mare called Black Maria. Trifle is very little, but powerfully put together, and exceedingly handsome; her only drawback being a pair of mulish-looking ears. She has uncommon speed, and is one of the steadiest and smoothest gallopers I ever saw go over turf.
I, at the start, took a great fancy to the little pet, and backed her even against the other two horses for a dozen of gloves with my friend Mr. C——n. By the close of the second heat our bet had increased ninefold,—Next morning received a box containing nine dozen of French gloves. It will be my duty henceforth to back Trifle.
October 29th.—The city yet crowded with strangers; every hotel full.
Find out that I am No. 1. in this enormous house; the first time I ever could boast such an honour, and now am by no means certain that it is worth the labour it imposes, since it leads me a dance to the third story: however, it is an excellent room, very large, and removed from the bustle below; the sound of the dustman-like bell, which calls the house to meals, barely reaches my ear. I often catch myself parodying poor Maturin's lines, which I have applied to this unpoetical grievance, and concluded most impotently—
----"Bell echoes bell,
Meal follows meal,
Till the ear aches for the last welcome summons
That tolls an end to the day's cookery."
At this time there cannot be far short of one hundred and fifty persons dining daily in the public room: did I desire to dine at it, however, the hospitality of my friends I find would render this impracticable.
November 3rd.—Dined at Harlaem, a pretty village eight miles from the city, but daily drawing closer to it. Here a certain Mrs. Bradshaw fries chickens in a sauce tartarre, to the which could pen of mine do justice, "I guess" I know folk "our side" the water who would be stealing across to Harlaem some fine day to dine. We had tarapins too, of whose excellence most unfortunates in Europe, happily for their poor wives and innocent children, are ignorant.
On our way home halted at Cato's, and discussed the comparative merits of hail-storm and julep, demonstrating our arguments by the practical experiments of this distinguished spirituous professor.
The day deliciously genial, and the night like a fine harvest-moon at home. Of a verity this American autumn, or fall, as they call it, is a most delicate season.
Friday, 8th.—Up with the lark, and, accompanied by Captain D——n, got on board the steamer for Philadelphia, viâ Amboy.
The morning was clear, with a warm sun just tempered by a breeze balmy and soft: the packet was crowded, and our passage across the harbour a pleasure to remember. We were soon, however, to have all the happy recollections of this journey miserably blotted out by one of the most fearful accidents I ever beheld.
At Amboy we took the railroad; and every one was delighted to find that the locomotives were now in operation, anticipating a quick and pleasant ride to Bordentown. For a time all went well: various surmises were made as to our rate; some calculated it at twenty miles in the hour; D——n and the Belgian minister, Baron de B——r, were disputing the point, watch in hand, when an alarm was given from the rear: our attention was quickly arrested by loud cries to "stop the engine," coming from the windows of every carriage in the train.
On the halt being accomplished, the carriages were deserted in a moment; for it was discovered that one of those in the rear had been overturned in consequence of the axle breaking,—its occupants' fate as yet unknown.
I was soon on the spot, and what a scene was here to witness! Out of twenty-four persons only one had escaped unhurt. One man was dead, another dying, and five others had fractures, more or less serious; a couple of ladies (sisters) dreadfully wounded; the children of one of them, two little girls, with broken limbs.
Never were sufferers more patient; one of them was a surgeon, a fine young fellow, who immediately set about doing the best his skill could accomplish for those most desperately hurt. D——n and I volunteered as his assistants; and with such splints as the shattered panels of the carriage supplied, the fractured limbs were bound up.
It was a melancholy task; but this gallant fellow stuck to it until he saw such of his patients as it was possible to remove disposed of in one of the baggage-cars, emptied for this purpose. I had, in the course of his task, frequently observed him pause, as though either faint, or finding some difficulty in the act of stooping, which was constantly required; but it was not until he had seen the last of his fellow-sufferers disposed of to his best ability that he examined his own condition, when it was discovered that two of his ribs were broken.
It was full three hours before the wounded could be removed from the sandy bank on which they had been stretched; and it was an afflicting thing to see them lying here, bloody and disfigured, exposed to the glare of a hot sun, without the possibility of procuring them shelter; for we were some miles from the nearest village when the accident occurred.
The ex-president, Mr. Quincy Adams, was in the carriage immediately attached to the one overturned: by his direction an inquest was held upon the deceased before we departed; and, this being concluded, the train once more moved forward, but with a character mournfully altered since our first departure.
We found the steam-boat yet in waiting at Bordentown; and, bearing with us those of the wounded who could proceed so far, we reached Philadelphia at a late hour in the afternoon, with such a freight as I trust may never again visit its wharves.
Saturday.—Called to inquire after such of our wounded fellow-passengers as we could trace. The lady so severely hurt pronounced out of all danger; and her dear baby still living, with hopes of saving it. A man with numerous fractures, who had been left behind, report says, is relieved by death from all farther suffering.
This is the first serious accident that has occurred upon this line, which appears to be most carefully conducted; one of the active proprietors or more—the Messrs. Stevens, men of great prudence and practical skill—being constantly upon the road, and personally supervising every department connected with both boats and railway.
