Rose (oh, horror!) at a quarter to five. Night was still brooding over the earth. Long before I was dressed, the first voice I heard was that of Colonel ——, come to look after our luggage, and see us off. To lend my friend a thousand pounds (if I had it) I could—to lend him my horse, perhaps I might; but to get up in the middle of the night, and come dawdling in the grey cold hour of the morning upon damp quays, and among dusty packages, except for my own flesh and blood, I could not. Yet this worthy man did it for us; whence I pronounce that he must be half a Quaker himself, for no common episcopal benevolence could stretch this pitch. Dressed, and gathered together my things, and at six o'clock, just as the night was folding its soft black wings, and rising slowly from the earth, we took our departure from that mansion of little ease, the American, and our fellow-lodgers the ants, and proceeded to the Philadelphia steam-boat, which started from the bottom of Barclay Street. We were recommended to this American Hotel as the best and most comfortable in New York; and truly the charges were as high as one could have paid at the Clarendon, in the land of comfort and taxation. The wine was exorbitantly dear; champagne and claret about eleven shillings sterling a bottle; sherry, port, and madeira, from nine to thirteen. The rooms were a mixture of French finery and Irish disorder and dirt; the living was by no means good; the whole house being conducted on a close scraping system of inferior accommodations and extravagant charges. On a sudden influx of visiters, sitting-rooms were converted into bed-rooms, containing four and five beds. The number of servants was totally inadequate to the work; and the articles of common use, such as knives and spoons, were so scantily provided, that when the public table was very full one day, the knives and forks for our dinner were obliged to be washed from theirs; and the luxury of a carving-knife was not to be procured at all on that occasion: it is true that they had sometimes as many as two hundred and fifty guests at the ordinary. The servants, who, as I said before, were just a quarter as many as the house required, had no bed-rooms allotted to them, but slept about any where, in the public rooms, or on sofas in drawing-rooms, let to private families. In short, nothing can exceed the want of order, propriety, and comfort in this establishment, except the enormity of the tribute it levies upon pilgrims and wayfarers through the land.[23] And so, as I said, we departed therefrom nothing loath.
The morning was dull, dreary, and damp, which I regretted very much. The steam-boat was very large and commodious, as all these conveyances are. I enquired of one of the passengers what the power of the engine was: he replied that he did not exactly know, but that he thought it was about forty-horse power; and that, when going at speed, the engine struck thirty times in a minute: this appeared to me a great number in so short a time; but the weather shortly became wet and drizzly, and I did not remain on deck to observe. My early rising had made me very sleepy, so I came down to the third deck to sleep. These steam-boats have three stories; the upper one is, as it were, a roofing or terrace on the leads of the second, a very desirable station when the weather is neither too foul nor too fair; a burning sun being, I should think, as little desirable there as a shower of rain. The second floor or deck has the advantage of the ceiling above, and yet, the sides being completely open, it is airy, and allows free sight of the shores on either hand. Chairs, stools, and benches, are the furniture of these two decks. The one below, or third floor downwards, in fact, the ground floor, being the one near the water, is a spacious room completely roofed and walled in, where the passengers take their meals, and resort if the weather is unfavourable. At the end of this room is a smaller cabin for the use of the ladies, with beds and a sofa, and all the conveniences necessary, if they should like to be sick; whither I came and slept till breakfast time. Vigne's account of the pushing, thrusting, rushing, and devouring on board a western steam-boat at meal times had prepared me for rather an awful spectacle; but this, I find, is by no means the case in these more civilised parts, and every thing was conducted with perfect order, propriety, and civility. The breakfast was good, and served and eaten with decency enough. Came up on the upper deck, and walked about with my father. The width of the river struck me as remarkable; but the shores were flat, and for the most part uninteresting, except for the rich and various tints which the thickets of wood presented, and which are as superior in brilliancy and intenseness to our autumnal colouring as their gorgeous skies are to ours. Opposite the town of Amboy, the Raritan opens into a magnificent lake-like expanse round the extreme point of Staten Island.