“But you shall hear from us, from time to time, if possible, how we speed in our grand hunt, and how the pleasures and the risks make the scale of our experience vibrate. Within a few minutes, we shall be on our way to Boston, darting across grassy New England, regardless as the riders of the steeple-chase of cliff and gulf, fence, wall and river, with a velocity of wheels that would set the coach on fire, did not ingenuity stand over the axles putting out the flame with oil.
“This evening, we meet a choice few in one of those bowery spots of Brookline, where intelligence dwells with taste and virtue, and talk of our excursion.
“To-morrow, amid leave-takings, smiles and tears, and the waving of handkerchiefs, of which we shall be only quiet spectators, with the odor of our first sea-dinner seasoning the brief excitement of the scene, and all handsomely rounded off with the quick thunder of the parting gun, we sail, at noon, in the America.”
CHAPTER II.
ON THE EDGE OF THE GULF-STREAM.
Friday Morning, June 17, 1859. Here we are on the edge of the Gulf-Stream, loitering in a fog that would seem to drape the whole Atlantic in its chilly, dismal shroud. We are as impatient as children before the drop-curtain of a country show, and in momentary expectation that this unlucky mist will rise and exhibit Halifax, where we leave the steamer, and take a small coasting-vessel for Cape Breton and Newfoundland.
As we anticipated, both of us have been sea-sick continually. I had hoped that we should have the pleasure of one dinner at least, with that good appetite so common upon coming off into the salt air. But before the soup was fairly off there came over me the old qualm, the herald of those dreadful impulses that drive the unhappy victim either to the side of the vessel, or down into its interior, where he lays himself out, pale and trembling, on his appointed shelf, and awaits in gloomy silence the final issue. It is needless to record, that, with that unlucky attempt to enjoy the luxuries of the table, perished, not only the power, but the wish to eat.
Yesterday, when I came on deck, I found C—— conversing with Agassiz. Although so familiar with the Alpine glaciers, and all that appertains to them, he had never seen an iceberg, and almost envied us the delight and excitement of hunting them. But not even the presence and the fine talk of the great naturalist could lay the spirit of sea-sickness. Like a very adder lurking under the doorstone of appetite, it refused to hear the voice of the charmer. Out it glided, repulsive reptile! and away we stole, creeping down into our state-room, there to burrow in damp sheets, taciturn and melancholy “wretches, with thoughts concentred all in self.” An occasional remark, either sad or laughable, broke the sameness of the literally rolling hours. By what particular process of mind, I shall not trouble myself to explain, the Painter, who occupied the lower berth, all at once gave signs that he had come upon the borders of a capital story, and with the spirit to carry even a dull listener to the further side of it, and keep him thoroughly amused. It was a traveller’s tale, a story of his own first ride over the mountains of New Granada, accompanied by a friend, on his way to the Andes.
CHAPTER III.
THE PAINTER’S STORY.