initial commit of ebook 675HEADmain

17 files changed, 32499 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/675-0.txt b/675-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0ec33d5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/675-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,10392 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, American Notes for General Circulation, by
+Charles Dickens, Illustrated by Marcus Stone
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: American Notes for General Circulation
+
+
+Author: Charles Dickens
+
+
+
+Release Date: February 18, 2013  [eBook #675]
+[This file was first posted on July 18, 1996]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMERICAN NOTES FOR GENERAL
+CIRCULATION***
+
+
+Transcribed from the 1913 Chapman & Hall, Ltd. edition by David Price,
+email ccx074@pglaf.org
+
+                           [Picture: Emigrants]
+
+
+
+
+
+                              AMERICAN NOTES
+                                   FOR
+                           GENERAL CIRCULATION
+                                   AND
+                         PICTURES FROM ITALY {1}
+
+
+                                    BY
+                             CHARLES DICKENS
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                         WITH 8 ILLUSTRATIONS BY
+                            MARCUS STONE, R.A.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                  LONDON
+                           CHAPMAN & HALL, LTD.
+                                   1913
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                           I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
+                                    TO
+                          THOSE FRIENDS OF MINE
+                                IN AMERICA
+                   WHO, GIVING ME A WELCOME I MUST EVER
+                     GRATEFULLY AND PROUDLY REMEMBER,
+                            LEFT MY JUDGEMENT
+                                  FREE;
+                 AND WHO, LOVING THEIR COUNTRY, CAN BEAR
+                     THE TRUTH, WHEN IT IS TOLD GOOD
+                           HUMOUREDLY, AND IN A
+                               KIND SPIRIT.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE TO THE FIRST CHEAP EDITION OF “AMERICAN NOTES”
+
+
+IT is nearly eight years since this book was first published.  I present
+it, unaltered, in the Cheap Edition; and such of my opinions as it
+expresses, are quite unaltered too.
+
+My readers have opportunities of judging for themselves whether the
+influences and tendencies which I distrust in America, have any existence
+not in my imagination.  They can examine for themselves whether there has
+been anything in the public career of that country during these past
+eight years, or whether there is anything in its present position, at
+home or abroad, which suggests that those influences and tendencies
+really do exist.  As they find the fact, they will judge me.  If they
+discern any evidences of wrong-going in any direction that I have
+indicated, they will acknowledge that I had reason in what I wrote.  If
+they discern no such thing, they will consider me altogether mistaken.
+
+Prejudiced, I never have been otherwise than in favour of the United
+States.  No visitor can ever have set foot on those shores, with a
+stronger faith in the Republic than I had, when I landed in America.
+
+I purposely abstain from extending these observations to any length.  I
+have nothing to defend, or to explain away.  The truth is the truth; and
+neither childish absurdities, nor unscrupulous contradictions, can make
+it otherwise.  The earth would still move round the sun, though the whole
+Catholic Church said No.
+
+I have many friends in America, and feel a grateful interest in the
+country.  To represent me as viewing it with ill-nature, animosity, or
+partisanship, is merely to do a very foolish thing, which is always a
+very easy one; and which I have disregarded for eight years, and could
+disregard for eighty more.
+
+LONDON, _June_ 22, 1850.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE TO THE “CHARLES DICKENS” EDITION OF “AMERICAN NOTES”
+
+
+MY readers have opportunities of judging for themselves whether the
+influences and tendencies which I distrusted in America, had, at that
+time, any existence but in my imagination.  They can examine for
+themselves whether there has been anything in the public career of that
+country since, at home or abroad, which suggests that those influences
+and tendencies really did exist.  As they find the fact, they will judge
+me.  If they discern any evidences of wrong-going, in any direction that
+I have indicated, they will acknowledge that I had reason in what I
+wrote.  If they discern no such indications, they will consider me
+altogether mistaken—but not wilfully.
+
+Prejudiced, I am not, and never have been, otherwise than in favour of
+the United States.  I have many friends in America, I feel a grateful
+interest in the country, I hope and believe it will successfully work out
+a problem of the highest importance to the whole human race.  To
+represent me as viewing AMERICA with ill-nature, coldness, or animosity,
+is merely to do a very foolish thing: which is always a very easy one.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+DEDICATION OF “AMERICAN NOTES”                                       v
+PREFACE TO THE FIRST CHEAP EDITION OF “AMERICAN NOTES”             vii
+PREFACE TO THE “CHARLES DICKENS” EDITION OF “AMERICAN NOTES”        ix
+                AMERICAN NOTES FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION
+                              CHAPTER I
+Going Away                                                           3
+                              CHAPTER II
+The Passage out                                                     10
+                             CHAPTER III
+Boston                                                              22
+                              CHAPTER IV
+An American Railroad.  Lowell and its Factory System                52
+                              CHAPTER V
+Worcester.  The Connecticut River.  Hartford.  New Haven.  To       60
+New York
+                              CHAPTER VI
+New York                                                            67
+                             CHAPTER VII
+Philadelphia, and its Solitary Prison                               81
+                             CHAPTER VIII
+Washington.  The Legislature.  And the President’s House            94
+                              CHAPTER IX
+A Night Steamer on the Potomac River.  Virginia Road, and a        107
+Black Driver.  Richmond.  Baltimore.  The Harrisburg Mail,
+and a Glimpse of the City.  A Canal Boat
+                              CHAPTER X
+Some further Account of the Canal Boat, its Domestic Economy,      121
+and its Passengers.  Journey to Pittsburg across the
+Alleghany Mountains.  Pittsburg
+                              CHAPTER XI
+From Pittsburg to Cincinnati in a Western Steamboat.               130
+Cincinnati
+                             CHAPTER XII
+From Cincinnati to Louisville in another Western Steamboat;        137
+and from Louisville to St. Louis in another.  St. Louis
+                             CHAPTER XIII
+A Jaunt to the Looking-glass Prairie and back                      147
+                             CHAPTER XIV
+Return to Cincinnati.  A Stage-coach Ride from that City to        153
+Columbus, and thence to Sandusky.  So, by Lake Erie, to the
+Falls of Niagara
+                              CHAPTER XV
+In Canada; Toronto; Kingston; Montreal; Quebec; St. John’s.        167
+In the United States again; Lebanon; The Shaker Village; West
+Point
+                             CHAPTER XVI
+The Passage Home                                                   182
+                             CHAPTER XVII
+Slavery                                                            189
+                            CHAPTER XVIII
+Concluding Remarks                                              202
+Postscript                                                         210
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+                                                                  PAGE
+EMIGRANTS                   _Marcus Stone_, _R.A._      _Frontispiece_
+THE SOLITARY PRISONER                                               90
+BLACK AND WHITE                                                    112
+THE LITTLE WIFE                                                    144
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+GOING AWAY
+
+
+I SHALL never forget the one-fourth serious and three-fourths comical
+astonishment, with which, on the morning of the third of January
+eighteen-hundred-and-forty-two, I opened the door of, and put my head
+into, a ‘state-room’ on board the Britannia steam-packet, twelve hundred
+tons burthen per register, bound for Halifax and Boston, and carrying Her
+Majesty’s mails.
+
+That this state-room had been specially engaged for ‘Charles Dickens,
+Esquire, and Lady,’ was rendered sufficiently clear even to my scared
+intellect by a very small manuscript, announcing the fact, which was
+pinned on a very flat quilt, covering a very thin mattress, spread like a
+surgical plaster on a most inaccessible shelf.  But that this was the
+state-room concerning which Charles Dickens, Esquire, and Lady, had held
+daily and nightly conferences for at least four months preceding: that
+this could by any possibility be that small snug chamber of the
+imagination, which Charles Dickens, Esquire, with the spirit of prophecy
+strong upon him, had always foretold would contain at least one little
+sofa, and which his lady, with a modest yet most magnificent sense of its
+limited dimensions, had from the first opined would not hold more than
+two enormous portmanteaus in some odd corner out of sight (portmanteaus
+which could now no more be got in at the door, not to say stowed away,
+than a giraffe could be persuaded or forced into a flower-pot): that this
+utterly impracticable, thoroughly hopeless, and profoundly preposterous
+box, had the remotest reference to, or connection with, those chaste and
+pretty, not to say gorgeous little bowers, sketched by a masterly hand,
+in the highly varnished lithographic plan hanging up in the agent’s
+counting-house in the city of London: that this room of state, in short,
+could be anything but a pleasant fiction and cheerful jest of the
+captain’s, invented and put in practice for the better relish and
+enjoyment of the real state-room presently to be disclosed:—these were
+truths which I really could not, for the moment, bring my mind at all to
+bear upon or comprehend.  And I sat down upon a kind of horsehair slab,
+or perch, of which there were two within; and looked, without any
+expression of countenance whatever, at some friends who had come on board
+with us, and who were crushing their faces into all manner of shapes by
+endeavouring to squeeze them through the small doorway.
+
+We had experienced a pretty smart shock before coming below, which, but
+that we were the most sanguine people living, might have prepared us for
+the worst.  The imaginative artist to whom I have already made allusion,
+has depicted in the same great work, a chamber of almost interminable
+perspective, furnished, as Mr. Robins would say, in a style of more than
+Eastern splendour, and filled (but not inconveniently so) with groups of
+ladies and gentlemen, in the very highest state of enjoyment and
+vivacity.  Before descending into the bowels of the ship, we had passed
+from the deck into a long narrow apartment, not unlike a gigantic hearse
+with windows in the sides; having at the upper end a melancholy stove, at
+which three or four chilly stewards were warming their hands; while on
+either side, extending down its whole dreary length, was a long, long
+table, over each of which a rack, fixed to the low roof, and stuck full
+of drinking-glasses and cruet-stands, hinted dismally at rolling seas and
+heavy weather.  I had not at that time seen the ideal presentment of this
+chamber which has since gratified me so much, but I observed that one of
+our friends who had made the arrangements for our voyage, turned pale on
+entering, retreated on the friend behind him, smote his forehead
+involuntarily, and said below his breath, ‘Impossible! it cannot be!’ or
+words to that effect.  He recovered himself however by a great effort,
+and after a preparatory cough or two, cried, with a ghastly smile which
+is still before me, looking at the same time round the walls, ‘Ha! the
+breakfast-room, steward—eh?’  We all foresaw what the answer must be: we
+knew the agony he suffered.  He had often spoken of _the saloon_; had
+taken in and lived upon the pictorial idea; had usually given us to
+understand, at home, that to form a just conception of it, it would be
+necessary to multiply the size and furniture of an ordinary drawing-room
+by seven, and then fall short of the reality.  When the man in reply
+avowed the truth; the blunt, remorseless, naked truth; ‘This is the
+saloon, sir’—he actually reeled beneath the blow.
+
+In persons who were so soon to part, and interpose between their else
+daily communication the formidable barrier of many thousand miles of
+stormy space, and who were for that reason anxious to cast no other
+cloud, not even the passing shadow of a moment’s disappointment or
+discomfiture, upon the short interval of happy companionship that yet
+remained to them—in persons so situated, the natural transition from
+these first surprises was obviously into peals of hearty laughter, and I
+can report that I, for one, being still seated upon the slab or perch
+before mentioned, roared outright until the vessel rang again.  Thus, in
+less than two minutes after coming upon it for the first time, we all by
+common consent agreed that this state-room was the pleasantest and most
+facetious and capital contrivance possible; and that to have had it one
+inch larger, would have been quite a disagreeable and deplorable state of
+things.  And with this; and with showing how,—by very nearly closing the
+door, and twining in and out like serpents, and by counting the little
+washing slab as standing-room,—we could manage to insinuate four people
+into it, all at one time; and entreating each other to observe how very
+airy it was (in dock), and how there was a beautiful port-hole which
+could be kept open all day (weather permitting), and how there was quite
+a large bull’s-eye just over the looking-glass which would render shaving
+a perfectly easy and delightful process (when the ship didn’t roll too
+much); we arrived, at last, at the unanimous conclusion that it was
+rather spacious than otherwise: though I do verily believe that,
+deducting the two berths, one above the other, than which nothing smaller
+for sleeping in was ever made except coffins, it was no bigger than one
+of those hackney cabriolets which have the door behind, and shoot their
+fares out, like sacks of coals, upon the pavement.
+
+Having settled this point to the perfect satisfaction of all parties,
+concerned and unconcerned, we sat down round the fire in the ladies’
+cabin—just to try the effect.  It was rather dark, certainly; but
+somebody said, ‘of course it would be light, at sea,’ a proposition to
+which we all assented; echoing ‘of course, of course;’ though it would be
+exceedingly difficult to say why we thought so.  I remember, too, when we
+had discovered and exhausted another topic of consolation in the
+circumstance of this ladies’ cabin adjoining our state-room, and the
+consequently immense feasibility of sitting there at all times and
+seasons, and had fallen into a momentary silence, leaning our faces on
+our hands and looking at the fire, one of our party said, with the solemn
+air of a man who had made a discovery, ‘What a relish mulled claret will
+have down here!’ which appeared to strike us all most forcibly; as though
+there were something spicy and high-flavoured in cabins, which
+essentially improved that composition, and rendered it quite incapable of
+perfection anywhere else.
+
+There was a stewardess, too, actively engaged in producing clean sheets
+and table-cloths from the very entrails of the sofas, and from unexpected
+lockers, of such artful mechanism, that it made one’s head ache to see
+them opened one after another, and rendered it quite a distracting
+circumstance to follow her proceedings, and to find that every nook and
+corner and individual piece of furniture was something else besides what
+it pretended to be, and was a mere trap and deception and place of secret
+stowage, whose ostensible purpose was its least useful one.
+
+God bless that stewardess for her piously fraudulent account of January
+voyages!  God bless her for her clear recollection of the companion
+passage of last year, when nobody was ill, and everybody dancing from
+morning to night, and it was ‘a run’ of twelve days, and a piece of the
+purest frolic, and delight, and jollity!  All happiness be with her for
+her bright face and her pleasant Scotch tongue, which had sounds of old
+Home in it for my fellow-traveller; and for her predictions of fair winds
+and fine weather (all wrong, or I shouldn’t be half so fond of her); and
+for the ten thousand small fragments of genuine womanly tact, by which,
+without piecing them elaborately together, and patching them up into
+shape and form and case and pointed application, she nevertheless did
+plainly show that all young mothers on one side of the Atlantic were near
+and close at hand to their little children left upon the other; and that
+what seemed to the uninitiated a serious journey, was, to those who were
+in the secret, a mere frolic, to be sung about and whistled at!  Light be
+her heart, and gay her merry eyes, for years!
+
+The state-room had grown pretty fast; but by this time it had expanded
+into something quite bulky, and almost boasted a bay-window to view the
+sea from.  So we went upon deck again in high spirits; and there,
+everything was in such a state of bustle and active preparation, that the
+blood quickened its pace, and whirled through one’s veins on that clear
+frosty morning with involuntary mirthfulness.  For every gallant ship was
+riding slowly up and down, and every little boat was splashing noisily in
+the water; and knots of people stood upon the wharf, gazing with a kind
+of ‘dread delight’ on the far-famed fast American steamer; and one party
+of men were ‘taking in the milk,’ or, in other words, getting the cow on
+board; and another were filling the icehouses to the very throat with
+fresh provisions; with butchers’-meat and garden-stuff, pale
+sucking-pigs, calves’ heads in scores, beef, veal, and pork, and poultry
+out of all proportion; and others were coiling ropes and busy with oakum
+yarns; and others were lowering heavy packages into the hold; and the
+purser’s head was barely visible as it loomed in a state, of exquisite
+perplexity from the midst of a vast pile of passengers’ luggage; and
+there seemed to be nothing going on anywhere, or uppermost in the mind of
+anybody, but preparations for this mighty voyage.  This, with the bright
+cold sun, the bracing air, the crisply-curling water, the thin white
+crust of morning ice upon the decks which crackled with a sharp and
+cheerful sound beneath the lightest tread, was irresistible.  And when,
+again upon the shore, we turned and saw from the vessel’s mast her name
+signalled in flags of joyous colours, and fluttering by their side the
+beautiful American banner with its stars and stripes,—the long three
+thousand miles and more, and, longer still, the six whole months of
+absence, so dwindled and faded, that the ship had gone out and come home
+again, and it was broad spring already in the Coburg Dock at Liverpool.
+
+I have not inquired among my medical acquaintance, whether Turtle, and
+cold Punch, with Hock, Champagne, and Claret, and all the slight et
+cetera usually included in an unlimited order for a good
+dinner—especially when it is left to the liberal construction of my
+faultless friend, Mr. Radley, of the Adelphi Hotel—are peculiarly
+calculated to suffer a sea-change; or whether a plain mutton-chop, and a
+glass or two of sherry, would be less likely of conversion into foreign
+and disconcerting material.  My own opinion is, that whether one is
+discreet or indiscreet in these particulars, on the eve of a sea-voyage,
+is a matter of little consequence; and that, to use a common phrase, ‘it
+comes to very much the same thing in the end.’   Be this as it may, I
+know that the dinner of that day was undeniably perfect; that it
+comprehended all these items, and a great many more; and that we all did
+ample justice to it.  And I know too, that, bating a certain tacit
+avoidance of any allusion to to-morrow; such as may be supposed to
+prevail between delicate-minded turnkeys, and a sensitive prisoner who is
+to be hanged next morning; we got on very well, and, all things
+considered, were merry enough.
+
+When the morning—_the_ morning—came, and we met at breakfast, it was
+curious to see how eager we all were to prevent a moment’s pause in the
+conversation, and how astoundingly gay everybody was: the forced spirits
+of each member of the little party having as much likeness to his natural
+mirth, as hot-house peas at five guineas the quart, resemble in flavour
+the growth of the dews, and air, and rain of Heaven.  But as one o’clock,
+the hour for going aboard, drew near, this volubility dwindled away by
+little and little, despite the most persevering efforts to the contrary,
+until at last, the matter being now quite desperate, we threw off all
+disguise; openly speculated upon where we should be this time to-morrow,
+this time next day, and so forth; and entrusted a vast number of messages
+to those who intended returning to town that night, which were to be
+delivered at home and elsewhere without fail, within the very shortest
+possible space of time after the arrival of the railway train at Euston
+Square.  And commissions and remembrances do so crowd upon one at such a
+time, that we were still busied with this employment when we found
+ourselves fused, as it were, into a dense conglomeration of passengers
+and passengers’ friends and passengers’ luggage, all jumbled together on
+the deck of a small steamboat, and panting and snorting off to the
+packet, which had worked out of dock yesterday afternoon and was now
+lying at her moorings in the river.
+
+And there she is! all eyes are turned to where she lies, dimly
+discernible through the gathering fog of the early winter afternoon;
+every finger is pointed in the same direction; and murmurs of interest
+and admiration—as ‘How beautiful she looks!’ ‘How trim she is!’—are heard
+on every side.  Even the lazy gentleman with his hat on one side and his
+hands in his pockets, who has dispensed so much consolation by inquiring
+with a yawn of another gentleman whether he is ‘going across’—as if it
+were a ferry—even he condescends to look that way, and nod his head, as
+who should say, ‘No mistake about _that_:’ and not even the sage Lord
+Burleigh in his nod, included half so much as this lazy gentleman of
+might who has made the passage (as everybody on board has found out
+already; it’s impossible to say how) thirteen times without a single
+accident!  There is another passenger very much wrapped-up, who has been
+frowned down by the rest, and morally trampled upon and crushed, for
+presuming to inquire with a timid interest how long it is since the poor
+President went down.  He is standing close to the lazy gentleman, and
+says with a faint smile that he believes She is a very strong Ship; to
+which the lazy gentleman, looking first in his questioner’s eye and then
+very hard in the wind’s, answers unexpectedly and ominously, that She
+need be.  Upon this the lazy gentleman instantly falls very low in the
+popular estimation, and the passengers, with looks of defiance, whisper
+to each other that he is an ass, and an impostor, and clearly don’t know
+anything at all about it.
+
+But we are made fast alongside the packet, whose huge red funnel is
+smoking bravely, giving rich promise of serious intentions.
+Packing-cases, portmanteaus, carpet-bags, and boxes, are already passed
+from hand to hand, and hauled on board with breathless rapidity.  The
+officers, smartly dressed, are at the gangway handing the passengers up
+the side, and hurrying the men.  In five minutes’ time, the little
+steamer is utterly deserted, and the packet is beset and over-run by its
+late freight, who instantly pervade the whole ship, and are to be met
+with by the dozen in every nook and corner: swarming down below with
+their own baggage, and stumbling over other people’s; disposing
+themselves comfortably in wrong cabins, and creating a most horrible
+confusion by having to turn out again; madly bent upon opening locked
+doors, and on forcing a passage into all kinds of out-of-the-way places
+where there is no thoroughfare; sending wild stewards, with elfin hair,
+to and fro upon the breezy decks on unintelligible errands, impossible of
+execution: and in short, creating the most extraordinary and bewildering
+tumult.  In the midst of all this, the lazy gentleman, who seems to have
+no luggage of any kind—not so much as a friend, even—lounges up and down
+the hurricane deck, coolly puffing a cigar; and, as this unconcerned
+demeanour again exalts him in the opinion of those who have leisure to
+observe his proceedings, every time he looks up at the masts, or down at
+the decks, or over the side, they look there too, as wondering whether he
+sees anything wrong anywhere, and hoping that, in case he should, he will
+have the goodness to mention it.
+
+What have we here?  The captain’s boat! and yonder the captain himself.
+Now, by all our hopes and wishes, the very man he ought to be!  A
+well-made, tight-built, dapper little fellow; with a ruddy face, which is
+a letter of invitation to shake him by both hands at once; and with a
+clear, blue honest eye, that it does one good to see one’s sparkling
+image in.  ‘Ring the bell!’  ‘Ding, ding, ding!’ the very bell is in a
+hurry.  ‘Now for the shore—who’s for the shore?’—‘These gentlemen, I am
+sorry to say.’   They are away, and never said, Good b’ye.  Ah now they
+wave it from the little boat.  ‘Good b’ye! Good b’ye!’  Three cheers from
+them; three more from us; three more from them: and they are gone.
+
+To and fro, to and fro, to and fro again a hundred times!  This waiting
+for the latest mail-bags is worse than all.  If we could have gone off in
+the midst of that last burst, we should have started triumphantly: but to
+lie here, two hours and more in the damp fog, neither staying at home nor
+going abroad, is letting one gradually down into the very depths of
+dulness and low spirits.  A speck in the mist, at last!  That’s
+something.  It is the boat we wait for!  That’s more to the purpose.  The
+captain appears on the paddle-box with his speaking trumpet; the officers
+take their stations; all hands are on the alert; the flagging hopes of
+the passengers revive; the cooks pause in their savoury work, and look
+out with faces full of interest.  The boat comes alongside; the bags are
+dragged in anyhow, and flung down for the moment anywhere.  Three cheers
+more: and as the first one rings upon our ears, the vessel throbs like a
+strong giant that has just received the breath of life; the two great
+wheels turn fiercely round for the first time; and the noble ship, with
+wind and tide astern, breaks proudly through the lashed and roaming
+water.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+THE PASSAGE OUT
+
+
+WE all dined together that day; and a rather formidable party we were: no
+fewer than eighty-six strong.  The vessel being pretty deep in the water,
+with all her coals on board and so many passengers, and the weather being
+calm and quiet, there was but little motion; so that before the dinner
+was half over, even those passengers who were most distrustful of
+themselves plucked up amazingly; and those who in the morning had
+returned to the universal question, ‘Are you a good sailor?’ a very
+decided negative, now either parried the inquiry with the evasive reply,
+‘Oh! I suppose I’m no worse than anybody else;’ or, reckless of all moral
+obligations, answered boldly ‘Yes:’ and with some irritation too, as
+though they would add, ‘I should like to know what you see in _me_, sir,
+particularly, to justify suspicion!’
+
+Notwithstanding this high tone of courage and confidence, I could not but
+observe that very few remained long over their wine; and that everybody
+had an unusual love of the open air; and that the favourite and most
+coveted seats were invariably those nearest to the door.  The tea-table,
+too, was by no means as well attended as the dinner-table; and there was
+less whist-playing than might have been expected.  Still, with the
+exception of one lady, who had retired with some precipitation at
+dinner-time, immediately after being assisted to the finest cut of a very
+yellow boiled leg of mutton with very green capers, there were no
+invalids as yet; and walking, and smoking, and drinking of
+brandy-and-water (but always in the open air), went on with unabated
+spirit, until eleven o’clock or thereabouts, when ‘turning in’—no sailor
+of seven hours’ experience talks of going to bed—became the order of the
+night.  The perpetual tramp of boot-heels on the decks gave place to a
+heavy silence, and the whole human freight was stowed away below,
+excepting a very few stragglers, like myself, who were probably, like me,
+afraid to go there.
+
+To one unaccustomed to such scenes, this is a very striking time on
+shipboard.  Afterwards, and when its novelty had long worn off, it never
+ceased to have a peculiar interest and charm for me.  The gloom through
+which the great black mass holds its direct and certain course; the
+rushing water, plainly heard, but dimly seen; the broad, white,
+glistening track, that follows in the vessel’s wake; the men on the
+look-out forward, who would be scarcely visible against the dark sky, but
+for their blotting out some score of glistening stars; the helmsman at
+the wheel, with the illuminated card before him, shining, a speck of
+light amidst the darkness, like something sentient and of Divine
+intelligence; the melancholy sighing of the wind through block, and rope,
+and chain; the gleaming forth of light from every crevice, nook, and tiny
+piece of glass about the decks, as though the ship were filled with fire
+in hiding, ready to burst through any outlet, wild with its resistless
+power of death and ruin.  At first, too, and even when the hour, and all
+the objects it exalts, have come to be familiar, it is difficult, alone
+and thoughtful, to hold them to their proper shapes and forms.  They
+change with the wandering fancy; assume the semblance of things left far
+away; put on the well-remembered aspect of favourite places dearly loved;
+and even people them with shadows.  Streets, houses, rooms; figures so
+like their usual occupants, that they have startled me by their reality,
+which far exceeded, as it seemed to me, all power of mine to conjure up
+the absent; have, many and many a time, at such an hour, grown suddenly
+out of objects with whose real look, and use, and purpose, I was as well
+acquainted as with my own two hands.
+
+My own two hands, and feet likewise, being very cold, however, on this
+particular occasion, I crept below at midnight.  It was not exactly
+comfortable below.  It was decidedly close; and it was impossible to be
+unconscious of the presence of that extraordinary compound of strange
+smells, which is to be found nowhere but on board ship, and which is such
+a subtle perfume that it seems to enter at every pore of the skin, and
+whisper of the hold.  Two passengers’ wives (one of them my own) lay
+already in silent agonies on the sofa; and one lady’s maid (_my_ lady’s)
+was a mere bundle on the floor, execrating her destiny, and pounding her
+curl-papers among the stray boxes.  Everything sloped the wrong way:
+which in itself was an aggravation scarcely to be borne.  I had left the
+door open, a moment before, in the bosom of a gentle declivity, and, when
+I turned to shut it, it was on the summit of a lofty eminence.  Now every
+plank and timber creaked, as if the ship were made of wicker-work; and
+now crackled, like an enormous fire of the driest possible twigs.  There
+was nothing for it but bed; so I went to bed.
+
+It was pretty much the same for the next two days, with a tolerably fair
+wind and dry weather.  I read in bed (but to this hour I don’t know what)
+a good deal; and reeled on deck a little; drank cold brandy-and-water
+with an unspeakable disgust, and ate hard biscuit perseveringly: not ill,
+but going to be.
+
+It is the third morning.  I am awakened out of my sleep by a dismal
+shriek from my wife, who demands to know whether there’s any danger.  I
+rouse myself, and look out of bed.  The water-jug is plunging and leaping
+like a lively dolphin; all the smaller articles are afloat, except my
+shoes, which are stranded on a carpet-bag, high and dry, like a couple of
+coal-barges.  Suddenly I see them spring into the air, and behold the
+looking-glass, which is nailed to the wall, sticking fast upon the
+ceiling.  At the same time the door entirely disappears, and a new one is
+opened in the floor.  Then I begin to comprehend that the state-room is
+standing on its head.
+
+Before it is possible to make any arrangement at all compatible with this
+novel state of things, the ship rights.  Before one can say ‘Thank
+Heaven!’ she wrongs again.  Before one can cry she _is_ wrong, she seems
+to have started forward, and to be a creature actually running of its own
+accord, with broken knees and failing legs, through every variety of hole
+and pitfall, and stumbling constantly.  Before one can so much as wonder,
+she takes a high leap into the air.  Before she has well done that, she
+takes a deep dive into the water.  Before she has gained the surface, she
+throws a summerset.  The instant she is on her legs, she rushes backward.
+And so she goes on staggering, heaving, wrestling, leaping, diving,
+jumping, pitching, throbbing, rolling, and rocking: and going through all
+these movements, sometimes by turns, and sometimes altogether: until one
+feels disposed to roar for mercy.
+
+A steward passes.  ‘Steward!’  ‘Sir?’  ‘What _is_ the matter? what _do_
+you call this?’  ‘Rather a heavy sea on, sir, and a head-wind.’
+
+A head-wind!  Imagine a human face upon the vessel’s prow, with fifteen
+thousand Samsons in one bent upon driving her back, and hitting her
+exactly between the eyes whenever she attempts to advance an inch.
+Imagine the ship herself, with every pulse and artery of her huge body
+swollen and bursting under this maltreatment, sworn to go on or die.
+Imagine the wind howling, the sea roaring, the rain beating: all in
+furious array against her.  Picture the sky both dark and wild, and the
+clouds, in fearful sympathy with the waves, making another ocean in the
+air.  Add to all this, the clattering on deck and down below; the tread
+of hurried feet; the loud hoarse shouts of seamen; the gurgling in and
+out of water through the scuppers; with, every now and then, the striking
+of a heavy sea upon the planks above, with the deep, dead, heavy sound of
+thunder heard within a vault;—and there is the head-wind of that January
+morning.
+
+I say nothing of what may be called the domestic noises of the ship: such
+as the breaking of glass and crockery, the tumbling down of stewards, the
+gambols, overhead, of loose casks and truant dozens of bottled porter,
+and the very remarkable and far from exhilarating sounds raised in their
+various state-rooms by the seventy passengers who were too ill to get up
+to breakfast.  I say nothing of them: for although I lay listening to
+this concert for three or four days, I don’t think I heard it for more
+than a quarter of a minute, at the expiration of which term, I lay down
+again, excessively sea-sick.
+
+Not sea-sick, be it understood, in the ordinary acceptation of the term:
+I wish I had been: but in a form which I have never seen or heard
+described, though I have no doubt it is very common.  I lay there, all
+the day long, quite coolly and contentedly; with no sense of weariness,
+with no desire to get up, or get better, or take the air; with no
+curiosity, or care, or regret, of any sort or degree, saving that I think
+I can remember, in this universal indifference, having a kind of lazy
+joy—of fiendish delight, if anything so lethargic can be dignified with
+the title—in the fact of my wife being too ill to talk to me.  If I may
+be allowed to illustrate my state of mind by such an example, I should
+say that I was exactly in the condition of the elder Mr. Willet, after
+the incursion of the rioters into his bar at Chigwell.  Nothing would
+have surprised me.  If, in the momentary illumination of any ray of
+intelligence that may have come upon me in the way of thoughts of Home, a
+goblin postman, with a scarlet coat and bell, had come into that little
+kennel before me, broad awake in broad day, and, apologising for being
+damp through walking in the sea, had handed me a letter directed to
+myself, in familiar characters, I am certain I should not have felt one
+atom of astonishment: I should have been perfectly satisfied.  If Neptune
+himself had walked in, with a toasted shark on his trident, I should have
+looked upon the event as one of the very commonest everyday occurrences.
+
+Once—once—I found myself on deck.  I don’t know how I got there, or what
+possessed me to go there, but there I was; and completely dressed too,
+with a huge pea-coat on, and a pair of boots such as no weak man in his
+senses could ever have got into.  I found myself standing, when a gleam
+of consciousness came upon me, holding on to something.  I don’t know
+what.  I think it was the boatswain: or it may have been the pump: or
+possibly the cow.  I can’t say how long I had been there; whether a day
+or a minute.  I recollect trying to think about something (about anything
+in the whole wide world, I was not particular) without the smallest
+effect.  I could not even make out which was the sea, and which the sky,
+for the horizon seemed drunk, and was flying wildly about in all
+directions.  Even in that incapable state, however, I recognised the lazy
+gentleman standing before me: nautically clad in a suit of shaggy blue,
+with an oilskin hat.  But I was too imbecile, although I knew it to be
+he, to separate him from his dress; and tried to call him, I remember,
+_Pilot_.  After another interval of total unconsciousness, I found he had
+gone, and recognised another figure in its place.  It seemed to wave and
+fluctuate before me as though I saw it reflected in an unsteady
+looking-glass; but I knew it for the captain; and such was the cheerful
+influence of his face, that I tried to smile: yes, even then I tried to
+smile.  I saw by his gestures that he addressed me; but it was a long
+time before I could make out that he remonstrated against my standing up
+to my knees in water—as I was; of course I don’t know why.  I tried to
+thank him, but couldn’t.  I could only point to my boots—or wherever I
+supposed my boots to be—and say in a plaintive voice, ‘Cork soles:’ at
+the same time endeavouring, I am told, to sit down in the pool.  Finding
+that I was quite insensible, and for the time a maniac, he humanely
+conducted me below.
+
+There I remained until I got better: suffering, whenever I was
+recommended to eat anything, an amount of anguish only second to that
+which is said to be endured by the apparently drowned, in the process of
+restoration to life.  One gentleman on board had a letter of introduction
+to me from a mutual friend in London.  He sent it below with his card, on
+the morning of the head-wind; and I was long troubled with the idea that
+he might be up, and well, and a hundred times a day expecting me to call
+upon him in the saloon.  I imagined him one of those cast-iron images—I
+will not call them men—who ask, with red faces, and lusty voices, what
+sea-sickness means, and whether it really is as bad as it is represented
+to be.  This was very torturing indeed; and I don’t think I ever felt
+such perfect gratification and gratitude of heart, as I did when I heard
+from the ship’s doctor that he had been obliged to put a large mustard
+poultice on this very gentleman’s stomach.  I date my recovery from the
+receipt of that intelligence.
+
+It was materially assisted though, I have no doubt, by a heavy gale of
+wind, which came slowly up at sunset, when we were about ten days out,
+and raged with gradually increasing fury until morning, saving that it
+lulled for an hour a little before midnight.  There was something in the
+unnatural repose of that hour, and in the after gathering of the storm,
+so inconceivably awful and tremendous, that its bursting into full
+violence was almost a relief.
+
+The labouring of the ship in the troubled sea on this night I shall never
+forget.  ‘Will it ever be worse than this?’ was a question I had often
+heard asked, when everything was sliding and bumping about, and when it
+certainly did seem difficult to comprehend the possibility of anything
+afloat being more disturbed, without toppling over and going down.  But
+what the agitation of a steam-vessel is, on a bad winter’s night in the
+wild Atlantic, it is impossible for the most vivid imagination to
+conceive.  To say that she is flung down on her side in the waves, with
+her masts dipping into them, and that, springing up again, she rolls over
+on the other side, until a heavy sea strikes her with the noise of a
+hundred great guns, and hurls her back—that she stops, and staggers, and
+shivers, as though stunned, and then, with a violent throbbing at her
+heart, darts onward like a monster goaded into madness, to be beaten
+down, and battered, and crushed, and leaped on by the angry sea—that
+thunder, lightning, hail, and rain, and wind, are all in fierce
+contention for the mastery—that every plank has its groan, every nail its
+shriek, and every drop of water in the great ocean its howling voice—is
+nothing.  To say that all is grand, and all appalling and horrible in the
+last degree, is nothing.  Words cannot express it.  Thoughts cannot
+convey it.  Only a dream can call it up again, in all its fury, rage, and
+passion.
+
+And yet, in the very midst of these terrors, I was placed in a situation
+so exquisitely ridiculous, that even then I had as strong a sense of its
+absurdity as I have now, and could no more help laughing than I can at
+any other comical incident, happening under circumstances the most
+favourable to its enjoyment.  About midnight we shipped a sea, which
+forced its way through the skylights, burst open the doors above, and
+came raging and roaring down into the ladies’ cabin, to the unspeakable
+consternation of my wife and a little Scotch lady—who, by the way, had
+previously sent a message to the captain by the stewardess, requesting
+him, with her compliments, to have a steel conductor immediately attached
+to the top of every mast, and to the chimney, in order that the ship
+might not be struck by lightning.  They and the handmaid before
+mentioned, being in such ecstasies of fear that I scarcely knew what to
+do with them, I naturally bethought myself of some restorative or
+comfortable cordial; and nothing better occurring to me, at the moment,
+than hot brandy-and-water, I procured a tumbler full without delay.  It
+being impossible to stand or sit without holding on, they were all heaped
+together in one corner of a long sofa—a fixture extending entirely across
+the cabin—where they clung to each other in momentary expectation of
+being drowned.  When I approached this place with my specific, and was
+about to administer it with many consolatory expressions to the nearest
+sufferer, what was my dismay to see them all roll slowly down to the
+other end!  And when I staggered to that end, and held out the glass once
+more, how immensely baffled were my good intentions by the ship giving
+another lurch, and their all rolling back again!  I suppose I dodged them
+up and down this sofa for at least a quarter of an hour, without reaching
+them once; and by the time I did catch them, the brandy-and-water was
+diminished, by constant spilling, to a teaspoonful.  To complete the
+group, it is necessary to recognise in this disconcerted dodger, an
+individual very pale from sea-sickness, who had shaved his beard and
+brushed his hair, last, at Liverpool: and whose only article of dress
+(linen not included) were a pair of dreadnought trousers; a blue jacket,
+formerly admired upon the Thames at Richmond; no stockings; and one
+slipper.
+
+Of the outrageous antics performed by that ship next morning; which made
+bed a practical joke, and getting up, by any process short of falling
+out, an impossibility; I say nothing.  But anything like the utter
+dreariness and desolation that met my eyes when I literally ‘tumbled up’
+on deck at noon, I never saw.  Ocean and sky were all of one dull, heavy,
+uniform, lead colour.  There was no extent of prospect even over the
+dreary waste that lay around us, for the sea ran high, and the horizon
+encompassed us like a large black hoop.  Viewed from the air, or some
+tall bluff on shore, it would have been imposing and stupendous, no
+doubt; but seen from the wet and rolling decks, it only impressed one
+giddily and painfully.  In the gale of last night the life-boat had been
+crushed by one blow of the sea like a walnut-shell; and there it hung
+dangling in the air: a mere faggot of crazy boards.  The planking of the
+paddle-boxes had been torn sheer away.  The wheels were exposed and bare;
+and they whirled and dashed their spray about the decks at random.
+Chimney, white with crusted salt; topmasts struck; storm-sails set;
+rigging all knotted, tangled, wet, and drooping: a gloomier picture it
+would be hard to look upon.
+
+I was now comfortably established by courtesy in the ladies’ cabin,
+where, besides ourselves, there were only four other passengers.  First,
+the little Scotch lady before mentioned, on her way to join her husband
+at New York, who had settled there three years before.  Secondly and
+thirdly, an honest young Yorkshireman, connected with some American
+house; domiciled in that same city, and carrying thither his beautiful
+young wife to whom he had been married but a fortnight, and who was the
+fairest specimen of a comely English country girl I have ever seen.
+Fourthly, fifthly, and lastly, another couple: newly married too, if one
+might judge from the endearments they frequently interchanged: of whom I
+know no more than that they were rather a mysterious, run-away kind of
+couple; that the lady had great personal attractions also; and that the
+gentleman carried more guns with him than Robinson Crusoe, wore a
+shooting-coat, and had two great dogs on board.  On further
+consideration, I remember that he tried hot roast pig and bottled ale as
+a cure for sea-sickness; and that he took these remedies (usually in bed)
+day after day, with astonishing perseverance.  I may add, for the
+information of the curious, that they decidedly failed.
+
+The weather continuing obstinately and almost unprecedentedly bad, we
+usually straggled into this cabin, more or less faint and miserable,
+about an hour before noon, and lay down on the sofas to recover; during
+which interval, the captain would look in to communicate the state of the
+wind, the moral certainty of its changing to-morrow (the weather is
+always going to improve to-morrow, at sea), the vessel’s rate of sailing,
+and so forth.  Observations there were none to tell us of, for there was
+no sun to take them by.  But a description of one day will serve for all
+the rest.  Here it is.
+
+The captain being gone, we compose ourselves to read, if the place be
+light enough; and if not, we doze and talk alternately.  At one, a bell
+rings, and the stewardess comes down with a steaming dish of baked
+potatoes, and another of roasted apples; and plates of pig’s face, cold
+ham, salt beef; or perhaps a smoking mess of rare hot collops.  We fall
+to upon these dainties; eat as much as we can (we have great appetites
+now); and are as long as possible about it.  If the fire will burn (it
+_will_ sometimes) we are pretty cheerful.  If it won’t, we all remark to
+each other that it’s very cold, rub our hands, cover ourselves with coats
+and cloaks, and lie down again to doze, talk, and read (provided as
+aforesaid), until dinner-time.  At five, another bell rings, and the
+stewardess reappears with another dish of potatoes—boiled this time—and
+store of hot meat of various kinds: not forgetting the roast pig, to be
+taken medicinally.  We sit down at table again (rather more cheerfully
+than before); prolong the meal with a rather mouldy dessert of apples,
+grapes, and oranges; and drink our wine and brandy-and-water.  The
+bottles and glasses are still upon the table, and the oranges and so
+forth are rolling about according to their fancy and the ship’s way, when
+the doctor comes down, by special nightly invitation, to join our evening
+rubber: immediately on whose arrival we make a party at whist, and as it
+is a rough night and the cards will not lie on the cloth, we put the
+tricks in our pockets as we take them.  At whist we remain with exemplary
+gravity (deducting a short time for tea and toast) until eleven o’clock,
+or thereabouts; when the captain comes down again, in a sou’-wester hat
+tied under his chin, and a pilot-coat: making the ground wet where he
+stands.  By this time the card-playing is over, and the bottles and
+glasses are again upon the table; and after an hour’s pleasant
+conversation about the ship, the passengers, and things in general, the
+captain (who never goes to bed, and is never out of humour) turns up his
+coat collar for the deck again; shakes hands all round; and goes laughing
+out into the weather as merrily as to a birthday party.
+
+As to daily news, there is no dearth of that commodity.  This passenger
+is reported to have lost fourteen pounds at Vingt-et-un in the saloon
+yesterday; and that passenger drinks his bottle of champagne every day,
+and how he does it (being only a clerk), nobody knows.  The head engineer
+has distinctly said that there never was such times—meaning weather—and
+four good hands are ill, and have given in, dead beat.  Several berths
+are full of water, and all the cabins are leaky.  The ship’s cook,
+secretly swigging damaged whiskey, has been found drunk; and has been
+played upon by the fire-engine until quite sober.  All the stewards have
+fallen down-stairs at various dinner-times, and go about with plasters in
+various places.  The baker is ill, and so is the pastry-cook.  A new man,
+horribly indisposed, has been required to fill the place of the latter
+officer; and has been propped and jammed up with empty casks in a little
+house upon deck, and commanded to roll out pie-crust, which he protests
+(being highly bilious) it is death to him to look at.  News!  A dozen
+murders on shore would lack the interest of these slight incidents at
+sea.
+
+Divided between our rubber and such topics as these, we were running (as
+we thought) into Halifax Harbour, on the fifteenth night, with little
+wind and a bright moon—indeed, we had made the Light at its outer
+entrance, and put the pilot in charge—when suddenly the ship struck upon
+a bank of mud.  An immediate rush on deck took place of course; the sides
+were crowded in an instant; and for a few minutes we were in as lively a
+state of confusion as the greatest lover of disorder would desire to see.
+The passengers, and guns, and water-casks, and other heavy matters, being
+all huddled together aft, however, to lighten her in the head, she was
+soon got off; and after some driving on towards an uncomfortable line of
+objects (whose vicinity had been announced very early in the disaster by
+a loud cry of ‘Breakers a-head!’) and much backing of paddles, and
+heaving of the lead into a constantly decreasing depth of water, we
+dropped anchor in a strange outlandish-looking nook which nobody on board
+could recognise, although there was land all about us, and so close that
+we could plainly see the waving branches of the trees.
+
+It was strange enough, in the silence of midnight, and the dead stillness
+that seemed to be created by the sudden and unexpected stoppage of the
+engine which had been clanking and blasting in our ears incessantly for
+so many days, to watch the look of blank astonishment expressed in every
+face: beginning with the officers, tracing it through all the passengers,
+and descending to the very stokers and furnacemen, who emerged from
+below, one by one, and clustered together in a smoky group about the
+hatchway of the engine-room, comparing notes in whispers.  After throwing
+up a few rockets and firing signal guns in the hope of being hailed from
+the land, or at least of seeing a light—but without any other sight or
+sound presenting itself—it was determined to send a boat on shore.  It
+was amusing to observe how very kind some of the passengers were, in
+volunteering to go ashore in this same boat: for the general good, of
+course: not by any means because they thought the ship in an unsafe
+position, or contemplated the possibility of her heeling over in case the
+tide were running out.  Nor was it less amusing to remark how desperately
+unpopular the poor pilot became in one short minute.  He had had his
+passage out from Liverpool, and during the whole voyage had been quite a
+notorious character, as a teller of anecdotes and cracker of jokes.  Yet
+here were the very men who had laughed the loudest at his jests, now
+flourishing their fists in his face, loading him with imprecations, and
+defying him to his teeth as a villain!
+
+The boat soon shoved off, with a lantern and sundry blue lights on board;
+and in less than an hour returned; the officer in command bringing with
+him a tolerably tall young tree, which he had plucked up by the roots, to
+satisfy certain distrustful passengers whose minds misgave them that they
+were to be imposed upon and shipwrecked, and who would on no other terms
+believe that he had been ashore, or had done anything but fraudulently
+row a little way into the mist, specially to deceive them and compass
+their deaths.  Our captain had foreseen from the first that we must be in
+a place called the Eastern passage; and so we were.  It was about the
+last place in the world in which we had any business or reason to be, but
+a sudden fog, and some error on the pilot’s part, were the cause.  We
+were surrounded by banks, and rocks, and shoals of all kinds, but had
+happily drifted, it seemed, upon the only safe speck that was to be found
+thereabouts.  Eased by this report, and by the assurance that the tide
+was past the ebb, we turned in at three o’clock in the morning.
+
+I was dressing about half-past nine next day, when the noise above
+hurried me on deck.  When I had left it overnight, it was dark, foggy,
+and damp, and there were bleak hills all round us.  Now, we were gliding
+down a smooth, broad stream, at the rate of eleven miles an hour: our
+colours flying gaily; our crew rigged out in their smartest clothes; our
+officers in uniform again; the sun shining as on a brilliant April day in
+England; the land stretched out on either side, streaked with light
+patches of snow; white wooden houses; people at their doors; telegraphs
+working; flags hoisted; wharfs appearing; ships; quays crowded with
+people; distant noises; shouts; men and boys running down steep places
+towards the pier: all more bright and gay and fresh to our unused eyes
+than words can paint them.  We came to a wharf, paved with uplifted
+faces; got alongside, and were made fast, after some shouting and
+straining of cables; darted, a score of us along the gangway, almost as
+soon as it was thrust out to meet us, and before it had reached the
+ship—and leaped upon the firm glad earth again!
+
+I suppose this Halifax would have appeared an Elysium, though it had been
+a curiosity of ugly dulness.  But I carried away with me a most pleasant
+impression of the town and its inhabitants, and have preserved it to this
+hour.  Nor was it without regret that I came home, without having found
+an opportunity of returning thither, and once more shaking hands with the
+friends I made that day.
+
+It happened to be the opening of the Legislative Council and General
+Assembly, at which ceremonial the forms observed on the commencement of a
+new Session of Parliament in England were so closely copied, and so
+gravely presented on a small scale, that it was like looking at
+Westminster through the wrong end of a telescope.  The governor, as her
+Majesty’s representative, delivered what may be called the Speech from
+the Throne.  He said what he had to say manfully and well.  The military
+band outside the building struck up “God save the Queen” with great
+vigour before his Excellency had quite finished; the people shouted; the
+in’s rubbed their hands; the out’s shook their heads; the Government
+party said there never was such a good speech; the Opposition declared
+there never was such a bad one; the Speaker and members of the House of
+Assembly withdrew from the bar to say a great deal among themselves and
+do a little: and, in short, everything went on, and promised to go on,
+just as it does at home upon the like occasions.
+
+The town is built on the side of a hill, the highest point being
+commanded by a strong fortress, not yet quite finished.  Several streets
+of good breadth and appearance extend from its summit to the water-side,
+and are intersected by cross streets running parallel with the river.
+The houses are chiefly of wood.  The market is abundantly supplied; and
+provisions are exceedingly cheap.  The weather being unusually mild at
+that time for the season of the year, there was no sleighing: but there
+were plenty of those vehicles in yards and by-places, and some of them,
+from the gorgeous quality of their decorations, might have ‘gone on’
+without alteration as triumphal cars in a melodrama at Astley’s.  The day
+was uncommonly fine; the air bracing and healthful; the whole aspect of
+the town cheerful, thriving, and industrious.
+
+We lay there seven hours, to deliver and exchange the mails.  At length,
+having collected all our bags and all our passengers (including two or
+three choice spirits, who, having indulged too freely in oysters and
+champagne, were found lying insensible on their backs in unfrequented
+streets), the engines were again put in motion, and we stood off for
+Boston.
+
+Encountering squally weather again in the Bay of Fundy, we tumbled and
+rolled about as usual all that night and all next day.  On the next
+afternoon, that is to say, on Saturday, the twenty-second of January, an
+American pilot-boat came alongside, and soon afterwards the Britannia
+steam-packet, from Liverpool, eighteen days out, was telegraphed at
+Boston.
+
+The indescribable interest with which I strained my eyes, as the first
+patches of American soil peeped like molehills from the green sea, and
+followed them, as they swelled, by slow and almost imperceptible degrees,
+into a continuous line of coast, can hardly be exaggerated.  A sharp keen
+wind blew dead against us; a hard frost prevailed on shore; and the cold
+was most severe.  Yet the air was so intensely clear, and dry, and
+bright, that the temperature was not only endurable, but delicious.
+
+How I remained on deck, staring about me, until we came alongside the
+dock, and how, though I had had as many eyes as Argus, I should have had
+them all wide open, and all employed on new objects—are topics which I
+will not prolong this chapter to discuss.  Neither will I more than hint
+at my foreigner-like mistake in supposing that a party of most active
+persons, who scrambled on board at the peril of their lives as we
+approached the wharf, were newsmen, answering to that industrious class
+at home; whereas, despite the leathern wallets of news slung about the
+necks of some, and the broad sheets in the hands of all, they were
+Editors, who boarded ships in person (as one gentleman in a worsted
+comforter informed me), ‘because they liked the excitement of it.’
+Suffice it in this place to say, that one of these invaders, with a ready
+courtesy for which I thank him here most gratefully, went on before to
+order rooms at the hotel; and that when I followed, as I soon did, I
+found myself rolling through the long passages with an involuntary
+imitation of the gait of Mr. T. P. Cooke, in a new nautical melodrama.
+
+‘Dinner, if you please,’ said I to the waiter.
+
+‘When?’ said the waiter.
+
+‘As quick as possible,’ said I.
+
+‘Right away?’ said the waiter.
+
+After a moment’s hesitation, I answered ‘No,’ at hazard.
+
+‘_Not_ right away?’ cried the waiter, with an amount of surprise that
+made me start.
+
+I looked at him doubtfully, and returned, ‘No; I would rather have it in
+this private room.  I like it very much.’
+
+At this, I really thought the waiter must have gone out of his mind: as I
+believe he would have done, but for the interposition of another man, who
+whispered in his ear, ‘Directly.’
+
+‘Well! and that’s a fact!’ said the waiter, looking helplessly at me:
+‘Right away.’
+
+I saw now that ‘Right away’ and ‘Directly’ were one and the same thing.
+So I reversed my previous answer, and sat down to dinner in ten minutes
+afterwards; and a capital dinner it was.
+
+The hotel (a very excellent one) is called the Tremont House.  It has
+more galleries, colonnades, piazzas, and passages than I can remember, or
+the reader would believe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+BOSTON
+
+
+_In_ all the public establishments of America, the utmost courtesy
+prevails.  Most of our Departments are susceptible of considerable
+improvement in this respect, but the Custom-house above all others would
+do well to take example from the United States and render itself somewhat
+less odious and offensive to foreigners.  The servile rapacity of the
+French officials is sufficiently contemptible; but there is a surly
+boorish incivility about our men, alike disgusting to all persons who
+fall into their hands, and discreditable to the nation that keeps such
+ill-conditioned curs snarling about its gates.
+
+When I landed in America, I could not help being strongly impressed with
+the contrast their Custom-house presented, and the attention, politeness
+and good humour with which its officers discharged their duty.
+
+As we did not land at Boston, in consequence of some detention at the
+wharf, until after dark, I received my first impressions of the city in
+walking down to the Custom-house on the morning after our arrival, which
+was Sunday.  I am afraid to say, by the way, how many offers of pews and
+seats in church for that morning were made to us, by formal note of
+invitation, before we had half finished our first dinner in America, but
+if I may be allowed to make a moderate guess, without going into nicer
+calculation, I should say that at least as many sittings were proffered
+us, as would have accommodated a score or two of grown-up families.  The
+number of creeds and forms of religion to which the pleasure of our
+company was requested, was in very fair proportion.
+
+Not being able, in the absence of any change of clothes, to go to church
+that day, we were compelled to decline these kindnesses, one and all; and
+I was reluctantly obliged to forego the delight of hearing Dr. Channing,
+who happened to preach that morning for the first time in a very long
+interval.  I mention the name of this distinguished and accomplished man
+(with whom I soon afterwards had the pleasure of becoming personally
+acquainted), that I may have the gratification of recording my humble
+tribute of admiration and respect for his high abilities and character;
+and for the bold philanthropy with which he has ever opposed himself to
+that most hideous blot and foul disgrace—Slavery.
+
+To return to Boston.  When I got into the streets upon this Sunday
+morning, the air was so clear, the houses were so bright and gay: the
+signboards were painted in such gaudy colours; the gilded letters were so
+very golden; the bricks were so very red, the stone was so very white,
+the blinds and area railings were so very green, the knobs and plates
+upon the street doors so marvellously bright and twinkling; and all so
+slight and unsubstantial in appearance—that every thoroughfare in the
+city looked exactly like a scene in a pantomime.  It rarely happens in
+the business streets that a tradesman, if I may venture to call anybody a
+tradesman, where everybody is a merchant, resides above his store; so
+that many occupations are often carried on in one house, and the whole
+front is covered with boards and inscriptions.  As I walked along, I kept
+glancing up at these boards, confidently expecting to see a few of them
+change into something; and I never turned a corner suddenly without
+looking out for the clown and pantaloon, who, I had no doubt, were hiding
+in a doorway or behind some pillar close at hand.  As to Harlequin and
+Columbine, I discovered immediately that they lodged (they are always
+looking after lodgings in a pantomime) at a very small clockmaker’s one
+story high, near the hotel; which, in addition to various symbols and
+devices, almost covering the whole front, had a great dial hanging out—to
+be jumped through, of course.
+
+The suburbs are, if possible, even more unsubstantial-looking than the
+city.  The white wooden houses (so white that it makes one wink to look
+at them), with their green jalousie blinds, are so sprinkled and dropped
+about in all directions, without seeming to have any root at all in the
+ground; and the small churches and chapels are so prim, and bright, and
+highly varnished; that I almost believed the whole affair could be taken
+up piecemeal like a child’s toy, and crammed into a little box.
+
+The city is a beautiful one, and cannot fail, I should imagine, to
+impress all strangers very favourably.  The private dwelling-houses are,
+for the most part, large and elegant; the shops extremely good; and the
+public buildings handsome.  The State House is built upon the summit of a
+hill, which rises gradually at first, and afterwards by a steep ascent,
+almost from the water’s edge.  In front is a green enclosure, called the
+Common.  The site is beautiful: and from the top there is a charming
+panoramic view of the whole town and neighbourhood.  In addition to a
+variety of commodious offices, it contains two handsome chambers; in one
+the House of Representatives of the State hold their meetings: in the
+other, the Senate.  Such proceedings as I saw here, were conducted with
+perfect gravity and decorum; and were certainly calculated to inspire
+attention and respect.
+
+There is no doubt that much of the intellectual refinement and
+superiority of Boston, is referable to the quiet influence of the
+University of Cambridge, which is within three or four miles of the city.
+The resident professors at that university are gentlemen of learning and
+varied attainments; and are, without one exception that I can call to
+mind, men who would shed a grace upon, and do honour to, any society in
+the civilised world.  Many of the resident gentry in Boston and its
+neighbourhood, and I think I am not mistaken in adding, a large majority
+of those who are attached to the liberal professions there, have been
+educated at this same school.  Whatever the defects of American
+universities may be, they disseminate no prejudices; rear no bigots; dig
+up the buried ashes of no old superstitions; never interpose between the
+people and their improvement; exclude no man because of his religious
+opinions; above all, in their whole course of study and instruction,
+recognise a world, and a broad one too, lying beyond the college walls.
+
+It was a source of inexpressible pleasure to me to observe the almost
+imperceptible, but not less certain effect, wrought by this institution
+among the small community of Boston; and to note at every turn the
+humanising tastes and desires it has engendered; the affectionate
+friendships to which it has given rise; the amount of vanity and
+prejudice it has dispelled.  The golden calf they worship at Boston is a
+pigmy compared with the giant effigies set up in other parts of that vast
+counting-house which lies beyond the Atlantic; and the almighty dollar
+sinks into something comparatively insignificant, amidst a whole Pantheon
+of better gods.
+
+Above all, I sincerely believe that the public institutions and charities
+of this capital of Massachusetts are as nearly perfect, as the most
+considerate wisdom, benevolence, and humanity, can make them.  I never in
+my life was more affected by the contemplation of happiness, under
+circumstances of privation and bereavement, than in my visits to these
+establishments.
+
+It is a great and pleasant feature of all such institutions in America,
+that they are either supported by the State or assisted by the State; or
+(in the event of their not needing its helping hand) that they act in
+concert with it, and are emphatically the people’s.  I cannot but think,
+with a view to the principle and its tendency to elevate or depress the
+character of the industrious classes, that a Public Charity is
+immeasurably better than a Private Foundation, no matter how munificently
+the latter may be endowed.  In our own country, where it has not, until
+within these later days, been a very popular fashion with governments to
+display any extraordinary regard for the great mass of the people or to
+recognise their existence as improvable creatures, private charities,
+unexampled in the history of the earth, have arisen, to do an
+incalculable amount of good among the destitute and afflicted.  But the
+government of the country, having neither act nor part in them, is not in
+the receipt of any portion of the gratitude they inspire; and, offering
+very little shelter or relief beyond that which is to be found in the
+workhouse and the jail, has come, not unnaturally, to be looked upon by
+the poor rather as a stern master, quick to correct and punish, than a
+kind protector, merciful and vigilant in their hour of need.
+
+The maxim that out of evil cometh good, is strongly illustrated by these
+establishments at home; as the records of the Prerogative Office in
+Doctors’ Commons can abundantly prove.  Some immensely rich old gentleman
+or lady, surrounded by needy relatives, makes, upon a low average, a will
+a-week.  The old gentleman or lady, never very remarkable in the best of
+times for good temper, is full of aches and pains from head to foot; full
+of fancies and caprices; full of spleen, distrust, suspicion, and
+dislike.  To cancel old wills, and invent new ones, is at last the sole
+business of such a testator’s existence; and relations and friends (some
+of whom have been bred up distinctly to inherit a large share of the
+property, and have been, from their cradles, specially disqualified from
+devoting themselves to any useful pursuit, on that account) are so often
+and so unexpectedly and summarily cut off, and reinstated, and cut off
+again, that the whole family, down to the remotest cousin, is kept in a
+perpetual fever.  At length it becomes plain that the old lady or
+gentleman has not long to live; and the plainer this becomes, the more
+clearly the old lady or gentleman perceives that everybody is in a
+conspiracy against their poor old dying relative; wherefore the old lady
+or gentleman makes another last will—positively the last this
+time—conceals the same in a china teapot, and expires next day.  Then it
+turns out, that the whole of the real and personal estate is divided
+between half-a-dozen charities; and that the dead and gone testator has
+in pure spite helped to do a great deal of good, at the cost of an
+immense amount of evil passion and misery.
+
+The Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind, at
+Boston, is superintended by a body of trustees who make an annual report
+to the corporation.  The indigent blind of that state are admitted
+gratuitously.  Those from the adjoining state of Connecticut, or from the
+states of Maine, Vermont, or New Hampshire, are admitted by a warrant
+from the state to which they respectively belong; or, failing that, must
+find security among their friends, for the payment of about twenty pounds
+English for their first year’s board and instruction, and ten for the
+second.  ‘After the first year,’ say the trustees, ‘an account current
+will be opened with each pupil; he will be charged with the actual cost
+of his board, which will not exceed two dollars per week;’ a trifle more
+than eight shillings English; ‘and he will be credited with the amount
+paid for him by the state, or by his friends; also with his earnings over
+and above the cost of the stock which he uses; so that all his earnings
+over one dollar per week will be his own.  By the third year it will be
+known whether his earnings will more than pay the actual cost of his
+board; if they should, he will have it at his option to remain and
+receive his earnings, or not.  Those who prove unable to earn their own
+livelihood will not be retained; as it is not desirable to convert the
+establishment into an alms-house, or to retain any but working bees in
+the hive.  Those who by physical or mental imbecility are disqualified
+from work, are thereby disqualified from being members of an industrious
+community; and they can be better provided for in establishments fitted
+for the infirm.’
+
+I went to see this place one very fine winter morning: an Italian sky
+above, and the air so clear and bright on every side, that even my eyes,
+which are none of the best, could follow the minute lines and scraps of
+tracery in distant buildings.  Like most other public institutions in
+America, of the same class, it stands a mile or two without the town, in
+a cheerful healthy spot; and is an airy, spacious, handsome edifice.  It
+is built upon a height, commanding the harbour.  When I paused for a
+moment at the door, and marked how fresh and free the whole scene
+was—what sparkling bubbles glanced upon the waves, and welled up every
+moment to the surface, as though the world below, like that above, were
+radiant with the bright day, and gushing over in its fulness of light:
+when I gazed from sail to sail away upon a ship at sea, a tiny speck of
+shining white, the only cloud upon the still, deep, distant blue—and,
+turning, saw a blind boy with his sightless face addressed that way, as
+though he too had some sense within him of the glorious distance: I felt
+a kind of sorrow that the place should be so very light, and a strange
+wish that for his sake it were darker.  It was but momentary, of course,
+and a mere fancy, but I felt it keenly for all that.
+
+The children were at their daily tasks in different rooms, except a few
+who were already dismissed, and were at play.  Here, as in many
+institutions, no uniform is worn; and I was very glad of it, for two
+reasons.  Firstly, because I am sure that nothing but senseless custom
+and want of thought would reconcile us to the liveries and badges we are
+so fond of at home.  Secondly, because the absence of these things
+presents each child to the visitor in his or her own proper character,
+with its individuality unimpaired; not lost in a dull, ugly, monotonous
+repetition of the same unmeaning garb: which is really an important
+consideration.  The wisdom of encouraging a little harmless pride in
+personal appearance even among the blind, or the whimsical absurdity of
+considering charity and leather breeches inseparable companions, as we
+do, requires no comment.
+
+Good order, cleanliness, and comfort, pervaded every corner of the
+building.  The various classes, who were gathered round their teachers,
+answered the questions put to them with readiness and intelligence, and
+in a spirit of cheerful contest for precedence which pleased me very
+much.  Those who were at play, were gleesome and noisy as other children.
+More spiritual and affectionate friendships appeared to exist among them,
+than would be found among other young persons suffering under no
+deprivation; but this I expected and was prepared to find.  It is a part
+of the great scheme of Heaven’s merciful consideration for the afflicted.
+
+In a portion of the building, set apart for that purpose, are work-shops
+for blind persons whose education is finished, and who have acquired a
+trade, but who cannot pursue it in an ordinary manufactory because of
+their deprivation.  Several people were at work here; making brushes,
+mattresses, and so forth; and the cheerfulness, industry, and good order
+discernible in every other part of the building, extended to this
+department also.
+
+On the ringing of a bell, the pupils all repaired, without any guide or
+leader, to a spacious music-hall, where they took their seats in an
+orchestra erected for that purpose, and listened with manifest delight to
+a voluntary on the organ, played by one of themselves.  At its
+conclusion, the performer, a boy of nineteen or twenty, gave place to a
+girl; and to her accompaniment they all sang a hymn, and afterwards a
+sort of chorus.  It was very sad to look upon and hear them, happy though
+their condition unquestionably was; and I saw that one blind girl, who
+(being for the time deprived of the use of her limbs, by illness) sat
+close beside me with her face towards them, wept silently the while she
+listened.
+
+It is strange to watch the faces of the blind, and see how free they are
+from all concealment of what is passing in their thoughts; observing
+which, a man with eyes may blush to contemplate the mask he wears.
+Allowing for one shade of anxious expression which is never absent from
+their countenances, and the like of which we may readily detect in our
+own faces if we try to feel our way in the dark, every idea, as it rises
+within them, is expressed with the lightning’s speed and nature’s truth.
+If the company at a rout, or drawing-room at court, could only for one
+time be as unconscious of the eyes upon them as blind men and women are,
+what secrets would come out, and what a worker of hypocrisy this sight,
+the loss of which we so much pity, would appear to be!
+
+The thought occurred to me as I sat down in another room, before a girl,
+blind, deaf, and dumb; destitute of smell; and nearly so of taste: before
+a fair young creature with every human faculty, and hope, and power of
+goodness and affection, inclosed within her delicate frame, and but one
+outward sense—the sense of touch.  There she was, before me; built up, as
+it were, in a marble cell, impervious to any ray of light, or particle of
+sound; with her poor white hand peeping through a chink in the wall,
+beckoning to some good man for help, that an Immortal soul might be
+awakened.
+
+Long before I looked upon her, the help had come.  Her face was radiant
+with intelligence and pleasure.  Her hair, braided by her own hands, was
+bound about a head, whose intellectual capacity and development were
+beautifully expressed in its graceful outline, and its broad open brow;
+her dress, arranged by herself, was a pattern of neatness and simplicity;
+the work she had knitted, lay beside her; her writing-book was on the
+desk she leaned upon.—From the mournful ruin of such bereavement, there
+had slowly risen up this gentle, tender, guileless, grateful-hearted
+being.
+
+Like other inmates of that house, she had a green ribbon bound round her
+eyelids.  A doll she had dressed lay near upon the ground.  I took it up,
+and saw that she had made a green fillet such as she wore herself, and
+fastened it about its mimic eyes.
+
+She was seated in a little enclosure, made by school-desks and forms,
+writing her daily journal.  But soon finishing this pursuit, she engaged
+in an animated conversation with a teacher who sat beside her.  This was
+a favourite mistress with the poor pupil.  If she could see the face of
+her fair instructress, she would not love her less, I am sure.
+
+I have extracted a few disjointed fragments of her history, from an
+account, written by that one man who has made her what she is.  It is a
+very beautiful and touching narrative; and I wish I could present it
+entire.
+
+Her name is Laura Bridgman.  ‘She was born in Hanover, New Hampshire, on
+the twenty-first of December, 1829.  She is described as having been a
+very sprightly and pretty infant, with bright blue eyes.  She was,
+however, so puny and feeble until she was a year and a half old, that her
+parents hardly hoped to rear her.  She was subject to severe fits, which
+seemed to rack her frame almost beyond her power of endurance: and life
+was held by the feeblest tenure: but when a year and a half old, she
+seemed to rally; the dangerous symptoms subsided; and at twenty months
+old, she was perfectly well.
+
+‘Then her mental powers, hitherto stinted in their growth, rapidly
+developed themselves; and during the four months of health which she
+enjoyed, she appears (making due allowance for a fond mother’s account)
+to have displayed a considerable degree of intelligence.
+
+‘But suddenly she sickened again; her disease raged with great violence
+during five weeks, when her eyes and ears were inflamed, suppurated, and
+their contents were discharged.  But though sight and hearing were gone
+for ever, the poor child’s sufferings were not ended.  The fever raged
+during seven weeks; for five months she was kept in bed in a darkened
+room; it was a year before she could walk unsupported, and two years
+before she could sit up all day.  It was now observed that her sense of
+smell was almost entirely destroyed; and, consequently, that her taste
+was much blunted.
+
+‘It was not until four years of age that the poor child’s bodily health
+seemed restored, and she was able to enter upon her apprenticeship of
+life and the world.
+
+‘But what a situation was hers!  The darkness and the silence of the tomb
+were around her: no mother’s smile called forth her answering smile, no
+father’s voice taught her to imitate his sounds:—they, brothers and
+sisters, were but forms of matter which resisted her touch, but which
+differed not from the furniture of the house, save in warmth, and in the
+power of locomotion; and not even in these respects from the dog and the
+cat.
+
+‘But the immortal spirit which had been implanted within her could not
+die, nor be maimed nor mutilated; and though most of its avenues of
+communication with the world were cut off, it began to manifest itself
+through the others.  As soon as she could walk, she began to explore the
+room, and then the house; she became familiar with the form, density,
+weight, and heat, of every article she could lay her hands upon.  She
+followed her mother, and felt her hands and arms, as she was occupied
+about the house; and her disposition to imitate, led her to repeat
+everything herself.  She even learned to sew a little, and to knit.’
+
+The reader will scarcely need to be told, however, that the opportunities
+of communicating with her, were very, very limited; and that the moral
+effects of her wretched state soon began to appear.  Those who cannot be
+enlightened by reason, can only be controlled by force; and this, coupled
+with her great privations, must soon have reduced her to a worse
+condition than that of the beasts that perish, but for timely and
+unhoped-for aid.
+
+‘At this time, I was so fortunate as to hear of the child, and
+immediately hastened to Hanover to see her.  I found her with a
+well-formed figure; a strongly-marked, nervous-sanguine temperament; a
+large and beautifully-shaped head; and the whole system in healthy
+action.  The parents were easily induced to consent to her coming to
+Boston, and on the 4th of October, 1837, they brought her to the
+Institution.
+
+‘For a while, she was much bewildered; and after waiting about two weeks,
+until she became acquainted with her new locality, and somewhat familiar
+with the inmates, the attempt was made to give her knowledge of arbitrary
+signs, by which she could interchange thoughts with others.
+
+‘There was one of two ways to be adopted: either to go on to build up a
+language of signs on the basis of the natural language which she had
+already commenced herself, or to teach her the purely arbitrary language
+in common use: that is, to give her a sign for every individual thing, or
+to give her a knowledge of letters by combination of which she might
+express her idea of the existence, and the mode and condition of
+existence, of any thing.  The former would have been easy, but very
+ineffectual; the latter seemed very difficult, but, if accomplished, very
+effectual.  I determined therefore to try the latter.
+
+‘The first experiments were made by taking articles in common use, such
+as knives, forks, spoons, keys, &c., and pasting upon them labels with
+their names printed in raised letters.  These she felt very carefully,
+and soon, of course, distinguished that the crooked lines _spoon_,
+differed as much from the crooked lines _key_, as the spoon differed from
+the key in form.
+
+‘Then small detached labels, with the same words printed upon them, were
+put into her hands; and she soon observed that they were similar to the
+ones pasted on the articles.’   She showed her perception of this
+similarity by laying the label _key_ upon the key, and the label _spoon_
+upon the spoon.  She was encouraged here by the natural sign of
+approbation, patting on the head.
+
+‘The same process was then repeated with all the articles which she could
+handle; and she very easily learned to place the proper labels upon them.
+It was evident, however, that the only intellectual exercise was that of
+imitation and memory.  She recollected that the label _book_ was placed
+upon a book, and she repeated the process first from imitation, next from
+memory, with only the motive of love of approbation, but apparently
+without the intellectual perception of any relation between the things.
+
+‘After a while, instead of labels, the individual letters were given to
+her on detached bits of paper: they were arranged side by side so as to
+spell _book_, _key_, &c.; then they were mixed up in a heap and a sign
+was made for her to arrange them herself so as to express the words
+_book_, _key_, &c.; and she did so.
+
+‘Hitherto, the process had been mechanical, and the success about as
+great as teaching a very knowing dog a variety of tricks.  The poor child
+had sat in mute amazement, and patiently imitated everything her teacher
+did; but now the truth began to flash upon her: her intellect began to
+work: she perceived that here was a way by which she could herself make
+up a sign of anything that was in her own mind, and show it to another
+mind; and at once her countenance lighted up with a human expression: it
+was no longer a dog, or parrot: it was an immortal spirit, eagerly
+seizing upon a new link of union with other spirits!  I could almost fix
+upon the moment when this truth dawned upon her mind, and spread its
+light to her countenance; I saw that the great obstacle was overcome; and
+that henceforward nothing but patient and persevering, but plain and
+straightforward, efforts were to be used.
+
+‘The result thus far, is quickly related, and easily conceived; but not
+so was the process; for many weeks of apparently unprofitable labour were
+passed before it was effected.
+
+‘When it was said above that a sign was made, it was intended to say,
+that the action was performed by her teacher, she feeling his hands, and
+then imitating the motion.
+
+‘The next step was to procure a set of metal types, with the different
+letters of the alphabet cast upon their ends; also a board, in which were
+square holes, into which holes she could set the types; so that the
+letters on their ends could alone be felt above the surface.
+
+‘Then, on any article being handed to her, for instance, a pencil, or a
+watch, she would select the component letters, and arrange them on her
+board, and read them with apparent pleasure.
+
+‘She was exercised for several weeks in this way, until her vocabulary
+became extensive; and then the important step was taken of teaching her
+how to represent the different letters by the position of her fingers,
+instead of the cumbrous apparatus of the board and types.  She
+accomplished this speedily and easily, for her intellect had begun to
+work in aid of her teacher, and her progress was rapid.
+
+‘This was the period, about three months after she had commenced, that
+the first report of her case was made, in which it was stated that “she
+has just learned the manual alphabet, as used by the deaf mutes, and it
+is a subject of delight and wonder to see how rapidly, correctly, and
+eagerly, she goes on with her labours.  Her teacher gives her a new
+object, for instance, a pencil, first lets her examine it, and get an
+idea of its use, then teaches her how to spell it by making the signs for
+the letters with her own fingers: the child grasps her hand, and feels
+her fingers, as the different letters are formed; she turns her head a
+little on one side like a person listening closely; her lips are apart;
+she seems scarcely to breathe; and her countenance, at first anxious,
+gradually changes to a smile, as she comprehends the lesson.  She then
+holds up her tiny fingers, and spells the word in the manual alphabet;
+next, she takes her types and arranges her letters; and last, to make
+sure that she is right, she takes the whole of the types composing the
+word, and places them upon or in contact with the pencil, or whatever the
+object may be.”
+
+‘The whole of the succeeding year was passed in gratifying her eager
+inquiries for the names of every object which she could possibly handle;
+in exercising her in the use of the manual alphabet; in extending in
+every possible way her knowledge of the physical relations of things; and
+in proper care of her health.
+
+‘At the end of the year a report of her case was made, from which the
+following is an extract.
+
+‘“It has been ascertained beyond the possibility of doubt, that she
+cannot see a ray of light, cannot hear the least sound, and never
+exercises her sense of smell, if she have any.  Thus her mind dwells in
+darkness and stillness, as profound as that of a closed tomb at midnight.
+Of beautiful sights, and sweet sounds, and pleasant odours, she has no
+conception; nevertheless, she seems as happy and playful as a bird or a
+lamb; and the employment of her intellectual faculties, or the
+acquirement of a new idea, gives her a vivid pleasure, which is plainly
+marked in her expressive features.  She never seems to repine, but has
+all the buoyancy and gaiety of childhood.  She is fond of fun and frolic,
+and when playing with the rest of the children, her shrill laugh sounds
+loudest of the group.
+
+‘“When left alone, she seems very happy if she have her knitting or
+sewing, and will busy herself for hours; if she have no occupation, she
+evidently amuses herself by imaginary dialogues, or by recalling past
+impressions; she counts with her fingers, or spells out names of things
+which she has recently learned, in the manual alphabet of the deaf mutes.
+In this lonely self-communion she seems to reason, reflect, and argue; if
+she spell a word wrong with the fingers of her right hand, she instantly
+strikes it with her left, as her teacher does, in sign of disapprobation;
+if right, then she pats herself upon the head, and looks pleased.  She
+sometimes purposely spells a word wrong with the left hand, looks roguish
+for a moment and laughs, and then with the right hand strikes the left,
+as if to correct it.
+
+‘“During the year she has attained great dexterity in the use of the
+manual alphabet of the deaf mutes; and she spells out the words and
+sentences which she knows, so fast and so deftly, that only those
+accustomed to this language can follow with the eye the rapid motions of
+her fingers.
+
+‘“But wonderful as is the rapidity with which she writes her thoughts
+upon the air, still more so is the ease and accuracy with which she reads
+the words thus written by another; grasping their hands in hers, and
+following every movement of their fingers, as letter after letter conveys
+their meaning to her mind.  It is in this way that she converses with her
+blind playmates, and nothing can more forcibly show the power of mind in
+forcing matter to its purpose than a meeting between them.  For if great
+talent and skill are necessary for two pantomimes to paint their thoughts
+and feelings by the movements of the body, and the expression of the
+countenance, how much greater the difficulty when darkness shrouds them
+both, and the one can hear no sound.
+
+‘“When Laura is walking through a passage-way, with her hands spread
+before her, she knows instantly every one she meets, and passes them with
+a sign of recognition: but if it be a girl of her own age, and especially
+if it be one of her favourites, there is instantly a bright smile of
+recognition, a twining of arms, a grasping of hands, and a swift
+telegraphing upon the tiny fingers; whose rapid evolutions convey the
+thoughts and feelings from the outposts of one mind to those of the
+other.  There are questions and answers, exchanges of joy or sorrow,
+there are kissings and partings, just as between little children with all
+their senses.”
+
+‘During this year, and six months after she had left home, her mother
+came to visit her, and the scene of their meeting was an interesting one.
+
+‘The mother stood some time, gazing with overflowing eyes upon her
+unfortunate child, who, all unconscious of her presence, was playing
+about the room.  Presently Laura ran against her, and at once began
+feeling her hands, examining her dress, and trying to find out if she
+knew her; but not succeeding in this, she turned away as from a stranger,
+and the poor woman could not conceal the pang she felt, at finding that
+her beloved child did not know her.
+
+‘She then gave Laura a string of beads which she used to wear at home,
+which were recognised by the child at once, who, with much joy, put them
+around her neck, and sought me eagerly to say she understood the string
+was from her home.
+
+‘The mother now sought to caress her, but poor Laura repelled her,
+preferring to be with her acquaintances.
+
+‘Another article from home was now given her, and she began to look much
+interested; she examined the stranger much closer, and gave me to
+understand that she knew she came from Hanover; she even endured her
+caresses, but would leave her with indifference at the slightest signal.
+The distress of the mother was now painful to behold; for, although she
+had feared that she should not be recognised, the painful reality of
+being treated with cold indifference by a darling child, was too much for
+woman’s nature to bear.
+
+‘After a while, on the mother taking hold of her again, a vague idea
+seemed to flit across Laura’s mind, that this could not be a stranger;
+she therefore felt her hands very eagerly, while her countenance assumed
+an expression of intense interest; she became very pale; and then
+suddenly red; hope seemed struggling with doubt and anxiety, and never
+were contending emotions more strongly painted upon the human face: at
+this moment of painful uncertainty, the mother drew her close to her
+side, and kissed her fondly, when at once the truth flashed upon the
+child, and all mistrust and anxiety disappeared from her face, as with an
+expression of exceeding joy she eagerly nestled to the bosom of her
+parent, and yielded herself to her fond embraces.
+
+‘After this, the beads were all unheeded; the playthings which were
+offered to her were utterly disregarded; her playmates, for whom but a
+moment before she gladly left the stranger, now vainly strove to pull her
+from her mother; and though she yielded her usual instantaneous obedience
+to my signal to follow me, it was evidently with painful reluctance.  She
+clung close to me, as if bewildered and fearful; and when, after a
+moment, I took her to her mother, she sprang to her arms, and clung to
+her with eager joy.
+
+‘The subsequent parting between them, showed alike the affection, the
+intelligence, and the resolution of the child.
+
+‘Laura accompanied her mother to the door, clinging close to her all the
+way, until they arrived at the threshold, where she paused, and felt
+around, to ascertain who was near her.  Perceiving the matron, of whom
+she is very fond, she grasped her with one hand, holding on convulsively
+to her mother with the other; and thus she stood for a moment: then she
+dropped her mother’s hand; put her handkerchief to her eyes; and turning
+round, clung sobbing to the matron; while her mother departed, with
+emotions as deep as those of her child.
+
+                               * * * * * *
+
+‘It has been remarked in former reports, that she can distinguish
+different degrees of intellect in others, and that she soon regarded,
+almost with contempt, a new-comer, when, after a few days, she discovered
+her weakness of mind.  This unamiable part of her character has been more
+strongly developed during the past year.
+
+‘She chooses for her friends and companions, those children who are
+intelligent, and can talk best with her; and she evidently dislikes to be
+with those who are deficient in intellect, unless, indeed, she can make
+them serve her purposes, which she is evidently inclined to do.  She
+takes advantage of them, and makes them wait upon her, in a manner that
+she knows she could not exact of others; and in various ways shows her
+Saxon blood.
+
+‘She is fond of having other children noticed and caressed by the
+teachers, and those whom she respects; but this must not be carried too
+far, or she becomes jealous.  She wants to have her share, which, if not
+the lion’s, is the greater part; and if she does not get it, she says,
+“_My mother will love me_.”
+
+‘Her tendency to imitation is so strong, that it leads her to actions
+which must be entirely incomprehensible to her, and which can give her no
+other pleasure than the gratification of an internal faculty.  She has
+been known to sit for half an hour, holding a book before her sightless
+eyes, and moving her lips, as she has observed seeing people do when
+reading.
+
+‘She one day pretended that her doll was sick; and went through all the
+motions of tending it, and giving it medicine; she then put it carefully
+to bed, and placed a bottle of hot water to its feet, laughing all the
+time most heartily.  When I came home, she insisted upon my going to see
+it, and feel its pulse; and when I told her to put a blister on its back,
+she seemed to enjoy it amazingly, and almost screamed with delight.
+
+‘Her social feelings, and her affections, are very strong; and when she
+is sitting at work, or at her studies, by the side of one of her little
+friends, she will break off from her task every few moments, to hug and
+kiss them with an earnestness and warmth that is touching to behold.
+
+‘When left alone, she occupies and apparently amuses herself, and seems
+quite contented; and so strong seems to be the natural tendency of
+thought to put on the garb of language, that she often soliloquizes in
+the _finger language_, slow and tedious as it is.  But it is only when
+alone, that she is quiet: for if she becomes sensible of the presence of
+any one near her, she is restless until she can sit close beside them,
+hold their hand, and converse with them by signs.
+
+‘In her intellectual character it is pleasing to observe an insatiable
+thirst for knowledge, and a quick perception of the relations of things.
+In her moral character, it is beautiful to behold her continual gladness,
+her keen enjoyment of existence, her expansive love, her unhesitating
+confidence, her sympathy with suffering, her conscientiousness,
+truthfulness, and hopefulness.’
+
+Such are a few fragments from the simple but most interesting and
+instructive history of Laura Bridgman.  The name of her great benefactor
+and friend, who writes it, is Dr. Howe.  There are not many persons, I
+hope and believe, who, after reading these passages, can ever hear that
+name with indifference.
+
+A further account has been published by Dr. Howe, since the report from
+which I have just quoted.  It describes her rapid mental growth and
+improvement during twelve months more, and brings her little history down
+to the end of last year.  It is very remarkable, that as we dream in
+words, and carry on imaginary conversations, in which we speak both for
+ourselves and for the shadows who appear to us in those visions of the
+night, so she, having no words, uses her finger alphabet in her sleep.
+And it has been ascertained that when her slumber is broken, and is much
+disturbed by dreams, she expresses her thoughts in an irregular and
+confused manner on her fingers: just as we should murmur and mutter them
+indistinctly, in the like circumstances.
