Behold our hero, then, in full health and vigour, at the ripe age of thirty-two, returning to the earth after an absence of three hundred years! Had it not been for the loss of his wife and son, and his excellent father, he surely was quite as happily circumstanced, as when, at twenty-one, he returned from Europe, unknowing and unknown. He soon made friends then, and but for the canker at his heart he could make friends again. He thought of nothing less than to appear before the public, or of engaging in any pursuit. His fortune, and that part of his father-in-law’s which naturally would have fallen to him, was now in the possession of this remote descendant. He was willing to let it so remain, retaining only sufficient for his wants; and his amiable relation took care that his means were ample.
To divert his mind, and keep him from brooding over his sorrows, his young relative proposed that they should travel through the different states. “Surely,” said he, “you must feel a desire to see what changes three hundred years have made. Are not the people altered? Do those around you talk, and dress, and live as you were accustomed to do?”
“I see a difference certainly,” said Hastings, “but less than I should have imagined. But my mind has been in such confusion, and my grief has pressed so heavily on my heart, that I can observe nothing. I will travel with you, perhaps it may be of service; let us set out on the first of May. Shall we go northward first, or where?”
“I think we had better go to New York,” said Edgar, “and then to Boston; we can spend the months of May, June and July very pleasantly in travelling from one watering place to another. We now go in locomotive cars, without either gas or steam.”
“Is that the way you travel now?” exclaimed Hastings.
“Yes, certainly; how should we travel? Oh, I recollect, you had balloons and air cars in your time.”
“We had balloons, but they were not used as carriages; now and then some adventurous man went up in one, but it was merely to amuse the people. Have you discovered the mode of navigating balloons?”
“Oh yes; we guide them as easily through the air, as you used to do horses on land.”
“Do you never use horses to travel with now?”
“No, never. It is upwards of a hundred years since horses were used either for the saddle or carriage; and full two hundred years since they were used for ploughing, or other farming or domestic purposes.”