CHAPTER XVI.
Home of the Pilgrim Fathers.
Having made the necessary preparations, I again put myself behind the boiling kettle, en route to the republican Athens. The day was intensely hot; even the natives required the windows open, and the dust being very lively, we soon became as powdered as a party going down to the Derby in the ante-railway days. My curiosity was excited on the way, by seeing a body of men looking like a regiment of fox-hunters—all well got up, fine stout fellows—who entered, and filled two of the carriages. On inquiring who kept the hounds, and if they had good runs, a sly smile stole across my friend's cheek as he told me they were merely the firemen of the city going to fraternize with the ditto ditto of Boston. It stupidly never occurred to me to ask him whether any provision was made in case of a quiet little fire developing itself during their absence, for their number was legion, and as active, daring, orderly-looking fellows as ever I set eyes upon. Jolly apopletic aldermen of our capital may forsake the green fat of their soup-making deity, to be feasted by their Parisian fraternity, without inconvenience to anybody, except it be to their fellow-passengers in the steamer upon their return, if they have been over-fed and have not tempest-tried organs of digestion. But a useful body like firemen migrating should, I confess, have suggested to me the propriety of asking what substitutes were left to perform, if need be, their useful duties; not having done so, I am constrained to leave this important point in its present painful obscurity.
A thundering whistle and a cloud of steam announce the top is off the kettle, and that we have reached Boston. Wishing to take my own luggage in a hackney, I found that, however valuable for security the ticketing system may be, it was, under circumstances like mine at present, painfully trying to patience. In three-quarters of an hour, however, I managed to get hold of it, and then, by way of improving my temper, I ascertained that one of my boxes was in a state of "pretty considerable all mighty smash." At last I got off with my goods and chattels, and having seen quite enough of the American palace-hotels and their bountifully-spread tables, and of the unrivalled energy with which the meals are despatched; remembering, also, how frequently the drum of my ears had been distracted by the eternal rattling and crackling of plates and dishes for a couple of hundred people, and how my olfactories had suffered from the mixed odours of the kitchen produce, I declined going to the palatial Revere House, which is one of the best hotels in the Union, and put up at a house of less pretensions, where I found both quiet and comfort.
To write a description of Boston, when so many others have done so far better than I can pretend to do, and when voluminous gazetteers record almost every particular, would be drawing most unreasonably upon the patience of a reader, and might further be considered as inferring a doubt of his acquaintance with, I might almost say, a hackneyed subject. I shall, therefore, only inflict a few short observations to refresh his memory. The most striking feature in Boston, to my mind, is the common or park, inasmuch as it is the only piece of ground in or attached to any city which I saw deserving the name of a park. It was originally a town cow-pasture, and called the Tower Fields. The size is about fifty acres; it is surrounded with an iron fencing, and, although not large, the lay of the ground is very pretty. It contains some very fine old trees, which every traveller in America must know are a great rarity in the neighbourhood of any populous town. It is overlooked by the State-house, which is built upon Beacon Hill, just outside the highest extremity of the park, and from the top of which a splendid panoramic view of the whole town and neighbourhood is obtained. The State-house is a fine building in itself, and contains one of Chantrey's best works—the statue of Washington. The most interesting building in Boston, to the Americans, is, undoubtedly, Faneuil Hall, called also the "Cradle of Liberty." Within those walls the stern oratory of noble hearts striving to be free, and daring to strike for it, was listened to by thousands, in whose breasts a ready response was found, and who, catching the glowing enthusiasm of the orators, determined rather to be rebels and free than subjects and slaves: the sequel is matter of history.
I shall not tax the temper of my reader by going through any further list of the public buildings, which are sufficiently known to those who take an interest in this flourishing community; but I must hasten to apologize for my ingratitude in not sooner acknowledging that most pleasing feature in every traveller's experience in America, which, I need hardly say, is hospitality.
Scarce was my half-smashed box landed at the hotel, when my young American friend, who came from England with our party, appeared to welcome me—perhaps to atone for the lion's share of champagne he had enjoyed at our table on board the steamer. Then he introduced me to another, and another introduced me to another another, and another another introduced me to another another another, and so on, till I began to feel I must know the élite of Boston. Club-doors flew open, champagne-corks flew out, cicerones, pedal and vehicular, were ever ready to guide me by day and feed me by night; and though there are no drones in a Yankee hive, so thoroughly did they dedicate themselves to my comfort and amusement, that a person ignorant of the true state of things might have fancied they were as idle and occupationless as the cigar-puffers who adorn some of our metropolitan-club steps, the envy of passing butcher-boys and the liberal distributors of cigar-ends to unwashed youths who hang about ready to pounce upon the delicious and rejected morsels. Among other gentlemen whose acquaintance I had the pleasure of making, and whose hospitalities, of course, I enjoyed, I may mention Mr. Prescott and Mr. Ticknor, the former highly appreciated in the old country, and both so widely known and so justly esteemed in the world of literature. As I consider such men public property, I make no apology for using their names, while in so doing I feel I am best conveying to the reader some idea of the society which a traveller meets with in Yankee Athens.
The town has one charm to me, which it shares in common with Baltimore. Not only is it built on undulating ground, but there are old parts remaining, whereby the eye is relieved from the tiring monotony of broad and straight streets, while the newer parts form a pleasing variety, and bear gratifying evidence of the increasing wealth of its intelligent and industrious population. Then, again, the neighbourhood of the town has a charm for a wanderer from the old country; the roads are excellent, the fields and gardens are tidied up, creepers are led up the cottage walls, suburban villas abound, everything looks more clean, more soigné, more snug, more filled and settled than the neighbourhood of any other city I visited in America, and thus forces back upon the mind associations and reflections of dear old home.