CHAPTER V. Off to the railway station
Off to the railway station—Railway carriages—Philadelphia—Washington—Willard’s Hotel—Mr. Seward—North and South—The “State Department” at Washington—President Lincoln—Dinner at Mr. Seward’s.
After our pleasant breakfast came that necessity for activity which makes such meals disguised as mere light morning repasts take their revenge. I had to pack up, and I am bound to say the moral aid afforded me by the waiter, who stood with a sympathising expression of face, and looked on as I wrestled with boots, books, and great coats, was of a most comprehensive character. At last I conquered, and at six o’clock P.M. I left the Clarendon, and was conveyed over the roughest and most execrable pavements through several miles of unsympathetic, gloomy, dirty streets, and crowded thoroughfares, over jaw-wrenching street-railway tracks, to a large wooden shed covered with inscriptions respecting routes and destinations on the bank of the river, which as far as the eye could see, was bordered by similar establishments, where my baggage was deposited in the mud. There were no porters, none of the recognised and established aides to locomotion to which we are accustomed in Europe, but a number of amateurs divided the spoil, and carried it into the offices, whilst I was directed to struggle for my ticket in another little wooden box, from which I presently received the necessary document, full of the dreadful warnings and conditions, which railway companies inflict on the public in all free countries.
The whole of my luggage, except a large bag, was taken charge of by a man at the New York side of the ferry, who “checked it through” to the capital—giving me a slip of brass with a number corresponding with a brass ticket for each piece. When the boat arrived at the stage at the other side of the Hudson, in my innocence I called for a porter to take my bag. The passengers were moving out of the capacious ferry-boat in a steady stream, and the steam throat and bell of the engine were going whilst I was looking for my porter; but at last a gentleman passing, said, “I guess y’ill remain here a considerable time before y’ill get any one to come for that bag of yours,” and taking the hint, I just got off in time to stumble into a long box on wheels, with a double row of most uncomfortable seats, and a passage down the middle, where I found a place beside Mr. Sanford, the newly-appointed United States Minister to Belgium, who was kind enough to take me under his charge to Washington.
The night was closing in very fast as the train started, but such glimpses as I had of the continuous line of pretty-looking villages of wooden houses, two stories high, painted white, each with its Corinthian portico, gave a most favourable impression of the comfort and prosperity of the people. The rail passed through the main street of most of these hamlets and villages, and the bell of the engine was tolled to warn the inhabitants, who drew up on the side walks, and let us go by. Soon the white houses faded away into faint blurred marks on the black ground of the landscape, or twinkled with starlike lights, and there was nothing more to see. The passengers were crowded as close as they could pack, and as there was an immense iron stove in the centre of the car, the heat and stuffiness became most trying, although I had been undergoing the ordeal of the stove-heated New York houses for nearly a week. Once a minute, at least, the door at either end of the carriage was opened, and then closed with a sharp crashing noise, that jarred the nerves, and effectually prevented sleep. It generally was done by a man whose sole object seemed to be to walk up the centre of the carriage in order to go out of the opposite door—occasionally it was the work of the newspaper boy, with a sheaf of journals and trashy illustrated papers under his arm. Now and then it was the conductor; but the periodical visitor was a young gentleman with a chain and rings, who bore a tray before him, and solicited orders for “gum drops,” and “lemon drops,” which, with tobacco, apples, and cakes, were consumed in great quantities by the passengers.
At 10 o’clock, P.M., we crossed the river by a ferry-boat to Philadelphia, and drove through the streets, stopping for supper a few moments at the La Pierre Hotel. To judge from the vast extent of the streets, of small, low, yet snug-looking houses, through which we passed, Philadelphia must contain in comfort the largest number of small householders of any city in the world. At the other terminus of the rail, to which we drove in a carriage, we procured for a small sum, a dollar I think, berths in a sleeping car, an American institution of considerable merit. Unfortunately a party of prize-fighters had a mind to make themselves comfortable, and the result was anything but conducive to sleep. They had plenty of whiskey, and were full of song and fight, nor was it possible to escape their urgent solicitations “to take a drink,” by feigning the soundest sleep. One of these, a big man, with a broken nose, a mellow eye, and a very large display of rings, jewels, chains and pins, was in very high spirits, and informed us he was “Going to Washington to get a foreign mission from Bill Seward. He wouldn’t take Paris, as he didn’t care much about French or Frenchmen; but he’d just like to show John Bull how to do it; or he’d take Japan if they were very pressing.” Another told us he was “Going to the bosom of Uncle Abe” (meaning the President)—“that he knew him well in Kentucky years ago, and a high-toned gentleman he was.” Any attempts to persuade them to retire to rest made by the conductors were treated with sovereign contempt, but at last whiskey asserted its supremacy, and having established the point that they “would not sleep unless they —— pleased,” they slept and snored.
At six, A.M., we were roused up by the arrival of the train at Washington, having crossed great rivers and traversed cities without knowing it during the night. I looked out and saw a vast mass of white marble towering above us on the left, stretching out in colonnaded porticoes, and long flanks of windowed masonry, and surmounted by an unfinished cupola, from which scaffold and cranes raised their black arms. This was the Capitol. To the right was a cleared space of mud, sand, and fields studded with wooden sheds and huts, beyond which, again, could be seen rudimentary streets of small red brick houses, and some church-spires above them.
Emerging from the station, we found a vociferous crowd of blacks, who were the hackney-coachmen of the place; but Mr. Sanford had his carriage in waiting, and drove me straight to Willard’s Hotel where he consigned me to the landlord at the bar. Our route lay through Pennsylvania avenue—a street of much breadth and length, lined with ælanthus trees, each in a whitewashed wooden sentry-box, and by most irregularly-built houses in all kinds of material, from deal plank to marble—of all heights, and every sort of trade. Few shop-windows were open, and the principal population consisted of blacks, who were moving about on domestic affairs. At one end of the long vista there is the Capitol; and at the other, the Treasury buildings—a fine block in marble, with the usual American classical colonnades.
Close to these rises the great pile of Willard’s Hotel, now occupied by applicants for office, and by the members of the newly-assembled Congress. It is a quadrangular mass of rooms, six stories high, and some hundred yards square; and it probably contains at this moment more scheming, plotting, planning heads, more aching and joyful hearts, that any building of the same size ever held in the world. I was ushered into a bed-room which had just been vacated by some candidate—whether he succeeded or not I cannot tell, but if his testimonials spoke truth, he ought to have been selected at once for the highest office. The room was littered with printed copies of letters testifying that J. Smith, of Hartford, Conn., was about the ablest, honestest, cleverest, and best man the writers ever knew. Up and down the long passages doors were opening and shutting for men with papers bulging out of their pockets, who hurried as if for their life in and out, and the building almost shook with the tread of the candidature, which did not always in its present aspect justify the correctness of the original appellation.
It was a remarkable sight, and difficult to understand unless seen. From California, Texas, from the Indian Reserves, and the Mormon territory, from Nebraska, as from the remotest borders of Minnesota, from every portion of the vast territories of the Union, except from the Seceded States, the triumphant republicans had winged their way to the prey.