To do “old ocean” justice, I must say that there is nothing in the world more delightful than to be at sea a little while in mild weather; but when a gale is blowing, as I have since seen it, the ship going to pieces every hour, and the waves foaming, and snarling, and gnashing their teeth, as it were, in their impatience to get you and strangle you; then you naturally wish there wasn’t such a thing as a sea in the world; or that your lot had been cast in the “new world,” where “there was no more sea.” (Revelations xxi. 1.)
On Monday we came in sight of Cape Cod, and I thought we should never get round it. Those who have noticed Cape Cod on the map have no doubt observed that it is shaped like a human foot; and we went gliding along near its sole, traveling from heel to toe. For hours, I was every moment expecting to go “round the point,” which I imagined I could see all the time a little way ahead: but it kept receding all the while, like an ignis fatuus, till I began to fancy that the foot belonged to some great giant, who was bending his knee, and drawing it back stealthily, in order to straighten it out again and give us a kick.
CHAPTER X.
The “Hub.”
WE arrived in Boston Harbor Monday afternoon about four o’clock, and entered a very dense fog about the same time. The fog was so thick for several minutes that objects could not be seen from one end of the vessel to the other. The engine was quickly stopped, and we narrowly escaped a collision with a steamer. But in the course of ten minutes, the heavy mist swept down the harbor in a body, and left all clear around us; when we were somewhat surprised to find ourselves within one hundred yards of the shore. We floated up to the pier at the foot of State street; the propeller was soon made fast, and I immediately went ashore, in the midst of a soaking rain that seemed to be sent just then for my express benefit. I got into a carriage—one that had sleigh-runners substituted for wheels—and rode to a good comfortable hotel which the Captain had recommended.
It rained till after dark; and, in fact, I retired to my room, went asleep and left it raining. I remember that I heard some one remark, just before I retired, that if it kept on raining,—he didn’t say how long—it would spoil the sleighing, and wheels would come into requisition again: for in the New England States, especially Massachusetts, and those lying north of it, a vehicle with wheels is seldom seen in the depth of winter. The sleighing usually continues good till spring, and the wheels are removed for a time from all vehicles, and runners are adjusted in their stead. Not even the street-cars or omnibuses are any exceptions: they, too, cease to rattle, roll and rumble over the streets, and go gliding about with so little noise that one gets the queer idea into his head that they are barefooted.
Next morning I discovered that it had cleared off, and that the thermometer had gracefully descended to zero. [Well, that was nothing.] In fact, during the ensuing six weeks which I spent in the New England States, the sleighing continued excellent, and the thermometer ranged pretty generally from about five degrees above zero to five below. To be sure, we had a cool night or two, now and then, when it went down to ten or fifteen below; but no one thought much of that. Such is the character of the winter in New England—the good old-fashioned kind that a fellow likes to see.
I glanced over toward Charlestown early on the morning after my arrival, beheld Bunker Hill Monument towering far above the smoke-stacks and steeples in the perspective; and I determined to visit it at once. I accordingly climbed to the top of an omnibus, cold as it was—for I wanted to see all I could—and rode over.
It is not universally known that the battle of Bunker Hill is so called because it was fought on Breed’s Hill. The latter is near Bunker’s Hill, and it is on Breed’s Hill that the monument now stands—and always has stood since it was built, (for they never moved it.) The reason the battle was called the battle of Bunker Hill, and, consequently, that the monument is styled the “Bunker Hill Monument,” is, that the engagement should have been fought there. Colonel Prescott was sent with a thousand men to throw up earthworks on Mr. Bunker’s Hill, which overlooked Charlestown Neck; but either mistaking his instructions, or not being acquainted with the vicinity, he took possession of Breed’s Hill instead, and threw up an earthwork there in rather unpleasant proximity to the British fleet in the harbor.
The monument is built of granite, is about twenty-five feet square at the base, and about twelve or fifteen at the top; which top is accessible by means of an interior winding stone stairway, dimly lighted with rather small jets of gas that are too few and too far between. At intervals of about twenty feet there are narrow apertures to let in air; and that cold morning they let in too much. During the previous night, too, the rain had blown in and frozen on the stone steps, so that fully one half of them were perfectly enameled with ice.
To ascend these with a crutch under such circumstances was no less than a dangerous undertaking. The superintendent advised me not to try it, but I could not act upon his advice, from the fact that I had “made up my mind” to go up. (It’s a wonder I didn’t “go up,” in another way.) If there had not been a small iron railing to cling to, I could never have reached the head of that almost interminable staircase. As it was, I came near falling backward, and only saved myself by clutching this railing.