Our steamer is an old one, but a favorite, and as steady as a Massachusetts matron of forty. Our captain is a kindly old sea-dog, who understands his business, and does not mind much else. To the innocent flatteries of the neophytes he opposes a resolute front. They will forget him, he says, as soon as they touch land. They protest that they will not, and assure him that he shall breakfast, dine, and sup with them in Boston, six months hence, and that he shall always remain their sole, single, and ideal captain; at all of which he laughs as grimly as Jove is said to do at lovers' perjuries.
Our company is a small one, after the debarkation at Halifax, where sixty-five passengers leave us,—among whom are some of the most strenuous euchreists. The remaining thirty-six are composed partly of our own country people,—of whom praise or blame would be impertinent in this connection,—partly of the Anglo-Saxon of the day, in the pre-puritan variety. Of the latter, as of the former, we will waive all discriminating mention, having porrigated to them the dexter of good-will, with no hint of aboriginal tomahawks to be exhumed hereafter. Some traits, however, of the Anglais de voyage, as seen on his return from an American trip, may be vaguely given, without personality or fear of offence.
The higher in grade the culture of the European traveller in America, the more reverently does he speak of what he has seen and learned. To the gentle-hearted, childhood and its defects are no less sacred than age and its decrepitude; withal, much dearer, because full of hope and of promise. The French barber sneezes out "Paris" at every step taken on the new land. That is the utmost his ratiocination can do; he can perceive that Boston, Washington, Chicago, are not Paris. The French exquisite flirts, flatters the individual, and depreciates the commonwealth. The English bagman hazards the glibbest sentences as to the falsity of the whole American foundation. Not much behind him lags the fox-hunting squire. The folly and uselessness of our late war supply the theme of diatribes as eloquent as twenty-five letters can make them. Obliging aperçus of the degradation and misery in store for us are vouchsafed at every opportunity. But it is when primogeniture is touched upon, or the neutrality of England in the late war criticised, that the bellowing of the sacred bulls becomes a brazen thunder. After listening to their voluminous complaints of the shortcomings of western civilization, we are tempted to go back to a set of questions asked and answered many centuries ago.
"What went ye out into the wilderness for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, they that live delicately dwell in kings' houses. But what went ye out for to see? A prophet? Yea, I say unto you, And more than a prophet." For the prophet only foretells what is to be, but the prophetic nation is working out and fulfilling the prophet's future.
Peace, however, peace between us and them. Let the bagman return to his business, the squire to his five-barred gate. We wish them nothing worse than to stay at home, once they have got there. Not thus do the Goldwin Smiths, the Liulph Stanleys, take the altitude of things under a new horizon. They have those tools and appliances of scientific thought which build just theories and strait conclusions. The imperfection and the value of human phenomena are too well understood by them to allow them to place all of the values in the old world, and all of the imperfections in the new. And, apropos of this, we have an antidote to all the poison of gratuitous malignity in the shape of M. Auguste Laugel's thorough and appreciative treatise entitled The United States during the War. From depths of misconception which we cannot fathom we turn to his pages, and see the truths of our record and of our conviction set forth with a simplicity and elegance which should give his work a permanent value. To Americans it must be dear as a righteous judgment; to Europeans as a vindication of their power of judging.
It must not, however, be supposed that our whole traversée is a squabble, open or suppressed, between nationalities which should contend only in good will. The dreamy sea-days bring, on the contrary, much social chat and comfort. Two of the Britons exercise hospitality of tea, of fresh butter, of drinks cunningly compounded. One of these glows at night like a smelting furnace, and goes about humming in privileged ears, "The great brew is about to begin." For this same great brew he ties a white apron before his stout person, breaks ten eggs into a bowl, inflicting flagellation on the same, empties as many bottles of ale in a tin pan, and flies off to the galley, whence he returns with a smoking, frothing mixture, which is dispensed in tumblers, and much appreciated by the recipients. In good fellowship these two Britons are not deficient, and the restriction of the alphabet, dimly alluded to above, does not lie at their door.
