The light was failing as we entered the Narrows. The captain and several other friends pointed out to me every headland, bay, and fortification as we passed. We were detained a long while at the quarantine ground. The doctor was three miles off, and nearly an hour elapsed before the great news reached him that we were all quite well, and we were therefore allowed to proceed. It now rained heavily, and we were obliged to crowd into the small cabin of the poorest steamer in the bay. There, by the light of one dim and dirty lamp, was the question first asked me, in joke, which has since been repeated in so many moods, "How do you like America?" The weather cleared up in another half hour. We stood in the dark on the wet deck, watching the yellow lights and shadowy buildings of the shore we were rapidly nearing, till we felt the expected shock, and jumped upon the wharf amid the warm welcomes of many friends, who, in their own joy at alighting on their native shore, did not forget to make it at once a home to us strangers.
This was at eight in the evening of the 19th of September, 1834, after a long but agreeable voyage of forty-two days.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS.
"Navigia, atque agri culturas, mœnia, leges
Arma, vias, vesteis, et cætera de genere horum
Præmia, delicias quoque vitæ funditus omneis,
Carmina, picturas, ac dædala signa, politus
Usus, et impigræ simul experientia mentis,
Paullatim docuit pedetentim progredienteis."
Lucretius, lib. v.
The moment of first landing in a foreign city is commonly spoken of as a perfect realization of forlornness. My entrance upon American life was anything but this. The spirits of my companions and myself were in a holyday dance while we were receiving our first impressions; and New-York always afterward bore an air of gayety to me from the association of the early pleasures of foreign travel.
Apartments had been secured for us at a boarding-house in Broadway, and a hackney-coach was in waiting at the wharf. The moonlight was flickering through the trees of the Battery, the insects were buzzing all about us, the catydids were grinding, and all the sounds, except human voices, were quite unlike all we had heard for six weeks. One of my companions took the sound of the catydid for a noise in her head for many hours after coming into their neighbourhood. As we rattled over the stones, I was surprised to find that the street we were in was Broadway; the lower and narrower end, however; but nothing that I saw, after all I had heard, and the panorama of New-York that I had visited in London, disappointed me so much as Broadway. Its length is remarkable, but neither its width nor the style of its houses. The trees with which it is lined gave it, this first evening, a foreign air.
Our hostess at the boarding-house shook hands with us, and ordered tea. While we were waiting for it, and within ten minutes after I had crossed the first American threshold, three gentlemen introduced themselves to me, one of whom was the melancholy politician whom I have mentioned elsewhere [1] as having forewarned me of the total overthrow of the United States' institutions which would certainly take place while I was in the country. This gentleman afterward became a dear and intimate friend; and we found that politics are, perhaps, the only subject on which we entertain irreconcilable differences of opinion. We often amused ourselves with recurring to this our first meeting. This gentleman afforded me an early specimen of the humour which I think one of the chief characteristics of the Americans. In the few minutes during which we were waiting for tea, he dropped some drolleries so new to me, and so intense, that I was perplexed what to do with my laughter.
While we were at tea a few gentlemen dropped in, and read the newspapers at the long table at which we were seated. One fixed my attention at once. He had the carriage of a soldier, with an uncommonly fine countenance, bearing a general resemblance to the great men of the Revolution with whose portraits the English are most familiar. I think it is not a mere fancy that there is an air common to Washington, Jefferson, and Madison. This gentleman reminded me of them all; and the quietness with which he made his remarks, and his evident high breeding, piqued the curiosity of a stranger. He was General Mason, the father of the young governor of Michigan; and the most eminent citizen of Detroit. From time to time, in my travels, I met various members of his family, whose kindness always made me thankful that accident had placed me in the same house with them at the outset.