[24] As the shores on either side, however, were not very interesting, I finished reading Combe's book. There is much sound philosophy in it; but I do not think it altogether establishes the main point that he wishes to make good—the truth of phrenology, and the necessity of its being adopted as the only science of the human mind. His general assertions admit of strong individual exceptions, which, I think, go far towards invalidating the generality. However, 'tis not a full development of his own system, but, as it were, only an introduction to it; and his own admissions of the obscurity and uncertainty in which that system is still involved necessarily enforces a suspension of judgment, until its practical results have become more manifest, and in some measure borne witness to the truth of his theory. At about half-past ten we reached the place where we leave the river, to proceed across a part of the State of New Jersey to the Delaware. The landing was beyond measure wretched: the shore shelved down to the water's edge; and its marshy, clayey, sticky soil, rendered doubly soft and squashy by the damp weather, was strewn over with broken potsherds, stones, and bricks, by way of pathway; these, however, presently failed, and some slippery planks half immersed in mud were the only roads to the coaches that stood ready to receive the passengers of the steam-boat. Oh, these coaches! English eye hath not seen, English ear hath not heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of Englishmen to conceive the surpassing clumsiness and wretchedness of these leathern inconveniences. They are shaped something like boats, the sides being merely leathern pieces, removable at pleasure, but which, in bad weather, are buttoned down, to protect the inmates from the wet. There are three seats in this machine; the middle one, having a movable leathern strap, by way of a dossier, runs between the carriage doors, and lifts away to permit the egress and ingress of the occupants of the other seats. Into the one facing the horses D—— and I put ourselves; presently two young ladies occupied the opposite one; a third lady, and a gentleman of the same party, sat in the middle seat, into which my father's huge bulk was also squeezed; finally, another man belonging to the same party ensconced himself between the two young ladies. Thus the two seats were filled, each with three persons, and there should by rights have been a third on ours; for this nefarious black hole on wheels is intended to carry nine. However, we profited little by the space, for, letting alone that there is not really and truly room for more than two human beings of common growth and proportions on each of these seats, the third place was amply filled up with baskets and packages of ours, and huge undoubleableup coats and cloaks of my father's.
For the first few minutes I thought I must have fainted from the intolerable sensation of smothering which I experienced. However, the leathers having been removed, and a little more air obtained, I took heart of grace, and resigned myself to my fate. Away wallopped the four horses, trotting with their front and galloping with their hind legs; and away went we after them, bumping, thumping, jumping, jolting, shaking, tossing, and tumbling, over the wickedest road, I do think the cruellest hard-heartedest road, that ever wheel rumbled upon. Thorough bog and marsh, and ruts wider and deeper than any christian ruts I ever saw, with the roots of trees protruding across our path; their boughs every now and then giving us an affectionate scratch through the windows; and, more than once, a half-demolished trunk or stump lying in the middle of the road lifting us up, and letting us down again, with most awful variations of our poor coach body from its natural position. Bones of me! what a road![25] Even my father's solid proportions could not keep their level, but were jerked up to the roof and down again every three minutes. Our companions seemed nothing dismayed by these wondrous performances of a coach and four, but laughed and talked incessantly, the young ladies, at the very top of their voices, and with the national nasal twang.[26] The conversation was much of the genteel shopkeeper kind; the wit of the ladies, and the gallantry of the gentlemen, savouring strongly of tapes and yard measures, and the shrieks of laughter of the whole set enough to drive one into a frenzy. The ladies were all pretty; two of them particularly so, with delicate fair complexions, and beautiful grey eyes: how I wish they could have held their tongues for two minutes! We had not long been in the coach before one of them complained of being dreadfully sick.