Sunday, 10th.—At six A.M. departed for Baltimore, viâ the Delaware and Newcastle railroad: the day was cloudless, and as warm as it is in England in June. I often, on these bright days, think of my good folk in Kent,—clouds and fog without, and sea-coal fire within: no bad substitute for a sun, by the way, after all; especially after one has had a sniff of the anthracite coal used in the close stoves here, an atmosphere which dread of freezing only could reconcile me to.
FOOTNOTE:
[5] Which he shortly after won with ease, and was backed on the ground to perform nineteen, and twenty. No takers.
BALTIMORE.
The day upon which I first approached this city would have given a charm even to desolation. It was on the tenth of November; the air elastic, but bland as on a fine June morning at home; the temperature was about the same too, but attended with a clearness of atmosphere in all quarters that seldom falls out within our islands.
The passage down the Elk river is quite beautiful: the shores on either hand are bold and undulating; the country finely wooded; the banks indented by numerous bays and inlets, whose jutting capes so intersect each other that in several reaches the voyager is, as it were, completely land-locked, and might imagine himself coasting about some pretty lake.
We neared the well-closed harbour amidst a fleet of some hundred and fifty sail, of all sizes and of every variety of rig, from the simple two-sailed heavy sloop to that perfection of naval architecture, the Clipper schooner of Baltimore, with her long tapering masts raking over her taffrail, and her symmetrical hull fairly leaping out of water, as though she moved from wave to wave by a succession of graceful bounds rather than held her course by cleaving a pathway through them, as did her more cumbrous fellows.
The eye was charmed and the heart elevated by these unequivocal evidences of thriving commerce sweeping towards the city; which rises gradually, as it spreads over the face of the irregular hill it occupies. Several domes of considerable magnitude, a tall column or two, with various towers and spires, rendered conspicuous from the nature of the site, invest it with an air of much importance, and have gained for it the title of the City of Monuments.
The main street, like that of Boston, has very much the look of an English county-town; and the air of the shops is wholly English. I wandered about here guided by curiosity and caprice,—the only cicerone I ever desire,—and saw most things worthy note. I attended service at the cathedral, where I heard mass admirably performed, for in this choir are several voices of a very high order.
The interior of the church is good; the altar most worthily fitted up; and the general effect would be imposing were it not marred by the introduction of regular lines of exceedingly comfortable but most uncatholic-looking pews, with the which, I confess, I felt so vexed, that I could have found in my heart, Heaven pardon me! to have wished them fairly floating in the bay, only for the delicate creatures who sat within them, on whose transparent brows and soft dark eyes it was impossible to look and breathe a wish or harbour a thought of evil.
I next mounted the Washington column, as it is called, and beheld a sunset from its top that would have well recompensed a poet or painter for a journey over "the broa-a-d At-álantic," as poor Incledon used to emphasize it.
This is a noble column and splendidly put together, of workmanship and material calculated to endure,—lasting, unimpeachable by time or change, as is the fame of the patriot to whose virtues it is well inscribed; but the statue itself is bad, ineffective, and in no situation or distance I could discover at all like the great original, whose personal characteristics were nevertheless striking, and well adapted for the artist.
The inverted bee-hive too, which is overturned on the head of the capital, for the purpose, as it were, of hoisting the figure a little higher, is in bad taste, and detracts from the plainness of the column, which, if divested of both bee-hive and figure, would be an object worthy to commemorate the citizen Washington, in whose character simplicity gave lustre to the grandeur with which it was happily blended; softening and chastening it, and making him, even in the sternest times, more loved than feared.
I rode hard for a few hours to the north and west of the city, accompanied by a Scotch friend; in the course of which ride we dived down some wooded glens, and crossed some rock-strewn brooks, that called to his memory the brawling waters of his own rugged land,—so constantly, at all times and in all places, is the wanderer's mind prepared to veer homeward.
I have sometimes smiled at the total absence of similarity between the distant original and the subject that has served to challenge comparison. In this case, however, there was, in my mind, good ground enough for the recollection: at one spot, in particular, we broke from a thickly-wooded hill side that we had for some time been blindly threading, and found ourselves just over a clear pebbled stream, skirted on the opposite bank by a fair fresh meadow, itself bounded again by a wooded height yet more stony and steep than that by which we sought to descend: on our right, in an angle of the meadow, stood a farmhouse, roughly built of grey-stone and lime, surrounded by numerous offices; and, lower down the brook, a mill of similar character.
After a long look upon this pretty sequestered spot, we descended to the bed of the stream, and found a railroad already skirting its course.
Passing the mill by a bridle-path, we here saw the bed of our little brook, fallen far beneath, tossing, raging, and whirling its way amongst great masses, and tumbling over the rocky ledges dividing smooth beds of close black gneiss. Yet a little lower, we struck a road leading over a bridge, by which we re-crossed the now important current; and hence the upward view was as glen-like, gloomy, and wild as Scottish imagination could desire.