I always feel as if a coroner's inquest would be held over me, when I cross a steamboat gangway, even though there may be blue sky overhead, and sunshine about me.
Judge, then, of my consternation, as the Baltimore boat pushed off for Norfolk, Va., and I discovered directly beneath my state-room window about a dozen barrels of kerosene. In vain did the philosopher try to bamboozle me into the belief that "it was lard." After fifteen years conjugal acquaintance with my nose, it was a stupidity of which only a man could be guilty.
"Lard!" I exclaimed; "it is kerosene! and a military company on board too." Now I don't "love the military." I had one fearful experience with them, on board the ill-fated Lady Elgin, when, in the midst of a howling tempest, with thunder and lightning thrown in, their tipsy howls made a perfect pandemonium.
Military companies smoke too; and there is always fire where there is smoke, says the old proverb; and sparks and kerosene are things better divorced. So I didn't undress that night, and had plenty of time to consider a question which for the first time I asked myself,—whether a steamboat ought not, in a case like this, to forfeit its insurance. That part of my education having been neglected at boarding-school, I was unable to solve it; so I shudderingly recognized the fact, that men on the upper deck were smoking pipes, and knocking ashes and sparks from the railing with a verdant innocence and stupidity quite astounding.
But the "angel aloft," wafted away the sparks from the kerosene; and a friendly rain coming on, my perturbed spirit had a great calm. So we got to Norfolk whole and alive—no thanks to that steamboat or its owners. It was lucky I had my excitement going there, for a more stagnant, sleepy place—outside of the Dead Sea—never announced itself. Still, there were peach-trees in blossom, and tulip-trees, and the pretty blue periwinkle peeped from the hedges and gardens, and the grass was green, and—so was everything else there! One day sufficed me, although it was pleasant to sit with open windows. Our coachman dragged us up and down through the narrow, dilapidated looking streets, over pavements that forced to our lips the letter O oftener than any other in the alphabet, while "showing us the city." As the streets were all alike, we cut short his little fun by requesting to be set down at our hotel, while one bone remained undislocated.
The grave-yard was, after all, the pleasantest spot through which we drove in Norfolk. Whole graves there were covered with the blue flowers of the running myrtle; they were even peeping up under the little patches of snow. "Five dollars fine for picking a blossom." A good rule; but I was always unruly, and that blue myrtle is my favorite flower. Still I don't say I plucked one—of course not; how could I, inside a carriage?
Norfolk should be named "Sleepy Hollow." I can't conceive of keeping awake there, unless by help of their corduroy pavements. It was tame, after living in New York, where there is always "a dreadful lass of life," as the newsboys express it, or something that is pleasant happening.
Whoso essays to travel South, and having bade good-by to a certain hotel in Philadelphia, which don't begin with A or B, and which, if you have not, you ought to—C, leaves hope and comfort behind; having then left what, in my opinion, is the perfection of hotel-keeping, in all its myriad departments. Farewell to clean rooms, and genuine coffee, and well-cooked meats, and prompt attendance; and welcome drafts, and cooked poison, in every shape that the fiend of the gridiron and frying-pan could devise. Having exhausted Washington three or four different times from a luxurious standpoint, it only remained on this flying transit through it, for Washington to exhaust me, between the hours of eight in the evening and seven the following morning. In one of the principal hotels of the place, I give you, by way of curiosity, an inventory of the room into which we were ushered. Imprimis—a bed, with sheets still warm with the print of the last occupant; wash-bowls grimy with departed paws; dirty towels; and a broken window pane, through which the snow was sifting; two immense grease spots, each the size of a two-quart bowl, in the centre of the dingy carpet; matches scattered round ad libitum; a horror of a spitoon in the middle of the floor; dirty window-curtains, and closets full of old papers; bureau drawers saturated with grease; bedstead cracked across the foot-board, and so rickety, that it was suggestive of a discordant music-box. Sofa dingy, and placed with singular felicity immediately under the broken window; while the looking-glass was fastened to the top of a bureau, so high, that one need mount a stool to look in it, and located, as usual, in the darkest corner of the apartment; a woollen cloth on the centre-table, approachable only by a pair of tongs. Finally a chamber-maid was procured, and towels, sheets, and a fire followed, while we were at tea. Afterward my companion lay down to rest (?) on the music-box; while I, upon the dingy sofa, front of the fire, listened, laughing, to the squeaks produced on it, by his attempts to sleep.
My reflections were various. I didn't wonder that Congressmen lodging thus, should call naughty names, and tear each other's eyes out at the Capitol. And what disgraceful, broken-down saloon surroundings are about the Capitol building! I never look at its beautiful proportions without incendiary desires to make a clean sweep of the old shanties about it, and in their place introduce cleanliness and beauty. Who knows the Christianizing effect it might have on men and measures? I should like to see it tried.