I HAD always been of a literary turn; so, while employed in the Arsenal, I concluded to write a book, and give to the world, therein, an account of soldier life, as I had experienced it; and I had very little doubt that eighty or ninety thousand dollars might be made out of it. I carried out my determination, writing in the evenings, after my daily labors; and when I left the Arsenal, I had completed the manuscript of my work, which, when published, a few months after, constituted a duodecimo volume of over four hundred pages.[[1]]
I did not make “eighty or ninety thousand” out of the work, as my sanguine nature had led me to anticipate; but I made a “few thousand,” and I concluded to travel a little and see some of that portion of the world lying within the boundaries of the United States: and it was while thus traveling,
chiefly in our own country, that I met with a great many funny adventures which I shall relate in this book.
The first time I visited New York, I went to remain a few weeks as correspondent of a Pennsylvania newspaper. I think any stranger’s first impression of Gotham is, that it is a busy sort of a place; and the longer he stays there the more he “keeps on thinking so.” The bustle of Broadway has been so frequently dilated upon, that I will not attempt to enter upon a regular description of it. It must be seen to be appreciated; and I concluded to see it the first thing. So I hailed an omnibus that came thundering along, and somewhat astonished the driver by climbing nimbly to the top of it, instead of taking a seat within.
“You get up quicker than a two-legged man,” was his brief comment.
“Havn’t so much weight to pull up,” I replied; and paid my fare.
From my lofty perch I had a good view up and down Broadway, as well as on each side. Numberless pedestrians thronged the sidewalks, while vehicles, of all kinds, shapes and sizes, crowded together, rolled along and swayed to and fro in the street like a mighty torrent.
We had not proceeded far up Broadway, when cluck! went one of the front wheels of our “bus” against another one that was coming down—they got tangled and a “jam-up” ensued. Although I could not see that it was the fault of either driver, they cursed each other in round terms. One driver swore at the other, and the other swore at him; then they swore at each other, in concert, for a quarter of a minute, in the course of which they were very earnest and emphatic in advising each other to emigrate to a certain fabled climate where the mercury in the thermometer seldom falls to the freezing point. The way these drivers curse each other is frightful. If all the men told to go to that hot climate in the course of a year by Broadway drivers, should go, the place would be crowded to suffocation. The expression I refer to seems to be a favorite one among the drivers of vehicles on Broadway; and I presume, that on that thoroughfare there are more men urged to visit Erebus in one day, then there are warned against it in all the rest of the land in a whole year.
For about two miles up Broadway, the rattle of omnibuses, express-wagons, drays, furniture-cars, buggies, barouches, cabriolets, etc., was really bewildering. As I looked upon the busy streams of men that hurried along the sidewalks—their faces all strange to me, yet no two alike—and saw the rumbling carriages, all crowding forward as though life depended on their speed, I could not help thinking of this stanza in Byron’s Childe Harold:
“But ’midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men,