+
+I turned over the leaves of her Diary, and found it written in a fair
+legible square hand, and expressed in terms which were quite intelligible
+without any explanation.  On my saying that I should like to see her
+write again, the teacher who sat beside her, bade her, in their language,
+sign her name upon a slip of paper, twice or thrice.  In doing so, I
+observed that she kept her left hand always touching, and following up,
+her right, in which, of course, she held the pen.  No line was indicated
+by any contrivance, but she wrote straight and freely.
+
+She had, until now, been quite unconscious of the presence of visitors;
+but, having her hand placed in that of the gentleman who accompanied me,
+she immediately expressed his name upon her teacher’s palm.  Indeed her
+sense of touch is now so exquisite, that having been acquainted with a
+person once, she can recognise him or her after almost any interval.
+This gentleman had been in her company, I believe, but very seldom, and
+certainly had not seen her for many months.  My hand she rejected at
+once, as she does that of any man who is a stranger to her.  But she
+retained my wife’s with evident pleasure, kissed her, and examined her
+dress with a girl’s curiosity and interest.
+
+She was merry and cheerful, and showed much innocent playfulness in her
+intercourse with her teacher.  Her delight on recognising a favourite
+playfellow and companion—herself a blind girl—who silently, and with an
+equal enjoyment of the coming surprise, took a seat beside her, was
+beautiful to witness.  It elicited from her at first, as other slight
+circumstances did twice or thrice during my visit, an uncouth noise which
+was rather painful to hear.  But of her teacher touching her lips, she
+immediately desisted, and embraced her laughingly and affectionately.
+
+I had previously been into another chamber, where a number of blind boys
+were swinging, and climbing, and engaged in various sports.  They all
+clamoured, as we entered, to the assistant-master, who accompanied us,
+‘Look at me, Mr. Hart!  Please, Mr. Hart, look at me!’ evincing, I
+thought, even in this, an anxiety peculiar to their condition, that their
+little feats of agility should be _seen_.  Among them was a small
+laughing fellow, who stood aloof, entertaining himself with a gymnastic
+exercise for bringing the arms and chest into play; which he enjoyed
+mightily; especially when, in thrusting out his right arm, he brought it
+into contact with another boy.  Like Laura Bridgman, this young child was
+deaf, and dumb, and blind.
+
+Dr. Howe’s account of this pupil’s first instruction is so very striking,
+and so intimately connected with Laura herself, that I cannot refrain
+from a short extract.  I may premise that the poor boy’s name is Oliver
+Caswell; that he is thirteen years of age; and that he was in full
+possession of all his faculties, until three years and four months old.
+He was then attacked by scarlet fever; in four weeks became deaf; in a
+few weeks more, blind; in six months, dumb.  He showed his anxious sense
+of this last deprivation, by often feeling the lips of other persons when
+they were talking, and then putting his hand upon his own, as if to
+assure himself that he had them in the right position.
+
+‘His thirst for knowledge,’ says Dr. Howe, ‘proclaimed itself as soon as
+he entered the house, by his eager examination of everything he could
+feel or smell in his new location.  For instance, treading upon the
+register of a furnace, he instantly stooped down, and began to feel it,
+and soon discovered the way in which the upper plate moved upon the lower
+one; but this was not enough for him, so lying down upon his face, he
+applied his tongue first to one, then to the other, and seemed to
+discover that they were of different kinds of metal.
+
+‘His signs were expressive: and the strictly natural language, laughing,
+crying, sighing, kissing, embracing, &c., was perfect.
+
+‘Some of the analogical signs which (guided by his faculty of imitation)
+he had contrived, were comprehensible; such as the waving motion of his
+hand for the motion of a boat, the circular one for a wheel, &c.
+
+‘The first object was to break up the use of these signs and to
+substitute for them the use of purely arbitrary ones.
+
+‘Profiting by the experience I had gained in the other cases, I omitted
+several steps of the process before employed, and commenced at once with
+the finger language.  Taking, therefore, several articles having short
+names, such as key, cup, mug, &c., and with Laura for an auxiliary, I sat
+down, and taking his hand, placed it upon one of them, and then with my
+own, made the letters _key_.  He felt my hands eagerly with both of his,
+and on my repeating the process, he evidently tried to imitate the
+motions of my fingers.  In a few minutes he contrived to feel the motions
+of my fingers with one hand, and holding out the other he tried to
+imitate them, laughing most heartily when he succeeded.  Laura was by,
+interested even to agitation; and the two presented a singular sight: her
+face was flushed and anxious, and her fingers twining in among ours so
+closely as to follow every motion, but so slightly as not to embarrass
+them; while Oliver stood attentive, his head a little aside, his face
+turned up, his left hand grasping mine, and his right held out: at every
+motion of my fingers his countenance betokened keen attention; there was
+an expression of anxiety as he tried to imitate the motions; then a smile
+came stealing out as he thought he could do so, and spread into a joyous
+laugh the moment he succeeded, and felt me pat his head, and Laura clap
+him heartily upon the back, and jump up and down in her joy.
+
+‘He learned more than a half-dozen letters in half an hour, and seemed
+delighted with his success, at least in gaining approbation.  His
+attention then began to flag, and I commenced playing with him.  It was
+evident that in all this he had merely been imitating the motions of my
+fingers, and placing his hand upon the key, cup, &c., as part of the
+process, without any perception of the relation between the sign and the
+object.
+
+‘When he was tired with play I took him back to the table, and he was
+quite ready to begin again his process of imitation.  He soon learned to
+make the letters for _key_, _pen_, _pin_; and by having the object
+repeatedly placed in his hand, he at last perceived the relation I wished
+to establish between them.  This was evident, because, when I made the
+letters _pin_, or _pen_, or _cup_, he would select the article.
+
+‘The perception of this relation was not accompanied by that radiant
+flash of intelligence, and that glow of joy, which marked the delightful
+moment when Laura first perceived it.  I then placed all the articles on
+the table, and going away a little distance with the children, placed
+Oliver’s fingers in the positions to spell _key_, on which Laura went and
+brought the article: the little fellow seemed much amused by this, and
+looked very attentive and smiling.  I then caused him to make the letters
+_bread_, and in an instant Laura went and brought him a piece: he smelled
+at it; put it to his lips; cocked up his head with a most knowing look;
+seemed to reflect a moment; and then laughed outright, as much as to say,
+“Aha!  I understand now how something may be made out of this.”
+
+‘It was now clear that he had the capacity and inclination to learn, that
+he was a proper subject for instruction, and needed only persevering
+attention.  I therefore put him in the hands of an intelligent teacher,
+nothing doubting of his rapid progress.’
+
+Well may this gentleman call that a delightful moment, in which some
+distant promise of her present state first gleamed upon the darkened mind
+of Laura Bridgman.  Throughout his life, the recollection of that moment
+will be to him a source of pure, unfading happiness; nor will it shine
+less brightly on the evening of his days of Noble Usefulness.
+
+The affection which exists between these two—the master and the pupil—is
+as far removed from all ordinary care and regard, as the circumstances in
+which it has had its growth, are apart from the common occurrences of
+life.  He is occupied now, in devising means of imparting to her, higher
+knowledge; and of conveying to her some adequate idea of the Great
+Creator of that universe in which, dark and silent and scentless though
+it be to her, she has such deep delight and glad enjoyment.
+
+Ye who have eyes and see not, and have ears and hear not; ye who are as
+the hypocrites of sad countenances, and disfigure your faces that ye may
+seem unto men to fast; learn healthy cheerfulness, and mild contentment,
+from the deaf, and dumb, and blind!  Self-elected saints with gloomy
+brows, this sightless, earless, voiceless child may teach you lessons you
+will do well to follow.  Let that poor hand of hers lie gently on your
+hearts; for there may be something in its healing touch akin to that of
+the Great Master whose precepts you misconstrue, whose lessons you
+pervert, of whose charity and sympathy with all the world, not one among
+you in his daily practice knows as much as many of the worst among those
+fallen sinners, to whom you are liberal in nothing but the preachment of
+perdition!
+
+As I rose to quit the room, a pretty little child of one of the
+attendants came running in to greet its father.  For the moment, a child
+with eyes, among the sightless crowd, impressed me almost as painfully as
+the blind boy in the porch had done, two hours ago.  Ah! how much
+brighter and more deeply blue, glowing and rich though it had been
+before, was the scene without, contrasting with the darkness of so many
+youthful lives within!
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+At SOUTH BOSTON, as it is called, in a situation excellently adapted for
+the purpose, several charitable institutions are clustered together.  One
+of these, is the State Hospital for the insane; admirably conducted on
+those enlightened principles of conciliation and kindness, which twenty
+years ago would have been worse than heretical, and which have been acted
+upon with so much success in our own pauper Asylum at Hanwell.  ‘Evince a
+desire to show some confidence, and repose some trust, even in mad
+people,’ said the resident physician, as we walked along the galleries,
+his patients flocking round us unrestrained.  Of those who deny or doubt
+the wisdom of this maxim after witnessing its effects, if there be such
+people still alive, I can only say that I hope I may never be summoned as
+a Juryman on a Commission of Lunacy whereof they are the subjects; for I
+should certainly find them out of their senses, on such evidence alone.
+
+Each ward in this institution is shaped like a long gallery or hall, with
+the dormitories of the patients opening from it on either hand.  Here
+they work, read, play at skittles, and other games; and when the weather
+does not admit of their taking exercise out of doors, pass the day
+together.  In one of these rooms, seated, calmly, and quite as a matter
+of course, among a throng of mad-women, black and white, were the
+physician’s wife and another lady, with a couple of children.  These
+ladies were graceful and handsome; and it was not difficult to perceive
+at a glance that even their presence there, had a highly beneficial
+influence on the patients who were grouped about them.
+
+Leaning her head against the chimney-piece, with a great assumption of
+dignity and refinement of manner, sat an elderly female, in as many
+scraps of finery as Madge Wildfire herself.  Her head in particular was
+so strewn with scraps of gauze and cotton and bits of paper, and had so
+many queer odds and ends stuck all about it, that it looked like a
+bird’s-nest.  She was radiant with imaginary jewels; wore a rich pair of
+undoubted gold spectacles; and gracefully dropped upon her lap, as we
+approached, a very old greasy newspaper, in which I dare say she had been
+reading an account of her own presentation at some Foreign Court.
+
+I have been thus particular in describing her, because she will serve to
+exemplify the physician’s manner of acquiring and retaining the
+confidence of his patients.
+
+‘This,’ he said aloud, taking me by the hand, and advancing to the
+fantastic figure with great politeness—not raising her suspicions by the
+slightest look or whisper, or any kind of aside, to me: ‘This lady is the
+hostess of this mansion, sir.  It belongs to her.  Nobody else has
+anything whatever to do with it.  It is a large establishment, as you
+see, and requires a great number of attendants.  She lives, you observe,
+in the very first style.  She is kind enough to receive my visits, and to
+permit my wife and family to reside here; for which it is hardly
+necessary to say, we are much indebted to her.  She is exceedingly
+courteous, you perceive,’ on this hint she bowed condescendingly, ‘and
+will permit me to have the pleasure of introducing you: a gentleman from
+England, Ma’am: newly arrived from England, after a very tempestuous
+passage: Mr. Dickens,—the lady of the house!’
+
+We exchanged the most dignified salutations with profound gravity and
+respect, and so went on.  The rest of the madwomen seemed to understand
+the joke perfectly (not only in this case, but in all the others, except
+their own), and be highly amused by it.  The nature of their several
+kinds of insanity was made known to me in the same way, and we left each
+of them in high good humour.  Not only is a thorough confidence
+established, by those means, between the physician and patient, in
+respect of the nature and extent of their hallucinations, but it is easy
+to understand that opportunities are afforded for seizing any moment of
+reason, to startle them by placing their own delusion before them in its
+most incongruous and ridiculous light.
+
+Every patient in this asylum sits down to dinner every day with a knife
+and fork; and in the midst of them sits the gentleman, whose manner of
+dealing with his charges, I have just described.  At every meal, moral
+influence alone restrains the more violent among them from cutting the
+throats of the rest; but the effect of that influence is reduced to an
+absolute certainty, and is found, even as a means of restraint, to say
+nothing of it as a means of cure, a hundred times more efficacious than
+all the strait-waistcoats, fetters, and handcuffs, that ignorance,
+prejudice, and cruelty have manufactured since the creation of the world.
+
+In the labour department, every patient is as freely trusted with the
+tools of his trade as if he were a sane man.  In the garden, and on the
+farm, they work with spades, rakes, and hoes.  For amusement, they walk,
+run, fish, paint, read, and ride out to take the air in carriages
+provided for the purpose.  They have among themselves a sewing society to
+make clothes for the poor, which holds meetings, passes resolutions,
+never comes to fisty-cuffs or bowie-knives as sane assemblies have been
+known to do elsewhere; and conducts all its proceedings with the greatest
+decorum.  The irritability, which would otherwise be expended on their
+own flesh, clothes, and furniture, is dissipated in these pursuits.  They
+are cheerful, tranquil, and healthy.
+
+Once a week they have a ball, in which the Doctor and his family, with
+all the nurses and attendants, take an active part.  Dances and marches
+are performed alternately, to the enlivening strains of a piano; and now
+and then some gentleman or lady (whose proficiency has been previously
+ascertained) obliges the company with a song: nor does it ever
+degenerate, at a tender crisis, into a screech or howl; wherein, I must
+confess, I should have thought the danger lay.  At an early hour they all
+meet together for these festive purposes; at eight o’clock refreshments
+are served; and at nine they separate.
+
+Immense politeness and good breeding are observed throughout.  They all
+take their tone from the Doctor; and he moves a very Chesterfield among
+the company.  Like other assemblies, these entertainments afford a
+fruitful topic of conversation among the ladies for some days; and the
+gentlemen are so anxious to shine on these occasions, that they have been
+sometimes found ‘practising their steps’ in private, to cut a more
+distinguished figure in the dance.
+
+It is obvious that one great feature of this system, is the inculcation
+and encouragement, even among such unhappy persons, of a decent
+self-respect.  Something of the same spirit pervades all the Institutions
+at South Boston.
+
+There is the House of Industry.  In that branch of it, which is devoted
+to the reception of old or otherwise helpless paupers, these words are
+painted on the walls: ‘WORTHY OF NOTICE.  SELF-GOVERNMENT, QUIETUDE, AND
+PEACE, ARE BLESSINGS.’  It is not assumed and taken for granted that
+being there they must be evil-disposed and wicked people, before whose
+vicious eyes it is necessary to flourish threats and harsh restraints.
+They are met at the very threshold with this mild appeal.  All
+within-doors is very plain and simple, as it ought to be, but arranged
+with a view to peace and comfort.  It costs no more than any other plan
+of arrangement, but it speaks an amount of consideration for those who
+are reduced to seek a shelter there, which puts them at once upon their
+gratitude and good behaviour.  Instead of being parcelled out in great,
+long, rambling wards, where a certain amount of weazen life may mope, and
+pine, and shiver, all day long, the building is divided into separate
+rooms, each with its share of light and air.  In these, the better kind
+of paupers live.  They have a motive for exertion and becoming pride, in
+the desire to make these little chambers comfortable and decent.
+
+I do not remember one but it was clean and neat, and had its plant or two
+upon the window-sill, or row of crockery upon the shelf, or small display
+of coloured prints upon the whitewashed wall, or, perhaps, its wooden
+clock behind the door.
+
+The orphans and young children are in an adjoining building separate from
+this, but a part of the same Institution.  Some are such little
+creatures, that the stairs are of Lilliputian measurement, fitted to
+their tiny strides.  The same consideration for their years and weakness
+is expressed in their very seats, which are perfect curiosities, and look
+like articles of furniture for a pauper doll’s-house.  I can imagine the
+glee of our Poor Law Commissioners at the notion of these seats having
+arms and backs; but small spines being of older date than their
+occupation of the Board-room at Somerset House, I thought even this
+provision very merciful and kind.
+
+Here again, I was greatly pleased with the inscriptions on the wall,
+which were scraps of plain morality, easily remembered and understood:
+such as ‘Love one another’—‘God remembers the smallest creature in his
+creation:’ and straightforward advice of that nature.  The books and
+tasks of these smallest of scholars, were adapted, in the same judicious
+manner, to their childish powers.  When we had examined these lessons,
+four morsels of girls (of whom one was blind) sang a little song, about
+the merry month of May, which I thought (being extremely dismal) would
+have suited an English November better.  That done, we went to see their
+sleeping-rooms on the floor above, in which the arrangements were no less
+excellent and gentle than those we had seen below.  And after observing
+that the teachers were of a class and character well suited to the spirit
+of the place, I took leave of the infants with a lighter heart than ever
+I have taken leave of pauper infants yet.
+
+Connected with the House of Industry, there is also an Hospital, which
+was in the best order, and had, I am glad to say, many beds unoccupied.
+It had one fault, however, which is common to all American interiors: the
+presence of the eternal, accursed, suffocating, red-hot demon of a stove,
+whose breath would blight the purest air under Heaven.
+
+There are two establishments for boys in this same neighbourhood.  One is
+called the Boylston school, and is an asylum for neglected and indigent
+boys who have committed no crime, but who in the ordinary course of
+things would very soon be purged of that distinction if they were not
+taken from the hungry streets and sent here.  The other is a House of
+Reformation for Juvenile Offenders.  They are both under the same roof,
+but the two classes of boys never come in contact.
+
+The Boylston boys, as may be readily supposed, have very much the
+advantage of the others in point of personal appearance.  They were in
+their school-room when I came upon them, and answered correctly, without
+book, such questions as where was England; how far was it; what was its
+population; its capital city; its form of government; and so forth.  They
+sang a song too, about a farmer sowing his seed: with corresponding
+action at such parts as ‘’tis thus he sows,’ ‘he turns him round,’ ‘he
+claps his hands;’ which gave it greater interest for them, and accustomed
+them to act together, in an orderly manner.  They appeared exceedingly
+well-taught, and not better taught than fed; for a more chubby-looking
+full-waistcoated set of boys, I never saw.
+
+The juvenile offenders had not such pleasant faces by a great deal, and
+in this establishment there were many boys of colour.  I saw them first
+at their work (basket-making, and the manufacture of palm-leaf hats),
+afterwards in their school, where they sang a chorus in praise of
+Liberty: an odd, and, one would think, rather aggravating, theme for
+prisoners.  These boys are divided into four classes, each denoted by a
+numeral, worn on a badge upon the arm.  On the arrival of a new-comer, he
+is put into the fourth or lowest class, and left, by good behaviour, to
+work his way up into the first.  The design and object of this
+Institution is to reclaim the youthful criminal by firm but kind and
+judicious treatment; to make his prison a place of purification and
+improvement, not of demoralisation and corruption; to impress upon him
+that there is but one path, and that one sober industry, which can ever
+lead him to happiness; to teach him how it may be trodden, if his
+footsteps have never yet been led that way; and to lure him back to it if
+they have strayed: in a word, to snatch him from destruction, and restore
+him to society a penitent and useful member.  The importance of such an
+establishment, in every point of view, and with reference to every
+consideration of humanity and social policy, requires no comment.
+
+One other establishment closes the catalogue.  It is the House of
+Correction for the State, in which silence is strictly maintained, but
+where the prisoners have the comfort and mental relief of seeing each
+other, and of working together.  This is the improved system of Prison
+Discipline which we have imported into England, and which has been in
+successful operation among us for some years past.
+
+America, as a new and not over-populated country, has in all her prisons,
+the one great advantage, of being enabled to find useful and profitable
+work for the inmates; whereas, with us, the prejudice against prison
+labour is naturally very strong, and almost insurmountable, when honest
+men who have not offended against the laws are frequently doomed to seek
+employment in vain.  Even in the United States, the principle of bringing
+convict labour and free labour into a competition which must obviously be
+to the disadvantage of the latter, has already found many opponents,
+whose number is not likely to diminish with access of years.
+
+For this very reason though, our best prisons would seem at the first
+glance to be better conducted than those of America.  The treadmill is
+conducted with little or no noise; five hundred men may pick oakum in the
+same room, without a sound; and both kinds of labour admit of such keen
+and vigilant superintendence, as will render even a word of personal
+communication amongst the prisoners almost impossible.  On the other
+hand, the noise of the loom, the forge, the carpenter’s hammer, or the
+stonemason’s saw, greatly favour those opportunities of
+intercourse—hurried and brief no doubt, but opportunities still—which
+these several kinds of work, by rendering it necessary for men to be
+employed very near to each other, and often side by side, without any
+barrier or partition between them, in their very nature present.  A
+visitor, too, requires to reason and reflect a little, before the sight
+of a number of men engaged in ordinary labour, such as he is accustomed
+to out of doors, will impress him half as strongly as the contemplation
+of the same persons in the same place and garb would, if they were
+occupied in some task, marked and degraded everywhere as belonging only
+to felons in jails.  In an American state prison or house of correction,
+I found it difficult at first to persuade myself that I was really in a
+jail: a place of ignominious punishment and endurance.  And to this hour
+I very much question whether the humane boast that it is not like one,
+has its root in the true wisdom or philosophy of the matter.
+
+I hope I may not be misunderstood on this subject, for it is one in which
+I take a strong and deep interest.  I incline as little to the sickly
+feeling which makes every canting lie or maudlin speech of a notorious
+criminal a subject of newspaper report and general sympathy, as I do to
+those good old customs of the good old times which made England, even so
+recently as in the reign of the Third King George, in respect of her
+criminal code and her prison regulations, one of the most bloody-minded
+and barbarous countries on the earth.  If I thought it would do any good
+to the rising generation, I would cheerfully give my consent to the
+disinterment of the bones of any genteel highwayman (the more genteel,
+the more cheerfully), and to their exposure, piecemeal, on any sign-post,
+gate, or gibbet, that might be deemed a good elevation for the purpose.
+My reason is as well convinced that these gentry were as utterly
+worthless and debauched villains, as it is that the laws and jails
+hardened them in their evil courses, or that their wonderful escapes were
+effected by the prison-turnkeys who, in those admirable days, had always
+been felons themselves, and were, to the last, their bosom-friends and
+pot-companions.  At the same time I know, as all men do or should, that
+the subject of Prison Discipline is one of the highest importance to any
+community; and that in her sweeping reform and bright example to other
+countries on this head, America has shown great wisdom, great
+benevolence, and exalted policy.  In contrasting her system with that
+which we have modelled upon it, I merely seek to show that with all its
+drawbacks, ours has some advantages of its own.
+
+The House of Correction which has led to these remarks, is not walled,
+like other prisons, but is palisaded round about with tall rough stakes,
+something after the manner of an enclosure for keeping elephants in, as
+we see it represented in Eastern prints and pictures.  The prisoners wear
+a parti-coloured dress; and those who are sentenced to hard labour, work
+at nail-making, or stone-cutting.  When I was there, the latter class of
+labourers were employed upon the stone for a new custom-house in course
+of erection at Boston.  They appeared to shape it skilfully and with
+expedition, though there were very few among them (if any) who had not
+acquired the art within the prison gates.
+
+The women, all in one large room, were employed in making light clothing,
+for New Orleans and the Southern States.  They did their work in silence
+like the men; and like them were over-looked by the person contracting
+for their labour, or by some agent of his appointment.  In addition to
+this, they are every moment liable to be visited by the prison officers
+appointed for that purpose.
+
+The arrangements for cooking, washing of clothes, and so forth, are much
+upon the plan of those I have seen at home.  Their mode of bestowing the
+prisoners at night (which is of general adoption) differs from ours, and
+is both simple and effective.  In the centre of a lofty area, lighted by
+windows in the four walls, are five tiers of cells, one above the other;
+each tier having before it a light iron gallery, attainable by stairs of
+the same construction and material: excepting the lower one, which is on
+the ground.  Behind these, back to back with them and facing the opposite
+wall, are five corresponding rows of cells, accessible by similar means:
+so that supposing the prisoners locked up in their cells, an officer
+stationed on the ground, with his back to the wall, has half their number
+under his eye at once; the remaining half being equally under the
+observation of another officer on the opposite side; and all in one great
+apartment.  Unless this watch be corrupted or sleeping on his post, it is
+impossible for a man to escape; for even in the event of his forcing the
+iron door of his cell without noise (which is exceedingly improbable),
+the moment he appears outside, and steps into that one of the five
+galleries on which it is situated, he must be plainly and fully visible
+to the officer below.  Each of these cells holds a small truckle bed, in
+which one prisoner sleeps; never more.  It is small, of course; and the
+door being not solid, but grated, and without blind or curtain, the
+prisoner within is at all times exposed to the observation and inspection
+of any guard who may pass along that tier at any hour or minute of the
+night.  Every day, the prisoners receive their dinner, singly, through a
+trap in the kitchen wall; and each man carries his to his sleeping cell
+to eat it, where he is locked up, alone, for that purpose, one hour.  The
+whole of this arrangement struck me as being admirable; and I hope that
+the next new prison we erect in England may be built on this plan.
+
+I was given to understand that in this prison no swords or fire-arms, or
+even cudgels, are kept; nor is it probable that, so long as its present
+excellent management continues, any weapon, offensive or defensive, will
+ever be required within its bounds.
+
+Such are the Institutions at South Boston!  In all of them, the
+unfortunate or degenerate citizens of the State are carefully instructed
+in their duties both to God and man; are surrounded by all reasonable
+means of comfort and happiness that their condition will admit of; are
+appealed to, as members of the great human family, however afflicted,
+indigent, or fallen; are ruled by the strong Heart, and not by the strong
+(though immeasurably weaker) Hand.  I have described them at some length;
+firstly, because their worth demanded it; and secondly, because I mean to
+take them for a model, and to content myself with saying of others we may
+come to, whose design and purpose are the same, that in this or that
+respect they practically fail, or differ.
+
+I wish by this account of them, imperfect in its execution, but in its
+just intention, honest, I could hope to convey to my readers
+one-hundredth part of the gratification, the sights I have described,
+afforded me.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+To an Englishman, accustomed to the paraphernalia of Westminster Hall, an
+American Court of Law is as odd a sight as, I suppose, an English Court
+of Law would be to an American.  Except in the Supreme Court at
+Washington (where the judges wear a plain black robe), there is no such
+thing as a wig or gown connected with the administration of justice.  The
+gentlemen of the bar being barristers and attorneys too (for there is no
+division of those functions as in England) are no more removed from their
+clients than attorneys in our Court for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors
+are, from theirs.  The jury are quite at home, and make themselves as
+comfortable as circumstances will permit.  The witness is so little
+elevated above, or put aloof from, the crowd in the court, that a
+stranger entering during a pause in the proceedings would find it
+difficult to pick him out from the rest.  And if it chanced to be a
+criminal trial, his eyes, in nine cases out of ten, would wander to the
+dock in search of the prisoner, in vain; for that gentleman would most
+likely be lounging among the most distinguished ornaments of the legal
+profession, whispering suggestions in his counsel’s ear, or making a
+toothpick out of an old quill with his penknife.
+
+I could not but notice these differences, when I visited the courts at
+Boston.  I was much surprised at first, too, to observe that the counsel
+who interrogated the witness under examination at the time, did so
+_sitting_.  But seeing that he was also occupied in writing down the
+answers, and remembering that he was alone and had no ‘junior,’ I quickly
+consoled myself with the reflection that law was not quite so expensive
+an article here, as at home; and that the absence of sundry formalities
+which we regard as indispensable, had doubtless a very favourable
+influence upon the bill of costs.
+
+In every Court, ample and commodious provision is made for the
+accommodation of the citizens.  This is the case all through America.  In
+every Public Institution, the right of the people to attend, and to have
+an interest in the proceedings, is most fully and distinctly recognised.
+There are no grim door-keepers to dole out their tardy civility by the
+sixpenny-worth; nor is there, I sincerely believe, any insolence of
+office of any kind.  Nothing national is exhibited for money; and no
+public officer is a showman.  We have begun of late years to imitate this
+good example.  I hope we shall continue to do so; and that in the fulness
+of time, even deans and chapters may be converted.
+
+In the civil court an action was trying, for damages sustained in some
+accident upon a railway.  The witnesses had been examined, and counsel
+was addressing the jury.  The learned gentleman (like a few of his
+English brethren) was desperately long-winded, and had a remarkable
+capacity of saying the same thing over and over again.  His great theme
+was ‘Warren the ěn_gine_ driver,’ whom he pressed into the service of
+every sentence he uttered.  I listened to him for about a quarter of an
+hour; and, coming out of court at the expiration of that time, without
+the faintest ray of enlightenment as to the merits of the case, felt as
+if I were at home again.
+
+In the prisoner’s cell, waiting to be examined by the magistrate on a
+charge of theft, was a boy.  This lad, instead of being committed to a
+common jail, would be sent to the asylum at South Boston, and there
+taught a trade; and in the course of time he would be bound apprentice to
+some respectable master.  Thus, his detection in this offence, instead of
+being the prelude to a life of infamy and a miserable death, would lead,
+there was a reasonable hope, to his being reclaimed from vice, and
+becoming a worthy member of society.
+
+I am by no means a wholesale admirer of our legal solemnities, many of
+which impress me as being exceedingly ludicrous.  Strange as it may seem
+too, there is undoubtedly a degree of protection in the wig and gown—a
+dismissal of individual responsibility in dressing for the part—which
+encourages that insolent bearing and language, and that gross perversion
+of the office of a pleader for The Truth, so frequent in our courts of
+law.  Still, I cannot help doubting whether America, in her desire to
+shake off the absurdities and abuses of the old system, may not have gone
+too far into the opposite extreme; and whether it is not desirable,
+especially in the small community of a city like this, where each man
+knows the other, to surround the administration of justice with some
+artificial barriers against the ‘Hail fellow, well met’ deportment of
+everyday life.  All the aid it can have in the very high character and
+ability of the Bench, not only here but elsewhere, it has, and well
+deserves to have; but it may need something more: not to impress the
+thoughtful and the well-informed, but the ignorant and heedless; a class
+which includes some prisoners and many witnesses.  These institutions
+were established, no doubt, upon the principle that those who had so
+large a share in making the laws, would certainly respect them.  But
+experience has proved this hope to be fallacious; for no men know better
+than the judges of America, that on the occasion of any great popular
+excitement the law is powerless, and cannot, for the time, assert its own
+supremacy.
+
+The tone of society in Boston is one of perfect politeness, courtesy, and
+good breeding.  The ladies are unquestionably very beautiful—in face: but
+there I am compelled to stop.  Their education is much as with us;
+neither better nor worse.  I had heard some very marvellous stories in
+this respect; but not believing them, was not disappointed.  Blue ladies
+there are, in Boston; but like philosophers of that colour and sex in
+most other latitudes, they rather desire to be thought superior than to
+be so.  Evangelical ladies there are, likewise, whose attachment to the
+forms of religion, and horror of theatrical entertainments, are most
+exemplary.  Ladies who have a passion for attending lectures are to be
+found among all classes and all conditions.  In the kind of provincial
+life which prevails in cities such as this, the Pulpit has great
+influence.  The peculiar province of the Pulpit in New England (always
+excepting the Unitarian Ministry) would appear to be the denouncement of
+all innocent and rational amusements.  The church, the chapel, and the
+lecture-room, are the only means of excitement excepted; and to the
+church, the chapel, and the lecture-room, the ladies resort in crowds.
+
+Wherever religion is resorted to, as a strong drink, and as an escape
+from the dull monotonous round of home, those of its ministers who pepper
+the highest will be the surest to please.  They who strew the Eternal
+Path with the greatest amount of brimstone, and who most ruthlessly tread
+down the flowers and leaves that grow by the wayside, will be voted the
+most righteous; and they who enlarge with the greatest pertinacity on the
+difficulty of getting into heaven, will be considered by all true
+believers certain of going there: though it would be hard to say by what
+process of reasoning this conclusion is arrived at.  It is so at home,
+and it is so abroad.  With regard to the other means of excitement, the
+Lecture, it has at least the merit of being always new.  One lecture
+treads so quickly on the heels of another, that none are remembered; and
+the course of this month may be safely repeated next, with its charm of
+novelty unbroken, and its interest unabated.
+
+The fruits of the earth have their growth in corruption.  Out of the
+rottenness of these things, there has sprung up in Boston a sect of
+philosophers known as Transcendentalists.  On inquiring what this
+appellation might be supposed to signify, I was given to understand that
+whatever was unintelligible would be certainly transcendental.  Not
+deriving much comfort from this elucidation, I pursued the inquiry still
+further, and found that the Transcendentalists are followers of my friend
+Mr. Carlyle, or I should rather say, of a follower of his, Mr. Ralph
+Waldo Emerson.  This gentleman has written a volume of Essays, in which,
+among much that is dreamy and fanciful (if he will pardon me for saying
+so), there is much more that is true and manly, honest and bold.
+Transcendentalism has its occasional vagaries (what school has not?), but
+it has good healthful qualities in spite of them; not least among the
+number a hearty disgust of Cant, and an aptitude to detect her in all the
+million varieties of her everlasting wardrobe.  And therefore if I were a
+Bostonian, I think I would be a Transcendentalist.
+
+The only preacher I heard in Boston was Mr. Taylor, who addresses himself
+peculiarly to seamen, and who was once a mariner himself.  I found his
+chapel down among the shipping, in one of the narrow, old, water-side
+streets, with a gay blue flag waving freely from its roof.  In the
+gallery opposite to the pulpit were a little choir of male and female
+singers, a violoncello, and a violin.  The preacher already sat in the
+pulpit, which was raised on pillars, and ornamented behind him with
+painted drapery of a lively and somewhat theatrical appearance.  He
+looked a weather-beaten hard-featured man, of about six or eight and
+fifty; with deep lines graven as it were into his face, dark hair, and a
+stern, keen eye.  Yet the general character of his countenance was
+pleasant and agreeable.  The service commenced with a hymn, to which
+succeeded an extemporary prayer.  It had the fault of frequent
+repetition, incidental to all such prayers; but it was plain and
+comprehensive in its doctrines, and breathed a tone of general sympathy
+and charity, which is not so commonly a characteristic of this form of
+address to the Deity as it might be.  That done he opened his discourse,
+taking for his text a passage from the Song of Solomon, laid upon the
+desk before the commencement of the service by some unknown member of the
+congregation: ‘Who is this coming up from the wilderness, leaning on the
+arm of her beloved!’
+
+He handled his text in all kinds of ways, and twisted it into all manner
+of shapes; but always ingeniously, and with a rude eloquence, well
+adapted to the comprehension of his hearers.  Indeed if I be not
+mistaken, he studied their sympathies and understandings much more than
+the display of his own powers.  His imagery was all drawn from the sea,
+and from the incidents of a seaman’s life; and was often remarkably good.
+He spoke to them of ‘that glorious man, Lord Nelson,’ and of Collingwood;
+and drew nothing in, as the saying is, by the head and shoulders, but
+brought it to bear upon his purpose, naturally, and with a sharp mind to
+its effect.  Sometimes, when much excited with his subject, he had an odd
+way—compounded of John Bunyan, and Balfour of Burley—of taking his great
+quarto Bible under his arm and pacing up and down the pulpit with it;
+looking steadily down, meantime, into the midst of the congregation.
+Thus, when he applied his text to the first assemblage of his hearers,
+and pictured the wonder of the church at their presumption in forming a
+congregation among themselves, he stopped short with his Bible under his
+arm in the manner I have described, and pursued his discourse after this
+manner:
+
+‘Who are these—who are they—who are these fellows? where do they come
+from?  Where are they going to?—Come from!  What’s the answer?’—leaning
+out of the pulpit, and pointing downward with his right hand: ‘From
+below!’—starting back again, and looking at the sailors before him: ‘From
+below, my brethren.  From under the hatches of sin, battened down above
+you by the evil one.  That’s where you came from!’—a walk up and down the
+pulpit: ‘and where are you going’—stopping abruptly: ‘where are you
+going? Aloft!’—very softly, and pointing upward: ‘Aloft!’—louder:
+‘aloft!’—louder still: ‘That’s where you are going—with a fair wind,—all
+taut and trim, steering direct for Heaven in its glory, where there are
+no storms or foul weather, and where the wicked cease from troubling, and
+the weary are at rest.’—Another walk: ‘That’s where you’re going to, my
+friends.  That’s it.  That’s the place.  That’s the port.  That’s the
+haven.  It’s a blessed harbour—still water there, in all changes of the
+winds and tides; no driving ashore upon the rocks, or slipping your
+cables and running out to sea, there: Peace—Peace—Peace—all
+peace!’—Another walk, and patting the Bible under his left arm: ‘What!
+These fellows are coming from the wilderness, are they?  Yes.  From the
+dreary, blighted wilderness of Iniquity, whose only crop is Death.  But
+do they lean upon anything—do they lean upon nothing, these poor
+seamen?’—Three raps upon the Bible: ‘Oh yes.—Yes.—They lean upon the arm
+of their Beloved’—three more raps: ‘upon the arm of their Beloved’—three
+more, and a walk: ‘Pilot, guiding-star, and compass, all in one, to all
+hands—here it is’—three more: ‘Here it is.  They can do their seaman’s
+duty manfully, and be easy in their minds in the utmost peril and danger,
+with this’—two more: ‘They can come, even these poor fellows can come,
+from the wilderness leaning on the arm of their Beloved, and go
+up—up—up!’—raising his hand higher, and higher, at every repetition of
+the word, so that he stood with it at last stretched above his head,
+regarding them in a strange, rapt manner, and pressing the book
+triumphantly to his breast, until he gradually subsided into some other
+portion of his discourse.
+
+I have cited this, rather as an instance of the preacher’s eccentricities
+than his merits, though taken in connection with his look and manner, and
+the character of his audience, even this was striking.  It is possible,
+however, that my favourable impression of him may have been greatly
+influenced and strengthened, firstly, by his impressing upon his hearers
+that the true observance of religion was not inconsistent with a cheerful
+deportment and an exact discharge of the duties of their station, which,
+indeed, it scrupulously required of them; and secondly, by his cautioning
+them not to set up any monopoly in Paradise and its mercies.  I never
+heard these two points so wisely touched (if indeed I have ever heard
+them touched at all), by any preacher of that kind before.
+
+Having passed the time I spent in Boston, in making myself acquainted
+with these things, in settling the course I should take in my future
+travels, and in mixing constantly with its society, I am not aware that I
+have any occasion to prolong this chapter.  Such of its social customs as
+I have not mentioned, however, may be told in a very few words.
+
+The usual dinner-hour is two o’clock.  A dinner party takes place at
+five; and at an evening party, they seldom sup later than eleven; so that
+it goes hard but one gets home, even from a rout, by midnight.  I never
+could find out any difference between a party at Boston and a party in
+London, saving that at the former place all assemblies are held at more
+rational hours; that the conversation may possibly be a little louder and
+more cheerful; and a guest is usually expected to ascend to the very top
+of the house to take his cloak off; that he is certain to see, at every
+dinner, an unusual amount of poultry on the table; and at every supper,
+at least two mighty bowls of hot stewed oysters, in any one of which a
+half-grown Duke of Clarence might be smothered easily.
+
+There are two theatres in Boston, of good size and construction, but
+sadly in want of patronage.  The few ladies who resort to them, sit, as
+of right, in the front rows of the boxes.
+
+The bar is a large room with a stone floor, and there people stand and
+smoke, and lounge about, all the evening: dropping in and out as the
+humour takes them.  There too the stranger is initiated into the
+mysteries of Gin-sling, Cock-tail, Sangaree, Mint Julep, Sherry-cobbler,
+Timber Doodle, and other rare drinks.  The house is full of boarders,
+both married and single, many of whom sleep upon the premises, and
+contract by the week for their board and lodging: the charge for which
+diminishes as they go nearer the sky to roost.  A public table is laid in
+a very handsome hall for breakfast, and for dinner, and for supper.  The
+party sitting down together to these meals will vary in number from one
+to two hundred: sometimes more.  The advent of each of these epochs in
+the day is proclaimed by an awful gong, which shakes the very
+window-frames as it reverberates through the house, and horribly disturbs
+nervous foreigners.  There is an ordinary for ladies, and an ordinary for
+gentlemen.
+
+In our private room the cloth could not, for any earthly consideration,
+have been laid for dinner without a huge glass dish of cranberries in the
+middle of the table; and breakfast would have been no breakfast unless
+the principal dish were a deformed beef-steak with a great flat bone in
+the centre, swimming in hot butter, and sprinkled with the very blackest
+of all possible pepper.  Our bedroom was spacious and airy, but (like
+every bedroom on this side of the Atlantic) very bare of furniture,
+having no curtains to the French bedstead or to the window.  It had one
+unusual luxury, however, in the shape of a wardrobe of painted wood,
+something smaller than an English watch-box; or if this comparison should
+be insufficient to convey a just idea of its dimensions, they may be
+estimated from the fact of my having lived for fourteen days and nights
+in the firm belief that it was a shower-bath.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+AN AMERICAN RAILROAD.  LOWELL AND ITS FACTORY SYSTEM
+
+
+BEFORE leaving Boston, I devoted one day to an excursion to Lowell.  I
+assign a separate chapter to this visit; not because I am about to
+describe it at any great length, but because I remember it as a thing by
+itself, and am desirous that my readers should do the same.
+
+I made acquaintance with an American railroad, on this occasion, for the
+first time.  As these works are pretty much alike all through the States,
+their general characteristics are easily described.
+
+There are no first and second class carriages as with us; but there is a
+gentleman’s car and a ladies’ car: the main distinction between which is
+that in the first, everybody smokes; and in the second, nobody does.  As
+a black man never travels with a white one, there is also a negro car;
+which is a great, blundering, clumsy chest, such as Gulliver put to sea
+in, from the kingdom of Brobdingnag.  There is a great deal of jolting, a
+great deal of noise, a great deal of wall, not much window, a locomotive
+engine, a shriek, and a bell.
+
+The cars are like shabby omnibuses, but larger: holding thirty, forty,
+fifty, people.  The seats, instead of stretching from end to end, are
+placed crosswise.  Each seat holds two persons.  There is a long row of
+them on each side of the caravan, a narrow passage up the middle, and a
+door at both ends.  In the centre of the carriage there is usually a
+stove, fed with charcoal or anthracite coal; which is for the most part
+red-hot.  It is insufferably close; and you see the hot air fluttering
+between yourself and any other object you may happen to look at, like the
+ghost of smoke.
+
+In the ladies’ car, there are a great many gentlemen who have ladies with
+them.  There are also a great many ladies who have nobody with them: for
+any lady may travel alone, from one end of the United States to the
+other, and be certain of the most courteous and considerate treatment
+everywhere.  The conductor or check-taker, or guard, or whatever he may
+be, wears no uniform.  He walks up and down the car, and in and out of
+it, as his fancy dictates; leans against the door with his hands in his
+pockets and stares at you, if you chance to be a stranger; or enters into
+conversation with the passengers about him.  A great many newspapers are
+pulled out, and a few of them are read.  Everybody talks to you, or to
+anybody else who hits his fancy.  If you are an Englishman, he expects
+that that railroad is pretty much like an English railroad.  If you say
+‘No,’ he says ‘Yes?’ (interrogatively), and asks in what respect they
+differ.  You enumerate the heads of difference, one by one, and he says
+‘Yes?’ (still interrogatively) to each.  Then he guesses that you don’t
+travel faster in England; and on your replying that you do, says ‘Yes?’
+again (still interrogatively), and it is quite evident, don’t believe it.
+After a long pause he remarks, partly to you, and partly to the knob on
+the top of his stick, that ‘Yankees are reckoned to be considerable of a
+go-ahead people too;’ upon which _you_ say ‘Yes,’ and then _he_ says
+‘Yes’ again (affirmatively this time); and upon your looking out of
+window, tells you that behind that hill, and some three miles from the
+next station, there is a clever town in a smart lo-ca-tion, where he
+expects you have concluded to stop.  Your answer in the negative
+naturally leads to more questions in reference to your intended route
+(always pronounced rout); and wherever you are going, you invariably
+learn that you can’t get there without immense difficulty and danger, and
+that all the great sights are somewhere else.
+
+If a lady take a fancy to any male passenger’s seat, the gentleman who
+accompanies her gives him notice of the fact, and he immediately vacates
+it with great politeness.  Politics are much discussed, so are banks, so
+is cotton.  Quiet people avoid the question of the Presidency, for there
+will be a new election in three years and a half, and party feeling runs
+very high: the great constitutional feature of this institution being,
+that directly the acrimony of the last election is over, the acrimony of
+the next one begins; which is an unspeakable comfort to all strong
+politicians and true lovers of their country: that is to say, to
+ninety-nine men and boys out of every ninety-nine and a quarter.
+
+Except when a branch road joins the main one, there is seldom more than
+one track of rails; so that the road is very narrow, and the view, where
+there is a deep cutting, by no means extensive.  When there is not, the
+character of the scenery is always the same.  Mile after mile of stunted
+trees: some hewn down by the axe, some blown down by the wind, some half
+fallen and resting on their neighbours, many mere logs half hidden in the
+swamp, others mouldered away to spongy chips.  The very soil of the earth
+is made up of minute fragments such as these; each pool of stagnant water
+has its crust of vegetable rottenness; on every side there are the
+boughs, and trunks, and stumps of trees, in every possible stage of
+decay, decomposition, and neglect.  Now you emerge for a few brief
+minutes on an open country, glittering with some bright lake or pool,
+broad as many an English river, but so small here that it scarcely has a
+name; now catch hasty glimpses of a distant town, with its clean white
+houses and their cool piazzas, its prim New England church and
+school-house; when whir-r-r-r! almost before you have seen them, comes
+the same dark screen: the stunted trees, the stumps, the logs, the
+stagnant water—all so like the last that you seem to have been
+transported back again by magic.
+
+The train calls at stations in the woods, where the wild impossibility of
+anybody having the smallest reason to get out, is only to be equalled by
+the apparently desperate hopelessness of there being anybody to get in.
+It rushes across the turnpike road, where there is no gate, no policeman,
+no signal: nothing but a rough wooden arch, on which is painted ‘WHEN THE
+BELL RINGS, LOOK OUT FOR THE LOCOMOTIVE.’  On it whirls headlong, dives
+through the woods again, emerges in the light, clatters over frail
+arches, rumbles upon the heavy ground, shoots beneath a wooden bridge
+which intercepts the light for a second like a wink, suddenly awakens all
+the slumbering echoes in the main street of a large town, and dashes on
+haphazard, pell-mell, neck-or-nothing, down the middle of the road.
+There—with mechanics working at their trades, and people leaning from
+their doors and windows, and boys flying kites and playing marbles, and
+men smoking, and women talking, and children crawling, and pigs
+burrowing, and unaccustomed horses plunging and rearing, close to the
+very rails—there—on, on, on—tears the mad dragon of an engine with its
+train of cars; scattering in all directions a shower of burning sparks
+from its wood fire; screeching, hissing, yelling, panting; until at last
+the thirsty monster stops beneath a covered way to drink, the people
+cluster round, and you have time to breathe again.
+
+I was met at the station at Lowell by a gentleman intimately connected
+with the management of the factories there; and gladly putting myself
+under his guidance, drove off at once to that quarter of the town in
+which the works, the object of my visit, were situated.  Although only
+just of age—for if my recollection serve me, it has been a manufacturing
+town barely one-and-twenty years—Lowell is a large, populous, thriving
+place.  Those indications of its youth which first attract the eye, give
+it a quaintness and oddity of character which, to a visitor from the old
+country, is amusing enough.  It was a very dirty winter’s day, and
+nothing in the whole town looked old to me, except the mud, which in some
+parts was almost knee-deep, and might have been deposited there, on the
+subsiding of the waters after the Deluge.  In one place, there was a new
+wooden church, which, having no steeple, and being yet unpainted, looked
+like an enormous packing-case without any direction upon it.  In another
+there was a large hotel, whose walls and colonnades were so crisp, and
+thin, and slight, that it had exactly the appearance of being built with
+cards.  I was careful not to draw my breath as we passed, and trembled
+when I saw a workman come out upon the roof, lest with one thoughtless
+stamp of his foot he should crush the structure beneath him, and bring it
+rattling down.  The very river that moves the machinery in the mills (for
+they are all worked by water power), seems to acquire a new character
+from the fresh buildings of bright red brick and painted wood among which
+it takes its course; and to be as light-headed, thoughtless, and brisk a
+young river, in its murmurings and tumblings, as one would desire to see.
+One would swear that every ‘Bakery,’ ‘Grocery,’ and ‘Bookbindery,’ and
+other kind of store, took its shutters down for the first time, and
+started in business yesterday.  The golden pestles and mortars fixed as
+signs upon the sun-blind frames outside the Druggists’, appear to have
+been just turned out of the United States’ Mint; and when I saw a baby of
+some week or ten days old in a woman’s arms at a street corner, I found
+myself unconsciously wondering where it came from: never supposing for an
+instant that it could have been born in such a young town as that.
+
+There are several factories in Lowell, each of which belongs to what we
+should term a Company of Proprietors, but what they call in America a
+Corporation.  I went over several of these; such as a woollen factory, a
+carpet factory, and a cotton factory: examined them in every part; and
+saw them in their ordinary working aspect, with no preparation of any
+kind, or departure from their ordinary everyday proceedings.  I may add
+that I am well acquainted with our manufacturing towns in England, and
+have visited many mills in Manchester and elsewhere in the same manner.
+
+I happened to arrive at the first factory just as the dinner hour was
+over, and the girls were returning to their work; indeed the stairs of
+the mill were thronged with them as I ascended.  They were all well
+dressed, but not to my thinking above their condition; for I like to see
+the humbler classes of society careful of their dress and appearance, and
+even, if they please, decorated with such little trinkets as come within
+the compass of their means.  Supposing it confined within reasonable
+limits, I would always encourage this kind of pride, as a worthy element
+of self-respect, in any person I employed; and should no more be deterred
+from doing so, because some wretched female referred her fall to a love
+of dress, than I would allow my construction of the real intent and
+meaning of the Sabbath to be influenced by any warning to the
+well-disposed, founded on his backslidings on that particular day, which
+might emanate from the rather doubtful authority of a murderer in
+Newgate.
+
+These girls, as I have said, were all well dressed: and that phrase
+necessarily includes extreme cleanliness.  They had serviceable bonnets,
+good warm cloaks, and shawls; and were not above clogs and pattens.
+Moreover, there were places in the mill in which they could deposit these
+things without injury; and there were conveniences for washing.  They
+were healthy in appearance, many of them remarkably so, and had the
+manners and deportment of young women: not of degraded brutes of burden.
+If I had seen in one of those mills (but I did not, though I looked for
+something of this kind with a sharp eye), the most lisping, mincing,
+affected, and ridiculous young creature that my imagination could
+suggest, I should have thought of the careless, moping, slatternly,
+degraded, dull reverse (I _have_ seen that), and should have been still
+well pleased to look upon her.
+
+The rooms in which they worked, were as well ordered as themselves.  In
+the windows of some, there were green plants, which were trained to shade
+the glass; in all, there was as much fresh air, cleanliness, and comfort,
+as the nature of the occupation would possibly admit of.  Out of so large
+a number of females, many of whom were only then just verging upon
+womanhood, it may be reasonably supposed that some were delicate and
+fragile in appearance: no doubt there were.  But I solemnly declare, that
+from all the crowd I saw in the different factories that day, I cannot
+recall or separate one young face that gave me a painful impression; not
+one young girl whom, assuming it to be a matter of necessity that she
+should gain her daily bread by the labour of her hands, I would have
+removed from those works if I had had the power.
+
+They reside in various boarding-houses near at hand.  The owners of the
+mills are particularly careful to allow no persons to enter upon the
+possession of these houses, whose characters have not undergone the most
+searching and thorough inquiry.  Any complaint that is made against them,
+by the boarders, or by any one else, is fully investigated; and if good
+ground of complaint be shown to exist against them, they are removed, and
+their occupation is handed over to some more deserving person.  There are
+a few children employed in these factories, but not many.  The laws of
+the State forbid their working more than nine months in the year, and
+require that they be educated during the other three.  For this purpose
+there are schools in Lowell; and there are churches and chapels of
+various persuasions, in which the young women may observe that form of
+worship in which they have been educated.
+
+At some distance from the factories, and on the highest and pleasantest
+ground in the neighbourhood, stands their hospital, or boarding-house for
+the sick: it is the best house in those parts, and was built by an
+eminent merchant for his own residence.  Like that institution at Boston,
+which I have before described, it is not parcelled out into wards, but is
+divided into convenient chambers, each of which has all the comforts of a
+very comfortable home.  The principal medical attendant resides under the
+same roof; and were the patients members of his own family, they could
+not be better cared for, or attended with greater gentleness and
+consideration.  The weekly charge in this establishment for each female
+patient is three dollars, or twelve shillings English; but no girl
+employed by any of the corporations is ever excluded for want of the
+means of payment.  That they do not very often want the means, may be
+gathered from the fact, that in July, 1841, no fewer than nine hundred
+and seventy-eight of these girls were depositors in the Lowell Savings
+Bank: the amount of whose joint savings was estimated at one hundred
+thousand dollars, or twenty thousand English pounds.
+
+I am now going to state three facts, which will startle a large class of
+readers on this side of the Atlantic, very much.
+
+Firstly, there is a joint-stock piano in a great many of the
+boarding-houses.  Secondly, nearly all these young ladies subscribe to
+circulating libraries.  Thirdly, they have got up among themselves a
+periodical called THE LOWELL OFFERING, ‘A repository of original
+articles, written exclusively by females actively employed in the
+mills,’—which is duly printed, published, and sold; and whereof I brought
+away from Lowell four hundred good solid pages, which I have read from
+beginning to end.
+
+The large class of readers, startled by these facts, will exclaim, with
+one voice, ‘How very preposterous!’  On my deferentially inquiring why,
+they will answer, ‘These things are above their station.’  In reply to
+that objection, I would beg to ask what their station is.
+
+It is their station to work.  And they _do_ work.  They labour in these
+mills, upon an average, twelve hours a day, which is unquestionably work,
+and pretty tight work too.  Perhaps it is above their station to indulge
+in such amusements, on any terms.  Are we quite sure that we in England
+have not formed our ideas of the ‘station’ of working people, from
+accustoming ourselves to the contemplation of that class as they are, and
+not as they might be? I think that if we examine our own feelings, we
+shall find that the pianos, and the circulating libraries, and even the
+Lowell Offering, startle us by their novelty, and not by their bearing
+upon any abstract question of right or wrong.
+
+For myself, I know no station in which, the occupation of to-day
+cheerfully done and the occupation of to-morrow cheerfully looked to, any
+one of these pursuits is not most humanising and laudable.  I know no
+station which is rendered more endurable to the person in it, or more
+safe to the person out of it, by having ignorance for its associate.  I
+know no station which has a right to monopolise the means of mutual
+instruction, improvement, and rational entertainment; or which has ever
+continued to be a station very long, after seeking to do so.
+
+Of the merits of the Lowell Offering as a literary production, I will
+only observe, putting entirely out of sight the fact of the articles
+having been written by these girls after the arduous labours of the day,
+that it will compare advantageously with a great many English Annuals.
+It is pleasant to find that many of its Tales are of the Mills and of
+those who work in them; that they inculcate habits of self-denial and
+contentment, and teach good doctrines of enlarged benevolence.  A strong
+feeling for the beauties of nature, as displayed in the solitudes the
+writers have left at home, breathes through its pages like wholesome
+village air; and though a circulating library is a favourable school for
+the study of such topics, it has very scant allusion to fine clothes,
+fine marriages, fine houses, or fine life.  Some persons might object to
+the papers being signed occasionally with rather fine names, but this is
+an American fashion.  One of the provinces of the state legislature of
+Massachusetts is to alter ugly names into pretty ones, as the children
+improve upon the tastes of their parents.  These changes costing little
+or nothing, scores of Mary Annes are solemnly converted into Bevelinas
+every session.
+
+It is said that on the occasion of a visit from General Jackson or
+General Harrison to this town (I forget which, but it is not to the
+purpose), he walked through three miles and a half of these young ladies
+all dressed out with parasols and silk stockings.  But as I am not aware
+that any worse consequence ensued, than a sudden looking-up of all the
+parasols and silk stockings in the market; and perhaps the bankruptcy of
+some speculative New Englander who bought them all up at any price, in
+expectation of a demand that never came; I set no great store by the
+circumstance.
+
+In this brief account of Lowell, and inadequate expression of the
+gratification it yielded me, and cannot fail to afford to any foreigner
+to whom the condition of such people at home is a subject of interest and
+anxious speculation, I have carefully abstained from drawing a comparison
+between these factories and those of our own land.  Many of the
+circumstances whose strong influence has been at work for years in our
+manufacturing towns have not arisen here; and there is no manufacturing
+population in Lowell, so to speak: for these girls (often the daughters
+of small farmers) come from other States, remain a few years in the
+mills, and then go home for good.
+
+The contrast would be a strong one, for it would be between the Good and
+Evil, the living light and deepest shadow.  I abstain from it, because I
+deem it just to do so.  But I only the more earnestly adjure all those
+whose eyes may rest on these pages, to pause and reflect upon the
+difference between this town and those great haunts of desperate misery:
+to call to mind, if they can in the midst of party strife and squabble,
+the efforts that must be made to purge them of their suffering and
+danger: and last, and foremost, to remember how the precious Time is
+rushing by.
+
+I returned at night by the same railroad and in the same kind of car.
+One of the passengers being exceedingly anxious to expound at great
+length to my companion (not to me, of course) the true principles on
+which books of travel in America should be written by Englishmen, I
+feigned to fall asleep.  But glancing all the way out at window from the
+corners of my eyes, I found abundance of entertainment for the rest of
+the ride in watching the effects of the wood fire, which had been
+invisible in the morning but were now brought out in full relief by the
+darkness: for we were travelling in a whirlwind of bright sparks, which
+showered about us like a storm of fiery snow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+WORCESTER.  THE CONNECTICUT RIVER.  HARTFORD.  NEW HAVEN.  TO NEW YORK
+
+
+LEAVING Boston on the afternoon of Saturday the fifth of February, we
+proceeded by another railroad to Worcester: a pretty New England town,
+where we had arranged to remain under the hospitable roof of the Governor
+of the State, until Monday morning.
+
+These towns and cities of New England (many of which would be villages in
+Old England), are as favourable specimens of rural America, as their
+people are of rural Americans.  The well-trimmed lawns and green meadows
+of home are not there; and the grass, compared with our ornamental plots
+and pastures, is rank, and rough, and wild: but delicate slopes of land,
+gently-swelling hills, wooded valleys, and slender streams, abound.
+Every little colony of houses has its church and school-house peeping
+from among the white roofs and shady trees; every house is the whitest of
+the white; every Venetian blind the greenest of the green; every fine
+day’s sky the bluest of the blue.  A sharp dry wind and a slight frost
+had so hardened the roads when we alighted at Worcester, that their
+furrowed tracks were like ridges of granite.  There was the usual aspect
+of newness on every object, of course.  All the buildings looked as if
+they had been built and painted that morning, and could be taken down on
+Monday with very little trouble.  In the keen evening air, every sharp
+outline looked a hundred times sharper than ever.  The clean cardboard
+colonnades had no more perspective than a Chinese bridge on a tea-cup,
+and appeared equally well calculated for use.  The razor-like edges of
+the detached cottages seemed to cut the very wind as it whistled against
+them, and to send it smarting on its way with a shriller cry than before.
+Those slightly-built wooden dwellings behind which the sun was setting
+with a brilliant lustre, could be so looked through and through, that the
+idea of any inhabitant being able to hide himself from the public gaze,
+or to have any secrets from the public eye, was not entertainable for a
+moment.  Even where a blazing fire shone through the uncurtained windows
+of some distant house, it had the air of being newly lighted, and of
+lacking warmth; and instead of awakening thoughts of a snug chamber,
+bright with faces that first saw the light round that same hearth, and
+ruddy with warm hangings, it came upon one suggestive of the smell of new
+mortar and damp walls.
+
+So I thought, at least, that evening.  Next morning when the sun was
+shining brightly, and the clear church bells were ringing, and sedate
+people in their best clothes enlivened the pathway near at hand and
+dotted the distant thread of road, there was a pleasant Sabbath
+peacefulness on everything, which it was good to feel.  It would have
+been the better for an old church; better still for some old graves; but
+as it was, a wholesome repose and tranquillity pervaded the scene, which
+after the restless ocean and the hurried city, had a doubly grateful
+influence on the spirits.
+
+We went on next morning, still by railroad, to Springfield.  From that
+place to Hartford, whither we were bound, is a distance of only
+five-and-twenty miles, but at that time of the year the roads were so bad
+that the journey would probably have occupied ten or twelve hours.
+Fortunately, however, the winter having been unusually mild, the
+Connecticut River was ‘open,’ or, in other words, not frozen.  The
+captain of a small steamboat was going to make his first trip for the
+season that day (the second February trip, I believe, within the memory
+of man), and only waited for us to go on board.  Accordingly, we went on
+board, with as little delay as might be.  He was as good as his word, and
+started directly.
+
+It certainly was not called a small steamboat without reason.  I omitted
+to ask the question, but I should think it must have been of about half a
+pony power.  Mr. Paap, the celebrated Dwarf, might have lived and died
+happily in the cabin, which was fitted with common sash-windows like an
+ordinary dwelling-house.  These windows had bright-red curtains, too,
+hung on slack strings across the lower panes; so that it looked like the
+parlour of a Lilliputian public-house, which had got afloat in a flood or
+some other water accident, and was drifting nobody knew where.  But even
+in this chamber there was a rocking-chair.  It would be impossible to get
+on anywhere, in America, without a rocking-chair.  I am afraid to tell
+how many feet short this vessel was, or how many feet narrow: to apply
+the words length and width to such measurement would be a contradiction
+in terms.  But I may state that we all kept the middle of the deck, lest
+the boat should unexpectedly tip over; and that the machinery, by some
+surprising process of condensation, worked between it and the keel: the
+whole forming a warm sandwich, about three feet thick.
+
+It rained all day as I once thought it never did rain anywhere, but in
+the Highlands of Scotland.  The river was full of floating blocks of ice,
+which were constantly crunching and cracking under us; and the depth of
+water, in the course we took to avoid the larger masses, carried down the
+middle of the river by the current, did not exceed a few inches.
+Nevertheless, we moved onward, dexterously; and being well wrapped up,
+bade defiance to the weather, and enjoyed the journey.  The Connecticut
+River is a fine stream; and the banks in summer-time are, I have no
+doubt, beautiful; at all events, I was told so by a young lady in the
+cabin; and she should be a judge of beauty, if the possession of a
+quality include the appreciation of it, for a more beautiful creature I
+never looked upon.
+
+After two hours and a half of this odd travelling (including a stoppage
+at a small town, where we were saluted by a gun considerably bigger than
+our own chimney), we reached Hartford, and straightway repaired to an
+extremely comfortable hotel: except, as usual, in the article of
+bedrooms, which, in almost every place we visited, were very conducive to
+early rising.
+
+We tarried here, four days.  The town is beautifully situated in a basin
+of green hills; the soil is rich, well-wooded, and carefully improved.
+It is the seat of the local legislature of Connecticut, which sage body
+enacted, in bygone times, the renowned code of ‘Blue Laws,’ in virtue
+whereof, among other enlightened provisions, any citizen who could be
+proved to have kissed his wife on Sunday, was punishable, I believe, with
+the stocks.  Too much of the old Puritan spirit exists in these parts to
+the present hour; but its influence has not tended, that I know, to make
+the people less hard in their bargains, or more equal in their dealings.
+As I never heard of its working that effect anywhere else, I infer that
+it never will, here.  Indeed, I am accustomed, with reference to great
+professions and severe faces, to judge of the goods of the other world
+pretty much as I judge of the goods of this; and whenever I see a dealer
+in such commodities with too great a display of them in his window, I
+doubt the quality of the article within.
+
+In Hartford stands the famous oak in which the charter of King Charles
+was hidden.  It is now inclosed in a gentleman’s garden.  In the State
+House is the charter itself.  I found the courts of law here, just the
+same as at Boston; the public institutions almost as good.  The Insane
+Asylum is admirably conducted, and so is the Institution for the Deaf and
+Dumb.
+
+I very much questioned within myself, as I walked through the Insane
+Asylum, whether I should have known the attendants from the patients, but
+for the few words which passed between the former, and the Doctor, in
+reference to the persons under their charge.  Of course I limit this
+remark merely to their looks; for the conversation of the mad people was
+mad enough.
+
+There was one little, prim old lady, of very smiling and good-humoured
+appearance, who came sidling up to me from the end of a long passage, and
+with a curtsey of inexpressible condescension, propounded this
+unaccountable inquiry:
+
+‘Does Pontefract still flourish, sir, upon the soil of England?’
+
+‘He does, ma’am,’ I rejoined.
+
+‘When you last saw him, sir, he was—’
+
+‘Well, ma’am,’ said I, ‘extremely well.  He begged me to present his
+compliments.  I never saw him looking better.’
+
+At this, the old lady was very much delighted.  After glancing at me for
+a moment, as if to be quite sure that I was serious in my respectful air,
+she sidled back some paces; sidled forward again; made a sudden skip (at
+which I precipitately retreated a step or two); and said:
+
+‘_I_ am an antediluvian, sir.’
+
+I thought the best thing to say was, that I had suspected as much from
+the first.  Therefore I said so.
+
+‘It is an extremely proud and pleasant thing, sir, to be an
+antediluvian,’ said the old lady.
+
+‘I should think it was, ma’am,’ I rejoined.
+
+The old lady kissed her hand, gave another skip, smirked and sidled down
+the gallery in a most extraordinary manner, and ambled gracefully into
+her own bed-chamber.
+
+In another part of the building, there was a male patient in bed; very
+much flushed and heated.
+
+‘Well,’ said he, starting up, and pulling off his night-cap: ‘It’s all
+settled at last.  I have arranged it with Queen Victoria.’
+
+‘Arranged what?’ asked the Doctor.
+
+‘Why, that business,’ passing his hand wearily across his forehead,
+‘about the siege of New York.’
+
+‘Oh!’ said I, like a man suddenly enlightened.  For he looked at me for
+an answer.
+
+‘Yes.  Every house without a signal will be fired upon by the British
+troops.  No harm will be done to the others.  No harm at all.  Those that
+want to be safe, must hoist flags.  That’s all they’ll have to do.  They
+must hoist flags.’
+
+Even while he was speaking he seemed, I thought, to have some faint idea
+that his talk was incoherent.  Directly he had said these words, he lay
+down again; gave a kind of a groan; and covered his hot head with the
+blankets.
+
+There was another: a young man, whose madness was love and music.  After
+playing on the accordion a march he had composed, he was very anxious
+that I should walk into his chamber, which I immediately did.
+
+By way of being very knowing, and humouring him to the top of his bent, I
+went to the window, which commanded a beautiful prospect, and remarked,
+with an address upon which I greatly plumed myself:
+
+‘What a delicious country you have about these lodgings of yours!’
+
+‘Poh!’ said he, moving his fingers carelessly over the notes of his
+instrument: ‘_Well enough for such an Institution as this_!’
+
+I don’t think I was ever so taken aback in all my life.
+
+‘I come here just for a whim,’ he said coolly.  ‘That’s all.’
+
+‘Oh!  That’s all!’ said I.
+
+‘Yes.  That’s all.  The Doctor’s a smart man.  He quite enters into it.
+It’s a joke of mine.  I like it for a time.  You needn’t mention it, but
+I think I shall go out next Tuesday!’
+
+I assured him that I would consider our interview perfectly confidential;
+and rejoined the Doctor.  As we were passing through a gallery on our way
+out, a well-dressed lady, of quiet and composed manners, came up, and
+proffering a slip of paper and a pen, begged that I would oblige her with
+an autograph, I complied, and we parted.
+
+‘I think I remember having had a few interviews like that, with ladies
+out of doors.  I hope _she_ is not mad?’
+
+‘Yes.’
+
+‘On what subject?  Autographs?’
+
+‘No.  She hears voices in the air.’
+
+‘Well!’ thought I, ‘it would be well if we could shut up a few false
+prophets of these later times, who have professed to do the same; and I
+should like to try the experiment on a Mormonist or two to begin with.’
+
+In this place, there is the best jail for untried offenders in the world.
+There is also a very well-ordered State prison, arranged upon the same
+plan as that at Boston, except that here, there is always a sentry on the
+wall with a loaded gun.  It contained at that time about two hundred
+prisoners.  A spot was shown me in the sleeping ward, where a watchman
+was murdered some years since in the dead of night, in a desperate
+attempt to escape, made by a prisoner who had broken from his cell.  A
+woman, too, was pointed out to me, who, for the murder of her husband,
+had been a close prisoner for sixteen years.
+
+‘Do you think,’ I asked of my conductor, ‘that after so very long an
+imprisonment, she has any thought or hope of ever regaining her liberty?’
+
+‘Oh dear yes,’ he answered.  ‘To be sure she has.’
+
+‘She has no chance of obtaining it, I suppose?’
+
+‘Well, I don’t know:’ which, by-the-bye, is a national answer. ‘Her
+friends mistrust her.’
+
+‘What have _they_ to do with it?’ I naturally inquired.
+
+‘Well, they won’t petition.’
+
+‘But if they did, they couldn’t get her out, I suppose?’
+
+‘Well, not the first time, perhaps, nor yet the second, but tiring and
+wearying for a few years might do it.’
+
+‘Does that ever do it?’
+
+‘Why yes, that’ll do it sometimes.  Political friends’ll do it sometimes.
+It’s pretty often done, one way or another.’
+
+I shall always entertain a very pleasant and grateful recollection of
+Hartford.  It is a lovely place, and I had many friends there, whom I can
+never remember with indifference.  We left it with no little regret on
+the evening of Friday the 11th, and travelled that night by railroad to
+New Haven.  Upon the way, the guard and I were formally introduced to
+each other (as we usually were on such occasions), and exchanged a
+variety of small-talk.  We reached New Haven at about eight o’clock,
+after a journey of three hours, and put up for the night at the best inn.
+
+New Haven, known also as the City of Elms, is a fine town.  Many of its
+streets (as its _alias_ sufficiently imports) are planted with rows of
+grand old elm-trees; and the same natural ornaments surround Yale
+College, an establishment of considerable eminence and reputation.  The
+various departments of this Institution are erected in a kind of park or
+common in the middle of the town, where they are dimly visible among the
+shadowing trees.  The effect is very like that of an old cathedral yard
+in England; and when their branches are in full leaf, must be extremely
+picturesque.  Even in the winter time, these groups of well-grown trees,
+clustering among the busy streets and houses of a thriving city, have a
+very quaint appearance: seeming to bring about a kind of compromise
+between town and country; as if each had met the other half-way, and
+shaken hands upon it; which is at once novel and pleasant.
+
+After a night’s rest, we rose early, and in good time went down to the
+wharf, and on board the packet New York _for_ New York.  This was the
+first American steamboat of any size that I had seen; and certainly to an
+English eye it was infinitely less like a steamboat than a huge floating
+bath.  I could hardly persuade myself, indeed, but that the bathing
+establishment off Westminster Bridge, which I left a baby, had suddenly
+grown to an enormous size; run away from home; and set up in foreign
+parts as a steamer.  Being in America, too, which our vagabonds do so
+particularly favour, it seemed the more probable.
+
+The great difference in appearance between these packets and ours, is,
+that there is so much of them out of the water: the main-deck being
+enclosed on all sides, and filled with casks and goods, like any second
+or third floor in a stack of warehouses; and the promenade or
+hurricane-deck being a-top of that again.  A part of the machinery is
+always above this deck; where the connecting-rod, in a strong and lofty
+frame, is seen working away like an iron top-sawyer.  There is seldom any
+mast or tackle: nothing aloft but two tall black chimneys.  The man at
+the helm is shut up in a little house in the fore part of the boat (the
+wheel being connected with the rudder by iron chains, working the whole
+length of the deck); and the passengers, unless the weather be very fine
+indeed, usually congregate below.  Directly you have left the wharf, all
+the life, and stir, and bustle of a packet cease.  You wonder for a long
+time how she goes on, for there seems to be nobody in charge of her; and
+when another of these dull machines comes splashing by, you feel quite
+indignant with it, as a sullen cumbrous, ungraceful, unshiplike
+leviathan: quite forgetting that the vessel you are on board of, is its
+very counterpart.
+
+There is always a clerk’s office on the lower deck, where you pay your
+fare; a ladies’ cabin; baggage and stowage rooms; engineer’s room; and in
+short a great variety of perplexities which render the discovery of the
+gentlemen’s cabin, a matter of some difficulty.  It often occupies the
+whole length of the boat (as it did in this case), and has three or four
+tiers of berths on each side.  When I first descended into the cabin of
+the New York, it looked, in my unaccustomed eyes, about as long as the
+Burlington Arcade.
+
+The Sound which has to be crossed on this passage, is not always a very
+safe or pleasant navigation, and has been the scene of some unfortunate
+accidents.  It was a wet morning, and very misty, and we soon lost sight
+of land.  The day was calm, however, and brightened towards noon.  After
+exhausting (with good help from a friend) the larder, and the stock of
+bottled beer, I lay down to sleep; being very much tired with the
+fatigues of yesterday.  But I woke from my nap in time to hurry up, and
+see Hell Gate, the Hog’s Back, the Frying Pan, and other notorious
+localities, attractive to all readers of famous Diedrich Knickerbocker’s
+History.  We were now in a narrow channel, with sloping banks on either
+side, besprinkled with pleasant villas, and made refreshing to the sight
+by turf and trees.  Soon we shot in quick succession, past a light-house;
+a madhouse (how the lunatics flung up their caps and roared in sympathy
+with the headlong engine and the driving tide!); a jail; and other
+buildings: and so emerged into a noble bay, whose waters sparkled in the
+now cloudless sunshine like Nature’s eyes turned up to Heaven.
+
+Then there lay stretched out before us, to the right, confused heaps of
+buildings, with here and there a spire or steeple, looking down upon the
+herd below; and here and there, again, a cloud of lazy smoke; and in the
+foreground a forest of ships’ masts, cheery with flapping sails and
+waving flags.  Crossing from among them to the opposite shore, were steam
+ferry-boats laden with people, coaches, horses, waggons, baskets, boxes:
+crossed and recrossed by other ferry-boats: all travelling to and fro:
+and never idle.  Stately among these restless Insects, were two or three
+large ships, moving with slow majestic pace, as creatures of a prouder
+kind, disdainful of their puny journeys, and making for the broad sea.
+Beyond, were shining heights, and islands in the glancing river, and a
+distance scarcely less blue and bright than the sky it seemed to meet.
+The city’s hum and buzz, the clinking of capstans, the ringing of bells,
+the barking of dogs, the clattering of wheels, tingled in the listening
+ear.  All of which life and stir, coming across the stirring water,
+caught new life and animation from its free companionship; and,
+sympathising with its buoyant spirits, glistened as it seemed in sport
+upon its surface, and hemmed the vessel round, and plashed the water high
+about her sides, and, floating her gallantly into the dock, flew off
+again to welcome other comers, and speed before them to the busy port.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+NEW YORK
+
+
+THE beautiful metropolis of America is by no means so clean a city as
+Boston, but many of its streets have the same characteristics; except
+that the houses are not quite so fresh-coloured, the sign-boards are not
+quite so gaudy, the gilded letters not quite so golden, the bricks not
+quite so red, the stone not quite so white, the blinds and area railings
+not quite so green, the knobs and plates upon the street doors not quite
+so bright and twinkling.  There are many by-streets, almost as neutral in
+clean colours, and positive in dirty ones, as by-streets in London; and
+there is one quarter, commonly called the Five Points, which, in respect
+of filth and wretchedness, may be safely backed against Seven Dials, or
+any other part of famed St. Giles’s.
+
+The great promenade and thoroughfare, as most people know, is Broadway; a
+wide and bustling street, which, from the Battery Gardens to its opposite
+termination in a country road, may be four miles long.  Shall we sit down
+in an upper floor of the Carlton House Hotel (situated in the best part
+of this main artery of New York), and when we are tired of looking down
+upon the life below, sally forth arm-in-arm, and mingle with the stream?
+
+Warm weather!  The sun strikes upon our heads at this open window, as
+though its rays were concentrated through a burning-glass; but the day is
+in its zenith, and the season an unusual one.  Was there ever such a
+sunny street as this Broadway!  The pavement stones are polished with the
+tread of feet until they shine again; the red bricks of the houses might
+be yet in the dry, hot kilns; and the roofs of those omnibuses look as
+though, if water were poured on them, they would hiss and smoke, and
+smell like half-quenched fires.  No stint of omnibuses here!
+Half-a-dozen have gone by within as many minutes.  Plenty of hackney cabs
+and coaches too; gigs, phaetons, large-wheeled tilburies, and private
+carriages—rather of a clumsy make, and not very different from the public
+vehicles, but built for the heavy roads beyond the city pavement.  Negro
+coachmen and white; in straw hats, black hats, white hats, glazed caps,
+fur caps; in coats of drab, black, brown, green, blue, nankeen, striped
+jean and linen; and there, in that one instance (look while it passes, or
+it will be too late), in suits of livery.  Some southern republican that,
+who puts his blacks in uniform, and swells with Sultan pomp and power.
+Yonder, where that phaeton with the well-clipped pair of grays has
+stopped—standing at their heads now—is a Yorkshire groom, who has not
+been very long in these parts, and looks sorrowfully round for a
+companion pair of top-boots, which he may traverse the city half a year
+without meeting.  Heaven save the ladies, how they dress!  We have seen
+more colours in these ten minutes, than we should have seen elsewhere, in
+as many days.  What various parasols! what rainbow silks and satins! what
+pinking of thin stockings, and pinching of thin shoes, and fluttering of
+ribbons and silk tassels, and display of rich cloaks with gaudy hoods and
+linings!  The young gentlemen are fond, you see, of turning down their
+shirt-collars and cultivating their whiskers, especially under the chin;
+but they cannot approach the ladies in their dress or bearing, being, to
+say the truth, humanity of quite another sort.  Byrons of the desk and
+counter, pass on, and let us see what kind of men those are behind ye:
+those two labourers in holiday clothes, of whom one carries in his hand a
+crumpled scrap of paper from which he tries to spell out a hard name,
+while the other looks about for it on all the doors and windows.
+
+Irishmen both!  You might know them, if they were masked, by their
+long-tailed blue coats and bright buttons, and their drab trousers, which
+they wear like men well used to working dresses, who are easy in no
+others.  It would be hard to keep your model republics going, without the
+countrymen and countrywomen of those two labourers.  For who else would
+dig, and delve, and drudge, and do domestic work, and make canals and
+roads, and execute great lines of Internal Improvement!  Irishmen both,
+and sorely puzzled too, to find out what they seek.  Let us go down, and
+help them, for the love of home, and that spirit of liberty which admits
+of honest service to honest men, and honest work for honest bread, no
+matter what it be.
+
+That’s well!  We have got at the right address at last, though it is
+written in strange characters truly, and might have been scrawled with
+the blunt handle of the spade the writer better knows the use of, than a
+pen.  Their way lies yonder, but what business takes them there?  They
+carry savings: to hoard up?  No.  They are brothers, those men.  One
+crossed the sea alone, and working very hard for one half year, and
+living harder, saved funds enough to bring the other out.  That done,
+they worked together side by side, contentedly sharing hard labour and
+hard living for another term, and then their sisters came, and then
+another brother, and lastly, their old mother.  And what now?  Why, the
+poor old crone is restless in a strange land, and yearns to lay her
+bones, she says, among her people in the old graveyard at home: and so
+they go to pay her passage back: and God help her and them, and every
+simple heart, and all who turn to the Jerusalem of their younger days,
+and have an altar-fire upon the cold hearth of their fathers.
+
+This narrow thoroughfare, baking and blistering in the sun, is Wall
+Street: the Stock Exchange and Lombard Street of New York.  Many a rapid
+fortune has been made in this street, and many a no less rapid ruin.
+Some of these very merchants whom you see hanging about here now, have
+locked up money in their strong-boxes, like the man in the Arabian
+Nights, and opening them again, have found but withered leaves.  Below,
+here by the water-side, where the bowsprits of ships stretch across the
+footway, and almost thrust themselves into the windows, lie the noble
+American vessels which have made their Packet Service the finest in the
+world.  They have brought hither the foreigners who abound in all the
+streets: not, perhaps, that there are more here, than in other commercial
+cities; but elsewhere, they have particular haunts, and you must find
+them out; here, they pervade the town.
+
+We must cross Broadway again; gaining some refreshment from the heat, in
+the sight of the great blocks of clean ice which are being carried into
+shops and bar-rooms; and the pine-apples and water-melons profusely
+displayed for sale.  Fine streets of spacious houses here, you see!—Wall
+Street has furnished and dismantled many of them very often—and here a
+deep green leafy square.  Be sure that is a hospitable house with inmates
+to be affectionately remembered always, where they have the open door and
+pretty show of plants within, and where the child with laughing eyes is
+peeping out of window at the little dog below.  You wonder what may be
+the use of this tall flagstaff in the by-street, with something like
+Liberty’s head-dress on its top: so do I.  But there is a passion for
+tall flagstaffs hereabout, and you may see its twin brother in five
+minutes, if you have a mind.
+
+Again across Broadway, and so—passing from the many-coloured crowd and
+glittering shops—into another long main street, the Bowery.  A railroad
+yonder, see, where two stout horses trot along, drawing a score or two of
+people and a great wooden ark, with ease.  The stores are poorer here;
+the passengers less gay.  Clothes ready-made, and meat ready-cooked, are
+to be bought in these parts; and the lively whirl of carriages is
+exchanged for the deep rumble of carts and waggons.  These signs which
+are so plentiful, in shape like river buoys, or small balloons, hoisted
+by cords to poles, and dangling there, announce, as you may see by
+looking up, ‘OYSTERS IN EVERY STYLE.’  They tempt the hungry most at
+night, for then dull candles glimmering inside, illuminate these dainty
+words, and make the mouths of idlers water, as they read and linger.
+
+What is this dismal-fronted pile of bastard Egyptian, like an enchanter’s
+palace in a melodrama!—a famous prison, called The Tombs.  Shall we go
+in?
+
+So.  A long, narrow, lofty building, stove-heated as usual, with four
+galleries, one above the other, going round it, and communicating by
+stairs.  Between the two sides of each gallery, and in its centre, a
+bridge, for the greater convenience of crossing.  On each of these
+bridges sits a man: dozing or reading, or talking to an idle companion.
+On each tier, are two opposite rows of small iron doors.  They look like
+furnace-doors, but are cold and black, as though the fires within had all
+gone out.  Some two or three are open, and women, with drooping heads
+bent down, are talking to the inmates.  The whole is lighted by a
+skylight, but it is fast closed; and from the roof there dangle, limp and
+drooping, two useless windsails.
+
+A man with keys appears, to show us round.  A good-looking fellow, and,
+in his way, civil and obliging.
+
+‘Are those black doors the cells?’
+
+‘Yes.’
+
+‘Are they all full?’
+
+‘Well, they’re pretty nigh full, and that’s a fact, and no two ways about
+it.’
+
+‘Those at the bottom are unwholesome, surely?’
+
+‘Why, we _do_ only put coloured people in ’em.  That’s the truth.’
+
+‘When do the prisoners take exercise?’
+
+‘Well, they do without it pretty much.’
+
+‘Do they never walk in the yard?’
+
+‘Considerable seldom.’
+
+‘Sometimes, I suppose?’
+
+‘Well, it’s rare they do.  They keep pretty bright without it.’
+
+‘But suppose a man were here for a twelvemonth.  I know this is only a
+prison for criminals who are charged with grave offences, while they are
+awaiting their trial, or under remand, but the law here affords criminals
+many means of delay.  What with motions for new trials, and in arrest of
+judgment, and what not, a prisoner might be here for twelve months, I
+take it, might he not?’
+
+‘Well, I guess he might.’
+
+‘Do you mean to say that in all that time he would never come out at that
+little iron door, for exercise?’
+
+‘He might walk some, perhaps—not much.’
+
+‘Will you open one of the doors?’
+
+‘All, if you like.’
+
+The fastenings jar and rattle, and one of the doors turns slowly on its
+hinges.  Let us look in.  A small bare cell, into which the light enters
+through a high chink in the wall.  There is a rude means of washing, a
+table, and a bedstead.  Upon the latter, sits a man of sixty; reading.