[27] This, in such a space, and with seven near neighbours! Fortunately she was near the window; and during our whole fourteen miles of purgatory she alternately leaned from it overcome with sickness, then reclined languishingly in the arms of her next neighbour, and then, starting up with amazing vivacity, joined her voice to the treble duet of her two pretty companions, with a superiority of shrillness that might have been the pride and envy of Billingsgate. 'Twas enough to bother a rookery! The country through which we passed was woodland, flat, and without variety, save what it derived from the wondrous richness and brilliancy of the autumnal foliage. Here indeed decay is beautiful; and nature appears more gorgeously clad in this her fading mantle, than in all the summer's flush of bloom in our less-favoured climates.[28] I noted several beautiful wild flowers growing among the underwood; some of which I have seen adorning with great dignity our most cultivated gardens.[29] None of the trees had any size or appearance of age: they are the second growth, which have sprung from the soil once possessed by a mightier race of vegetables. The quantity of mere underwood, and the number of huge black stumps rising in every direction a foot or two from the soil, bear witness to the existence of fine forest timber. The few cottages and farm-houses which we passed reminded me of similar dwellings in France and Ireland; yet the peasantry here have not the same excuse for disorder and dilapidation as either the Irish or French. The farms had the same desolate, untidy, untended look: the gates broken, the fences carelessly put up, or ill repaired; the farming-utensils sluttishly scattered about a littered yard, where the pigs seemed to preside by undisputed right; house-windows broken, and stuffed with paper or clothes; dishevelled women, and barefooted anomalous-looking human young things; none of the stirring life and activity which such places present in England and Scotland; above all, none of the enchanting mixture of neatness, order, and rustic elegance and comfort, which render so picturesque the surroundings of a farm, and the various belongings of agricultural labour in my own dear country.[30] The fences struck me as peculiar; I never saw any such in England. They are made of rails of wood placed horizontally, and meeting at obtuse angles, so forming a zig-zag wall of wood, which runs over the country like the herring-bone seams of a flannel petticoat. At each of the angles two slanting stakes, considerably higher than the rest of the fence, were driven into the ground, crossing each other at the top, so as to secure the horizontal rails in their position.[31]
There was every now and then a soft vivid strip of turf, along the road-side, that made me long for a horse. Indeed the whole road would have been a delightful ride, and was a most bitter drive. At the end of fourteen miles we turned into a swampy field, the whole fourteen coachfuls of us, and, by the help of Heaven, bag and baggage were packed into the coaches which stood on the rail-way ready to receive us. The carriages were not drawn by steam, like those on the Liverpool rail-way, but by horses, with the mere advantage in speed afforded by the iron ledges, which, to be sure, compared with our previous progress through the ruts, was considerable. Our coachful got into the first carriage of the train, escaping, by way of especial grace, the dust which one's predecessors occasion. This vehicle had but two seats, in the usual fashion; each of which held four of us. The whole inside was lined with blazing scarlet leather, and the windows shaded with stuff curtains of the same refreshing colour; which, with full complement of passengers, on a fine, sunny, American summer's day, must make as pretty a little miniature hell as may be, I should think. The baggage-waggon, which went before us, a little obstructed the view. The road was neither pretty nor picturesque; but still fringed on each side with the many-coloured woods, whose rich tints made variety even in sameness. This rail-road is an infinite blessing; 'tis not yet finished, but shortly will be so, and then the whole of that horrible fourteen miles will be performed in comfort and decency in less than half the time. In about an hour and a half we reached the end of our rail-road part of the journey, and found another steam-boat waiting for us, when we all embarked on the Delaware. Again, the enormous width of the river struck me with astonishment and admiration. Such huge bodies of water mark out the country through which they run, as the future abode of the most extensive commerce and greatest maritime power in the universe. The banks presented much the same features as those of the Raritan, though they were not quite so flat, and more diversified with scattered dwellings, villages, and towns. We passed Bristol and Burlington, stopping at each of them to take up passengers.