Skipped yesterday: so much the better, for though it began, like May, with flowers and sunshine, it ended, like December, with the sulks, and a fit of crying. The former were furnished me by my friends and Heaven, the latter, by myself and the devil.
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At six o'clock, D—— roused me; and grumpily enough I arose. I dressed myself by candlelight in a hurry. Really, by way of a party of pleasure, 'tis too abominable to get up in the middle of the night this fashion. At half-past six, Colonel —— came; and as soon as I could persuade myself into my clothes, we set off to walk to the quay. Just as we were nearing the bottom of Barclay Street, the bell rang from the steam-boat, to summon all loiterers on board; and forthwith we rushed, because in this country steam and paddles, like wind and tide in others, wait for no man. We got on board in plenty time, but D—— was nearly killed with the pace at which we had walked, in order to do so. One of the first persons we saw was Mr. ——, who was going up to his father's place beyond West Point, by name Hyde Park, which sounds mighty magnificent. I did not remain long on the second deck, but ascended to the first with Colonel ——, and paced to and fro with infinite zeal till breakfast-time. The morning was grey and sad-looking, and I feared we should not have a fine day: however, towards eight o'clock, the grey clouds parted, and the blue serene eyes of heaven looked down upon the waters; the waves began to sparkle, though the sun had not yet appeared; the sky was lighter, and faint shadows began to appear beside the various objects that surrounded us, all which symptoms raised our hopes of the weather. At eight o'clock, we went down to breakfast. Nobody, who has not seen it, can conceive the strange aspect of the long room of one of these fine boats at meal-time. The crowd, the hurry, the confusion of tongues, like the sound of many waters, the enormous consumption of eatables, the mingled demands for more, the cloud of black waiters hovering down the sides of the immense tables, the hungry eager faces seated at them, form altogether a most amusing subject of contemplation, and a caricaturist would find ample matter for his vein in almost every other devouring countenance. As far as regards the speed, safety, and convenience with which these vessels enable one to perform what would be in any other conveyance most fatiguing journeys, they are admirable inventions. The way in which they are conducted, too, deserves the highest commendation. Nothing can exceed the comfort with which they are fitted up, the skill with which they are managed, and the order and alacrity with which passengers are taken up from, or landed at, the various points along the river. The steamer goes at the rate of fifteen miles an hour; and in less than two minutes, when approaching any place of landing, the engine stops, the boat is lowered—the captain always convoys his passengers himself from the steamer to the shore—away darts the tiny skiff, held by a rope to the main boat; as soon as it grazes the land, its freight, animate and inanimate, is bundled out, the boat hauls itself back in an instant, and immediately the machine is in motion, and the vessel again bounding over the water like a race-horse.[54] Doubtless all this has many and great advantages; but to an English person, the mere circumstance of being the whole day in a crowd is a nuisance. As to privacy at any time, or under any circumstances, 'tis a thing that enters not into the imagination of an American. They do not seem to comprehend that to be from sunrise to sunset one of a hundred and fifty people confined in a steam-boat is in itself a great misery, or that to be left by one's self and to one's self can ever be desirable. They live all the days of their lives in a throng, eat at ordinaries of two or three hundred, sleep five or six in a room, take pleasure in droves, and travel by swarms.[55]
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In spite, therefore, of all its advantages, this mode of journeying has its drawbacks, and the greatest of all, to me, is the being companioned by so many strangers, who crowd about you, pursue their conversation in your very ears, or, if they like it better, listen to yours, stare you out of all countenance, and squeeze you out of all comfort. It is perfectly intolerable to me; but then I have more than even the national English abhorrence of coming in contact with strangers. There is no moment of my life when I would not rather be alone than in company; and feeling, as I often do, the society of even those I love a burden, the being eternally surrounded by indifferent persons is a positive suffering that interferes with every enjoyment, and makes pleasure three parts endurance. I think this constant living in public is one reason why the young women here are much less retiring and shy than English girls. Instead of the domestic privacy in which women among us are accustomed to live, and move, and have their being, here they are incessantly, as Mr. —— says, "en évidence." Accustomed to the society of strangers, mixing familiarly with persons of whom they know nothing earthly, subject to the gaze of a crowd from morning till night, pushing, and pressing, and struggling in self-defence, conversing, and being conversed with, by the chance companions of a boarding-house, a steam-boat, or the hotel of a fashionable watering-place, they must necessarily lose every thing like reserve or bashfulness of deportment, and become free and familiar in their manners, and noisy and unrefined in their tone and style of conversation.[56] An English girl of sixteen, put on board one of these Noah's arks (for verily there be clean and unclean beasts in them), would feel and look like a scared thing. To return to our progress. After losing sight of New York, the river becomes narrower in its bed, and the banks on either side assume a higher and more rocky appearance. A fine range of basaltic rock, called the Palisadoes, rising to a height of some hundred feet (I guess), immediately from the water on the left, forms a natural rampart, overhanging the river for several miles. The colour of the basalt was greenish grey, and contrasted finely with the opposite shore, whose softer undulations were yet clothed with verdure, and adorned with patches of woodland, robed in the glorious colours of an American autumn. While despatching breakfast, the reflection of the sun's rays on the water flickered to and fro upon the cabin ceiling; and through the loop-hole windows we saw the bright foam round the paddles sparkling like frothed gold in the morning light. On our return to the deck, the face of the world had become resplendent with the glorious sunshine that now poured from the east; and rock and river, earth and sky, shone in intense and dazzling brilliancy. The broad Hudson curled into a thousand crisp billows under the fresh north-wester that blew over it. The vaporous exhalations of night had melted from the horizon, and the bold rocky range of one shore, and exquisite rolling outline of the other, stood out in fair relief against the deep serene of the blue heavens.
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I remained on deck without my bonnet, walking to and fro, and enjoying the delicious wind that was as bracing as a shower-bath. Mr. —— most civilly offered me, when I returned to New York, the use of a horse, and himself as escort to a beautiful ride beyond Hoboken, which proffer was very gratefully received by me. Colonel —— introduced me to an old man of the name of ——.
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