+He looks up for a moment; gives an impatient dogged shake; and fixes his
+eyes upon his book again.  As we withdraw our heads, the door closes on
+him, and is fastened as before.  This man has murdered his wife, and will
+probably be hanged.
+
+‘How long has he been here?’
+
+‘A month.’
+
+‘When will he be tried?’
+
+‘Next term.’
+
+‘When is that?’
+
+‘Next month.’
+
+‘In England, if a man be under sentence of death, even he has air and
+exercise at certain periods of the day.’
+
+‘Possible?’
+
+With what stupendous and untranslatable coolness he says this, and how
+loungingly he leads on to the women’s side: making, as he goes, a kind of
+iron castanet of the key and the stair-rail!
+
+Each cell door on this side has a square aperture in it.  Some of the
+women peep anxiously through it at the sound of footsteps; others shrink
+away in shame.—For what offence can that lonely child, of ten or twelve
+years old, be shut up here?  Oh! that boy? He is the son of the prisoner
+we saw just now; is a witness against his father; and is detained here
+for safe keeping, until the trial; that’s all.
+
+But it is a dreadful place for the child to pass the long days and nights
+in.  This is rather hard treatment for a young witness, is it not?—What
+says our conductor?
+
+‘Well, it an’t a very rowdy life, and _that’s_ a fact!’
+
+Again he clinks his metal castanet, and leads us leisurely away.  I have
+a question to ask him as we go.
+
+‘Pray, why do they call this place The Tombs?’
+
+‘Well, it’s the cant name.’
+
+‘I know it is.  Why?’
+
+‘Some suicides happened here, when it was first built.  I expect it come
+about from that.’
+
+‘I saw just now, that that man’s clothes were scattered about the floor
+of his cell.  Don’t you oblige the prisoners to be orderly, and put such
+things away?’
+
+‘Where should they put ’em?’
+
+‘Not on the ground surely.  What do you say to hanging them up?’
+
+He stops and looks round to emphasise his answer:
+
+‘Why, I say that’s just it.  When they had hooks they _would_ hang
+themselves, so they’re taken out of every cell, and there’s only the
+marks left where they used to be!’
+
+The prison-yard in which he pauses now, has been the scene of terrible
+performances.  Into this narrow, grave-like place, men are brought out to
+die.  The wretched creature stands beneath the gibbet on the ground; the
+rope about his neck; and when the sign is given, a weight at its other
+end comes running down, and swings him up into the air—a corpse.
+
+The law requires that there be present at this dismal spectacle, the
+judge, the jury, and citizens to the amount of twenty-five.  From the
+community it is hidden.  To the dissolute and bad, the thing remains a
+frightful mystery.  Between the criminal and them, the prison-wall is
+interposed as a thick gloomy veil.  It is the curtain to his bed of
+death, his winding-sheet, and grave.  From him it shuts out life, and all
+the motives to unrepenting hardihood in that last hour, which its mere
+sight and presence is often all-sufficient to sustain.  There are no bold
+eyes to make him bold; no ruffians to uphold a ruffian’s name before.
+All beyond the pitiless stone wall, is unknown space.
+
+Let us go forth again into the cheerful streets.
+
+Once more in Broadway!  Here are the same ladies in bright colours,
+walking to and fro, in pairs and singly; yonder the very same light blue
+parasol which passed and repassed the hotel-window twenty times while we
+were sitting there.  We are going to cross here.  Take care of the pigs.
+Two portly sows are trotting up behind this carriage, and a select party
+of half-a-dozen gentlemen hogs have just now turned the corner.
+
+Here is a solitary swine lounging homeward by himself.  He has only one
+ear; having parted with the other to vagrant-dogs in the course of his
+city rambles.  But he gets on very well without it; and leads a roving,
+gentlemanly, vagabond kind of life, somewhat answering to that of our
+club-men at home.  He leaves his lodgings every morning at a certain
+hour, throws himself upon the town, gets through his day in some manner
+quite satisfactory to himself, and regularly appears at the door of his
+own house again at night, like the mysterious master of Gil Blas.  He is
+a free-and-easy, careless, indifferent kind of pig, having a very large
+acquaintance among other pigs of the same character, whom he rather knows
+by sight than conversation, as he seldom troubles himself to stop and
+exchange civilities, but goes grunting down the kennel, turning up the
+news and small-talk of the city in the shape of cabbage-stalks and offal,
+and bearing no tails but his own: which is a very short one, for his old
+enemies, the dogs, have been at that too, and have left him hardly enough
+to swear by.  He is in every respect a republican pig, going wherever he
+pleases, and mingling with the best society, on an equal, if not superior
+footing, for every one makes way when he appears, and the haughtiest give
+him the wall, if he prefer it.  He is a great philosopher, and seldom
+moved, unless by the dogs before mentioned.  Sometimes, indeed, you may
+see his small eye twinkling on a slaughtered friend, whose carcase
+garnishes a butcher’s door-post, but he grunts out ‘Such is life: all
+flesh is pork!’ buries his nose in the mire again, and waddles down the
+gutter: comforting himself with the reflection that there is one snout
+the less to anticipate stray cabbage-stalks, at any rate.
+
+They are the city scavengers, these pigs.  Ugly brutes they are; having,
+for the most part, scanty brown backs, like the lids of old horsehair
+trunks: spotted with unwholesome black blotches.  They have long, gaunt
+legs, too, and such peaked snouts, that if one of them could be persuaded
+to sit for his profile, nobody would recognise it for a pig’s likeness.
+They are never attended upon, or fed, or driven, or caught, but are
+thrown upon their own resources in early life, and become preternaturally
+knowing in consequence.  Every pig knows where he lives, much better than
+anybody could tell him.  At this hour, just as evening is closing in, you
+will see them roaming towards bed by scores, eating their way to the
+last.  Occasionally, some youth among them who has over-eaten himself, or
+has been worried by dogs, trots shrinkingly homeward, like a prodigal
+son: but this is a rare case: perfect self-possession and self-reliance,
+and immovable composure, being their foremost attributes.
+
+The streets and shops are lighted now; and as the eye travels down the
+long thoroughfare, dotted with bright jets of gas, it is reminded of
+Oxford Street, or Piccadilly.  Here and there a flight of broad stone
+cellar-steps appears, and a painted lamp directs you to the Bowling
+Saloon, or Ten-Pin alley; Ten-Pins being a game of mingled chance and
+skill, invented when the legislature passed an act forbidding Nine-Pins.
+At other downward flights of steps, are other lamps, marking the
+whereabouts of oyster-cellars—pleasant retreats, say I: not only by
+reason of their wonderful cookery of oysters, pretty nigh as large as
+cheese-plates (or for thy dear sake, heartiest of Greek Professors!), but
+because of all kinds of caters of fish, or flesh, or fowl, in these
+latitudes, the swallowers of oysters alone are not gregarious; but
+subduing themselves, as it were, to the nature of what they work in, and
+copying the coyness of the thing they eat, do sit apart in curtained
+boxes, and consort by twos, not by two hundreds.
+
+But how quiet the streets are!  Are there no itinerant bands; no wind or
+stringed instruments?  No, not one.  By day, are there no Punches,
+Fantoccini, Dancing-dogs, Jugglers, Conjurers, Orchestrinas, or even
+Barrel-organs?  No, not one.  Yes, I remember one.  One barrel-organ and
+a dancing-monkey—sportive by nature, but fast fading into a dull, lumpish
+monkey, of the Utilitarian school.  Beyond that, nothing lively; no, not
+so much as a white mouse in a twirling cage.
+
+Are there no amusements?  Yes.  There is a lecture-room across the way,
+from which that glare of light proceeds, and there may be evening service
+for the ladies thrice a week, or oftener.  For the young gentlemen, there
+is the counting-house, the store, the bar-room: the latter, as you may
+see through these windows, pretty full.  Hark! to the clinking sound of
+hammers breaking lumps of ice, and to the cool gurgling of the pounded
+bits, as, in the process of mixing, they are poured from glass to glass!
+No amusements?  What are these suckers of cigars and swallowers of strong
+drinks, whose hats and legs we see in every possible variety of twist,
+doing, but amusing themselves?  What are the fifty newspapers, which
+those precocious urchins are bawling down the street, and which are kept
+filed within, what are they but amusements?  Not vapid, waterish
+amusements, but good strong stuff; dealing in round abuse and blackguard
+names; pulling off the roofs of private houses, as the Halting Devil did
+in Spain; pimping and pandering for all degrees of vicious taste, and
+gorging with coined lies the most voracious maw; imputing to every man in
+public life the coarsest and the vilest motives; scaring away from the
+stabbed and prostrate body-politic, every Samaritan of clear conscience
+and good deeds; and setting on, with yell and whistle and the clapping of
+foul hands, the vilest vermin and worst birds of prey.—No amusements!
+
+Let us go on again; and passing this wilderness of an hotel with stores
+about its base, like some Continental theatre, or the London Opera House
+shorn of its colonnade, plunge into the Five Points.  But it is needful,
+first, that we take as our escort these two heads of the police, whom you
+would know for sharp and well-trained officers if you met them in the
+Great Desert.  So true it is, that certain pursuits, wherever carried on,
+will stamp men with the same character.  These two might have been
+begotten, born, and bred, in Bow Street.
+
+We have seen no beggars in the streets by night or day; but of other
+kinds of strollers, plenty.  Poverty, wretchedness, and vice, are rife
+enough where we are going now.
+
+This is the place: these narrow ways, diverging to the right and left,
+and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth.  Such lives as are led here,
+bear the same fruits here as elsewhere.  The coarse and bloated faces at
+the doors, have counterparts at home, and all the wide world over.
+Debauchery has made the very houses prematurely old.  See how the rotten
+beams are tumbling down, and how the patched and broken windows seem to
+scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt in drunken frays.  Many of
+those pigs live here.  Do they ever wonder why their masters walk upright
+in lieu of going on all-fours? and why they talk instead of grunting?
+
+So far, nearly every house is a low tavern; and on the bar-room walls,
+are coloured prints of Washington, and Queen Victoria of England, and the
+American Eagle.  Among the pigeon-holes that hold the bottles, are pieces
+of plate-glass and coloured paper, for there is, in some sort, a taste
+for decoration, even here.  And as seamen frequent these haunts, there
+are maritime pictures by the dozen: of partings between sailors and their
+lady-loves, portraits of William, of the ballad, and his Black-Eyed
+Susan; of Will Watch, the Bold Smuggler; of Paul Jones the Pirate, and
+the like: on which the painted eyes of Queen Victoria, and of Washington
+to boot, rest in as strange companionship, as on most of the scenes that
+are enacted in their wondering presence.
+
+What place is this, to which the squalid street conducts us?  A kind of
+square of leprous houses, some of which are attainable only by crazy
+wooden stairs without.  What lies beyond this tottering flight of steps,
+that creak beneath our tread?—a miserable room, lighted by one dim
+candle, and destitute of all comfort, save that which may be hidden in a
+wretched bed.  Beside it, sits a man: his elbows on his knees: his
+forehead hidden in his hands.  ‘What ails that man?’ asks the foremost
+officer.  ‘Fever,’ he sullenly replies, without looking up.  Conceive the
+fancies of a feverish brain, in such a place as this!
+
+Ascend these pitch-dark stairs, heedful of a false footing on the
+trembling boards, and grope your way with me into this wolfish den, where
+neither ray of light nor breath of air, appears to come.  A negro lad,
+startled from his sleep by the officer’s voice—he knows it well—but
+comforted by his assurance that he has not come on business, officiously
+bestirs himself to light a candle.  The match flickers for a moment, and
+shows great mounds of dusty rags upon the ground; then dies away and
+leaves a denser darkness than before, if there can be degrees in such
+extremes.  He stumbles down the stairs and presently comes back, shading
+a flaring taper with his hand.  Then the mounds of rags are seen to be
+astir, and rise slowly up, and the floor is covered with heaps of negro
+women, waking from their sleep: their white teeth chattering, and their
+bright eyes glistening and winking on all sides with surprise and fear,
+like the countless repetition of one astonished African face in some
+strange mirror.
+
+Mount up these other stairs with no less caution (there are traps and
+pitfalls here, for those who are not so well escorted as ourselves) into
+the housetop; where the bare beams and rafters meet overhead, and calm
+night looks down through the crevices in the roof.  Open the door of one
+of these cramped hutches full of sleeping negroes.  Pah!  They have a
+charcoal fire within; there is a smell of singeing clothes, or flesh, so
+close they gather round the brazier; and vapours issue forth that blind
+and suffocate.  From every corner, as you glance about you in these dark
+retreats, some figure crawls half-awakened, as if the judgment-hour were
+near at hand, and every obscene grave were giving up its dead.  Where
+dogs would howl to lie, women, and men, and boys slink off to sleep,
+forcing the dislodged rats to move away in quest of better lodgings.
+
+Here too are lanes and alleys, paved with mud knee-deep, underground
+chambers, where they dance and game; the walls bedecked with rough
+designs of ships, and forts, and flags, and American eagles out of
+number: ruined houses, open to the street, whence, through wide gaps in
+the walls, other ruins loom upon the eye, as though the world of vice and
+misery had nothing else to show: hideous tenements which take their name
+from robbery and murder: all that is loathsome, drooping, and decayed is
+here.
+
+Our leader has his hand upon the latch of ‘Almack’s,’ and calls to us
+from the bottom of the steps; for the assembly-room of the Five Point
+fashionables is approached by a descent.  Shall we go in?  It is but a
+moment.
+
+Heyday! the landlady of Almack’s thrives!  A buxom fat mulatto woman,
+with sparkling eyes, whose head is daintily ornamented with a
+handkerchief of many colours.  Nor is the landlord much behind her in his
+finery, being attired in a smart blue jacket, like a ship’s steward, with
+a thick gold ring upon his little finger, and round his neck a gleaming
+golden watch-guard.  How glad he is to see us!  What will we please to
+call for?  A dance?  It shall be done directly, sir: ‘a regular
+break-down.’
+
+The corpulent black fiddler, and his friend who plays the tambourine,
+stamp upon the boarding of the small raised orchestra in which they sit,
+and play a lively measure.  Five or six couple come upon the floor,
+marshalled by a lively young negro, who is the wit of the assembly, and
+the greatest dancer known.  He never leaves off making queer faces, and
+is the delight of all the rest, who grin from ear to ear incessantly.
+Among the dancers are two young mulatto girls, with large, black,
+drooping eyes, and head-gear after the fashion of the hostess, who are as
+shy, or feign to be, as though they never danced before, and so look down
+before the visitors, that their partners can see nothing but the long
+fringed lashes.
+
+But the dance commences.  Every gentleman sets as long as he likes to the
+opposite lady, and the opposite lady to him, and all are so long about it
+that the sport begins to languish, when suddenly the lively hero dashes
+in to the rescue.  Instantly the fiddler grins, and goes at it tooth and
+nail; there is new energy in the tambourine; new laughter in the dancers;
+new smiles in the landlady; new confidence in the landlord; new
+brightness in the very candles.
+
+Single shuffle, double shuffle, cut and cross-cut; snapping his fingers,
+rolling his eyes, turning in his knees, presenting the backs of his legs
+in front, spinning about on his toes and heels like nothing but the man’s
+fingers on the tambourine; dancing with two left legs, two right legs,
+two wooden legs, two wire legs, two spring legs—all sorts of legs and no
+legs—what is this to him? And in what walk of life, or dance of life,
+does man ever get such stimulating applause as thunders about him, when,
+having danced his partner off her feet, and himself too, he finishes by
+leaping gloriously on the bar-counter, and calling for something to
+drink, with the chuckle of a million of counterfeit Jim Crows, in one
+inimitable sound!
+
+The air, even in these distempered parts, is fresh after the stifling
+atmosphere of the houses; and now, as we emerge into a broader street, it
+blows upon us with a purer breath, and the stars look bright again.  Here
+are The Tombs once more.  The city watch-house is a part of the building.
+It follows naturally on the sights we have just left.  Let us see that,
+and then to bed.
+
+What! do you thrust your common offenders against the police discipline
+of the town, into such holes as these?  Do men and women, against whom no
+crime is proved, lie here all night in perfect darkness, surrounded by
+the noisome vapours which encircle that flagging lamp you light us with,
+and breathing this filthy and offensive stench!  Why, such indecent and
+disgusting dungeons as these cells, would bring disgrace upon the most
+despotic empire in the world!  Look at them, man—you, who see them every
+night, and keep the keys.  Do you see what they are?  Do you know how
+drains are made below the streets, and wherein these human sewers differ,
+except in being always stagnant?
+
+Well, he don’t know.  He has had five-and-twenty young women locked up in
+this very cell at one time, and you’d hardly realise what handsome faces
+there were among ’em.
+
+In God’s name! shut the door upon the wretched creature who is in it now,
+and put its screen before a place, quite unsurpassed in all the vice,
+neglect, and devilry, of the worst old town in Europe.
+
+Are people really left all night, untried, in those black sties?—Every
+night.  The watch is set at seven in the evening.  The magistrate opens
+his court at five in the morning.  That is the earliest hour at which the
+first prisoner can be released; and if an officer appear against him, he
+is not taken out till nine o’clock or ten.—But if any one among them die
+in the interval, as one man did, not long ago?  Then he is half-eaten by
+the rats in an hour’s time; as that man was; and there an end.
+
+What is this intolerable tolling of great bells, and crashing of wheels,
+and shouting in the distance?  A fire.  And what that deep red light in
+the opposite direction?  Another fire.  And what these charred and
+blackened walls we stand before?  A dwelling where a fire has been.  It
+was more than hinted, in an official report, not long ago, that some of
+these conflagrations were not wholly accidental, and that speculation and
+enterprise found a field of exertion, even in flames: but be this as it
+may, there was a fire last night, there are two to-night, and you may lay
+an even wager there will be at least one, to-morrow.  So, carrying that
+with us for our comfort, let us say, Good night, and climb up-stairs to
+bed.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+One day, during my stay in New York, I paid a visit to the different
+public institutions on Long Island, or Rhode Island: I forget which.  One
+of them is a Lunatic Asylum.  The building is handsome; and is remarkable
+for a spacious and elegant staircase.  The whole structure is not yet
+finished, but it is already one of considerable size and extent, and is
+capable of accommodating a very large number of patients.
+
+I cannot say that I derived much comfort from the inspection of this
+charity.  The different wards might have been cleaner and better ordered;
+I saw nothing of that salutary system which had impressed me so
+favourably elsewhere; and everything had a lounging, listless, madhouse
+air, which was very painful.  The moping idiot, cowering down with long
+dishevelled hair; the gibbering maniac, with his hideous laugh and
+pointed finger; the vacant eye, the fierce wild face, the gloomy picking
+of the hands and lips, and munching of the nails: there they were all,
+without disguise, in naked ugliness and horror.  In the dining-room, a
+bare, dull, dreary place, with nothing for the eye to rest on but the
+empty walls, a woman was locked up alone.  She was bent, they told me, on
+committing suicide.  If anything could have strengthened her in her
+resolution, it would certainly have been the insupportable monotony of
+such an existence.
+
+The terrible crowd with which these halls and galleries were filled, so
+shocked me, that I abridged my stay within the shortest limits, and
+declined to see that portion of the building in which the refractory and
+violent were under closer restraint.  I have no doubt that the gentleman
+who presided over this establishment at the time I write of, was
+competent to manage it, and had done all in his power to promote its
+usefulness: but will it be believed that the miserable strife of Party
+feeling is carried even into this sad refuge of afflicted and degraded
+humanity?  Will it be believed that the eyes which are to watch over and
+control the wanderings of minds on which the most dreadful visitation to
+which our nature is exposed has fallen, must wear the glasses of some
+wretched side in Politics?  Will it be believed that the governor of such
+a house as this, is appointed, and deposed, and changed perpetually, as
+Parties fluctuate and vary, and as their despicable weathercocks are
+blown this way or that?  A hundred times in every week, some new most
+paltry exhibition of that narrow-minded and injurious Party Spirit, which
+is the Simoom of America, sickening and blighting everything of wholesome
+life within its reach, was forced upon my notice; but I never turned my
+back upon it with feelings of such deep disgust and measureless contempt,
+as when I crossed the threshold of this madhouse.
+
+At a short distance from this building is another called the Alms House,
+that is to say, the workhouse of New York.  This is a large Institution
+also: lodging, I believe, when I was there, nearly a thousand poor.  It
+was badly ventilated, and badly lighted; was not too clean;—and impressed
+me, on the whole, very uncomfortably.  But it must be remembered that New
+York, as a great emporium of commerce, and as a place of general resort,
+not only from all parts of the States, but from most parts of the world,
+has always a large pauper population to provide for; and labours,
+therefore, under peculiar difficulties in this respect.  Nor must it be
+forgotten that New York is a large town, and that in all large towns a
+vast amount of good and evil is intermixed and jumbled up together.
+
+In the same neighbourhood is the Farm, where young orphans are nursed and
+bred.  I did not see it, but I believe it is well conducted; and I can
+the more easily credit it, from knowing how mindful they usually are, in
+America, of that beautiful passage in the Litany which remembers all sick
+persons and young children.
+
+I was taken to these Institutions by water, in a boat belonging to the
+Island jail, and rowed by a crew of prisoners, who were dressed in a
+striped uniform of black and buff, in which they looked like faded
+tigers.  They took me, by the same conveyance, to the jail itself.
+
+It is an old prison, and quite a pioneer establishment, on the plan I
+have already described.  I was glad to hear this, for it is
+unquestionably a very indifferent one.  The most is made, however, of the
+means it possesses, and it is as well regulated as such a place can be.
+
+The women work in covered sheds, erected for that purpose.  If I remember
+right, there are no shops for the men, but be that as it may, the greater
+part of them labour in certain stone-quarries near at hand.  The day
+being very wet indeed, this labour was suspended, and the prisoners were
+in their cells.  Imagine these cells, some two or three hundred in
+number, and in every one a man locked up; this one at his door for air,
+with his hands thrust through the grate; this one in bed (in the middle
+of the day, remember); and this one flung down in a heap upon the ground,
+with his head against the bars, like a wild beast.  Make the rain pour
+down, outside, in torrents.  Put the everlasting stove in the midst; hot,
+and suffocating, and vaporous, as a witch’s cauldron.  Add a collection
+of gentle odours, such as would arise from a thousand mildewed umbrellas,
+wet through, and a thousand buck-baskets, full of half-washed linen—and
+there is the prison, as it was that day.
+
+The prison for the State at Sing Sing is, on the other hand, a model
+jail.  That, and Auburn, are, I believe, the largest and best examples of
+the silent system.
+
+In another part of the city, is the Refuge for the Destitute: an
+Institution whose object is to reclaim youthful offenders, male and
+female, black and white, without distinction; to teach them useful
+trades, apprentice them to respectable masters, and make them worthy
+members of society.  Its design, it will be seen, is similar to that at
+Boston; and it is a no less meritorious and admirable establishment.  A
+suspicion crossed my mind during my inspection of this noble charity,
+whether the superintendent had quite sufficient knowledge of the world
+and worldly characters; and whether he did not commit a great mistake in
+treating some young girls, who were to all intents and purposes, by their
+years and their past lives, women, as though they were little children;
+which certainly had a ludicrous effect in my eyes, and, or I am much
+mistaken, in theirs also.  As the Institution, however, is always under a
+vigilant examination of a body of gentlemen of great intelligence and
+experience, it cannot fail to be well conducted; and whether I am right
+or wrong in this slight particular, is unimportant to its deserts and
+character, which it would be difficult to estimate too highly.
+
+In addition to these establishments, there are in New York, excellent
+hospitals and schools, literary institutions and libraries; an admirable
+fire department (as indeed it should be, having constant practice), and
+charities of every sort and kind.  In the suburbs there is a spacious
+cemetery: unfinished yet, but every day improving.  The saddest tomb I
+saw there was ‘The Strangers’ Grave.  Dedicated to the different hotels
+in this city.’
+
+There are three principal theatres.  Two of them, the Park and the
+Bowery, are large, elegant, and handsome buildings, and are, I grieve to
+write it, generally deserted.  The third, the Olympic, is a tiny show-box
+for vaudevilles and burlesques.  It is singularly well conducted by Mr.
+Mitchell, a comic actor of great quiet humour and originality, who is
+well remembered and esteemed by London playgoers.  I am happy to report
+of this deserving gentleman, that his benches are usually well filled,
+and that his theatre rings with merriment every night.  I had almost
+forgotten a small summer theatre, called Niblo’s, with gardens and open
+air amusements attached; but I believe it is not exempt from the general
+depression under which Theatrical Property, or what is humorously called
+by that name, unfortunately labours.
+
+The country round New York is surpassingly and exquisitely picturesque.
+The climate, as I have already intimated, is somewhat of the warmest.
+What it would be, without the sea breezes which come from its beautiful
+Bay in the evening time, I will not throw myself or my readers into a
+fever by inquiring.
+
+The tone of the best society in this city, is like that of Boston; here
+and there, it may be, with a greater infusion of the mercantile spirit,
+but generally polished and refined, and always most hospitable.  The
+houses and tables are elegant; the hours later and more rakish; and there
+is, perhaps, a greater spirit of contention in reference to appearances,
+and the display of wealth and costly living.  The ladies are singularly
+beautiful.
+
+Before I left New York I made arrangements for securing a passage home in
+the George Washington packet ship, which was advertised to sail in June:
+that being the month in which I had determined, if prevented by no
+accident in the course of my ramblings, to leave America.
+
+I never thought that going back to England, returning to all who are dear
+to me, and to pursuits that have insensibly grown to be a part of my
+nature, I could have felt so much sorrow as I endured, when I parted at
+last, on board this ship, with the friends who had accompanied me from
+this city.  I never thought the name of any place, so far away and so
+lately known, could ever associate itself in my mind with the crowd of
+affectionate remembrances that now cluster about it.  There are those in
+this city who would brighten, to me, the darkest winter-day that ever
+glimmered and went out in Lapland; and before whose presence even Home
+grew dim, when they and I exchanged that painful word which mingles with
+our every thought and deed; which haunts our cradle-heads in infancy, and
+closes up the vista of our lives in age.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+PHILADELPHIA, AND ITS SOLITARY PRISON
+
+
+THE journey from New York to Philadelphia, is made by railroad, and two
+ferries; and usually occupies between five and six hours.  It was a fine
+evening when we were passengers in the train: and watching the bright
+sunset from a little window near the door by which we sat, my attention
+was attracted to a remarkable appearance issuing from the windows of the
+gentleman’s car immediately in front of us, which I supposed for some
+time was occasioned by a number of industrious persons inside, ripping
+open feather-beds, and giving the feathers to the wind.  At length it
+occurred to me that they were only spitting, which was indeed the case;
+though how any number of passengers which it was possible for that car to
+contain, could have maintained such a playful and incessant shower of
+expectoration, I am still at a loss to understand: notwithstanding the
+experience in all salivatory phenomena which I afterwards acquired.
+
+I made acquaintance, on this journey, with a mild and modest young
+quaker, who opened the discourse by informing me, in a grave whisper,
+that his grandfather was the inventor of cold-drawn castor oil.  I
+mention the circumstance here, thinking it probable that this is the
+first occasion on which the valuable medicine in question was ever used
+as a conversational aperient.
+
+We reached the city, late that night.  Looking out of my chamber-window,
+before going to bed, I saw, on the opposite side of the way, a handsome
+building of white marble, which had a mournful ghost-like aspect, dreary
+to behold.  I attributed this to the sombre influence of the night, and
+on rising in the morning looked out again, expecting to see its steps and
+portico thronged with groups of people passing in and out.  The door was
+still tight shut, however; the same cold cheerless air prevailed: and the
+building looked as if the marble statue of Don Guzman could alone have
+any business to transact within its gloomy walls.  I hastened to inquire
+its name and purpose, and then my surprise vanished.  It was the Tomb of
+many fortunes; the Great Catacomb of investment; the memorable United
+States Bank.
+
+The stoppage of this bank, with all its ruinous consequences, had cast
+(as I was told on every side) a gloom on Philadelphia, under the
+depressing effect of which it yet laboured.  It certainly did seem rather
+dull and out of spirits.
+
+It is a handsome city, but distractingly regular.  After walking about it
+for an hour or two, I felt that I would have given the world for a
+crooked street.  The collar of my coat appeared to stiffen, and the brim
+of my hat to expand, beneath its quakery influence.  My hair shrunk into
+a sleek short crop, my hands folded themselves upon my breast of their
+own calm accord, and thoughts of taking lodgings in Mark Lane over
+against the Market Place, and of making a large fortune by speculations
+in corn, came over me involuntarily.
+
+Philadelphia is most bountifully provided with fresh water, which is
+showered and jerked about, and turned on, and poured off, everywhere.
+The Waterworks, which are on a height near the city, are no less
+ornamental than useful, being tastefully laid out as a public garden, and
+kept in the best and neatest order.  The river is dammed at this point,
+and forced by its own power into certain high tanks or reservoirs, whence
+the whole city, to the top stories of the houses, is supplied at a very
+trifling expense.
+
+There are various public institutions.  Among them a most excellent
+Hospital—a quaker establishment, but not sectarian in the great benefits
+it confers; a quiet, quaint old Library, named after Franklin; a handsome
+Exchange and Post Office; and so forth.  In connection with the quaker
+Hospital, there is a picture by West, which is exhibited for the benefit
+of the funds of the institution.  The subject is, our Saviour healing the
+sick, and it is, perhaps, as favourable a specimen of the master as can
+be seen anywhere.  Whether this be high or low praise, depends upon the
+reader’s taste.
+
+In the same room, there is a very characteristic and life-like portrait
+by Mr. Sully, a distinguished American artist.
+
+My stay in Philadelphia was very short, but what I saw of its society, I
+greatly liked.  Treating of its general characteristics, I should be
+disposed to say that it is more provincial than Boston or New York, and
+that there is afloat in the fair city, an assumption of taste and
+criticism, savouring rather of those genteel discussions upon the same
+themes, in connection with Shakspeare and the Musical Glasses, of which
+we read in the Vicar of Wakefield.  Near the city, is a most splendid
+unfinished marble structure for the Girard College, founded by a deceased
+gentleman of that name and of enormous wealth, which, if completed
+according to the original design, will be perhaps the richest edifice of
+modern times.  But the bequest is involved in legal disputes, and pending
+them the work has stopped; so that like many other great undertakings in
+America, even this is rather going to be done one of these days, than
+doing now.
+
+In the outskirts, stands a great prison, called the Eastern Penitentiary:
+conducted on a plan peculiar to the state of Pennsylvania.  The system
+here, is rigid, strict, and hopeless solitary confinement.  I believe it,
+in its effects, to be cruel and wrong.
+
+In its intention, I am well convinced that it is kind, humane, and meant
+for reformation; but I am persuaded that those who devised this system of
+Prison Discipline, and those benevolent gentlemen who carry it into
+execution, do not know what it is that they are doing.  I believe that
+very few men are capable of estimating the immense amount of torture and
+agony which this dreadful punishment, prolonged for years, inflicts upon
+the sufferers; and in guessing at it myself, and in reasoning from what I
+have seen written upon their faces, and what to my certain knowledge they
+feel within, I am only the more convinced that there is a depth of
+terrible endurance in it which none but the sufferers themselves can
+fathom, and which no man has a right to inflict upon his fellow-creature.
+I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain, to
+be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body: and because its
+ghastly signs and tokens are not so palpable to the eye and sense of
+touch as scars upon the flesh; because its wounds are not upon the
+surface, and it extorts few cries that human ears can hear; therefore I
+the more denounce it, as a secret punishment which slumbering humanity is
+not roused up to stay.  I hesitated once, debating with myself, whether,
+if I had the power of saying ‘Yes’ or ‘No,’ I would allow it to be tried
+in certain cases, where the terms of imprisonment were short; but now, I
+solemnly declare, that with no rewards or honours could I walk a happy
+man beneath the open sky by day, or lie me down upon my bed at night,
+with the consciousness that one human creature, for any length of time,
+no matter what, lay suffering this unknown punishment in his silent cell,
+and I the cause, or I consenting to it in the least degree.
+
+I was accompanied to this prison by two gentlemen officially connected
+with its management, and passed the day in going from cell to cell, and
+talking with the inmates.  Every facility was afforded me, that the
+utmost courtesy could suggest.  Nothing was concealed or hidden from my
+view, and every piece of information that I sought, was openly and
+frankly given.  The perfect order of the building cannot be praised too
+highly, and of the excellent motives of all who are immediately concerned
+in the administration of the system, there can be no kind of question.
+
+Between the body of the prison and the outer wall, there is a spacious
+garden.  Entering it, by a wicket in the massive gate, we pursued the
+path before us to its other termination, and passed into a large chamber,
+from which seven long passages radiate.  On either side of each, is a
+long, long row of low cell doors, with a certain number over every one.
+Above, a gallery of cells like those below, except that they have no
+narrow yard attached (as those in the ground tier have), and are somewhat
+smaller.  The possession of two of these, is supposed to compensate for
+the absence of so much air and exercise as can be had in the dull strip
+attached to each of the others, in an hour’s time every day; and
+therefore every prisoner in this upper story has two cells, adjoining and
+communicating with, each other.
+
+Standing at the central point, and looking down these dreary passages,
+the dull repose and quiet that prevails, is awful.  Occasionally, there
+is a drowsy sound from some lone weaver’s shuttle, or shoemaker’s last,
+but it is stifled by the thick walls and heavy dungeon-door, and only
+serves to make the general stillness more profound.  Over the head and
+face of every prisoner who comes into this melancholy house, a black hood
+is drawn; and in this dark shroud, an emblem of the curtain dropped
+between him and the living world, he is led to the cell from which he
+never again comes forth, until his whole term of imprisonment has
+expired.  He never hears of wife and children; home or friends; the life
+or death of any single creature.  He sees the prison-officers, but with
+that exception he never looks upon a human countenance, or hears a human
+voice.  He is a man buried alive; to be dug out in the slow round of
+years; and in the mean time dead to everything but torturing anxieties
+and horrible despair.
+
+His name, and crime, and term of suffering, are unknown, even to the
+officer who delivers him his daily food.  There is a number over his
+cell-door, and in a book of which the governor of the prison has one
+copy, and the moral instructor another: this is the index of his history.
+Beyond these pages the prison has no record of his existence: and though
+he live to be in the same cell ten weary years, he has no means of
+knowing, down to the very last hour, in which part of the building it is
+situated; what kind of men there are about him; whether in the long
+winter nights there are living people near, or he is in some lonely
+corner of the great jail, with walls, and passages, and iron doors
+between him and the nearest sharer in its solitary horrors.
+
+Every cell has double doors: the outer one of sturdy oak, the other of
+grated iron, wherein there is a trap through which his food is handed.
+He has a Bible, and a slate and pencil, and, under certain restrictions,
+has sometimes other books, provided for the purpose, and pen and ink and
+paper.  His razor, plate, and can, and basin, hang upon the wall, or
+shine upon the little shelf.  Fresh water is laid on in every cell, and
+he can draw it at his pleasure.  During the day, his bedstead turns up
+against the wall, and leaves more space for him to work in.  His loom, or
+bench, or wheel, is there; and there he labours, sleeps and wakes, and
+counts the seasons as they change, and grows old.
+
+The first man I saw, was seated at his loom, at work.  He had been there
+six years, and was to remain, I think, three more.  He had been convicted
+as a receiver of stolen goods, but even after his long imprisonment,
+denied his guilt, and said he had been hardly dealt by.  It was his
+second offence.
+
+He stopped his work when we went in, took off his spectacles, and
+answered freely to everything that was said to him, but always with a
+strange kind of pause first, and in a low, thoughtful voice.  He wore a
+paper hat of his own making, and was pleased to have it noticed and
+commanded.  He had very ingeniously manufactured a sort of Dutch clock
+from some disregarded odds and ends; and his vinegar-bottle served for
+the pendulum.  Seeing me interested in this contrivance, he looked up at
+it with a great deal of pride, and said that he had been thinking of
+improving it, and that he hoped the hammer and a little piece of broken
+glass beside it ‘would play music before long.’  He had extracted some
+colours from the yarn with which he worked, and painted a few poor
+figures on the wall.  One, of a female, over the door, he called ‘The
+Lady of the Lake.’
+
+He smiled as I looked at these contrivances to while away the time; but
+when I looked from them to him, I saw that his lip trembled, and could
+have counted the beating of his heart.  I forget how it came about, but
+some allusion was made to his having a wife.  He shook his head at the
+word, turned aside, and covered his face with his hands.
+
+‘But you are resigned now!’ said one of the gentlemen after a short
+pause, during which he had resumed his former manner.  He answered with a
+sigh that seemed quite reckless in its hopelessness, ‘Oh yes, oh yes!  I
+am resigned to it.’  ‘And are a better man, you think?’  ‘Well, I hope
+so: I’m sure I hope I may be.’  ‘And time goes pretty quickly?’  ‘Time is
+very long gentlemen, within these four walls!’
+
+He gazed about him—Heaven only knows how wearily!—as he said these words;
+and in the act of doing so, fell into a strange stare as if he had
+forgotten something.  A moment afterwards he sighed heavily, put on his
+spectacles, and went about his work again.
+
+In another cell, there was a German, sentenced to five years’
+imprisonment for larceny, two of which had just expired.  With colours
+procured in the same manner, he had painted every inch of the walls and
+ceiling quite beautifully.  He had laid out the few feet of ground,
+behind, with exquisite neatness, and had made a little bed in the centre,
+that looked, by-the-bye, like a grave.  The taste and ingenuity he had
+displayed in everything were most extraordinary; and yet a more dejected,
+heart-broken, wretched creature, it would be difficult to imagine.  I
+never saw such a picture of forlorn affliction and distress of mind.  My
+heart bled for him; and when the tears ran down his cheeks, and he took
+one of the visitors aside, to ask, with his trembling hands nervously
+clutching at his coat to detain him, whether there was no hope of his
+dismal sentence being commuted, the spectacle was really too painful to
+witness.  I never saw or heard of any kind of misery that impressed me
+more than the wretchedness of this man.
+
+In a third cell, was a tall, strong black, a burglar, working at his
+proper trade of making screws and the like.  His time was nearly out.  He
+was not only a very dexterous thief, but was notorious for his boldness
+and hardihood, and for the number of his previous convictions.  He
+entertained us with a long account of his achievements, which he narrated
+with such infinite relish, that he actually seemed to lick his lips as he
+told us racy anecdotes of stolen plate, and of old ladies whom he had
+watched as they sat at windows in silver spectacles (he had plainly had
+an eye to their metal even from the other side of the street) and had
+afterwards robbed.  This fellow, upon the slightest encouragement, would
+have mingled with his professional recollections the most detestable
+cant; but I am very much mistaken if he could have surpassed the
+unmitigated hypocrisy with which he declared that he blessed the day on
+which he came into that prison, and that he never would commit another
+robbery as long as he lived.
+
+There was one man who was allowed, as an indulgence, to keep rabbits.
+His room having rather a close smell in consequence, they called to him
+at the door to come out into the passage.  He complied of course, and
+stood shading his haggard face in the unwonted sunlight of the great
+window, looking as wan and unearthly as if he had been summoned from the
+grave.  He had a white rabbit in his breast; and when the little
+creature, getting down upon the ground, stole back into the cell, and he,
+being dismissed, crept timidly after it, I thought it would have been
+very hard to say in what respect the man was the nobler animal of the
+two.
+
+There was an English thief, who had been there but a few days out of
+seven years: a villainous, low-browed, thin-lipped fellow, with a white
+face; who had as yet no relish for visitors, and who, but for the
+additional penalty, would have gladly stabbed me with his shoemaker’s
+knife.  There was another German who had entered the jail but yesterday,
+and who started from his bed when we looked in, and pleaded, in his
+broken English, very hard for work.  There was a poet, who after doing
+two days’ work in every four-and-twenty hours, one for himself and one
+for the prison, wrote verses about ships (he was by trade a mariner), and
+‘the maddening wine-cup,’ and his friends at home.  There were very many
+of them.  Some reddened at the sight of visitors, and some turned very
+pale.  Some two or three had prisoner nurses with them, for they were
+very sick; and one, a fat old negro whose leg had been taken off within
+the jail, had for his attendant a classical scholar and an accomplished
+surgeon, himself a prisoner likewise.  Sitting upon the stairs, engaged
+in some slight work, was a pretty coloured boy. ‘Is there no refuge for
+young criminals in Philadelphia, then?’ said I.  ‘Yes, but only for white
+children.’  Noble aristocracy in crime!
+
+There was a sailor who had been there upwards of eleven years, and who in
+a few months’ time would be free.  Eleven years of solitary confinement!
+
+‘I am very glad to hear your time is nearly out.’  What does he say?
+Nothing.  Why does he stare at his hands, and pick the flesh upon his
+fingers, and raise his eyes for an instant, every now and then, to those
+bare walls which have seen his head turn grey?  It is a way he has
+sometimes.
+
+Does he never look men in the face, and does he always pluck at those
+hands of his, as though he were bent on parting skin and bone?  It is his
+humour: nothing more.
+
+It is his humour too, to say that he does not look forward to going out;
+that he is not glad the time is drawing near; that he did look forward to
+it once, but that was very long ago; that he has lost all care for
+everything.  It is his humour to be a helpless, crushed, and broken man.
+And, Heaven be his witness that he has his humour thoroughly gratified!
+
+There were three young women in adjoining cells, all convicted at the
+same time of a conspiracy to rob their prosecutor.  In the silence and
+solitude of their lives they had grown to be quite beautiful.  Their
+looks were very sad, and might have moved the sternest visitor to tears,
+but not to that kind of sorrow which the contemplation of the men
+awakens.  One was a young girl; not twenty, as I recollect; whose
+snow-white room was hung with the work of some former prisoner, and upon
+whose downcast face the sun in all its splendour shone down through the
+high chink in the wall, where one narrow strip of bright blue sky was
+visible.  She was very penitent and quiet; had come to be resigned, she
+said (and I believe her); and had a mind at peace.  ‘In a word, you are
+happy here?’ said one of my companions.  She struggled—she did struggle
+very hard—to answer, Yes; but raising her eyes, and meeting that glimpse
+of freedom overhead, she burst into tears, and said, ‘She tried to be;
+she uttered no complaint; but it was natural that she should sometimes
+long to go out of that one cell: she could not help _that_,’ she sobbed,
+poor thing!
+
+I went from cell to cell that day; and every face I saw, or word I heard,
+or incident I noted, is present to my mind in all its painfulness.  But
+let me pass them by, for one, more pleasant, glance of a prison on the
+same plan which I afterwards saw at Pittsburg.
+
+When I had gone over that, in the same manner, I asked the governor if he
+had any person in his charge who was shortly going out.  He had one, he
+said, whose time was up next day; but he had only been a prisoner two
+years.
+
+Two years!  I looked back through two years of my own life—out of jail,
+prosperous, happy, surrounded by blessings, comforts, good fortune—and
+thought how wide a gap it was, and how long those two years passed in
+solitary captivity would have been.  I have the face of this man, who was
+going to be released next day, before me now.  It is almost more
+memorable in its happiness than the other faces in their misery.  How
+easy and how natural it was for him to say that the system was a good
+one; and that the time went ‘pretty quick—considering;’ and that when a
+man once felt that he had offended the law, and must satisfy it, ‘he got
+along, somehow:’ and so forth!
+
+‘What did he call you back to say to you, in that strange flutter?’ I
+asked of my conductor, when he had locked the door and joined me in the
+passage.
+
+‘Oh!  That he was afraid the soles of his boots were not fit for walking,
+as they were a good deal worn when he came in; and that he would thank me
+very much to have them mended, ready.’
+
+Those boots had been taken off his feet, and put away with the rest of
+his clothes, two years before!
+
+I took that opportunity of inquiring how they conducted themselves
+immediately before going out; adding that I presumed they trembled very
+much.
+
+‘Well, it’s not so much a trembling,’ was the answer—‘though they do
+quiver—as a complete derangement of the nervous system.  They can’t sign
+their names to the book; sometimes can’t even hold the pen; look about
+’em without appearing to know why, or where they are; and sometimes get
+up and sit down again, twenty times in a minute.  This is when they’re in
+the office, where they are taken with the hood on, as they were brought
+in.  When they get outside the gate, they stop, and look first one way
+and then the other; not knowing which to take.  Sometimes they stagger as
+if they were drunk, and sometimes are forced to lean against the fence,
+they’re so bad:—but they clear off in course of time.’
+
+As I walked among these solitary cells, and looked at the faces of the
+men within them, I tried to picture to myself the thoughts and feelings
+natural to their condition.  I imagined the hood just taken off, and the
+scene of their captivity disclosed to them in all its dismal monotony.
+
+At first, the man is stunned.  His confinement is a hideous vision; and
+his old life a reality.  He throws himself upon his bed, and lies there
+abandoned to despair.  By degrees the insupportable solitude and
+barrenness of the place rouses him from this stupor, and when the trap in
+his grated door is opened, he humbly begs and prays for work.  ‘Give me
+some work to do, or I shall go raving mad!’
+
+He has it; and by fits and starts applies himself to labour; but every
+now and then there comes upon him a burning sense of the years that must
+be wasted in that stone coffin, and an agony so piercing in the
+recollection of those who are hidden from his view and knowledge, that he
+starts from his seat, and striding up and down the narrow room with both
+hands clasped on his uplifted head, hears spirits tempting him to beat
+his brains out on the wall.
+
+Again he falls upon his bed, and lies there, moaning.  Suddenly he starts
+up, wondering whether any other man is near; whether there is another
+cell like that on either side of him: and listens keenly.
+
+There is no sound, but other prisoners may be near for all that.  He
+remembers to have heard once, when he little thought of coming here
+himself, that the cells were so constructed that the prisoners could not
+hear each other, though the officers could hear them.  Where is the
+nearest man—upon the right, or on the left? or is there one in both
+directions?  Where is he sitting now—with his face to the light? or is he
+walking to and fro?  How is he dressed? Has he been here long?  Is he
+much worn away?  Is he very white and spectre-like?  Does _he_ think of
+his neighbour too?
+
+Scarcely venturing to breathe, and listening while he thinks, he conjures
+up a figure with his back towards him, and imagines it moving about in
+this next cell.  He has no idea of the face, but he is certain of the
+dark form of a stooping man.  In the cell upon the other side, he puts
+another figure, whose face is hidden from him also.  Day after day, and
+often when he wakes up in the middle of the night, he thinks of these two
+men until he is almost distracted.  He never changes them.  There they
+are always as he first imagined them—an old man on the right; a younger
+man upon the left—whose hidden features torture him to death, and have a
+mystery that makes him tremble.
+
+The weary days pass on with solemn pace, like mourners at a funeral; and
+slowly he begins to feel that the white walls of the cell have something
+dreadful in them: that their colour is horrible: that their smooth
+surface chills his blood: that there is one hateful corner which torments
+him.  Every morning when he wakes, he hides his head beneath the
+coverlet, and shudders to see the ghastly ceiling looking down upon him.
+The blessed light of day itself peeps in, an ugly phantom face, through
+the unchangeable crevice which is his prison window.
+
+By slow but sure degrees, the terrors of that hateful corner swell until
+they beset him at all times; invade his rest, make his dreams hideous,
+and his nights dreadful.  At first, he took a strange dislike to it;
+feeling as though it gave birth in his brain to something of
+corresponding shape, which ought not to be there, and racked his head
+with pains.  Then he began to fear it, then to dream of it, and of men
+whispering its name and pointing to it.  Then he could not bear to look
+at it, nor yet to turn his back upon it.  Now, it is every night the
+lurking-place of a ghost: a shadow:—a silent something, horrible to see,
+but whether bird, or beast, or muffled human shape, he cannot tell.
+
+                     [Picture: The Solitary Prisoner]
+
+When he is in his cell by day, he fears the little yard without.  When he
+is in the yard, he dreads to re-enter the cell.  When night comes, there
+stands the phantom in the corner.  If he have the courage to stand in its
+place, and drive it out (he had once: being desperate), it broods upon
+his bed.  In the twilight, and always at the same hour, a voice calls to
+him by name; as the darkness thickens, his Loom begins to live; and even
+that, his comfort, is a hideous figure, watching him till daybreak.
+
+Again, by slow degrees, these horrible fancies depart from him one by
+one: returning sometimes, unexpectedly, but at longer intervals, and in
+less alarming shapes.  He has talked upon religious matters with the
+gentleman who visits him, and has read his Bible, and has written a
+prayer upon his slate, and hung it up as a kind of protection, and an
+assurance of Heavenly companionship.  He dreams now, sometimes, of his
+children or his wife, but is sure that they are dead, or have deserted
+him.  He is easily moved to tears; is gentle, submissive, and
+broken-spirited.  Occasionally, the old agony comes back: a very little
+thing will revive it; even a familiar sound, or the scent of summer
+flowers in the air; but it does not last long, now: for the world
+without, has come to be the vision, and this solitary life, the sad
+reality.
+
+If his term of imprisonment be short—I mean comparatively, for short it
+cannot be—the last half year is almost worse than all; for then he thinks
+the prison will take fire and he be burnt in the ruins, or that he is
+doomed to die within the walls, or that he will be detained on some false
+charge and sentenced for another term: or that something, no matter what,
+must happen to prevent his going at large.  And this is natural, and
+impossible to be reasoned against, because, after his long separation
+from human life, and his great suffering, any event will appear to him
+more probable in the contemplation, than the being restored to liberty
+and his fellow-creatures.
+
+If his period of confinement have been very long, the prospect of release
+bewilders and confuses him.  His broken heart may flutter for a moment,
+when he thinks of the world outside, and what it might have been to him
+in all those lonely years, but that is all.  The cell-door has been
+closed too long on all its hopes and cares.  Better to have hanged him in
+the beginning than bring him to this pass, and send him forth to mingle
+with his kind, who are his kind no more.
+
+On the haggard face of every man among these prisoners, the same
+expression sat.  I know not what to liken it to.  It had something of
+that strained attention which we see upon the faces of the blind and
+deaf, mingled with a kind of horror, as though they had all been secretly
+terrified.  In every little chamber that I entered, and at every grate
+through which I looked, I seemed to see the same appalling countenance.
+It lives in my memory, with the fascination of a remarkable picture.
+Parade before my eyes, a hundred men, with one among them newly released
+from this solitary suffering, and I would point him out.
+
+The faces of the women, as I have said, it humanises and refines.
+Whether this be because of their better nature, which is elicited in
+solitude, or because of their being gentler creatures, of greater
+patience and longer suffering, I do not know; but so it is.  That the
+punishment is nevertheless, to my thinking, fully as cruel and as wrong
+in their case, as in that of the men, I need scarcely add.
+
+My firm conviction is that, independent of the mental anguish it
+occasions—an anguish so acute and so tremendous, that all imagination of
+it must fall far short of the reality—it wears the mind into a morbid
+state, which renders it unfit for the rough contact and busy action of
+the world.  It is my fixed opinion that those who have undergone this
+punishment, MUST pass into society again morally unhealthy and diseased.
+There are many instances on record, of men who have chosen, or have been
+condemned, to lives of perfect solitude, but I scarcely remember one,
+even among sages of strong and vigorous intellect, where its effect has
+not become apparent, in some disordered train of thought, or some gloomy
+hallucination.  What monstrous phantoms, bred of despondency and doubt,
+and born and reared in solitude, have stalked upon the earth, making
+creation ugly, and darkening the face of Heaven!
+
+Suicides are rare among these prisoners: are almost, indeed, unknown.
+But no argument in favour of the system, can reasonably be deduced from
+this circumstance, although it is very often urged.  All men who have
+made diseases of the mind their study, know perfectly well that such
+extreme depression and despair as will change the whole character, and
+beat down all its powers of elasticity and self-resistance, may be at
+work within a man, and yet stop short of self-destruction.  This is a
+common case.
+
+That it makes the senses dull, and by degrees impairs the bodily
+faculties, I am quite sure.  I remarked to those who were with me in this
+very establishment at Philadelphia, that the criminals who had been there
+long, were deaf.  They, who were in the habit of seeing these men
+constantly, were perfectly amazed at the idea, which they regarded as
+groundless and fanciful.  And yet the very first prisoner to whom they
+appealed—one of their own selection confirmed my impression (which was
+unknown to him) instantly, and said, with a genuine air it was impossible
+to doubt, that he couldn’t think how it happened, but he _was_ growing
+very dull of hearing.
+
+That it is a singularly unequal punishment, and affects the worst man
+least, there is no doubt.  In its superior efficiency as a means of
+reformation, compared with that other code of regulations which allows
+the prisoners to work in company without communicating together, I have
+not the smallest faith.  All the instances of reformation that were
+mentioned to me, were of a kind that might have been—and I have no doubt
+whatever, in my own mind, would have been—equally well brought about by
+the Silent System.  With regard to such men as the negro burglar and the
+English thief, even the most enthusiastic have scarcely any hope of their
+conversion.
+
+It seems to me that the objection that nothing wholesome or good has ever
+had its growth in such unnatural solitude, and that even a dog or any of
+the more intelligent among beasts, would pine, and mope, and rust away,
+beneath its influence, would be in itself a sufficient argument against
+this system.  But when we recollect, in addition, how very cruel and
+severe it is, and that a solitary life is always liable to peculiar and
+distinct objections of a most deplorable nature, which have arisen here,
+and call to mind, moreover, that the choice is not between this system,
+and a bad or ill-considered one, but between it and another which has
+worked well, and is, in its whole design and practice, excellent; there
+is surely more than sufficient reason for abandoning a mode of punishment
+attended by so little hope or promise, and fraught, beyond dispute, with
+such a host of evils.
+
+As a relief to its contemplation, I will close this chapter with a
+curious story arising out of the same theme, which was related to me, on
+the occasion of this visit, by some of the gentlemen concerned.
+
+At one of the periodical meetings of the inspectors of this prison, a
+working man of Philadelphia presented himself before the Board, and
+earnestly requested to be placed in solitary confinement.  On being asked
+what motive could possibly prompt him to make this strange demand, he
+answered that he had an irresistible propensity to get drunk; that he was
+constantly indulging it, to his great misery and ruin; that he had no
+power of resistance; that he wished to be put beyond the reach of
+temptation; and that he could think of no better way than this.  It was
+pointed out to him, in reply, that the prison was for criminals who had
+been tried and sentenced by the law, and could not be made available for
+any such fanciful purposes; he was exhorted to abstain from intoxicating
+drinks, as he surely might if he would; and received other very good
+advice, with which he retired, exceedingly dissatisfied with the result
+of his application.
+
+He came again, and again, and again, and was so very earnest and
+importunate, that at last they took counsel together, and said, ‘He will
+certainly qualify himself for admission, if we reject him any more.  Let
+us shut him up.  He will soon be glad to go away, and then we shall get
+rid of him.’  So they made him sign a statement which would prevent his
+ever sustaining an action for false imprisonment, to the effect that his
+incarceration was voluntary, and of his own seeking; they requested him
+to take notice that the officer in attendance had orders to release him
+at any hour of the day or night, when he might knock upon his door for
+that purpose; but desired him to understand, that once going out, he
+would not be admitted any more.  These conditions agreed upon, and he
+still remaining in the same mind, he was conducted to the prison, and
+shut up in one of the cells.
+
+In this cell, the man, who had not the firmness to leave a glass of
+liquor standing untasted on a table before him—in this cell, in solitary
+confinement, and working every day at his trade of shoemaking, this man
+remained nearly two years.  His health beginning to fail at the
+expiration of that time, the surgeon recommended that he should work
+occasionally in the garden; and as he liked the notion very much, he went
+about this new occupation with great cheerfulness.
+
+He was digging here, one summer day, very industriously, when the wicket
+in the outer gate chanced to be left open: showing, beyond, the
+well-remembered dusty road and sunburnt fields.  The way was as free to
+him as to any man living, but he no sooner raised his head and caught
+sight of it, all shining in the light, than, with the involuntary
+instinct of a prisoner, he cast away his spade, scampered off as fast as
+his legs would carry him, and never once looked back.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+WASHINGTON.  THE LEGISLATURE.  AND THE PRESIDENT’S HOUSE
+
+
+WE left Philadelphia by steamboat, at six o’clock one very cold morning,
+and turned our faces towards Washington.
+
+In the course of this day’s journey, as on subsequent occasions, we
+encountered some Englishmen (small farmers, perhaps, or country publicans
+at home) who were settled in America, and were travelling on their own
+affairs.  Of all grades and kinds of men that jostle one in the public
+conveyances of the States, these are often the most intolerable and the
+most insufferable companions.  United to every disagreeable
+characteristic that the worst kind of American travellers possess, these
+countrymen of ours display an amount of insolent conceit and cool
+assumption of superiority, quite monstrous to behold.  In the coarse
+familiarity of their approach, and the effrontery of their
+inquisitiveness (which they are in great haste to assert, as if they
+panted to revenge themselves upon the decent old restraints of home),
+they surpass any native specimens that came within my range of
+observation: and I often grew so patriotic when I saw and heard them,
+that I would cheerfully have submitted to a reasonable fine, if I could
+have given any other country in the whole world, the honour of claiming
+them for its children.
+
+As Washington may be called the head-quarters of tobacco-tinctured
+saliva, the time is come when I must confess, without any disguise, that
+the prevalence of those two odious practices of chewing and expectorating
+began about this time to be anything but agreeable, and soon became most
+offensive and sickening.  In all the public places of America, this
+filthy custom is recognised.  In the courts of law, the judge has his
+spittoon, the crier his, the witness his, and the prisoner his; while the
+jurymen and spectators are provided for, as so many men who in the course
+of nature must desire to spit incessantly.  In the hospitals, the
+students of medicine are requested, by notices upon the wall, to eject
+their tobacco juice into the boxes provided for that purpose, and not to
+discolour the stairs.  In public buildings, visitors are implored,
+through the same agency, to squirt the essence of their quids, or
+‘plugs,’ as I have heard them called by gentlemen learned in this kind of
+sweetmeat, into the national spittoons, and not about the bases of the
+marble columns.  But in some parts, this custom is inseparably mixed up
+with every meal and morning call, and with all the transactions of social
+life.  The stranger, who follows in the track I took myself, will find it
+in its full bloom and glory, luxuriant in all its alarming recklessness,
+at Washington.  And let him not persuade himself (as I once did, to my
+shame) that previous tourists have exaggerated its extent.  The thing
+itself is an exaggeration of nastiness, which cannot be outdone.
+
+On board this steamboat, there were two young gentlemen, with
+shirt-collars reversed as usual, and armed with very big walking-sticks;
+who planted two seats in the middle of the deck, at a distance of some
+four paces apart; took out their tobacco-boxes; and sat down opposite
+each other, to chew.  In less than a quarter of an hour’s time, these
+hopeful youths had shed about them on the clean boards, a copious shower
+of yellow rain; clearing, by that means, a kind of magic circle, within
+whose limits no intruders dared to come, and which they never failed to
+refresh and re-refresh before a spot was dry.  This being before
+breakfast, rather disposed me, I confess, to nausea; but looking
+attentively at one of the expectorators, I plainly saw that he was young
+in chewing, and felt inwardly uneasy, himself.  A glow of delight came
+over me at this discovery; and as I marked his face turn paler and paler,
+and saw the ball of tobacco in his left cheek, quiver with his suppressed
+agony, while yet he spat, and chewed, and spat again, in emulation of his
+older friend, I could have fallen on his neck and implored him to go on
+for hours.
+
+We all sat down to a comfortable breakfast in the cabin below, where
+there was no more hurry or confusion than at such a meal in England, and
+where there was certainly greater politeness exhibited than at most of
+our stage-coach banquets.  At about nine o’clock we arrived at the
+railroad station, and went on by the cars.  At noon we turned out again,
+to cross a wide river in another steamboat; landed at a continuation of
+the railroad on the opposite shore; and went on by other cars; in which,
+in the course of the next hour or so, we crossed by wooden bridges, each
+a mile in length, two creeks, called respectively Great and Little
+Gunpowder.  The water in both was blackened with flights of canvas-backed
+ducks, which are most delicious eating, and abound hereabouts at that
+season of the year.
+
+These bridges are of wood, have no parapet, and are only just wide enough
+for the passage of the trains; which, in the event of the smallest
+accident, wound inevitably be plunged into the river.  They are startling
+contrivances, and are most agreeable when passed.
+
+We stopped to dine at Baltimore, and being now in Maryland, were waited
+on, for the first time, by slaves.  The sensation of exacting any service
+from human creatures who are bought and sold, and being, for the time, a
+party as it were to their condition, is not an enviable one.  The
+institution exists, perhaps, in its least repulsive and most mitigated
+form in such a town as this; but it _is_ slavery; and though I was, with
+respect to it, an innocent man, its presence filled me with a sense of
+shame and self-reproach.
+
+After dinner, we went down to the railroad again, and took our seats in
+the cars for Washington.  Being rather early, those men and boys who
+happened to have nothing particular to do, and were curious in
+foreigners, came (according to custom) round the carriage in which I sat;
+let down all the windows; thrust in their heads and shoulders; hooked
+themselves on conveniently, by their elbows; and fell to comparing notes
+on the subject of my personal appearance, with as much indifference as if
+I were a stuffed figure.  I never gained so much uncompromising
+information with reference to my own nose and eyes, and various
+impressions wrought by my mouth and chin on different minds, and how my
+head looks when it is viewed from behind, as on these occasions.  Some
+gentlemen were only satisfied by exercising their sense of touch; and the
+boys (who are surprisingly precocious in America) were seldom satisfied,
+even by that, but would return to the charge over and over again.  Many a
+budding president has walked into my room with his cap on his head and
+his hands in his pockets, and stared at me for two whole hours:
+occasionally refreshing himself with a tweak of his nose, or a draught
+from the water-jug; or by walking to the windows and inviting other boys
+in the street below, to come up and do likewise: crying, ‘Here he is!’
+‘Come on!’  ‘Bring all your brothers!’ with other hospitable entreaties
+of that nature.
+
+We reached Washington at about half-past six that evening, and had upon
+the way a beautiful view of the Capitol, which is a fine building of the
+Corinthian order, placed upon a noble and commanding eminence.  Arrived
+at the hotel; I saw no more of the place that night; being very tired,
+and glad to get to bed.
+
+Breakfast over next morning, I walk about the streets for an hour or two,
+and, coming home, throw up the window in the front and back, and look
+out.  Here is Washington, fresh in my mind and under my eye.
+
+Take the worst parts of the City Road and Pentonville, or the straggling
+outskirts of Paris, where the houses are smallest, preserving all their
+oddities, but especially the small shops and dwellings, occupied in
+Pentonville (but not in Washington) by furniture-brokers, keepers of poor
+eating-houses, and fanciers of birds.  Burn the whole down; build it up
+again in wood and plaster; widen it a little; throw in part of St. John’s
+Wood; put green blinds outside all the private houses, with a red curtain
+and a white one in every window; plough up all the roads; plant a great
+deal of coarse turf in every place where it ought _not_ to be; erect
+three handsome buildings in stone and marble, anywhere, but the more
+entirely out of everybody’s way the better; call one the Post Office; one
+the Patent Office, and one the Treasury; make it scorching hot in the
+morning, and freezing cold in the afternoon, with an occasional tornado
+of wind and dust; leave a brick-field without the bricks, in all central
+places where a street may naturally be expected: and that’s Washington.
+
+The hotel in which we live, is a long row of small houses fronting on the
+street, and opening at the back upon a common yard, in which hangs a
+great triangle.  Whenever a servant is wanted, somebody beats on this
+triangle from one stroke up to seven, according to the number of the
+house in which his presence is required; and as all the servants are
+always being wanted, and none of them ever come, this enlivening engine
+is in full performance the whole day through.  Clothes are drying in the
+same yard; female slaves, with cotton handkerchiefs twisted round their
+heads are running to and fro on the hotel business; black waiters cross
+and recross with dishes in their hands; two great dogs are playing upon a
+mound of loose bricks in the centre of the little square; a pig is
+turning up his stomach to the sun, and grunting ‘that’s comfortable!’;
+and neither the men, nor the women, nor the dogs, nor the pig, nor any
+created creature, takes the smallest notice of the triangle, which is
+tingling madly all the time.
+
+I walk to the front window, and look across the road upon a long,
+straggling row of houses, one story high, terminating, nearly opposite,
+but a little to the left, in a melancholy piece of waste ground with
+frowzy grass, which looks like a small piece of country that has taken to
+drinking, and has quite lost itself.  Standing anyhow and all wrong, upon
+this open space, like something meteoric that has fallen down from the
+moon, is an odd, lop-sided, one-eyed kind of wooden building, that looks
+like a church, with a flag-staff as long as itself sticking out of a
+steeple something larger than a tea-chest.  Under the window is a small
+stand of coaches, whose slave-drivers are sunning themselves on the steps
+of our door, and talking idly together.  The three most obtrusive houses
+near at hand are the three meanest.  On one—a shop, which never has
+anything in the window, and never has the door open—is painted in large
+characters, ‘THE CITY LUNCH.’  At another, which looks like a backway to
+somewhere else, but is an independent building in itself, oysters are
+procurable in every style.  At the third, which is a very, very little
+tailor’s shop, pants are fixed to order; or in other words, pantaloons
+are made to measure.  And that is our street in Washington.
+
+It is sometimes called the City of Magnificent Distances, but it might
+with greater propriety be termed the City of Magnificent Intentions; for
+it is only on taking a bird’s-eye view of it from the top of the Capitol,
+that one can at all comprehend the vast designs of its projector, an
+aspiring Frenchman.  Spacious avenues, that begin in nothing, and lead
+nowhere; streets, mile-long, that only want houses, roads and
+inhabitants; public buildings that need but a public to be complete; and
+ornaments of great thoroughfares, which only lack great thoroughfares to
+ornament—are its leading features.  One might fancy the season over, and
+most of the houses gone out of town for ever with their masters.  To the
+admirers of cities it is a Barmecide Feast: a pleasant field for the
+imagination to rove in; a monument raised to a deceased project, with not
+even a legible inscription to record its departed greatness.
+
+Such as it is, it is likely to remain.  It was originally chosen for the
+seat of Government, as a means of averting the conflicting jealousies and
+interests of the different States; and very probably, too, as being
+remote from mobs: a consideration not to be slighted, even in America.
+It has no trade or commerce of its own: having little or no population
+beyond the President and his establishment; the members of the
+legislature who reside there during the session; the Government clerks
+and officers employed in the various departments; the keepers of the
+hotels and boarding-houses; and the tradesmen who supply their tables.
+It is very unhealthy.  Few people would live in Washington, I take it,
+who were not obliged to reside there; and the tides of emigration and
+speculation, those rapid and regardless currents, are little likely to
+flow at any time towards such dull and sluggish water.
+
+The principal features of the Capitol, are, of course, the two houses of
+Assembly.  But there is, besides, in the centre of the building, a fine
+rotunda, ninety-six feet in diameter, and ninety-six high, whose circular
+wall is divided into compartments, ornamented by historical pictures.
+Four of these have for their subjects prominent events in the
+revolutionary struggle.  They were painted by Colonel Trumbull, himself a
+member of Washington’s staff at the time of their occurrence; from which
+circumstance they derive a peculiar interest of their own.  In this same
+hall Mr. Greenough’s large statue of Washington has been lately placed.
+It has great merits of course, but it struck me as being rather strained
+and violent for its subject.  I could wish, however, to have seen it in a
+better light than it can ever be viewed in, where it stands.
+
+There is a very pleasant and commodious library in the Capitol; and from
+a balcony in front, the bird’s-eye view, of which I have just spoken, may
+be had, together with a beautiful prospect of the adjacent country.  In
+one of the ornamented portions of the building, there is a figure of
+Justice; whereunto the Guide Book says, ‘the artist at first contemplated
+giving more of nudity, but he was warned that the public sentiment in
+this country would not admit of it, and in his caution he has gone,
+perhaps, into the opposite extreme.’  Poor Justice! she has been made to
+wear much stranger garments in America than those she pines in, in the
+Capitol.  Let us hope that she has changed her dress-maker since they
+were fashioned, and that the public sentiment of the country did not cut
+out the clothes she hides her lovely figure in, just now.
+
+The House of Representatives is a beautiful and spacious hall, of
+semicircular shape, supported by handsome pillars.  One part of the
+gallery is appropriated to the ladies, and there they sit in front rows,
+and come in, and go out, as at a play or concert.  The chair is canopied,
+and raised considerably above the floor of the House; and every member
+has an easy chair and a writing desk to himself: which is denounced by
+some people out of doors as a most unfortunate and injudicious
+arrangement, tending to long sittings and prosaic speeches.  It is an
+elegant chamber to look at, but a singularly bad one for all purposes of
+hearing.  The Senate, which is smaller, is free from this objection, and
+is exceedingly well adapted to the uses for which it is designed.  The
+sittings, I need hardly add, take place in the day; and the parliamentary
+forms are modelled on those of the old country.
+
+I was sometimes asked, in my progress through other places, whether I had
+not been very much impressed by the _heads_ of the lawmakers at
+Washington; meaning not their chiefs and leaders, but literally their
+individual and personal heads, whereon their hair grew, and whereby the
+phrenological character of each legislator was expressed: and I almost as
+often struck my questioner dumb with indignant consternation by answering
+‘No, that I didn’t remember being at all overcome.’  As I must, at
+whatever hazard, repeat the avowal here, I will follow it up by relating
+my impressions on this subject in as few words as possible.
+
+In the first place—it may be from some imperfect development of my organ
+of veneration—I do not remember having ever fainted away, or having even
+been moved to tears of joyful pride, at sight of any legislative body.  I
+have borne the House of Commons like a man, and have yielded to no
+weakness, but slumber, in the House of Lords.  I have seen elections for
+borough and county, and have never been impelled (no matter which party
+won) to damage my hat by throwing it up into the air in triumph, or to
+crack my voice by shouting forth any reference to our Glorious
+Constitution, to the noble purity of our independent voters, or, the
+unimpeachable integrity of our independent members.  Having withstood
+such strong attacks upon my fortitude, it is possible that I may be of a
+cold and insensible temperament, amounting to iciness, in such matters;
+and therefore my impressions of the live pillars of the Capitol at
+Washington must be received with such grains of allowance as this free
+confession may seem to demand.
+
+Did I see in this public body an assemblage of men, bound together in the
+sacred names of Liberty and Freedom, and so asserting the chaste dignity
+of those twin goddesses, in all their discussions, as to exalt at once
+the Eternal Principles to which their names are given, and their own
+character and the character of their countrymen, in the admiring eyes of
+the whole world?
+
+It was but a week, since an aged, grey-haired man, a lasting honour to
+the land that gave him birth, who has done good service to his country,
+as his forefathers did, and who will be remembered scores upon scores of
+years after the worms bred in its corruption, are but so many grains of
+dust—it was but a week, since this old man had stood for days upon his
+trial before this very body, charged with having dared to assert the
+infamy of that traffic, which has for its accursed merchandise men and
+women, and their unborn children.  Yes.  And publicly exhibited in the
+same city all the while; gilded, framed and glazed hung up for general
+admiration; shown to strangers not with shame, but pride; its face not
+turned towards the wall, itself not taken down and burned; is the
+Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America, which
+solemnly declares that All Men are created Equal; and are endowed by
+their Creator with the Inalienable Rights of Life, Liberty, and the
+Pursuit of Happiness!
+
+It was not a month, since this same body had sat calmly by, and heard a
+man, one of themselves, with oaths which beggars in their drink reject,
+threaten to cut another’s throat from ear to ear.  There he sat, among
+them; not crushed by the general feeling of the assembly, but as good a
+man as any.
+
+There was but a week to come, and another of that body, for doing his
+duty to those who sent him there; for claiming in a Republic the Liberty
+and Freedom of expressing their sentiments, and making known their
+prayer; would be tried, found guilty, and have strong censure passed upon
+him by the rest.  His was a grave offence indeed; for years before, he
+had risen up and said, ‘A gang of male and female slaves for sale,
+warranted to breed like cattle, linked to each other by iron fetters, are
+passing now along the open street beneath the windows of your Temple of
+Equality!  Look!’  But there are many kinds of hunters engaged in the
+Pursuit of Happiness, and they go variously armed.  It is the Inalienable
+Right of some among them, to take the field after _their_ Happiness
+equipped with cat and cartwhip, stocks, and iron collar, and to shout
+their view halloa! (always in praise of Liberty) to the music of clanking
+chains and bloody stripes.
+
+Where sat the many legislators of coarse threats; of words and blows such
+as coalheavers deal upon each other, when they forget their breeding?  On
+every side.  Every session had its anecdotes of that kind, and the actors
+were all there.
+
+Did I recognise in this assembly, a body of men, who, applying themselves
+in a new world to correct some of the falsehoods and vices of the old,
+purified the avenues to Public Life, paved the dirty ways to Place and
+Power, debated and made laws for the Common Good, and had no party but
+their Country?
+
+I saw in them, the wheels that move the meanest perversion of virtuous
+Political Machinery that the worst tools ever wrought.  Despicable
+trickery at elections; under-handed tamperings with public officers;
+cowardly attacks upon opponents, with scurrilous newspapers for shields,
+and hired pens for daggers; shameful trucklings to mercenary knaves,
+whose claim to be considered, is, that every day and week they sow new
+crops of ruin with their venal types, which are the dragon’s teeth of
+yore, in everything but sharpness; aidings and abettings of every bad
+inclination in the popular mind, and artful suppressions of all its good
+influences: such things as these, and in a word, Dishonest Faction in its
+most depraved and most unblushing form, stared out from every corner of
+the crowded hall.
+
+Did I see among them, the intelligence and refinement: the true, honest,
+patriotic heart of America?  Here and there, were drops of its blood and
+life, but they scarcely coloured the stream of desperate adventurers
+which sets that way for profit and for pay.  It is the game of these men,
+and of their profligate organs, to make the strife of politics so fierce
+and brutal, and so destructive of all self-respect in worthy men, that
+sensitive and delicate-minded persons shall be kept aloof, and they, and
+such as they, be left to battle out their selfish views unchecked.  And
+thus this lowest of all scrambling fights goes on, and they who in other
+countries would, from their intelligence and station, most aspire to make
+the laws, do here recoil the farthest from that degradation.
+
+That there are, among the representatives of the people in both Houses,
+and among all parties, some men of high character and great abilities, I
+need not say.  The foremost among those politicians who are known in
+Europe, have been already described, and I see no reason to depart from
+the rule I have laid down for my guidance, of abstaining from all mention
+of individuals.  It will be sufficient to add, that to the most
+favourable accounts that have been written of them, I more than fully and
+most heartily subscribe; and that personal intercourse and free
+communication have bred within me, not the result predicted in the very
+doubtful proverb, but increased admiration and respect.  They are
+striking men to look at, hard to deceive, prompt to act, lions in energy,
+Crichtons in varied accomplishments, Indians in fire of eye and gesture,
+Americans in strong and generous impulse; and they as well represent the
+honour and wisdom of their country at home, as the distinguished
+gentleman who is now its Minister at the British Court sustains its
+highest character abroad.
+
+I visited both houses nearly every day, during my stay in Washington.  On
+my initiatory visit to the House of Representatives, they divided against
+a decision of the chair; but the chair won.  The second time I went, the
+member who was speaking, being interrupted by a laugh, mimicked it, as
+one child would in quarrelling with another, and added, ‘that he would
+make honourable gentlemen opposite, sing out a little more on the other
+side of their mouths presently.’  But interruptions are rare; the speaker
+being usually heard in silence.  There are more quarrels than with us,
+and more threatenings than gentlemen are accustomed to exchange in any
+civilised society of which we have record: but farm-yard imitations have
+not as yet been imported from the Parliament of the United Kingdom.  The
+feature in oratory which appears to be the most practised, and most
+relished, is the constant repetition of the same idea or shadow of an
+idea in fresh words; and the inquiry out of doors is not, ‘What did he
+say?’ but, ‘How long did he speak?’  These, however, are but enlargements
+of a principle which prevails elsewhere.
+
+The Senate is a dignified and decorous body, and its proceedings are
+conducted with much gravity and order.  Both houses are handsomely
+carpeted; but the state to which these carpets are reduced by the
+universal disregard of the spittoon with which every honourable member is
+accommodated, and the extraordinary improvements on the pattern which are
+squirted and dabbled upon it in every direction, do not admit of being
+described.  I will merely observe, that I strongly recommend all
+strangers not to look at the floor; and if they happen to drop anything,
+though it be their purse, not to pick it up with an ungloved hand on any
+account.
+
+It is somewhat remarkable too, at first, to say the least, to see so many
+honourable members with swelled faces; and it is scarcely less remarkable
+to discover that this appearance is caused by the quantity of tobacco
+they contrive to stow within the hollow of the cheek.  It is strange
+enough too, to see an honourable gentleman leaning back in his tilted
+chair with his legs on the desk before him, shaping a convenient ‘plug’
+with his penknife, and when it is quite ready for use, shooting the old
+one from his mouth, as from a pop-gun, and clapping the new one in its
+place.
+
+I was surprised to observe that even steady old chewers of great
+experience, are not always good marksmen, which has rather inclined me to
+doubt that general proficiency with the rifle, of which we have heard so
+much in England.  Several gentlemen called upon me who, in the course of
+conversation, frequently missed the spittoon at five paces; and one (but
+he was certainly short-sighted) mistook the closed sash for the open
+window, at three.  On another occasion, when I dined out, and was sitting
+with two ladies and some gentlemen round a fire before dinner, one of the
+company fell short of the fireplace, six distinct times.  I am disposed
+to think, however, that this was occasioned by his not aiming at that
+object; as there was a white marble hearth before the fender, which was
+more convenient, and may have suited his purpose better.
+
+The Patent Office at Washington, furnishes an extraordinary example of
+American enterprise and ingenuity; for the immense number of models it
+contains are the accumulated inventions of only five years; the whole of
+the previous collection having been destroyed by fire.  The elegant
+structure in which they are arranged is one of design rather than
+execution, for there is but one side erected out of four, though the
+works are stopped.  The Post Office is a very compact and very beautiful
+building.  In one of the departments, among a collection of rare and
+curious articles, are deposited the presents which have been made from
+time to time to the American ambassadors at foreign courts by the various
+potentates to whom they were the accredited agents of the Republic; gifts
+which by the law they are not permitted to retain.  I confess that I
+looked upon this as a very painful exhibition, and one by no means
+flattering to the national standard of honesty and honour.  That can
+scarcely be a high state of moral feeling which imagines a gentleman of
+repute and station, likely to be corrupted, in the discharge of his duty,
+by the present of a snuff-box, or a richly-mounted sword, or an Eastern
+shawl; and surely the Nation who reposes confidence in her appointed
+servants, is likely to be better served, than she who makes them the
+subject of such very mean and paltry suspicions.
+
+At George Town, in the suburbs, there is a Jesuit College; delightfully
+situated, and, so far as I had an opportunity of seeing, well managed.
+Many persons who are not members of the Romish Church, avail themselves,
+I believe, of these institutions, and of the advantageous opportunities
+they afford for the education of their children.  The heights of this
+neighbourhood, above the Potomac River, are very picturesque: and are
+free, I should conceive, from some of the insalubrities of Washington.
+The air, at that elevation, was quite cool and refreshing, when in the
+city it was burning hot.
+
+The President’s mansion is more like an English club-house, both within
+and without, than any other kind of establishment with which I can
+compare it.  The ornamental ground about it has been laid out in garden
+walks; they are pretty, and agreeable to the eye; though they have that
+uncomfortable air of having been made yesterday, which is far from
+favourable to the display of such beauties.
+
+My first visit to this house was on the morning after my arrival, when I
+was carried thither by an official gentleman, who was so kind as to
+charge himself with my presentation to the President.
+
+We entered a large hall, and having twice or thrice rung a bell which
+nobody answered, walked without further ceremony through the rooms on the
+ground floor, as divers other gentlemen (mostly with their hats on, and
+their hands in their pockets) were doing very leisurely.  Some of these
+had ladies with them, to whom they were showing the premises; others were
+lounging on the chairs and sofas; others, in a perfect state of
+exhaustion from listlessness, were yawning drearily.  The greater portion
+of this assemblage were rather asserting their supremacy than doing
+anything else, as they had no particular business there, that anybody
+knew of.  A few were closely eyeing the movables, as if to make quite
+sure that the President (who was far from popular) had not made away with
+any of the furniture, or sold the fixtures for his private benefit.
+
+After glancing at these loungers; who were scattered over a pretty
+drawing-room, opening upon a terrace which commanded a beautiful prospect
+of the river and the adjacent country; and who were sauntering, too,
+about a larger state-room called the Eastern Drawing-room; we went
+up-stairs into another chamber, where were certain visitors, waiting for
+audiences.  At sight of my conductor, a black in plain clothes and yellow
+slippers who was gliding noiselessly about, and whispering messages in
+the ears of the more impatient, made a sign of recognition, and glided
+off to announce him.
+
+We had previously looked into another chamber fitted all round with a
+great, bare, wooden desk or counter, whereon lay files of newspapers, to
+which sundry gentlemen were referring.  But there were no such means of
+beguiling the time in this apartment, which was as unpromising and
+tiresome as any waiting-room in one of our public establishments, or any
+physician’s dining-room during his hours of consultation at home.
+
+There were some fifteen or twenty persons in the room.  One, a tall,
+wiry, muscular old man, from the west; sunburnt and swarthy; with a brown
+white hat on his knees, and a giant umbrella resting between his legs;
+who sat bolt upright in his chair, frowning steadily at the carpet, and
+twitching the hard lines about his mouth, as if he had made up his mind
+‘to fix’ the President on what he had to say, and wouldn’t bate him a
+grain.  Another, a Kentucky farmer, six-feet-six in height, with his hat
+on, and his hands under his coat-tails, who leaned against the wall and
+kicked the floor with his heel, as though he had Time’s head under his
+shoe, and were literally ‘killing’ him.  A third, an oval-faced,
+bilious-looking man, with sleek black hair cropped close, and whiskers
+and beard shaved down to blue dots, who sucked the head of a thick stick,
+and from time to time took it out of his mouth, to see how it was getting
+on.  A fourth did nothing but whistle.  A fifth did nothing but spit.
+And indeed all these gentlemen were so very persevering and energetic in
+this latter particular, and bestowed their favours so abundantly upon the
+carpet, that I take it for granted the Presidential housemaids have high
+wages, or, to speak more genteelly, an ample amount of ‘compensation:’
+which is the American word for salary, in the case of all public
+servants.
+
+We had not waited in this room many minutes, before the black messenger
+returned, and conducted us into another of smaller dimensions, where, at
+a business-like table covered with papers, sat the President himself.  He
+looked somewhat worn and anxious, and well he might; being at war with
+everybody—but the expression of his face was mild and pleasant, and his
+manner was remarkably unaffected, gentlemanly, and agreeable.  I thought
+that in his whole carriage and demeanour, he became his station
+singularly well.
+
+Being advised that the sensible etiquette of the republican court
+admitted of a traveller, like myself, declining, without any impropriety,
+an invitation to dinner, which did not reach me until I had concluded my
+arrangements for leaving Washington some days before that to which it
+referred, I only returned to this house once.  It was on the occasion of
+one of those general assemblies which are held on certain nights, between
+the hours of nine and twelve o’clock, and are called, rather oddly,
+Levees.
+
+I went, with my wife, at about ten.  There was a pretty dense crowd of
+carriages and people in the court-yard, and so far as I could make out,
+there were no very clear regulations for the taking up or setting down of
+company.  There were certainly no policemen to soothe startled horses,
+either by sawing at their bridles or flourishing truncheons in their
+eyes; and I am ready to make oath that no inoffensive persons were
+knocked violently on the head, or poked acutely in their backs or
+stomachs; or brought to a standstill by any such gentle means, and then
+taken into custody for not moving on.  But there was no confusion or
+disorder.  Our carriage reached the porch in its turn, without any
+blustering, swearing, shouting, backing, or other disturbance: and we
+dismounted with as much ease and comfort as though we had been escorted
+by the whole Metropolitan Force from A to Z inclusive.
+
+The suite of rooms on the ground-floor were lighted up, and a military
+band was playing in the hall.  In the smaller drawing-room, the centre of
+a circle of company, were the President and his daughter-in-law, who
+acted as the lady of the mansion; and a very interesting, graceful, and
+accomplished lady too.  One gentleman who stood among this group,
+appeared to take upon himself the functions of a master of the
+ceremonies.  I saw no other officers or attendants, and none were needed.