[32] I sat working, having finished my book, not a little discomfited by the pertinacious staring of some of my fellow-travellers. One woman, in particular, after wandering round me in every direction, at last came and sat down opposite me, and literally gazed me out of countenance. One improvement they have adopted on board these boats is to forbid smoking, except in the fore part of the vessel. I wish they would suggest that, if the gentlemen would refrain from spitting about too, it would be highly agreeable to the female part of the community. The universal practice here of this disgusting trick makes me absolutely sick: every place is made a perfect piggery of—street, stairs, steam-boat, everywhere—and behind the scenes; on the stage at rehearsal I have been shocked and annoyed beyond expression by this horrible custom. To-day, on board the boat, it was a perfect shower of saliva all the time; and I longed to be released from my fellowship with these very obnoxious chewers of tobacco.[33] At about four o'clock we reached Philadelphia, having performed the journey between that and New York (a distance of a hundred miles) in less than ten hours, in spite of bogs, ruts, and all other impediments. The manager came to look after us and our goods; and we were presently stowed into a coach, which conveyed us to the Mansion House, the best-reputed inn in Philadelphia. On asking for our bed-rooms, they showed D—— and myself into a double-bedded room. On my remonstrating against this, the chambermaid replied, that they were not accustomed to allow lodgers so much room as a room apiece. However, upon my insisting, they gave me a little nest just big enough to turn about in, but where, at least, I can be by myself. Dressed, and dined at five; after dinner, wrote journal till tea-time, and then came to bed.
Tuesday, 9th.
Rose at half-past eight. Went and took a bath. On my way thither, drove through two melancholy-looking squares, which reminded me a little of poor old Queen Square in Bristol. The ladies' baths were closed, but, as I was not particular, they gave me one in the part of the house usually allotted to the men's use. I was much surprised to find two baths in one room, but it seems to me that the people of this country have an aversion to solitude, whether eating, sleeping, or under any other circumstances.
* * * * *
* * * * *
I made acquaintance with a bewitching Newfoundland puppy, whom I greatly coveted. Came home, dressed, and breakfasted. After breakfast, righted my things, and wrote journal. Took a walk with my father through some of the principal streets. The town is perfect silence and solitude, compared with New York; there is a greater air of age about it too, which pleases me. The red houses are not so fiercely red, nor the white facings so glaringly white; in short, it has not so new and flaunting a look, which is a great recommendation to me. The city is regularly built, the streets intersecting each other at right angles. We passed one or two pretty buildings in pure white marble, and the Bank in Chestnut Street, which is a beautiful little copy of the Parthenon. The pure, cold, clear-looking marble suits well with the severe and unadorned style of architecture; and is in harmony, too, with the extreme brilliancy of the sky, and clearness of the atmosphere of this country.[34] We passed another larger building, also a bank, in the Corinthian style, which did not please me so much. The shops here are much better looking than those at New York: the windows are larger, and more advantageously constructed for the display of goods; and there did not appear to be the same anomalous mixture of vendibles, as in the New York shops. The streets were very full of men hurrying to the town-house, to give their votes. It is election time, and much excitement subsists with regard to the choice of the future President.[35] The democrats or radicals are for the re-election of General Jackson, but the aristocratic party, which here at all events is the strongest, are in favour of Henry Clay. Here is the usual quantity of shouting and breaking windows that we are accustomed to on these occasions. I saw a caricature of Jackson and Van Buren, his chief supporter, which was entitled "The King and his Minister." Van Buren held a crown in his hand, and the devil was approaching Jackson with a sceptre.—Came in at half-past four, dressed for dinner: they gave us an excellent one. The master of this house was, it seems, once a man of independent fortune, and a great bon vivant. He has retained from thence a fellow-feeling for his guests, and does by them as he would be done by. After dinner, worked till tea-time; after tea, wrote journal, and now I'll go to bed. We are attended here by a fat old lively negro, by name Henry, who canters about in our behalf with great alacrity, and seems wrapt in much wonderment at many of our proceedings. By the by, the black who protected our baggage from the steam-boat was ycleped Oliver Cromwell. I have begun Grahame's History of America, and like it "mainly," as the old plays say.