After rocking, and dreaming, and tumbling; after drowsy attempts to get hold of other people's ideas and to disentangle your own; after a week's wonder over the hot suppers of such as dine copiously at four P. M., and the morning cocktails of those who drink whiskey in all its varieties before we separate for the night; after repeated experiments, which end by suiting our gait and diet to an ever-mobile existence, in which our prejudices are the only stable points, our personal restraints the only fixed facts,—we fairly reach the other side. The earliest terrene object which we behold is a light-house some sixty miles out at sea, whose occupants, we hope, are not resolutely bent upon social enjoyment. Here the sending up of blue lights and rockets gives us a cheerful sense of some one besides ourselves. Queenstown, our next point, is made at two A. M., and left after weary waiting for the pilot, but still before convenient hours for being up. Some hours later we heave the lead, and enjoy the sight of as much terra firma as can be fished up on the greased end of the same. Our last day on board is marred by a heavy and penetrating fog. We are in the Channel, but can see neither shore. In the early morning we arrive at Liverpool, and, after one more of those good breakfasts, and a mild encounter with the custom-house officers, we part from our late home, its mingled associations and associates to be recalled hereafter with various shades of regard and regret. The good captain, having been without sleep for two nights, does not come to take leave of us—a neglect which almost moves the neophytes to tears. The two veterans console them, however; and now all parties are in the little lighter which carries the steamer's passengers and luggage to the dock. Here, three shillings' worth of cab and horse convey us and ours, a respectable show of trunks, to the hotel of our choice—the Washington by name. We commend this cheapness of conveyance, a novel feature in American experience. At the hotel we find a comfortable parlor, and, for the first time in many days, part from our wrappings. After losing ourselves among the Egyptian china of our toilet set, wondering at the width of beds and warmth of carpets, we descend to the coffee-room, order dinner, and feel that we have again taken possession of ourselves.
LIVERPOOL.
A good deal of our time here is spent in the prosaic but vital occupation of getting something to eat. If Nature abhors a vacuum, she does so especially when, after twelve days of a fluctuating and predatory existence, the well-shaken traveller at last finds a stable foundation for self and victuals. The Washington being announced as organized on the American plan, we descend to the coffee-room with the same happy confidence which would characterize our first appearance at the buffet of the Tremont House or Fifth Avenue Hotel. But here no waiter takes possession of you and your wants, hastening to administer both to the mutual advantage of guest and landlord. You sit long unnoticed; you attract attention only by a desperate effort. Having at length secured the medium through which a dinner may be ordered, the minister (he wears a black dress coat and white trimmings) disappears with an air of "Will you have it now, or wait till you can get it?" which our subsequent experience entirely justifies. We learn later that a meal ordered half an hour beforehand will be punctually served.
And here, except in cases of absolute starvation, we shall dismiss the meal question altogether, and devote ourselves to nobler themes. We ransack the smoky and commercial city in search of objects of interest. The weather being incessantly showery, we lay the foundation of our English liberty in the purchase of two umbrellas, capable each of protecting two heads. Of clothes we must henceforward be regardless. In the streets, barefooted beggary strikes us, running along in the wet, whining and coaxing. We visit the boasted St. George's Hall, where, among other statues, is one of the distinguished Stephenson, of railroad memory. Here the court is in session for the assizes. The wigs and gowns astound the neophytes. The ushers in green and orange livery shriek "Silence!" through every sentence of judge or counsel. No one can hear what is going on. Probably all is known beforehand. At the hotel, the Greek committee wait upon the veteran, with asseverations and hiccoughings of to us incomprehensible emotions. We resist the theatre, with the programme of "Lost in London," expecting soon to experience the sensation without artistic intervention. We sleep, missing the cradle of the deep, and on the morrow, by means of an uncanny little ferry-boat, reach the Birkenhead station, and are booked for Chester.