+
+The great drawing-room, which I have already mentioned, and the other
+chambers on the ground-floor, were crowded to excess.  The company was
+not, in our sense of the term, select, for it comprehended persons of
+very many grades and classes; nor was there any great display of costly
+attire: indeed, some of the costumes may have been, for aught I know,
+grotesque enough.  But the decorum and propriety of behaviour which
+prevailed, were unbroken by any rude or disagreeable incident; and every
+man, even among the miscellaneous crowd in the hall who were admitted
+without any orders or tickets to look on, appeared to feel that he was a
+part of the Institution, and was responsible for its preserving a
+becoming character, and appearing to the best advantage.
+
+That these visitors, too, whatever their station, were not without some
+refinement of taste and appreciation of intellectual gifts, and gratitude
+to those men who, by the peaceful exercise of great abilities, shed new
+charms and associations upon the homes of their countrymen, and elevate
+their character in other lands, was most earnestly testified by their
+reception of Washington Irving, my dear friend, who had recently been
+appointed Minister at the court of Spain, and who was among them that
+night, in his new character, for the first and last time before going
+abroad.  I sincerely believe that in all the madness of American
+politics, few public men would have been so earnestly, devotedly, and
+affectionately caressed, as this most charming writer: and I have seldom
+respected a public assembly more, than I did this eager throng, when I
+saw them turning with one mind from noisy orators and officers of state,
+and flocking with a generous and honest impulse round the man of quiet
+pursuits: proud in his promotion as reflecting back upon their country:
+and grateful to him with their whole hearts for the store of graceful
+fancies he had poured out among them.  Long may he dispense such
+treasures with unsparing hand; and long may they remember him as
+worthily!
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+The term we had assigned for the duration of our stay in Washington was
+now at an end, and we were to begin to travel; for the railroad distances
+we had traversed yet, in journeying among these older towns, are on that
+great continent looked upon as nothing.
+
+I had at first intended going South—to Charleston.  But when I came to
+consider the length of time which this journey would occupy, and the
+premature heat of the season, which even at Washington had been often
+very trying; and weighed moreover, in my own mind, the pain of living in
+the constant contemplation of slavery, against the more than doubtful
+chances of my ever seeing it, in the time I had to spare, stripped of the
+disguises in which it would certainly be dressed, and so adding any item
+to the host of facts already heaped together on the subject; I began to
+listen to old whisperings which had often been present to me at home in
+England, when I little thought of ever being here; and to dream again of
+cities growing up, like palaces in fairy tales, among the wilds and
+forests of the west.
+
+The advice I received in most quarters when I began to yield to my desire
+of travelling towards that point of the compass was, according to custom,
+sufficiently cheerless: my companion being threatened with more perils,
+dangers, and discomforts, than I can remember or would catalogue if I
+could; but of which it will be sufficient to remark that blowings-up in
+steamboats and breakings-down in coaches were among the least.  But,
+having a western route sketched out for me by the best and kindest
+authority to which I could have resorted, and putting no great faith in
+these discouragements, I soon determined on my plan of action.
+
+This was to travel south, only to Richmond in Virginia; and then to turn,
+and shape our course for the Far West; whither I beseech the reader’s
+company, in a new chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+A NIGHT STEAMER ON THE POTOMAC RIVER.  VIRGINIA ROAD, AND A BLACK DRIVER.
+RICHMOND.  BALTIMORE.  THE HARRISBURG MAIL, AND A GLIMPSE OF THE CITY.  A
+CANAL BOAT
+
+
+WE were to proceed in the first instance by steamboat; and as it is usual
+to sleep on board, in consequence of the starting-hour being four o’clock
+in the morning, we went down to where she lay, at that very uncomfortable
+time for such expeditions when slippers are most valuable, and a familiar
+bed, in the perspective of an hour or two, looks uncommonly pleasant.
+
+It is ten o’clock at night: say half-past ten: moonlight, warm, and dull
+enough.  The steamer (not unlike a child’s Noah’s ark in form, with the
+machinery on the top of the roof) is riding lazily up and down, and
+bumping clumsily against the wooden pier, as the ripple of the river
+trifles with its unwieldy carcase.  The wharf is some distance from the
+city.  There is nobody down here; and one or two dull lamps upon the
+steamer’s decks are the only signs of life remaining, when our coach has
+driven away.  As soon as our footsteps are heard upon the planks, a fat
+negress, particularly favoured by nature in respect of bustle, emerges
+from some dark stairs, and marshals my wife towards the ladies’ cabin, to
+which retreat she goes, followed by a mighty bale of cloaks and
+great-coats.  I valiantly resolve not to go to bed at all, but to walk up
+and down the pier till morning.
+
+I begin my promenade—thinking of all kinds of distant things and persons,
+and of nothing near—and pace up and down for half-an-hour.  Then I go on
+board again; and getting into the light of one of the lamps, look at my
+watch and think it must have stopped; and wonder what has become of the
+faithful secretary whom I brought along with me from Boston.  He is
+supping with our late landlord (a Field Marshal, at least, no doubt) in
+honour of our departure, and may be two hours longer.  I walk again, but
+it gets duller and duller: the moon goes down: next June seems farther
+off in the dark, and the echoes of my footsteps make me nervous.  It has
+turned cold too; and walking up and down without my companion in such
+lonely circumstances, is but poor amusement.  So I break my staunch
+resolution, and think it may be, perhaps, as well to go to bed.
+
+I go on board again; open the door of the gentlemen’s cabin and walk in.
+Somehow or other—from its being so quiet, I suppose—I have taken it into
+my head that there is nobody there.  To my horror and amazement it is
+full of sleepers in every stage, shape, attitude, and variety of slumber:
+in the berths, on the chairs, on the floors, on the tables, and
+particularly round the stove, my detested enemy.  I take another step
+forward, and slip on the shining face of a black steward, who lies rolled
+in a blanket on the floor.  He jumps up, grins, half in pain and half in
+hospitality; whispers my own name in my ear; and groping among the
+sleepers, leads me to my berth.  Standing beside it, I count these
+slumbering passengers, and get past forty.  There is no use in going
+further, so I begin to undress.  As the chairs are all occupied, and
+there is nothing else to put my clothes on, I deposit them upon the
+ground: not without soiling my hands, for it is in the same condition as
+the carpets in the Capitol, and from the same cause.  Having but
+partially undressed, I clamber on my shelf, and hold the curtain open for
+a few minutes while I look round on all my fellow-travellers again.  That
+done, I let it fall on them, and on the world: turn round: and go to
+sleep.
+
+I wake, of course, when we get under weigh, for there is a good deal of
+noise.  The day is then just breaking.  Everybody wakes at the same time.
+Some are self-possessed directly, and some are much perplexed to make out
+where they are until they have rubbed their eyes, and leaning on one
+elbow, looked about them.  Some yawn, some groan, nearly all spit, and a
+few get up.  I am among the risers: for it is easy to feel, without going
+into the fresh air, that the atmosphere of the cabin is vile in the last
+degree.  I huddle on my clothes, go down into the fore-cabin, get shaved
+by the barber, and wash myself.  The washing and dressing apparatus for
+the passengers generally, consists of two jack-towels, three small wooden
+basins, a keg of water and a ladle to serve it out with, six square
+inches of looking-glass, two ditto ditto of yellow soap, a comb and brush
+for the head, and nothing for the teeth.  Everybody uses the comb and
+brush, except myself.  Everybody stares to see me using my own; and two
+or three gentlemen are strongly disposed to banter me on my prejudices,
+but don’t.  When I have made my toilet, I go upon the hurricane-deck, and
+set in for two hours of hard walking up and down.  The sun is rising
+brilliantly; we are passing Mount Vernon, where Washington lies buried;
+the river is wide and rapid; and its banks are beautiful.  All the glory
+and splendour of the day are coming on, and growing brighter every
+minute.
+
+At eight o’clock, we breakfast in the cabin where I passed the night, but
+the windows and doors are all thrown open, and now it is fresh enough.
+There is no hurry or greediness apparent in the despatch of the meal.  It
+is longer than a travelling breakfast with us; more orderly, and more
+polite.
+
+Soon after nine o’clock we come to Potomac Creek, where we are to land;
+and then comes the oddest part of the journey.  Seven stage-coaches are
+preparing to carry us on.  Some of them are ready, some of them are not
+ready.  Some of the drivers are blacks, some whites.  There are four
+horses to each coach, and all the horses, harnessed or unharnessed, are
+there.  The passengers are getting out of the steamboat, and into the
+coaches; the luggage is being transferred in noisy wheelbarrows; the
+horses are frightened, and impatient to start; the black drivers are
+chattering to them like so many monkeys; and the white ones whooping like
+so many drovers: for the main thing to be done in all kinds of hostlering
+here, is to make as much noise as possible.  The coaches are something
+like the French coaches, but not nearly so good.  In lieu of springs,
+they are hung on bands of the strongest leather.  There is very little
+choice or difference between them; and they may be likened to the car
+portion of the swings at an English fair, roofed, put upon axle-trees and
+wheels, and curtained with painted canvas.  They are covered with mud
+from the roof to the wheel-tire, and have never been cleaned since they
+were first built.
+
+The tickets we have received on board the steamboat are marked No. 1, so
+we belong to coach No. 1.  I throw my coat on the box, and hoist my wife
+and her maid into the inside.  It has only one step, and that being about
+a yard from the ground, is usually approached by a chair: when there is
+no chair, ladies trust in Providence.  The coach holds nine inside,
+having a seat across from door to door, where we in England put our legs:
+so that there is only one feat more difficult in the performance than
+getting in, and that is, getting out again.  There is only one outside
+passenger, and he sits upon the box.  As I am that one, I climb up; and
+while they are strapping the luggage on the roof, and heaping it into a
+kind of tray behind, have a good opportunity of looking at the driver.
+
+He is a negro—very black indeed.  He is dressed in a coarse
+pepper-and-salt suit excessively patched and darned (particularly at the
+knees), grey stockings, enormous unblacked high-low shoes, and very short
+trousers.  He has two odd gloves: one of parti-coloured worsted, and one
+of leather.  He has a very short whip, broken in the middle and bandaged
+up with string.  And yet he wears a low-crowned, broad-brimmed, black
+hat: faintly shadowing forth a kind of insane imitation of an English
+coachman!  But somebody in authority cries ‘Go ahead!’ as I am making
+these observations.  The mail takes the lead in a four-horse waggon, and
+all the coaches follow in procession: headed by No. 1.
+
+By the way, whenever an Englishman would cry ‘All right!’ an American
+cries ‘Go ahead!’ which is somewhat expressive of the national character
+of the two countries.
+
+The first half-mile of the road is over bridges made of loose planks laid
+across two parallel poles, which tilt up as the wheels roll over them;
+and IN the river.  The river has a clayey bottom and is full of holes, so
+that half a horse is constantly disappearing unexpectedly, and can’t be
+found again for some time.
+
+But we get past even this, and come to the road itself, which is a series
+of alternate swamps and gravel-pits.  A tremendous place is close before
+us, the black driver rolls his eyes, screws his mouth up very round, and
+looks straight between the two leaders, as if he were saying to himself,
+‘We have done this often before, but _now_ I think we shall have a
+crash.’  He takes a rein in each hand; jerks and pulls at both; and
+dances on the splashboard with both feet (keeping his seat, of course)
+like the late lamented Ducrow on two of his fiery coursers.  We come to
+the spot, sink down in the mire nearly to the coach windows, tilt on one
+side at an angle of forty-five degrees, and stick there.  The insides
+scream dismally; the coach stops; the horses flounder; all the other six
+coaches stop; and their four-and-twenty horses flounder likewise: but
+merely for company, and in sympathy with ours.  Then the following
+circumstances occur.
+
+BLACK DRIVER (to the horses).  ‘Hi!’
+
+Nothing happens.  Insides scream again.
+
+BLACK DRIVER (to the horses).  ‘Ho!’
+
+Horses plunge, and splash the black driver.
+
+GENTLEMAN INSIDE (looking out).  ‘Why, what on airth—’
+
+Gentleman receives a variety of splashes and draws his head in again,
+without finishing his question or waiting for an answer.
+
+BLACK DRIVER (still to the horses).  ‘Jiddy!  Jiddy!’
+
+Horses pull violently, drag the coach out of the hole, and draw it up a
+bank; so steep, that the black driver’s legs fly up into the air, and he
+goes back among the luggage on the roof.  But he immediately recovers
+himself, and cries (still to the horses),
+
+‘Pill!’
+
+No effect.  On the contrary, the coach begins to roll back upon No. 2,
+which rolls back upon No. 3, which rolls back upon No. 4, and so on,
+until No. 7 is heard to curse and swear, nearly a quarter of a mile
+behind.
+
+BLACK DRIVER (louder than before).  ‘Pill!’
+
+Horses make another struggle to get up the bank, and again the coach
+rolls backward.
+
+BLACK DRIVER (louder than before).  ‘Pe-e-e-ill!’
+
+Horses make a desperate struggle.
+
+BLACK DRIVER (recovering spirits).  ‘Hi, Jiddy, Jiddy, Pill!’
+
+Horses make another effort.
+
+BLACK DRIVER (with great vigour).  ‘Ally Loo!  Hi.  Jiddy, Jiddy.  Pill.
+Ally Loo!’
+
+Horses almost do it.
+
+BLACK DRIVER (with his eyes starting out of his head).  ‘Lee, den.  Lee,
+dere.  Hi.  Jiddy, Jiddy.  Pill.  Ally Loo.  Lee-e-e-e-e!’
+
+They run up the bank, and go down again on the other side at a fearful
+pace.  It is impossible to stop them, and at the bottom there is a deep
+hollow, full of water.  The coach rolls frightfully.  The insides scream.
+The mud and water fly about us.  The black driver dances like a madman.
+Suddenly we are all right by some extraordinary means, and stop to
+breathe.
+
+A black friend of the black driver is sitting on a fence.  The black
+driver recognises him by twirling his head round and round like a
+harlequin, rolling his eyes, shrugging his shoulders, and grinning from
+ear to ear.  He stops short, turns to me, and says:
+
+‘We shall get you through sa, like a fiddle, and hope a please you when
+we get you through sa.  Old ‘ooman at home sa:’ chuckling very much.
+‘Outside gentleman sa, he often remember old ‘ooman at home sa,’ grinning
+again.
+
+‘Ay ay, we’ll take care of the old woman.  Don’t be afraid.’
+
+The black driver grins again, but there is another hole, and beyond that,
+another bank, close before us.  So he stops short: cries (to the horses
+again) ‘Easy.  Easy den.  Ease.  Steady.  Hi.  Jiddy.  Pill.  Ally.
+Loo,’ but never ‘Lee!’ until we are reduced to the very last extremity,
+and are in the midst of difficulties, extrication from which appears to
+be all but impossible.
+
+And so we do the ten miles or thereabouts in two hours and a half;
+breaking no bones, though bruising a great many; and in short getting
+through the distance, ‘like a fiddle.’
+
+This singular kind of coaching terminates at Fredericksburgh, whence
+there is a railway to Richmond.  The tract of country through which it
+takes its course was once productive; but the soil has been exhausted by
+the system of employing a great amount of slave labour in forcing crops,
+without strengthening the land: and it is now little better than a sandy
+desert overgrown with trees.  Dreary and uninteresting as its aspect is,
+I was glad to the heart to find anything on which one of the curses of
+this horrible institution has fallen; and had greater pleasure in
+contemplating the withered ground, than the richest and most thriving
+cultivation in the same place could possibly have afforded me.
+
+In this district, as in all others where slavery sits brooding, (I have
+frequently heard this admitted, even by those who are its warmest
+advocates:) there is an air of ruin and decay abroad, which is
+inseparable from the system.  The barns and outhouses are mouldering
+away; the sheds are patched and half roofless; the log cabins (built in
+Virginia with external chimneys made of clay or wood) are squalid in the
+last degree.  There is no look of decent comfort anywhere.  The miserable
+stations by the railway side, the great wild wood-yards, whence the
+engine is supplied with fuel; the negro children rolling on the ground
+before the cabin doors, with dogs and pigs; the biped beasts of burden
+slinking past: gloom and dejection are upon them all.
+
+In the negro car belonging to the train in which we made this journey,
+were a mother and her children who had just been purchased; the husband
+and father being left behind with their old owner.  The children cried
+the whole way, and the mother was misery’s picture.  The champion of
+Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, who had bought them, rode in
+the same train; and, every time we stopped, got down to see that they
+were safe.  The black in Sinbad’s Travels with one eye in the middle of
+his forehead which shone like a burning coal, was nature’s aristocrat
+compared with this white gentleman.
+
+                        [Picture: Black and White]
+
+It was between six and seven o’clock in the evening, when we drove to the
+hotel: in front of which, and on the top of the broad flight of steps
+leading to the door, two or three citizens were balancing themselves on
+rocking-chairs, and smoking cigars.  We found it a very large and elegant
+establishment, and were as well entertained as travellers need desire to
+be.  The climate being a thirsty one, there was never, at any hour of the
+day, a scarcity of loungers in the spacious bar, or a cessation of the
+mixing of cool liquors: but they were a merrier people here, and had
+musical instruments playing to them o’ nights, which it was a treat to
+hear again.
+
+The next day, and the next, we rode and walked about the town, which is
+delightfully situated on eight hills, overhanging James River; a
+sparkling stream, studded here and there with bright islands, or brawling
+over broken rocks.  Although it was yet but the middle of March, the
+weather in this southern temperature was extremely warm; the peech-trees
+and magnolias were in full bloom; and the trees were green.  In a low
+ground among the hills, is a valley known as ‘Bloody Run,’ from a
+terrible conflict with the Indians which once occurred there.  It is a
+good place for such a struggle, and, like every other spot I saw
+associated with any legend of that wild people now so rapidly fading from
+the earth, interested me very much.
+
+The city is the seat of the local parliament of Virginia; and in its
+shady legislative halls, some orators were drowsily holding forth to the
+hot noon day.  By dint of constant repetition, however, these
+constitutional sights had very little more interest for me than so many
+parochial vestries; and I was glad to exchange this one for a lounge in a
+well-arranged public library of some ten thousand volumes, and a visit to
+a tobacco manufactory, where the workmen are all slaves.
+
+I saw in this place the whole process of picking, rolling, pressing,
+drying, packing in casks, and branding.  All the tobacco thus dealt with,
+was in course of manufacture for chewing; and one would have supposed
+there was enough in that one storehouse to have filled even the
+comprehensive jaws of America.  In this form, the weed looks like the
+oil-cake on which we fatten cattle; and even without reference to its
+consequences, is sufficiently uninviting.
+
+Many of the workmen appeared to be strong men, and it is hardly necessary
+to add that they were all labouring quietly, then.  After two o’clock in
+the day, they are allowed to sing, a certain number at a time.  The hour
+striking while I was there, some twenty sang a hymn in parts, and sang it
+by no means ill; pursuing their work meanwhile.  A bell rang as I was
+about to leave, and they all poured forth into a building on the opposite
+side of the street to dinner.  I said several times that I should like to
+see them at their meal; but as the gentleman to whom I mentioned this
+desire appeared to be suddenly taken rather deaf, I did not pursue the
+request.  Of their appearance I shall have something to say, presently.
+
+On the following day, I visited a plantation or farm, of about twelve
+hundred acres, on the opposite bank of the river.  Here again, although I
+went down with the owner of the estate, to ‘the quarter,’ as that part of
+it in which the slaves live is called, I was not invited to enter into
+any of their huts.  All I saw of them, was, that they were very crazy,
+wretched cabins, near to which groups of half-naked children basked in
+the sun, or wallowed on the dusty ground.  But I believe that this
+gentleman is a considerate and excellent master, who inherited his fifty
+slaves, and is neither a buyer nor a seller of human stock; and I am
+sure, from my own observation and conviction, that he is a kind-hearted,
+worthy man.
+
+The planter’s house was an airy, rustic dwelling, that brought Defoe’s
+description of such places strongly to my recollection.  The day was very
+warm, but the blinds being all closed, and the windows and doors set wide
+open, a shady coolness rustled through the rooms, which was exquisitely
+refreshing after the glare and heat without.  Before the windows was an
+open piazza, where, in what they call the hot weather—whatever that may
+be—they sling hammocks, and drink and doze luxuriously.  I do not know
+how their cool rejections may taste within the hammocks, but, having
+experience, I can report that, out of them, the mounds of ices and the
+bowls of mint-julep and sherry-cobbler they make in these latitudes, are
+refreshments never to be thought of afterwards, in summer, by those who
+would preserve contented minds.
+
+There are two bridges across the river: one belongs to the railroad, and
+the other, which is a very crazy affair, is the private property of some
+old lady in the neighbourhood, who levies tolls upon the townspeople.
+Crossing this bridge, on my way back, I saw a notice painted on the gate,
+cautioning all persons to drive slowly: under a penalty, if the offender
+were a white man, of five dollars; if a negro, fifteen stripes.
+
+The same decay and gloom that overhang the way by which it is approached,
+hover above the town of Richmond.  There are pretty villas and cheerful
+houses in its streets, and Nature smiles upon the country round; but
+jostling its handsome residences, like slavery itself going hand in hand
+with many lofty virtues, are deplorable tenements, fences unrepaired,
+walls crumbling into ruinous heaps.  Hinting gloomily at things below the
+surface, these, and many other tokens of the same description, force
+themselves upon the notice, and are remembered with depressing influence,
+when livelier features are forgotten.
+
+To those who are happily unaccustomed to them, the countenances in the
+streets and labouring-places, too, are shocking.  All men who know that
+there are laws against instructing slaves, of which the pains and
+penalties greatly exceed in their amount the fines imposed on those who
+maim and torture them, must be prepared to find their faces very low in
+the scale of intellectual expression.  But the darkness—not of skin, but
+mind—which meets the stranger’s eye at every turn; the brutalizing and
+blotting out of all fairer characters traced by Nature’s hand;
+immeasurably outdo his worst belief.  That travelled creation of the
+great satirist’s brain, who fresh from living among horses, peered from a
+high casement down upon his own kind with trembling horror, was scarcely
+more repelled and daunted by the sight, than those who look upon some of
+these faces for the first time must surely be.
+
+I left the last of them behind me in the person of a wretched drudge,
+who, after running to and fro all day till midnight, and moping in his
+stealthy winks of sleep upon the stairs betweenwhiles, was washing the
+dark passages at four o’clock in the morning; and went upon my way with a
+grateful heart that I was not doomed to live where slavery was, and had
+never had my senses blunted to its wrongs and horrors in a slave-rocked
+cradle.
+
+It had been my intention to proceed by James River and Chesapeake Bay to
+Baltimore; but one of the steamboats being absent from her station
+through some accident, and the means of conveyance being consequently
+rendered uncertain, we returned to Washington by the way we had come
+(there were two constables on board the steamboat, in pursuit of runaway
+slaves), and halting there again for one night, went on to Baltimore next
+afternoon.
+
+The most comfortable of all the hotels of which I had any experience in
+the United States, and they were not a few, is Barnum’s, in that city:
+where the English traveller will find curtains to his bed, for the first
+and probably the last time in America (this is a disinterested remark,
+for I never use them); and where he will be likely to have enough water
+for washing himself, which is not at all a common case.
+
+This capital of the state of Maryland is a bustling, busy town, with a
+great deal of traffic of various kinds, and in particular of water
+commerce.  That portion of the town which it most favours is none of the
+cleanest, it is true; but the upper part is of a very different
+character, and has many agreeable streets and public buildings.  The
+Washington Monument, which is a handsome pillar with a statue on its
+summit; the Medical College; and the Battle Monument in memory of an
+engagement with the British at North Point; are the most conspicuous
+among them.
+
+There is a very good prison in this city, and the State Penitentiary is
+also among its institutions.  In this latter establishment there were two
+curious cases.
+
+One was that of a young man, who had been tried for the murder of his
+father.  The evidence was entirely circumstantial, and was very
+conflicting and doubtful; nor was it possible to assign any motive which
+could have tempted him to the commission of so tremendous a crime.  He
+had been tried twice; and on the second occasion the jury felt so much
+hesitation in convicting him, that they found a verdict of manslaughter,
+or murder in the second degree; which it could not possibly be, as there
+had, beyond all doubt, been no quarrel or provocation, and if he were
+guilty at all, he was unquestionably guilty of murder in its broadest and
+worst signification.
+
+The remarkable feature in the case was, that if the unfortunate deceased
+were not really murdered by this own son of his, he must have been
+murdered by his own brother.  The evidence lay in a most remarkable
+manner, between those two.  On all the suspicious points, the dead man’s
+brother was the witness: all the explanations for the prisoner (some of
+them extremely plausible) went, by construction and inference, to
+inculcate him as plotting to fix the guilt upon his nephew.  It must have
+been one of them: and the jury had to decide between two sets of
+suspicions, almost equally unnatural, unaccountable, and strange.
+
+The other case, was that of a man who once went to a certain distiller’s
+and stole a copper measure containing a quantity of liquor.  He was
+pursued and taken with the property in his possession, and was sentenced
+to two years’ imprisonment.  On coming out of the jail, at the expiration
+of that term, he went back to the same distiller’s, and stole the same
+copper measure containing the same quantity of liquor.  There was not the
+slightest reason to suppose that the man wished to return to prison:
+indeed everything, but the commission of the offence, made directly
+against that assumption.  There are only two ways of accounting for this
+extraordinary proceeding.  One is, that after undergoing so much for this
+copper measure he conceived he had established a sort of claim and right
+to it.  The other that, by dint of long thinking about, it had become a
+monomania with him, and had acquired a fascination which he found it
+impossible to resist; swelling from an Earthly Copper Gallon into an
+Ethereal Golden Vat.
+
+After remaining here a couple of days I bound myself to a rigid adherence
+to the plan I had laid down so recently, and resolved to set forward on
+our western journey without any more delay.  Accordingly, having reduced
+the luggage within the smallest possible compass (by sending back to New
+York, to be afterwards forwarded to us in Canada, so much of it as was
+not absolutely wanted); and having procured the necessary credentials to
+banking-houses on the way; and having moreover looked for two evenings at
+the setting sun, with as well-defined an idea of the country before us as
+if we had been going to travel into the very centre of that planet; we
+left Baltimore by another railway at half-past eight in the morning, and
+reached the town of York, some sixty miles off, by the early dinner-time
+of the Hotel which was the starting-place of the four-horse coach,
+wherein we were to proceed to Harrisburg.
+
+This conveyance, the box of which I was fortunate enough to secure, had
+come down to meet us at the railroad station, and was as muddy and
+cumbersome as usual.  As more passengers were waiting for us at the
+inn-door, the coachman observed under his breath, in the usual
+self-communicative voice, looking the while at his mouldy harness as if
+it were to that he was addressing himself,
+
+‘I expect we shall want _the big_ coach.’
+
+I could not help wondering within myself what the size of this big coach
+might be, and how many persons it might be designed to hold; for the
+vehicle which was too small for our purpose was something larger than two
+English heavy night coaches, and might have been the twin-brother of a
+French Diligence.  My speculations were speedily set at rest, however,
+for as soon as we had dined, there came rumbling up the street, shaking
+its sides like a corpulent giant, a kind of barge on wheels.  After much
+blundering and backing, it stopped at the door: rolling heavily from side
+to side when its other motion had ceased, as if it had taken cold in its
+damp stable, and between that, and the having been required in its
+dropsical old age to move at any faster pace than a walk, were distressed
+by shortness of wind.
+
+‘If here ain’t the Harrisburg mail at last, and dreadful bright and smart
+to look at too,’ cried an elderly gentleman in some excitement, ‘darn my
+mother!’
+
+I don’t know what the sensation of being darned may be, or whether a
+man’s mother has a keener relish or disrelish of the process than anybody
+else; but if the endurance of this mysterious ceremony by the old lady in
+question had depended on the accuracy of her son’s vision in respect to
+the abstract brightness and smartness of the Harrisburg mail, she would
+certainly have undergone its infliction.  However, they booked twelve
+people inside; and the luggage (including such trifles as a large
+rocking-chair, and a good-sized dining-table) being at length made fast
+upon the roof, we started off in great state.
+
+At the door of another hotel, there was another passenger to be taken up.
+
+‘Any room, sir?’ cries the new passenger to the coachman.
+
+‘Well, there’s room enough,’ replies the coachman, without getting down,
+or even looking at him.
+
+‘There an’t no room at all, sir,’ bawls a gentleman inside.  Which
+another gentleman (also inside) confirms, by predicting that the attempt
+to introduce any more passengers ‘won’t fit nohow.’
+
+The new passenger, without any expression of anxiety, looks into the
+coach, and then looks up at the coachman: ‘Now, how do you mean to fix
+it?’ says he, after a pause: ‘for I _must_ go.’
+
+The coachman employs himself in twisting the lash of his whip into a
+knot, and takes no more notice of the question: clearly signifying that
+it is anybody’s business but his, and that the passengers would do well
+to fix it, among themselves.  In this state of things, matters seem to be
+approximating to a fix of another kind, when another inside passenger in
+a corner, who is nearly suffocated, cries faintly, ‘I’ll get out.’
+
+This is no matter of relief or self-congratulation to the driver, for his
+immovable philosophy is perfectly undisturbed by anything that happens in
+the coach.  Of all things in the world, the coach would seem to be the
+very last upon his mind.  The exchange is made, however, and then the
+passenger who has given up his seat makes a third upon the box, seating
+himself in what he calls the middle; that is, with half his person on my
+legs, and the other half on the driver’s.
+
+‘Go a-head, cap’en,’ cries the colonel, who directs.
+
+‘Gŏ-lāng!’ cries the cap’en to his company, the horses, and away we go.
+
+We took up at a rural bar-room, after we had gone a few miles, an
+intoxicated gentleman who climbed upon the roof among the luggage, and
+subsequently slipping off without hurting himself, was seen in the
+distant perspective reeling back to the grog-shop where we had found him.
+We also parted with more of our freight at different times, so that when
+we came to change horses, I was again alone outside.
+
+The coachmen always change with the horses, and are usually as dirty as
+the coach.  The first was dressed like a very shabby English baker; the
+second like a Russian peasant: for he wore a loose purple camlet robe,
+with a fur collar, tied round his waist with a parti-coloured worsted
+sash; grey trousers; light blue gloves: and a cap of bearskin.  It had by
+this time come on to rain very heavily, and there was a cold damp mist
+besides, which penetrated to the skin.  I was glad to take advantage of a
+stoppage and get down to stretch my legs, shake the water off my
+great-coat, and swallow the usual anti-temperance recipe for keeping out
+the cold.
+
+When I mounted to my seat again, I observed a new parcel lying on the
+coach roof, which I took to be a rather large fiddle in a brown bag.  In
+the course of a few miles, however, I discovered that it had a glazed cap
+at one end and a pair of muddy shoes at the other and further observation
+demonstrated it to be a small boy in a snuff-coloured coat, with his arms
+quite pinioned to his sides, by deep forcing into his pockets.  He was, I
+presume, a relative or friend of the coachman’s, as he lay a-top of the
+luggage with his face towards the rain; and except when a change of
+position brought his shoes in contact with my hat, he appeared to be
+asleep.  At last, on some occasion of our stopping, this thing slowly
+upreared itself to the height of three feet six, and fixing its eyes on
+me, observed in piping accents, with a complaisant yawn, half quenched in
+an obliging air of friendly patronage, ‘Well now, stranger, I guess you
+find this a’most like an English arternoon, hey?’
+
+The scenery, which had been tame enough at first, was, for the last ten
+or twelve miles, beautiful.  Our road wound through the pleasant valley
+of the Susquehanna; the river, dotted with innumerable green islands, lay
+upon our right; and on the left, a steep ascent, craggy with broken rock,
+and dark with pine trees.  The mist, wreathing itself into a hundred
+fantastic shapes, moved solemnly upon the water; and the gloom of evening
+gave to all an air of mystery and silence which greatly enhanced its
+natural interest.
+
+We crossed this river by a wooden bridge, roofed and covered in on all
+sides, and nearly a mile in length.  It was profoundly dark; perplexed,
+with great beams, crossing and recrossing it at every possible angle; and
+through the broad chinks and crevices in the floor, the rapid river
+gleamed, far down below, like a legion of eyes.  We had no lamps; and as
+the horses stumbled and floundered through this place, towards the
+distant speck of dying light, it seemed interminable.  I really could not
+at first persuade myself as we rumbled heavily on, filling the bridge
+with hollow noises, and I held down my head to save it from the rafters
+above, but that I was in a painful dream; for I have often dreamed of
+toiling through such places, and as often argued, even at the time, ‘this
+cannot be reality.’
+
+At length, however, we emerged upon the streets of Harrisburg, whose
+feeble lights, reflected dismally from the wet ground, did not shine out
+upon a very cheerful city.  We were soon established in a snug hotel,
+which though smaller and far less splendid than many we put up at, it
+raised above them all in my remembrance, by having for its landlord the
+most obliging, considerate, and gentlemanly person I ever had to deal
+with.
+
+As we were not to proceed upon our journey until the afternoon, I walked
+out, after breakfast the next morning, to look about me; and was duly
+shown a model prison on the solitary system, just erected, and as yet
+without an inmate; the trunk of an old tree to which Harris, the first
+settler here (afterwards buried under it), was tied by hostile Indians,
+with his funeral pile about him, when he was saved by the timely
+appearance of a friendly party on the opposite shore of the river; the
+local legislature (for there was another of those bodies here again, in
+full debate); and the other curiosities of the town.
+
+I was very much interested in looking over a number of treaties made from
+time to time with the poor Indians, signed by the different chiefs at the
+period of their ratification, and preserved in the office of the
+Secretary to the Commonwealth.  These signatures, traced of course by
+their own hands, are rough drawings of the creatures or weapons they were
+called after.  Thus, the Great Turtle makes a crooked pen-and-ink outline
+of a great turtle; the Buffalo sketches a buffalo; the War Hatchet sets a
+rough image of that weapon for his mark.  So with the Arrow, the Fish,
+the Scalp, the Big Canoe, and all of them.
+
+I could not but think—as I looked at these feeble and tremulous
+productions of hands which could draw the longest arrow to the head in a
+stout elk-horn bow, or split a bead or feather with a rifle-ball—of
+Crabbe’s musings over the Parish Register, and the irregular scratches
+made with a pen, by men who would plough a lengthy furrow straight from
+end to end.  Nor could I help bestowing many sorrowful thoughts upon the
+simple warriors whose hands and hearts were set there, in all truth and
+honesty; and who only learned in course of time from white men how to
+break their faith, and quibble out of forms and bonds.  I wonder, too,
+how many times the credulous Big Turtle, or trusting Little Hatchet, had
+put his mark to treaties which were falsely read to him; and had signed
+away, he knew not what, until it went and cast him loose upon the new
+possessors of the land, a savage indeed.
+
+Our host announced, before our early dinner, that some members of the
+legislative body proposed to do us the honour of calling.  He had kindly
+yielded up to us his wife’s own little parlour, and when I begged that he
+would show them in, I saw him look with painful apprehension at its
+pretty carpet; though, being otherwise occupied at the time, the cause of
+his uneasiness did not occur to me.
+
+It certainly would have been more pleasant to all parties concerned, and
+would not, I think, have compromised their independence in any material
+degree, if some of these gentlemen had not only yielded to the prejudice
+in favour of spittoons, but had abandoned themselves, for the moment,
+even to the conventional absurdity of pocket-handkerchiefs.
+
+It still continued to rain heavily, and when we went down to the Canal
+Boat (for that was the mode of conveyance by which we were to proceed)
+after dinner, the weather was as unpromising and obstinately wet as one
+would desire to see.  Nor was the sight of this canal boat, in which we
+were to spend three or four days, by any means a cheerful one; as it
+involved some uneasy speculations concerning the disposal of the
+passengers at night, and opened a wide field of inquiry touching the
+other domestic arrangements of the establishment, which was sufficiently
+disconcerting.
+
+However, there it was—a barge with a little house in it, viewed from the
+outside; and a caravan at a fair, viewed from within: the gentlemen being
+accommodated, as the spectators usually are, in one of those locomotive
+museums of penny wonders; and the ladies being partitioned off by a red
+curtain, after the manner of the dwarfs and giants in the same
+establishments, whose private lives are passed in rather close
+exclusiveness.
+
+We sat here, looking silently at the row of little tables, which extended
+down both sides of the cabin, and listening to the rain as it dripped and
+pattered on the boat, and plashed with a dismal merriment in the water,
+until the arrival of the railway train, for whose final contribution to
+our stock of passengers, our departure was alone deferred.  It brought a
+great many boxes, which were bumped and tossed upon the roof, almost as
+painfully as if they had been deposited on one’s own head, without the
+intervention of a porter’s knot; and several damp gentlemen, whose
+clothes, on their drawing round the stove, began to steam again.  No
+doubt it would have been a thought more comfortable if the driving rain,
+which now poured down more soakingly than ever, had admitted of a window
+being opened, or if our number had been something less than thirty; but
+there was scarcely time to think as much, when a train of three horses
+was attached to the tow-rope, the boy upon the leader smacked his whip,
+the rudder creaked and groaned complainingly, and we had begun our
+journey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+SOME FURTHER ACCOUNT OF THE CANAL BOAT, ITS DOMESTIC ECONOMY, AND ITS
+PASSENGERS.  JOURNEY TO PITTSBURG ACROSS THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS.
+PITTSBURG
+
+
+AS it continued to rain most perseveringly, we all remained below: the
+damp gentlemen round the stove, gradually becoming mildewed by the action
+of the fire; and the dry gentlemen lying at full length upon the seats,
+or slumbering uneasily with their faces on the tables, or walking up and
+down the cabin, which it was barely possible for a man of the middle
+height to do, without making bald places on his head by scraping it
+against the roof.  At about six o’clock, all the small tables were put
+together to form one long table, and everybody sat down to tea, coffee,
+bread, butter, salmon, shad, liver, steaks, potatoes, pickles, ham,
+chops, black-puddings, and sausages.
+
+‘Will you try,’ said my opposite neighbour, handing me a dish of
+potatoes, broken up in milk and butter, ‘will you try some of these
+fixings?’
+
+There are few words which perform such various duties as this word ‘fix.’
+It is the Caleb Quotem of the American vocabulary.  You call upon a
+gentleman in a country town, and his help informs you that he is ‘fixing
+himself’ just now, but will be down directly: by which you are to
+understand that he is dressing.  You inquire, on board a steamboat, of a
+fellow-passenger, whether breakfast will be ready soon, and he tells you
+he should think so, for when he was last below, they were ‘fixing the
+tables:’ in other words, laying the cloth.  You beg a porter to collect
+your luggage, and he entreats you not to be uneasy, for he’ll ‘fix it
+presently:’ and if you complain of indisposition, you are advised to have
+recourse to Doctor So-and-so, who will ‘fix you’ in no time.
+
+One night, I ordered a bottle of mulled wine at an hotel where I was
+staying, and waited a long time for it; at length it was put upon the
+table with an apology from the landlord that he feared it wasn’t ‘fixed
+properly.’  And I recollect once, at a stage-coach dinner, overhearing a
+very stern gentleman demand of a waiter who presented him with a plate of
+underdone roast-beef, ‘whether he called _that_, fixing God A’mighty’s
+vittles?’
+
+There is no doubt that the meal, at which the invitation was tendered to
+me which has occasioned this digression, was disposed of somewhat
+ravenously; and that the gentlemen thrust the broad-bladed knives and the
+two-pronged forks further down their throats than I ever saw the same
+weapons go before, except in the hands of a skilful juggler: but no man
+sat down until the ladies were seated; or omitted any little act of
+politeness which could contribute to their comfort.  Nor did I ever once,
+on any occasion, anywhere, during my rambles in America, see a woman
+exposed to the slightest act of rudeness, incivility, or even
+inattention.
+
+By the time the meal was over, the rain, which seemed to have worn itself
+out by coming down so fast, was nearly over too; and it became feasible
+to go on deck: which was a great relief, notwithstanding its being a very
+small deck, and being rendered still smaller by the luggage, which was
+heaped together in the middle under a tarpaulin covering; leaving, on
+either side, a path so narrow, that it became a science to walk to and
+fro without tumbling overboard into the canal.  It was somewhat
+embarrassing at first, too, to have to duck nimbly every five minutes
+whenever the man at the helm cried ‘Bridge!’ and sometimes, when the cry
+was ‘Low Bridge,’ to lie down nearly flat.  But custom familiarises one
+to anything, and there were so many bridges that it took a very short
+time to get used to this.
+
+As night came on, and we drew in sight of the first range of hills, which
+are the outposts of the Alleghany Mountains, the scenery, which had been
+uninteresting hitherto, became more bold and striking.  The wet ground
+reeked and smoked, after the heavy fall of rain, and the croaking of the
+frogs (whose noise in these parts is almost incredible) sounded as though
+a million of fairy teams with bells were travelling through the air, and
+keeping pace with us.  The night was cloudy yet, but moonlight too: and
+when we crossed the Susquehanna river—over which there is an
+extraordinary wooden bridge with two galleries, one above the other, so
+that even there, two boat teams meeting, may pass without confusion—it
+was wild and grand.
+
+I have mentioned my having been in some uncertainty and doubt, at first,
+relative to the sleeping arrangements on board this boat.  I remained in
+the same vague state of mind until ten o’clock or thereabouts, when going
+below, I found suspended on either side of the cabin, three long tiers of
+hanging bookshelves, designed apparently for volumes of the small octavo
+size.  Looking with greater attention at these contrivances (wondering to
+find such literary preparations in such a place), I descried on each
+shelf a sort of microscopic sheet and blanket; then I began dimly to
+comprehend that the passengers were the library, and that they were to be
+arranged, edge-wise, on these shelves, till morning.
+
+I was assisted to this conclusion by seeing some of them gathered round
+the master of the boat, at one of the tables, drawing lots with all the
+anxieties and passions of gamesters depicted in their countenances; while
+others, with small pieces of cardboard in their hands, were groping among
+the shelves in search of numbers corresponding with those they had drawn.
+As soon as any gentleman found his number, he took possession of it by
+immediately undressing himself and crawling into bed.  The rapidity with
+which an agitated gambler subsided into a snoring slumberer, was one of
+the most singular effects I have ever witnessed.  As to the ladies, they
+were already abed, behind the red curtain, which was carefully drawn and
+pinned up the centre; though as every cough, or sneeze, or whisper,
+behind this curtain, was perfectly audible before it, we had still a
+lively consciousness of their society.
+
+The politeness of the person in authority had secured to me a shelf in a
+nook near this red curtain, in some degree removed from the great body of
+sleepers: to which place I retired, with many acknowledgments to him for
+his attention.  I found it, on after-measurement, just the width of an
+ordinary sheet of Bath post letter-paper; and I was at first in some
+uncertainty as to the best means of getting into it.  But the shelf being
+a bottom one, I finally determined on lying upon the floor, rolling
+gently in, stopping immediately I touched the mattress, and remaining for
+the night with that side uppermost, whatever it might be.  Luckily, I
+came upon my back at exactly the right moment.  I was much alarmed on
+looking upward, to see, by the shape of his half-yard of sacking (which
+his weight had bent into an exceedingly tight bag), that there was a very
+heavy gentleman above me, whom the slender cords seemed quite incapable
+of holding; and I could not help reflecting upon the grief of my wife and
+family in the event of his coming down in the night.  But as I could not
+have got up again without a severe bodily struggle, which might have
+alarmed the ladies; and as I had nowhere to go to, even if I had; I shut
+my eyes upon the danger, and remained there.
+
+One of two remarkable circumstances is indisputably a fact, with
+reference to that class of society who travel in these boats.  Either
+they carry their restlessness to such a pitch that they never sleep at
+all; or they expectorate in dreams, which would be a remarkable mingling
+of the real and ideal.  All night long, and every night, on this canal,
+there was a perfect storm and tempest of spitting; and once my coat,
+being in the very centre of the hurricane sustained by five gentlemen
+(which moved vertically, strictly carrying out Reid’s Theory of the Law
+of Storms), I was fain the next morning to lay it on the deck, and rub it
+down with fair water before it was in a condition to be worn again.
+
+Between five and six o’clock in the morning we got up, and some of us
+went on deck, to give them an opportunity of taking the shelves down;
+while others, the morning being very cold, crowded round the rusty stove,
+cherishing the newly kindled fire, and filling the grate with those
+voluntary contributions of which they had been so liberal all night.  The
+washing accommodations were primitive.  There was a tin ladle chained to
+the deck, with which every gentleman who thought it necessary to cleanse
+himself (many were superior to this weakness), fished the dirty water out
+of the canal, and poured it into a tin basin, secured in like manner.
+There was also a jack-towel.  And, hanging up before a little
+looking-glass in the bar, in the immediate vicinity of the bread and
+cheese and biscuits, were a public comb and hair-brush.
+
+At eight o’clock, the shelves being taken down and put away and the
+tables joined together, everybody sat down to the tea, coffee, bread,
+butter, salmon, shad, liver, steak, potatoes, pickles, ham, chops,
+black-puddings, and sausages, all over again.  Some were fond of
+compounding this variety, and having it all on their plates at once.  As
+each gentleman got through his own personal amount of tea, coffee, bread,
+butter, salmon, shad, liver, steak, potatoes, pickles, ham, chops,
+black-puddings, and sausages, he rose up and walked off.  When everybody
+had done with everything, the fragments were cleared away: and one of the
+waiters appearing anew in the character of a barber, shaved such of the
+company as desired to be shaved; while the remainder looked on, or yawned
+over their newspapers.  Dinner was breakfast again, without the tea and
+coffee; and supper and breakfast were identical.
+
+There was a man on board this boat, with a light fresh-coloured face, and
+a pepper-and-salt suit of clothes, who was the most inquisitive fellow
+that can possibly be imagined.  He never spoke otherwise than
+interrogatively.  He was an embodied inquiry.  Sitting down or standing
+up, still or moving, walking the deck or taking his meals, there he was,
+with a great note of interrogation in each eye, two in his cocked ears,
+two more in his turned-up nose and chin, at least half a dozen more about
+the corners of his mouth, and the largest one of all in his hair, which
+was brushed pertly off his forehead in a flaxen clump.  Every button in
+his clothes said, ‘Eh?  What’s that?  Did you speak?  Say that again,
+will you?’  He was always wide awake, like the enchanted bride who drove
+her husband frantic; always restless; always thirsting for answers;
+perpetually seeking and never finding.  There never was such a curious
+man.
+
+I wore a fur great-coat at that time, and before we were well clear of
+the wharf, he questioned me concerning it, and its price, and where I
+bought it, and when, and what fur it was, and what it weighed, and what
+it cost.  Then he took notice of my watch, and asked me what _that_ cost,
+and whether it was a French watch, and where I got it, and how I got it,
+and whether I bought it or had it given me, and how it went, and where
+the key-hole was, and when I wound it, every night or every morning, and
+whether I ever forgot to wind it at all, and if I did, what then?  Where
+had I been to last, and where was I going next, and where was I going
+after that, and had I seen the President, and what did he say, and what
+did I say, and what did he say when I had said that?  Eh?  Lor now! do
+tell!
+
+Finding that nothing would satisfy him, I evaded his questions after the
+first score or two, and in particular pleaded ignorance respecting the
+name of the fur whereof the coat was made.  I am unable to say whether
+this was the reason, but that coat fascinated him afterwards; he usually
+kept close behind me as I walked, and moved as I moved, that he might
+look at it the better; and he frequently dived into narrow places after
+me at the risk of his life, that he might have the satisfaction of
+passing his hand up the back, and rubbing it the wrong way.
+
+We had another odd specimen on board, of a different kind.  This was a
+thin-faced, spare-figured man of middle age and stature, dressed in a
+dusty drabbish-coloured suit, such as I never saw before.  He was
+perfectly quiet during the first part of the journey: indeed I don’t
+remember having so much as seen him until he was brought out by
+circumstances, as great men often are.  The conjunction of events which
+made him famous, happened, briefly, thus.
+
+The canal extends to the foot of the mountain, and there, of course, it
+stops; the passengers being conveyed across it by land carriage, and
+taken on afterwards by another canal boat, the counterpart of the first,
+which awaits them on the other side.  There are two canal lines of
+passage-boats; one is called The Express, and one (a cheaper one) The
+Pioneer.  The Pioneer gets first to the mountain, and waits for the
+Express people to come up; both sets of passengers being conveyed across
+it at the same time.  We were the Express company; but when we had
+crossed the mountain, and had come to the second boat, the proprietors
+took it into their beads to draft all the Pioneers into it likewise, so
+that we were five-and-forty at least, and the accession of passengers was
+not at all of that kind which improved the prospect of sleeping at night.
+Our people grumbled at this, as people do in such cases; but suffered the
+boat to be towed off with the whole freight aboard nevertheless; and away
+we went down the canal.  At home, I should have protested lustily, but
+being a foreigner here, I held my peace.  Not so this passenger.  He
+cleft a path among the people on deck (we were nearly all on deck), and
+without addressing anybody whomsoever, soliloquised as follows:
+
+‘This may suit _you_, this may, but it don’t suit _me_.  This may be all
+very well with Down Easters, and men of Boston raising, but it won’t suit
+my figure nohow; and no two ways about _that_; and so I tell you.  Now!
+I’m from the brown forests of Mississippi, _I_ am, and when the sun
+shines on me, it does shine—a little.  It don’t glimmer where _I_ live,
+the sun don’t.  No.  I’m a brown forester, I am.  I an’t a Johnny Cake.
+There are no smooth skins where I live.  We’re rough men there.  Rather.
+If Down Easters and men of Boston raising like this, I’m glad of it, but
+I’m none of that raising nor of that breed.  No.  This company wants a
+little fixing, _it_ does.  I’m the wrong sort of man for ’em, _I_ am.
+They won’t like me, _they_ won’t.  This is piling of it up, a little too
+mountainous, this is.’  At the end of every one of these short sentences
+he turned upon his heel, and walked the other way; checking himself
+abruptly when he had finished another short sentence, and turning back
+again.
+
+It is impossible for me to say what terrific meaning was hidden in the
+words of this brown forester, but I know that the other passengers looked
+on in a sort of admiring horror, and that presently the boat was put back
+to the wharf, and as many of the Pioneers as could be coaxed or bullied
+into going away, were got rid of.
+
+When we started again, some of the boldest spirits on board, made bold to
+say to the obvious occasion of this improvement in our prospects, ‘Much
+obliged to you, sir;’ whereunto the brown forester (waving his hand, and
+still walking up and down as before), replied, ‘No you an’t.  You’re none
+o’ my raising.  You may act for yourselves, _you_ may.  I have pinted out
+the way.  Down Easters and Johnny Cakes can follow if they please.  I
+an’t a Johnny Cake, I an’t.  I am from the brown forests of the
+Mississippi, I am’—and so on, as before.  He was unanimously voted one of
+the tables for his bed at night—there is a great contest for the
+tables—in consideration for his public services: and he had the warmest
+corner by the stove throughout the rest of the journey.  But I never
+could find out that he did anything except sit there; nor did I hear him
+speak again until, in the midst of the bustle and turmoil of getting the
+luggage ashore in the dark at Pittsburg, I stumbled over him as he sat
+smoking a cigar on the cabin steps, and heard him muttering to himself,
+with a short laugh of defiance, ‘I an’t a Johnny Cake,—I an’t.  I’m from
+the brown forests of the Mississippi, I am, damme!’  I am inclined to
+argue from this, that he had never left off saying so; but I could not
+make an affidavit of that part of the story, if required to do so by my
+Queen and Country.
+
+As we have not reached Pittsburg yet, however, in the order of our
+narrative, I may go on to remark that breakfast was perhaps the least
+desirable meal of the day, as in addition to the many savoury odours
+arising from the eatables already mentioned, there were whiffs of gin,
+whiskey, brandy, and rum, from the little bar hard by, and a decided
+seasoning of stale tobacco.  Many of the gentlemen passengers were far
+from particular in respect of their linen, which was in some cases as
+yellow as the little rivulets that had trickled from the corners of their
+mouths in chewing, and dried there.  Nor was the atmosphere quite free
+from zephyr whisperings of the thirty beds which had just been cleared
+away, and of which we were further and more pressingly reminded by the
+occasional appearance on the table-cloth of a kind of Game, not mentioned
+in the Bill of Fare.
+
+And yet despite these oddities—and even they had, for me at least, a
+humour of their own—there was much in this mode of travelling which I
+heartily enjoyed at the time, and look back upon with great pleasure.
+Even the running up, bare-necked, at five o’clock in the morning, from
+the tainted cabin to the dirty deck; scooping up the icy water, plunging
+one’s head into it, and drawing it out, all fresh and glowing with the
+cold; was a good thing.  The fast, brisk walk upon the towing-path,
+between that time and breakfast, when every vein and artery seemed to
+tingle with health; the exquisite beauty of the opening day, when light
+came gleaming off from everything; the lazy motion of the boat, when one
+lay idly on the deck, looking through, rather than at, the deep blue sky;
+the gliding on at night, so noiselessly, past frowning hills, sullen with
+dark trees, and sometimes angry in one red, burning spot high up, where
+unseen men lay crouching round a fire; the shining out of the bright
+stars undisturbed by noise of wheels or steam, or any other sound than
+the limpid rippling of the water as the boat went on: all these were pure
+delights.
+
+Then there were new settlements and detached log-cabins and frame-houses,
+full of interest for strangers from an old country: cabins with simple
+ovens, outside, made of clay; and lodgings for the pigs nearly as good as
+many of the human quarters; broken windows, patched with worn-out hats,
+old clothes, old boards, fragments of blankets and paper; and home-made
+dressers standing in the open air without the door, whereon was ranged
+the household store, not hard to count, of earthen jars and pots.  The
+eye was pained to see the stumps of great trees thickly strewn in every
+field of wheat, and seldom to lose the eternal swamp and dull morass,
+with hundreds of rotten trunks and twisted branches steeped in its
+unwholesome water.  It was quite sad and oppressive, to come upon great
+tracts where settlers had been burning down the trees, and where their
+wounded bodies lay about, like those of murdered creatures, while here
+and there some charred and blackened giant reared aloft two withered
+arms, and seemed to call down curses on his foes.  Sometimes, at night,
+the way wound through some lonely gorge, like a mountain pass in
+Scotland, shining and coldly glittering in the light of the moon, and so
+closed in by high steep hills all round, that there seemed to be no
+egress save through the narrower path by which we had come, until one
+rugged hill-side seemed to open, and shutting out the moonlight as we
+passed into its gloomy throat, wrapped our new course in shade and
+darkness.
+
+We had left Harrisburg on Friday.  On Sunday morning we arrived at the
+foot of the mountain, which is crossed by railroad.  There are ten
+inclined planes; five ascending, and five descending; the carriages are
+dragged up the former, and let slowly down the latter, by means of
+stationary engines; the comparatively level spaces between, being
+traversed, sometimes by horse, and sometimes by engine power, as the case
+demands.  Occasionally the rails are laid upon the extreme verge of a
+giddy precipice; and looking from the carriage window, the traveller
+gazes sheer down, without a stone or scrap of fence between, into the
+mountain depths below.  The journey is very carefully made, however; only
+two carriages travelling together; and while proper precautions are
+taken, is not to be dreaded for its dangers.
+
+It was very pretty travelling thus, at a rapid pace along the heights of
+the mountain in a keen wind, to look down into a valley full of light and
+softness; catching glimpses, through the tree-tops, of scattered cabins;
+children running to the doors; dogs bursting out to bark, whom we could
+see without hearing: terrified pigs scampering homewards; families
+sitting out in their rude gardens; cows gazing upward with a stupid
+indifference; men in their shirt-sleeves looking on at their unfinished
+houses, planning out to-morrow’s work; and we riding onward, high above
+them, like a whirlwind.  It was amusing, too, when we had dined, and
+rattled down a steep pass, having no other moving power than the weight
+of the carriages themselves, to see the engine released, long after us,
+come buzzing down alone, like a great insect, its back of green and gold
+so shining in the sun, that if it had spread a pair of wings and soared
+away, no one would have had occasion, as I fancied, for the least
+surprise.  But it stopped short of us in a very business-like manner when
+we reached the canal: and, before we left the wharf, went panting up this
+hill again, with the passengers who had waited our arrival for the means
+of traversing the road by which we had come.
+
+On the Monday evening, furnace fires and clanking hammers on the banks of
+the canal, warned us that we approached the termination of this part of
+our journey.  After going through another dreamy place—a long aqueduct
+across the Alleghany River, which was stranger than the bridge at
+Harrisburg, being a vast, low, wooden chamber full of water—we emerged
+upon that ugly confusion of backs of buildings and crazy galleries and
+stairs, which always abuts on water, whether it be river, sea, canal, or
+ditch: and were at Pittsburg.
+
+Pittsburg is like Birmingham in England; at least its townspeople say so.
+Setting aside the streets, the shops, the houses, waggons, factories,
+public buildings, and population, perhaps it may be.  It certainly has a
+great quantity of smoke hanging about it, and is famous for its
+iron-works.  Besides the prison to which I have already referred, this
+town contains a pretty arsenal and other institutions.  It is very
+beautifully situated on the Alleghany River, over which there are two
+bridges; and the villas of the wealthier citizens sprinkled about the
+high grounds in the neighbourhood, are pretty enough.  We lodged at a
+most excellent hotel, and were admirably served.  As usual it was full of
+boarders, was very large, and had a broad colonnade to every story of the
+house.
+
+We tarried here three days.  Our next point was Cincinnati: and as this
+was a steamboat journey, and western steamboats usually blow up one or
+two a week in the season, it was advisable to collect opinions in
+reference to the comparative safety of the vessels bound that way, then
+lying in the river.  One called the Messenger was the best recommended.
+She had been advertised to start positively, every day for a fortnight or
+so, and had not gone yet, nor did her captain seem to have any very fixed
+intention on the subject.  But this is the custom: for if the law were to
+bind down a free and independent citizen to keep his word with the
+public, what would become of the liberty of the subject?  Besides, it is
+in the way of trade.  And if passengers be decoyed in the way of trade,
+and people be inconvenienced in the way of trade, what man, who is a
+sharp tradesman himself, shall say, ‘We must put a stop to this?’
+
+Impressed by the deep solemnity of the public announcement, I (being then
+ignorant of these usages) was for hurrying on board in a breathless
+state, immediately; but receiving private and confidential information
+that the boat would certainly not start until Friday, April the First, we
+made ourselves very comfortable in the mean while, and went on board at
+noon that day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+FROM PITTSBURG TO CINCINNATI IN A WESTERN STEAMBOAT.  CINCINNATI
+
+
+THE Messenger was one among a crowd of high-pressure steamboats,
+clustered together by a wharf-side, which, looked down upon from the
+rising ground that forms the landing-place, and backed by the lofty bank
+on the opposite side of the river, appeared no larger than so many
+floating models.  She had some forty passengers on board, exclusive of
+the poorer persons on the lower deck; and in half an hour, or less,
+proceeded on her way.
+
+We had, for ourselves, a tiny state-room with two berths in it, opening
+out of the ladies’ cabin.  There was, undoubtedly, something satisfactory
+in this ‘location,’ inasmuch as it was in the stern, and we had been a
+great many times very gravely recommended to keep as far aft as possible,
+‘because the steamboats generally blew up forward.’  Nor was this an
+unnecessary caution, as the occurrence and circumstances of more than one
+such fatality during our stay sufficiently testified.  Apart from this
+source of self-congratulation, it was an unspeakable relief to have any
+place, no matter how confined, where one could be alone: and as the row
+of little chambers of which this was one, had each a second glass-door
+besides that in the ladies’ cabin, which opened on a narrow gallery
+outside the vessel, where the other passengers seldom came, and where one
+could sit in peace and gaze upon the shifting prospect, we took
+possession of our new quarters with much pleasure.
+
+If the native packets I have already described be unlike anything we are
+in the habit of seeing on water, these western vessels are still more
+foreign to all the ideas we are accustomed to entertain of boats.  I
+hardly know what to liken them to, or how to describe them.
+
+In the first place, they have no mast, cordage, tackle, rigging, or other
+such boat-like gear; nor have they anything in their shape at all
+calculated to remind one of a boat’s head, stem, sides, or keel.  Except
+that they are in the water, and display a couple of paddle-boxes, they
+might be intended, for anything that appears to the contrary, to perform
+some unknown service, high and dry, upon a mountain top.  There is no
+visible deck, even: nothing but a long, black, ugly roof covered with
+burnt-out feathery sparks; above which tower two iron chimneys, and a
+hoarse escape valve, and a glass steerage-house.  Then, in order as the
+eye descends towards the water, are the sides, and doors, and windows of
+the state-rooms, jumbled as oddly together as though they formed a small
+street, built by the varying tastes of a dozen men: the whole is
+supported on beams and pillars resting on a dirty barge, but a few inches
+above the water’s edge: and in the narrow space between this upper
+structure and this barge’s deck, are the furnace fires and machinery,
+open at the sides to every wind that blows, and every storm of rain it
+drives along its path.
+
+Passing one of these boats at night, and seeing the great body of fire,
+exposed as I have just described, that rages and roars beneath the frail
+pile of painted wood: the machinery, not warded off or guarded in any
+way, but doing its work in the midst of the crowd of idlers and emigrants
+and children, who throng the lower deck: under the management, too, of
+reckless men whose acquaintance with its mysteries may have been of six
+months’ standing: one feels directly that the wonder is, not that there
+should be so many fatal accidents, but that any journey should be safely
+made.
+
+Within, there is one long narrow cabin, the whole length of the boat;
+from which the state-rooms open, on both sides.  A small portion of it at
+the stern is partitioned off for the ladies; and the bar is at the
+opposite extreme.  There is a long table down the centre, and at either
+end a stove.  The washing apparatus is forward, on the deck.  It is a
+little better than on board the canal boat, but not much.  In all modes
+of travelling, the American customs, with reference to the means of
+personal cleanliness and wholesome ablution, are extremely negligent and
+filthy; and I strongly incline to the belief that a considerable amount
+of illness is referable to this cause.
+
+We are to be on board the Messenger three days: arriving at Cincinnati
+(barring accidents) on Monday morning.  There are three meals a day.
+Breakfast at seven, dinner at half-past twelve, supper about six.  At
+each, there are a great many small dishes and plates upon the table, with
+very little in them; so that although there is every appearance of a
+mighty ‘spread,’ there is seldom really more than a joint: except for
+those who fancy slices of beet-root, shreds of dried beef, complicated
+entanglements of yellow pickle; maize, Indian corn, apple-sauce, and
+pumpkin.
+
+Some people fancy all these little dainties together (and sweet preserves
+beside), by way of relish to their roast pig.  They are generally those
+dyspeptic ladies and gentlemen who eat unheard-of quantities of hot corn
+bread (almost as good for the digestion as a kneaded pin-cushion), for
+breakfast, and for supper.  Those who do not observe this custom, and who
+help themselves several times instead, usually suck their knives and
+forks meditatively, until they have decided what to take next: then pull
+them out of their mouths: put them in the dish; help themselves; and fall
+to work again.  At dinner, there is nothing to drink upon the table, but
+great jugs full of cold water.  Nobody says anything, at any meal, to
+anybody.  All the passengers are very dismal, and seem to have tremendous
+secrets weighing on their minds.  There is no conversation, no laughter,
+no cheerfulness, no sociality, except in spitting; and that is done in
+silent fellowship round the stove, when the meal is over.  Every man sits
+down, dull and languid; swallows his fare as if breakfasts, dinners, and
+suppers, were necessities of nature never to be coupled with recreation
+or enjoyment; and having bolted his food in a gloomy silence, bolts
+himself, in the same state.  But for these animal observances, you might
+suppose the whole male portion of the company to be the melancholy ghosts
+of departed book-keepers, who had fallen dead at the desk: such is their
+weary air of business and calculation.  Undertakers on duty would be
+sprightly beside them; and a collation of funeral-baked meats, in
+comparison with these meals, would be a sparkling festivity.
+
+The people are all alike, too.  There is no diversity of character.  They
+travel about on the same errands, say and do the same things in exactly
+the same manner, and follow in the same dull cheerless round.  All down
+the long table, there is scarcely a man who is in anything different from
+his neighbour.  It is quite a relief to have, sitting opposite, that
+little girl of fifteen with the loquacious chin: who, to do her justice,
+acts up to it, and fully identifies nature’s handwriting, for of all the
+small chatterboxes that ever invaded the repose of drowsy ladies’ cabin,
+she is the first and foremost.  The beautiful girl, who sits a little
+beyond her—farther down the table there—married the young man with the
+dark whiskers, who sits beyond _her_, only last month.  They are going to
+settle in the very Far West, where he has lived four years, but where she
+has never been.  They were both overturned in a stage-coach the other day
+(a bad omen anywhere else, where overturns are not so common), and his
+head, which bears the marks of a recent wound, is bound up still.  She
+was hurt too, at the same time, and lay insensible for some days; bright
+as her eyes are, now.
+
+Further down still, sits a man who is going some miles beyond their place
+of destination, to ‘improve’ a newly-discovered copper mine.  He carries
+the village—that is to be—with him: a few frame cottages, and an
+apparatus for smelting the copper.  He carries its people too.  They are
+partly American and partly Irish, and herd together on the lower deck;
+where they amused themselves last evening till the night was pretty far
+advanced, by alternately firing off pistols and singing hymns.
+
+They, and the very few who have been left at table twenty minutes, rise,
+and go away.  We do so too; and passing through our little state-room,
+resume our seats in the quiet gallery without.
+
+A fine broad river always, but in some parts much wider than in others:
+and then there is usually a green island, covered with trees, dividing it
+into two streams.  Occasionally, we stop for a few minutes, maybe to take
+in wood, maybe for passengers, at some small town or village (I ought to
+say city, every place is a city here); but the banks are for the most
+part deep solitudes, overgrown with trees, which, hereabouts, are already
+in leaf and very green.  For miles, and miles, and miles, these solitudes
+are unbroken by any sign of human life or trace of human footstep; nor is
+anything seen to move about them but the blue jay, whose colour is so
+bright, and yet so delicate, that it looks like a flying flower.  At
+lengthened intervals a log cabin, with its little space of cleared land
+about it, nestles under a rising ground, and sends its thread of blue
+smoke curling up into the sky.  It stands in the corner of the poor field
+of wheat, which is full of great unsightly stumps, like earthy
+butchers’-blocks.  Sometimes the ground is only just now cleared: the
+felled trees lying yet upon the soil: and the log-house only this morning
+begun.  As we pass this clearing, the settler leans upon his axe or
+hammer, and looks wistfully at the people from the world.  The children
+creep out of the temporary hut, which is like a gipsy tent upon the
+ground, and clap their hands and shout.  The dog only glances round at
+us, and then looks up into his master’s face again, as if he were
+rendered uneasy by any suspension of the common business, and had nothing
+more to do with pleasurers.  And still there is the same, eternal
+foreground.  The river has washed away its banks, and stately trees have
+fallen down into the stream.  Some have been there so long, that they are
+mere dry, grizzly skeletons.  Some have just toppled over, and having
+earth yet about their roots, are bathing their green heads in the river,
+and putting forth new shoots and branches.  Some are almost sliding down,
+as you look at them.  And some were drowned so long ago, that their
+bleached arms start out from the middle of the current, and seem to try
+to grasp the boat, and drag it under water.
+
+Through such a scene as this, the unwieldy machine takes its hoarse,
+sullen way: venting, at every revolution of the paddles, a loud
+high-pressure blast; enough, one would think, to waken up the host of
+Indians who lie buried in a great mound yonder: so old, that mighty oaks
+and other forest trees have struck their roots into its earth; and so
+high, that it is a hill, even among the hills that Nature planted round
+it.  The very river, as though it shared one’s feelings of compassion for
+the extinct tribes who lived so pleasantly here, in their blessed
+ignorance of white existence, hundreds of years ago, steals out of its
+way to ripple near this mound: and there are few places where the Ohio
+sparkles more brightly than in the Big Grave Creek.
+
+All this I see as I sit in the little stern-gallery mentioned just now.
+Evening slowly steals upon the landscape and changes it before me, when
+we stop to set some emigrants ashore.
+
+Five men, as many women, and a little girl.  All their worldly goods are
+a bag, a large chest and an old chair: one, old, high-backed,
+rush-bottomed chair: a solitary settler in itself.  They are rowed ashore
+in the boat, while the vessel stands a little off awaiting its return,
+the water being shallow.  They are landed at the foot of a high bank, on
+the summit of which are a few log cabins, attainable only by a long
+winding path.  It is growing dusk; but the sun is very red, and shines in
+the water and on some of the tree-tops, like fire.
+
+The men get out of the boat first; help out the women; take out the bag,
+the chest, the chair; bid the rowers ‘good-bye;’ and shove the boat off
+for them.  At the first plash of the oars in the water, the oldest woman
+of the party sits down in the old chair, close to the water’s edge,
+without speaking a word.  None of the others sit down, though the chest
+is large enough for many seats.  They all stand where they landed, as if
+stricken into stone; and look after the boat.  So they remain, quite
+still and silent: the old woman and her old chair, in the centre the bag
+and chest upon the shore, without anybody heeding them all eyes fixed
+upon the boat.  It comes alongside, is made fast, the men jump on board,
+the engine is put in motion, and we go hoarsely on again.  There they
+stand yet, without the motion of a hand.  I can see them through my
+glass, when, in the distance and increasing darkness, they are mere
+specks to the eye: lingering there still: the old woman in the old chair,
+and all the rest about her: not stirring in the least degree.  And thus I
+slowly lose them.
+
+The night is dark, and we proceed within the shadow of the wooded bank,
+which makes it darker.  After gliding past the sombre maze of boughs for
+a long time, we come upon an open space where the tall trees are burning.
+The shape of every branch and twig is expressed in a deep red glow, and
+as the light wind stirs and ruffles it, they seem to vegetate in fire.
+It is such a sight as we read of in legends of enchanted forests: saving
+that it is sad to see these noble works wasting away so awfully, alone;
+and to think how many years must come and go before the magic that
+created them will rear their like upon this ground again.  But the time
+will come; and when, in their changed ashes, the growth of centuries
+unborn has struck its roots, the restless men of distant ages will repair
+to these again unpeopled solitudes; and their fellows, in cities far
+away, that slumber now, perhaps, beneath the rolling sea, will read in
+language strange to any ears in being now, but very old to them, of
+primeval forests where the axe was never heard, and where the jungled
+ground was never trodden by a human foot.
+
+Midnight and sleep blot out these scenes and thoughts: and when the
+morning shines again, it gilds the house-tops of a lively city, before
+whose broad paved wharf the boat is moored; with other boats, and flags,
+and moving wheels, and hum of men around it; as though there were not a
+solitary or silent rood of ground within the compass of a thousand miles.
+
+Cincinnati is a beautiful city; cheerful, thriving, and animated.  I have
+not often seen a place that commends itself so favourably and pleasantly
+to a stranger at the first glance as this does: with its clean houses of
+red and white, its well-paved roads, and foot-ways of bright tile.  Nor
+does it become less prepossessing on a closer acquaintance.  The streets
+are broad and airy, the shops extremely good, the private residences
+remarkable for their elegance and neatness.  There is something of
+invention and fancy in the varying styles of these latter erections,
+which, after the dull company of the steamboat, is perfectly delightful,
+as conveying an assurance that there are such qualities still in
+existence.  The disposition to ornament these pretty villas and render
+them attractive, leads to the culture of trees and flowers, and the
+laying out of well-kept gardens, the sight of which, to those who walk
+along the streets, is inexpressibly refreshing and agreeable.  I was
+quite charmed with the appearance of the town, and its adjoining suburb
+of Mount Auburn: from which the city, lying in an amphitheatre of hills,
+forms a picture of remarkable beauty, and is seen to great advantage.
+
+There happened to be a great Temperance Convention held here on the day
+after our arrival; and as the order of march brought the procession under
+the windows of the hotel in which we lodged, when they started in the
+morning, I had a good opportunity of seeing it.  It comprised several
+thousand men; the members of various ‘Washington Auxiliary Temperance
+Societies;’ and was marshalled by officers on horseback, who cantered
+briskly up and down the line, with scarves and ribbons of bright colours
+fluttering out behind them gaily.  There were bands of music too, and
+banners out of number: and it was a fresh, holiday-looking concourse
+altogether.
+
+I was particularly pleased to see the Irishmen, who formed a distinct
+society among themselves, and mustered very strong with their green
+scarves; carrying their national Harp and their Portrait of Father
+Mathew, high above the people’s heads.  They looked as jolly and
+good-humoured as ever; and, working (here) the hardest for their living
+and doing any kind of sturdy labour that came in their way, were the most
+independent fellows there, I thought.
+
+The banners were very well painted, and flaunted down the street
+famously.  There was the smiting of the rock, and the gushing forth of
+the waters; and there was a temperate man with ‘considerable of a
+hatchet’ (as the standard-bearer would probably have said), aiming a
+deadly blow at a serpent which was apparently about to spring upon him
+from the top of a barrel of spirits.  But the chief feature of this part
+of the show was a huge allegorical device, borne among the
+ship-carpenters, on one side whereof the steamboat Alcohol was
+represented bursting her boiler and exploding with a great crash, while
+upon the other, the good ship Temperance sailed away with a fair wind, to
+the heart’s content of the captain, crew, and passengers.
+
+After going round the town, the procession repaired to a certain
+appointed place, where, as the printed programme set forth, it would be
+received by the children of the different free schools, ‘singing
+Temperance Songs.’  I was prevented from getting there, in time to hear
+these Little Warblers, or to report upon this novel kind of vocal
+entertainment: novel, at least, to me: but I found in a large open space,
+each society gathered round its own banners, and listening in silent
+attention to its own orator.  The speeches, judging from the little I
+could hear of them, were certainly adapted to the occasion, as having
+that degree of relationship to cold water which wet blankets may claim:
+but the main thing was the conduct and appearance of the audience
+throughout the day; and that was admirable and full of promise.
+
+Cincinnati is honourably famous for its free schools, of which it has so
+many that no person’s child among its population can, by possibility,
+want the means of education, which are extended, upon an average, to four
+thousand pupils, annually.  I was only present in one of these
+establishments during the hours of instruction.  In the boys’ department,
+which was full of little urchins (varying in their ages, I should say,
+from six years old to ten or twelve), the master offered to institute an
+extemporary examination of the pupils in algebra; a proposal, which, as I
+was by no means confident of my ability to detect mistakes in that
+science, I declined with some alarm.  In the girls’ school, reading was
+proposed; and as I felt tolerably equal to that art, I expressed my
+willingness to hear a class.  Books were distributed accordingly, and
+some half-dozen girls relieved each other in reading paragraphs from
+English History.  But it seemed to be a dry compilation, infinitely above
+their powers; and when they had blundered through three or four dreary
+passages concerning the Treaty of Amiens, and other thrilling topics of
+the same nature (obviously without comprehending ten words), I expressed
+myself quite satisfied.  It is very possible that they only mounted to
+this exalted stave in the Ladder of Learning for the astonishment of a
+visitor; and that at other times they keep upon its lower rounds; but I
+should have been much better pleased and satisfied if I had heard them
+exercised in simpler lessons, which they understood.
+
+As in every other place I visited, the judges here were gentlemen of high
+character and attainments.  I was in one of the courts for a few minutes,
+and found it like those to which I have already referred.  A nuisance
+cause was trying; there were not many spectators; and the witnesses,
+counsel, and jury, formed a sort of family circle, sufficiently jocose
+and snug.
+
+The society with which I mingled, was intelligent, courteous, and
+agreeable.  The inhabitants of Cincinnati are proud of their city as one
+of the most interesting in America: and with good reason: for beautiful
+and thriving as it is now, and containing, as it does, a population of
+fifty thousand souls, but two-and-fifty years have passed away since the
+ground on which it stands (bought at that time for a few dollars) was a
+wild wood, and its citizens were but a handful of dwellers in scattered
+log huts upon the river’s shore.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+FROM CINCINNATI TO LOUISVILLE IN ANOTHER WESTERN STEAMBOAT; AND FROM
+LOUISVILLE TO ST. LOUIS IN ANOTHER.  ST. LOUIS
+
+
+LEAVING Cincinnati at eleven o’clock in the forenoon, we embarked for
+Louisville in the Pike steamboat, which, carrying the mails, was a packet
+of a much better class than that in which we had come from Pittsburg.  As
+this passage does not occupy more than twelve or thirteen hours, we
+arranged to go ashore that night: not coveting the distinction of
+sleeping in a state-room, when it was possible to sleep anywhere else.
+
+There chanced to be on board this boat, in addition to the usual dreary
+crowd of passengers, one Pitchlynn, a chief of the Choctaw tribe of
+Indians, who _sent in his card_ to me, and with whom I had the pleasure
+of a long conversation.
+
+He spoke English perfectly well, though he had not begun to learn the
+language, he told me, until he was a young man grown.  He had read many
+books; and Scott’s poetry appeared to have left a strong impression on
+his mind: especially the opening of The Lady of the Lake, and the great
+battle scene in Marmion, in which, no doubt from the congeniality of the
+subjects to his own pursuits and tastes, he had great interest and
+delight.  He appeared to understand correctly all he had read; and
+whatever fiction had enlisted his sympathy in its belief, had done so
+keenly and earnestly.  I might almost say fiercely.  He was dressed in
+our ordinary everyday costume, which hung about his fine figure loosely,
+and with indifferent grace.  On my telling him that I regretted not to
+see him in his own attire, he threw up his right arm, for a moment, as
+though he were brandishing some heavy weapon, and answered, as he let it
+fall again, that his race were losing many things besides their dress,
+and would soon be seen upon the earth no more: but he wore it at home, he
+added proudly.
+
+He told me that he had been away from his home, west of the Mississippi,
+seventeen months: and was now returning.  He had been chiefly at
+Washington on some negotiations pending between his Tribe and the
+Government: which were not settled yet (he said in a melancholy way), and
+he feared never would be: for what could a few poor Indians do, against
+such well-skilled men of business as the whites?  He had no love for
+Washington; tired of towns and cities very soon; and longed for the
+Forest and the Prairie.
+
+I asked him what he thought of Congress?  He answered, with a smile, that
+it wanted dignity, in an Indian’s eyes.
+
+He would very much like, he said, to see England before he died; and
+spoke with much interest about the great things to be seen there.  When I
+told him of that chamber in the British Museum wherein are preserved
+household memorials of a race that ceased to be, thousands of years ago,
+he was very attentive, and it was not hard to see that he had a reference
+in his mind to the gradual fading away of his own people.
+
+This led us to speak of Mr. Catlin’s gallery, which he praised highly:
+observing that his own portrait was among the collection, and that all
+the likenesses were ‘elegant.’  Mr. Cooper, he said, had painted the Red
+Man well; and so would I, he knew, if I would go home with him and hunt
+buffaloes, which he was quite anxious I should do.  When I told him that
+supposing I went, I should not be very likely to damage the buffaloes
+much, he took it as a great joke and laughed heartily.
+
+He was a remarkably handsome man; some years past forty, I should judge;
+with long black hair, an aquiline nose, broad cheek-bones, a sunburnt
+complexion, and a very bright, keen, dark, and piercing eye.  There were
+but twenty thousand of the Choctaws left, he said, and their number was
+decreasing every day.  A few of his brother chiefs had been obliged to
+become civilised, and to make themselves acquainted with what the whites
+knew, for it was their only chance of existence.  But they were not many;
+and the rest were as they always had been.  He dwelt on this: and said
+several times that unless they tried to assimilate themselves to their
+conquerors, they must be swept away before the strides of civilised
+society.
+
+When we shook hands at parting, I told him he must come to England, as he
+longed to see the land so much: that I should hope to see him there, one
+day: and that I could promise him he would be well received and kindly
+treated.  He was evidently pleased by this assurance, though he rejoined
+with a good-humoured smile and an arch shake of his head, that the
+English used to be very fond of the Red Men when they wanted their help,
+but had not cared much for them, since.
+
+He took his leave; as stately and complete a gentleman of Nature’s
+making, as ever I beheld; and moved among the people in the boat, another
+kind of being.  He sent me a lithographed portrait of himself soon
+afterwards; very like, though scarcely handsome enough; which I have
+carefully preserved in memory of our brief acquaintance.
+
+There was nothing very interesting in the scenery of this day’s journey,
+which brought us at midnight to Louisville.  We slept at the Galt House;
+a splendid hotel; and were as handsomely lodged as though we had been in
+Paris, rather than hundreds of miles beyond the Alleghanies.
+
+The city presenting no objects of sufficient interest to detain us on our
+way, we resolved to proceed next day by another steamboat, the Fulton,
+and to join it, about noon, at a suburb called Portland, where it would
+be delayed some time in passing through a canal.
+
+The interval, after breakfast, we devoted to riding through the town,
+which is regular and cheerful: the streets being laid out at right
+angles, and planted with young trees.  The buildings are smoky and
+blackened, from the use of bituminous coal, but an Englishman is well
+used to that appearance, and indisposed to quarrel with it.  There did
+not appear to be much business stirring; and some unfinished buildings
+and improvements seemed to intimate that the city had been overbuilt in
+the ardour of ‘going-a-head,’ and was suffering under the re-action
+consequent upon such feverish forcing of its powers.
+
+On our way to Portland, we passed a ‘Magistrate’s office,’ which amused
+me, as looking far more like a dame school than any police establishment:
+for this awful Institution was nothing but a little lazy,
+good-for-nothing front parlour, open to the street; wherein two or three
+figures (I presume the magistrate and his myrmidons) were basking in the
+sunshine, the very effigies of languor and repose.  It was a perfect
+picture of justice retired from business for want of customers; her sword
+and scales sold off; napping comfortably with her legs upon the table.
+
+Here, as elsewhere in these parts, the road was perfectly alive with pigs
+of all ages; lying about in every direction, fast asleep.; or grunting
+along in quest of hidden dainties.  I had always a sneaking kindness for
+these odd animals, and found a constant source of amusement, when all
+others failed, in watching their proceedings.  As we were riding along
+this morning, I observed a little incident between two youthful pigs,
+which was so very human as to be inexpressibly comical and grotesque at
+the time, though I dare say, in telling, it is tame enough.
+
+One young gentleman (a very delicate porker with several straws sticking
+about his nose, betokening recent investigations in a dung-hill) was
+walking deliberately on, profoundly thinking, when suddenly his brother,
+who was lying in a miry hole unseen by him, rose up immediately before
+his startled eyes, ghostly with damp mud.  Never was pig’s whole mass of
+blood so turned.  He started back at least three feet, gazed for a
+moment, and then shot off as hard as he could go: his excessively little
+tail vibrating with speed and terror like a distracted pendulum.  But
+before he had gone very far, he began to reason with himself as to the
+nature of this frightful appearance; and as he reasoned, he relaxed his
+speed by gradual degrees; until at last he stopped, and faced about.
+There was his brother, with the mud upon him glazing in the sun, yet
+staring out of the very same hole, perfectly amazed at his proceedings!
+He was no sooner assured of this; and he assured himself so carefully
+that one may almost say he shaded his eyes with his hand to see the
+better; than he came back at a round trot, pounced upon him, and
+summarily took off a piece of his tail; as a caution to him to be careful
+what he was about for the future, and never to play tricks with his
+family any more.
+
+We found the steamboat in the canal, waiting for the slow process of
+getting through the lock, and went on board, where we shortly afterwards
+had a new kind of visitor in the person of a certain Kentucky Giant whose
+name is Porter, and who is of the moderate height of seven feet eight
+inches, in his stockings.
+
+There never was a race of people who so completely gave the lie to
+history as these giants, or whom all the chroniclers have so cruelly
+libelled.  Instead of roaring and ravaging about the world, constantly
+catering for their cannibal larders, and perpetually going to market in
+an unlawful manner, they are the meekest people in any man’s
+acquaintance: rather inclining to milk and vegetable diet, and bearing
+anything for a quiet life.  So decidedly are amiability and mildness
+their characteristics, that I confess I look upon that youth who
+distinguished himself by the slaughter of these inoffensive persons, as a
+false-hearted brigand, who, pretending to philanthropic motives, was
+secretly influenced only by the wealth stored up within their castles,
+and the hope of plunder.  And I lean the more to this opinion from
+finding that even the historian of those exploits, with all his
+partiality for his hero, is fain to admit that the slaughtered monsters
+in question were of a very innocent and simple turn; extremely guileless
+and ready of belief; lending a credulous ear to the most improbable
+tales; suffering themselves to be easily entrapped into pits; and even
+(as in the case of the Welsh Giant) with an excess of the hospitable
+politeness of a landlord, ripping themselves open, rather than hint at
+the possibility of their guests being versed in the vagabond arts of
+sleight-of-hand and hocus-pocus.
+
+The Kentucky Giant was but another illustration of the truth of this
+position.  He had a weakness in the region of the knees, and a
+trustfulness in his long face, which appealed even to five-feet nine for
+encouragement and support.  He was only twenty-five years old, he said,
+and had grown recently, for it had been found necessary to make an
+addition to the legs of his inexpressibles.  At fifteen he was a short
+boy, and in those days his English father and his Irish mother had rather
+snubbed him, as being too small of stature to sustain the credit of the
+family.  He added that his health had not been good, though it was better
+now; but short people are not wanting who whisper that he drinks too
+hard.
+
+I understand he drives a hackney-coach, though how he does it, unless he
+stands on the footboard behind, and lies along the roof upon his chest,
+with his chin in the box, it would be difficult to comprehend.  He
+brought his gun with him, as a curiosity.
+
+Christened ‘The Little Rifle,’ and displayed outside a shop-window, it
+would make the fortune of any retail business in Holborn.  When he had
+shown himself and talked a little while, he withdrew with his
+pocket-instrument, and went bobbing down the cabin, among men of six feet
+high and upwards, like a light-house walking among lamp-posts.
+
+Within a few minutes afterwards, we were out of the canal, and in the
+Ohio river again.
+
+The arrangements of the boat were like those of the Messenger, and the
+passengers were of the same order of people.  We fed at the same times,
+on the same kind of viands, in the same dull manner, and with the same
+observances.  The company appeared to be oppressed by the same tremendous
+concealments, and had as little capacity of enjoyment or
+light-heartedness.  I never in my life did see such listless, heavy
+dulness as brooded over these meals: the very recollection of it weighs
+me down, and makes me, for the moment, wretched.  Reading and writing on
+my knee, in our little cabin, I really dreaded the coming of the hour
+that summoned us to table; and was as glad to escape from it again, as if
+it had been a penance or a punishment.  Healthy cheerfulness and good
+spirits forming a part of the banquet, I could soak my crusts in the
+fountain with Le Sage’s strolling player, and revel in their glad
+enjoyment: but sitting down with so many fellow-animals to ward off
+thirst and hunger as a business; to empty, each creature, his Yahoo’s
+trough as quickly as he can, and then slink sullenly away; to have these
+social sacraments stripped of everything but the mere greedy satisfaction
+of the natural cravings; goes so against the grain with me, that I
+seriously believe the recollection of these funeral feasts will be a
+waking nightmare to me all my life.
+
+There was some relief in this boat, too, which there had not been in the
+other, for the captain (a blunt, good-natured fellow) had his handsome
+wife with him, who was disposed to be lively and agreeable, as were a few
+other lady-passengers who had their seats about us at the same end of the
+table.  But nothing could have made head against the depressing influence
+of the general body.  There was a magnetism of dulness in them which
+would have beaten down the most facetious companion that the earth ever
+knew.  A jest would have been a crime, and a smile would have faded into
+a grinning horror.  Such deadly, leaden people; such systematic plodding,
+weary, insupportable heaviness; such a mass of animated indigestion in
+respect of all that was genial, jovial, frank, social, or hearty; never,
+sure, was brought together elsewhere since the world began.
+
+Nor was the scenery, as we approached the junction of the Ohio and
+Mississippi rivers, at all inspiriting in its influence.  The trees were
+stunted in their growth; the banks were low and flat; the settlements and
+log cabins fewer in number: their inhabitants more wan and wretched than
+any we had encountered yet.  No songs of birds were in the air, no
+pleasant scents, no moving lights and shadows from swift passing clouds.
+Hour after hour, the changeless glare of the hot, unwinking sky, shone
+upon the same monotonous objects.  Hour after hour, the river rolled
+along, as wearily and slowly as the time itself.
+
+At length, upon the morning of the third day, we arrived at a spot so
+much more desolate than any we had yet beheld, that the forlornest places
+we had passed, were, in comparison with it, full of interest.  At the
+junction of the two rivers, on ground so flat and low and marshy, that at
+certain seasons of the year it is inundated to the house-tops, lies a
+breeding-place of fever, ague, and death; vaunted in England as a mine of
+Golden Hope, and speculated in, on the faith of monstrous
+representations, to many people’s ruin.  A dismal swamp, on which the
+half-built houses rot away: cleared here and there for the space of a few
+yards; and teeming, then, with rank unwholesome vegetation, in whose
+baleful shade the wretched wanderers who are tempted hither, droop, and
+die, and lay their bones; the hateful Mississippi circling and eddying
+before it, and turning off upon its southern course a slimy monster
+hideous to behold; a hotbed of disease, an ugly sepulchre, a grave
+uncheered by any gleam of promise: a place without one single quality, in
+earth or air or water, to commend it: such is this dismal Cairo.
+
+But what words shall describe the Mississippi, great father of rivers,
+who (praise be to Heaven) has no young children like him! An enormous
+ditch, sometimes two or three miles wide, running liquid mud, six miles
+an hour: its strong and frothy current choked and obstructed everywhere
+by huge logs and whole forest trees: now twining themselves together in
+great rafts, from the interstices of which a sedgy, lazy foam works up,
+to float upon the water’s top; now rolling past like monstrous bodies,
+their tangled roots showing like matted hair; now glancing singly by like
+giant leeches; and now writhing round and round in the vortex of some
+small whirlpool, like wounded snakes.  The banks low, the trees dwarfish,
+the marshes swarming with frogs, the wretched cabins few and far apart,
+their inmates hollow-cheeked and pale, the weather very hot, mosquitoes
+penetrating into every crack and crevice of the boat, mud and slime on
+everything: nothing pleasant in its aspect, but the harmless lightning
+which flickers every night upon the dark horizon.
+
+For two days we toiled up this foul stream, striking constantly against
+the floating timber, or stopping to avoid those more dangerous obstacles,
+the snags, or sawyers, which are the hidden trunks of trees that have
+their roots below the tide.  When the nights are very dark, the look-out
+stationed in the head of the boat, knows by the ripple of the water if
+any great impediment be near at hand, and rings a bell beside him, which
+is the signal for the engine to be stopped: but always in the night this
+bell has work to do, and after every ring, there comes a blow which
+renders it no easy matter to remain in bed.
+
+The decline of day here was very gorgeous; tingeing the firmament deeply
+with red and gold, up to the very keystone of the arch above us.  As the
+sun went down behind the bank, the slightest blades of grass upon it
+seemed to become as distinctly visible as the arteries in the skeleton of
+a leaf; and when, as it slowly sank, the red and golden bars upon the
+water grew dimmer, and dimmer yet, as if they were sinking too; and all
+the glowing colours of departing day paled, inch by inch, before the
+sombre night; the scene became a thousand times more lonesome and more
+dreary than before, and all its influences darkened with the sky.
+
+We drank the muddy water of this river while we were upon it.  It is
+considered wholesome by the natives, and is something more opaque than
+gruel.  I have seen water like it at the Filter-shops, but nowhere else.
+
+On the fourth night after leaving Louisville, we reached St. Louis, and
+here I witnessed the conclusion of an incident, trifling enough in
+itself, but very pleasant to see, which had interested me during the
+whole journey.
+
+There was a little woman on board, with a little baby; and both little
+woman and little child were cheerful, good-looking, bright-eyed, and fair
+to see.  The little woman had been passing a long time with her sick
+mother in New York, and had left her home in St. Louis, in that condition
+in which ladies who truly love their lords desire to be.  The baby was
+born in her mother’s house; and she had not seen her husband (to whom she
+was now returning), for twelve months: having left him a month or two
+after their marriage.
+
+                        [Picture: The Little Wife]
+
+Well, to be sure, there never was a little woman so full of hope, and
+tenderness, and love, and anxiety, as this little woman was: and all day
+long she wondered whether ‘He’ would be at the wharf; and whether ‘He’
+had got her letter; and whether, if she sent the baby ashore by somebody
+else, ‘He’ would know it, meeting it in the street: which, seeing that he
+had never set eyes upon it in his life, was not very likely in the
+abstract, but was probable enough, to the young mother.  She was such an
+artless little creature; and was in such a sunny, beaming, hopeful state;
+and let out all this matter clinging close about her heart, so freely;
+that all the other lady passengers entered into the spirit of it as much
+as she; and the captain (who heard all about it from his wife) was
+wondrous sly, I promise you: inquiring, every time we met at table, as in
+forgetfulness, whether she expected anybody to meet her at St. Louis, and
+whether she would want to go ashore the night we reached it (but he
+supposed she wouldn’t), and cutting many other dry jokes of that nature.
+There was one little weazen, dried-apple-faced old woman, who took
+occasion to doubt the constancy of husbands in such circumstances of
+bereavement; and there was another lady (with a lap-dog) old enough to
+moralize on the lightness of human affections, and yet not so old that
+she could help nursing the baby, now and then, or laughing with the rest,
+when the little woman called it by its father’s name, and asked it all
+manner of fantastic questions concerning him in the joy of her heart.
+
+It was something of a blow to the little woman, that when we were within
+twenty miles of our destination, it became clearly necessary to put this
+baby to bed.  But she got over it with the same good humour; tied a
+handkerchief round her head; and came out into the little gallery with
+the rest.  Then, such an oracle as she became in reference to the
+localities! and such facetiousness as was displayed by the married
+ladies! and such sympathy as was shown by the single ones! and such peals
+of laughter as the little woman herself (who would just as soon have
+cried) greeted every jest with!
+
+At last, there were the lights of St. Louis, and here was the wharf, and
+those were the steps: and the little woman covering her face with her
+hands, and laughing (or seeming to laugh) more than ever, ran into her
+own cabin, and shut herself up.  I have no doubt that in the charming
+inconsistency of such excitement, she stopped her ears, lest she should
+hear ‘Him’ asking for her: but I did not see her do it.
+
+Then, a great crowd of people rushed on board, though the boat was not
+yet made fast, but was wandering about, among the other boats, to find a
+landing-place: and everybody looked for the husband: and nobody saw him:
+when, in the midst of us all—Heaven knows how she ever got there—there
+was the little woman clinging with both arms tight round the neck of a
+fine, good-looking, sturdy young fellow! and in a moment afterwards,
+there she was again, actually clapping her little hands for joy, as she
+dragged him through the small door of her small cabin, to look at the
+baby as he lay asleep!
+
+We went to a large hotel, called the Planter’s House: built like an
+English hospital, with long passages and bare walls, and sky-lights above
+the room-doors for the free circulation of air.  There were a great many
+boarders in it; and as many lights sparkled and glistened from the
+windows down into the street below, when we drove up, as if it had been
+illuminated on some occasion of rejoicing.  It is an excellent house, and
+the proprietors have most bountiful notions of providing the creature
+comforts.  Dining alone with my wife in our own room, one day, I counted
+fourteen dishes on the table at once.
+
+In the old French portion of the town, the thoroughfares are narrow and
+crooked, and some of the houses are very quaint and picturesque: being
+built of wood, with tumble-down galleries before the windows,
+approachable by stairs or rather ladders from the street.  There are
+queer little barbers’ shops and drinking-houses too, in this quarter; and
+abundance of crazy old tenements with blinking casements, such as may be
+seen in Flanders.  Some of these ancient habitations, with high garret
+gable-windows perking into the roofs, have a kind of French shrug about
+them; and being lop-sided with age, appear to hold their heads askew,
+besides, as if they were grimacing in astonishment at the American
+Improvements.
+
+It is hardly necessary to say, that these consist of wharfs and
+warehouses, and new buildings in all directions; and of a great many vast
+plans which are still ‘progressing.’  Already, however, some very good
+houses, broad streets, and marble-fronted shops, have gone so far ahead
+as to be in a state of completion; and the town bids fair in a few years
+to improve considerably: though it is not likely ever to vie, in point of
+elegance or beauty, with Cincinnati.
+
+The Roman Catholic religion, introduced here by the early French
+settlers, prevails extensively.  Among the public institutions are a
+Jesuit college; a convent for ‘the Ladies of the Sacred Heart;’ and a
+large chapel attached to the college, which was in course of erection at
+the time of my visit, and was intended to be consecrated on the second of
+December in the next year.  The architect of this building, is one of the
+reverend fathers of the school, and the works proceed under his sole
+direction.  The organ will be sent from Belgium.
+
+In addition to these establishments, there is a Roman Catholic cathedral,
+dedicated to Saint Francis Xavier; and a hospital, founded by the
+munificence of a deceased resident, who was a member of that church.  It
+also sends missionaries from hence among the Indian tribes.
+
+The Unitarian church is represented, in this remote place, as in most
+other parts of America, by a gentleman of great worth and excellence.
+The poor have good reason to remember and bless it; for it befriends
+them, and aids the cause of rational education, without any sectarian or
+selfish views.  It is liberal in all its actions; of kind construction;
+and of wide benevolence.
+
+There are three free-schools already erected, and in full operation in
+this city.  A fourth is building, and will soon be opened.
+
+No man ever admits the unhealthiness of the place he dwells in (unless he
+is going away from it), and I shall therefore, I have no doubt, be at
+issue with the inhabitants of St. Louis, in questioning the perfect
+salubrity of its climate, and in hinting that I think it must rather
+dispose to fever, in the summer and autumnal seasons.  Just adding, that
+it is very hot, lies among great rivers, and has vast tracts of undrained
+swampy land around it, I leave the reader to form his own opinion.
+
+As I had a great desire to see a Prairie before turning back from the
+furthest point of my wanderings; and as some gentlemen of the town had,
+in their hospitable consideration, an equal desire to gratify me; a day
+was fixed, before my departure, for an expedition to the Looking-Glass
+Prairie, which is within thirty miles of the town.  Deeming it possible
+that my readers may not object to know what kind of thing such a gipsy
+party may be at that distance from home, and among what sort of objects
+it moves, I will describe the jaunt in another chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+A JAUNT TO THE LOOKING-GLASS PRAIRIE AND BACK
+
+
+I MAY premise that the word Prairie is variously pronounced _paraaer_,
+_parearer_, _paroarer_.  The latter mode of pronunciation is perhaps the
+most in favour.
+
+We were fourteen in all, and all young men: indeed it is a singular
+though very natural feature in the society of these distant settlements,
+that it is mainly composed of adventurous persons in the prime of life,
+and has very few grey heads among it.  There were no ladies: the trip
+being a fatiguing one: and we were to start at five o’clock in the
+morning punctually.
+
+I was called at four, that I might be certain of keeping nobody waiting;
+and having got some bread and milk for breakfast, threw up the window and
+looked down into the street, expecting to see the whole party busily
+astir, and great preparations going on below.  But as everything was very
+quiet, and the street presented that hopeless aspect with which five
+o’clock in the morning is familiar elsewhere, I deemed it as well to go
+to bed again, and went accordingly.
+
+I woke again at seven o’clock, and by that time the party had assembled,
+and were gathered round, one light carriage, with a very stout axletree;
+one something on wheels like an amateur carrier’s cart; one double
+phaeton of great antiquity and unearthly construction; one gig with a
+great hole in its back and a broken head; and one rider on horseback who
+was to go on before.  I got into the first coach with three companions;
+the rest bestowed themselves in the other vehicles; two large baskets
+were made fast to the lightest; two large stone jars in wicker cases,
+technically known as demi-johns, were consigned to the ‘least rowdy’ of
+the party for safe-keeping; and the procession moved off to the
+ferryboat, in which it was to cross the river bodily, men, horses,
+carriages, and all, as the manner in these parts is.
+
+We got over the river in due course, and mustered again before a little
+wooden box on wheels, hove down all aslant in a morass, with ‘MERCHANT
+TAILOR’ painted in very large letters over the door.  Having settled the
+order of proceeding, and the road to be taken, we started off once more
+and began to make our way through an ill-favoured Black Hollow, called,
+less expressively, the American Bottom.
+
+The previous day had been—not to say hot, for the term is weak and
+lukewarm in its power of conveying an idea of the temperature.  The town
+had been on fire; in a blaze.  But at night it had come on to rain in
+torrents, and all night long it had rained without cessation.  We had a
+pair of very strong horses, but travelled at the rate of little more than
+a couple of miles an hour, through one unbroken slough of black mud and
+water.  It had no variety but in depth.  Now it was only half over the
+wheels, now it hid the axletree, and now the coach sank down in it almost
+to the windows.  The air resounded in all directions with the loud
+chirping of the frogs, who, with the pigs (a coarse, ugly breed, as
+unwholesome-looking as though they were the spontaneous growth of the
+country), had the whole scene to themselves.  Here and there we passed a
+log hut: but the wretched cabins were wide apart and thinly scattered,
+for though the soil is very rich in this place, few people can exist in
+such a deadly atmosphere.  On either side of the track, if it deserve the
+name, was the thick ‘bush;’ and everywhere was stagnant, slimy, rotten,
+filthy water.
+
+As it is the custom in these parts to give a horse a gallon or so of cold
+water whenever he is in a foam with heat, we halted for that purpose, at
+a log inn in the wood, far removed from any other residence.  It
+consisted of one room, bare-roofed and bare-walled of course, with a loft
+above.  The ministering priest was a swarthy young savage, in a shirt of
+cotton print like bed-furniture, and a pair of ragged trousers.  There
+were a couple of young boys, too, nearly naked, lying idle by the well;
+and they, and he, and _the_ traveller at the inn, turned out to look at
+us.
+
+The traveller was an old man with a grey gristly beard two inches long, a
+shaggy moustache of the same hue, and enormous eyebrows; which almost
+obscured his lazy, semi-drunken glance, as he stood regarding us with
+folded arms: poising himself alternately upon his toes and heels.  On
+being addressed by one of the party, he drew nearer, and said, rubbing
+his chin (which scraped under his horny hand like fresh gravel beneath a
+nailed shoe), that he was from Delaware, and had lately bought a farm
+‘down there,’ pointing into one of the marshes where the stunted trees
+were thickest.  He was ‘going,’ he added, to St. Louis, to fetch his
+family, whom he had left behind; but he seemed in no great hurry to bring
+on these incumbrances, for when we moved away, he loitered back into the
+cabin, and was plainly bent on stopping there so long as his money
+lasted.  He was a great politician of course, and explained his opinions
+at some length to one of our company; but I only remember that he
+concluded with two sentiments, one of which was, Somebody for ever; and
+the other, Blast everybody else! which is by no means a bad abstract of
+the general creed in these matters.
+
+When the horses were swollen out to about twice their natural dimensions
+(there seems to be an idea here, that this kind of inflation improves
+their going), we went forward again, through mud and mire, and damp, and
+festering heat, and brake and bush, attended always by the music of the
+frogs and pigs, until nearly noon, when we halted at a place called
+Belleville.
+
+Belleville was a small collection of wooden houses, huddled together in
+the very heart of the bush and swamp.  Many of them had singularly bright
+doors of red and yellow; for the place had been lately visited by a
+travelling painter, ‘who got along,’ as I was told, ‘by eating his way.’
+The criminal court was sitting, and was at that moment trying some
+criminals for horse-stealing: with whom it would most likely go hard: for
+live stock of all kinds being necessarily very much exposed in the woods,
+is held by the community in rather higher value than human life; and for
+this reason, juries generally make a point of finding all men indicted
+for cattle-stealing, guilty, whether or no.
+
+The horses belonging to the bar, the judge, and witnesses, were tied to
+temporary racks set up roughly in the road; by which is to be understood,
+a forest path, nearly knee-deep in mud and slime.
+
+There was an hotel in this place, which, like all hotels in America, had
+its large dining-room for the public table.  It was an odd, shambling,
+low-roofed out-house, half-cowshed and half-kitchen, with a coarse brown
+canvas table-cloth, and tin sconces stuck against the walls, to hold
+candles at supper-time.  The horseman had gone forward to have coffee and
+some eatables prepared, and they were by this time nearly ready.  He had
+ordered ‘wheat-bread and chicken fixings,’ in preference to ‘corn-bread
+and common doings.’  The latter kind of rejection includes only pork and
+bacon.  The former comprehends broiled ham, sausages, veal cutlets,
+steaks, and such other viands of that nature as may be supposed, by a
+tolerably wide poetical construction, ‘to fix’ a chicken comfortably in
+the digestive organs of any lady or gentleman.
+
+On one of the door-posts at this inn, was a tin plate, whereon was
+inscribed in characters of gold, ‘Doctor Crocus;’ and on a sheet of
+paper, pasted up by the side of this plate, was a written announcement
+that Dr. Crocus would that evening deliver a lecture on Phrenology for
+the benefit of the Belleville public; at a charge, for admission, of so
+much a head.
+
+Straying up-stairs, during the preparation of the chicken fixings, I
+happened to pass the doctor’s chamber; and as the door stood wide open,
+and the room was empty, I made bold to peep in.
+
+It was a bare, unfurnished, comfortless room, with an unframed portrait
+hanging up at the head of the bed; a likeness, I take it, of the Doctor,
+for the forehead was fully displayed, and great stress was laid by the
+artist upon its phrenological developments.  The bed itself was covered
+with an old patch-work counterpane.  The room was destitute of carpet or
+of curtain.  There was a damp fireplace without any stove, full of wood
+ashes; a chair, and a very small table; and on the last-named piece of
+furniture was displayed, in grand array, the doctor’s library, consisting
+of some half-dozen greasy old books.
+
+Now, it certainly looked about the last apartment on the whole earth out
+of which any man would be likely to get anything to do him good.  But the
+door, as I have said, stood coaxingly open, and plainly said in
+conjunction with the chair, the portrait, the table, and the books, ‘Walk
+in, gentlemen, walk in!  Don’t be ill, gentlemen, when you may be well in
+no time.  Doctor Crocus is here, gentlemen, the celebrated Dr. Crocus!
+Dr. Crocus has come all this way to cure you, gentlemen.  If you haven’t
+heard of Dr. Crocus, it’s your fault, gentlemen, who live a little way
+out of the world here: not Dr. Crocus’s.  Walk in, gentlemen, walk in!’
+
+In the passage below, when I went down-stairs again, was Dr. Crocus
+himself.  A crowd had flocked in from the Court House, and a voice from
+among them called out to the landlord, ‘Colonel! introduce Doctor
+Crocus.’
+
+‘Mr. Dickens,’ says the colonel, ‘Doctor Crocus.’
+
+Upon which Doctor Crocus, who is a tall, fine-looking Scotchman, but
+rather fierce and warlike in appearance for a professor of the peaceful
+art of healing, bursts out of the concourse with his right arm extended,
+and his chest thrown out as far as it will possibly come, and says:
+
+‘Your countryman, sir!’
+
+Whereupon Doctor Crocus and I shake hands; and Doctor Crocus looks as if
+I didn’t by any means realise his expectations, which, in a linen blouse,
+and a great straw hat, with a green ribbon, and no gloves, and my face
+and nose profusely ornamented with the stings of mosquitoes and the bites
+of bugs, it is very likely I did not.
+
+‘Long in these parts, sir?’ says I.
+
+‘Three or four months, sir,’ says the Doctor.
+
+‘Do you think of soon returning to the old country?’ says I.
+
+Doctor Crocus makes no verbal answer, but gives me an imploring look,
+which says so plainly ‘Will you ask me that again, a little louder, if
+you please?’ that I repeat the question.
+
+‘Think of soon returning to the old country, sir!’ repeats the Doctor.
+
+‘To the old country, sir,’ I rejoin.
+
+Doctor Crocus looks round upon the crowd to observe the effect he
+produces, rubs his hands, and says, in a very loud voice:
+
+‘Not yet awhile, sir, not yet.  You won’t catch me at that just yet, sir.
+I am a little too fond of freedom for _that_, sir.  Ha, ha!  It’s not so
+easy for a man to tear himself from a free country such as this is, sir.
+Ha, ha!  No, no!  Ha, ha!  None of that till one’s obliged to do it, sir.
+No, no!’
+
+As Doctor Crocus says these latter words, he shakes his head, knowingly,
+and laughs again.  Many of the bystanders shake their heads in concert
+with the doctor, and laugh too, and look at each other as much as to say,
+‘A pretty bright and first-rate sort of chap is Crocus!’ and unless I am
+very much mistaken, a good many people went to the lecture that night,
+who never thought about phrenology, or about Doctor Crocus either, in all
+their lives before.
+
+From Belleville, we went on, through the same desolate kind of waste, and
+constantly attended, without the interval of a moment, by the same music;
+until, at three o’clock in the afternoon, we halted once more at a
+village called Lebanon to inflate the horses again, and give them some
+corn besides: of which they stood much in need.  Pending this ceremony, I
+walked into the village, where I met a full-sized dwelling-house coming
+down-hill at a round trot, drawn by a score or more of oxen.
+
+The public-house was so very clean and good a one, that the managers of
+the jaunt resolved to return to it and put up there for the night, if
+possible.  This course decided on, and the horses being well refreshed,
+we again pushed forward, and came upon the Prairie at sunset.
+
+It would be difficult to say why, or how—though it was possibly from
+having heard and read so much about it—but the effect on me was
+disappointment.  Looking towards the setting sun, there lay, stretched
+out before my view, a vast expanse of level ground; unbroken, save by one
+thin line of trees, which scarcely amounted to a scratch upon the great
+blank; until it met the glowing sky, wherein it seemed to dip: mingling
+with its rich colours, and mellowing in its distant blue.  There it lay,
+a tranquil sea or lake without water, if such a simile be admissible,
+with the day going down upon it: a few birds wheeling here and there: and
+solitude and silence reigning paramount around.  But the grass was not
+yet high; there were bare black patches on the ground; and the few wild
+flowers that the eye could see, were poor and scanty.  Great as the
+picture was, its very flatness and extent, which left nothing to the
+imagination, tamed it down and cramped its interest.  I felt little of
+that sense of freedom and exhilaration which a Scottish heath inspires,
+or even our English downs awaken.  It was lonely and wild, but oppressive
+in its barren monotony.  I felt that in traversing the Prairies, I could
+never abandon myself to the scene, forgetful of all else; as I should do
+instinctively, were the heather underneath my feet, or an iron-bound
+coast beyond; but should often glance towards the distant and
+frequently-receding line of the horizon, and wish it gained and passed.
+It is not a scene to be forgotten, but it is scarcely one, I think (at
+all events, as I saw it), to remember with much pleasure, or to covet the
+looking-on again, in after-life.
+
+We encamped near a solitary log-house, for the sake of its water, and
+dined upon the plain.  The baskets contained roast fowls, buffalo’s
+tongue (an exquisite dainty, by the way), ham, bread, cheese, and butter;
+biscuits, champagne, sherry; lemons and sugar for punch; and abundance of
+rough ice.  The meal was delicious, and the entertainers were the soul of
+kindness and good humour.  I have often recalled that cheerful party to
+my pleasant recollection since, and shall not easily forget, in
+junketings nearer home with friends of older date, my boon companions on
+the Prairie.
+
+Returning to Lebanon that night, we lay at the little inn at which we had
+halted in the afternoon.  In point of cleanliness and comfort it would
+have suffered by no comparison with any English alehouse, of a homely
+kind, in England.
+
+Rising at five o’clock next morning, I took a walk about the village:
+none of the houses were strolling about to-day, but it was early for them
+yet, perhaps: and then amused myself by lounging in a kind of farm-yard
+behind the tavern, of which the leading features were, a strange jumble
+of rough sheds for stables; a rude colonnade, built as a cool place of
+summer resort; a deep well; a great earthen mound for keeping vegetables
+in, in winter time; and a pigeon-house, whose little apertures looked, as
+they do in all pigeon-houses, very much too small for the admission of
+the plump and swelling-breasted birds who were strutting about it, though
+they tried to get in never so hard.  That interest exhausted, I took a
+survey of the inn’s two parlours, which were decorated with coloured
+prints of Washington, and President Madison, and of a white-faced young
+lady (much speckled by the flies), who held up her gold neck-chain for
+the admiration of the spectator, and informed all admiring comers that
+she was ‘Just Seventeen:’ although I should have thought her older.  In
+the best room were two oil portraits of the kit-cat size, representing
+the landlord and his infant son; both looking as bold as lions, and
+staring out of the canvas with an intensity that would have been cheap at
+any price.  They were painted, I think, by the artist who had touched up
+the Belleville doors with red and gold; for I seemed to recognise his
+style immediately.
+
+After breakfast, we started to return by a different way from that which
+we had taken yesterday, and coming up at ten o’clock with an encampment
+of German emigrants carrying their goods in carts, who had made a rousing
+fire which they were just quitting, stopped there to refresh.  And very
+pleasant the fire was; for, hot though it had been yesterday, it was
+quite cold to-day, and the wind blew keenly.  Looming in the distance, as
+we rode along, was another of the ancient Indian burial-places, called
+The Monks’ Mound; in memory of a body of fanatics of the order of La
+Trappe, who founded a desolate convent there, many years ago, when there
+were no settlers within a thousand miles, and were all swept off by the
+pernicious climate: in which lamentable fatality, few rational people
+will suppose, perhaps, that society experienced any very severe
+deprivation.
+
+The track of to-day had the same features as the track of yesterday.
+There was the swamp, the bush, and the perpetual chorus of frogs, the
+rank unseemly growth, the unwholesome steaming earth.  Here and there,
+and frequently too, we encountered a solitary broken-down waggon, full of
+some new settler’s goods.  It was a pitiful sight to see one of these
+vehicles deep in the mire; the axle-tree broken; the wheel lying idly by
+its side; the man gone miles away, to look for assistance; the woman
+seated among their wandering household gods with a baby at her breast, a
+picture of forlorn, dejected patience; the team of oxen crouching down
+mournfully in the mud, and breathing forth such clouds of vapour from
+their mouths and nostrils, that all the damp mist and fog around seemed
+to have come direct from them.
+
+In due time we mustered once again before the merchant tailor’s, and
+having done so, crossed over to the city in the ferry-boat: passing, on
+the way, a spot called Bloody Island, the duelling-ground of St. Louis,
+and so designated in honour of the last fatal combat fought there, which
+was with pistols, breast to breast.  Both combatants fell dead upon the
+ground; and possibly some rational people may think of them, as of the
+gloomy madmen on the Monks’ Mound, that they were no great loss to the
+community.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+RETURN TO CINCINNATI.  A STAGE-COACH RIDE FROM THAT CITY TO COLUMBUS, AND
+THENCE TO SANDUSKY.  SO, BY LAKE ERIE, TO THE FALLS OF NIAGARA
+
+
+AS I had a desire to travel through the interior of the state of Ohio,
+and to ‘strike the lakes,’ as the phrase is, at a small town called
+Sandusky, to which that route would conduct us on our way to Niagara, we
+had to return from St. Louis by the way we had come, and to retrace our
+former track as far as Cincinnati.
+
+The day on which we were to take leave of St. Louis being very fine; and
+the steamboat, which was to have started I don’t know how early in the
+morning, postponing, for the third or fourth time, her departure until
+the afternoon; we rode forward to an old French village on the river,
+called properly Carondelet, and nicknamed Vide Poche, and arranged that
+the packet should call for us there.
+
+The place consisted of a few poor cottages, and two or three
+public-houses; the state of whose larders certainly seemed to justify the
+second designation of the village, for there was nothing to eat in any of
+them.  At length, however, by going back some half a mile or so, we found
+a solitary house where ham and coffee were procurable; and there we
+tarried to wait the advent of the boat, which would come in sight from
+the green before the door, a long way off.
+
+It was a neat, unpretending village tavern, and we took our repast in a
+quaint little room with a bed in it, decorated with some old oil
+paintings, which in their time had probably done duty in a Catholic
+chapel or monastery.  The fare was very good, and served with great
+cleanliness.  The house was kept by a characteristic old couple, with
+whom we had a long talk, and who were perhaps a very good sample of that
+kind of people in the West.
+
+The landlord was a dry, tough, hard-faced old fellow (not so very old
+either, for he was but just turned sixty, I should think), who had been
+out with the militia in the last war with England, and had seen all kinds
+of service,—except a battle; and he had been very near seeing that, he
+added: very near.  He had all his life been restless and locomotive, with
+an irresistible desire for change; and was still the son of his old self:
+for if he had nothing to keep him at home, he said (slightly jerking his
+hat and his thumb towards the window of the room in which the old lady
+sat, as we stood talking in front of the house), he would clean up his
+musket, and be off to Texas to-morrow morning.  He was one of the very
+many descendants of Cain proper to this continent, who seem destined from
+their birth to serve as pioneers in the great human army: who gladly go
+on from year to year extending its outposts, and leaving home after home
+behind them; and die at last, utterly regardless of their graves being
+left thousands of miles behind, by the wandering generation who succeed.
+
+His wife was a domesticated, kind-hearted old soul, who had come with
+him, ‘from the queen city of the world,’ which, it seemed, was
+Philadelphia; but had no love for this Western country, and indeed had
+little reason to bear it any; having seen her children, one by one, die
+here of fever, in the full prime and beauty of their youth.  Her heart
+was sore, she said, to think of them; and to talk on this theme, even to
+strangers, in that blighted place, so far from her old home, eased it
+somewhat, and became a melancholy pleasure.
+
+The boat appearing towards evening, we bade adieu to the poor old lady
+and her vagrant spouse, and making for the nearest landing-place, were
+soon on board The Messenger again, in our old cabin, and steaming down
+the Mississippi.
+
+If the coming up this river, slowly making head against the stream, be an
+irksome journey, the shooting down it with the turbid current is almost
+worse; for then the boat, proceeding at the rate of twelve or fifteen
+miles an hour, has to force its passage through a labyrinth of floating
+logs, which, in the dark, it is often impossible to see beforehand or
+avoid.  All that night, the bell was never silent for five minutes at a
+time; and after every ring the vessel reeled again, sometimes beneath a
+single blow, sometimes beneath a dozen dealt in quick succession, the
+lightest of which seemed more than enough to beat in her frail keel, as
+though it had been pie-crust.  Looking down upon the filthy river after
+dark, it seemed to be alive with monsters, as these black masses rolled
+upon the surface, or came starting up again, head first, when the boat,
+in ploughing her way among a shoal of such obstructions, drove a few
+among them for the moment under water.  Sometimes the engine stopped
+during a long interval, and then before her and behind, and gathering
+close about her on all sides, were so many of these ill-favoured
+obstacles that she was fairly hemmed in; the centre of a floating island;
+and was constrained to pause until they parted, somewhere, as dark clouds
+will do before the wind, and opened by degrees a channel out.
+
+In good time next morning, however, we came again in sight of the
+detestable morass called Cairo; and stopping there to take in wood, lay
+alongside a barge, whose starting timbers scarcely held together.  It was
+moored to the bank, and on its side was painted ‘Coffee House;’ that
+being, I suppose, the floating paradise to which the people fly for
+shelter when they lose their houses for a month or two beneath the
+hideous waters of the Mississippi.  But looking southward from this
+point, we had the satisfaction of seeing that intolerable river dragging
+its slimy length and ugly freight abruptly off towards New Orleans; and
+passing a yellow line which stretched across the current, were again upon
+the clear Ohio, never, I trust, to see the Mississippi more, saving in
+troubled dreams and nightmares.  Leaving it for the company of its
+sparkling neighbour, was like the transition from pain to ease, or the
+awakening from a horrible vision to cheerful realities.
+
+We arrived at Louisville on the fourth night, and gladly availed
+ourselves of its excellent hotel.  Next day we went on in the Ben
+Franklin, a beautiful mail steamboat, and reached Cincinnati shortly
+after midnight.  Being by this time nearly tired of sleeping upon
+shelves, we had remained awake to go ashore straightway; and groping a
+passage across the dark decks of other boats, and among labyrinths of
+engine-machinery and leaking casks of molasses, we reached the streets,
+knocked up the porter at the hotel where we had stayed before, and were,
+to our great joy, safely housed soon afterwards.
+
+We rested but one day at Cincinnati, and then resumed our journey to
+Sandusky.  As it comprised two varieties of stage-coach travelling,
+which, with those I have already glanced at, comprehend the main
+characteristics of this mode of transit in America, I will take the
+reader as our fellow-passenger, and pledge myself to perform the distance
+with all possible despatch.
+
+Our place of destination in the first instance is Columbus.  It is
+distant about a hundred and twenty miles from Cincinnati, but there is a
+macadamised road (rare blessing!) the whole way, and the rate of
+travelling upon it is six miles an hour.
+
+We start at eight o’clock in the morning, in a great mail-coach, whose
+huge cheeks are so very ruddy and plethoric, that it appears to be
+troubled with a tendency of blood to the head.  Dropsical it certainly
+is, for it will hold a dozen passengers inside.  But, wonderful to add,
+it is very clean and bright, being nearly new; and rattles through the
+streets of Cincinnati gaily.
+
+Our way lies through a beautiful country, richly cultivated, and
+luxuriant in its promise of an abundant harvest.  Sometimes we pass a
+field where the strong bristling stalks of Indian corn look like a crop
+of walking-sticks, and sometimes an enclosure where the green wheat is
+springing up among a labyrinth of stumps; the primitive worm-fence is
+universal, and an ugly thing it is; but the farms are neatly kept, and,
+save for these differences, one might be travelling just now in Kent.
+
+We often stop to water at a roadside inn, which is always dull and
+silent.  The coachman dismounts and fills his bucket, and holds it to the
+horses’ heads.  There is scarcely ever any one to help him; there are
+seldom any loungers standing round; and never any stable-company with
+jokes to crack.  Sometimes, when we have changed our team, there is a
+difficulty in starting again, arising out of the prevalent mode of
+breaking a young horse: which is to catch him, harness him against his
+will, and put him in a stage-coach without further notice: but we get on
+somehow or other, after a great many kicks and a violent struggle; and
+jog on as before again.
+
+Occasionally, when we stop to change, some two or three half-drunken
+loafers will come loitering out with their hands in their pockets, or
+will be seen kicking their heels in rocking-chairs, or lounging on the
+window-sill, or sitting on a rail within the colonnade: they have not
+often anything to say though, either to us or to each other, but sit
+there idly staring at the coach and horses.  The landlord of the inn is
+usually among them, and seems, of all the party, to be the least
+connected with the business of the house.  Indeed he is with reference to
+the tavern, what the driver is in relation to the coach and passengers:
+whatever happens in his sphere of action, he is quite indifferent, and
+perfectly easy in his mind.
+
+The frequent change of coachmen works no change or variety in the
+coachman’s character.  He is always dirty, sullen, and taciturn.  If he
+be capable of smartness of any kind, moral or physical, he has a faculty
+of concealing it which is truly marvellous.  He never speaks to you as
+you sit beside him on the box, and if you speak to him, he answers (if at
+all) in monosyllables.  He points out nothing on the road, and seldom
+looks at anything: being, to all appearance, thoroughly weary of it and
+of existence generally.  As to doing the honours of his coach, his
+business, as I have said, is with the horses.  The coach follows because
+it is attached to them and goes on wheels: not because you are in it.
+Sometimes, towards the end of a long stage, he suddenly breaks out into a
+discordant fragment of an election song, but his face never sings along
+with him: it is only his voice, and not often that.
+
+He always chews and always spits, and never encumbers himself with a
+pocket-handkerchief.  The consequences to the box passenger, especially
+when the wind blows towards him, are not agreeable.
+
+Whenever the coach stops, and you can hear the voices of the inside
+passengers; or whenever any bystander addresses them, or any one among
+them; or they address each other; you will hear one phrase repeated over
+and over and over again to the most extraordinary extent.  It is an
+ordinary and unpromising phrase enough, being neither more nor less than
+‘Yes, sir;’ but it is adapted to every variety of circumstance, and fills
+up every pause in the conversation.  Thus:—
+
+The time is one o’clock at noon.  The scene, a place where we are to stay
+and dine, on this journey.  The coach drives up to the door of an inn.
+The day is warm, and there are several idlers lingering about the tavern,
+and waiting for the public dinner.  Among them, is a stout gentleman in a
+brown hat, swinging himself to and fro in a rocking-chair on the
+pavement.
+
+As the coach stops, a gentleman in a straw hat looks out of the window:
+
+STRAW HAT.  (To the stout gentleman in the rocking-chair.)  I reckon
+that’s Judge Jefferson, an’t it?
+
+BROWN HAT.  (Still swinging; speaking very slowly; and without any
+emotion whatever.)  Yes, sir.
+
+STRAW HAT.  Warm weather, Judge.
+
+BROWN HAT.  Yes, sir.
+
+STRAW HAT.  There was a snap of cold, last week.
+
+BROWN HAT.  Yes, sir.
+
+STRAW HAT.  Yes, sir.
+
+A pause.  They look at each other, very seriously.
+
+STRAW HAT.  I calculate you’ll have got through that case of the
+corporation, Judge, by this time, now?
+
+BROWN HAT.  Yes, sir.
+
+STRAW HAT.  How did the verdict go, sir?
+
+BROWN HAT.  For the defendant, sir.
+
+STRAW HAT.  (Interrogatively.)  Yes, sir?
+
+BROWN HAT. (Affirmatively.)  Yes, sir.
+
+BOTH.  (Musingly, as each gazes down the street.)  Yes, sir.
+
+Another pause.  They look at each other again, still more seriously than
+before.
+
+BROWN HAT.  This coach is rather behind its time to-day, I guess.
+
+STRAW HAT.  (Doubtingly.)  Yes, sir.
+
+BROWN HAT.  (Looking at his watch.)  Yes, sir; nigh upon two hours.
+
+STRAW HAT.  (Raising his eyebrows in very great surprise.)  Yes, sir!
+
+BROWN HAT.  (Decisively, as he puts up his watch.)  Yes, sir.
+
+ALL THE OTHER INSIDE PASSENGERS.  (Among themselves.)  Yes, sir.
+
+COACHMAN.  (In a very surly tone.)  No it an’t.
+
+STRAW HAT.  (To the coachman.)  Well, I don’t know, sir.  We were a
+pretty tall time coming that last fifteen mile.  That’s a fact.
+
+The coachman making no reply, and plainly declining to enter into any
+controversy on a subject so far removed from his sympathies and feelings,
+another passenger says, ‘Yes, sir;’ and the gentleman in the straw hat in
+acknowledgment of his courtesy, says ‘Yes, sir,’ to him, in return.  The
+straw hat then inquires of the brown hat, whether that coach in which he
+(the straw hat) then sits, is not a new one?  To which the brown hat
+again makes answer, ‘Yes, sir.’
+
+STRAW HAT.  I thought so.  Pretty loud smell of varnish, sir?
+
+BROWN HAT.  Yes, sir.
+
+ALL THE OTHER INSIDE PASSENGERS.  Yes, sir.
+
+BROWN HAT.  (To the company in general.)  Yes, sir.
+
+The conversational powers of the company having been by this time pretty
+heavily taxed, the straw hat opens the door and gets out; and all the
+rest alight also.  We dine soon afterwards with the boarders in the
+house, and have nothing to drink but tea and coffee.  As they are both
+very bad and the water is worse, I ask for brandy; but it is a Temperance
+Hotel, and spirits are not to be had for love or money.  This
+preposterous forcing of unpleasant drinks down the reluctant throats of
+travellers is not at all uncommon in America, but I never discovered that
+the scruples of such wincing landlords induced them to preserve any
+unusually nice balance between the quality of their fare, and their scale
+of charges: on the contrary, I rather suspected them of diminishing the
+one and exalting the other, by way of recompense for the loss of their
+profit on the sale of spirituous liquors.  After all, perhaps, the
+plainest course for persons of such tender consciences, would be, a total
+abstinence from tavern-keeping.
+
+Dinner over, we get into another vehicle which is ready at the door (for
+the coach has been changed in the interval), and resume our journey;
+which continues through the same kind of country until evening, when we
+come to the town where we are to stop for tea and supper; and having
+delivered the mail bags at the Post-office, ride through the usual wide
+street, lined with the usual stores and houses (the drapers always having
+hung up at their door, by way of sign, a piece of bright red cloth), to
+the hotel where this meal is prepared.  There being many boarders here,
+we sit down, a large party, and a very melancholy one as usual.  But
+there is a buxom hostess at the head of the table, and opposite, a simple
+Welsh schoolmaster with his wife and child; who came here, on a
+speculation of greater promise than performance, to teach the classics:
+and they are sufficient subjects of interest until the meal is over, and
+another coach is ready.  In it we go on once more, lighted by a bright
+moon, until midnight; when we stop to change the coach again, and remain
+for half an hour or so in a miserable room, with a blurred lithograph of
+Washington over the smoky fire-place, and a mighty jug of cold water on
+the table: to which refreshment the moody passengers do so apply
+themselves that they would seem to be, one and all, keen patients of Dr.
+Sangrado.  Among them is a very little boy, who chews tobacco like a very
+big one; and a droning gentleman, who talks arithmetically and
+statistically on all subjects, from poetry downwards; and who always
+speaks in the same key, with exactly the same emphasis, and with very
+grave deliberation.  He came outside just now, and told me how that the
+uncle of a certain young lady who had been spirited away and married by a
+certain captain, lived in these parts; and how this uncle was so valiant
+and ferocious that he shouldn’t wonder if he were to follow the said
+captain to England, ‘and shoot him down in the street wherever he found
+him;’ in the feasibility of which strong measure I, being for the moment
+rather prone to contradiction, from feeling half asleep and very tired,
+declined to acquiesce: assuring him that if the uncle did resort to it,
+or gratified any other little whim of the like nature, he would find
+himself one morning prematurely throttled at the Old Bailey: and that he
+would do well to make his will before he went, as he would certainly want
+it before he had been in Britain very long.
+
+On we go, all night, and by-and-by the day begins to break, and presently
+the first cheerful rays of the warm sun come slanting on us brightly.  It
+sheds its light upon a miserable waste of sodden grass, and dull trees,
+and squalid huts, whose aspect is forlorn and grievous in the last
+degree.  A very desert in the wood, whose growth of green is dank and
+noxious like that upon the top of standing water: where poisonous fungus
+grows in the rare footprint on the oozy ground, and sprouts like witches’
+coral, from the crevices in the cabin wall and floor; it is a hideous
+thing to lie upon the very threshold of a city.  But it was purchased
+years ago, and as the owner cannot be discovered, the State has been
+unable to reclaim it.  So there it remains, in the midst of cultivation
+and improvement, like ground accursed, and made obscene and rank by some
+great crime.
+
+We reached Columbus shortly before seven o’clock, and stayed there, to
+refresh, that day and night: having excellent apartments in a very large
+unfinished hotel called the Neill House, which were richly fitted with
+the polished wood of the black walnut, and opened on a handsome portico
+and stone verandah, like rooms in some Italian mansion.  The town is
+clean and pretty, and of course is ‘going to be’ much larger.  It is the
+seat of the State legislature of Ohio, and lays claim, in consequence, to
+some consideration and importance.
+
+There being no stage-coach next day, upon the road we wished to take, I
+hired ‘an extra,’ at a reasonable charge to carry us to Tiffin; a small
+town from whence there is a railroad to Sandusky.  This extra was an
+ordinary four-horse stage-coach, such as I have described, changing
+horses and drivers, as the stage-coach would, but was exclusively our own
+for the journey.  To ensure our having horses at the proper stations, and
+being incommoded by no strangers, the proprietors sent an agent on the
+box, who was to accompany us the whole way through; and thus attended,
+and bearing with us, besides, a hamper full of savoury cold meats, and
+fruit, and wine, we started off again in high spirits, at half-past six
+o’clock next morning, very much delighted to be by ourselves, and
+disposed to enjoy even the roughest journey.
+
+It was well for us, that we were in this humour, for the road we went
+over that day, was certainly enough to have shaken tempers that were not
+resolutely at Set Fair, down to some inches below Stormy.  At one time we
+were all flung together in a heap at the bottom of the coach, and at
+another we were crushing our heads against the roof.  Now, one side was
+down deep in the mire, and we were holding on to the other.  Now, the
+coach was lying on the tails of the two wheelers; and now it was rearing
+up in the air, in a frantic state, with all four horses standing on the
+top of an insurmountable eminence, looking coolly back at it, as though
+they would say ‘Unharness us.  It can’t be done.’  The drivers on these
+roads, who certainly get over the ground in a manner which is quite
+miraculous, so twist and turn the team about in forcing a passage,
+corkscrew fashion, through the bogs and swamps, that it was quite a
+common circumstance on looking out of the window, to see the coachman
+with the ends of a pair of reins in his hands, apparently driving
+nothing, or playing at horses, and the leaders staring at one
+unexpectedly from the back of the coach, as if they had some idea of
+getting up behind.  A great portion of the way was over what is called a
+corduroy road, which is made by throwing trunks of trees into a marsh,
+and leaving them to settle there.  The very slightest of the jolts with
+which the ponderous carriage fell from log to log, was enough, it seemed,
+to have dislocated all the bones in the human body.  It would be
+impossible to experience a similar set of sensations, in any other
+circumstances, unless perhaps in attempting to go up to the top of St.
+Paul’s in an omnibus.  Never, never once, that day, was the coach in any
+position, attitude, or kind of motion to which we are accustomed in
+coaches.  Never did it make the smallest approach to one’s experience of
+the proceedings of any sort of vehicle that goes on wheels.
+
+Still, it was a fine day, and the temperature was delicious, and though
+we had left Summer behind us in the west, and were fast leaving Spring,
+we were moving towards Niagara and home.  We alighted in a pleasant wood
+towards the middle of the day, dined on a fallen tree, and leaving our
+best fragments with a cottager, and our worst with the pigs (who swarm in
+this part of the country like grains of sand on the sea-shore, to the
+great comfort of our commissariat in Canada), we went forward again,
+gaily.
+
+As night came on, the track grew narrower and narrower, until at last it
+so lost itself among the trees, that the driver seemed to find his way by
+instinct.  We had the comfort of knowing, at least, that there was no
+danger of his falling asleep, for every now and then a wheel would strike
+against an unseen stump with such a jerk, that he was fain to hold on
+pretty tight and pretty quick, to keep himself upon the box.  Nor was
+there any reason to dread the least danger from furious driving, inasmuch
+as over that broken ground the horses had enough to do to walk; as to
+shying, there was no room for that; and a herd of wild elephants could
+not have run away in such a wood, with such a coach at their heels.  So
+we stumbled along, quite satisfied.
+
+These stumps of trees are a curious feature in American travelling.  The
+varying illusions they present to the unaccustomed eye as it grows dark,
+are quite astonishing in their number and reality.  Now, there is a
+Grecian urn erected in the centre of a lonely field; now there is a woman
+weeping at a tomb; now a very commonplace old gentleman in a white
+waistcoat, with a thumb thrust into each arm-hole of his coat; now a
+student poring on a book; now a crouching negro; now, a horse, a dog, a
+cannon, an armed man; a hunch-back throwing off his cloak and stepping
+forth into the light.  They were often as entertaining to me as so many
+glasses in a magic lantern, and never took their shapes at my bidding,
+but seemed to force themselves upon me, whether I would or no; and
+strange to say, I sometimes recognised in them counterparts of figures
+once familiar to me in pictures attached to childish books, forgotten
+long ago.
+
+It soon became too dark, however, even for this amusement, and the trees
+were so close together that their dry branches rattled against the coach
+on either side, and obliged us all to keep our heads within.  It
+lightened too, for three whole hours; each flash being very bright, and
+blue, and long; and as the vivid streaks came darting in among the
+crowded branches, and the thunder rolled gloomily above the tree tops,
+one could scarcely help thinking that there were better neighbourhoods at
+such a time than thick woods afforded.
+
+At length, between ten and eleven o’clock at night, a few feeble lights
+appeared in the distance, and Upper Sandusky, an Indian village, where we
+were to stay till morning, lay before us.
+
+They were gone to bed at the log Inn, which was the only house of
+entertainment in the place, but soon answered to our knocking, and got
+some tea for us in a sort of kitchen or common room, tapestried with old
+newspapers, pasted against the wall.  The bed-chamber to which my wife
+and I were shown, was a large, low, ghostly room; with a quantity of
+withered branches on the hearth, and two doors without any fastening,
+opposite to each other, both opening on the black night and wild country,
+and so contrived, that one of them always blew the other open: a novelty
+in domestic architecture, which I do not remember to have seen before,
+and which I was somewhat disconcerted to have forced on my attention
+after getting into bed, as I had a considerable sum in gold for our
+travelling expenses, in my dressing-case.  Some of the luggage, however,
+piled against the panels, soon settled this difficulty, and my sleep
+would not have been very much affected that night, I believe, though it
+had failed to do so.
+
+My Boston friend climbed up to bed, somewhere in the roof, where another
+guest was already snoring hugely.  But being bitten beyond his power of
+endurance, he turned out again, and fled for shelter to the coach, which
+was airing itself in front of the house.  This was not a very politic
+step, as it turned out; for the pigs scenting him, and looking upon the
+coach as a kind of pie with some manner of meat inside, grunted round it
+so hideously, that he was afraid to come out again, and lay there
+shivering, till morning.  Nor was it possible to warm him, when he did
+come out, by means of a glass of brandy: for in Indian villages, the
+legislature, with a very good and wise intention, forbids the sale of
+spirits by tavern keepers.  The precaution, however, is quite
+inefficacious, for the Indians never fail to procure liquor of a worse
+kind, at a dearer price, from travelling pedlars.
+
+It is a settlement of the Wyandot Indians who inhabit this place.  Among
+the company at breakfast was a mild old gentleman, who had been for many
+years employed by the United States Government in conducting negotiations
+with the Indians, and who had just concluded a treaty with these people
+by which they bound themselves, in consideration of a certain annual sum,
+to remove next year to some land provided for them, west of the
+Mississippi, and a little way beyond St. Louis.  He gave me a moving
+account of their strong attachment to the familiar scenes of their
+infancy, and in particular to the burial-places of their kindred; and of
+their great reluctance to leave them.  He had witnessed many such
+removals, and always with pain, though he knew that they departed for
+their own good.  The question whether this tribe should go or stay, had
+been discussed among them a day or two before, in a hut erected for the
+purpose, the logs of which still lay upon the ground before the inn.
+When the speaking was done, the ayes and noes were ranged on opposite
+sides, and every male adult voted in his turn.  The moment the result was
+known, the minority (a large one) cheerfully yielded to the rest, and
+withdrew all kind of opposition.
+
+We met some of these poor Indians afterwards, riding on shaggy ponies.
+They were so like the meaner sort of gipsies, that if I could have seen
+any of them in England, I should have concluded, as a matter of course,
+that they belonged to that wandering and restless people.
+
+Leaving this town directly after breakfast, we pushed forward again, over
+a rather worse road than yesterday, if possible, and arrived about noon
+at Tiffin, where we parted with the extra.  At two o’clock we took the
+railroad; the travelling on which was very slow, its construction being
+indifferent, and the ground wet and marshy; and arrived at Sandusky in
+time to dine that evening.  We put up at a comfortable little hotel on
+the brink of Lake Erie, lay there that night, and had no choice but to
+wait there next day, until a steamboat bound for Buffalo appeared.  The
+town, which was sluggish and uninteresting enough, was something like the
+back of an English watering-place, out of the season.
+
+Our host, who was very attentive and anxious to make us comfortable, was
+a handsome middle-aged man, who had come to this town from New England,
+in which part of the country he was ‘raised.’  When I say that he
+constantly walked in and out of the room with his hat on; and stopped to
+converse in the same free-and-easy state; and lay down on our sofa, and
+pulled his newspaper out of his pocket, and read it at his ease; I merely
+mention these traits as characteristic of the country: not at all as
+being matter of complaint, or as having been disagreeable to me.  I
+should undoubtedly be offended by such proceedings at home, because there
+they are not the custom, and where they are not, they would be
+impertinencies; but in America, the only desire of a good-natured fellow
+of this kind, is to treat his guests hospitably and well; and I had no
+more right, and I can truly say no more disposition, to measure his
+conduct by our English rule and standard, than I had to quarrel with him
+for not being of the exact stature which would qualify him for admission
+into the Queen’s grenadier guards.  As little inclination had I to find
+fault with a funny old lady who was an upper domestic in this
+establishment, and who, when she came to wait upon us at any meal, sat
+herself down comfortably in the most convenient chair, and producing a
+large pin to pick her teeth with, remained performing that ceremony, and
+steadfastly regarding us meanwhile with much gravity and composure (now
+and then pressing us to eat a little more), until it was time to clear
+away.  It was enough for us, that whatever we wished done was done with
+great civility and readiness, and a desire to oblige, not only here, but
+everywhere else; and that all our wants were, in general, zealously
+anticipated.
+
+We were taking an early dinner at this house, on the day after our
+arrival, which was Sunday, when a steamboat came in sight, and presently
+touched at the wharf.  As she proved to be on her way to Buffalo, we
+hurried on board with all speed, and soon left Sandusky far behind us.
+
+She was a large vessel of five hundred tons, and handsomely fitted up,
+though with high-pressure engines; which always conveyed that kind of
+feeling to me, which I should be likely to experience, I think, if I had
+lodgings on the first-floor of a powder-mill.  She was laden with flour,
+some casks of which commodity were stored upon the deck.  The captain
+coming up to have a little conversation, and to introduce a friend,
+seated himself astride of one of these barrels, like a Bacchus of private
+life; and pulling a great clasp-knife out of his pocket, began to
+‘whittle’ it as he talked, by paring thin slices off the edges.  And he
+whittled with such industry and hearty good will, that but for his being
+called away very soon, it must have disappeared bodily, and left nothing
+in its place but grist and shavings.
+
+After calling at one or two flat places, with low dams stretching out
+into the lake, whereon were stumpy lighthouses, like windmills without
+sails, the whole looking like a Dutch vignette, we came at midnight to
+Cleveland, where we lay all night, and until nine o’clock next morning.
+
+I entertained quite a curiosity in reference to this place, from having
+seen at Sandusky a specimen of its literature in the shape of a
+newspaper, which was very strong indeed upon the subject of Lord
+Ashburton’s recent arrival at Washington, to adjust the points in dispute
+between the United States Government and Great Britain: informing its
+readers that as America had ‘whipped’ England in her infancy, and whipped
+her again in her youth, so it was clearly necessary that she must whip
+her once again in her maturity; and pledging its credit to all True
+Americans, that if Mr. Webster did his duty in the approaching
+negotiations, and sent the English Lord home again in double quick time,
+they should, within two years, sing ‘Yankee Doodle in Hyde Park, and Hail
+Columbia in the scarlet courts of Westminster!’  I found it a pretty
+town, and had the satisfaction of beholding the outside of the office of
+the journal from which I have just quoted.  I did not enjoy the delight
+of seeing the wit who indited the paragraph in question, but I have no
+doubt he is a prodigious man in his way, and held in high repute by a
+select circle.
+
+There was a gentleman on board, to whom, as I unintentionally learned
+through the thin partition which divided our state-room from the cabin in
+which he and his wife conversed together, I was unwittingly the occasion
+of very great uneasiness.  I don’t know why or wherefore, but I appeared
+to run in his mind perpetually, and to dissatisfy him very much.  First
+of all I heard him say: and the most ludicrous part of the business was,
+that he said it in my very ear, and could not have communicated more
+directly with me, if he had leaned upon my shoulder, and whispered me:
+‘Boz is on board still, my dear.’  After a considerable pause, he added,
+complainingly, ‘Boz keeps himself very close;’ which was true enough, for
+I was not very well, and was lying down, with a book.  I thought he had
+done with me after this, but I was deceived; for a long interval having
+elapsed, during which I imagine him to have been turning restlessly from
+side to side, and trying to go to sleep; he broke out again, with ‘I
+suppose _that_ Boz will be writing a book by-and-by, and putting all our
+names in it!’ at which imaginary consequence of being on board a boat
+with Boz, he groaned, and became silent.
+
+We called at the town of Erie, at eight o’clock that night, and lay there
+an hour.  Between five and six next morning, we arrived at Buffalo, where
+we breakfasted; and being too near the Great Falls to wait patiently
+anywhere else, we set off by the train, the same morning at nine o’clock,
+to Niagara.
+
+It was a miserable day; chilly and raw; a damp mist falling; and the
+trees in that northern region quite bare and wintry.  Whenever the train
+halted, I listened for the roar; and was constantly straining my eyes in
+the direction where I knew the Falls must be, from seeing the river
+rolling on towards them; every moment expecting to behold the spray.
+Within a few minutes of our stopping, not before, I saw two great white
+clouds rising up slowly and majestically from the depths of the earth.
+That was all.  At length we alighted: and then for the first time, I
+heard the mighty rush of water, and felt the ground tremble underneath my
+feet.
+
+The bank is very steep, and was slippery with rain, and half-melted ice.
+I hardly know how I got down, but I was soon at the bottom, and climbing,
+with two English officers who were crossing and had joined me, over some
+broken rocks, deafened by the noise, half-blinded by the spray, and wet
+to the skin.  We were at the foot of the American Fall.  I could see an
+immense torrent of water tearing headlong down from some great height,
+but had no idea of shape, or situation, or anything but vague immensity.
+
+When we were seated in the little ferry-boat, and were crossing the
+swollen river immediately before both cataracts, I began to feel what it
+was: but I was in a manner stunned, and unable to comprehend the vastness
+of the scene.  It was not until I came on Table Rock, and looked—Great
+Heaven, on what a fall of bright-green water!—that it came upon me in its
+full might and majesty.
+
+Then, when I felt how near to my Creator I was standing, the first
+effect, and the enduring one—instant and lasting—of the tremendous
+spectacle, was Peace.  Peace of Mind, tranquillity, calm recollections of
+the Dead, great thoughts of Eternal Rest and Happiness: nothing of gloom
+or terror.  Niagara was at once stamped upon my heart, an Image of
+Beauty; to remain there, changeless and indelible, until its pulses cease
+to beat, for ever.
+
+Oh, how the strife and trouble of daily life receded from my view, and
+lessened in the distance, during the ten memorable days we passed on that
+Enchanted Ground!  What voices spoke from out the thundering water; what
+faces, faded from the earth, looked out upon me from its gleaming depths;
+what Heavenly promise glistened in those angels’ tears, the drops of many
+hues, that showered around, and twined themselves about the gorgeous
+arches which the changing rainbows made!
+
+I never stirred in all that time from the Canadian side, whither I had
+gone at first.  I never crossed the river again; for I knew there were
+people on the other shore, and in such a place it is natural to shun
+strange company.  To wander to and fro all day, and see the cataracts
+from all points of view; to stand upon the edge of the great Horse-Shoe
+Fall, marking the hurried water gathering strength as it approached the
+verge, yet seeming, too, to pause before it shot into the gulf below; to
+gaze from the river’s level up at the torrent as it came streaming down;
+to climb the neighbouring heights and watch it through the trees, and see
+the wreathing water in the rapids hurrying on to take its fearful plunge;
+to linger in the shadow of the solemn rocks three miles below; watching
+the river as, stirred by no visible cause, it heaved and eddied and awoke
+the echoes, being troubled yet, far down beneath the surface, by its
+giant leap; to have Niagara before me, lighted by the sun and by the
+moon, red in the day’s decline, and grey as evening slowly fell upon it;
+to look upon it every day, and wake up in the night and hear its
+ceaseless voice: this was enough.
+
+I think in every quiet season now, still do those waters roll and leap,
+and roar and tumble, all day long; still are the rainbows spanning them,
+a hundred feet below.  Still, when the sun is on them, do they shine and
+glow like molten gold.  Still, when the day is gloomy, do they fall like
+snow, or seem to crumble away like the front of a great chalk cliff, or
+roll down the rock like dense white smoke.  But always does the mighty
+stream appear to die as it comes down, and always from its unfathomable
+grave arises that tremendous ghost of spray and mist which is never laid:
+which has haunted this place with the same dread solemnity since Darkness
+brooded on the deep, and that first flood before the Deluge—Light—came
+rushing on Creation at the word of God.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+IN CANADA; TORONTO; KINGSTON; MONTREAL; QUEBEC; ST.  JOHN’S.  IN THE
+UNITED STATES AGAIN; LEBANON; THE SHAKER VILLAGE; WEST POINT
+
+
+I WISH to abstain from instituting any comparison, or drawing any
+parallel whatever, between the social features of the United States and
+those of the British Possessions in Canada.  For this reason, I shall
+confine myself to a very brief account of our journeyings in the latter
+territory.
+
+But before I leave Niagara, I must advert to one disgusting circumstance
+which can hardly have escaped the observation of any decent traveller who
+has visited the Falls.
+
+On Table Rock, there is a cottage belonging to a Guide, where little
+relics of the place are sold, and where visitors register their names in
+a book kept for the purpose.  On the wall of the room in which a great
+many of these volumes are preserved, the following request is posted:
+‘Visitors will please not copy nor extract the remarks and poetical
+effusions from the registers and albums kept here.’
+
+But for this intimation, I should have let them lie upon the tables on
+which they were strewn with careful negligence, like books in a
+drawing-room: being quite satisfied with the stupendous silliness of
+certain stanzas with an anti-climax at the end of each, which were framed
+and hung up on the wall.  Curious, however, after reading this
+announcement, to see what kind of morsels were so carefully preserved, I
+turned a few leaves, and found them scrawled all over with the vilest and
+the filthiest ribaldry that ever human hogs delighted in.
+
+It is humiliating enough to know that there are among men brutes so
+obscene and worthless, that they can delight in laying their miserable
+profanations upon the very steps of Nature’s greatest altar.  But that
+these should be hoarded up for the delight of their fellow-swine, and
+kept in a public place where any eyes may see them, is a disgrace to the
+English language in which they are written (though I hope few of these
+entries have been made by Englishmen), and a reproach to the English
+side, on which they are preserved.
+
+The quarters of our soldiers at Niagara, are finely and airily situated.
+Some of them are large detached houses on the plain above the Falls,
+which were originally designed for hotels; and in the evening time, when
+the women and children were leaning over the balconies watching the men
+as they played at ball and other games upon the grass before the door,
+they often presented a little picture of cheerfulness and animation which
+made it quite a pleasure to pass that way.
+
+At any garrisoned point where the line of demarcation between one country
+and another is so very narrow as at Niagara, desertion from the ranks can
+scarcely fail to be of frequent occurrence: and it may be reasonably
+supposed that when the soldiers entertain the wildest and maddest hopes
+of the fortune and independence that await them on the other side, the
+impulse to play traitor, which such a place suggests to dishonest minds,
+is not weakened.  But it very rarely happens that the men who do desert,
+are happy or contented afterwards; and many instances have been known in
+which they have confessed their grievous disappointment, and their
+earnest desire to return to their old service if they could but be
+assured of pardon, or lenient treatment.  Many of their comrades,
+notwithstanding, do the like, from time to time; and instances of loss of
+life in the effort to cross the river with this object, are far from
+being uncommon.  Several men were drowned in the attempt to swim across,
+not long ago; and one, who had the madness to trust himself upon a table
+as a raft, was swept down to the whirlpool, where his mangled body eddied
+round and round some days.
+
+I am inclined to think that the noise of the Falls is very much
+exaggerated; and this will appear the more probable when the depth of the
+great basin in which the water is received, is taken into account.  At no
+time during our stay there, was the wind at all high or boisterous, but
+we never heard them, three miles off, even at the very quiet time of
+sunset, though we often tried.
+
+Queenston, at which place the steamboats start for Toronto (or I should
+rather say at which place they call, for their wharf is at Lewiston, on
+the opposite shore), is situated in a delicious valley, through which the
+Niagara river, in colour a very deep green, pursues its course.  It is
+approached by a road that takes its winding way among the heights by
+which the town is sheltered; and seen from this point is extremely
+beautiful and picturesque.  On the most conspicuous of these heights
+stood a monument erected by the Provincial Legislature in memory of
+General Brock, who was slain in a battle with the American forces, after
+having won the victory.  Some vagabond, supposed to be a fellow of the
+name of Lett, who is now, or who lately was, in prison as a felon, blew
+up this monument two years ago, and it is now a melancholy ruin, with a
+long fragment of iron railing hanging dejectedly from its top, and waving
+to and fro like a wild ivy branch or broken vine stem.  It is of much
+higher importance than it may seem, that this statue should be repaired
+at the public cost, as it ought to have been long ago.  Firstly, because
+it is beneath the dignity of England to allow a memorial raised in honour
+of one of her defenders, to remain in this condition, on the very spot
+where he died.  Secondly, because the sight of it in its present state,
+and the recollection of the unpunished outrage which brought it to this
+pass, is not very likely to soothe down border feelings among English
+subjects here, or compose their border quarrels and dislikes.
+
+I was standing on the wharf at this place, watching the passengers
+embarking in a steamboat which preceded that whose coming we awaited, and
+participating in the anxiety with which a sergeant’s wife was collecting
+her few goods together—keeping one distracted eye hard upon the porters,
+who were hurrying them on board, and the other on a hoopless washing-tub
+for which, as being the most utterly worthless of all her movables, she
+seemed to entertain particular affection—when three or four soldiers with
+a recruit came up and went on board.
+
+The recruit was a likely young fellow enough, strongly built and well
+made, but by no means sober: indeed he had all the air of a man who had
+been more or less drunk for some days.  He carried a small bundle over
+his shoulder, slung at the end of a walking-stick, and had a short pipe
+in his mouth.  He was as dusty and dirty as recruits usually are, and his
+shoes betokened that he had travelled on foot some distance, but he was
+in a very jocose state, and shook hands with this soldier, and clapped
+that one on the back, and talked and laughed continually, like a roaring
+idle dog as he was.
+
+The soldiers rather laughed at this blade than with him: seeming to say,
+as they stood straightening their canes in their hands, and looking
+coolly at him over their glazed stocks, ‘Go on, my boy, while you may!
+you’ll know better by-and-by:’ when suddenly the novice, who had been
+backing towards the gangway in his noisy merriment, fell overboard before
+their eyes, and splashed heavily down into the river between the vessel
+and the dock.
+
+I never saw such a good thing as the change that came over these soldiers
+in an instant.  Almost before the man was down, their professional
+manner, their stiffness and constraint, were gone, and they were filled
+with the most violent energy.  In less time than is required to tell it,
+they had him out again, feet first, with the tails of his coat flapping
+over his eyes, everything about him hanging the wrong way, and the water
+streaming off at every thread in his threadbare dress.  But the moment
+they set him upright and found that he was none the worse, they were
+soldiers again, looking over their glazed stocks more composedly than
+ever.
+
+The half-sobered recruit glanced round for a moment, as if his first
+impulse were to express some gratitude for his preservation, but seeing
+them with this air of total unconcern, and having his wet pipe presented
+to him with an oath by the soldier who had been by far the most anxious
+of the party, he stuck it in his mouth, thrust his hands into his moist
+pockets, and without even shaking the water off his clothes, walked on
+board whistling; not to say as if nothing had happened, but as if he had
+meant to do it, and it had been a perfect success.
+
+Our steamboat came up directly this had left the wharf, and soon bore us
+to the mouth of the Niagara; where the stars and stripes of America
+flutter on one side and the Union Jack of England on the other: and so
+narrow is the space between them that the sentinels in either fort can
+often hear the watchword of the other country given.  Thence we emerged
+on Lake Ontario, an inland sea; and by half-past six o’clock were at
+Toronto.
+
+The country round this town being very flat, is bare of scenic interest;
+but the town itself is full of life and motion, bustle, business, and
+improvement.  The streets are well paved, and lighted with gas; the
+houses are large and good; the shops excellent.  Many of them have a
+display of goods in their windows, such as may be seen in thriving county
+towns in England; and there are some which would do no discredit to the
+metropolis itself.  There is a good stone prison here; and there are,
+besides, a handsome church, a court-house, public offices, many
+commodious private residences, and a government observatory for noting
+and recording the magnetic variations.  In the College of Upper Canada,
+which is one of the public establishments of the city, a sound education
+in every department of polite learning can be had, at a very moderate
+expense: the annual charge for the instruction of each pupil, not
+exceeding nine pounds sterling.  It has pretty good endowments in the way
+of land, and is a valuable and useful institution.
+
+The first stone of a new college had been laid but a few days before, by
+the Governor General.  It will be a handsome, spacious edifice,
+approached by a long avenue, which is already planted and made available
+as a public walk.  The town is well adapted for wholesome exercise at all
+seasons, for the footways in the thoroughfares which lie beyond the
+principal street, are planked like floors, and kept in very good and
+clean repair.
+
+It is a matter of deep regret that political differences should have run
+high in this place, and led to most discreditable and disgraceful
+results.  It is not long since guns were discharged from a window in this
+town at the successful candidates in an election, and the coachman of one
+of them was actually shot in the body, though not dangerously wounded.
+But one man was killed on the same occasion; and from the very window
+whence he received his death, the very flag which shielded his murderer
+(not only in the commission of his crime, but from its consequences), was
+displayed again on the occasion of the public ceremony performed by the
+Governor General, to which I have just adverted.  Of all the colours in
+the rainbow, there is but one which could be so employed: I need not say
+that flag was orange.
+
+The time of leaving Toronto for Kingston is noon.  By eight o’clock next
+morning, the traveller is at the end of his journey, which is performed
+by steamboat upon Lake Ontario, calling at Port Hope and Coburg, the
+latter a cheerful, thriving little town.  Vast quantities of flour form
+the chief item in the freight of these vessels.  We had no fewer than one
+thousand and eighty barrels on board, between Coburg and Kingston.
+
+The latter place, which is now the seat of government in Canada, is a
+very poor town, rendered still poorer in the appearance of its
+market-place by the ravages of a recent fire.  Indeed, it may be said of
+Kingston, that one half of it appears to be burnt down, and the other
+half not to be built up.  The Government House is neither elegant nor
+commodious, yet it is almost the only house of any importance in the
+neighbourhood.
+
+There is an admirable jail here, well and wisely governed, and
+excellently regulated, in every respect.  The men were employed as
+shoemakers, ropemakers, blacksmiths, tailors, carpenters, and
+stonecutters; and in building a new prison, which was pretty far advanced
+towards completion.  The female prisoners were occupied in needlework.
+Among them was a beautiful girl of twenty, who had been there nearly
+three years.  She acted as bearer of secret despatches for the
+self-styled Patriots on Navy Island, during the Canadian Insurrection:
+sometimes dressing as a girl, and carrying them in her stays; sometimes
+attiring herself as a boy, and secreting them in the lining of her hat.
+In the latter character she always rode as a boy would, which was nothing
+to her, for she could govern any horse that any man could ride, and could
+drive four-in-hand with the best whip in those parts.  Setting forth on
+one of her patriotic missions, she appropriated to herself the first
+horse she could lay her hands on; and this offence had brought her where
+I saw her.  She had quite a lovely face, though, as the reader may
+suppose from this sketch of her history, there was a lurking devil in her
+bright eye, which looked out pretty sharply from between her prison bars.
+
+There is a bomb-proof fort here of great strength, which occupies a bold
+position, and is capable, doubtless, of doing good service; though the
+town is much too close upon the frontier to be long held, I should
+imagine, for its present purpose in troubled times.  There is also a
+small navy-yard, where a couple of Government steamboats were building,
+and getting on vigorously.
+
+We left Kingston for Montreal on the tenth of May, at half-past nine in
+the morning, and proceeded in a steamboat down the St. Lawrence river.
+The beauty of this noble stream at almost any point, but especially in
+the commencement of this journey when it winds its way among the thousand
+Islands, can hardly be imagined.  The number and constant successions of
+these islands, all green and richly wooded; their fluctuating sizes, some
+so large that for half an hour together one among them will appear as the
+opposite bank of the river, and some so small that they are mere dimples
+on its broad bosom; their infinite variety of shapes; and the numberless
+combinations of beautiful forms which the trees growing on them present:
+all form a picture fraught with uncommon interest and pleasure.
+
+In the afternoon we shot down some rapids where the river boiled and
+bubbled strangely, and where the force and headlong violence of the
+current were tremendous.  At seven o’clock we reached Dickenson’s
+Landing, whence travellers proceed for two or three hours by stage-coach:
+the navigation of the river being rendered so dangerous and difficult in
+the interval, by rapids, that steamboats do not make the passage.  The
+number and length of those _portages_, over which the roads are bad, and
+the travelling slow, render the way between the towns of Montreal and
+Kingston, somewhat tedious.
+
+Our course lay over a wide, uninclosed tract of country at a little
+distance from the river-side, whence the bright warning lights on the
+dangerous parts of the St. Lawrence shone vividly.  The night was dark
+and raw, and the way dreary enough.  It was nearly ten o’clock when we
+reached the wharf where the next steamboat lay; and went on board, and to
+bed.
+
+She lay there all night, and started as soon as it was day.  The morning
+was ushered in by a violent thunderstorm, and was very wet, but gradually
+improved and brightened up.  Going on deck after breakfast, I was amazed
+to see floating down with the stream, a most gigantic raft, with some
+thirty or forty wooden houses upon it, and at least as many flag-masts,
+so that it looked like a nautical street.  I saw many of these rafts
+afterwards, but never one so large.  All the timber, or ‘lumber,’ as it
+is called in America, which is brought down the St. Lawrence, is floated
+down in this manner.  When the raft reaches its place of destination, it
+is broken up; the materials are sold; and the boatmen return for more.
+
+At eight we landed again, and travelled by a stage-coach for four hours
+through a pleasant and well-cultivated country, perfectly French in every
+respect: in the appearance of the cottages; the air, language, and dress
+of the peasantry; the sign-boards on the shops and taverns: and the
+Virgin’s shrines, and crosses, by the wayside.  Nearly every common
+labourer and boy, though he had no shoes to his feet, wore round his
+waist a sash of some bright colour: generally red: and the women, who
+were working in the fields and gardens, and doing all kinds of husbandry,
+wore, one and all, great flat straw hats with most capacious brims.
+There were Catholic Priests and Sisters of Charity in the village
+streets; and images of the Saviour at the corners of cross-roads, and in
+other public places.
+
+At noon we went on board another steamboat, and reached the village of
+Lachine, nine miles from Montreal, by three o’clock.  There, we left the
+river, and went on by land.
+
+Montreal is pleasantly situated on the margin of the St. Lawrence, and is
+backed by some bold heights, about which there are charming rides and
+drives.  The streets are generally narrow and irregular, as in most
+French towns of any age; but in the more modern parts of the city, they
+are wide and airy.  They display a great variety of very good shops; and
+both in the town and suburbs there are many excellent private dwellings.
+The granite quays are remarkable for their beauty, solidity, and extent.
+
+There is a very large Catholic cathedral here, recently erected with two
+tall spires, of which one is yet unfinished.  In the open space in front
+of this edifice, stands a solitary, grim-looking, square brick tower,
+which has a quaint and remarkable appearance, and which the wiseacres of
+the place have consequently determined to pull down immediately.  The
+Government House is very superior to that at Kingston, and the town is
+full of life and bustle.  In one of the suburbs is a plank road—not
+footpath—five or six miles long, and a famous road it is too.  All the
+rides in the vicinity were made doubly interesting by the bursting out of
+spring, which is here so rapid, that it is but a day’s leap from barren
+winter, to the blooming youth of summer.
+
+The steamboats to Quebec perform the journey in the night; that is to
+say, they leave Montreal at six in the evening, and arrive at Quebec at
+six next morning.  We made this excursion during our stay in Montreal
+(which exceeded a fortnight), and were charmed by its interest and
+beauty.
+
+The impression made upon the visitor by this Gibraltar of America: its
+giddy heights; its citadel suspended, as it were, in the air; its
+picturesque steep streets and frowning gateways; and the splendid views
+which burst upon the eye at every turn: is at once unique and lasting.
+
+It is a place not to be forgotten or mixed up in the mind with other
+places, or altered for a moment in the crowd of scenes a traveller can
+recall.  Apart from the realities of this most picturesque city, there
+are associations clustering about it which would make a desert rich in
+interest.  The dangerous precipice along whose rocky front, Wolfe and his
+brave companions climbed to glory; the Plains of Abraham, where he
+received his mortal wound; the fortress so chivalrously defended by
+Montcalm; and his soldier’s grave, dug for him while yet alive, by the
+bursting of a shell; are not the least among them, or among the gallant
+incidents of history.  That is a noble Monument too, and worthy of two
+great nations, which perpetuates the memory of both brave generals, and
+on which their names are jointly written.
+
+The city is rich in public institutions and in Catholic churches and
+charities, but it is mainly in the prospect from the site of the Old
+Government House, and from the Citadel, that its surpassing beauty lies.
+The exquisite expanse of country, rich in field and forest,
+mountain-height and water, which lies stretched out before the view, with
+miles of Canadian villages, glancing in long white streaks, like veins
+along the landscape; the motley crowd of gables, roofs, and chimney tops
+in the old hilly town immediately at hand; the beautiful St. Lawrence
+sparkling and flashing in the sunlight; and the tiny ships below the rock
+from which you gaze, whose distant rigging looks like spiders’ webs
+against the light, while casks and barrels on their decks dwindle into
+toys, and busy mariners become so many puppets; all this, framed by a
+sunken window in the fortress and looked at from the shadowed room
+within, forms one of the brightest and most enchanting pictures that the
+eye can rest upon.
+
+In the spring of the year, vast numbers of emigrants who have newly
+arrived from England or from Ireland, pass between Quebec and Montreal on
+their way to the backwoods and new settlements of Canada.  If it be an
+entertaining lounge (as I very often found it) to take a morning stroll
+upon the quay at Montreal, and see them grouped in hundreds on the public
+wharfs about their chests and boxes, it is matter of deep interest to be
+their fellow-passenger on one of these steamboats, and mingling with the
+concourse, see and hear them unobserved.
+
+The vessel in which we returned from Quebec to Montreal was crowded with
+them, and at night they spread their beds between decks (those who had
+beds, at least), and slept so close and thick about our cabin door, that
+the passage to and fro was quite blocked up.  They were nearly all
+English; from Gloucestershire the greater part; and had had a long
+winter-passage out; but it was wonderful to see how clean the children
+had been kept, and how untiring in their love and self-denial all the
+poor parents were.
+
+Cant as we may, and as we shall to the end of all things, it is very much
+harder for the poor to be virtuous than it is for the rich; and the good
+that is in them, shines the brighter for it.  In many a noble mansion
+lives a man, the best of husbands and of fathers, whose private worth in
+both capacities is justly lauded to the skies.  But bring him here, upon
+this crowded deck.  Strip from his fair young wife her silken dress and
+jewels, unbind her braided hair, stamp early wrinkles on her brow, pinch
+her pale cheek with care and much privation, array her faded form in
+coarsely patched attire, let there be nothing but his love to set her
+forth or deck her out, and you shall put it to the proof indeed.  So
+change his station in the world, that he shall see in those young things
+who climb about his knee: not records of his wealth and name: but little
+wrestlers with him for his daily bread; so many poachers on his scanty
+meal; so many units to divide his every sum of comfort, and farther to
+reduce its small amount.  In lieu of the endearments of childhood in its
+sweetest aspect, heap upon him all its pains and wants, its sicknesses
+and ills, its fretfulness, caprice, and querulous endurance: let its
+prattle be, not of engaging infant fancies, but of cold, and thirst, and
+hunger: and if his fatherly affection outlive all this, and he be
+patient, watchful, tender; careful of his children’s lives, and mindful
+always of their joys and sorrows; then send him back to Parliament, and
+Pulpit, and to Quarter Sessions, and when he hears fine talk of the
+depravity of those who live from hand to mouth, and labour hard to do it,
+let him speak up, as one who knows, and tell those holders forth that
+they, by parallel with such a class, should be High Angels in their daily
+lives, and lay but humble siege to Heaven at last.
+
+Which of us shall say what he would be, if such realities, with small
+relief or change all through his days, were his!  Looking round upon
+these people: far from home, houseless, indigent, wandering, weary with
+travel and hard living: and seeing how patiently they nursed and tended
+their young children: how they consulted ever their wants first, then
+half supplied their own; what gentle ministers of hope and faith the
+women were; how the men profited by their example; and how very, very
+seldom even a moment’s petulance or harsh complaint broke out among them:
+I felt a stronger love and honour of my kind come glowing on my heart,
+and wished to God there had been many Atheists in the better part of
+human nature there, to read this simple lesson in the book of Life.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+We left Montreal for New York again, on the thirtieth of May, crossing to
+La Prairie, on the opposite shore of the St. Lawrence, in a steamboat; we
+then took the railroad to St. John’s, which is on the brink of Lake
+Champlain.  Our last greeting in Canada was from the English officers in
+the pleasant barracks at that place (a class of gentlemen who had made
+every hour of our visit memorable by their hospitality and friendship);
+and with ‘Rule Britannia’ sounding in our ears, soon left it far behind.
+
+But Canada has held, and always will retain, a foremost place in my
+remembrance.  Few Englishmen are prepared to find it what it is.
+Advancing quietly; old differences settling down, and being fast
+forgotten; public feeling and private enterprise alike in a sound and
+wholesome state; nothing of flush or fever in its system, but health and
+vigour throbbing in its steady pulse: it is full of hope and promise.  To
+me—who had been accustomed to think of it as something left behind in the
+strides of advancing society, as something neglected and forgotten,
+slumbering and wasting in its sleep—the demand for labour and the rates
+of wages; the busy quays of Montreal; the vessels taking in their
+cargoes, and discharging them; the amount of shipping in the different
+ports; the commerce, roads, and public works, all made _to last_; the
+respectability and character of the public journals; and the amount of
+rational comfort and happiness which honest industry may earn: were very
+great surprises.  The steamboats on the lakes, in their conveniences,
+cleanliness, and safety; in the gentlemanly character and bearing of
+their captains; and in the politeness and perfect comfort of their social
+regulations; are unsurpassed even by the famous Scotch vessels,
+deservedly so much esteemed at home.  The inns are usually bad; because
+the custom of boarding at hotels is not so general here as in the States,
+and the British officers, who form a large portion of the society of
+every town, live chiefly at the regimental messes: but in every other
+respect, the traveller in Canada will find as good provision for his
+comfort as in any place I know.
+
+There is one American boat—the vessel which carried us on Lake Champlain,
+from St. John’s to Whitehall—which I praise very highly, but no more than
+it deserves, when I say that it is superior even to that in which we went
+from Queenston to Toronto, or to that in which we travelled from the
+latter place to Kingston, or I have no doubt I may add to any other in
+the world.  This steamboat, which is called the Burlington, is a
+perfectly exquisite achievement of neatness, elegance, and order.  The
+decks are drawing-rooms; the cabins are boudoirs, choicely furnished and
+adorned with prints, pictures, and musical instruments; every nook and
+corner in the vessel is a perfect curiosity of graceful comfort and
+beautiful contrivance.  Captain Sherman, her commander, to whose
+ingenuity and excellent taste these results are solely attributable, has
+bravely and worthily distinguished himself on more than one trying
+occasion: not least among them, in having the moral courage to carry
+British troops, at a time (during the Canadian rebellion) when no other
+conveyance was open to them.  He and his vessel are held in universal
+respect, both by his own countrymen and ours; and no man ever enjoyed the
+popular esteem, who, in his sphere of action, won and wore it better than
+this gentleman.
+
+By means of this floating palace we were soon in the United States again,
+and called that evening at Burlington; a pretty town, where we lay an
+hour or so.  We reached Whitehall, where we were to disembark, at six
+next morning; and might have done so earlier, but that these steamboats
+lie by for some hours in the night, in consequence of the lake becoming
+very narrow at that part of the journey, and difficult of navigation in
+the dark.  Its width is so contracted at one point, indeed, that they are
+obliged to warp round by means of a rope.
+
+After breakfasting at Whitehall, we took the stage-coach for Albany: a
+large and busy town, where we arrived between five and six o’clock that
+afternoon; after a very hot day’s journey, for we were now in the height
+of summer again.  At seven we started for New York on board a great North
+River steamboat, which was so crowded with passengers that the upper deck
+was like the box lobby of a theatre between the pieces, and the lower one
+like Tottenham Court Road on a Saturday night.  But we slept soundly,
+notwithstanding, and soon after five o’clock next morning reached New
+York.
+
+Tarrying here, only that day and night, to recruit after our late
+fatigues, we started off once more upon our last journey in America.  We
+had yet five days to spare before embarking for England, and I had a
+great desire to see ‘the Shaker Village,’ which is peopled by a religious
+sect from whom it takes its name.
+
+To this end, we went up the North River again, as far as the town of
+Hudson, and there hired an extra to carry us to Lebanon, thirty miles
+distant: and of course another and a different Lebanon from that village
+where I slept on the night of the Prairie trip.
+
+The country through which the road meandered, was rich and beautiful; the
+weather very fine; and for many miles the Kaatskill mountains, where Rip
+Van Winkle and the ghostly Dutchmen played at ninepins one memorable
+gusty afternoon, towered in the blue distance, like stately clouds.  At
+one point, as we ascended a steep hill, athwart whose base a railroad,
+yet constructing, took its course, we came upon an Irish colony.  With
+means at hand of building decent cabins, it was wonderful to see how
+clumsy, rough, and wretched, its hovels were.  The best were poor
+protection from the weather the worst let in the wind and rain through
+wide breaches in the roofs of sodden grass, and in the walls of mud; some
+had neither door nor window; some had nearly fallen down, and were
+imperfectly propped up by stakes and poles; all were ruinous and filthy.
+Hideously ugly old women and very buxom young ones, pigs, dogs, men,
+children, babies, pots, kettles, dung-hills, vile refuse, rank straw, and
+standing water, all wallowing together in an inseparable heap, composed
+the furniture of every dark and dirty hut.
+
+Between nine and ten o’clock at night, we arrived at Lebanon which is
+renowned for its warm baths, and for a great hotel, well adapted, I have
+no doubt, to the gregarious taste of those seekers after health or
+pleasure who repair here, but inexpressibly comfortless to me.  We were
+shown into an immense apartment, lighted by two dim candles, called the
+drawing-room: from which there was a descent by a flight of steps, to
+another vast desert, called the dining-room: our bed-chambers were among
+certain long rows of little white-washed cells, which opened from either
+side of a dreary passage; and were so like rooms in a prison that I half
+expected to be locked up when I went to bed, and listened involuntarily
+for the turning of the key on the outside.  There need be baths somewhere
+in the neighbourhood, for the other washing arrangements were on as
+limited a scale as I ever saw, even in America: indeed, these bedrooms
+were so very bare of even such common luxuries as chairs, that I should
+say they were not provided with enough of anything, but that I bethink
+myself of our having been most bountifully bitten all night.
+
+The house is very pleasantly situated, however, and we had a good
+breakfast.  That done, we went to visit our place of destination, which
+was some two miles off, and the way to which was soon indicated by a
+finger-post, whereon was painted, ‘To the Shaker Village.’
+
+As we rode along, we passed a party of Shakers, who were at work upon the
+road; who wore the broadest of all broad-brimmed hats; and were in all
+visible respects such very wooden men, that I felt about as much sympathy
+for them, and as much interest in them, as if they had been so many
+figure-heads of ships.  Presently we came to the beginning of the
+village, and alighting at the door of a house where the Shaker
+manufactures are sold, and which is the headquarters of the elders,
+requested permission to see the Shaker worship.
+
+Pending the conveyance of this request to some person in authority, we
+walked into a grim room, where several grim hats were hanging on grim
+pegs, and the time was grimly told by a grim clock which uttered every
+tick with a kind of struggle, as if it broke the grim silence
+reluctantly, and under protest.  Ranged against the wall were six or
+eight stiff, high-backed chairs, and they partook so strongly of the
+general grimness that one would much rather have sat on the floor than
+incurred the smallest obligation to any of them.
+
+Presently, there stalked into this apartment, a grim old Shaker, with
+eyes as hard, and dull, and cold, as the great round metal buttons on his
+coat and waistcoat; a sort of calm goblin.  Being informed of our desire,
+he produced a newspaper wherein the body of elders, whereof he was a
+member, had advertised but a few days before, that in consequence of
+certain unseemly interruptions which their worship had received from
+strangers, their chapel was closed to the public for the space of one
+year.
+
+As nothing was to be urged in opposition to this reasonable arrangement,
+we requested leave to make some trifling purchases of Shaker goods; which
+was grimly conceded.  We accordingly repaired to a store in the same
+house and on the opposite side of the passage, where the stock was
+presided over by something alive in a russet case, which the elder said
+was a woman; and which I suppose _was_ a woman, though I should not have
+suspected it.
+
+On the opposite side of the road was their place of worship: a cool,
+clean edifice of wood, with large windows and green blinds: like a
+spacious summer-house.  As there was no getting into this place, and
+nothing was to be done but walk up and down, and look at it and the other
+buildings in the village (which were chiefly of wood, painted a dark red
+like English barns, and composed of many stories like English factories),
+I have nothing to communicate to the reader, beyond the scanty results I
+gleaned the while our purchases were making.
+
+These people are called Shakers from their peculiar form of adoration,
+which consists of a dance, performed by the men and women of all ages,
+who arrange themselves for that purpose in opposite parties: the men
+first divesting themselves of their hats and coats, which they gravely
+hang against the wall before they begin; and tying a ribbon round their
+shirt-sleeves, as though they were going to be bled.  They accompany
+themselves with a droning, humming noise, and dance until they are quite
+exhausted, alternately advancing and retiring in a preposterous sort of
+trot.  The effect is said to be unspeakably absurd: and if I may judge
+from a print of this ceremony which I have in my possession; and which I
+am informed by those who have visited the chapel, is perfectly accurate;
+it must be infinitely grotesque.
+
+They are governed by a woman, and her rule is understood to be absolute,
+though she has the assistance of a council of elders.  She lives, it is
+said, in strict seclusion, in certain rooms above the chapel, and is
+never shown to profane eyes.  If she at all resemble the lady who
+presided over the store, it is a great charity to keep her as close as
+possible, and I cannot too strongly express my perfect concurrence in
+this benevolent proceeding.
+
+All the possessions and revenues of the settlement are thrown into a
+common stock, which is managed by the elders.  As they have made converts
+among people who were well to do in the world, and are frugal and
+thrifty, it is understood that this fund prospers: the more especially as
+they have made large purchases of land.  Nor is this at Lebanon the only
+Shaker settlement: there are, I think, at least, three others.
+
+They are good farmers, and all their produce is eagerly purchased and
+highly esteemed.  ‘Shaker seeds,’ ‘Shaker herbs,’ and ‘Shaker distilled
+waters,’ are commonly announced for sale in the shops of towns and
+cities.  They are good breeders of cattle, and are kind and merciful to
+the brute creation.  Consequently, Shaker beasts seldom fail to find a
+ready market.
+
+They eat and drink together, after the Spartan model, at a great public
+table.  There is no union of the sexes, and every Shaker, male and
+female, is devoted to a life of celibacy.  Rumour has been busy upon this
+theme, but here again I must refer to the lady of the store, and say,
+that if many of the sister Shakers resemble her, I treat all such slander
+as bearing on its face the strongest marks of wild improbability.  But
+that they take as proselytes, persons so young that they cannot know
+their own minds, and cannot possess much strength of resolution in this
+or any other respect, I can assert from my own observation of the extreme
+juvenility of certain youthful Shakers whom I saw at work among the party
+on the road.
+
+They are said to be good drivers of bargains, but to be honest and just
+in their transactions, and even in horse-dealing to resist those thievish
+tendencies which would seem, for some undiscovered reason, to be almost
+inseparable from that branch of traffic.  In all matters they hold their
+own course quietly, live in their gloomy, silent commonwealth, and show
+little desire to interfere with other people.
+
+This is well enough, but nevertheless I cannot, I confess, incline
+towards the Shakers; view them with much favour, or extend towards them
+any very lenient construction.  I so abhor, and from my soul detest that
+bad spirit, no matter by what class or sect it may be entertained, which
+would strip life of its healthful graces, rob youth of its innocent
+pleasures, pluck from maturity and age their pleasant ornaments, and make
+existence but a narrow path towards the grave: that odious spirit which,
+if it could have had full scope and sway upon the earth, must have
+blasted and made barren the imaginations of the greatest men, and left
+them, in their power of raising up enduring images before their
+fellow-creatures yet unborn, no better than the beasts: that, in these
+very broad-brimmed hats and very sombre coats—in stiff-necked,
+solemn-visaged piety, in short, no matter what its garb, whether it have
+cropped hair as in a Shaker village, or long nails as in a Hindoo
+temple—I recognise the worst among the enemies of Heaven and Earth, who
+turn the water at the marriage feasts of this poor world, not into wine,
+but gall.  And if there must be people vowed to crush the harmless
+fancies and the love of innocent delights and gaieties, which are a part
+of human nature: as much a part of it as any other love or hope that is
+our common portion: let them, for me, stand openly revealed among the
+ribald and licentious; the very idiots know that _they_ are not on the
+Immortal road, and will despise them, and avoid them readily.
+
+Leaving the Shaker village with a hearty dislike of the old Shakers, and
+a hearty pity for the young ones: tempered by the strong probability of
+their running away as they grow older and wiser, which they not
+uncommonly do: we returned to Lebanon, and so to Hudson, by the way we
+had come upon the previous day.  There, we took the steamboat down the
+North River towards New York, but stopped, some four hours’ journey short
+of it, at West Point, where we remained that night, and all next day, and
+next night too.
+
+In this beautiful place: the fairest among the fair and lovely Highlands
+of the North River: shut in by deep green heights and ruined forts, and
+looking down upon the distant town of Newburgh, along a glittering path
+of sunlit water, with here and there a skiff, whose white sail often
+bends on some new tack as sudden flaws of wind come down upon her from
+the gullies in the hills: hemmed in, besides, all round with memories of
+Washington, and events of the revolutionary war: is the Military School
+of America.
+
+It could not stand on more appropriate ground, and any ground more
+beautiful can hardly be.  The course of education is severe, but well
+devised, and manly.  Through June, July, and August, the young men encamp
+upon the spacious plain whereon the college stands; and all the year
+their military exercises are performed there, daily.  The term of study
+at this institution, which the State requires from all cadets, is four
+years; but, whether it be from the rigid nature of the discipline, or the
+national impatience of restraint, or both causes combined, not more than
+half the number who begin their studies here, ever remain to finish them.
+
+The number of cadets being about equal to that of the members of
+Congress, one is sent here from every Congressional district: its member
+influencing the selection.  Commissions in the service are distributed on
+the same principle.  The dwellings of the various Professors are
+beautifully situated; and there is a most excellent hotel for strangers,
+though it has the two drawbacks of being a total abstinence house (wines
+and spirits being forbidden to the students), and of serving the public
+meals at rather uncomfortable hours: to wit, breakfast at seven, dinner
+at one, and supper at sunset.
+
+The beauty and freshness of this calm retreat, in the very dawn and
+greenness of summer—it was then the beginning of June—were exquisite
+indeed.  Leaving it upon the sixth, and returning to New York, to embark
+for England on the succeeding day, I was glad to think that among the
+last memorable beauties which had glided past us, and softened in the
+bright perspective, were those whose pictures, traced by no common hand,
+are fresh in most men’s minds; not easily to grow old, or fade beneath
+the dust of Time: the Kaatskill Mountains, Sleepy Hollow, and the Tappaan
+Zee.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+THE PASSAGE HOME
+
+
+I NEVER had so much interest before, and very likely I shall never have
+so much interest again, in the state of the wind, as on the
+long-looked-for morning of Tuesday the Seventh of June.  Some nautical
+authority had told me a day or two previous, ‘anything with west in it,
+will do;’ so when I darted out of bed at daylight, and throwing up the
+window, was saluted by a lively breeze from the north-west which had
+sprung up in the night, it came upon me so freshly, rustling with so many
+happy associations, that I conceived upon the spot a special regard for
+all airs blowing from that quarter of the compass, which I shall cherish,
+I dare say, until my own wind has breathed its last frail puff, and
+withdrawn itself for ever from the mortal calendar.
+
+The pilot had not been slow to take advantage of this favourable weather,
+and the ship which yesterday had been in such a crowded dock that she
+might have retired from trade for good and all, for any chance she seemed
+to have of going to sea, was now full sixteen miles away.  A gallant
+sight she was, when we, fast gaining on her in a steamboat, saw her in
+the distance riding at anchor: her tall masts pointing up in graceful
+lines against the sky, and every rope and spar expressed in delicate and
+thread-like outline: gallant, too, when, we being all aboard, the anchor
+came up to the sturdy chorus ‘Cheerily men, oh cheerily!’ and she
+followed proudly in the towing steamboat’s wake: but bravest and most
+gallant of all, when the tow-rope being cast adrift, the canvas fluttered
+from her masts, and spreading her white wings she soared away upon her
+free and solitary course.
+
+In the after cabin we were only fifteen passengers in all, and the
+greater part were from Canada, where some of us had known each other.
+The night was rough and squally, so were the next two days, but they flew
+by quickly, and we were soon as cheerful and snug a party, with an
+honest, manly-hearted captain at our head, as ever came to the resolution
+of being mutually agreeable, on land or water.
+
+We breakfasted at eight, lunched at twelve, dined at three, and took our
+tea at half-past seven.  We had abundance of amusements, and dinner was
+not the least among them: firstly, for its own sake; secondly, because of
+its extraordinary length: its duration, inclusive of all the long pauses
+between the courses, being seldom less than two hours and a half; which
+was a subject of never-failing entertainment.  By way of beguiling the
+tediousness of these banquets, a select association was formed at the
+lower end of the table, below the mast, to whose distinguished president
+modesty forbids me to make any further allusion, which, being a very
+hilarious and jovial institution, was (prejudice apart) in high favour
+with the rest of the community, and particularly with a black steward,
+who lived for three weeks in a broad grin at the marvellous humour of
+these incorporated worthies.
+
+Then, we had chess for those who played it, whist, cribbage, books,
+backgammon, and shovelboard.  In all weathers, fair or foul, calm or
+windy, we were every one on deck, walking up and down in pairs, lying in
+the boats, leaning over the side, or chatting in a lazy group together.
+We had no lack of music, for one played the accordion, another the
+violin, and another (who usually began at six o’clock A.M.) the
+key-bugle: the combined effect of which instruments, when they all played
+different tunes in different parts of the ship, at the same time, and
+within hearing of each other, as they sometimes did (everybody being
+intensely satisfied with his own performance), was sublimely hideous.
+
+When all these means of entertainment failed, a sail would heave in
+sight: looming, perhaps, the very spirit of a ship, in the misty
+distance, or passing us so close that through our glasses we could see
+the people on her decks, and easily make out her name, and whither she
+was bound.  For hours together we could watch the dolphins and porpoises
+as they rolled and leaped and dived around the vessel; or those small
+creatures ever on the wing, the Mother Carey’s chickens, which had borne
+us company from New York bay, and for a whole fortnight fluttered about
+the vessel’s stern.  For some days we had a dead calm, or very light
+winds, during which the crew amused themselves with fishing, and hooked
+an unlucky dolphin, who expired, in all his rainbow colours, on the deck:
+an event of such importance in our barren calendar, that afterwards we
+dated from the dolphin, and made the day on which he died, an era.
+
+Besides all this, when we were five or six days out, there began to be
+much talk of icebergs, of which wandering islands an unusual number had
+been seen by the vessels that had come into New York a day or two before
+we left that port, and of whose dangerous neighbourhood we were warned by
+the sudden coldness of the weather, and the sinking of the mercury in the
+barometer.  While these tokens lasted, a double look-out was kept, and
+many dismal tales were whispered after dark, of ships that had struck
+upon the ice and gone down in the night; but the wind obliging us to hold
+a southward course, we saw none of them, and the weather soon grew bright
+and warm again.
+
+The observation every day at noon, and the subsequent working of the
+vessel’s course, was, as may be supposed, a feature in our lives of
+paramount importance; nor were there wanting (as there never are)
+sagacious doubters of the captain’s calculations, who, so soon as his
+back was turned, would, in the absence of compasses, measure the chart
+with bits of string, and ends of pocket-handkerchiefs, and points of
+snuffers, and clearly prove him to be wrong by an odd thousand miles or
+so.  It was very edifying to see these unbelievers shake their heads and
+frown, and hear them hold forth strongly upon navigation: not that they
+knew anything about it, but that they always mistrusted the captain in
+calm weather, or when the wind was adverse.  Indeed, the mercury itself
+is not so variable as this class of passengers, whom you will see, when
+the ship is going nobly through the water, quite pale with admiration,
+swearing that the captain beats all captains ever known, and even hinting
+at subscriptions for a piece of plate; and who, next morning, when the
+breeze has lulled, and all the sails hang useless in the idle air, shake
+their despondent heads again, and say, with screwed-up lips, they hope
+that captain is a sailor—but they shrewdly doubt him.
+
+It even became an occupation in the calm, to wonder when the wind _would_
+spring up in the favourable quarter, where, it was clearly shown by all
+the rules and precedents, it ought to have sprung up long ago.  The first
+mate, who whistled for it zealously, was much respected for his
+perseverance, and was regarded even by the unbelievers as a first-rate
+sailor.  Many gloomy looks would be cast upward through the cabin
+skylights at the flapping sails while dinner was in progress; and some,
+growing bold in ruefulness, predicted that we should land about the
+middle of July.  There are always on board ship, a Sanguine One, and a
+Despondent One.  The latter character carried it hollow at this period of
+the voyage, and triumphed over the Sanguine One at every meal, by
+inquiring where he supposed the Great Western (which left New York a week
+after us) was _now_: and where he supposed the ‘Cunard’ steam-packet was
+_now_: and what he thought of sailing vessels, as compared with
+steamships _now_: and so beset his life with pestilent attacks of that
+kind, that he too was obliged to affect despondency, for very peace and
+quietude.
+
+These were additions to the list of entertaining incidents, but there was
+still another source of interest.  We carried in the steerage nearly a
+hundred passengers: a little world of poverty: and as we came to know
+individuals among them by sight, from looking down upon the deck where
+they took the air in the daytime, and cooked their food, and very often
+ate it too, we became curious to know their histories, and with what
+expectations they had gone out to America, and on what errands they were
+going home, and what their circumstances were.  The information we got on
+these heads from the carpenter, who had charge of these people, was often
+of the strangest kind.  Some of them had been in America but three days,
+some but three months, and some had gone out in the last voyage of that
+very ship in which they were now returning home.  Others had sold their
+clothes to raise the passage-money, and had hardly rags to cover them;
+others had no food, and lived upon the charity of the rest: and one man,
+it was discovered nearly at the end of the voyage, not before—for he kept
+his secret close, and did not court compassion—had had no sustenance
+whatever but the bones and scraps of fat he took from the plates used in
+the after-cabin dinner, when they were put out to be washed.
+
+The whole system of shipping and conveying these unfortunate persons, is
+one that stands in need of thorough revision.  If any class deserve to be
+protected and assisted by the Government, it is that class who are
+banished from their native land in search of the bare means of
+subsistence.  All that could be done for these poor people by the great
+compassion and humanity of the captain and officers was done, but they
+require much more.  The law is bound, at least upon the English side, to
+see that too many of them are not put on board one ship: and that their
+accommodations are decent: not demoralising, and profligate.  It is
+bound, too, in common humanity, to declare that no man shall be taken on
+board without his stock of provisions being previously inspected by some
+proper officer, and pronounced moderately sufficient for his support upon
+the voyage.  It is bound to provide, or to require that there be
+provided, a medical attendant; whereas in these ships there are none,
+though sickness of adults, and deaths of children, on the passage, are
+matters of the very commonest occurrence.  Above all it is the duty of
+any Government, be it monarchy or republic, to interpose and put an end
+to that system by which a firm of traders in emigrants purchase of the
+owners the whole ’tween-decks of a ship, and send on board as many
+wretched people as they can lay hold of, on any terms they can get,
+without the smallest reference to the conveniences of the steerage, the
+number of berths, the slightest separation of the sexes, or anything but
+their own immediate profit.  Nor is even this the worst of the vicious
+system: for, certain crimping agents of these houses, who have a
+percentage on all the passengers they inveigle, are constantly travelling
+about those districts where poverty and discontent are rife, and tempting
+the credulous into more misery, by holding out monstrous inducements to
+emigration which can never be realised.
+
+The history of every family we had on board was pretty much the same.
+After hoarding up, and borrowing, and begging, and selling everything to
+pay the passage, they had gone out to New York, expecting to find its
+streets paved with gold; and had found them paved with very hard and very
+real stones.  Enterprise was dull; labourers were not wanted; jobs of
+work were to be got, but the payment was not.  They were coming back,
+even poorer than they went.  One of them was carrying an open letter from
+a young English artisan, who had been in New York a fortnight, to a
+friend near Manchester, whom he strongly urged to follow him.  One of the
+officers brought it to me as a curiosity.  ‘This is the country, Jem,’
+said the writer.  ‘I like America.  There is no despotism here; that’s
+the great thing.  Employment of all sorts is going a-begging, and wages
+are capital.  You have only to choose a trade, Jem, and be it.  I haven’t
+made choice of one yet, but I shall soon.  _At present I haven’t quite
+made up my mind whether to be a carpenter—or a tailor_.’
+
+There was yet another kind of passenger, and but one more, who, in the
+calm and the light winds, was a constant theme of conversation and
+observation among us.  This was an English sailor, a smart,
+thorough-built, English man-of-war’s-man from his hat to his shoes, who
+was serving in the American navy, and having got leave of absence was on
+his way home to see his friends.  When he presented himself to take and
+pay for his passage, it had been suggested to him that being an able
+seaman he might as well work it and save the money, but this piece of
+advice he very indignantly rejected: saying, ‘He’d be damned but for once
+he’d go aboard ship, as a gentleman.’  Accordingly, they took his money,
+but he no sooner came aboard, than he stowed his kit in the forecastle,
+arranged to mess with the crew, and the very first time the hands were
+turned up, went aloft like a cat, before anybody.  And all through the
+passage there he was, first at the braces, outermost on the yards,
+perpetually lending a hand everywhere, but always with a sober dignity in
+his manner, and a sober grin on his face, which plainly said, ‘I do it as
+a gentleman.  For my own pleasure, mind you!’
+
+At length and at last, the promised wind came up in right good earnest,
+and away we went before it, with every stitch of canvas set, slashing
+through the water nobly.  There was a grandeur in the motion of the
+splendid ship, as overshadowed by her mass of sails, she rode at a
+furious pace upon the waves, which filled one with an indescribable sense
+of pride and exultation.  As she plunged into a foaming valley, how I
+loved to see the green waves, bordered deep with white, come rushing on
+astern, to buoy her upward at their pleasure, and curl about her as she
+stooped again, but always own her for their haughty mistress still!  On,
+on we flew, with changing lights upon the water, being now in the blessed
+region of fleecy skies; a bright sun lighting us by day, and a bright
+moon by night; the vane pointing directly homeward, alike the truthful
+index to the favouring wind and to our cheerful hearts; until at sunrise,
+one fair Monday morning—the twenty-seventh of June, I shall not easily
+forget the day—there lay before us, old Cape Clear, God bless it,
+showing, in the mist of early morning, like a cloud: the brightest and
+most welcome cloud, to us, that ever hid the face of Heaven’s fallen
+sister—Home.
+
+Dim speck as it was in the wide prospect, it made the sunrise a more
+cheerful sight, and gave to it that sort of human interest which it seems
+to want at sea.  There, as elsewhere, the return of day is inseparable
+from some sense of renewed hope and gladness; but the light shining on
+the dreary waste of water, and showing it in all its vast extent of
+loneliness, presents a solemn spectacle, which even night, veiling it in
+darkness and uncertainty, does not surpass.  The rising of the moon is
+more in keeping with the solitary ocean; and has an air of melancholy
+grandeur, which in its soft and gentle influence, seems to comfort while
+it saddens.  I recollect when I was a very young child having a fancy
+that the reflection of the moon in water was a path to Heaven, trodden by
+the spirits of good people on their way to God; and this old feeling
+often came over me again, when I watched it on a tranquil night at sea.
+
+The wind was very light on this same Monday morning, but it was still in
+the right quarter, and so, by slow degrees, we left Cape Clear behind,
+and sailed along within sight of the coast of Ireland.  And how merry we
+all were, and how loyal to the George Washington, and how full of mutual
+congratulations, and how venturesome in predicting the exact hour at
+which we should arrive at Liverpool, may be easily imagined and readily
+understood.  Also, how heartily we drank the captain’s health that day at
+dinner; and how restless we became about packing up: and how two or three
+of the most sanguine spirits rejected the idea of going to bed at all
+that night as something it was not worth while to do, so near the shore,
+but went nevertheless, and slept soundly; and how to be so near our
+journey’s end, was like a pleasant dream, from which one feared to wake.
+
+The friendly breeze freshened again next day, and on we went once more
+before it gallantly: descrying now and then an English ship going
+homeward under shortened sail, while we, with every inch of canvas
+crowded on, dashed gaily past, and left her far behind.  Towards evening,
+the weather turned hazy, with a drizzling rain; and soon became so thick,
+that we sailed, as it were, in a cloud.  Still we swept onward like a
+phantom ship, and many an eager eye glanced up to where the Look-out on
+the mast kept watch for Holyhead.
+
+At length his long-expected cry was heard, and at the same moment there
+shone out from the haze and mist ahead, a gleaming light, which presently
+was gone, and soon returned, and soon was gone again.  Whenever it came
+back, the eyes of all on board, brightened and sparkled like itself: and
+there we all stood, watching this revolving light upon the rock at
+Holyhead, and praising it for its brightness and its friendly warning,
+and lauding it, in short, above all other signal lights that ever were
+displayed, until it once more glimmered faintly in the distance, far
+behind us.
+
+Then, it was time to fire a gun, for a pilot; and almost before its smoke
+had cleared away, a little boat with a light at her masthead came bearing
+down upon us, through the darkness, swiftly.  And presently, our sails
+being backed, she ran alongside; and the hoarse pilot, wrapped and
+muffled in pea-coats and shawls to the very bridge of his
+weather-ploughed-up nose, stood bodily among us on the deck.  And I think
+if that pilot had wanted to borrow fifty pounds for an indefinite period
+on no security, we should have engaged to lend it to him, among us,
+before his boat had dropped astern, or (which is the same thing) before
+every scrap of news in the paper he brought with him had become the
+common property of all on board.
+
+We turned in pretty late that night, and turned out pretty early next
+morning.  By six o’clock we clustered on the deck, prepared to go ashore;
+and looked upon the spires, and roofs, and smoke, of Liverpool.  By eight
+we all sat down in one of its Hotels, to eat and drink together for the
+last time.  And by nine we had shaken hands all round, and broken up our
+social company for ever.
+
+The country, by the railroad, seemed, as we rattled through it, like a
+luxuriant garden.  The beauty of the fields (so small they looked!), the
+hedge-rows, and the trees; the pretty cottages, the beds of flowers, the
+old churchyards, the antique houses, and every well-known object; the
+exquisite delights of that one journey, crowding in the short compass of
+a summer’s day, the joy of many years, with the winding up with Home and
+all that makes it dear; no tongue can tell, or pen of mine describe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+SLAVERY
+
+
+THE upholders of slavery in America—of the atrocities of which system, I
+shall not write one word for which I have not had ample proof and
+warrant—may be divided into three great classes.
+
+The first, are those more moderate and rational owners of human cattle,
+who have come into the possession of them as so many coins in their
+trading capital, but who admit the frightful nature of the Institution in
+the abstract, and perceive the dangers to society with which it is
+fraught: dangers which however distant they may be, or howsoever tardy in
+their coming on, are as certain to fall upon its guilty head, as is the
+Day of Judgment.
+
+The second, consists of all those owners, breeders, users, buyers and
+sellers of slaves, who will, until the bloody chapter has a bloody end,
+own, breed, use, buy, and sell them at all hazards: who doggedly deny the
+horrors of the system in the teeth of such a mass of evidence as never
+was brought to bear on any other subject, and to which the experience of
+every day contributes its immense amount; who would at this or any other
+moment, gladly involve America in a war, civil or foreign, provided that
+it had for its sole end and object the assertion of their right to
+perpetuate slavery, and to whip and work and torture slaves, unquestioned
+by any human authority, and unassailed by any human power; who, when they
+speak of Freedom, mean the Freedom to oppress their kind, and to be
+savage, merciless, and cruel; and of whom every man on his own ground, in
+republican America, is a more exacting, and a sterner, and a less
+responsible despot than the Caliph Haroun Alraschid in his angry robe of
+scarlet.
+
+The third, and not the least numerous or influential, is composed of all
+that delicate gentility which cannot bear a superior, and cannot brook an
+equal; of that class whose Republicanism means, ‘I will not tolerate a
+man above me: and of those below, none must approach too near;’ whose
+pride, in a land where voluntary servitude is shunned as a disgrace, must
+be ministered to by slaves; and whose inalienable rights can only have
+their growth in negro wrongs.
+
+It has been sometimes urged that, in the unavailing efforts which have
+been made to advance the cause of Human Freedom in the republic of
+America (strange cause for history to treat of!), sufficient regard has
+not been had to the existence of the first class of persons; and it has
+been contended that they are hardly used, in being confounded with the
+second.  This is, no doubt, the case; noble instances of pecuniary and
+personal sacrifice have already had their growth among them; and it is
+much to be regretted that the gulf between them and the advocates of
+emancipation should have been widened and deepened by any means: the
+rather, as there are, beyond dispute, among these slave-owners, many kind
+masters who are tender in the exercise of their unnatural power.  Still,
+it is to be feared that this injustice is inseparable from the state of
+things with which humanity and truth are called upon to deal.  Slavery is
+not a whit the more endurable because some hearts are to be found which
+can partially resist its hardening influences; nor can the indignant tide
+of honest wrath stand still, because in its onward course it overwhelms a
+few who are comparatively innocent, among a host of guilty.
+
+The ground most commonly taken by these better men among the advocates of
+slavery, is this: ‘It is a bad system; and for myself I would willingly
+get rid of it, if I could; most willingly.  But it is not so bad, as you
+in England take it to be.  You are deceived by the representations of the
+emancipationists.  The greater part of my slaves are much attached to me.
+You will say that I do not allow them to be severely treated; but I will
+put it to you whether you believe that it can be a general practice to
+treat them inhumanly, when it would impair their value, and would be
+obviously against the interests of their masters.’
+
+Is it the interest of any man to steal, to game, to waste his health and
+mental faculties by drunkenness, to lie, forswear himself, indulge
+hatred, seek desperate revenge, or do murder?  No.  All these are roads
+to ruin.  And why, then, do men tread them? Because such inclinations are
+among the vicious qualities of mankind.  Blot out, ye friends of slavery,
+from the catalogue of human passions, brutal lust, cruelty, and the abuse
+of irresponsible power (of all earthly temptations the most difficult to
+be resisted), and when ye have done so, and not before, we will inquire
+whether it be the interest of a master to lash and maim the slaves, over
+whose lives and limbs he has an absolute control!
+
+But again: this class, together with that last one I have named, the
+miserable aristocracy spawned of a false republic, lift up their voices
+and exclaim ‘Public opinion is all-sufficient to prevent such cruelty as
+you denounce.’  Public opinion!  Why, public opinion in the slave States
+_is_ slavery, is it not?  Public opinion, in the slave States, has
+delivered the slaves over, to the gentle mercies of their masters.
+Public opinion has made the laws, and denied the slaves legislative
+protection.  Public opinion has knotted the lash, heated the
+branding-iron, loaded the rifle, and shielded the murderer.  Public
+opinion threatens the abolitionist with death, if he venture to the
+South; and drags him with a rope about his middle, in broad unblushing
+noon, through the first city in the East.  Public opinion has, within a
+few years, burned a slave alive at a slow fire in the city of St. Louis;
+and public opinion has to this day maintained upon the bench that
+estimable judge who charged the jury, impanelled there to try his
+murderers, that their most horrid deed was an act of public opinion, and
+being so, must not be punished by the laws the public sentiment had made.
+Public opinion hailed this doctrine with a howl of wild applause, and set
+the prisoners free, to walk the city, men of mark, and influence, and
+station, as they had been before.
+
+Public opinion! what class of men have an immense preponderance over the
+rest of the community, in their power of representing public opinion in
+the legislature? the slave-owners.  They send from their twelve States
+one hundred members, while the fourteen free States, with a free
+population nearly double, return but a hundred and forty-two.  Before
+whom do the presidential candidates bow down the most humbly, on whom do
+they fawn the most fondly, and for whose tastes do they cater the most
+assiduously in their servile protestations?  The slave-owners always.
+
+Public opinion! hear the public opinion of the free South, as expressed
+by its own members in the House of Representatives at Washington.  ‘I
+have a great respect for the chair,’ quoth North Carolina, ‘I have a
+great respect for the chair as an officer of the house, and a great
+respect for him personally; nothing but that respect prevents me from
+rushing to the table and tearing that petition which has just been
+presented for the abolition of slavery in the district of Columbia, to
+pieces.’—‘I warn the abolitionists,’ says South Carolina, ‘ignorant,
+infuriated barbarians as they are, that if chance shall throw any of them
+into our hands, he may expect a felon’s death.’—‘Let an abolitionist come
+within the borders of South Carolina,’ cries a third; mild Carolina’s
+colleague; ‘and if we can catch him, we will try him, and notwithstanding
+the interference of all the governments on earth, including the Federal
+government, we will HANG him.’
+
+Public opinion has made this law.—It has declared that in Washington, in
+that city which takes its name from the father of American liberty, any
+justice of the peace may bind with fetters any negro passing down the
+street and thrust him into jail: no offence on the black man’s part is
+necessary.  The justice says, ‘I choose to think this man a runaway:’ and
+locks him up.  Public opinion impowers the man of law when this is done,
+to advertise the negro in the newspapers, warning his owner to come and
+claim him, or he will be sold to pay the jail fees.  But supposing he is
+a free black, and has no owner, it may naturally be presumed that he is
+set at liberty.  No: HE IS SOLD TO RECOMPENSE HIS JAILER.  This has been
+done again, and again, and again.  He has no means of proving his
+freedom; has no adviser, messenger, or assistance of any sort or kind; no
+investigation into his case is made, or inquiry instituted.  He, a free
+man, who may have served for years, and bought his liberty, is thrown
+into jail on no process, for no crime, and on no pretence of crime: and
+is sold to pay the jail fees.  This seems incredible, even of America,
+but it is the law.
+
+Public opinion is deferred to, in such cases as the following: which is
+headed in the newspapers:—
+
+                           ‘_Interesting Law-Case_.
+
+    ‘An interesting case is now on trial in the Supreme Court, arising
+    out of the following facts.  A gentleman residing in Maryland had
+    allowed an aged pair of his slaves, substantial though not legal
+    freedom for several years.  While thus living, a daughter was born to
+    them, who grew up in the same liberty, until she married a free
+    negro, and went with him to reside in Pennsylvania.  They had several
+    children, and lived unmolested until the original owner died, when
+    his heir attempted to regain them; but the magistrate before whom
+    they were brought, decided that he had no jurisdiction in the case.
+    _The owner seized the woman and her children in the night_, _and
+    carried them to Maryland_.’
+
+‘Cash for negroes,’ ‘cash for negroes,’ ‘cash for negroes,’ is the
+heading of advertisements in great capitals down the long columns of the
+crowded journals.  Woodcuts of a runaway negro with manacled hands,
+crouching beneath a bluff pursuer in top boots, who, having caught him,
+grasps him by the throat, agreeably diversify the pleasant text.  The
+leading article protests against ‘that abominable and hellish doctrine of
+abolition, which is repugnant alike to every law of God and nature.’  The
+delicate mamma, who smiles her acquiescence in this sprightly writing as
+she reads the paper in her cool piazza, quiets her youngest child who
+clings about her skirts, by promising the boy ‘a whip to beat the little
+niggers with.’—But the negroes, little and big, are protected by public
+opinion.
+
+Let us try this public opinion by another test, which is important in
+three points of view: first, as showing how desperately timid of the
+public opinion slave-owners are, in their delicate descriptions of
+fugitive slaves in widely circulated newspapers; secondly, as showing how
+perfectly contented the slaves are, and how very seldom they run away;
+thirdly, as exhibiting their entire freedom from scar, or blemish, or any
+mark of cruel infliction, as their pictures are drawn, not by lying
+abolitionists, but by their own truthful masters.
+
+The following are a few specimens of the advertisements in the public
+papers.  It is only four years since the oldest among them appeared; and
+others of the same nature continue to be published every day, in shoals.
+
+    ‘Ran away, Negress Caroline.  Had on a collar with one prong turned
+    down.’
+
+    ‘Ran away, a black woman, Betsy.  Had an iron bar on her right leg.’
+
+    ‘Ran away, the negro Manuel.  Much marked with irons.’
+
+    ‘Ran away, the negress Fanny.  Had on an iron band about her neck.’
+
+    ‘Ran away, a negro boy about twelve years old.  Had round his neck a
+    chain dog-collar with “De Lampert” engraved on it.’
+
+    ‘Ran away, the negro Hown.  Has a ring of iron on his left foot.
+    Also, Grise, _his wife_, having a ring and chain on the left leg.’
+
+    ‘Ran away, a negro boy named James.  Said boy was ironed when he left
+    me.’
+
+    ‘Committed to jail, a man who calls his name John.  He has a clog of
+    iron on his right foot which will weigh four or five pounds.’
+
+    ‘Detained at the police jail, the negro wench, Myra.  Has several
+    marks of LASHING, and has irons on her feet.’
+
+    ‘Ran away, a negro woman and two children.  A few days before she
+    went off, I burnt her with a hot iron, on the left side of her face.
+    I tried to make the letter M.’
+
+    ‘Ran away, a negro man named Henry; his left eye out, some scars from
+    a dirk on and under his left arm, and much scarred with the whip.’
+
+    ‘One hundred dollars reward, for a negro fellow, Pompey, 40 years
+    old.  He is branded on the left jaw.’
+
+    ‘Committed to jail, a negro man.  Has no toes on the left foot.’
+
+    ‘Ran away, a negro woman named Rachel.  Has lost all her toes except
+    the large one.’
+
+    ‘Ran away, Sam.  He was shot a short time since through the hand, and
+    has several shots in his left arm and side.’
+
+    ‘Ran away, my negro man Dennis.  Said negro has been shot in the left
+    arm between the shoulder and elbow, which has paralysed the left
+    hand.’
+
+    ‘Ran away, my negro man named Simon.  He has been shot badly, in his
+    back and right arm.’
+
+    ‘Ran away, a negro named Arthur.  Has a considerable scar across his
+    breast and each arm, made by a knife; loves to talk much of the
+    goodness of God.’
+
+    ‘Twenty-five dollars reward for my man Isaac.  He has a scar on his
+    forehead, caused by a blow; and one on his back, made by a shot from
+    a pistol.’
+
+    ‘Ran away, a negro girl called Mary.  Has a small scar over her eye,
+    a good many teeth missing, the letter A is branded on her cheek and
+    forehead.’
+
+    ‘Ran away, negro Ben.  Has a scar on his right hand; his thumb and
+    forefinger being injured by being shot last fall.  A part of the bone
+    came out.  He has also one or two large scars on his back and hips.’
+
+    ‘Detained at the jail, a mulatto, named Tom.  Has a scar on the right
+    cheek, and appears to have been burned with powder on the face.’
+
+    ‘Ran away, a negro man named Ned.  Three of his fingers are drawn
+    into the palm of his hand by a cut.  Has a scar on the back of his
+    neck, nearly half round, done by a knife.’
+
+    ‘Was committed to jail, a negro man.  Says his name is Josiah.  His
+    back very much scarred by the whip; and branded on the thigh and hips
+    in three or four places, thus (J M).  The rim of his right ear has
+    been bit or cut off.’
+
+    ‘Fifty dollars reward, for my fellow Edward.  He has a scar on the
+    corner of his mouth, two cuts on and under his arm, and the letter E
+    on his arm.’
+
+    ‘Ran away, negro boy Ellie.  Has a scar on one of his arms from the
+    bite of a dog.’
+
+    ‘Ran away, from the plantation of James Surgette, the following
+    negroes: Randal, has one ear cropped; Bob, has lost one eye; Kentucky
+    Tom, has one jaw broken.’
+
+    ‘Ran away, Anthony.  One of his ears cut off, and his left hand cut
+    with an axe.’
+
+    ‘Fifty dollars reward for the negro Jim Blake.  Has a piece cut out
+    of each ear, and the middle finger of the left hand cut off to the
+    second joint.’
+
+    ‘Ran away, a negro woman named Maria.  Has a scar on one side of her
+    cheek, by a cut.  Some scars on her back.’
+
+    ‘Ran away, the Mulatto wench Mary.  Has a cut on the left arm, a scar
+    on the left shoulder, and two upper teeth missing.’
+
+I should say, perhaps, in explanation of this latter piece of
+description, that among the other blessings which public opinion secures
+to the negroes, is the common practice of violently punching out their
+teeth.  To make them wear iron collars by day and night, and to worry
+them with dogs, are practices almost too ordinary to deserve mention.
+
+    ‘Ran away, my man Fountain.  Has holes in his ears, a scar on the
+    right side of his forehead, has been shot in the hind part of his
+    legs, and is marked on the back with the whip.’
+
+    ‘Two hundred and fifty dollars reward for my negro man Jim.  He is
+    much marked with shot in his right thigh.  The shot entered on the
+    outside, halfway between the hip and knee joints.’
+
+    ‘Brought to jail, John.  Left ear cropt.’
+
+    ‘Taken up, a negro man.  Is very much scarred about the face and
+    body, and has the left ear bit off.’
+
+    ‘Ran away, a black girl, named Mary.  Has a scar on her cheek, and
+    the end of one of her toes cut off.’
+
+    ‘Ran away, my Mulatto woman, Judy.  She has had her right arm broke.’
+
+    ‘Ran away, my negro man, Levi.  His left hand has been burnt, and I
+    think the end of his forefinger is off.’
+
+    ‘Ran away, a negro man, NAMED WASHINGTON.  Has lost a part of his
+    middle finger, and the end of his little finger.’
+
+    ‘Twenty-five dollars reward for my man John.  The tip of his nose is
+    bit off.’
+
+    ‘Twenty-five dollars reward for the negro slave, Sally.  Walks _as
+    though_ crippled in the back.’
+
+    ‘Ran away, Joe Dennis.  Has a small notch in one of his ears.’
+
+    ‘Ran away, negro boy, Jack.  Has a small crop out of his left ear.’
+
+    ‘Ran away, a negro man, named Ivory.  Has a small piece cut out of
+    the top of each ear.’
+
+While upon the subject of ears, I may observe that a distinguished
+abolitionist in New York once received a negro’s ear, which had been cut
+off close to the head, in a general post letter.  It was forwarded by the
+free and independent gentleman who had caused it to be amputated, with a
+polite request that he would place the specimen in his ‘collection.’
+
+I could enlarge this catalogue with broken arms, and broken legs, and
+gashed flesh, and missing teeth, and lacerated backs, and bites of dogs,
+and brands of red-hot irons innumerable: but as my readers will be
+sufficiently sickened and repelled already, I will turn to another branch
+of the subject.
+
+These advertisements, of which a similar collection might be made for
+every year, and month, and week, and day; and which are coolly read in
+families as things of course, and as a part of the current news and
+small-talk; will serve to show how very much the slaves profit by public
+opinion, and how tender it is in their behalf.  But it may be worth while
+to inquire how the slave-owners, and the class of society to which great
+numbers of them belong, defer to public opinion in their conduct, not to
+their slaves but to each other; how they are accustomed to restrain their
+passions; what their bearing is among themselves; whether they are fierce
+or gentle; whether their social customs be brutal, sanguinary, and
+violent, or bear the impress of civilisation and refinement.
+
+That we may have no partial evidence from abolitionists in this inquiry,
+either, I will once more turn to their own newspapers, and I will confine
+myself, this time, to a selection from paragraphs which appeared from day
+to day, during my visit to America, and which refer to occurrences
+happening while I was there.  The italics in these extracts, as in the
+foregoing, are my own.
+
+These cases did not ALL occur, it will be seen, in territory actually
+belonging to legalised Slave States, though most, and those the very
+worst among them did, as their counterparts constantly do; but the
+position of the scenes of action in reference to places immediately at
+hand, where slavery is the law; and the strong resemblance between that
+class of outrages and the rest; lead to the just presumption that the
+character of the parties concerned was formed in slave districts, and
+brutalised by slave customs.
+
+                             ‘_Horrible Tragedy_.
+
+    ‘By a slip from _The Southport Telegraph_, Wisconsin, we learn that
+    the Hon. Charles C. P. Arndt, Member of the Council for Brown county,
+    was shot dead _on the floor of the Council chamber_, by James R.
+    Vinyard, Member from Grant county.  _The affair_ grew out of a
+    nomination for Sheriff of Grant county.  Mr. E. S. Baker was
+    nominated and supported by Mr. Arndt.  This nomination was opposed by
+    Vinyard, who wanted the appointment to vest in his own brother.  In
+    the course of debate, the deceased made some statements which Vinyard
+    pronounced false, and made use of violent and insulting language,
+    dealing largely in personalities, to which Mr. A. made no reply.
+    After the adjournment, Mr. A. stepped up to Vinyard, and requested
+    him to retract, which he refused to do, repeating the offensive
+    words.  Mr. Arndt then made a blow at Vinyard, who stepped back a
+    pace, drew a pistol, and shot him dead.
+
+    ‘The issue appears to have been provoked on the part of Vinyard, who
+    was determined at all hazards to defeat the appointment of Baker, and
+    who, himself defeated, turned his ire and revenge upon the
+    unfortunate Arndt.’
+
+                          ‘_The Wisconsin Tragedy_.
+
+    Public indignation runs high in the territory of Wisconsin, in
+    relation to the murder of C. C. P. Arndt, in the Legislative Hall of
+    the Territory.  Meetings have been held in different counties of
+    Wisconsin, denouncing _the practice of secretly bearing arms in the
+    Legislative chambers of the country_.  We have seen the account of
+    the expulsion of James R. Vinyard, the perpetrator of the bloody
+    deed, and are amazed to hear, that, after this expulsion by those who
+    saw Vinyard kill Mr. Arndt in the presence of his aged father, who
+    was on a visit to see his son, little dreaming that he was to witness
+    his murder, _Judge Dunn has discharged Vinyard on bail_.  The Miners’
+    Free Press speaks _in terms of merited rebuke_ at the outrage upon
+    the feelings of the people of Wisconsin.  Vinyard was within arm’s
+    length of Mr. Arndt, when he took such deadly aim at him, that he
+    never spoke.  Vinyard might at pleasure, being so near, have only
+    wounded him, but he chose to kill him.’
+
+                                  ‘_Murder_.
+
+    By a letter in a St. Louis paper of the ‘4th, we notice a terrible
+    outrage at Burlington, Iowa.  A Mr. Bridgman having had a difficulty
+    with a citizen of the place, Mr. Ross; a brother-in-law of the latter
+    provided himself with one of Colt’s revolving pistols, met Mr. B. in
+    the street, _and discharged the contents of five of the barrels at
+    him_: _each shot taking effect_.  Mr. B., though horribly wounded,
+    and dying, returned the fire, and killed Ross on the spot.’
+
+                     ‘_Terrible Death of Robert Potter_.
+
+    ‘From the “Caddo Gazette,” of the 12th inst., we learn the frightful
+    death of Colonel Robert Potter. . . . He was beset in his house by an
+    enemy, named Rose.  He sprang from his couch, seized his gun, and, in
+    his night-clothes, rushed from the house.  For about two hundred
+    yards his speed seemed to defy his pursuers; but, getting entangled
+    in a thicket, he was captured.  Rose told him _that he intended to
+    act a generous part_, and give him a chance for his life.  He then
+    told Potter he might run, and he should not be interrupted till he
+    reached a certain distance.  Potter started at the word of command,
+    and before a gun was fired he had reached the lake.  His first
+    impulse was to jump in the water and dive for it, which he did.  Rose
+    was close behind him, and formed his men on the bank ready to shoot
+    him as he rose.  In a few seconds he came up to breathe; and scarce
+    had his head reached the surface of the water when it was completely
+    riddled with the shot of their guns, and he sunk, to rise no more!’
+
+                            ‘_Murder in Arkansas_.
+
+    ‘We understand _that a severe rencontre came off_ a few days since in
+    the Seneca Nation, between Mr. Loose, the sub-agent of the mixed band
+    of the Senecas, Quapaw, and Shawnees, and Mr. James Gillespie, of the
+    mercantile firm of Thomas G. Allison and Co., of Maysville, Benton,
+    County Ark, in which the latter was slain with a bowie-knife.  Some
+    difficulty had for some time existed between the parties.  It is said
+    that Major Gillespie brought on the attack with a cane.  A severe
+    conflict ensued, during which two pistols were fired by Gillespie and
+    one by Loose.  Loose then stabbed Gillespie with one of those
+    never-failing weapons, a bowie-knife.  The death of Major G. is much
+    regretted, as he was a liberal-minded and energetic man.  Since the
+    above was in type, we have learned that Major Allison has stated to
+    some of our citizens in town that Mr. Loose gave the first blow.  We
+    forbear to give any particulars, as _the matter will be the subject
+    of judicial investigation_.’
+
+                                ‘_Foul Deed_.
+
+    The steamer Thames, just from Missouri river, brought us a handbill,
+    offering a reward of 500 dollars, for the person who assassinated
+    Lilburn W. Baggs, late Governor of this State, at Independence, on
+    the night of the 6th inst.  Governor Baggs, it is stated in a written
+    memorandum, was not dead, but mortally wounded.
+
+    ‘Since the above was written, we received a note from the clerk of
+    the Thames, giving the following particulars.  Gov. Baggs was shot by
+    some villain on Friday, 6th inst., in the evening, while sitting in a
+    room in his own house in Independence.  His son, a boy, hearing a
+    report, ran into the room, and found the Governor sitting in his
+    chair, with his jaw fallen down, and his head leaning back; on
+    discovering the injury done to his father, he gave the alarm.  Foot
+    tracks were found in the garden below the window, and a pistol picked
+    up supposed to have been overloaded, and thrown from the hand of the
+    scoundrel who fired it.  Three buck shots of a heavy load, took
+    effect; one going through his mouth, one into the brain, and another
+    probably in or near the brain; all going into the back part of the
+    neck and head.  The Governor was still alive on the morning of the
+    7th; but no hopes for his recovery by his friends, and but slight
+    hopes from his physicians.
+
+    ‘A man was suspected, and the Sheriff most probably has possession of
+    him by this time.
+
+    ‘The pistol was one of a pair stolen some days previous from a baker
+    in Independence, and the legal authorities have the description of
+    the other.’
+
+                                ‘_Rencontre_.
+
+    ‘An unfortunate _affair_ took place on Friday evening in Chatres
+    Street, in which one of our most respectable citizens received a
+    dangerous wound, from a poignard, in the abdomen.  From the Bee (New
+    Orleans) of yesterday, we learn the following particulars.  It
+    appears that an article was published in the French side of the paper
+    on Monday last, containing some strictures on the Artillery Battalion
+    for firing their guns on Sunday morning, in answer to those from the
+    Ontario and Woodbury, and thereby much alarm was caused to the
+    families of those persons who were out all night preserving the peace
+    of the city.  Major C. Gally, Commander of the battalion, resenting
+    this, called at the office and demanded the author’s name; that of
+    Mr. P. Arpin was given to him, who was absent at the time.  Some
+    angry words then passed with one of the proprietors, and a challenge
+    followed; the friends of both parties tried to arrange the affair,
+    but failed to do so.  On Friday evening, about seven o’clock, Major
+    Gally met Mr. P. Arpin in Chatres Street, and accosted him.  “Are you
+    Mr. Arpin?”
+
+    ‘“Yes, sir.”
+
+    ‘“Then I have to tell you that you are a—” (applying an appropriate
+    epithet).
+
+    ‘“I shall remind you of your words, sir.”
+
+    ‘“But I have said I would break my cane on your shoulders.”
+
+    ‘“I know it, but I have not yet received the blow.”
+
+    ‘At these words, Major Gally, having a cane in his hands, struck Mr.
+    Arpin across the face, and the latter drew a poignard from his pocket
+    and stabbed Major Gally in the abdomen.
+
+    ‘Fears are entertained that the wound will be mortal.  _We understand
+    that Mr. Arpin has given security for his appearance at the Criminal
+    Court to answer the charge_.’
+
+                          ‘_Affray in Mississippi_.
+
+    ‘On the 27th ult., in an affray near Carthage, Leake county,
+    Mississippi, between James Cottingham and John Wilburn, the latter
+    was shot by the former, and so horribly wounded, that there was no
+    hope of his recovery.  On the 2nd instant, there was an affray at
+    Carthage between A. C. Sharkey and George Goff, in which the latter
+    was shot, and thought mortally wounded.  Sharkey delivered himself up
+    to the authorities, _but changed his mind and escaped_!’
+
+                            ‘_Personal Encounter_.
+
+    ‘An encounter took place in Sparta, a few days since, between the
+    barkeeper of an hotel, and a man named Bury.  It appears that Bury
+    had become somewhat noisy, _and that the barkeeper_, _determined to
+    preserve order_, _had threatened to shoot Bury_, whereupon Bury drew
+    a pistol and shot the barkeeper down.  He was not dead at the last
+    accounts, but slight hopes were entertained of his recovery.’
+
+                                   ‘_Duel_.
+
+    ‘The clerk of the steamboat _Tribune_ informs us that another duel
+    was fought on Tuesday last, by Mr. Robbins, a bank officer in
+    Vicksburg, and Mr. Fall, the editor of the Vicksburg Sentinel.
+    According to the arrangement, the parties had six pistols each,
+    which, after the word “Fire!” _they were to discharge as fast as they
+    pleased_.  Fall fired two pistols without effect.  Mr. Robbins’ first
+    shot took effect in Fall’s thigh, who fell, and was unable to
+    continue the combat.’
+
+                         ‘_Affray in Clarke County_.
+
+    ‘An _unfortunate affray_ occurred in Clarke county (MO.), near
+    Waterloo, on Tuesday the 19th ult., which originated in settling the
+    partnership concerns of Messrs. M‘Kane and M‘Allister, who had been
+    engaged in the business of distilling, and resulted in the death of
+    the latter, who was shot down by Mr. M‘Kane, because of his
+    attempting to take possession of seven barrels of whiskey, the
+    property of M‘Kane, which had been knocked off to M‘Allister at a
+    sheriff’s sale at one dollar per barrel.  M‘Kane immediately fled
+    _and at the latest dates had not been taken_.
+
+    ‘_This unfortunate affray_ caused considerable excitement in the
+    neighbourhood, as both the parties were men with large families
+    depending upon them and stood well in the community.’
+
+I will quote but one more paragraph, which, by reason of its monstrous
+absurdity, may be a relief to these atrocious deeds.
+
+                             ‘_Affair of Honour_.
+
+    ‘We have just heard the particulars of a meeting which took place on
+    Six Mile Island, on Tuesday, between two young bloods of our city:
+    Samuel Thurston, _aged fifteen_, and William Hine, _aged thirteen_
+    years.  They were attended by young gentlemen of the same age.  The
+    weapons used on the occasion, were a couple of Dickson’s best rifles;
+    the distance, thirty yards.  They took one fire, without any damage
+    being sustained by either party, except the ball of Thurston’s gun
+    passing through the crown of Hine’s hat.  _Through the intercession
+    of the Board of Honour_, the challenge was withdrawn, and the
+    difference amicably adjusted.’
+
+If the reader will picture to himself the kind of Board of Honour which
+amicably adjusted the difference between these two little boys, who in
+any other part of the world would have been amicably adjusted on two
+porters’ backs and soundly flogged with birchen rods, he will be
+possessed, no doubt, with as strong a sense of its ludicrous character,
+as that which sets me laughing whenever its image rises up before me.
+
+Now, I appeal to every human mind, imbued with the commonest of common
+sense, and the commonest of common humanity; to all dispassionate,
+reasoning creatures, of any shade of opinion; and ask, with these
+revolting evidences of the state of society which exists in and about the
+slave districts of America before them, can they have a doubt of the real
+condition of the slave, or can they for a moment make a compromise
+between the institution or any of its flagrant, fearful features, and
+their own just consciences? Will they say of any tale of cruelty and
+horror, however aggravated in degree, that it is improbable, when they
+can turn to the public prints, and, running, read such signs as these,
+laid before them by the men who rule the slaves: in their own acts and
+under their own hands?
+
+Do we not know that the worst deformity and ugliness of slavery are at
+once the cause and the effect of the reckless license taken by these
+freeborn outlaws?  Do we not know that the man who has been born and bred
+among its wrongs; who has seen in his childhood husbands obliged at the
+word of command to flog their wives; women, indecently compelled to hold
+up their own garments that men might lay the heavier stripes upon their
+legs, driven and harried by brutal overseers in their time of travail,
+and becoming mothers on the field of toil, under the very lash itself;
+who has read in youth, and seen his virgin sisters read, descriptions of
+runaway men and women, and their disfigured persons, which could not be
+published elsewhere, of so much stock upon a farm, or at a show of
+beasts:—do we not know that that man, whenever his wrath is kindled up,
+will be a brutal savage?  Do we not know that as he is a coward in his
+domestic life, stalking among his shrinking men and women slaves armed
+with his heavy whip, so he will be a coward out of doors, and carrying
+cowards’ weapons hidden in his breast, will shoot men down and stab them
+when he quarrels?  And if our reason did not teach us this and much
+beyond; if we were such idiots as to close our eyes to that fine mode of
+training which rears up such men; should we not know that they who among
+their equals stab and pistol in the legislative halls, and in the
+counting-house, and on the marketplace, and in all the elsewhere peaceful
+pursuits of life, must be to their dependants, even though they were free
+servants, so many merciless and unrelenting tyrants?
+
+What! shall we declaim against the ignorant peasantry of Ireland, and
+mince the matter when these American taskmasters are in question?  Shall
+we cry shame on the brutality of those who hamstring cattle: and spare
+the lights of Freedom upon earth who notch the ears of men and women, cut
+pleasant posies in the shrinking flesh, learn to write with pens of
+red-hot iron on the human face, rack their poetic fancies for liveries of
+mutilation which their slaves shall wear for life and carry to the grave,
+breaking living limbs as did the soldiery who mocked and slew the Saviour
+of the world, and set defenceless creatures up for targets! Shall we
+whimper over legends of the tortures practised on each other by the Pagan
+Indians, and smile upon the cruelties of Christian men!  Shall we, so
+long as these things last, exult above the scattered remnants of that
+race, and triumph in the white enjoyment of their possessions?  Rather,
+for me, restore the forest and the Indian village; in lieu of stars and
+stripes, let some poor feather flutter in the breeze; replace the streets
+and squares by wigwams; and though the death-song of a hundred haughty
+warriors fill the air, it will be music to the shriek of one unhappy
+slave.
+
+On one theme, which is commonly before our eyes, and in respect of which
+our national character is changing fast, let the plain Truth be spoken,
+and let us not, like dastards, beat about the bush by hinting at the
+Spaniard and the fierce Italian.  When knives are drawn by Englishmen in
+conflict let it be said and known: ‘We owe this change to Republican
+Slavery.  These are the weapons of Freedom.  With sharp points and edges
+such as these, Liberty in America hews and hacks her slaves; or, failing
+that pursuit, her sons devote them to a better use, and turn them on each
+other.’
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+CONCLUDING REMARKS
+
+
+THERE are many passages in this book, where I have been at some pains to
+resist the temptation of troubling my readers with my own deductions and
+conclusions: preferring that they should judge for themselves, from such
+premises as I have laid before them.  My only object in the outset, was,
+to carry them with me faithfully wheresoever I went: and that task I have
+discharged.
+
+But I may be pardoned, if on such a theme as the general character of the
+American people, and the general character of their social system, as
+presented to a stranger’s eyes, I desire to express my own opinions in a
+few words, before I bring these volumes to a close.
+
+They are, by nature, frank, brave, cordial, hospitable, and affectionate.
+Cultivation and refinement seem but to enhance their warmth of heart and
+ardent enthusiasm; and it is the possession of these latter qualities in
+a most remarkable degree, which renders an educated American one of the
+most endearing and most generous of friends.  I never was so won upon, as
+by this class; never yielded up my full confidence and esteem so readily
+and pleasurably, as to them; never can make again, in half a year, so
+many friends for whom I seem to entertain the regard of half a life.
+
+These qualities are natural, I implicitly believe, to the whole people.
+That they are, however, sadly sapped and blighted in their growth among
+the mass; and that there are influences at work which endanger them still
+more, and give but little present promise of their healthy restoration;
+is a truth that ought to be told.
+
+It is an essential part of every national character to pique itself
+mightily upon its faults, and to deduce tokens of its virtue or its
+wisdom from their very exaggeration.  One great blemish in the popular
+mind of America, and the prolific parent of an innumerable brood of
+evils, is Universal Distrust.  Yet the American citizen plumes himself
+upon this spirit, even when he is sufficiently dispassionate to perceive
+the ruin it works; and will often adduce it, in spite of his own reason,
+as an instance of the great sagacity and acuteness of the people, and
+their superior shrewdness and independence.
+
+‘You carry,’ says the stranger, ‘this jealousy and distrust into every
+transaction of public life.  By repelling worthy men from your
+legislative assemblies, it has bred up a class of candidates for the
+suffrage, who, in their very act, disgrace your Institutions and your
+people’s choice.  It has rendered you so fickle, and so given to change,
+that your inconstancy has passed into a proverb; for you no sooner set up
+an idol firmly, than you are sure to pull it down and dash it into
+fragments: and this, because directly you reward a benefactor, or a
+public servant, you distrust him, merely because he is rewarded; and
+immediately apply yourselves to find out, either that you have been too
+bountiful in your acknowledgments, or he remiss in his deserts.  Any man
+who attains a high place among you, from the President downwards, may
+date his downfall from that moment; for any printed lie that any
+notorious villain pens, although it militate directly against the
+character and conduct of a life, appeals at once to your distrust, and is
+believed.  You will strain at a gnat in the way of trustfulness and
+confidence, however fairly won and well deserved; but you will swallow a
+whole caravan of camels, if they be laden with unworthy doubts and mean
+suspicions.  Is this well, think you, or likely to elevate the character
+of the governors or the governed, among you?’
+
+The answer is invariably the same: ‘There’s freedom of opinion here, you
+know.  Every man thinks for himself, and we are not to be easily
+overreached.  That’s how our people come to be suspicious.’
+
+Another prominent feature is the love of ‘smart’ dealing: which gilds
+over many a swindle and gross breach of trust; many a defalcation, public
+and private; and enables many a knave to hold his head up with the best,
+who well deserves a halter; though it has not been without its
+retributive operation, for this smartness has done more in a few years to
+impair the public credit, and to cripple the public resources, than dull
+honesty, however rash, could have effected in a century.  The merits of a
+broken speculation, or a bankruptcy, or of a successful scoundrel, are
+not gauged by its or his observance of the golden rule, ‘Do as you would
+be done by,’ but are considered with reference to their smartness.  I
+recollect, on both occasions of our passing that ill-fated Cairo on the
+Mississippi, remarking on the bad effects such gross deceits must have
+when they exploded, in generating a want of confidence abroad, and
+discouraging foreign investment: but I was given to understand that this
+was a very smart scheme by which a deal of money had been made: and that
+its smartest feature was, that they forgot these things abroad, in a very
+short time, and speculated again, as freely as ever.  The following
+dialogue I have held a hundred times: ‘Is it not a very disgraceful
+circumstance that such a man as So-and-so should be acquiring a large
+property by the most infamous and odious means, and notwithstanding all
+the crimes of which he has been guilty, should be tolerated and abetted
+by your Citizens?  He is a public nuisance, is he not?’  ‘Yes, sir.’  ‘A
+convicted liar?’  ‘Yes, sir.’  ‘He has been kicked, and cuffed, and
+caned?’  ‘Yes, sir.’  ‘And he is utterly dishonourable, debased, and
+profligate?’  ‘Yes, sir.’  ‘In the name of wonder, then, what is his
+merit?’  ‘Well, sir, he is a smart man.’
+
+In like manner, all kinds of deficient and impolitic usages are referred
+to the national love of trade; though, oddly enough, it would be a
+weighty charge against a foreigner that he regarded the Americans as a
+trading people.  The love of trade is assigned as a reason for that
+comfortless custom, so very prevalent in country towns, of married
+persons living in hotels, having no fireside of their own, and seldom
+meeting from early morning until late at night, but at the hasty public
+meals.  The love of trade is a reason why the literature of America is to
+remain for ever unprotected ‘For we are a trading people, and don’t care
+for poetry:’ though we _do_, by the way, profess to be very proud of our
+poets: while healthful amusements, cheerful means of recreation, and
+wholesome fancies, must fade before the stern utilitarian joys of trade.
+
+These three characteristics are strongly presented at every turn, full in
+the stranger’s view.  But, the foul growth of America has a more tangled
+root than this; and it strikes its fibres, deep in its licentious Press.
+
+Schools may be erected, East, West, North, and South; pupils be taught,
+and masters reared, by scores upon scores of thousands; colleges may
+thrive, churches may be crammed, temperance may be diffused, and
+advancing knowledge in all other forms walk through the land with giant
+strides: but while the newspaper press of America is in, or near, its
+present abject state, high moral improvement in that country is hopeless.
+Year by year, it must and will go back; year by year, the tone of public
+feeling must sink lower down; year by year, the Congress and the Senate
+must become of less account before all decent men; and year by year, the
+memory of the Great Fathers of the Revolution must be outraged more and
+more, in the bad life of their degenerate child.
+
+Among the herd of journals which are published in the States, there are
+some, the reader scarcely need be told, of character and credit.  From
+personal intercourse with accomplished gentlemen connected with
+publications of this class, I have derived both pleasure and profit.  But
+the name of these is Few, and of the others Legion; and the influence of
+the good, is powerless to counteract the moral poison of the bad.
+
+Among the gentry of America; among the well-informed and moderate: in the
+learned professions; at the bar and on the bench: there is, as there can
+be, but one opinion, in reference to the vicious character of these
+infamous journals.  It is sometimes contended—I will not say strangely,
+for it is natural to seek excuses for such a disgrace—that their
+influence is not so great as a visitor would suppose.  I must be pardoned
+for saying that there is no warrant for this plea, and that every fact
+and circumstance tends directly to the opposite conclusion.
+
+When any man, of any grade of desert in intellect or character, can climb
+to any public distinction, no matter what, in America, without first
+grovelling down upon the earth, and bending the knee before this monster
+of depravity; when any private excellence is safe from its attacks; when
+any social confidence is left unbroken by it, or any tie of social
+decency and honour is held in the least regard; when any man in that free
+country has freedom of opinion, and presumes to think for himself, and
+speak for himself, without humble reference to a censorship which, for
+its rampant ignorance and base dishonesty, he utterly loathes and
+despises in his heart; when those who most acutely feel its infamy and
+the reproach it casts upon the nation, and who most denounce it to each
+other, dare to set their heels upon, and crush it openly, in the sight of
+all men: then, I will believe that its influence is lessening, and men
+are returning to their manly senses.  But while that Press has its evil
+eye in every house, and its black hand in every appointment in the state,
+from a president to a postman; while, with ribald slander for its only
+stock in trade, it is the standard literature of an enormous class, who
+must find their reading in a newspaper, or they will not read at all; so
+long must its odium be upon the country’s head, and so long must the evil
+it works, be plainly visible in the Republic.
+
+To those who are accustomed to the leading English journals, or to the
+respectable journals of the Continent of Europe; to those who are
+accustomed to anything else in print and paper; it would be impossible,
+without an amount of extract for which I have neither space nor
+inclination, to convey an adequate idea of this frightful engine in
+America.  But if any man desire confirmation of my statement on this
+head, let him repair to any place in this city of London, where scattered
+numbers of these publications are to be found; and there, let him form
+his own opinion. {206}
+
+It would be well, there can be no doubt, for the American people as a
+whole, if they loved the Real less, and the Ideal somewhat more.  It
+would be well, if there were greater encouragement to lightness of heart
+and gaiety, and a wider cultivation of what is beautiful, without being
+eminently and directly useful.  But here, I think the general
+remonstrance, ‘we are a new country,’ which is so often advanced as an
+excuse for defects which are quite unjustifiable, as being, of right,
+only the slow growth of an old one, may be very reasonably urged: and I
+yet hope to hear of there being some other national amusement in the
+United States, besides newspaper politics.
+
+They certainly are not a humorous people, and their temperament always
+impressed me is being of a dull and gloomy character.  In shrewdness of
+remark, and a certain cast-iron quaintness, the Yankees, or people of New
+England, unquestionably take the lead; as they do in most other evidences
+of intelligence.  But in travelling about, out of the large cities—as I
+have remarked in former parts of these volumes—I was quite oppressed by
+the prevailing seriousness and melancholy air of business: which was so
+general and unvarying, that at every new town I came to, I seemed to meet
+the very same people whom I had left behind me, at the last.  Such
+defects as are perceptible in the national manners, seem, to me, to be
+referable, in a great degree, to this cause: which has generated a dull,
+sullen persistence in coarse usages, and rejected the graces of life as
+undeserving of attention.  There is no doubt that Washington, who was
+always most scrupulous and exact on points of ceremony, perceived the
+tendency towards this mistake, even in his time, and did his utmost to
+correct it.
+
+I cannot hold with other writers on these subjects that the prevalence of
+various forms of dissent in America, is in any way attributable to the
+non-existence there of an established church: indeed, I think the temper
+of the people, if it admitted of such an Institution being founded
+amongst them, would lead them to desert it, as a matter of course, merely
+because it _was_ established.  But, supposing it to exist, I doubt its
+probable efficacy in summoning the wandering sheep to one great fold,
+simply because of the immense amount of dissent which prevails at home;
+and because I do not find in America any one form of religion with which
+we in Europe, or even in England, are unacquainted.  Dissenters resort
+thither in great numbers, as other people do, simply because it is a land
+of resort; and great settlements of them are founded, because ground can
+be purchased, and towns and villages reared, where there were none of the
+human creation before.  But even the Shakers emigrated from England; our
+country is not unknown to Mr. Joseph Smith, the apostle of Mormonism, or
+to his benighted disciples; I have beheld religious scenes myself in some
+of our populous towns which can hardly be surpassed by an American
+camp-meeting; and I am not aware that any instance of superstitious
+imposture on the one hand, and superstitious credulity on the other, has
+had its origin in the United States, which we cannot more than parallel
+by the precedents of Mrs. Southcote, Mary Tofts the rabbit-breeder, or
+even Mr. Thorn of Canterbury: which latter case arose, some time after
+the dark ages had passed away.
+
+The Republican Institutions of America undoubtedly lead the people to
+assert their self-respect and their equality; but a traveller is bound to
+bear those Institutions in his mind, and not hastily to resent the near
+approach of a class of strangers, who, at home, would keep aloof.  This
+characteristic, when it was tinctured with no foolish pride, and stopped
+short of no honest service, never offended me; and I very seldom, if
+ever, experienced its rude or unbecoming display.  Once or twice it was
+comically developed, as in the following case; but this was an amusing
+incident, and not the rule, or near it.
+
+I wanted a pair of boots at a certain town, for I had none to travel in,
+but those with the memorable cork soles, which were much too hot for the
+fiery decks of a steamboat.  I therefore sent a message to an artist in
+boots, importing, with my compliments, that I should be happy to see him,
+if he would do me the polite favour to call.  He very kindly returned for
+answer, that he would ‘look round’ at six o’clock that evening.
+
+I was lying on the sofa, with a book and a wine-glass, at about that
+time, when the door opened, and a gentleman in a stiff cravat, within a
+year or two on either side of thirty, entered, in his hat and gloves;
+walked up to the looking-glass; arranged his hair; took off his gloves;
+slowly produced a measure from the uttermost depths of his coat-pocket;
+and requested me, in a languid tone, to ‘unfix’ my straps.  I complied,
+but looked with some curiosity at his hat, which was still upon his head.
+It might have been that, or it might have been the heat—but he took it
+off.  Then, he sat himself down on a chair opposite to me; rested an arm
+on each knee; and, leaning forward very much, took from the ground, by a
+great effort, the specimen of metropolitan workmanship which I had just
+pulled off: whistling, pleasantly, as he did so.  He turned it over and
+over; surveyed it with a contempt no language can express; and inquired
+if I wished him to fix me a boot like _that_?  I courteously replied,
+that provided the boots were large enough, I would leave the rest to him;
+that if convenient and practicable, I should not object to their bearing
+some resemblance to the model then before him; but that I would be
+entirely guided by, and would beg to leave the whole subject to, his
+judgment and discretion. ‘You an’t partickler, about this scoop in the
+heel, I suppose then?’ says he: ‘we don’t foller that, here.’  I repeated
+my last observation.  He looked at himself in the glass again; went
+closer to it to dash a grain or two of dust out of the corner of his eye;
+and settled his cravat.  All this time, my leg and foot were in the air.
+‘Nearly ready, sir?’ I inquired.  ‘Well, pretty nigh,’ he said; ‘keep
+steady.’  I kept as steady as I could, both in foot and face; and having
+by this time got the dust out, and found his pencil-case, he measured me,
+and made the necessary notes.  When he had finished, he fell into his old
+attitude, and taking up the boot again, mused for some time.  ‘And this,’
+he said, at last, ‘is an English boot, is it?  This is a London boot,
+eh?’  ‘That, sir,’ I replied, ‘is a London boot.’  He mused over it
+again, after the manner of Hamlet with Yorick’s skull; nodded his head,
+as who should say, ‘I pity the Institutions that led to the production of
+this boot!’; rose; put up his pencil, notes, and paper—glancing at
+himself in the glass, all the time—put on his hat—drew on his gloves very
+slowly; and finally walked out.  When he had been gone about a minute,
+the door reopened, and his hat and his head reappeared.  He looked round
+the room, and at the boot again, which was still lying on the floor;
+appeared thoughtful for a minute; and then said ‘Well, good arternoon.’
+‘Good afternoon, sir,’ said I: and that was the end of the interview.
+
+There is but one other head on which I wish to offer a remark; and that
+has reference to the public health.  In so vast a country, where there
+are thousands of millions of acres of land yet unsettled and uncleared,
+and on every rood of which, vegetable decomposition is annually taking
+place; where there are so many great rivers, and such opposite varieties
+of climate; there cannot fail to be a great amount of sickness at certain
+seasons.  But I may venture to say, after conversing with many members of
+the medical profession in America, that I am not singular in the opinion
+that much of the disease which does prevail, might be avoided, if a few
+common precautions were observed.  Greater means of personal cleanliness,
+are indispensable to this end; the custom of hastily swallowing large
+quantities of animal food, three times a-day, and rushing back to
+sedentary pursuits after each meal, must be changed; the gentler sex must
+go more wisely clad, and take more healthful exercise; and in the latter
+clause, the males must be included also.  Above all, in public
+institutions, and throughout the whole of every town and city, the system
+of ventilation, and drainage, and removal of impurities requires to be
+thoroughly revised.  There is no local Legislature in America which may
+not study Mr. Chadwick’s excellent Report upon the Sanitary Condition of
+our Labouring Classes, with immense advantage.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+I HAVE now arrived at the close of this book.  I have little reason to
+believe, from certain warnings I have had since I returned to England,
+that it will be tenderly or favourably received by the American people;
+and as I have written the Truth in relation to the mass of those who form
+their judgments and express their opinions, it will be seen that I have
+no desire to court, by any adventitious means, the popular applause.
+
+It is enough for me, to know, that what I have set down in these pages,
+cannot cost me a single friend on the other side of the Atlantic, who is,
+in anything, deserving of the name.  For the rest, I put my trust,
+implicitly, in the spirit in which they have been conceived and penned;
+and I can bide my time.
+
+I have made no reference to my reception, nor have I suffered it to
+influence me in what I have written; for, in either case, I should have
+offered but a sorry acknowledgment, compared with that I bear within my
+breast, towards those partial readers of my former books, across the
+Water, who met me with an open hand, and not with one that closed upon an
+iron muzzle.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                 THE END
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+POSTSCRIPT
+
+
+AT a Public Dinner given to me on Saturday the 18th of April, 1868, in
+the City of New York, by two hundred representatives of the Press of the
+United States of America, I made the following observations among others:
+
+‘So much of my voice has lately been heard in the land, that I might have
+been contented with troubling you no further from my present
+standing-point, were it not a duty with which I henceforth charge myself,
+not only here but on every suitable occasion, whatsoever and wheresoever,
+to express my high and grateful sense of my second reception in America,
+and to bear my honest testimony to the national generosity and
+magnanimity.  Also, to declare how astounded I have been by the amazing
+changes I have seen around me on every side,—changes moral, changes
+physical, changes in the amount of land subdued and peopled, changes in
+the rise of vast new cities, changes in the growth of older cities almost
+out of recognition, changes in the graces and amenities of life, changes
+in the Press, without whose advancement no advancement can take place
+anywhere.  Nor am I, believe me, so arrogant as to suppose that in five
+and twenty years there have been no changes in me, and that I had nothing
+to learn and no extreme impressions to correct when I was here first.
+And this brings me to a point on which I have, ever since I landed in the
+United States last November, observed a strict silence, though sometimes
+tempted to break it, but in reference to which I will, with your good
+leave, take you into my confidence now.  Even the Press, being human, may
+be sometimes mistaken or misinformed, and I rather think that I have in
+one or two rare instances observed its information to be not strictly
+accurate with reference to myself.  Indeed, I have, now and again, been
+more surprised by printed news that I have read of myself, than by any
+printed news that I have ever read in my present state of existence.
+Thus, the vigour and perseverance with which I have for some months past
+been collecting materials for, and hammering away at, a new book on
+America has much astonished me; seeing that all that time my declaration
+has been perfectly well known to my publishers on both sides of the
+Atlantic, that no consideration on earth would induce me to write one.
+But what I have intended, what I have resolved upon (and this is the
+confidence I seek to place in you) is, on my return to England, in my own
+person, in my own journal, to bear, for the behoof of my countrymen, such
+testimony to the gigantic changes in this country as I have hinted at
+to-night.  Also, to record that wherever I have been, in the smallest
+places equally with the largest, I have been received with unsurpassable
+politeness, delicacy, sweet temper, hospitality, consideration, and with
+unsurpassable respect for the privacy daily enforced upon me by the
+nature of my avocation here and the state of my health.  This testimony,
+so long as I live, and so long as my descendants have any legal right in
+my books, I shall cause to be republished, as an appendix to every copy
+of those two books of mine in which I have referred to America.  And this
+I will do and cause to be done, not in mere love and thankfulness, but
+because I regard it as an act of plain justice and honour.’
+
+I said these words with the greatest earnestness that I could lay upon
+them, and I repeat them in print here with equal earnestness.  So long as
+this book shall last, I hope that they will form a part of it, and will
+be fairly read as inseparable from my experiences and impressions of
+America.
+
+                                                          CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+_May_, 1868.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                PRINTED BY
+                    WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
+                           LONDON AND BECCLES.
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+
+{1}  This Project Gutenberg eText contains just _American Notes_.
+_Pictures from Italy_ is also available from Project Gutenberg as a
+separate eText.—DP.
+
+{206}  NOTE TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION.—Or let him refer to an able, and
+perfectly truthful article, in _The Foreign Quarterly Review_, published
+in the present month of October; to which my attention has been
+attracted, since these sheets have been passing through the press.  He
+will find some specimens there, by no means remarkable to any man who has
+been in America, but sufficiently striking to one who has not.
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMERICAN NOTES FOR GENERAL
+CIRCULATION***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 675-0.txt or 675-0.zip *******
+
+
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/7/675
+
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+  www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at 809
+North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887.  Email
+contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the
+Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:  www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For forty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/675-0.zip b/675-0.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c4e9b81
--- /dev/null
+++ b/675-0.zip
diff --git a/675-h.zip b/675-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5a5b8bc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/675-h.zip
diff --git a/675-h/675-h.htm b/675-h/675-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0c0b06a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/675-h/675-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,11204 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html
+     PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+     "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" />
+<title>American Notes for General Circulation, by Charles Dickens</title>
+    <style type="text/css">
+/*<![CDATA[  XML blockout */
+<!--
+    P {  margin-top: .75em;
+         margin-bottom: .75em;
+         }
+    P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;}
+    P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; }
+    .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; }
+    H1, H2 {
+         text-align: center;
+		margin-top: 2em;
+		margin-bottom: 2em;
+         }
+    H3, H4, H5 {
+	text-align: center;
+	margin-top: 1em;
+	margin-bottom: 1em;
+	}
+    BODY{margin-left: 10%;
+         margin-right: 10%;
+        }
+ table { border-collapse: collapse; }
+table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;}
+    td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;}
+    td p { margin: 0.2em; }
+    .blkquot  {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */
+
+    .smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
+
+    .pagenum {position: absolute;
+               left: 92%;
+               font-size: small;
+               text-align: right;
+		font-weight: normal;
+               color: gray;
+               }
+    img { border: none; }
+    img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; }
+    p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; }
+    div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; }
+    div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} 
+    div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%;
+                  border-top: 1px solid; }
+    div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%;
+		  border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;}
+     div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%;
+                  margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid;
+                  border-bottom: 1px solid; }
+    div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%;
+                  margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid;
+                  border-bottom: 1px solid;}
+    div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%;
+		  border-top: 1px solid; }
+    .citation {vertical-align: super;
+               font-size: .8em;
+               text-decoration: none;}
+    img.floatleft { float: left;
+			margin-right: 1em;
+			margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; }
+    img.floatright { float: right;
+			margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em;
+			margin-bottom: 0.5em; }
+    img.clearcenter {display: block;
+			margin-left: auto;
+			margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em;
+			margin-bottom: 0.5em}
+    -->
+    /* XML end  ]]>*/
+    </style>
+</head>
+<body>
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, American Notes for General Circulation, by
+Charles Dickens, Illustrated by Marcus Stone
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: American Notes for General Circulation
+
+
+Author: Charles Dickens
+
+
+
+Release Date: February 18, 2013  [eBook #675]
+[This file was first posted on July 18, 1996]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMERICAN NOTES FOR GENERAL
+CIRCULATION***
+</pre>
+<p>Transcribed from the 1913 Chapman &amp; Hall, Ltd. edition by
+David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/fpb.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Emigrants"
+title=
+"Emigrants"
+src="images/fps.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<h1>AMERICAN NOTES<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">FOR</span><br />
+GENERAL CIRCULATION<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">AND</span><br />
+PICTURES FROM ITALY <a name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1"
+class="citation">[1]</a></h1>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br
+/>
+CHARLES DICKENS</p>
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">WITH 8
+ILLUSTRATIONS BY</span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">MARCUS STONE, R.A.</span></p>
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span
+class="GutSmall">LONDON</span><br />
+CHAPMAN &amp; HALL, <span class="smcap">Ltd.</span><br />
+1913</p>
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center"><a name="pagev"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. v</span>I DEDICATE THIS BOOK<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">TO</span><br />
+<b>THOSE FRIENDS OF MINE</b><br />
+<b>IN AMERICA</b><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">WHO, GIVING ME A WELCOME I MUST
+EVER</span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">GRATEFULLY AND PROUDLY REMEMBER,</span><br
+/>
+<span class="GutSmall">LEFT MY JUDGEMENT</span><br />
+FREE;<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">AND WHO, LOVING THEIR COUNTRY, CAN
+BEAR</span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">THE TRUTH, WHEN IT IS TOLD GOOD</span><br
+/>
+<span class="GutSmall">HUMOUREDLY, AND IN A</span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">KIND SPIRIT.</span></p>
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<h2><a name="pagevii"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+vii</span>PREFACE TO THE FIRST CHEAP EDITION OF &ldquo;AMERICAN
+NOTES&rdquo;</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> is nearly eight years since this
+book was first published.&nbsp; I present it, unaltered, in the
+Cheap Edition; and such of my opinions as it expresses, are quite
+unaltered too.</p>
+<p>My readers have opportunities of judging for themselves
+whether the influences and tendencies which I distrust in
+America, have any existence not in my imagination.&nbsp; They can
+examine for themselves whether there has been anything in the
+public career of that country during these past eight years, or
+whether there is anything in its present position, at home or
+abroad, which suggests that those influences and tendencies
+really do exist.&nbsp; As they find the fact, they will judge
+me.&nbsp; If they discern any evidences of wrong-going in any
+direction that I have indicated, they will acknowledge that I had
+reason in what I wrote.&nbsp; If they discern no such thing, they
+will consider me altogether mistaken.</p>
+<p>Prejudiced, I never have been otherwise than in favour of the
+United States.&nbsp; No visitor can ever have set foot on those
+shores, with a stronger faith in the Republic than I had, when I
+landed in America.</p>
+<p>I purposely abstain from extending these observations to any
+length.&nbsp; I have nothing to defend, or to explain away.&nbsp;
+The truth is the truth; and neither childish absurdities, nor
+unscrupulous contradictions, can make it otherwise.&nbsp; The
+earth would still move round the sun, though the whole Catholic
+Church said No.</p>
+<p><a name="pageviii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. viii</span>I
+have many friends in America, and feel a grateful interest in the
+country.&nbsp; To represent me as viewing it with ill-nature,
+animosity, or partisanship, is merely to do a very foolish thing,
+which is always a very easy one; and which I have disregarded for
+eight years, and could disregard for eighty more.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">London</span>, <i>June</i> 22, 1850.</p>
+<h2><a name="pageix"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+ix</span>PREFACE TO THE &ldquo;CHARLES DICKENS&rdquo; EDITION OF
+&ldquo;AMERICAN NOTES&rdquo;</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">My</span> readers have opportunities of
+judging for themselves whether the influences and tendencies
+which I distrusted in America, had, at that time, any existence
+but in my imagination.&nbsp; They can examine for themselves
+whether there has been anything in the public career of that
+country since, at home or abroad, which suggests that those
+influences and tendencies really did exist.&nbsp; As they find
+the fact, they will judge me.&nbsp; If they discern any evidences
+of wrong-going, in any direction that I have indicated, they will
+acknowledge that I had reason in what I wrote.&nbsp; If they
+discern no such indications, they will consider me altogether
+mistaken&mdash;but not wilfully.</p>
+<p>Prejudiced, I am not, and never have been, otherwise than in
+favour of the United States.&nbsp; I have many friends in
+America, I feel a grateful interest in the country, I hope and
+believe it will successfully work out a problem of the highest
+importance to the whole human race.&nbsp; To represent me as
+viewing AMERICA with ill-nature, coldness, or animosity, is
+merely to do a very foolish thing: which is always a very easy
+one.</p>
+<h2><a name="pagexi"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+xi</span>CONTENTS</h2>
+<table>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Dedication of &ldquo;American
+Notes&rdquo;</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#pagev">v</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Preface to the First Cheap Edition of
+&ldquo;American Notes&rdquo;</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#pagevii">vii</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Preface to the &ldquo;Charles
+Dickens&rdquo; Edition of &ldquo;American Notes&rdquo;</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#pageix">ix</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">AMERICAN NOTES FOR
+GENERAL CIRCULATION</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER I</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Going Away</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page3">3</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER II</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>The Passage out</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page10">10</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER III</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Boston</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page22">22</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER IV</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>An American Railroad.&nbsp; Lowell and its Factory
+System</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page52">52</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER V</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Worcester.&nbsp; The Connecticut River.&nbsp;
+Hartford.&nbsp; New Haven.&nbsp; To New York</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page60">60</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER VI</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>New York</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page67">67</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER VII</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Philadelphia, and its Solitary Prison</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page81">81</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER VIII</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Washington.&nbsp; The Legislature.&nbsp; And the
+President&rsquo;s House</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page94">94</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER IX</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>A Night Steamer on the Potomac River.&nbsp; Virginia Road,
+and a Black Driver.&nbsp; Richmond.&nbsp; Baltimore.&nbsp; The
+Harrisburg Mail, and a Glimpse of the City.&nbsp; A Canal
+Boat</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page107">107</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER X</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Some further Account of the Canal Boat, its Domestic
+Economy, and its Passengers.&nbsp; Journey to Pittsburg across
+the Alleghany Mountains.&nbsp; Pittsburg</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page121">121</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XI</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>From Pittsburg to Cincinnati in a Western Steamboat.&nbsp;
+Cincinnati</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page130">130</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XII</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>From Cincinnati to Louisville in another Western
+Steamboat; and from Louisville to St. Louis in another.&nbsp; St.
+Louis</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page137">137</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XIII</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>A Jaunt to the Looking-glass Prairie and back</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page147">147</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XIV</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Return to Cincinnati.&nbsp; A Stage-coach Ride from that
+City to Columbus, and thence to Sandusky.&nbsp; So, by Lake Erie,
+to the Falls of Niagara</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page153">153</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XV</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>In Canada; Toronto; Kingston; Montreal; Quebec; St.
+John&rsquo;s.&nbsp; In the United States again; Lebanon; The
+Shaker Village; West Point</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page167">167</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XVI</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>The Passage Home</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page182">182</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XVII</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Slavery</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page189">189</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XVIII</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Concluding Remarks</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page202">202</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>Postscript</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page210">210</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<h2><a name="pagexv"></a><span class="pagenum">p. xv</span>LIST
+OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+<table>
+<tr>
+<td><p>&nbsp;</p>
+</td>
+<td><p>&nbsp;</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span
+class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Emigrants</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p><i>Marcus Stone</i>, <i>R.A.</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>Frontispiece</i></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">The Solitary Prisoner</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p>&nbsp;</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page90">90</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Black and White</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p>&nbsp;</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page112">112</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">The Little Wife</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p>&nbsp;</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page144">144</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<h2><a name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 3</span>CHAPTER
+I<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">GOING AWAY</span></h2>
+<p>I <span class="smcap">shall</span> never forget the one-fourth
+serious and three-fourths comical astonishment, with which, on
+the morning of the third of January
+eighteen-hundred-and-forty-two, I opened the door of, and put my
+head into, a &lsquo;state-room&rsquo; on board the Britannia
+steam-packet, twelve hundred tons burthen per register, bound for
+Halifax and Boston, and carrying Her Majesty&rsquo;s mails.</p>
+<p>That this state-room had been specially engaged for
+&lsquo;Charles Dickens, Esquire, and Lady,&rsquo; was rendered
+sufficiently clear even to my scared intellect by a very small
+manuscript, announcing the fact, which was pinned on a very flat
+quilt, covering a very thin mattress, spread like a surgical
+plaster on a most inaccessible shelf.&nbsp; But that this was the
+state-room concerning which Charles Dickens, Esquire, and Lady,
+had held daily and nightly conferences for at least four months
+preceding: that this could by any possibility be that small snug
+chamber of the imagination, which Charles Dickens, Esquire, with
+the spirit of prophecy strong upon him, had always foretold would
+contain at least one little sofa, and which his lady, with a
+modest yet most magnificent sense of its limited dimensions, had
+from the first opined would not hold more than two enormous
+portmanteaus in some odd corner out of sight (portmanteaus which
+could now no more be got in at the door, not to say stowed away,
+than a giraffe could be persuaded or forced into a flower-pot):
+that this utterly impracticable, thoroughly hopeless, and
+profoundly preposterous box, had the remotest reference to, or
+connection with, those chaste and pretty, not to say gorgeous
+little bowers, sketched by a masterly hand, in the highly
+varnished lithographic plan hanging up in the agent&rsquo;s
+counting-house in the city of London: that this room of state, in
+short, could be anything but a pleasant fiction and cheerful jest
+of the captain&rsquo;s, invented and put in practice for the
+better relish and enjoyment of the real state-room presently to
+be disclosed:&mdash;these were truths which I really could not,
+for the moment, bring my mind at all to bear upon or
+comprehend.&nbsp; And I sat down upon a kind of horsehair slab,
+or perch, of which there were two within; and looked, without any
+expression of countenance whatever, at some friends who had come
+on board with us, and who were crushing their faces into all
+manner of shapes by endeavouring to squeeze them through the
+small doorway.</p>
+<p>We had experienced a pretty smart shock before coming below,
+which, but that we were the most sanguine people living, might
+have prepared us for the worst.&nbsp; The imaginative artist to
+whom I have already made allusion, has depicted in the same great
+work, a chamber of almost interminable perspective, furnished, as
+Mr. Robins would say, in a style of more than Eastern splendour,
+and filled (but not inconveniently so) with groups of ladies and
+gentlemen, in the very highest state of enjoyment and
+vivacity.&nbsp; Before descending into the bowels of the ship, we
+had passed from the deck into a long narrow apartment, not unlike
+a gigantic hearse with windows in the sides; having at the upper
+end a melancholy stove, at which three or four chilly stewards
+were warming their hands; while on either side, extending down
+its whole dreary length, was a long, long table, over each of
+which a rack, fixed to the low roof, and stuck full of
+drinking-glasses and cruet-stands, hinted dismally at rolling
+seas and heavy weather.&nbsp; I had not at that time seen the
+ideal presentment of this chamber which has since gratified me so
+much, but I observed that one of our friends who had made the
+arrangements for our voyage, turned pale on entering, retreated
+on the friend behind him, smote his forehead involuntarily, and
+said below his breath, &lsquo;Impossible! it cannot be!&rsquo; or
+words to that effect.&nbsp; He recovered himself however by a
+great effort, and after a preparatory cough or two, cried, with a
+ghastly smile which is still before me, looking at the same time
+round the walls, &lsquo;Ha! the breakfast-room,
+steward&mdash;eh?&rsquo;&nbsp; We all foresaw what the answer
+must be: we knew the agony he suffered.&nbsp; He had often spoken
+of <i>the saloon</i>; had taken in and lived upon the pictorial
+idea; had usually given us to understand, at home, that to form a
+just conception of it, it would be necessary to multiply the size
+and furniture of an ordinary drawing-room by seven, and then fall
+short of the reality.&nbsp; When the man in reply avowed the
+truth; the blunt, remorseless, naked truth; &lsquo;This is the
+saloon, sir&rsquo;&mdash;he actually reeled beneath the blow.</p>
+<p>In persons who were so soon to part, and interpose between
+their else daily communication the formidable barrier of many
+thousand miles of stormy space, and who were for that reason
+anxious to cast no other cloud, not even the passing shadow of a
+moment&rsquo;s disappointment or discomfiture, upon the short
+interval of happy companionship that yet remained to
+them&mdash;in persons so situated, the natural transition from
+these first surprises was obviously into peals of hearty
+laughter, and I can report that I, for one, being still seated
+upon the slab or perch before mentioned, roared outright until
+the vessel rang again.&nbsp; Thus, in less than two minutes after
+coming upon it for the first time, we all by common consent
+agreed that this state-room was the pleasantest and most
+facetious and capital contrivance possible; and that to have had
+it one inch larger, would have been quite a disagreeable and
+deplorable state of things.&nbsp; And with this; and with showing
+how,&mdash;by very nearly closing the door, and twining in and
+out like serpents, and by counting the little washing slab as
+standing-room,&mdash;we could manage to insinuate four people
+into it, all at one time; and entreating each other to observe
+how very airy it was (in dock), and how there was a beautiful
+port-hole which could be kept open all day (weather permitting),
+and how there was quite a large bull&rsquo;s-eye just over the
+looking-glass which would render shaving a perfectly easy and
+delightful process (when the ship didn&rsquo;t roll too much); we
+arrived, at last, at the unanimous conclusion that it was rather
+spacious than otherwise: though I do verily believe that,
+deducting the two berths, one above the other, than which nothing
+smaller for sleeping in was ever made except coffins, it was no
+bigger than one of those hackney cabriolets which have the door
+behind, and shoot their fares out, like sacks of coals, upon the
+pavement.</p>
+<p>Having settled this point to the perfect satisfaction of all
+parties, concerned and unconcerned, we sat down round the fire in
+the ladies&rsquo; cabin&mdash;just to try the effect.&nbsp; It
+was rather dark, certainly; but somebody said, &lsquo;of course
+it would be light, at sea,&rsquo; a proposition to which we all
+assented; echoing &lsquo;of course, of course;&rsquo; though it
+would be exceedingly difficult to say why we thought so.&nbsp; I
+remember, too, when we had discovered and exhausted another topic
+of consolation in the circumstance of this ladies&rsquo; cabin
+adjoining our state-room, and the consequently immense
+feasibility of sitting there at all times and seasons, and had
+fallen into a momentary silence, leaning our faces on our hands
+and looking at the fire, one of our party said, with the solemn
+air of a man who had made a discovery, &lsquo;What a relish
+mulled claret will have down here!&rsquo; which appeared to
+strike us all most forcibly; as though there were something spicy
+and high-flavoured in cabins, which essentially improved that
+composition, and rendered it quite incapable of perfection
+anywhere else.</p>
+<p>There was a stewardess, too, actively engaged in producing
+clean sheets and table-cloths from the very entrails of the
+sofas, and from unexpected lockers, of such artful mechanism,
+that it made one&rsquo;s head ache to see them opened one after
+another, and rendered it quite a distracting circumstance to
+follow her proceedings, and to find that every nook and corner
+and individual piece of furniture was something else besides what
+it pretended to be, and was a mere trap and deception and place
+of secret stowage, whose ostensible purpose was its least useful
+one.</p>
+<p>God bless that stewardess for her piously fraudulent account
+of January voyages!&nbsp; God bless her for her clear
+recollection of the companion passage of last year, when nobody
+was ill, and everybody dancing from morning to night, and it was
+&lsquo;a run&rsquo; of twelve days, and a piece of the purest
+frolic, and delight, and jollity!&nbsp; All happiness be with her
+for her bright face and her pleasant Scotch tongue, which had
+sounds of old Home in it for my fellow-traveller; and for her
+predictions of fair winds and fine weather (all wrong, or I
+shouldn&rsquo;t be half so fond of her); and for the ten thousand
+small fragments of genuine womanly tact, by which, without
+piecing them elaborately together, and patching them up into
+shape and form and case and pointed application, she nevertheless
+did plainly show that all young mothers on one side of the
+Atlantic were near and close at hand to their little children
+left upon the other; and that what seemed to the uninitiated a
+serious journey, was, to those who were in the secret, a mere
+frolic, to be sung about and whistled at!&nbsp; Light be her
+heart, and gay her merry eyes, for years!</p>
+<p>The state-room had grown pretty fast; but by this time it had
+expanded into something quite bulky, and almost boasted a
+bay-window to view the sea from.&nbsp; So we went upon deck again
+in high spirits; and there, everything was in such a state of
+bustle and active preparation, that the blood quickened its pace,
+and whirled through one&rsquo;s veins on that clear frosty
+morning with involuntary mirthfulness.&nbsp; For every gallant
+ship was riding slowly up and down, and every little boat was
+splashing noisily in the water; and knots of people stood upon
+the wharf, gazing with a kind of &lsquo;dread delight&rsquo; on
+the far-famed fast American steamer; and one party of men were
+&lsquo;taking in the milk,&rsquo; or, in other words, getting the
+cow on board; and another were filling the icehouses to the very
+throat with fresh provisions; with butchers&rsquo;-meat and
+garden-stuff, pale sucking-pigs, calves&rsquo; heads in scores,
+beef, veal, and pork, and poultry out of all proportion; and
+others were coiling ropes and busy with oakum yarns; and others
+were lowering heavy packages into the hold; and the
+purser&rsquo;s head was barely visible as it loomed in a state,
+of exquisite perplexity from the midst of a vast pile of
+passengers&rsquo; luggage; and there seemed to be nothing going
+on anywhere, or uppermost in the mind of anybody, but
+preparations for this mighty voyage.&nbsp; This, with the bright
+cold sun, the bracing air, the crisply-curling water, the thin
+white crust of morning ice upon the decks which crackled with a
+sharp and cheerful sound beneath the lightest tread, was
+irresistible.&nbsp; And when, again upon the shore, we turned and
+saw from the vessel&rsquo;s mast her name signalled in flags of
+joyous colours, and fluttering by their side the beautiful
+American banner with its stars and stripes,&mdash;the long three
+thousand miles and more, and, longer still, the six whole months
+of absence, so dwindled and faded, that the ship had gone out and
+come home again, and it was broad spring already in the Coburg
+Dock at Liverpool.</p>
+<p>I have not inquired among my medical acquaintance, whether
+Turtle, and cold Punch, with Hock, Champagne, and Claret, and all
+the slight et cetera usually included in an unlimited order for a
+good dinner&mdash;especially when it is left to the liberal
+construction of my faultless friend, Mr. Radley, of the Adelphi
+Hotel&mdash;are peculiarly calculated to suffer a sea-change; or
+whether a plain mutton-chop, and a glass or two of sherry, would
+be less likely of conversion into foreign and disconcerting
+material.&nbsp; My own opinion is, that whether one is discreet
+or indiscreet in these particulars, on the eve of a sea-voyage,
+is a matter of little consequence; and that, to use a common
+phrase, &lsquo;it comes to very much the same thing in the
+end.&rsquo;&nbsp;&nbsp; Be this as it may, I know that the dinner
+of that day was undeniably perfect; that it comprehended all
+these items, and a great many more; and that we all did ample
+justice to it.&nbsp; And I know too, that, bating a certain tacit
+avoidance of any allusion to to-morrow; such as may be supposed
+to prevail between delicate-minded turnkeys, and a sensitive
+prisoner who is to be hanged next morning; we got on very well,
+and, all things considered, were merry enough.</p>
+<p>When the morning&mdash;<i>the</i> morning&mdash;came, and we
+met at breakfast, it was curious to see how eager we all were to
+prevent a moment&rsquo;s pause in the conversation, and how
+astoundingly gay everybody was: the forced spirits of each member
+of the little party having as much likeness to his natural mirth,
+as hot-house peas at five guineas the quart, resemble in flavour
+the growth of the dews, and air, and rain of Heaven.&nbsp; But as
+one o&rsquo;clock, the hour for going aboard, drew near, this
+volubility dwindled away by little and little, despite the most
+persevering efforts to the contrary, until at last, the matter
+being now quite desperate, we threw off all disguise; openly
+speculated upon where we should be this time to-morrow, this time
+next day, and so forth; and entrusted a vast number of messages
+to those who intended returning to town that night, which were to
+be delivered at home and elsewhere without fail, within the very
+shortest possible space of time after the arrival of the railway
+train at Euston Square.&nbsp; And commissions and remembrances do
+so crowd upon one at such a time, that we were still busied with
+this employment when we found ourselves fused, as it were, into a
+dense conglomeration of passengers and passengers&rsquo; friends
+and passengers&rsquo; luggage, all jumbled together on the deck
+of a small steamboat, and panting and snorting off to the packet,
+which had worked out of dock yesterday afternoon and was now
+lying at her moorings in the river.</p>
+<p>And there she is! all eyes are turned to where she lies, dimly
+discernible through the gathering fog of the early winter
+afternoon; every finger is pointed in the same direction; and
+murmurs of interest and admiration&mdash;as &lsquo;How beautiful
+she looks!&rsquo; &lsquo;How trim she is!&rsquo;&mdash;are heard
+on every side.&nbsp; Even the lazy gentleman with his hat on one
+side and his hands in his pockets, who has dispensed so much
+consolation by inquiring with a yawn of another gentleman whether
+he is &lsquo;going across&rsquo;&mdash;as if it were a
+ferry&mdash;even he condescends to look that way, and nod his
+head, as who should say, &lsquo;No mistake about
+<i>that</i>:&rsquo; and not even the sage Lord Burleigh in his
+nod, included half so much as this lazy gentleman of might who
+has made the passage (as everybody on board has found out
+already; it&rsquo;s impossible to say how) thirteen times without
+a single accident!&nbsp; There is another passenger very much
+wrapped-up, who has been frowned down by the rest, and morally
+trampled upon and crushed, for presuming to inquire with a timid
+interest how long it is since the poor President went down.&nbsp;
+He is standing close to the lazy gentleman, and says with a faint
+smile that he believes She is a very strong Ship; to which the
+lazy gentleman, looking first in his questioner&rsquo;s eye and
+then very hard in the wind&rsquo;s, answers unexpectedly and
+ominously, that She need be.&nbsp; Upon this the lazy gentleman
+instantly falls very low in the popular estimation, and the
+passengers, with looks of defiance, whisper to each other that he
+is an ass, and an impostor, and clearly don&rsquo;t know anything
+at all about it.</p>
+<p>But we are made fast alongside the packet, whose huge red
+funnel is smoking bravely, giving rich promise of serious
+intentions.&nbsp; Packing-cases, portmanteaus, carpet-bags, and
+boxes, are already passed from hand to hand, and hauled on board
+with breathless rapidity.&nbsp; The officers, smartly dressed,
+are at the gangway handing the passengers up the side, and
+hurrying the men.&nbsp; In five minutes&rsquo; time, the little
+steamer is utterly deserted, and the packet is beset and over-run
+by its late freight, who instantly pervade the whole ship, and
+are to be met with by the dozen in every nook and corner:
+swarming down below with their own baggage, and stumbling over
+other people&rsquo;s; disposing themselves comfortably in wrong
+cabins, and creating a most horrible confusion by having to turn
+out again; madly bent upon opening locked doors, and on forcing a
+passage into all kinds of out-of-the-way places where there is no
+thoroughfare; sending wild stewards, with elfin hair, to and fro
+upon the breezy decks on unintelligible errands, impossible of
+execution: and in short, creating the most extraordinary and
+bewildering tumult.&nbsp; In the midst of all this, the lazy
+gentleman, who seems to have no luggage of any kind&mdash;not so
+much as a friend, even&mdash;lounges up and down the hurricane
+deck, coolly puffing a cigar; and, as this unconcerned demeanour
+again exalts him in the opinion of those who have leisure to
+observe his proceedings, every time he looks up at the masts, or
+down at the decks, or over the side, they look there too, as
+wondering whether he sees anything wrong anywhere, and hoping
+that, in case he should, he will have the goodness to mention
+it.</p>
+<p>What have we here?&nbsp; The captain&rsquo;s boat! and yonder
+the captain himself.&nbsp; Now, by all our hopes and wishes, the
+very man he ought to be!&nbsp; A well-made, tight-built, dapper
+little fellow; with a ruddy face, which is a letter of invitation
+to shake him by both hands at once; and with a clear, blue honest
+eye, that it does one good to see one&rsquo;s sparkling image
+in.&nbsp; &lsquo;Ring the bell!&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Ding, ding,
+ding!&rsquo; the very bell is in a hurry.&nbsp; &lsquo;Now for
+the shore&mdash;who&rsquo;s for the
+shore?&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;These gentlemen, I am sorry to
+say.&rsquo;&nbsp;&nbsp; They are away, and never said, Good
+b&rsquo;ye.&nbsp; Ah now they wave it from the little boat.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Good b&rsquo;ye! Good b&rsquo;ye!&rsquo;&nbsp; Three
+cheers from them; three more from us; three more from them: and
+they are gone.</p>
+<p>To and fro, to and fro, to and fro again a hundred
+times!&nbsp; This waiting for the latest mail-bags is worse than
+all.&nbsp; If we could have gone off in the midst of that last
+burst, we should have started triumphantly: but to lie here, two
+hours and more in the damp fog, neither staying at home nor going
+abroad, is letting one gradually down into the very depths of
+dulness and low spirits.&nbsp; A speck in the mist, at
+last!&nbsp; That&rsquo;s something.&nbsp; It is the boat we wait
+for!&nbsp; That&rsquo;s more to the purpose.&nbsp; The captain
+appears on the paddle-box with his speaking trumpet; the officers
+take their stations; all hands are on the alert; the flagging
+hopes of the passengers revive; the cooks pause in their savoury
+work, and look out with faces full of interest.&nbsp; The boat
+comes alongside; the bags are dragged in anyhow, and flung down
+for the moment anywhere.&nbsp; Three cheers more: and as the
+first one rings upon our ears, the vessel throbs like a strong
+giant that has just received the breath of life; the two great
+wheels turn fiercely round for the first time; and the noble
+ship, with wind and tide astern, breaks proudly through the
+lashed and roaming water.</p>
+<h2><a name="page10"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+10</span>CHAPTER II<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">THE PASSAGE OUT</span></h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">We</span> all dined together that day; and
+a rather formidable party we were: no fewer than eighty-six
+strong.&nbsp; The vessel being pretty deep in the water, with all
+her coals on board and so many passengers, and the weather being
+calm and quiet, there was but little motion; so that before the
+dinner was half over, even those passengers who were most
+distrustful of themselves plucked up amazingly; and those who in
+the morning had returned to the universal question, &lsquo;Are
+you a good sailor?&rsquo; a very decided negative, now either
+parried the inquiry with the evasive reply, &lsquo;Oh! I suppose
+I&rsquo;m no worse than anybody else;&rsquo; or, reckless of all
+moral obligations, answered boldly &lsquo;Yes:&rsquo; and with
+some irritation too, as though they would add, &lsquo;I should
+like to know what you see in <i>me</i>, sir, particularly, to
+justify suspicion!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Notwithstanding this high tone of courage and confidence, I
+could not but observe that very few remained long over their
+wine; and that everybody had an unusual love of the open air; and
+that the favourite and most coveted seats were invariably those
+nearest to the door.&nbsp; The tea-table, too, was by no means as
+well attended as the dinner-table; and there was less
+whist-playing than might have been expected.&nbsp; Still, with
+the exception of one lady, who had retired with some
+precipitation at dinner-time, immediately after being assisted to
+the finest cut of a very yellow boiled leg of mutton with very
+green capers, there were no invalids as yet; and walking, and
+smoking, and drinking of brandy-and-water (but always in the open
+air), went on with unabated spirit, until eleven o&rsquo;clock or
+thereabouts, when &lsquo;turning in&rsquo;&mdash;no sailor of
+seven hours&rsquo; experience talks of going to bed&mdash;became
+the order of the night.&nbsp; The perpetual tramp of boot-heels
+on the decks gave place to a heavy silence, and the whole human
+freight was stowed away below, excepting a very few stragglers,
+like myself, who were probably, like me, afraid to go there.</p>
+<p>To one unaccustomed to such scenes, this is a very striking
+time on shipboard.&nbsp; Afterwards, and when its novelty had
+long worn off, it never ceased to have a peculiar interest and
+charm for me.&nbsp; The gloom through which the great black mass
+holds its direct and certain course; the rushing water, plainly
+heard, but dimly seen; the broad, white, glistening track, that
+follows in the vessel&rsquo;s wake; the men on the look-out
+forward, who would be scarcely visible against the dark sky, but
+for their blotting out some score of glistening stars; the
+helmsman at the wheel, with the illuminated card before him,
+shining, a speck of light amidst the darkness, like something
+sentient and of Divine intelligence; the melancholy sighing of
+the wind through block, and rope, and chain; the gleaming forth
+of light from every crevice, nook, and tiny piece of glass about
+the decks, as though the ship were filled with fire in hiding,
+ready to burst through any outlet, wild with its resistless power
+of death and ruin.&nbsp; At first, too, and even when the hour,
+and all the objects it exalts, have come to be familiar, it is
+difficult, alone and thoughtful, to hold them to their proper
+shapes and forms.&nbsp; They change with the wandering fancy;
+assume the semblance of things left far away; put on the
+well-remembered aspect of favourite places dearly loved; and even
+people them with shadows.&nbsp; Streets, houses, rooms; figures
+so like their usual occupants, that they have startled me by
+their reality, which far exceeded, as it seemed to me, all power
+of mine to conjure up the absent; have, many and many a time, at
+such an hour, grown suddenly out of objects with whose real look,
+and use, and purpose, I was as well acquainted as with my own two
+hands.</p>
+<p>My own two hands, and feet likewise, being very cold, however,
+on this particular occasion, I crept below at midnight.&nbsp; It
+was not exactly comfortable below.&nbsp; It was decidedly close;
+and it was impossible to be unconscious of the presence of that
+extraordinary compound of strange smells, which is to be found
+nowhere but on board ship, and which is such a subtle perfume
+that it seems to enter at every pore of the skin, and whisper of
+the hold.&nbsp; Two passengers&rsquo; wives (one of them my own)
+lay already in silent agonies on the sofa; and one lady&rsquo;s
+maid (<i>my</i> lady&rsquo;s) was a mere bundle on the floor,
+execrating her destiny, and pounding her curl-papers among the
+stray boxes.&nbsp; Everything sloped the wrong way: which in
+itself was an aggravation scarcely to be borne.&nbsp; I had left
+the door open, a moment before, in the bosom of a gentle
+declivity, and, when I turned to shut it, it was on the summit of
+a lofty eminence.&nbsp; Now every plank and timber creaked, as if
+the ship were made of wicker-work; and now crackled, like an
+enormous fire of the driest possible twigs.&nbsp; There was
+nothing for it but bed; so I went to bed.</p>
+<p>It was pretty much the same for the next two days, with a
+tolerably fair wind and dry weather.&nbsp; I read in bed (but to
+this hour I don&rsquo;t know what) a good deal; and reeled on
+deck a little; drank cold brandy-and-water with an unspeakable
+disgust, and ate hard biscuit perseveringly: not ill, but going
+to be.</p>
+<p>It is the third morning.&nbsp; I am awakened out of my sleep
+by a dismal shriek from my wife, who demands to know whether
+there&rsquo;s any danger.&nbsp; I rouse myself, and look out of
+bed.&nbsp; The water-jug is plunging and leaping like a lively
+dolphin; all the smaller articles are afloat, except my shoes,
+which are stranded on a carpet-bag, high and dry, like a couple
+of coal-barges.&nbsp; Suddenly I see them spring into the air,
+and behold the looking-glass, which is nailed to the wall,
+sticking fast upon the ceiling.&nbsp; At the same time the door
+entirely disappears, and a new one is opened in the floor.&nbsp;
+Then I begin to comprehend that the state-room is standing on its
+head.</p>
+<p>Before it is possible to make any arrangement at all
+compatible with this novel state of things, the ship
+rights.&nbsp; Before one can say &lsquo;Thank Heaven!&rsquo; she
+wrongs again.&nbsp; Before one can cry she <i>is</i> wrong, she
+seems to have started forward, and to be a creature actually
+running of its own accord, with broken knees and failing legs,
+through every variety of hole and pitfall, and stumbling
+constantly.&nbsp; Before one can so much as wonder, she takes a
+high leap into the air.&nbsp; Before she has well done that, she
+takes a deep dive into the water.&nbsp; Before she has gained the
+surface, she throws a summerset.&nbsp; The instant she is on her
+legs, she rushes backward.&nbsp; And so she goes on staggering,
+heaving, wrestling, leaping, diving, jumping, pitching,
+throbbing, rolling, and rocking: and going through all these
+movements, sometimes by turns, and sometimes altogether: until
+one feels disposed to roar for mercy.</p>
+<p>A steward passes.&nbsp; &lsquo;Steward!&rsquo;&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Sir?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;What <i>is</i> the matter? what
+<i>do</i> you call this?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Rather a heavy sea
+on, sir, and a head-wind.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>A head-wind!&nbsp; Imagine a human face upon the
+vessel&rsquo;s prow, with fifteen thousand Samsons in one bent
+upon driving her back, and hitting her exactly between the eyes
+whenever she attempts to advance an inch.&nbsp; Imagine the ship
+herself, with every pulse and artery of her huge body swollen and
+bursting under this maltreatment, sworn to go on or die.&nbsp;
+Imagine the wind howling, the sea roaring, the rain beating: all
+in furious array against her.&nbsp; Picture the sky both dark and
+wild, and the clouds, in fearful sympathy with the waves, making
+another ocean in the air.&nbsp; Add to all this, the clattering
+on deck and down below; the tread of hurried feet; the loud
+hoarse shouts of seamen; the gurgling in and out of water through
+the scuppers; with, every now and then, the striking of a heavy
+sea upon the planks above, with the deep, dead, heavy sound of
+thunder heard within a vault;&mdash;and there is the head-wind of
+that January morning.</p>
+<p>I say nothing of what may be called the domestic noises of the
+ship: such as the breaking of glass and crockery, the tumbling
+down of stewards, the gambols, overhead, of loose casks and
+truant dozens of bottled porter, and the very remarkable and far
+from exhilarating sounds raised in their various state-rooms by
+the seventy passengers who were too ill to get up to
+breakfast.&nbsp; I say nothing of them: for although I lay
+listening to this concert for three or four days, I don&rsquo;t
+think I heard it for more than a quarter of a minute, at the
+expiration of which term, I lay down again, excessively
+sea-sick.</p>
+<p>Not sea-sick, be it understood, in the ordinary acceptation of
+the term: I wish I had been: but in a form which I have never
+seen or heard described, though I have no doubt it is very
+common.&nbsp; I lay there, all the day long, quite coolly and
+contentedly; with no sense of weariness, with no desire to get
+up, or get better, or take the air; with no curiosity, or care,
+or regret, of any sort or degree, saving that I think I can
+remember, in this universal indifference, having a kind of lazy
+joy&mdash;of fiendish delight, if anything so lethargic can be
+dignified with the title&mdash;in the fact of my wife being too
+ill to talk to me.&nbsp; If I may be allowed to illustrate my
+state of mind by such an example, I should say that I was exactly
+in the condition of the elder Mr. Willet, after the incursion of
+the rioters into his bar at Chigwell.&nbsp; Nothing would have
+surprised me.&nbsp; If, in the momentary illumination of any ray
+of intelligence that may have come upon me in the way of thoughts
+of Home, a goblin postman, with a scarlet coat and bell, had come
+into that little kennel before me, broad awake in broad day, and,
+apologising for being damp through walking in the sea, had handed
+me a letter directed to myself, in familiar characters, I am
+certain I should not have felt one atom of astonishment: I should
+have been perfectly satisfied.&nbsp; If Neptune himself had
+walked in, with a toasted shark on his trident, I should have
+looked upon the event as one of the very commonest everyday
+occurrences.</p>
+<p>Once&mdash;once&mdash;I found myself on deck.&nbsp; I
+don&rsquo;t know how I got there, or what possessed me to go
+there, but there I was; and completely dressed too, with a huge
+pea-coat on, and a pair of boots such as no weak man in his
+senses could ever have got into.&nbsp; I found myself standing,
+when a gleam of consciousness came upon me, holding on to
+something.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t know what.&nbsp; I think it was
+the boatswain: or it may have been the pump: or possibly the
+cow.&nbsp; I can&rsquo;t say how long I had been there; whether a
+day or a minute.&nbsp; I recollect trying to think about
+something (about anything in the whole wide world, I was not
+particular) without the smallest effect.&nbsp; I could not even
+make out which was the sea, and which the sky, for the horizon
+seemed drunk, and was flying wildly about in all
+directions.&nbsp; Even in that incapable state, however, I
+recognised the lazy gentleman standing before me: nautically clad
+in a suit of shaggy blue, with an oilskin hat.&nbsp; But I was
+too imbecile, although I knew it to be he, to separate him from
+his dress; and tried to call him, I remember, <i>Pilot</i>.&nbsp;
+After another interval of total unconsciousness, I found he had
+gone, and recognised another figure in its place.&nbsp; It seemed
+to wave and fluctuate before me as though I saw it reflected in
+an unsteady looking-glass; but I knew it for the captain; and
+such was the cheerful influence of his face, that I tried to
+smile: yes, even then I tried to smile.&nbsp; I saw by his
+gestures that he addressed me; but it was a long time before I
+could make out that he remonstrated against my standing up to my
+knees in water&mdash;as I was; of course I don&rsquo;t know
+why.&nbsp; I tried to thank him, but couldn&rsquo;t.&nbsp; I
+could only point to my boots&mdash;or wherever I supposed my
+boots to be&mdash;and say in a plaintive voice, &lsquo;Cork
+soles:&rsquo; at the same time endeavouring, I am told, to sit
+down in the pool.&nbsp; Finding that I was quite insensible, and
+for the time a maniac, he humanely conducted me below.</p>
+<p>There I remained until I got better: suffering, whenever I was
+recommended to eat anything, an amount of anguish only second to
+that which is said to be endured by the apparently drowned, in
+the process of restoration to life.&nbsp; One gentleman on board
+had a letter of introduction to me from a mutual friend in
+London.&nbsp; He sent it below with his card, on the morning of
+the head-wind; and I was long troubled with the idea that he
+might be up, and well, and a hundred times a day expecting me to
+call upon him in the saloon.&nbsp; I imagined him one of those
+cast-iron images&mdash;I will not call them men&mdash;who ask,
+with red faces, and lusty voices, what sea-sickness means, and
+whether it really is as bad as it is represented to be.&nbsp;
+This was very torturing indeed; and I don&rsquo;t think I ever
+felt such perfect gratification and gratitude of heart, as I did
+when I heard from the ship&rsquo;s doctor that he had been
+obliged to put a large mustard poultice on this very
+gentleman&rsquo;s stomach.&nbsp; I date my recovery from the
+receipt of that intelligence.</p>
+<p>It was materially assisted though, I have no doubt, by a heavy
+gale of wind, which came slowly up at sunset, when we were about
+ten days out, and raged with gradually increasing fury until
+morning, saving that it lulled for an hour a little before
+midnight.&nbsp; There was something in the unnatural repose of
+that hour, and in the after gathering of the storm, so
+inconceivably awful and tremendous, that its bursting into full
+violence was almost a relief.</p>
+<p>The labouring of the ship in the troubled sea on this night I
+shall never forget.&nbsp; &lsquo;Will it ever be worse than
+this?&rsquo; was a question I had often heard asked, when
+everything was sliding and bumping about, and when it certainly
+did seem difficult to comprehend the possibility of anything
+afloat being more disturbed, without toppling over and going
+down.&nbsp; But what the agitation of a steam-vessel is, on a bad
+winter&rsquo;s night in the wild Atlantic, it is impossible for
+the most vivid imagination to conceive.&nbsp; To say that she is
+flung down on her side in the waves, with her masts dipping into
+them, and that, springing up again, she rolls over on the other
+side, until a heavy sea strikes her with the noise of a hundred
+great guns, and hurls her back&mdash;that she stops, and
+staggers, and shivers, as though stunned, and then, with a
+violent throbbing at her heart, darts onward like a monster
+goaded into madness, to be beaten down, and battered, and
+crushed, and leaped on by the angry sea&mdash;that thunder,
+lightning, hail, and rain, and wind, are all in fierce contention
+for the mastery&mdash;that every plank has its groan, every nail
+its shriek, and every drop of water in the great ocean its
+howling voice&mdash;is nothing.&nbsp; To say that all is grand,
+and all appalling and horrible in the last degree, is
+nothing.&nbsp; Words cannot express it.&nbsp; Thoughts cannot
+convey it.&nbsp; Only a dream can call it up again, in all its
+fury, rage, and passion.</p>
+<p>And yet, in the very midst of these terrors, I was placed in a
+situation so exquisitely ridiculous, that even then I had as
+strong a sense of its absurdity as I have now, and could no more
+help laughing than I can at any other comical incident, happening
+under circumstances the most favourable to its enjoyment.&nbsp;
+About midnight we shipped a sea, which forced its way through the
+skylights, burst open the doors above, and came raging and
+roaring down into the ladies&rsquo; cabin, to the unspeakable
+consternation of my wife and a little Scotch lady&mdash;who, by
+the way, had previously sent a message to the captain by the
+stewardess, requesting him, with her compliments, to have a steel
+conductor immediately attached to the top of every mast, and to
+the chimney, in order that the ship might not be struck by
+lightning.&nbsp; They and the handmaid before mentioned, being in
+such ecstasies of fear that I scarcely knew what to do with them,
+I naturally bethought myself of some restorative or comfortable
+cordial; and nothing better occurring to me, at the moment, than
+hot brandy-and-water, I procured a tumbler full without
+delay.&nbsp; It being impossible to stand or sit without holding
+on, they were all heaped together in one corner of a long
+sofa&mdash;a fixture extending entirely across the
+cabin&mdash;where they clung to each other in momentary
+expectation of being drowned.&nbsp; When I approached this place
+with my specific, and was about to administer it with many
+consolatory expressions to the nearest sufferer, what was my
+dismay to see them all roll slowly down to the other end!&nbsp;
+And when I staggered to that end, and held out the glass once
+more, how immensely baffled were my good intentions by the ship
+giving another lurch, and their all rolling back again!&nbsp; I
+suppose I dodged them up and down this sofa for at least a
+quarter of an hour, without reaching them once; and by the time I
+did catch them, the brandy-and-water was diminished, by constant
+spilling, to a teaspoonful.&nbsp; To complete the group, it is
+necessary to recognise in this disconcerted dodger, an individual
+very pale from sea-sickness, who had shaved his beard and brushed
+his hair, last, at Liverpool: and whose only article of dress
+(linen not included) were a pair of dreadnought trousers; a blue
+jacket, formerly admired upon the Thames at Richmond; no
+stockings; and one slipper.</p>
+<p>Of the outrageous antics performed by that ship next morning;
+which made bed a practical joke, and getting up, by any process
+short of falling out, an impossibility; I say nothing.&nbsp; But
+anything like the utter dreariness and desolation that met my
+eyes when I literally &lsquo;tumbled up&rsquo; on deck at noon, I
+never saw.&nbsp; Ocean and sky were all of one dull, heavy,
+uniform, lead colour.&nbsp; There was no extent of prospect even
+over the dreary waste that lay around us, for the sea ran high,
+and the horizon encompassed us like a large black hoop.&nbsp;
+Viewed from the air, or some tall bluff on shore, it would have
+been imposing and stupendous, no doubt; but seen from the wet and
+rolling decks, it only impressed one giddily and painfully.&nbsp;
+In the gale of last night the life-boat had been crushed by one
+blow of the sea like a walnut-shell; and there it hung dangling
+in the air: a mere faggot of crazy boards.&nbsp; The planking of
+the paddle-boxes had been torn sheer away.&nbsp; The wheels were
+exposed and bare; and they whirled and dashed their spray about
+the decks at random.&nbsp; Chimney, white with crusted salt;
+topmasts struck; storm-sails set; rigging all knotted, tangled,
+wet, and drooping: a gloomier picture it would be hard to look
+upon.</p>
+<p>I was now comfortably established by courtesy in the
+ladies&rsquo; cabin, where, besides ourselves, there were only
+four other passengers.&nbsp; First, the little Scotch lady before
+mentioned, on her way to join her husband at New York, who had
+settled there three years before.&nbsp; Secondly and thirdly, an
+honest young Yorkshireman, connected with some American house;
+domiciled in that same city, and carrying thither his beautiful
+young wife to whom he had been married but a fortnight, and who
+was the fairest specimen of a comely English country girl I have
+ever seen.&nbsp; Fourthly, fifthly, and lastly, another couple:
+newly married too, if one might judge from the endearments they
+frequently interchanged: of whom I know no more than that they
+were rather a mysterious, run-away kind of couple; that the lady
+had great personal attractions also; and that the gentleman
+carried more guns with him than Robinson Crusoe, wore a
+shooting-coat, and had two great dogs on board.&nbsp; On further
+consideration, I remember that he tried hot roast pig and bottled
+ale as a cure for sea-sickness; and that he took these remedies
+(usually in bed) day after day, with astonishing
+perseverance.&nbsp; I may add, for the information of the
+curious, that they decidedly failed.</p>
+<p>The weather continuing obstinately and almost unprecedentedly
+bad, we usually straggled into this cabin, more or less faint and
+miserable, about an hour before noon, and lay down on the sofas
+to recover; during which interval, the captain would look in to
+communicate the state of the wind, the moral certainty of its
+changing to-morrow (the weather is always going to improve
+to-morrow, at sea), the vessel&rsquo;s rate of sailing, and so
+forth.&nbsp; Observations there were none to tell us of, for
+there was no sun to take them by.&nbsp; But a description of one
+day will serve for all the rest.&nbsp; Here it is.</p>
+<p>The captain being gone, we compose ourselves to read, if the
+place be light enough; and if not, we doze and talk
+alternately.&nbsp; At one, a bell rings, and the stewardess comes
+down with a steaming dish of baked potatoes, and another of
+roasted apples; and plates of pig&rsquo;s face, cold ham, salt
+beef; or perhaps a smoking mess of rare hot collops.&nbsp; We
+fall to upon these dainties; eat as much as we can (we have great
+appetites now); and are as long as possible about it.&nbsp; If
+the fire will burn (it <i>will</i> sometimes) we are pretty
+cheerful.&nbsp; If it won&rsquo;t, we all remark to each other
+that it&rsquo;s very cold, rub our hands, cover ourselves with
+coats and cloaks, and lie down again to doze, talk, and read
+(provided as aforesaid), until dinner-time.&nbsp; At five,
+another bell rings, and the stewardess reappears with another
+dish of potatoes&mdash;boiled this time&mdash;and store of hot
+meat of various kinds: not forgetting the roast pig, to be taken
+medicinally.&nbsp; We sit down at table again (rather more
+cheerfully than before); prolong the meal with a rather mouldy
+dessert of apples, grapes, and oranges; and drink our wine and
+brandy-and-water.&nbsp; The bottles and glasses are still upon
+the table, and the oranges and so forth are rolling about
+according to their fancy and the ship&rsquo;s way, when the
+doctor comes down, by special nightly invitation, to join our
+evening rubber: immediately on whose arrival we make a party at
+whist, and as it is a rough night and the cards will not lie on
+the cloth, we put the tricks in our pockets as we take
+them.&nbsp; At whist we remain with exemplary gravity (deducting
+a short time for tea and toast) until eleven o&rsquo;clock, or
+thereabouts; when the captain comes down again, in a
+sou&rsquo;-wester hat tied under his chin, and a pilot-coat:
+making the ground wet where he stands.&nbsp; By this time the
+card-playing is over, and the bottles and glasses are again upon
+the table; and after an hour&rsquo;s pleasant conversation about
+the ship, the passengers, and things in general, the captain (who
+never goes to bed, and is never out of humour) turns up his coat
+collar for the deck again; shakes hands all round; and goes
+laughing out into the weather as merrily as to a birthday
+party.</p>
+<p>As to daily news, there is no dearth of that commodity.&nbsp;
+This passenger is reported to have lost fourteen pounds at
+Vingt-et-un in the saloon yesterday; and that passenger drinks
+his bottle of champagne every day, and how he does it (being only
+a clerk), nobody knows.&nbsp; The head engineer has distinctly
+said that there never was such times&mdash;meaning
+weather&mdash;and four good hands are ill, and have given in,
+dead beat.&nbsp; Several berths are full of water, and all the
+cabins are leaky.&nbsp; The ship&rsquo;s cook, secretly swigging
+damaged whiskey, has been found drunk; and has been played upon
+by the fire-engine until quite sober.&nbsp; All the stewards have
+fallen down-stairs at various dinner-times, and go about with
+plasters in various places.&nbsp; The baker is ill, and so is the
+pastry-cook.&nbsp; A new man, horribly indisposed, has been
+required to fill the place of the latter officer; and has been
+propped and jammed up with empty casks in a little house upon
+deck, and commanded to roll out pie-crust, which he protests
+(being highly bilious) it is death to him to look at.&nbsp;
+News!&nbsp; A dozen murders on shore would lack the interest of
+these slight incidents at sea.</p>
+<p>Divided between our rubber and such topics as these, we were
+running (as we thought) into Halifax Harbour, on the fifteenth
+night, with little wind and a bright moon&mdash;indeed, we had
+made the Light at its outer entrance, and put the pilot in
+charge&mdash;when suddenly the ship struck upon a bank of
+mud.&nbsp; An immediate rush on deck took place of course; the
+sides were crowded in an instant; and for a few minutes we were
+in as lively a state of confusion as the greatest lover of
+disorder would desire to see.&nbsp; The passengers, and guns, and
+water-casks, and other heavy matters, being all huddled together
+aft, however, to lighten her in the head, she was soon got off;
+and after some driving on towards an uncomfortable line of
+objects (whose vicinity had been announced very early in the
+disaster by a loud cry of &lsquo;Breakers a-head!&rsquo;) and
+much backing of paddles, and heaving of the lead into a
+constantly decreasing depth of water, we dropped anchor in a
+strange outlandish-looking nook which nobody on board could
+recognise, although there was land all about us, and so close
+that we could plainly see the waving branches of the trees.</p>
+<p>It was strange enough, in the silence of midnight, and the
+dead stillness that seemed to be created by the sudden and
+unexpected stoppage of the engine which had been clanking and
+blasting in our ears incessantly for so many days, to watch the
+look of blank astonishment expressed in every face: beginning
+with the officers, tracing it through all the passengers, and
+descending to the very stokers and furnacemen, who emerged from
+below, one by one, and clustered together in a smoky group about
+the hatchway of the engine-room, comparing notes in
+whispers.&nbsp; After throwing up a few rockets and firing signal
+guns in the hope of being hailed from the land, or at least of
+seeing a light&mdash;but without any other sight or sound
+presenting itself&mdash;it was determined to send a boat on
+shore.&nbsp; It was amusing to observe how very kind some of the
+passengers were, in volunteering to go ashore in this same boat:
+for the general good, of course: not by any means because they
+thought the ship in an unsafe position, or contemplated the
+possibility of her heeling over in case the tide were running
+out.&nbsp; Nor was it less amusing to remark how desperately
+unpopular the poor pilot became in one short minute.&nbsp; He had
+had his passage out from Liverpool, and during the whole voyage
+had been quite a notorious character, as a teller of anecdotes
+and cracker of jokes.&nbsp; Yet here were the very men who had
+laughed the loudest at his jests, now flourishing their fists in
+his face, loading him with imprecations, and defying him to his
+teeth as a villain!</p>
+<p>The boat soon shoved off, with a lantern and sundry blue
+lights on board; and in less than an hour returned; the officer
+in command bringing with him a tolerably tall young tree, which
+he had plucked up by the roots, to satisfy certain distrustful
+passengers whose minds misgave them that they were to be imposed
+upon and shipwrecked, and who would on no other terms believe
+that he had been ashore, or had done anything but fraudulently
+row a little way into the mist, specially to deceive them and
+compass their deaths.&nbsp; Our captain had foreseen from the
+first that we must be in a place called the Eastern passage; and
+so we were.&nbsp; It was about the last place in the world in
+which we had any business or reason to be, but a sudden fog, and
+some error on the pilot&rsquo;s part, were the cause.&nbsp; We
+were surrounded by banks, and rocks, and shoals of all kinds, but
+had happily drifted, it seemed, upon the only safe speck that was
+to be found thereabouts.&nbsp; Eased by this report, and by the
+assurance that the tide was past the ebb, we turned in at three
+o&rsquo;clock in the morning.</p>
+<p>I was dressing about half-past nine next day, when the noise
+above hurried me on deck.&nbsp; When I had left it overnight, it
+was dark, foggy, and damp, and there were bleak hills all round
+us.&nbsp; Now, we were gliding down a smooth, broad stream, at
+the rate of eleven miles an hour: our colours flying gaily; our
+crew rigged out in their smartest clothes; our officers in
+uniform again; the sun shining as on a brilliant April day in
+England; the land stretched out on either side, streaked with
+light patches of snow; white wooden houses; people at their
+doors; telegraphs working; flags hoisted; wharfs appearing;
+ships; quays crowded with people; distant noises; shouts; men and
+boys running down steep places towards the pier: all more bright
+and gay and fresh to our unused eyes than words can paint
+them.&nbsp; We came to a wharf, paved with uplifted faces; got
+alongside, and were made fast, after some shouting and straining
+of cables; darted, a score of us along the gangway, almost as
+soon as it was thrust out to meet us, and before it had reached
+the ship&mdash;and leaped upon the firm glad earth again!</p>
+<p>I suppose this Halifax would have appeared an Elysium, though
+it had been a curiosity of ugly dulness.&nbsp; But I carried away
+with me a most pleasant impression of the town and its
+inhabitants, and have preserved it to this hour.&nbsp; Nor was it
+without regret that I came home, without having found an
+opportunity of returning thither, and once more shaking hands
+with the friends I made that day.</p>
+<p>It happened to be the opening of the Legislative Council and
+General Assembly, at which ceremonial the forms observed on the
+commencement of a new Session of Parliament in England were so
+closely copied, and so gravely presented on a small scale, that
+it was like looking at Westminster through the wrong end of a
+telescope.&nbsp; The governor, as her Majesty&rsquo;s
+representative, delivered what may be called the Speech from the
+Throne.&nbsp; He said what he had to say manfully and well.&nbsp;
+The military band outside the building struck up &ldquo;God save
+the Queen&rdquo; with great vigour before his Excellency had
+quite finished; the people shouted; the in&rsquo;s rubbed their
+hands; the out&rsquo;s shook their heads; the Government party
+said there never was such a good speech; the Opposition declared
+there never was such a bad one; the Speaker and members of the
+House of Assembly withdrew from the bar to say a great deal among
+themselves and do a little: and, in short, everything went on,
+and promised to go on, just as it does at home upon the like
+occasions.</p>
+<p>The town is built on the side of a hill, the highest point
+being commanded by a strong fortress, not yet quite
+finished.&nbsp; Several streets of good breadth and appearance
+extend from its summit to the water-side, and are intersected by
+cross streets running parallel with the river.&nbsp; The houses
+are chiefly of wood.&nbsp; The market is abundantly supplied; and
+provisions are exceedingly cheap.&nbsp; The weather being
+unusually mild at that time for the season of the year, there was
+no sleighing: but there were plenty of those vehicles in yards
+and by-places, and some of them, from the gorgeous quality of
+their decorations, might have &lsquo;gone on&rsquo; without
+alteration as triumphal cars in a melodrama at
+Astley&rsquo;s.&nbsp; The day was uncommonly fine; the air
+bracing and healthful; the whole aspect of the town cheerful,
+thriving, and industrious.</p>
+<p>We lay there seven hours, to deliver and exchange the
+mails.&nbsp; At length, having collected all our bags and all our
+passengers (including two or three choice spirits, who, having
+indulged too freely in oysters and champagne, were found lying
+insensible on their backs in unfrequented streets), the engines
+were again put in motion, and we stood off for Boston.</p>
+<p>Encountering squally weather again in the Bay of Fundy, we
+tumbled and rolled about as usual all that night and all next
+day.&nbsp; On the next afternoon, that is to say, on Saturday,
+the twenty-second of January, an American pilot-boat came
+alongside, and soon afterwards the Britannia steam-packet, from
+Liverpool, eighteen days out, was telegraphed at Boston.</p>
+<p>The indescribable interest with which I strained my eyes, as
+the first patches of American soil peeped like molehills from the
+green sea, and followed them, as they swelled, by slow and almost
+imperceptible degrees, into a continuous line of coast, can
+hardly be exaggerated.&nbsp; A sharp keen wind blew dead against
+us; a hard frost prevailed on shore; and the cold was most
+severe.&nbsp; Yet the air was so intensely clear, and dry, and
+bright, that the temperature was not only endurable, but
+delicious.</p>
+<p>How I remained on deck, staring about me, until we came
+alongside the dock, and how, though I had had as many eyes as
+Argus, I should have had them all wide open, and all employed on
+new objects&mdash;are topics which I will not prolong this
+chapter to discuss.&nbsp; Neither will I more than hint at my
+foreigner-like mistake in supposing that a party of most active
+persons, who scrambled on board at the peril of their lives as we
+approached the wharf, were newsmen, answering to that industrious
+class at home; whereas, despite the leathern wallets of news
+slung about the necks of some, and the broad sheets in the hands
+of all, they were Editors, who boarded ships in person (as one
+gentleman in a worsted comforter informed me), &lsquo;because
+they liked the excitement of it.&rsquo;&nbsp;&nbsp; Suffice it in
+this place to say, that one of these invaders, with a ready
+courtesy for which I thank him here most gratefully, went on
+before to order rooms at the hotel; and that when I followed, as
+I soon did, I found myself rolling through the long passages with
+an involuntary imitation of the gait of Mr. T. P. Cooke, in a new
+nautical melodrama.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Dinner, if you please,&rsquo; said I to the waiter.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;When?&rsquo; said the waiter.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;As quick as possible,&rsquo; said I.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Right away?&rsquo; said the waiter.</p>
+<p>After a moment&rsquo;s hesitation, I answered
+&lsquo;No,&rsquo; at hazard.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;<i>Not</i> right away?&rsquo; cried the waiter, with an
+amount of surprise that made me start.</p>
+<p>I looked at him doubtfully, and returned, &lsquo;No; I would
+rather have it in this private room.&nbsp; I like it very
+much.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>At this, I really thought the waiter must have gone out of his
+mind: as I believe he would have done, but for the interposition
+of another man, who whispered in his ear,
+&lsquo;Directly.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Well! and that&rsquo;s a fact!&rsquo; said the waiter,
+looking helplessly at me: &lsquo;Right away.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>I saw now that &lsquo;Right away&rsquo; and
+&lsquo;Directly&rsquo; were one and the same thing.&nbsp; So I
+reversed my previous answer, and sat down to dinner in ten
+minutes afterwards; and a capital dinner it was.</p>
+<p>The hotel (a very excellent one) is called the Tremont
+House.&nbsp; It has more galleries, colonnades, piazzas, and
+passages than I can remember, or the reader would believe.</p>
+<h2><a name="page22"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+22</span>CHAPTER III<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">BOSTON</span></h2>
+<p><i>In</i> all the public establishments of America, the utmost
+courtesy prevails.&nbsp; Most of our Departments are susceptible
+of considerable improvement in this respect, but the Custom-house
+above all others would do well to take example from the United
+States and render itself somewhat less odious and offensive to
+foreigners.&nbsp; The servile rapacity of the French officials is
+sufficiently contemptible; but there is a surly boorish
+incivility about our men, alike disgusting to all persons who
+fall into their hands, and discreditable to the nation that keeps
+such ill-conditioned curs snarling about its gates.</p>
+<p>When I landed in America, I could not help being strongly
+impressed with the contrast their Custom-house presented, and the
+attention, politeness and good humour with which its officers
+discharged their duty.</p>
+<p>As we did not land at Boston, in consequence of some detention
+at the wharf, until after dark, I received my first impressions
+of the city in walking down to the Custom-house on the morning
+after our arrival, which was Sunday.&nbsp; I am afraid to say, by
+the way, how many offers of pews and seats in church for that
+morning were made to us, by formal note of invitation, before we
+had half finished our first dinner in America, but if I may be
+allowed to make a moderate guess, without going into nicer
+calculation, I should say that at least as many sittings were
+proffered us, as would have accommodated a score or two of
+grown-up families.&nbsp; The number of creeds and forms of
+religion to which the pleasure of our company was requested, was
+in very fair proportion.</p>
+<p>Not being able, in the absence of any change of clothes, to go
+to church that day, we were compelled to decline these
+kindnesses, one and all; and I was reluctantly obliged to forego
+the delight of hearing Dr. Channing, who happened to preach that
+morning for the first time in a very long interval.&nbsp; I
+mention the name of this distinguished and accomplished man (with
+whom I soon afterwards had the pleasure of becoming personally
+acquainted), that I may have the gratification of recording my
+humble tribute of admiration and respect for his high abilities
+and character; and for the bold philanthropy with which he has
+ever opposed himself to that most hideous blot and foul
+disgrace&mdash;Slavery.</p>
+<p>To return to Boston.&nbsp; When I got into the streets upon
+this Sunday morning, the air was so clear, the houses were so
+bright and gay: the signboards were painted in such gaudy
+colours; the gilded letters were so very golden; the bricks were
+so very red, the stone was so very white, the blinds and area
+railings were so very green, the knobs and plates upon the street
+doors so marvellously bright and twinkling; and all so slight and
+unsubstantial in appearance&mdash;that every thoroughfare in the
+city looked exactly like a scene in a pantomime.&nbsp; It rarely
+happens in the business streets that a tradesman, if I may
+venture to call anybody a tradesman, where everybody is a
+merchant, resides above his store; so that many occupations are
+often carried on in one house, and the whole front is covered
+with boards and inscriptions.&nbsp; As I walked along, I kept
+glancing up at these boards, confidently expecting to see a few
+of them change into something; and I never turned a corner
+suddenly without looking out for the clown and pantaloon, who, I
+had no doubt, were hiding in a doorway or behind some pillar
+close at hand.&nbsp; As to Harlequin and Columbine, I discovered
+immediately that they lodged (they are always looking after
+lodgings in a pantomime) at a very small clockmaker&rsquo;s one
+story high, near the hotel; which, in addition to various symbols
+and devices, almost covering the whole front, had a great dial
+hanging out&mdash;to be jumped through, of course.</p>
+<p>The suburbs are, if possible, even more unsubstantial-looking
+than the city.&nbsp; The white wooden houses (so white that it
+makes one wink to look at them), with their green jalousie
+blinds, are so sprinkled and dropped about in all directions,
+without seeming to have any root at all in the ground; and the
+small churches and chapels are so prim, and bright, and highly
+varnished; that I almost believed the whole affair could be taken
+up piecemeal like a child&rsquo;s toy, and crammed into a little
+box.</p>
+<p>The city is a beautiful one, and cannot fail, I should
+imagine, to impress all strangers very favourably.&nbsp; The
+private dwelling-houses are, for the most part, large and
+elegant; the shops extremely good; and the public buildings
+handsome.&nbsp; The State House is built upon the summit of a
+hill, which rises gradually at first, and afterwards by a steep
+ascent, almost from the water&rsquo;s edge.&nbsp; In front is a
+green enclosure, called the Common.&nbsp; The site is beautiful:
+and from the top there is a charming panoramic view of the whole
+town and neighbourhood.&nbsp; In addition to a variety of
+commodious offices, it contains two handsome chambers; in one the
+House of Representatives of the State hold their meetings: in the
+other, the Senate.&nbsp; Such proceedings as I saw here, were
+conducted with perfect gravity and decorum; and were certainly
+calculated to inspire attention and respect.</p>
+<p>There is no doubt that much of the intellectual refinement and
+superiority of Boston, is referable to the quiet influence of the
+University of Cambridge, which is within three or four miles of
+the city.&nbsp; The resident professors at that university are
+gentlemen of learning and varied attainments; and are, without
+one exception that I can call to mind, men who would shed a grace
+upon, and do honour to, any society in the civilised world.&nbsp;
+Many of the resident gentry in Boston and its neighbourhood, and
+I think I am not mistaken in adding, a large majority of those
+who are attached to the liberal professions there, have been
+educated at this same school.&nbsp; Whatever the defects of
+American universities may be, they disseminate no prejudices;
+rear no bigots; dig up the buried ashes of no old superstitions;
+never interpose between the people and their improvement; exclude
+no man because of his religious opinions; above all, in their
+whole course of study and instruction, recognise a world, and a
+broad one too, lying beyond the college walls.</p>
+<p>It was a source of inexpressible pleasure to me to observe the
+almost imperceptible, but not less certain effect, wrought by
+this institution among the small community of Boston; and to note
+at every turn the humanising tastes and desires it has
+engendered; the affectionate friendships to which it has given
+rise; the amount of vanity and prejudice it has dispelled.&nbsp;
+The golden calf they worship at Boston is a pigmy compared with
+the giant effigies set up in other parts of that vast
+counting-house which lies beyond the Atlantic; and the almighty
+dollar sinks into something comparatively insignificant, amidst a
+whole Pantheon of better gods.</p>
+<p>Above all, I sincerely believe that the public institutions
+and charities of this capital of Massachusetts are as nearly
+perfect, as the most considerate wisdom, benevolence, and
+humanity, can make them.&nbsp; I never in my life was more
+affected by the contemplation of happiness, under circumstances
+of privation and bereavement, than in my visits to these
+establishments.</p>
+<p>It is a great and pleasant feature of all such institutions in
+America, that they are either supported by the State or assisted
+by the State; or (in the event of their not needing its helping
+hand) that they act in concert with it, and are emphatically the
+people&rsquo;s.&nbsp; I cannot but think, with a view to the
+principle and its tendency to elevate or depress the character of
+the industrious classes, that a Public Charity is immeasurably
+better than a Private Foundation, no matter how munificently the
+latter may be endowed.&nbsp; In our own country, where it has
+not, until within these later days, been a very popular fashion
+with governments to display any extraordinary regard for the
+great mass of the people or to recognise their existence as
+improvable creatures, private charities, unexampled in the
+history of the earth, have arisen, to do an incalculable amount
+of good among the destitute and afflicted.&nbsp; But the
+government of the country, having neither act nor part in them,
+is not in the receipt of any portion of the gratitude they
+inspire; and, offering very little shelter or relief beyond that
+which is to be found in the workhouse and the jail, has come, not
+unnaturally, to be looked upon by the poor rather as a stern
+master, quick to correct and punish, than a kind protector,
+merciful and vigilant in their hour of need.</p>
+<p>The maxim that out of evil cometh good, is strongly
+illustrated by these establishments at home; as the records of
+the Prerogative Office in Doctors&rsquo; Commons can abundantly
+prove.&nbsp; Some immensely rich old gentleman or lady,
+surrounded by needy relatives, makes, upon a low average, a will
+a-week.&nbsp; The old gentleman or lady, never very remarkable in
+the best of times for good temper, is full of aches and pains
+from head to foot; full of fancies and caprices; full of spleen,
+distrust, suspicion, and dislike.&nbsp; To cancel old wills, and
+invent new ones, is at last the sole business of such a
+testator&rsquo;s existence; and relations and friends (some of
+whom have been bred up distinctly to inherit a large share of the
+property, and have been, from their cradles, specially
+disqualified from devoting themselves to any useful pursuit, on
+that account) are so often and so unexpectedly and summarily cut
+off, and reinstated, and cut off again, that the whole family,
+down to the remotest cousin, is kept in a perpetual fever.&nbsp;
+At length it becomes plain that the old lady or gentleman has not
+long to live; and the plainer this becomes, the more clearly the
+old lady or gentleman perceives that everybody is in a conspiracy
+against their poor old dying relative; wherefore the old lady or
+gentleman makes another last will&mdash;positively the last this
+time&mdash;conceals the same in a china teapot, and expires next
+day.&nbsp; Then it turns out, that the whole of the real and
+personal estate is divided between half-a-dozen charities; and
+that the dead and gone testator has in pure spite helped to do a
+great deal of good, at the cost of an immense amount of evil
+passion and misery.</p>
+<p>The Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the
+Blind, at Boston, is superintended by a body of trustees who make
+an annual report to the corporation.&nbsp; The indigent blind of
+that state are admitted gratuitously.&nbsp; Those from the
+adjoining state of Connecticut, or from the states of Maine,
+Vermont, or New Hampshire, are admitted by a warrant from the
+state to which they respectively belong; or, failing that, must
+find security among their friends, for the payment of about
+twenty pounds English for their first year&rsquo;s board and
+instruction, and ten for the second.&nbsp; &lsquo;After the first
+year,&rsquo; say the trustees, &lsquo;an account current will be
+opened with each pupil; he will be charged with the actual cost
+of his board, which will not exceed two dollars per week;&rsquo;
+a trifle more than eight shillings English; &lsquo;and he will be
+credited with the amount paid for him by the state, or by his
+friends; also with his earnings over and above the cost of the
+stock which he uses; so that all his earnings over one dollar per
+week will be his own.&nbsp; By the third year it will be known
+whether his earnings will more than pay the actual cost of his
+board; if they should, he will have it at his option to remain
+and receive his earnings, or not.&nbsp; Those who prove unable to
+earn their own livelihood will not be retained; as it is not
+desirable to convert the establishment into an alms-house, or to
+retain any but working bees in the hive.&nbsp; Those who by
+physical or mental imbecility are disqualified from work, are
+thereby disqualified from being members of an industrious
+community; and they can be better provided for in establishments
+fitted for the infirm.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>I went to see this place one very fine winter morning: an
+Italian sky above, and the air so clear and bright on every side,
+that even my eyes, which are none of the best, could follow the
+minute lines and scraps of tracery in distant buildings.&nbsp;
+Like most other public institutions in America, of the same
+class, it stands a mile or two without the town, in a cheerful
+healthy spot; and is an airy, spacious, handsome edifice.&nbsp;
+It is built upon a height, commanding the harbour.&nbsp; When I
+paused for a moment at the door, and marked how fresh and free
+the whole scene was&mdash;what sparkling bubbles glanced upon the
+waves, and welled up every moment to the surface, as though the
+world below, like that above, were radiant with the bright day,
+and gushing over in its fulness of light: when I gazed from sail
+to sail away upon a ship at sea, a tiny speck of shining white,
+the only cloud upon the still, deep, distant blue&mdash;and,
+turning, saw a blind boy with his sightless face addressed that
+way, as though he too had some sense within him of the glorious
+distance: I felt a kind of sorrow that the place should be so
+very light, and a strange wish that for his sake it were
+darker.&nbsp; It was but momentary, of course, and a mere fancy,
+but I felt it keenly for all that.</p>
+<p>The children were at their daily tasks in different rooms,
+except a few who were already dismissed, and were at play.&nbsp;
+Here, as in many institutions, no uniform is worn; and I was very
+glad of it, for two reasons.&nbsp; Firstly, because I am sure
+that nothing but senseless custom and want of thought would
+reconcile us to the liveries and badges we are so fond of at
+home.&nbsp; Secondly, because the absence of these things
+presents each child to the visitor in his or her own proper
+character, with its individuality unimpaired; not lost in a dull,
+ugly, monotonous repetition of the same unmeaning garb: which is
+really an important consideration.&nbsp; The wisdom of
+encouraging a little harmless pride in personal appearance even
+among the blind, or the whimsical absurdity of considering
+charity and leather breeches inseparable companions, as we do,
+requires no comment.</p>
+<p>Good order, cleanliness, and comfort, pervaded every corner of
+the building.&nbsp; The various classes, who were gathered round
+their teachers, answered the questions put to them with readiness
+and intelligence, and in a spirit of cheerful contest for
+precedence which pleased me very much.&nbsp; Those who were at
+play, were gleesome and noisy as other children.&nbsp; More
+spiritual and affectionate friendships appeared to exist among
+them, than would be found among other young persons suffering
+under no deprivation; but this I expected and was prepared to
+find.&nbsp; It is a part of the great scheme of Heaven&rsquo;s
+merciful consideration for the afflicted.</p>
+<p>In a portion of the building, set apart for that purpose, are
+work-shops for blind persons whose education is finished, and who
+have acquired a trade, but who cannot pursue it in an ordinary
+manufactory because of their deprivation.&nbsp; Several people
+were at work here; making brushes, mattresses, and so forth; and
+the cheerfulness, industry, and good order discernible in every
+other part of the building, extended to this department also.</p>
+<p>On the ringing of a bell, the pupils all repaired, without any
+guide or leader, to a spacious music-hall, where they took their
+seats in an orchestra erected for that purpose, and listened with
+manifest delight to a voluntary on the organ, played by one of
+themselves.&nbsp; At its conclusion, the performer, a boy of
+nineteen or twenty, gave place to a girl; and to her
+accompaniment they all sang a hymn, and afterwards a sort of
+chorus.&nbsp; It was very sad to look upon and hear them, happy
+though their condition unquestionably was; and I saw that one
+blind girl, who (being for the time deprived of the use of her
+limbs, by illness) sat close beside me with her face towards
+them, wept silently the while she listened.</p>
+<p>It is strange to watch the faces of the blind, and see how
+free they are from all concealment of what is passing in their
+thoughts; observing which, a man with eyes may blush to
+contemplate the mask he wears.&nbsp; Allowing for one shade of
+anxious expression which is never absent from their countenances,
+and the like of which we may readily detect in our own faces if
+we try to feel our way in the dark, every idea, as it rises
+within them, is expressed with the lightning&rsquo;s speed and
+nature&rsquo;s truth.&nbsp; If the company at a rout, or
+drawing-room at court, could only for one time be as unconscious
+of the eyes upon them as blind men and women are, what secrets
+would come out, and what a worker of hypocrisy this sight, the
+loss of which we so much pity, would appear to be!</p>
+<p>The thought occurred to me as I sat down in another room,
+before a girl, blind, deaf, and dumb; destitute of smell; and
+nearly so of taste: before a fair young creature with every human
+faculty, and hope, and power of goodness and affection, inclosed
+within her delicate frame, and but one outward sense&mdash;the
+sense of touch.&nbsp; There she was, before me; built up, as it
+were, in a marble cell, impervious to any ray of light, or
+particle of sound; with her poor white hand peeping through a
+chink in the wall, beckoning to some good man for help, that an
+Immortal soul might be awakened.</p>
+<p>Long before I looked upon her, the help had come.&nbsp; Her
+face was radiant with intelligence and pleasure.&nbsp; Her hair,
+braided by her own hands, was bound about a head, whose
+intellectual capacity and development were beautifully expressed
+in its graceful outline, and its broad open brow; her dress,
+arranged by herself, was a pattern of neatness and simplicity;
+the work she had knitted, lay beside her; her writing-book was on
+the desk she leaned upon.&mdash;From the mournful ruin of such
+bereavement, there had slowly risen up this gentle, tender,
+guileless, grateful-hearted being.</p>
+<p>Like other inmates of that house, she had a green ribbon bound
+round her eyelids.&nbsp; A doll she had dressed lay near upon the
+ground.&nbsp; I took it up, and saw that she had made a green
+fillet such as she wore herself, and fastened it about its mimic
+eyes.</p>
+<p>She was seated in a little enclosure, made by school-desks and
+forms, writing her daily journal.&nbsp; But soon finishing this
+pursuit, she engaged in an animated conversation with a teacher
+who sat beside her.&nbsp; This was a favourite mistress with the
+poor pupil.&nbsp; If she could see the face of her fair
+instructress, she would not love her less, I am sure.</p>
+<p>I have extracted a few disjointed fragments of her history,
+from an account, written by that one man who has made her what
+she is.&nbsp; It is a very beautiful and touching narrative; and
+I wish I could present it entire.</p>
+<p>Her name is Laura Bridgman.&nbsp; &lsquo;She was born in
+Hanover, New Hampshire, on the twenty-first of December,
+1829.&nbsp; She is described as having been a very sprightly and
+pretty infant, with bright blue eyes.&nbsp; She was, however, so
+puny and feeble until she was a year and a half old, that her
+parents hardly hoped to rear her.&nbsp; She was subject to severe
+fits, which seemed to rack her frame almost beyond her power of
+endurance: and life was held by the feeblest tenure: but when a
+year and a half old, she seemed to rally; the dangerous symptoms
+subsided; and at twenty months old, she was perfectly well.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Then her mental powers, hitherto stinted in their
+growth, rapidly developed themselves; and during the four months
+of health which she enjoyed, she appears (making due allowance
+for a fond mother&rsquo;s account) to have displayed a
+considerable degree of intelligence.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;But suddenly she sickened again; her disease raged with
+great violence during five weeks, when her eyes and ears were
+inflamed, suppurated, and their contents were discharged.&nbsp;
+But though sight and hearing were gone for ever, the poor
+child&rsquo;s sufferings were not ended.&nbsp; The fever raged
+during seven weeks; for five months she was kept in bed in a
+darkened room; it was a year before she could walk unsupported,
+and two years before she could sit up all day.&nbsp; It was now
+observed that her sense of smell was almost entirely destroyed;
+and, consequently, that her taste was much blunted.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;It was not until four years of age that the poor
+child&rsquo;s bodily health seemed restored, and she was able to
+enter upon her apprenticeship of life and the world.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;But what a situation was hers!&nbsp; The darkness and
+the silence of the tomb were around her: no mother&rsquo;s smile
+called forth her answering smile, no father&rsquo;s voice taught
+her to imitate his sounds:&mdash;they, brothers and sisters, were
+but forms of matter which resisted her touch, but which differed
+not from the furniture of the house, save in warmth, and in the
+power of locomotion; and not even in these respects from the dog
+and the cat.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;But the immortal spirit which had been implanted within
+her could not die, nor be maimed nor mutilated; and though most
+of its avenues of communication with the world were cut off, it
+began to manifest itself through the others.&nbsp; As soon as she
+could walk, she began to explore the room, and then the house;
+she became familiar with the form, density, weight, and heat, of
+every article she could lay her hands upon.&nbsp; She followed
+her mother, and felt her hands and arms, as she was occupied
+about the house; and her disposition to imitate, led her to
+repeat everything herself.&nbsp; She even learned to sew a
+little, and to knit.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>The reader will scarcely need to be told, however, that the
+opportunities of communicating with her, were very, very limited;
+and that the moral effects of her wretched state soon began to
+appear.&nbsp; Those who cannot be enlightened by reason, can only
+be controlled by force; and this, coupled with her great
+privations, must soon have reduced her to a worse condition than
+that of the beasts that perish, but for timely and unhoped-for
+aid.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;At this time, I was so fortunate as to hear of the
+child, and immediately hastened to Hanover to see her.&nbsp; I
+found her with a well-formed figure; a strongly-marked,
+nervous-sanguine temperament; a large and beautifully-shaped
+head; and the whole system in healthy action.&nbsp; The parents
+were easily induced to consent to her coming to Boston, and on
+the 4th of October, 1837, they brought her to the
+Institution.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;For a while, she was much bewildered; and after waiting
+about two weeks, until she became acquainted with her new
+locality, and somewhat familiar with the inmates, the attempt was
+made to give her knowledge of arbitrary signs, by which she could
+interchange thoughts with others.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;There was one of two ways to be adopted: either to go
+on to build up a language of signs on the basis of the natural
+language which she had already commenced herself, or to teach her
+the purely arbitrary language in common use: that is, to give her
+a sign for every individual thing, or to give her a knowledge of
+letters by combination of which she might express her idea of the
+existence, and the mode and condition of existence, of any
+thing.&nbsp; The former would have been easy, but very
+ineffectual; the latter seemed very difficult, but, if
+accomplished, very effectual.&nbsp; I determined therefore to try
+the latter.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;The first experiments were made by taking articles in
+common use, such as knives, forks, spoons, keys, &amp;c., and
+pasting upon them labels with their names printed in raised
+letters.&nbsp; These she felt very carefully, and soon, of
+course, distinguished that the crooked lines <i>spoon</i>,
+differed as much from the crooked lines <i>key</i>, as the spoon
+differed from the key in form.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Then small detached labels, with the same words printed
+upon them, were put into her hands; and she soon observed that
+they were similar to the ones pasted on the
+articles.&rsquo;&nbsp;&nbsp; She showed her perception of this
+similarity by laying the label <i>key</i> upon the key, and the
+label <i>spoon</i> upon the spoon.&nbsp; She was encouraged here
+by the natural sign of approbation, patting on the head.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;The same process was then repeated with all the
+articles which she could handle; and she very easily learned to
+place the proper labels upon them.&nbsp; It was evident, however,
+that the only intellectual exercise was that of imitation and
+memory.&nbsp; She recollected that the label <i>book</i> was
+placed upon a book, and she repeated the process first from
+imitation, next from memory, with only the motive of love of
+approbation, but apparently without the intellectual perception
+of any relation between the things.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;After a while, instead of labels, the individual
+letters were given to her on detached bits of paper: they were
+arranged side by side so as to spell <i>book</i>, <i>key</i>,
+&amp;c.; then they were mixed up in a heap and a sign was made
+for her to arrange them herself so as to express the words
+<i>book</i>, <i>key</i>, &amp;c.; and she did so.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Hitherto, the process had been mechanical, and the
+success about as great as teaching a very knowing dog a variety
+of tricks.&nbsp; The poor child had sat in mute amazement, and
+patiently imitated everything her teacher did; but now the truth
+began to flash upon her: her intellect began to work: she
+perceived that here was a way by which she could herself make up
+a sign of anything that was in her own mind, and show it to
+another mind; and at once her countenance lighted up with a human
+expression: it was no longer a dog, or parrot: it was an immortal
+spirit, eagerly seizing upon a new link of union with other
+spirits!&nbsp; I could almost fix upon the moment when this truth
+dawned upon her mind, and spread its light to her countenance; I
+saw that the great obstacle was overcome; and that henceforward
+nothing but patient and persevering, but plain and
+straightforward, efforts were to be used.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;The result thus far, is quickly related, and easily
+conceived; but not so was the process; for many weeks of
+apparently unprofitable labour were passed before it was
+effected.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;When it was said above that a sign was made, it was
+intended to say, that the action was performed by her teacher,
+she feeling his hands, and then imitating the motion.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;The next step was to procure a set of metal types, with
+the different letters of the alphabet cast upon their ends; also
+a board, in which were square holes, into which holes she could
+set the types; so that the letters on their ends could alone be
+felt above the surface.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Then, on any article being handed to her, for instance,
+a pencil, or a watch, she would select the component letters, and
+arrange them on her board, and read them with apparent
+pleasure.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;She was exercised for several weeks in this way, until
+her vocabulary became extensive; and then the important step was
+taken of teaching her how to represent the different letters by
+the position of her fingers, instead of the cumbrous apparatus of
+the board and types.&nbsp; She accomplished this speedily and
+easily, for her intellect had begun to work in aid of her
+teacher, and her progress was rapid.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;This was the period, about three months after she had
+commenced, that the first report of her case was made, in which
+it was stated that &ldquo;she has just learned the manual
+alphabet, as used by the deaf mutes, and it is a subject of
+delight and wonder to see how rapidly, correctly, and eagerly,
+she goes on with her labours.&nbsp; Her teacher gives her a new
+object, for instance, a pencil, first lets her examine it, and
+get an idea of its use, then teaches her how to spell it by
+making the signs for the letters with her own fingers: the child
+grasps her hand, and feels her fingers, as the different letters
+are formed; she turns her head a little on one side like a person
+listening closely; her lips are apart; she seems scarcely to
+breathe; and her countenance, at first anxious, gradually changes
+to a smile, as she comprehends the lesson.&nbsp; She then holds
+up her tiny fingers, and spells the word in the manual alphabet;
+next, she takes her types and arranges her letters; and last, to
+make sure that she is right, she takes the whole of the types
+composing the word, and places them upon or in contact with the
+pencil, or whatever the object may be.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;The whole of the succeeding year was passed in
+gratifying her eager inquiries for the names of every object
+which she could possibly handle; in exercising her in the use of
+the manual alphabet; in extending in every possible way her
+knowledge of the physical relations of things; and in proper care
+of her health.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;At the end of the year a report of her case was made,
+from which the following is an extract.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;&ldquo;It has been ascertained beyond the possibility
+of doubt, that she cannot see a ray of light, cannot hear the
+least sound, and never exercises her sense of smell, if she have
+any.&nbsp; Thus her mind dwells in darkness and stillness, as
+profound as that of a closed tomb at midnight.&nbsp; Of beautiful
+sights, and sweet sounds, and pleasant odours, she has no
+conception; nevertheless, she seems as happy and playful as a
+bird or a lamb; and the employment of her intellectual faculties,
+or the acquirement of a new idea, gives her a vivid pleasure,
+which is plainly marked in her expressive features.&nbsp; She
+never seems to repine, but has all the buoyancy and gaiety of
+childhood.&nbsp; She is fond of fun and frolic, and when playing
+with the rest of the children, her shrill laugh sounds loudest of
+the group.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;&ldquo;When left alone, she seems very happy if she
+have her knitting or sewing, and will busy herself for hours; if
+she have no occupation, she evidently amuses herself by imaginary
+dialogues, or by recalling past impressions; she counts with her
+fingers, or spells out names of things which she has recently
+learned, in the manual alphabet of the deaf mutes.&nbsp; In this
+lonely self-communion she seems to reason, reflect, and argue; if
+she spell a word wrong with the fingers of her right hand, she
+instantly strikes it with her left, as her teacher does, in sign
+of disapprobation; if right, then she pats herself upon the head,
+and looks pleased.&nbsp; She sometimes purposely spells a word
+wrong with the left hand, looks roguish for a moment and laughs,
+and then with the right hand strikes the left, as if to correct
+it.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;&ldquo;During the year she has attained great dexterity
+in the use of the manual alphabet of the deaf mutes; and she
+spells out the words and sentences which she knows, so fast and
+so deftly, that only those accustomed to this language can follow
+with the eye the rapid motions of her fingers.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;&ldquo;But wonderful as is the rapidity with which she
+writes her thoughts upon the air, still more so is the ease and
+accuracy with which she reads the words thus written by another;
+grasping their hands in hers, and following every movement of
+their fingers, as letter after letter conveys their meaning to
+her mind.&nbsp; It is in this way that she converses with her
+blind playmates, and nothing can more forcibly show the power of
+mind in forcing matter to its purpose than a meeting between
+them.&nbsp; For if great talent and skill are necessary for two
+pantomimes to paint their thoughts and feelings by the movements
+of the body, and the expression of the countenance, how much
+greater the difficulty when darkness shrouds them both, and the
+one can hear no sound.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;&ldquo;When Laura is walking through a passage-way,
+with her hands spread before her, she knows instantly every one
+she meets, and passes them with a sign of recognition: but if it
+be a girl of her own age, and especially if it be one of her
+favourites, there is instantly a bright smile of recognition, a
+twining of arms, a grasping of hands, and a swift telegraphing
+upon the tiny fingers; whose rapid evolutions convey the thoughts
+and feelings from the outposts of one mind to those of the
+other.&nbsp; There are questions and answers, exchanges of joy or
+sorrow, there are kissings and partings, just as between little
+children with all their senses.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;During this year, and six months after she had left
+home, her mother came to visit her, and the scene of their
+meeting was an interesting one.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;The mother stood some time, gazing with overflowing
+eyes upon her unfortunate child, who, all unconscious of her
+presence, was playing about the room.&nbsp; Presently Laura ran
+against her, and at once began feeling her hands, examining her
+dress, and trying to find out if she knew her; but not succeeding
+in this, she turned away as from a stranger, and the poor woman
+could not conceal the pang she felt, at finding that her beloved
+child did not know her.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;She then gave Laura a string of beads which she used to
+wear at home, which were recognised by the child at once, who,
+with much joy, put them around her neck, and sought me eagerly to
+say she understood the string was from her home.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;The mother now sought to caress her, but poor Laura
+repelled her, preferring to be with her acquaintances.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Another article from home was now given her, and she
+began to look much interested; she examined the stranger much
+closer, and gave me to understand that she knew she came from
+Hanover; she even endured her caresses, but would leave her with
+indifference at the slightest signal.&nbsp; The distress of the
+mother was now painful to behold; for, although she had feared
+that she should not be recognised, the painful reality of being
+treated with cold indifference by a darling child, was too much
+for woman&rsquo;s nature to bear.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;After a while, on the mother taking hold of her again,
+a vague idea seemed to flit across Laura&rsquo;s mind, that this
+could not be a stranger; she therefore felt her hands very
+eagerly, while her countenance assumed an expression of intense
+interest; she became very pale; and then suddenly red; hope
+seemed struggling with doubt and anxiety, and never were
+contending emotions more strongly painted upon the human face: at
+this moment of painful uncertainty, the mother drew her close to
+her side, and kissed her fondly, when at once the truth flashed
+upon the child, and all mistrust and anxiety disappeared from her
+face, as with an expression of exceeding joy she eagerly nestled
+to the bosom of her parent, and yielded herself to her fond
+embraces.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;After this, the beads were all unheeded; the playthings
+which were offered to her were utterly disregarded; her
+playmates, for whom but a moment before she gladly left the
+stranger, now vainly strove to pull her from her mother; and
+though she yielded her usual instantaneous obedience to my signal
+to follow me, it was evidently with painful reluctance.&nbsp; She
+clung close to me, as if bewildered and fearful; and when, after
+a moment, I took her to her mother, she sprang to her arms, and
+clung to her with eager joy.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;The subsequent parting between them, showed alike the
+affection, the intelligence, and the resolution of the child.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Laura accompanied her mother to the door, clinging
+close to her all the way, until they arrived at the threshold,
+where she paused, and felt around, to ascertain who was near
+her.&nbsp; Perceiving the matron, of whom she is very fond, she
+grasped her with one hand, holding on convulsively to her mother
+with the other; and thus she stood for a moment: then she dropped
+her mother&rsquo;s hand; put her handkerchief to her eyes; and
+turning round, clung sobbing to the matron; while her mother
+departed, with emotions as deep as those of her child.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">* * * * * *</p>
+<p>&lsquo;It has been remarked in former reports, that she can
+distinguish different degrees of intellect in others, and that
+she soon regarded, almost with contempt, a new-comer, when, after
+a few days, she discovered her weakness of mind.&nbsp; This
+unamiable part of her character has been more strongly developed
+during the past year.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;She chooses for her friends and companions, those
+children who are intelligent, and can talk best with her; and she
+evidently dislikes to be with those who are deficient in
+intellect, unless, indeed, she can make them serve her purposes,
+which she is evidently inclined to do.&nbsp; She takes advantage
+of them, and makes them wait upon her, in a manner that she knows
+she could not exact of others; and in various ways shows her
+Saxon blood.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;She is fond of having other children noticed and
+caressed by the teachers, and those whom she respects; but this
+must not be carried too far, or she becomes jealous.&nbsp; She
+wants to have her share, which, if not the lion&rsquo;s, is the
+greater part; and if she does not get it, she says, &ldquo;<i>My
+mother will love me</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Her tendency to imitation is so strong, that it leads
+her to actions which must be entirely incomprehensible to her,
+and which can give her no other pleasure than the gratification
+of an internal faculty.&nbsp; She has been known to sit for half
+an hour, holding a book before her sightless eyes, and moving her
+lips, as she has observed seeing people do when reading.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;She one day pretended that her doll was sick; and went
+through all the motions of tending it, and giving it medicine;
+she then put it carefully to bed, and placed a bottle of hot
+water to its feet, laughing all the time most heartily.&nbsp;
+When I came home, she insisted upon my going to see it, and feel
+its pulse; and when I told her to put a blister on its back, she
+seemed to enjoy it amazingly, and almost screamed with
+delight.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Her social feelings, and her affections, are very
+strong; and when she is sitting at work, or at her studies, by
+the side of one of her little friends, she will break off from
+her task every few moments, to hug and kiss them with an
+earnestness and warmth that is touching to behold.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;When left alone, she occupies and apparently amuses
+herself, and seems quite contented; and so strong seems to be the
+natural tendency of thought to put on the garb of language, that
+she often soliloquizes in the <i>finger language</i>, slow and
+tedious as it is.&nbsp; But it is only when alone, that she is
+quiet: for if she becomes sensible of the presence of any one
+near her, she is restless until she can sit close beside them,
+hold their hand, and converse with them by signs.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;In her intellectual character it is pleasing to observe
+an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and a quick perception of the
+relations of things.&nbsp; In her moral character, it is
+beautiful to behold her continual gladness, her keen enjoyment of
+existence, her expansive love, her unhesitating confidence, her
+sympathy with suffering, her conscientiousness, truthfulness, and
+hopefulness.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Such are a few fragments from the simple but most interesting
+and instructive history of Laura Bridgman.&nbsp; The name of her
+great benefactor and friend, who writes it, is Dr. Howe.&nbsp;
+There are not many persons, I hope and believe, who, after
+reading these passages, can ever hear that name with
+indifference.</p>
+<p>A further account has been published by Dr. Howe, since the
+report from which I have just quoted.&nbsp; It describes her
+rapid mental growth and improvement during twelve months more,
+and brings her little history down to the end of last year.&nbsp;
+It is very remarkable, that as we dream in words, and carry on
+imaginary conversations, in which we speak both for ourselves and
+for the shadows who appear to us in those visions of the night,
+so she, having no words, uses her finger alphabet in her
+sleep.&nbsp; And it has been ascertained that when her slumber is
+broken, and is much disturbed by dreams, she expresses her
+thoughts in an irregular and confused manner on her fingers: just
+as we should murmur and mutter them indistinctly, in the like
+circumstances.</p>
+<p>I turned over the leaves of her Diary, and found it written in
+a fair legible square hand, and expressed in terms which were
+quite intelligible without any explanation.&nbsp; On my saying
+that I should like to see her write again, the teacher who sat
+beside her, bade her, in their language, sign her name upon a
+slip of paper, twice or thrice.&nbsp; In doing so, I observed
+that she kept her left hand always touching, and following up,
+her right, in which, of course, she held the pen.&nbsp; No line
+was indicated by any contrivance, but she wrote straight and
+freely.</p>
+<p>She had, until now, been quite unconscious of the presence of
+visitors; but, having her hand placed in that of the gentleman
+who accompanied me, she immediately expressed his name upon her
+teacher&rsquo;s palm.&nbsp; Indeed her sense of touch is now so
+exquisite, that having been acquainted with a person once, she
+can recognise him or her after almost any interval.&nbsp; This
+gentleman had been in her company, I believe, but very seldom,
+and certainly had not seen her for many months.&nbsp; My hand she
+rejected at once, as she does that of any man who is a stranger
+to her.&nbsp; But she retained my wife&rsquo;s with evident
+pleasure, kissed her, and examined her dress with a girl&rsquo;s
+curiosity and interest.</p>
+<p>She was merry and cheerful, and showed much innocent
+playfulness in her intercourse with her teacher.&nbsp; Her
+delight on recognising a favourite playfellow and
+companion&mdash;herself a blind girl&mdash;who silently, and with
+an equal enjoyment of the coming surprise, took a seat beside
+her, was beautiful to witness.&nbsp; It elicited from her at
+first, as other slight circumstances did twice or thrice during
+my visit, an uncouth noise which was rather painful to
+hear.&nbsp; But of her teacher touching her lips, she immediately
+desisted, and embraced her laughingly and affectionately.</p>
+<p>I had previously been into another chamber, where a number of
+blind boys were swinging, and climbing, and engaged in various
+sports.&nbsp; They all clamoured, as we entered, to the
+assistant-master, who accompanied us, &lsquo;Look at me, Mr.
+Hart!&nbsp; Please, Mr. Hart, look at me!&rsquo; evincing, I
+thought, even in this, an anxiety peculiar to their condition,
+that their little feats of agility should be <i>seen</i>.&nbsp;
+Among them was a small laughing fellow, who stood aloof,
+entertaining himself with a gymnastic exercise for bringing the
+arms and chest into play; which he enjoyed mightily; especially
+when, in thrusting out his right arm, he brought it into contact
+with another boy.&nbsp; Like Laura Bridgman, this young child was
+deaf, and dumb, and blind.</p>
+<p>Dr. Howe&rsquo;s account of this pupil&rsquo;s first
+instruction is so very striking, and so intimately connected with
+Laura herself, that I cannot refrain from a short extract.&nbsp;
+I may premise that the poor boy&rsquo;s name is Oliver Caswell;
+that he is thirteen years of age; and that he was in full
+possession of all his faculties, until three years and four
+months old.&nbsp; He was then attacked by scarlet fever; in four
+weeks became deaf; in a few weeks more, blind; in six months,
+dumb.&nbsp; He showed his anxious sense of this last deprivation,
+by often feeling the lips of other persons when they were
+talking, and then putting his hand upon his own, as if to assure
+himself that he had them in the right position.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;His thirst for knowledge,&rsquo; says Dr. Howe,
+&lsquo;proclaimed itself as soon as he entered the house, by his
+eager examination of everything he could feel or smell in his new
+location.&nbsp; For instance, treading upon the register of a
+furnace, he instantly stooped down, and began to feel it, and
+soon discovered the way in which the upper plate moved upon the
+lower one; but this was not enough for him, so lying down upon
+his face, he applied his tongue first to one, then to the other,
+and seemed to discover that they were of different kinds of
+metal.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;His signs were expressive: and the strictly natural
+language, laughing, crying, sighing, kissing, embracing, &amp;c.,
+was perfect.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Some of the analogical signs which (guided by his
+faculty of imitation) he had contrived, were comprehensible; such
+as the waving motion of his hand for the motion of a boat, the
+circular one for a wheel, &amp;c.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;The first object was to break up the use of these signs
+and to substitute for them the use of purely arbitrary ones.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Profiting by the experience I had gained in the other
+cases, I omitted several steps of the process before employed,
+and commenced at once with the finger language.&nbsp; Taking,
+therefore, several articles having short names, such as key, cup,
+mug, &amp;c., and with Laura for an auxiliary, I sat down, and
+taking his hand, placed it upon one of them, and then with my
+own, made the letters <i>key</i>.&nbsp; He felt my hands eagerly
+with both of his, and on my repeating the process, he evidently
+tried to imitate the motions of my fingers.&nbsp; In a few
+minutes he contrived to feel the motions of my fingers with one
+hand, and holding out the other he tried to imitate them,
+laughing most heartily when he succeeded.&nbsp; Laura was by,
+interested even to agitation; and the two presented a singular
+sight: her face was flushed and anxious, and her fingers twining
+in among ours so closely as to follow every motion, but so
+slightly as not to embarrass them; while Oliver stood attentive,
+his head a little aside, his face turned up, his left hand
+grasping mine, and his right held out: at every motion of my
+fingers his countenance betokened keen attention; there was an
+expression of anxiety as he tried to imitate the motions; then a
+smile came stealing out as he thought he could do so, and spread
+into a joyous laugh the moment he succeeded, and felt me pat his
+head, and Laura clap him heartily upon the back, and jump up and
+down in her joy.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;He learned more than a half-dozen letters in half an
+hour, and seemed delighted with his success, at least in gaining
+approbation.&nbsp; His attention then began to flag, and I
+commenced playing with him.&nbsp; It was evident that in all this
+he had merely been imitating the motions of my fingers, and
+placing his hand upon the key, cup, &amp;c., as part of the
+process, without any perception of the relation between the sign
+and the object.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;When he was tired with play I took him back to the
+table, and he was quite ready to begin again his process of
+imitation.&nbsp; He soon learned to make the letters for
+<i>key</i>, <i>pen</i>, <i>pin</i>; and by having the object
+repeatedly placed in his hand, he at last perceived the relation
+I wished to establish between them.&nbsp; This was evident,
+because, when I made the letters <i>pin</i>, or <i>pen</i>, or
+<i>cup</i>, he would select the article.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;The perception of this relation was not accompanied by
+that radiant flash of intelligence, and that glow of joy, which
+marked the delightful moment when Laura first perceived it.&nbsp;
+I then placed all the articles on the table, and going away a
+little distance with the children, placed Oliver&rsquo;s fingers
+in the positions to spell <i>key</i>, on which Laura went and
+brought the article: the little fellow seemed much amused by
+this, and looked very attentive and smiling.&nbsp; I then caused
+him to make the letters <i>bread</i>, and in an instant Laura
+went and brought him a piece: he smelled at it; put it to his
+lips; cocked up his head with a most knowing look; seemed to
+reflect a moment; and then laughed outright, as much as to say,
+&ldquo;Aha!&nbsp; I understand now how something may be made out
+of this.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;It was now clear that he had the capacity and
+inclination to learn, that he was a proper subject for
+instruction, and needed only persevering attention.&nbsp; I
+therefore put him in the hands of an intelligent teacher, nothing
+doubting of his rapid progress.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Well may this gentleman call that a delightful moment, in
+which some distant promise of her present state first gleamed
+upon the darkened mind of Laura Bridgman.&nbsp; Throughout his
+life, the recollection of that moment will be to him a source of
+pure, unfading happiness; nor will it shine less brightly on the
+evening of his days of Noble Usefulness.</p>
+<p>The affection which exists between these two&mdash;the master
+and the pupil&mdash;is as far removed from all ordinary care and
+regard, as the circumstances in which it has had its growth, are
+apart from the common occurrences of life.&nbsp; He is occupied
+now, in devising means of imparting to her, higher knowledge; and
+of conveying to her some adequate idea of the Great Creator of
+that universe in which, dark and silent and scentless though it
+be to her, she has such deep delight and glad enjoyment.</p>
+<p>Ye who have eyes and see not, and have ears and hear not; ye
+who are as the hypocrites of sad countenances, and disfigure your
+faces that ye may seem unto men to fast; learn healthy
+cheerfulness, and mild contentment, from the deaf, and dumb, and
+blind!&nbsp; Self-elected saints with gloomy brows, this
+sightless, earless, voiceless child may teach you lessons you
+will do well to follow.&nbsp; Let that poor hand of hers lie
+gently on your hearts; for there may be something in its healing
+touch akin to that of the Great Master whose precepts you
+misconstrue, whose lessons you pervert, of whose charity and
+sympathy with all the world, not one among you in his daily
+practice knows as much as many of the worst among those fallen
+sinners, to whom you are liberal in nothing but the preachment of
+perdition!</p>
+<p>As I rose to quit the room, a pretty little child of one of
+the attendants came running in to greet its father.&nbsp; For the
+moment, a child with eyes, among the sightless crowd, impressed
+me almost as painfully as the blind boy in the porch had done,
+two hours ago.&nbsp; Ah! how much brighter and more deeply blue,
+glowing and rich though it had been before, was the scene
+without, contrasting with the darkness of so many youthful lives
+within!</p>
+<div class="gapshortline">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>At <span class="smcap">South Boston</span>, as it is called,
+in a situation excellently adapted for the purpose, several
+charitable institutions are clustered together.&nbsp; One of
+these, is the State Hospital for the insane; admirably conducted
+on those enlightened principles of conciliation and kindness,
+which twenty years ago would have been worse than heretical, and
+which have been acted upon with so much success in our own pauper
+Asylum at Hanwell.&nbsp; &lsquo;Evince a desire to show some
+confidence, and repose some trust, even in mad people,&rsquo;
+said the resident physician, as we walked along the galleries,
+his patients flocking round us unrestrained.&nbsp; Of those who
+deny or doubt the wisdom of this maxim after witnessing its
+effects, if there be such people still alive, I can only say that
+I hope I may never be summoned as a Juryman on a Commission of
+Lunacy whereof they are the subjects; for I should certainly find
+them out of their senses, on such evidence alone.</p>
+<p>Each ward in this institution is shaped like a long gallery or
+hall, with the dormitories of the patients opening from it on
+either hand.&nbsp; Here they work, read, play at skittles, and
+other games; and when the weather does not admit of their taking
+exercise out of doors, pass the day together.&nbsp; In one of
+these rooms, seated, calmly, and quite as a matter of course,
+among a throng of mad-women, black and white, were the
+physician&rsquo;s wife and another lady, with a couple of
+children.&nbsp; These ladies were graceful and handsome; and it
+was not difficult to perceive at a glance that even their
+presence there, had a highly beneficial influence on the patients
+who were grouped about them.</p>
+<p>Leaning her head against the chimney-piece, with a great
+assumption of dignity and refinement of manner, sat an elderly
+female, in as many scraps of finery as Madge Wildfire
+herself.&nbsp; Her head in particular was so strewn with scraps
+of gauze and cotton and bits of paper, and had so many queer odds
+and ends stuck all about it, that it looked like a
+bird&rsquo;s-nest.&nbsp; She was radiant with imaginary jewels;
+wore a rich pair of undoubted gold spectacles; and gracefully
+dropped upon her lap, as we approached, a very old greasy
+newspaper, in which I dare say she had been reading an account of
+her own presentation at some Foreign Court.</p>
+<p>I have been thus particular in describing her, because she
+will serve to exemplify the physician&rsquo;s manner of acquiring
+and retaining the confidence of his patients.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;This,&rsquo; he said aloud, taking me by the hand, and
+advancing to the fantastic figure with great politeness&mdash;not
+raising her suspicions by the slightest look or whisper, or any
+kind of aside, to me: &lsquo;This lady is the hostess of this
+mansion, sir.&nbsp; It belongs to her.&nbsp; Nobody else has
+anything whatever to do with it.&nbsp; It is a large
+establishment, as you see, and requires a great number of
+attendants.&nbsp; She lives, you observe, in the very first
+style.&nbsp; She is kind enough to receive my visits, and to
+permit my wife and family to reside here; for which it is hardly
+necessary to say, we are much indebted to her.&nbsp; She is
+exceedingly courteous, you perceive,&rsquo; on this hint she
+bowed condescendingly, &lsquo;and will permit me to have the
+pleasure of introducing you: a gentleman from England,
+Ma&rsquo;am: newly arrived from England, after a very tempestuous
+passage: Mr. Dickens,&mdash;the lady of the house!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>We exchanged the most dignified salutations with profound
+gravity and respect, and so went on.&nbsp; The rest of the
+madwomen seemed to understand the joke perfectly (not only in
+this case, but in all the others, except their own), and be
+highly amused by it.&nbsp; The nature of their several kinds of
+insanity was made known to me in the same way, and we left each
+of them in high good humour.&nbsp; Not only is a thorough
+confidence established, by those means, between the physician and
+patient, in respect of the nature and extent of their
+hallucinations, but it is easy to understand that opportunities
+are afforded for seizing any moment of reason, to startle them by
+placing their own delusion before them in its most incongruous
+and ridiculous light.</p>
+<p>Every patient in this asylum sits down to dinner every day
+with a knife and fork; and in the midst of them sits the
+gentleman, whose manner of dealing with his charges, I have just
+described.&nbsp; At every meal, moral influence alone restrains
+the more violent among them from cutting the throats of the rest;
+but the effect of that influence is reduced to an absolute
+certainty, and is found, even as a means of restraint, to say
+nothing of it as a means of cure, a hundred times more
+efficacious than all the strait-waistcoats, fetters, and
+handcuffs, that ignorance, prejudice, and cruelty have
+manufactured since the creation of the world.</p>
+<p>In the labour department, every patient is as freely trusted
+with the tools of his trade as if he were a sane man.&nbsp; In
+the garden, and on the farm, they work with spades, rakes, and
+hoes.&nbsp; For amusement, they walk, run, fish, paint, read, and
+ride out to take the air in carriages provided for the
+purpose.&nbsp; They have among themselves a sewing society to
+make clothes for the poor, which holds meetings, passes
+resolutions, never comes to fisty-cuffs or bowie-knives as sane
+assemblies have been known to do elsewhere; and conducts all its
+proceedings with the greatest decorum.&nbsp; The irritability,
+which would otherwise be expended on their own flesh, clothes,
+and furniture, is dissipated in these pursuits.&nbsp; They are
+cheerful, tranquil, and healthy.</p>
+<p>Once a week they have a ball, in which the Doctor and his
+family, with all the nurses and attendants, take an active
+part.&nbsp; Dances and marches are performed alternately, to the
+enlivening strains of a piano; and now and then some gentleman or
+lady (whose proficiency has been previously ascertained) obliges
+the company with a song: nor does it ever degenerate, at a tender
+crisis, into a screech or howl; wherein, I must confess, I should
+have thought the danger lay.&nbsp; At an early hour they all meet
+together for these festive purposes; at eight o&rsquo;clock
+refreshments are served; and at nine they separate.</p>
+<p>Immense politeness and good breeding are observed
+throughout.&nbsp; They all take their tone from the Doctor; and
+he moves a very Chesterfield among the company.&nbsp; Like other
+assemblies, these entertainments afford a fruitful topic of
+conversation among the ladies for some days; and the gentlemen
+are so anxious to shine on these occasions, that they have been
+sometimes found &lsquo;practising their steps&rsquo; in private,
+to cut a more distinguished figure in the dance.</p>
+<p>It is obvious that one great feature of this system, is the
+inculcation and encouragement, even among such unhappy persons,
+of a decent self-respect.&nbsp; Something of the same spirit
+pervades all the Institutions at South Boston.</p>
+<p>There is the House of Industry.&nbsp; In that branch of it,
+which is devoted to the reception of old or otherwise helpless
+paupers, these words are painted on the walls: &lsquo;<span
+class="smcap">Worthy Of Notice</span>.&nbsp; <span
+class="smcap">Self-Government</span>, <span
+class="smcap">Quietude</span>, <span class="smcap">and
+Peace</span>, <span class="smcap">are
+Blessings</span>.&rsquo;&nbsp; It is not assumed and taken for
+granted that being there they must be evil-disposed and wicked
+people, before whose vicious eyes it is necessary to flourish
+threats and harsh restraints.&nbsp; They are met at the very
+threshold with this mild appeal.&nbsp; All within-doors is very
+plain and simple, as it ought to be, but arranged with a view to
+peace and comfort.&nbsp; It costs no more than any other plan of
+arrangement, but it speaks an amount of consideration for those
+who are reduced to seek a shelter there, which puts them at once
+upon their gratitude and good behaviour.&nbsp; Instead of being
+parcelled out in great, long, rambling wards, where a certain
+amount of weazen life may mope, and pine, and shiver, all day
+long, the building is divided into separate rooms, each with its
+share of light and air.&nbsp; In these, the better kind of
+paupers live.&nbsp; They have a motive for exertion and becoming
+pride, in the desire to make these little chambers comfortable
+and decent.</p>
+<p>I do not remember one but it was clean and neat, and had its
+plant or two upon the window-sill, or row of crockery upon the
+shelf, or small display of coloured prints upon the whitewashed
+wall, or, perhaps, its wooden clock behind the door.</p>
+<p>The orphans and young children are in an adjoining building
+separate from this, but a part of the same Institution.&nbsp;
+Some are such little creatures, that the stairs are of
+Lilliputian measurement, fitted to their tiny strides.&nbsp; The
+same consideration for their years and weakness is expressed in
+their very seats, which are perfect curiosities, and look like
+articles of furniture for a pauper doll&rsquo;s-house.&nbsp; I
+can imagine the glee of our Poor Law Commissioners at the notion
+of these seats having arms and backs; but small spines being of
+older date than their occupation of the Board-room at Somerset
+House, I thought even this provision very merciful and kind.</p>
+<p>Here again, I was greatly pleased with the inscriptions on the
+wall, which were scraps of plain morality, easily remembered and
+understood: such as &lsquo;Love one
+another&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;God remembers the smallest creature
+in his creation:&rsquo; and straightforward advice of that
+nature.&nbsp; The books and tasks of these smallest of scholars,
+were adapted, in the same judicious manner, to their childish
+powers.&nbsp; When we had examined these lessons, four morsels of
+girls (of whom one was blind) sang a little song, about the merry
+month of May, which I thought (being extremely dismal) would have
+suited an English November better.&nbsp; That done, we went to
+see their sleeping-rooms on the floor above, in which the
+arrangements were no less excellent and gentle than those we had
+seen below.&nbsp; And after observing that the teachers were of a
+class and character well suited to the spirit of the place, I
+took leave of the infants with a lighter heart than ever I have
+taken leave of pauper infants yet.</p>
+<p>Connected with the House of Industry, there is also an
+Hospital, which was in the best order, and had, I am glad to say,
+many beds unoccupied.&nbsp; It had one fault, however, which is
+common to all American interiors: the presence of the eternal,
+accursed, suffocating, red-hot demon of a stove, whose breath
+would blight the purest air under Heaven.</p>
+<p>There are two establishments for boys in this same
+neighbourhood.&nbsp; One is called the Boylston school, and is an
+asylum for neglected and indigent boys who have committed no
+crime, but who in the ordinary course of things would very soon
+be purged of that distinction if they were not taken from the
+hungry streets and sent here.&nbsp; The other is a House of
+Reformation for Juvenile Offenders.&nbsp; They are both under the
+same roof, but the two classes of boys never come in contact.</p>
+<p>The Boylston boys, as may be readily supposed, have very much
+the advantage of the others in point of personal
+appearance.&nbsp; They were in their school-room when I came upon
+them, and answered correctly, without book, such questions as
+where was England; how far was it; what was its population; its
+capital city; its form of government; and so forth.&nbsp; They
+sang a song too, about a farmer sowing his seed: with
+corresponding action at such parts as &lsquo;&rsquo;tis thus he
+sows,&rsquo; &lsquo;he turns him round,&rsquo; &lsquo;he claps
+his hands;&rsquo; which gave it greater interest for them, and
+accustomed them to act together, in an orderly manner.&nbsp; They
+appeared exceedingly well-taught, and not better taught than fed;
+for a more chubby-looking full-waistcoated set of boys, I never
+saw.</p>
+<p>The juvenile offenders had not such pleasant faces by a great
+deal, and in this establishment there were many boys of
+colour.&nbsp; I saw them first at their work (basket-making, and
+the manufacture of palm-leaf hats), afterwards in their school,
+where they sang a chorus in praise of Liberty: an odd, and, one
+would think, rather aggravating, theme for prisoners.&nbsp; These
+boys are divided into four classes, each denoted by a numeral,
+worn on a badge upon the arm.&nbsp; On the arrival of a
+new-comer, he is put into the fourth or lowest class, and left,
+by good behaviour, to work his way up into the first.&nbsp; The
+design and object of this Institution is to reclaim the youthful
+criminal by firm but kind and judicious treatment; to make his
+prison a place of purification and improvement, not of
+demoralisation and corruption; to impress upon him that there is
+but one path, and that one sober industry, which can ever lead
+him to happiness; to teach him how it may be trodden, if his
+footsteps have never yet been led that way; and to lure him back
+to it if they have strayed: in a word, to snatch him from
+destruction, and restore him to society a penitent and useful
+member.&nbsp; The importance of such an establishment, in every
+point of view, and with reference to every consideration of
+humanity and social policy, requires no comment.</p>
+<p>One other establishment closes the catalogue.&nbsp; It is the
+House of Correction for the State, in which silence is strictly
+maintained, but where the prisoners have the comfort and mental
+relief of seeing each other, and of working together.&nbsp; This
+is the improved system of Prison Discipline which we have
+imported into England, and which has been in successful operation
+among us for some years past.</p>
+<p>America, as a new and not over-populated country, has in all
+her prisons, the one great advantage, of being enabled to find
+useful and profitable work for the inmates; whereas, with us, the
+prejudice against prison labour is naturally very strong, and
+almost insurmountable, when honest men who have not offended
+against the laws are frequently doomed to seek employment in
+vain.&nbsp; Even in the United States, the principle of bringing
+convict labour and free labour into a competition which must
+obviously be to the disadvantage of the latter, has already found
+many opponents, whose number is not likely to diminish with
+access of years.</p>
+<p>For this very reason though, our best prisons would seem at
+the first glance to be better conducted than those of
+America.&nbsp; The treadmill is conducted with little or no
+noise; five hundred men may pick oakum in the same room, without
+a sound; and both kinds of labour admit of such keen and vigilant
+superintendence, as will render even a word of personal
+communication amongst the prisoners almost impossible.&nbsp; On
+the other hand, the noise of the loom, the forge, the
+carpenter&rsquo;s hammer, or the stonemason&rsquo;s saw, greatly
+favour those opportunities of intercourse&mdash;hurried and brief
+no doubt, but opportunities still&mdash;which these several kinds
+of work, by rendering it necessary for men to be employed very
+near to each other, and often side by side, without any barrier
+or partition between them, in their very nature present.&nbsp; A
+visitor, too, requires to reason and reflect a little, before the
+sight of a number of men engaged in ordinary labour, such as he
+is accustomed to out of doors, will impress him half as strongly
+as the contemplation of the same persons in the same place and
+garb would, if they were occupied in some task, marked and
+degraded everywhere as belonging only to felons in jails.&nbsp;
+In an American state prison or house of correction, I found it
+difficult at first to persuade myself that I was really in a
+jail: a place of ignominious punishment and endurance.&nbsp; And
+to this hour I very much question whether the humane boast that
+it is not like one, has its root in the true wisdom or philosophy
+of the matter.</p>
+<p>I hope I may not be misunderstood on this subject, for it is
+one in which I take a strong and deep interest.&nbsp; I incline
+as little to the sickly feeling which makes every canting lie or
+maudlin speech of a notorious criminal a subject of newspaper
+report and general sympathy, as I do to those good old customs of
+the good old times which made England, even so recently as in the
+reign of the Third King George, in respect of her criminal code
+and her prison regulations, one of the most bloody-minded and
+barbarous countries on the earth.&nbsp; If I thought it would do
+any good to the rising generation, I would cheerfully give my
+consent to the disinterment of the bones of any genteel
+highwayman (the more genteel, the more cheerfully), and to their
+exposure, piecemeal, on any sign-post, gate, or gibbet, that
+might be deemed a good elevation for the purpose.&nbsp; My reason
+is as well convinced that these gentry were as utterly worthless
+and debauched villains, as it is that the laws and jails hardened
+them in their evil courses, or that their wonderful escapes were
+effected by the prison-turnkeys who, in those admirable days, had
+always been felons themselves, and were, to the last, their
+bosom-friends and pot-companions.&nbsp; At the same time I know,
+as all men do or should, that the subject of Prison Discipline is
+one of the highest importance to any community; and that in her
+sweeping reform and bright example to other countries on this
+head, America has shown great wisdom, great benevolence, and
+exalted policy.&nbsp; In contrasting her system with that which
+we have modelled upon it, I merely seek to show that with all its
+drawbacks, ours has some advantages of its own.</p>
+<p>The House of Correction which has led to these remarks, is not
+walled, like other prisons, but is palisaded round about with
+tall rough stakes, something after the manner of an enclosure for
+keeping elephants in, as we see it represented in Eastern prints
+and pictures.&nbsp; The prisoners wear a parti-coloured dress;
+and those who are sentenced to hard labour, work at nail-making,
+or stone-cutting.&nbsp; When I was there, the latter class of
+labourers were employed upon the stone for a new custom-house in
+course of erection at Boston.&nbsp; They appeared to shape it
+skilfully and with expedition, though there were very few among
+them (if any) who had not acquired the art within the prison
+gates.</p>
+<p>The women, all in one large room, were employed in making
+light clothing, for New Orleans and the Southern States.&nbsp;
+They did their work in silence like the men; and like them were
+over-looked by the person contracting for their labour, or by
+some agent of his appointment.&nbsp; In addition to this, they
+are every moment liable to be visited by the prison officers
+appointed for that purpose.</p>
+<p>The arrangements for cooking, washing of clothes, and so
+forth, are much upon the plan of those I have seen at home.&nbsp;
+Their mode of bestowing the prisoners at night (which is of
+general adoption) differs from ours, and is both simple and
+effective.&nbsp; In the centre of a lofty area, lighted by
+windows in the four walls, are five tiers of cells, one above the
+other; each tier having before it a light iron gallery,
+attainable by stairs of the same construction and material:
+excepting the lower one, which is on the ground.&nbsp; Behind
+these, back to back with them and facing the opposite wall, are
+five corresponding rows of cells, accessible by similar means: so
+that supposing the prisoners locked up in their cells, an officer
+stationed on the ground, with his back to the wall, has half
+their number under his eye at once; the remaining half being
+equally under the observation of another officer on the opposite
+side; and all in one great apartment.&nbsp; Unless this watch be
+corrupted or sleeping on his post, it is impossible for a man to
+escape; for even in the event of his forcing the iron door of his
+cell without noise (which is exceedingly improbable), the moment
+he appears outside, and steps into that one of the five galleries
+on which it is situated, he must be plainly and fully visible to
+the officer below.&nbsp; Each of these cells holds a small
+truckle bed, in which one prisoner sleeps; never more.&nbsp; It
+is small, of course; and the door being not solid, but grated,
+and without blind or curtain, the prisoner within is at all times
+exposed to the observation and inspection of any guard who may
+pass along that tier at any hour or minute of the night.&nbsp;
+Every day, the prisoners receive their dinner, singly, through a
+trap in the kitchen wall; and each man carries his to his
+sleeping cell to eat it, where he is locked up, alone, for that
+purpose, one hour.&nbsp; The whole of this arrangement struck me
+as being admirable; and I hope that the next new prison we erect
+in England may be built on this plan.</p>
+<p>I was given to understand that in this prison no swords or
+fire-arms, or even cudgels, are kept; nor is it probable that, so
+long as its present excellent management continues, any weapon,
+offensive or defensive, will ever be required within its
+bounds.</p>
+<p>Such are the Institutions at South Boston!&nbsp; In all of
+them, the unfortunate or degenerate citizens of the State are
+carefully instructed in their duties both to God and man; are
+surrounded by all reasonable means of comfort and happiness that
+their condition will admit of; are appealed to, as members of the
+great human family, however afflicted, indigent, or fallen; are
+ruled by the strong Heart, and not by the strong (though
+immeasurably weaker) Hand.&nbsp; I have described them at some
+length; firstly, because their worth demanded it; and secondly,
+because I mean to take them for a model, and to content myself
+with saying of others we may come to, whose design and purpose
+are the same, that in this or that respect they practically fail,
+or differ.</p>
+<p>I wish by this account of them, imperfect in its execution,
+but in its just intention, honest, I could hope to convey to my
+readers one-hundredth part of the gratification, the sights I
+have described, afforded me.</p>
+<div class="gapshortline">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>To an Englishman, accustomed to the paraphernalia of
+Westminster Hall, an American Court of Law is as odd a sight as,
+I suppose, an English Court of Law would be to an American.&nbsp;
+Except in the Supreme Court at Washington (where the judges wear
+a plain black robe), there is no such thing as a wig or gown
+connected with the administration of justice.&nbsp; The gentlemen
+of the bar being barristers and attorneys too (for there is no
+division of those functions as in England) are no more removed
+from their clients than attorneys in our Court for the Relief of
+Insolvent Debtors are, from theirs.&nbsp; The jury are quite at
+home, and make themselves as comfortable as circumstances will
+permit.&nbsp; The witness is so little elevated above, or put
+aloof from, the crowd in the court, that a stranger entering
+during a pause in the proceedings would find it difficult to pick
+him out from the rest.&nbsp; And if it chanced to be a criminal
+trial, his eyes, in nine cases out of ten, would wander to the
+dock in search of the prisoner, in vain; for that gentleman would
+most likely be lounging among the most distinguished ornaments of
+the legal profession, whispering suggestions in his
+counsel&rsquo;s ear, or making a toothpick out of an old quill
+with his penknife.</p>
+<p>I could not but notice these differences, when I visited the
+courts at Boston.&nbsp; I was much surprised at first, too, to
+observe that the counsel who interrogated the witness under
+examination at the time, did so <i>sitting</i>.&nbsp; But seeing
+that he was also occupied in writing down the answers, and
+remembering that he was alone and had no &lsquo;junior,&rsquo; I
+quickly consoled myself with the reflection that law was not
+quite so expensive an article here, as at home; and that the
+absence of sundry formalities which we regard as indispensable,
+had doubtless a very favourable influence upon the bill of
+costs.</p>
+<p>In every Court, ample and commodious provision is made for the
+accommodation of the citizens.&nbsp; This is the case all through
+America.&nbsp; In every Public Institution, the right of the
+people to attend, and to have an interest in the proceedings, is
+most fully and distinctly recognised.&nbsp; There are no grim
+door-keepers to dole out their tardy civility by the
+sixpenny-worth; nor is there, I sincerely believe, any insolence
+of office of any kind.&nbsp; Nothing national is exhibited for
+money; and no public officer is a showman.&nbsp; We have begun of
+late years to imitate this good example.&nbsp; I hope we shall
+continue to do so; and that in the fulness of time, even deans
+and chapters may be converted.</p>
+<p>In the civil court an action was trying, for damages sustained
+in some accident upon a railway.&nbsp; The witnesses had been
+examined, and counsel was addressing the jury.&nbsp; The learned
+gentleman (like a few of his English brethren) was desperately
+long-winded, and had a remarkable capacity of saying the same
+thing over and over again.&nbsp; His great theme was
+&lsquo;Warren the &#283;n<i>gine</i> driver,&rsquo; whom he
+pressed into the service of every sentence he uttered.&nbsp; I
+listened to him for about a quarter of an hour; and, coming out
+of court at the expiration of that time, without the faintest ray
+of enlightenment as to the merits of the case, felt as if I were
+at home again.</p>
+<p>In the prisoner&rsquo;s cell, waiting to be examined by the
+magistrate on a charge of theft, was a boy.&nbsp; This lad,
+instead of being committed to a common jail, would be sent to the
+asylum at South Boston, and there taught a trade; and in the
+course of time he would be bound apprentice to some respectable
+master.&nbsp; Thus, his detection in this offence, instead of
+being the prelude to a life of infamy and a miserable death,
+would lead, there was a reasonable hope, to his being reclaimed
+from vice, and becoming a worthy member of society.</p>
+<p>I am by no means a wholesale admirer of our legal solemnities,
+many of which impress me as being exceedingly ludicrous.&nbsp;
+Strange as it may seem too, there is undoubtedly a degree of
+protection in the wig and gown&mdash;a dismissal of individual
+responsibility in dressing for the part&mdash;which encourages
+that insolent bearing and language, and that gross perversion of
+the office of a pleader for The Truth, so frequent in our courts
+of law.&nbsp; Still, I cannot help doubting whether America, in
+her desire to shake off the absurdities and abuses of the old
+system, may not have gone too far into the opposite extreme; and
+whether it is not desirable, especially in the small community of
+a city like this, where each man knows the other, to surround the
+administration of justice with some artificial barriers against
+the &lsquo;Hail fellow, well met&rsquo; deportment of everyday
+life.&nbsp; All the aid it can have in the very high character
+and ability of the Bench, not only here but elsewhere, it has,
+and well deserves to have; but it may need something more: not to
+impress the thoughtful and the well-informed, but the ignorant
+and heedless; a class which includes some prisoners and many
+witnesses.&nbsp; These institutions were established, no doubt,
+upon the principle that those who had so large a share in making
+the laws, would certainly respect them.&nbsp; But experience has
+proved this hope to be fallacious; for no men know better than
+the judges of America, that on the occasion of any great popular
+excitement the law is powerless, and cannot, for the time, assert
+its own supremacy.</p>
+<p>The tone of society in Boston is one of perfect politeness,
+courtesy, and good breeding.&nbsp; The ladies are unquestionably
+very beautiful&mdash;in face: but there I am compelled to
+stop.&nbsp; Their education is much as with us; neither better
+nor worse.&nbsp; I had heard some very marvellous stories in this
+respect; but not believing them, was not disappointed.&nbsp; Blue
+ladies there are, in Boston; but like philosophers of that colour
+and sex in most other latitudes, they rather desire to be thought
+superior than to be so.&nbsp; Evangelical ladies there are,
+likewise, whose attachment to the forms of religion, and horror
+of theatrical entertainments, are most exemplary.&nbsp; Ladies
+who have a passion for attending lectures are to be found among
+all classes and all conditions.&nbsp; In the kind of provincial
+life which prevails in cities such as this, the Pulpit has great
+influence.&nbsp; The peculiar province of the Pulpit in New
+England (always excepting the Unitarian Ministry) would appear to
+be the denouncement of all innocent and rational
+amusements.&nbsp; The church, the chapel, and the lecture-room,
+are the only means of excitement excepted; and to the church, the
+chapel, and the lecture-room, the ladies resort in crowds.</p>
+<p>Wherever religion is resorted to, as a strong drink, and as an
+escape from the dull monotonous round of home, those of its
+ministers who pepper the highest will be the surest to
+please.&nbsp; They who strew the Eternal Path with the greatest
+amount of brimstone, and who most ruthlessly tread down the
+flowers and leaves that grow by the wayside, will be voted the
+most righteous; and they who enlarge with the greatest
+pertinacity on the difficulty of getting into heaven, will be
+considered by all true believers certain of going there: though
+it would be hard to say by what process of reasoning this
+conclusion is arrived at.&nbsp; It is so at home, and it is so
+abroad.&nbsp; With regard to the other means of excitement, the
+Lecture, it has at least the merit of being always new.&nbsp; One
+lecture treads so quickly on the heels of another, that none are
+remembered; and the course of this month may be safely repeated
+next, with its charm of novelty unbroken, and its interest
+unabated.</p>
+<p>The fruits of the earth have their growth in corruption.&nbsp;
+Out of the rottenness of these things, there has sprung up in
+Boston a sect of philosophers known as Transcendentalists.&nbsp;
+On inquiring what this appellation might be supposed to signify,
+I was given to understand that whatever was unintelligible would
+be certainly transcendental.&nbsp; Not deriving much comfort from
+this elucidation, I pursued the inquiry still further, and found
+that the Transcendentalists are followers of my friend Mr.
+Carlyle, or I should rather say, of a follower of his, Mr. Ralph
+Waldo Emerson.&nbsp; This gentleman has written a volume of
+Essays, in which, among much that is dreamy and fanciful (if he
+will pardon me for saying so), there is much more that is true
+and manly, honest and bold.&nbsp; Transcendentalism has its
+occasional vagaries (what school has not?), but it has good
+healthful qualities in spite of them; not least among the number
+a hearty disgust of Cant, and an aptitude to detect her in all
+the million varieties of her everlasting wardrobe.&nbsp; And
+therefore if I were a Bostonian, I think I would be a
+Transcendentalist.</p>
+<p>The only preacher I heard in Boston was Mr. Taylor, who
+addresses himself peculiarly to seamen, and who was once a
+mariner himself.&nbsp; I found his chapel down among the
+shipping, in one of the narrow, old, water-side streets, with a
+gay blue flag waving freely from its roof.&nbsp; In the gallery
+opposite to the pulpit were a little choir of male and female
+singers, a violoncello, and a violin.&nbsp; The preacher already
+sat in the pulpit, which was raised on pillars, and ornamented
+behind him with painted drapery of a lively and somewhat
+theatrical appearance.&nbsp; He looked a weather-beaten
+hard-featured man, of about six or eight and fifty; with deep
+lines graven as it were into his face, dark hair, and a stern,
+keen eye.&nbsp; Yet the general character of his countenance was
+pleasant and agreeable.&nbsp; The service commenced with a hymn,
+to which succeeded an extemporary prayer.&nbsp; It had the fault
+of frequent repetition, incidental to all such prayers; but it
+was plain and comprehensive in its doctrines, and breathed a tone
+of general sympathy and charity, which is not so commonly a
+characteristic of this form of address to the Deity as it might
+be.&nbsp; That done he opened his discourse, taking for his text
+a passage from the Song of Solomon, laid upon the desk before the
+commencement of the service by some unknown member of the
+congregation: &lsquo;Who is this coming up from the wilderness,
+leaning on the arm of her beloved!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>He handled his text in all kinds of ways, and twisted it into
+all manner of shapes; but always ingeniously, and with a rude
+eloquence, well adapted to the comprehension of his
+hearers.&nbsp; Indeed if I be not mistaken, he studied their
+sympathies and understandings much more than the display of his
+own powers.&nbsp; His imagery was all drawn from the sea, and
+from the incidents of a seaman&rsquo;s life; and was often
+remarkably good.&nbsp; He spoke to them of &lsquo;that glorious
+man, Lord Nelson,&rsquo; and of Collingwood; and drew nothing in,
+as the saying is, by the head and shoulders, but brought it to
+bear upon his purpose, naturally, and with a sharp mind to its
+effect.&nbsp; Sometimes, when much excited with his subject, he
+had an odd way&mdash;compounded of John Bunyan, and Balfour of
+Burley&mdash;of taking his great quarto Bible under his arm and
+pacing up and down the pulpit with it; looking steadily down,
+meantime, into the midst of the congregation.&nbsp; Thus, when he
+applied his text to the first assemblage of his hearers, and
+pictured the wonder of the church at their presumption in forming
+a congregation among themselves, he stopped short with his Bible
+under his arm in the manner I have described, and pursued his
+discourse after this manner:</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Who are these&mdash;who are they&mdash;who are these
+fellows? where do they come from?&nbsp; Where are they going
+to?&mdash;Come from!&nbsp; What&rsquo;s the
+answer?&rsquo;&mdash;leaning out of the pulpit, and pointing
+downward with his right hand: &lsquo;From
+below!&rsquo;&mdash;starting back again, and looking at the
+sailors before him: &lsquo;From below, my brethren.&nbsp; From
+under the hatches of sin, battened down above you by the evil
+one.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s where you came from!&rsquo;&mdash;a walk
+up and down the pulpit: &lsquo;and where are you
+going&rsquo;&mdash;stopping abruptly: &lsquo;where are you going?
+Aloft!&rsquo;&mdash;very softly, and pointing upward:
+&lsquo;Aloft!&rsquo;&mdash;louder:
+&lsquo;aloft!&rsquo;&mdash;louder still: &lsquo;That&rsquo;s
+where you are going&mdash;with a fair wind,&mdash;all taut and
+trim, steering direct for Heaven in its glory, where there are no
+storms or foul weather, and where the wicked cease from
+troubling, and the weary are at rest.&rsquo;&mdash;Another walk:
+&lsquo;That&rsquo;s where you&rsquo;re going to, my
+friends.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s it.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s the
+place.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s the port.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s the
+haven.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s a blessed harbour&mdash;still water
+there, in all changes of the winds and tides; no driving ashore
+upon the rocks, or slipping your cables and running out to sea,
+there: Peace&mdash;Peace&mdash;Peace&mdash;all
+peace!&rsquo;&mdash;Another walk, and patting the Bible under his
+left arm: &lsquo;What!&nbsp; These fellows are coming from the
+wilderness, are they?&nbsp; Yes.&nbsp; From the dreary, blighted
+wilderness of Iniquity, whose only crop is Death.&nbsp; But do
+they lean upon anything&mdash;do they lean upon nothing, these
+poor seamen?&rsquo;&mdash;Three raps upon the Bible: &lsquo;Oh
+yes.&mdash;Yes.&mdash;They lean upon the arm of their
+Beloved&rsquo;&mdash;three more raps: &lsquo;upon the arm of
+their Beloved&rsquo;&mdash;three more, and a walk: &lsquo;Pilot,
+guiding-star, and compass, all in one, to all hands&mdash;here it
+is&rsquo;&mdash;three more: &lsquo;Here it is.&nbsp; They can do
+their seaman&rsquo;s duty manfully, and be easy in their minds in
+the utmost peril and danger, with this&rsquo;&mdash;two more:
+&lsquo;They can come, even these poor fellows can come, from the
+wilderness leaning on the arm of their Beloved, and go
+up&mdash;up&mdash;up!&rsquo;&mdash;raising his hand higher, and
+higher, at every repetition of the word, so that he stood with it
+at last stretched above his head, regarding them in a strange,
+rapt manner, and pressing the book triumphantly to his breast,
+until he gradually subsided into some other portion of his
+discourse.</p>
+<p>I have cited this, rather as an instance of the
+preacher&rsquo;s eccentricities than his merits, though taken in
+connection with his look and manner, and the character of his
+audience, even this was striking.&nbsp; It is possible, however,
+that my favourable impression of him may have been greatly
+influenced and strengthened, firstly, by his impressing upon his
+hearers that the true observance of religion was not inconsistent
+with a cheerful deportment and an exact discharge of the duties
+of their station, which, indeed, it scrupulously required of
+them; and secondly, by his cautioning them not to set up any
+monopoly in Paradise and its mercies.&nbsp; I never heard these
+two points so wisely touched (if indeed I have ever heard them
+touched at all), by any preacher of that kind before.</p>
+<p>Having passed the time I spent in Boston, in making myself
+acquainted with these things, in settling the course I should
+take in my future travels, and in mixing constantly with its
+society, I am not aware that I have any occasion to prolong this
+chapter.&nbsp; Such of its social customs as I have not
+mentioned, however, may be told in a very few words.</p>
+<p>The usual dinner-hour is two o&rsquo;clock.&nbsp; A dinner
+party takes place at five; and at an evening party, they seldom
+sup later than eleven; so that it goes hard but one gets home,
+even from a rout, by midnight.&nbsp; I never could find out any
+difference between a party at Boston and a party in London,
+saving that at the former place all assemblies are held at more
+rational hours; that the conversation may possibly be a little
+louder and more cheerful; and a guest is usually expected to
+ascend to the very top of the house to take his cloak off; that
+he is certain to see, at every dinner, an unusual amount of
+poultry on the table; and at every supper, at least two mighty
+bowls of hot stewed oysters, in any one of which a half-grown
+Duke of Clarence might be smothered easily.</p>
+<p>There are two theatres in Boston, of good size and
+construction, but sadly in want of patronage.&nbsp; The few
+ladies who resort to them, sit, as of right, in the front rows of
+the boxes.</p>
+<p>The bar is a large room with a stone floor, and there people
+stand and smoke, and lounge about, all the evening: dropping in
+and out as the humour takes them.&nbsp; There too the stranger is
+initiated into the mysteries of Gin-sling, Cock-tail, Sangaree,
+Mint Julep, Sherry-cobbler, Timber Doodle, and other rare
+drinks.&nbsp; The house is full of boarders, both married and
+single, many of whom sleep upon the premises, and contract by the
+week for their board and lodging: the charge for which diminishes
+as they go nearer the sky to roost.&nbsp; A public table is laid
+in a very handsome hall for breakfast, and for dinner, and for
+supper.&nbsp; The party sitting down together to these meals will
+vary in number from one to two hundred: sometimes more.&nbsp; The
+advent of each of these epochs in the day is proclaimed by an
+awful gong, which shakes the very window-frames as it
+reverberates through the house, and horribly disturbs nervous
+foreigners.&nbsp; There is an ordinary for ladies, and an
+ordinary for gentlemen.</p>
+<p>In our private room the cloth could not, for any earthly
+consideration, have been laid for dinner without a huge glass
+dish of cranberries in the middle of the table; and breakfast
+would have been no breakfast unless the principal dish were a
+deformed beef-steak with a great flat bone in the centre,
+swimming in hot butter, and sprinkled with the very blackest of
+all possible pepper.&nbsp; Our bedroom was spacious and airy, but
+(like every bedroom on this side of the Atlantic) very bare of
+furniture, having no curtains to the French bedstead or to the
+window.&nbsp; It had one unusual luxury, however, in the shape of
+a wardrobe of painted wood, something smaller than an English
+watch-box; or if this comparison should be insufficient to convey
+a just idea of its dimensions, they may be estimated from the
+fact of my having lived for fourteen days and nights in the firm
+belief that it was a shower-bath.</p>
+<h2><a name="page52"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+52</span>CHAPTER IV<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">AN AMERICAN RAILROAD.&nbsp; LOWELL AND ITS
+FACTORY SYSTEM</span></h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">Before</span> leaving Boston, I devoted
+one day to an excursion to Lowell.&nbsp; I assign a separate
+chapter to this visit; not because I am about to describe it at
+any great length, but because I remember it as a thing by itself,
+and am desirous that my readers should do the same.</p>
+<p>I made acquaintance with an American railroad, on this
+occasion, for the first time.&nbsp; As these works are pretty
+much alike all through the States, their general characteristics
+are easily described.</p>
+<p>There are no first and second class carriages as with us; but
+there is a gentleman&rsquo;s car and a ladies&rsquo; car: the
+main distinction between which is that in the first, everybody
+smokes; and in the second, nobody does.&nbsp; As a black man
+never travels with a white one, there is also a negro car; which
+is a great, blundering, clumsy chest, such as Gulliver put to sea
+in, from the kingdom of Brobdingnag.&nbsp; There is a great deal
+of jolting, a great deal of noise, a great deal of wall, not much
+window, a locomotive engine, a shriek, and a bell.</p>
+<p>The cars are like shabby omnibuses, but larger: holding
+thirty, forty, fifty, people.&nbsp; The seats, instead of
+stretching from end to end, are placed crosswise.&nbsp; Each seat
+holds two persons.&nbsp; There is a long row of them on each side
+of the caravan, a narrow passage up the middle, and a door at
+both ends.&nbsp; In the centre of the carriage there is usually a
+stove, fed with charcoal or anthracite coal; which is for the
+most part red-hot.&nbsp; It is insufferably close; and you see
+the hot air fluttering between yourself and any other object you
+may happen to look at, like the ghost of smoke.</p>
+<p>In the ladies&rsquo; car, there are a great many gentlemen who
+have ladies with them.&nbsp; There are also a great many ladies
+who have nobody with them: for any lady may travel alone, from
+one end of the United States to the other, and be certain of the
+most courteous and considerate treatment everywhere.&nbsp; The
+conductor or check-taker, or guard, or whatever he may be, wears
+no uniform.&nbsp; He walks up and down the car, and in and out of
+it, as his fancy dictates; leans against the door with his hands
+in his pockets and stares at you, if you chance to be a stranger;
+or enters into conversation with the passengers about him.&nbsp;
+A great many newspapers are pulled out, and a few of them are
+read.&nbsp; Everybody talks to you, or to anybody else who hits
+his fancy.&nbsp; If you are an Englishman, he expects that that
+railroad is pretty much like an English railroad.&nbsp; If you
+say &lsquo;No,&rsquo; he says &lsquo;Yes?&rsquo;
+(interrogatively), and asks in what respect they differ.&nbsp;
+You enumerate the heads of difference, one by one, and he says
+&lsquo;Yes?&rsquo; (still interrogatively) to each.&nbsp; Then he
+guesses that you don&rsquo;t travel faster in England; and on
+your replying that you do, says &lsquo;Yes?&rsquo; again (still
+interrogatively), and it is quite evident, don&rsquo;t believe
+it.&nbsp; After a long pause he remarks, partly to you, and
+partly to the knob on the top of his stick, that &lsquo;Yankees
+are reckoned to be considerable of a go-ahead people too;&rsquo;
+upon which <i>you</i> say &lsquo;Yes,&rsquo; and then <i>he</i>
+says &lsquo;Yes&rsquo; again (affirmatively this time); and upon
+your looking out of window, tells you that behind that hill, and
+some three miles from the next station, there is a clever town in
+a smart lo-ca-tion, where he expects you have concluded to
+stop.&nbsp; Your answer in the negative naturally leads to more
+questions in reference to your intended route (always pronounced
+rout); and wherever you are going, you invariably learn that you
+can&rsquo;t get there without immense difficulty and danger, and
+that all the great sights are somewhere else.</p>
+<p>If a lady take a fancy to any male passenger&rsquo;s seat, the
+gentleman who accompanies her gives him notice of the fact, and
+he immediately vacates it with great politeness.&nbsp; Politics
+are much discussed, so are banks, so is cotton.&nbsp; Quiet
+people avoid the question of the Presidency, for there will be a
+new election in three years and a half, and party feeling runs
+very high: the great constitutional feature of this institution
+being, that directly the acrimony of the last election is over,
+the acrimony of the next one begins; which is an unspeakable
+comfort to all strong politicians and true lovers of their
+country: that is to say, to ninety-nine men and boys out of every
+ninety-nine and a quarter.</p>
+<p>Except when a branch road joins the main one, there is seldom
+more than one track of rails; so that the road is very narrow,
+and the view, where there is a deep cutting, by no means
+extensive.&nbsp; When there is not, the character of the scenery
+is always the same.&nbsp; Mile after mile of stunted trees: some
+hewn down by the axe, some blown down by the wind, some half
+fallen and resting on their neighbours, many mere logs half
+hidden in the swamp, others mouldered away to spongy chips.&nbsp;
+The very soil of the earth is made up of minute fragments such as
+these; each pool of stagnant water has its crust of vegetable
+rottenness; on every side there are the boughs, and trunks, and
+stumps of trees, in every possible stage of decay, decomposition,
+and neglect.&nbsp; Now you emerge for a few brief minutes on an
+open country, glittering with some bright lake or pool, broad as
+many an English river, but so small here that it scarcely has a
+name; now catch hasty glimpses of a distant town, with its clean
+white houses and their cool piazzas, its prim New England church
+and school-house; when whir-r-r-r! almost before you have seen
+them, comes the same dark screen: the stunted trees, the stumps,
+the logs, the stagnant water&mdash;all so like the last that you
+seem to have been transported back again by magic.</p>
+<p>The train calls at stations in the woods, where the wild
+impossibility of anybody having the smallest reason to get out,
+is only to be equalled by the apparently desperate hopelessness
+of there being anybody to get in.&nbsp; It rushes across the
+turnpike road, where there is no gate, no policeman, no signal:
+nothing but a rough wooden arch, on which is painted &lsquo;<span
+class="smcap">When the bell rings, look out for the
+Locomotive</span>.&rsquo;&nbsp; On it whirls headlong, dives
+through the woods again, emerges in the light, clatters over
+frail arches, rumbles upon the heavy ground, shoots beneath a
+wooden bridge which intercepts the light for a second like a
+wink, suddenly awakens all the slumbering echoes in the main
+street of a large town, and dashes on haphazard, pell-mell,
+neck-or-nothing, down the middle of the road.&nbsp;
+There&mdash;with mechanics working at their trades, and people
+leaning from their doors and windows, and boys flying kites and
+playing marbles, and men smoking, and women talking, and children
+crawling, and pigs burrowing, and unaccustomed horses plunging
+and rearing, close to the very rails&mdash;there&mdash;on, on,
+on&mdash;tears the mad dragon of an engine with its train of
+cars; scattering in all directions a shower of burning sparks
+from its wood fire; screeching, hissing, yelling, panting; until
+at last the thirsty monster stops beneath a covered way to drink,
+the people cluster round, and you have time to breathe again.</p>
+<p>I was met at the station at Lowell by a gentleman intimately
+connected with the management of the factories there; and gladly
+putting myself under his guidance, drove off at once to that
+quarter of the town in which the works, the object of my visit,
+were situated.&nbsp; Although only just of age&mdash;for if my
+recollection serve me, it has been a manufacturing town barely
+one-and-twenty years&mdash;Lowell is a large, populous, thriving
+place.&nbsp; Those indications of its youth which first attract
+the eye, give it a quaintness and oddity of character which, to a
+visitor from the old country, is amusing enough.&nbsp; It was a
+very dirty winter&rsquo;s day, and nothing in the whole town
+looked old to me, except the mud, which in some parts was almost
+knee-deep, and might have been deposited there, on the subsiding
+of the waters after the Deluge.&nbsp; In one place, there was a
+new wooden church, which, having no steeple, and being yet
+unpainted, looked like an enormous packing-case without any
+direction upon it.&nbsp; In another there was a large hotel,
+whose walls and colonnades were so crisp, and thin, and slight,
+that it had exactly the appearance of being built with
+cards.&nbsp; I was careful not to draw my breath as we passed,
+and trembled when I saw a workman come out upon the roof, lest
+with one thoughtless stamp of his foot he should crush the
+structure beneath him, and bring it rattling down.&nbsp; The very
+river that moves the machinery in the mills (for they are all
+worked by water power), seems to acquire a new character from the
+fresh buildings of bright red brick and painted wood among which
+it takes its course; and to be as light-headed, thoughtless, and
+brisk a young river, in its murmurings and tumblings, as one
+would desire to see.&nbsp; One would swear that every
+&lsquo;Bakery,&rsquo; &lsquo;Grocery,&rsquo; and
+&lsquo;Bookbindery,&rsquo; and other kind of store, took its
+shutters down for the first time, and started in business
+yesterday.&nbsp; The golden pestles and mortars fixed as signs
+upon the sun-blind frames outside the Druggists&rsquo;, appear to
+have been just turned out of the United States&rsquo; Mint; and
+when I saw a baby of some week or ten days old in a woman&rsquo;s
+arms at a street corner, I found myself unconsciously wondering
+where it came from: never supposing for an instant that it could
+have been born in such a young town as that.</p>
+<p>There are several factories in Lowell, each of which belongs
+to what we should term a Company of Proprietors, but what they
+call in America a Corporation.&nbsp; I went over several of
+these; such as a woollen factory, a carpet factory, and a cotton
+factory: examined them in every part; and saw them in their
+ordinary working aspect, with no preparation of any kind, or
+departure from their ordinary everyday proceedings.&nbsp; I may
+add that I am well acquainted with our manufacturing towns in
+England, and have visited many mills in Manchester and elsewhere
+in the same manner.</p>
+<p>I happened to arrive at the first factory just as the dinner
+hour was over, and the girls were returning to their work; indeed
+the stairs of the mill were thronged with them as I
+ascended.&nbsp; They were all well dressed, but not to my
+thinking above their condition; for I like to see the humbler
+classes of society careful of their dress and appearance, and
+even, if they please, decorated with such little trinkets as come
+within the compass of their means.&nbsp; Supposing it confined
+within reasonable limits, I would always encourage this kind of
+pride, as a worthy element of self-respect, in any person I
+employed; and should no more be deterred from doing so, because
+some wretched female referred her fall to a love of dress, than I
+would allow my construction of the real intent and meaning of the
+Sabbath to be influenced by any warning to the well-disposed,
+founded on his backslidings on that particular day, which might
+emanate from the rather doubtful authority of a murderer in
+Newgate.</p>
+<p>These girls, as I have said, were all well dressed: and that
+phrase necessarily includes extreme cleanliness.&nbsp; They had
+serviceable bonnets, good warm cloaks, and shawls; and were not
+above clogs and pattens.&nbsp; Moreover, there were places in the
+mill in which they could deposit these things without injury; and
+there were conveniences for washing.&nbsp; They were healthy in
+appearance, many of them remarkably so, and had the manners and
+deportment of young women: not of degraded brutes of
+burden.&nbsp; If I had seen in one of those mills (but I did not,
+though I looked for something of this kind with a sharp eye), the
+most lisping, mincing, affected, and ridiculous young creature
+that my imagination could suggest, I should have thought of the
+careless, moping, slatternly, degraded, dull reverse (I
+<i>have</i> seen that), and should have been still well pleased
+to look upon her.</p>
+<p>The rooms in which they worked, were as well ordered as
+themselves.&nbsp; In the windows of some, there were green
+plants, which were trained to shade the glass; in all, there was
+as much fresh air, cleanliness, and comfort, as the nature of the
+occupation would possibly admit of.&nbsp; Out of so large a
+number of females, many of whom were only then just verging upon
+womanhood, it may be reasonably supposed that some were delicate
+and fragile in appearance: no doubt there were.&nbsp; But I
+solemnly declare, that from all the crowd I saw in the different
+factories that day, I cannot recall or separate one young face
+that gave me a painful impression; not one young girl whom,
+assuming it to be a matter of necessity that she should gain her
+daily bread by the labour of her hands, I would have removed from
+those works if I had had the power.</p>
+<p>They reside in various boarding-houses near at hand.&nbsp; The
+owners of the mills are particularly careful to allow no persons
+to enter upon the possession of these houses, whose characters
+have not undergone the most searching and thorough inquiry.&nbsp;
+Any complaint that is made against them, by the boarders, or by
+any one else, is fully investigated; and if good ground of
+complaint be shown to exist against them, they are removed, and
+their occupation is handed over to some more deserving
+person.&nbsp; There are a few children employed in these
+factories, but not many.&nbsp; The laws of the State forbid their
+working more than nine months in the year, and require that they
+be educated during the other three.&nbsp; For this purpose there
+are schools in Lowell; and there are churches and chapels of
+various persuasions, in which the young women may observe that
+form of worship in which they have been educated.</p>
+<p>At some distance from the factories, and on the highest and
+pleasantest ground in the neighbourhood, stands their hospital,
+or boarding-house for the sick: it is the best house in those
+parts, and was built by an eminent merchant for his own
+residence.&nbsp; Like that institution at Boston, which I have
+before described, it is not parcelled out into wards, but is
+divided into convenient chambers, each of which has all the
+comforts of a very comfortable home.&nbsp; The principal medical
+attendant resides under the same roof; and were the patients
+members of his own family, they could not be better cared for, or
+attended with greater gentleness and consideration.&nbsp; The
+weekly charge in this establishment for each female patient is
+three dollars, or twelve shillings English; but no girl employed
+by any of the corporations is ever excluded for want of the means
+of payment.&nbsp; That they do not very often want the means, may
+be gathered from the fact, that in July, 1841, no fewer than nine
+hundred and seventy-eight of these girls were depositors in the
+Lowell Savings Bank: the amount of whose joint savings was
+estimated at one hundred thousand dollars, or twenty thousand
+English pounds.</p>
+<p>I am now going to state three facts, which will startle a
+large class of readers on this side of the Atlantic, very
+much.</p>
+<p>Firstly, there is a joint-stock piano in a great many of the
+boarding-houses.&nbsp; Secondly, nearly all these young ladies
+subscribe to circulating libraries.&nbsp; Thirdly, they have got
+up among themselves a periodical called <span class="smcap">The
+Lowell Offering</span>, &lsquo;A repository of original articles,
+written exclusively by females actively employed in the
+mills,&rsquo;&mdash;which is duly printed, published, and sold;
+and whereof I brought away from Lowell four hundred good solid
+pages, which I have read from beginning to end.</p>
+<p>The large class of readers, startled by these facts, will
+exclaim, with one voice, &lsquo;How very
+preposterous!&rsquo;&nbsp; On my deferentially inquiring why,
+they will answer, &lsquo;These things are above their
+station.&rsquo;&nbsp; In reply to that objection, I would beg to
+ask what their station is.</p>
+<p>It is their station to work.&nbsp; And they <i>do</i>
+work.&nbsp; They labour in these mills, upon an average, twelve
+hours a day, which is unquestionably work, and pretty tight work
+too.&nbsp; Perhaps it is above their station to indulge in such
+amusements, on any terms.&nbsp; Are we quite sure that we in
+England have not formed our ideas of the &lsquo;station&rsquo; of
+working people, from accustoming ourselves to the contemplation
+of that class as they are, and not as they might be? I think that
+if we examine our own feelings, we shall find that the pianos,
+and the circulating libraries, and even the Lowell Offering,
+startle us by their novelty, and not by their bearing upon any
+abstract question of right or wrong.</p>
+<p>For myself, I know no station in which, the occupation of
+to-day cheerfully done and the occupation of to-morrow cheerfully
+looked to, any one of these pursuits is not most humanising and
+laudable.&nbsp; I know no station which is rendered more
+endurable to the person in it, or more safe to the person out of
+it, by having ignorance for its associate.&nbsp; I know no
+station which has a right to monopolise the means of mutual
+instruction, improvement, and rational entertainment; or which
+has ever continued to be a station very long, after seeking to do
+so.</p>
+<p>Of the merits of the Lowell Offering as a literary production,
+I will only observe, putting entirely out of sight the fact of
+the articles having been written by these girls after the arduous
+labours of the day, that it will compare advantageously with a
+great many English Annuals.&nbsp; It is pleasant to find that
+many of its Tales are of the Mills and of those who work in them;
+that they inculcate habits of self-denial and contentment, and
+teach good doctrines of enlarged benevolence.&nbsp; A strong
+feeling for the beauties of nature, as displayed in the solitudes
+the writers have left at home, breathes through its pages like
+wholesome village air; and though a circulating library is a
+favourable school for the study of such topics, it has very scant
+allusion to fine clothes, fine marriages, fine houses, or fine
+life.&nbsp; Some persons might object to the papers being signed
+occasionally with rather fine names, but this is an American
+fashion.&nbsp; One of the provinces of the state legislature of
+Massachusetts is to alter ugly names into pretty ones, as the
+children improve upon the tastes of their parents.&nbsp; These
+changes costing little or nothing, scores of Mary Annes are
+solemnly converted into Bevelinas every session.</p>
+<p>It is said that on the occasion of a visit from General
+Jackson or General Harrison to this town (I forget which, but it
+is not to the purpose), he walked through three miles and a half
+of these young ladies all dressed out with parasols and silk
+stockings.&nbsp; But as I am not aware that any worse consequence
+ensued, than a sudden looking-up of all the parasols and silk
+stockings in the market; and perhaps the bankruptcy of some
+speculative New Englander who bought them all up at any price, in
+expectation of a demand that never came; I set no great store by
+the circumstance.</p>
+<p>In this brief account of Lowell, and inadequate expression of
+the gratification it yielded me, and cannot fail to afford to any
+foreigner to whom the condition of such people at home is a
+subject of interest and anxious speculation, I have carefully
+abstained from drawing a comparison between these factories and
+those of our own land.&nbsp; Many of the circumstances whose
+strong influence has been at work for years in our manufacturing
+towns have not arisen here; and there is no manufacturing
+population in Lowell, so to speak: for these girls (often the
+daughters of small farmers) come from other States, remain a few
+years in the mills, and then go home for good.</p>
+<p>The contrast would be a strong one, for it would be between
+the Good and Evil, the living light and deepest shadow.&nbsp; I
+abstain from it, because I deem it just to do so.&nbsp; But I
+only the more earnestly adjure all those whose eyes may rest on
+these pages, to pause and reflect upon the difference between
+this town and those great haunts of desperate misery: to call to
+mind, if they can in the midst of party strife and squabble, the
+efforts that must be made to purge them of their suffering and
+danger: and last, and foremost, to remember how the precious Time
+is rushing by.</p>
+<p>I returned at night by the same railroad and in the same kind
+of car.&nbsp; One of the passengers being exceedingly anxious to
+expound at great length to my companion (not to me, of course)
+the true principles on which books of travel in America should be
+written by Englishmen, I feigned to fall asleep.&nbsp; But
+glancing all the way out at window from the corners of my eyes, I
+found abundance of entertainment for the rest of the ride in
+watching the effects of the wood fire, which had been invisible
+in the morning but were now brought out in full relief by the
+darkness: for we were travelling in a whirlwind of bright sparks,
+which showered about us like a storm of fiery snow.</p>
+<h2><a name="page60"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+60</span>CHAPTER V<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">WORCESTER.&nbsp; THE CONNECTICUT
+RIVER.&nbsp; HARTFORD.&nbsp; NEW HAVEN.&nbsp; TO NEW
+YORK</span></h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">Leaving</span> Boston on the afternoon of
+Saturday the fifth of February, we proceeded by another railroad
+to Worcester: a pretty New England town, where we had arranged to
+remain under the hospitable roof of the Governor of the State,
+until Monday morning.</p>
+<p>These towns and cities of New England (many of which would be
+villages in Old England), are as favourable specimens of rural
+America, as their people are of rural Americans.&nbsp; The
+well-trimmed lawns and green meadows of home are not there; and
+the grass, compared with our ornamental plots and pastures, is
+rank, and rough, and wild: but delicate slopes of land,
+gently-swelling hills, wooded valleys, and slender streams,
+abound.&nbsp; Every little colony of houses has its church and
+school-house peeping from among the white roofs and shady trees;
+every house is the whitest of the white; every Venetian blind the
+greenest of the green; every fine day&rsquo;s sky the bluest of
+the blue.&nbsp; A sharp dry wind and a slight frost had so
+hardened the roads when we alighted at Worcester, that their
+furrowed tracks were like ridges of granite.&nbsp; There was the
+usual aspect of newness on every object, of course.&nbsp; All the
+buildings looked as if they had been built and painted that
+morning, and could be taken down on Monday with very little
+trouble.&nbsp; In the keen evening air, every sharp outline
+looked a hundred times sharper than ever.&nbsp; The clean
+cardboard colonnades had no more perspective than a Chinese
+bridge on a tea-cup, and appeared equally well calculated for
+use.&nbsp; The razor-like edges of the detached cottages seemed
+to cut the very wind as it whistled against them, and to send it
+smarting on its way with a shriller cry than before.&nbsp; Those
+slightly-built wooden dwellings behind which the sun was setting
+with a brilliant lustre, could be so looked through and through,
+that the idea of any inhabitant being able to hide himself from
+the public gaze, or to have any secrets from the public eye, was
+not entertainable for a moment.&nbsp; Even where a blazing fire
+shone through the uncurtained windows of some distant house, it
+had the air of being newly lighted, and of lacking warmth; and
+instead of awakening thoughts of a snug chamber, bright with
+faces that first saw the light round that same hearth, and ruddy
+with warm hangings, it came upon one suggestive of the smell of
+new mortar and damp walls.</p>
+<p>So I thought, at least, that evening.&nbsp; Next morning when
+the sun was shining brightly, and the clear church bells were
+ringing, and sedate people in their best clothes enlivened the
+pathway near at hand and dotted the distant thread of road, there
+was a pleasant Sabbath peacefulness on everything, which it was
+good to feel.&nbsp; It would have been the better for an old
+church; better still for some old graves; but as it was, a
+wholesome repose and tranquillity pervaded the scene, which after
+the restless ocean and the hurried city, had a doubly grateful
+influence on the spirits.</p>
+<p>We went on next morning, still by railroad, to
+Springfield.&nbsp; From that place to Hartford, whither we were
+bound, is a distance of only five-and-twenty miles, but at that
+time of the year the roads were so bad that the journey would
+probably have occupied ten or twelve hours.&nbsp; Fortunately,
+however, the winter having been unusually mild, the Connecticut
+River was &lsquo;open,&rsquo; or, in other words, not
+frozen.&nbsp; The captain of a small steamboat was going to make
+his first trip for the season that day (the second February trip,
+I believe, within the memory of man), and only waited for us to
+go on board.&nbsp; Accordingly, we went on board, with as little
+delay as might be.&nbsp; He was as good as his word, and started
+directly.</p>
+<p>It certainly was not called a small steamboat without
+reason.&nbsp; I omitted to ask the question, but I should think
+it must have been of about half a pony power.&nbsp; Mr. Paap, the
+celebrated Dwarf, might have lived and died happily in the cabin,
+which was fitted with common sash-windows like an ordinary
+dwelling-house.&nbsp; These windows had bright-red curtains, too,
+hung on slack strings across the lower panes; so that it looked
+like the parlour of a Lilliputian public-house, which had got
+afloat in a flood or some other water accident, and was drifting
+nobody knew where.&nbsp; But even in this chamber there was a
+rocking-chair.&nbsp; It would be impossible to get on anywhere,
+in America, without a rocking-chair.&nbsp; I am afraid to tell
+how many feet short this vessel was, or how many feet narrow: to
+apply the words length and width to such measurement would be a
+contradiction in terms.&nbsp; But I may state that we all kept
+the middle of the deck, lest the boat should unexpectedly tip
+over; and that the machinery, by some surprising process of
+condensation, worked between it and the keel: the whole forming a
+warm sandwich, about three feet thick.</p>
+<p>It rained all day as I once thought it never did rain
+anywhere, but in the Highlands of Scotland.&nbsp; The river was
+full of floating blocks of ice, which were constantly crunching
+and cracking under us; and the depth of water, in the course we
+took to avoid the larger masses, carried down the middle of the
+river by the current, did not exceed a few inches.&nbsp;
+Nevertheless, we moved onward, dexterously; and being well
+wrapped up, bade defiance to the weather, and enjoyed the
+journey.&nbsp; The Connecticut River is a fine stream; and the
+banks in summer-time are, I have no doubt, beautiful; at all
+events, I was told so by a young lady in the cabin; and she
+should be a judge of beauty, if the possession of a quality
+include the appreciation of it, for a more beautiful creature I
+never looked upon.</p>
+<p>After two hours and a half of this odd travelling (including a
+stoppage at a small town, where we were saluted by a gun
+considerably bigger than our own chimney), we reached Hartford,
+and straightway repaired to an extremely comfortable hotel:
+except, as usual, in the article of bedrooms, which, in almost
+every place we visited, were very conducive to early rising.</p>
+<p>We tarried here, four days.&nbsp; The town is beautifully
+situated in a basin of green hills; the soil is rich,
+well-wooded, and carefully improved.&nbsp; It is the seat of the
+local legislature of Connecticut, which sage body enacted, in
+bygone times, the renowned code of &lsquo;Blue Laws,&rsquo; in
+virtue whereof, among other enlightened provisions, any citizen
+who could be proved to have kissed his wife on Sunday, was
+punishable, I believe, with the stocks.&nbsp; Too much of the old
+Puritan spirit exists in these parts to the present hour; but its
+influence has not tended, that I know, to make the people less
+hard in their bargains, or more equal in their dealings.&nbsp; As
+I never heard of its working that effect anywhere else, I infer
+that it never will, here.&nbsp; Indeed, I am accustomed, with
+reference to great professions and severe faces, to judge of the
+goods of the other world pretty much as I judge of the goods of
+this; and whenever I see a dealer in such commodities with too
+great a display of them in his window, I doubt the quality of the
+article within.</p>
+<p>In Hartford stands the famous oak in which the charter of King
+Charles was hidden.&nbsp; It is now inclosed in a
+gentleman&rsquo;s garden.&nbsp; In the State House is the charter
+itself.&nbsp; I found the courts of law here, just the same as at
+Boston; the public institutions almost as good.&nbsp; The Insane
+Asylum is admirably conducted, and so is the Institution for the
+Deaf and Dumb.</p>
+<p>I very much questioned within myself, as I walked through the
+Insane Asylum, whether I should have known the attendants from
+the patients, but for the few words which passed between the
+former, and the Doctor, in reference to the persons under their
+charge.&nbsp; Of course I limit this remark merely to their
+looks; for the conversation of the mad people was mad enough.</p>
+<p>There was one little, prim old lady, of very smiling and
+good-humoured appearance, who came sidling up to me from the end
+of a long passage, and with a curtsey of inexpressible
+condescension, propounded this unaccountable inquiry:</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Does Pontefract still flourish, sir, upon the soil of
+England?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;He does, ma&rsquo;am,&rsquo; I rejoined.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;When you last saw him, sir, he was&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Well, ma&rsquo;am,&rsquo; said I, &lsquo;extremely
+well.&nbsp; He begged me to present his compliments.&nbsp; I
+never saw him looking better.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>At this, the old lady was very much delighted.&nbsp; After
+glancing at me for a moment, as if to be quite sure that I was
+serious in my respectful air, she sidled back some paces; sidled
+forward again; made a sudden skip (at which I precipitately
+retreated a step or two); and said:</p>
+<p>&lsquo;<i>I</i> am an antediluvian, sir.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>I thought the best thing to say was, that I had suspected as
+much from the first.&nbsp; Therefore I said so.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;It is an extremely proud and pleasant thing, sir, to be
+an antediluvian,&rsquo; said the old lady.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I should think it was, ma&rsquo;am,&rsquo; I
+rejoined.</p>
+<p>The old lady kissed her hand, gave another skip, smirked and
+sidled down the gallery in a most extraordinary manner, and
+ambled gracefully into her own bed-chamber.</p>
+<p>In another part of the building, there was a male patient in
+bed; very much flushed and heated.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Well,&rsquo; said he, starting up, and pulling off his
+night-cap: &lsquo;It&rsquo;s all settled at last.&nbsp; I have
+arranged it with Queen Victoria.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Arranged what?&rsquo; asked the Doctor.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Why, that business,&rsquo; passing his hand wearily
+across his forehead, &lsquo;about the siege of New
+York.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Oh!&rsquo; said I, like a man suddenly
+enlightened.&nbsp; For he looked at me for an answer.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Yes.&nbsp; Every house without a signal will be fired
+upon by the British troops.&nbsp; No harm will be done to the
+others.&nbsp; No harm at all.&nbsp; Those that want to be safe,
+must hoist flags.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s all they&rsquo;ll have to
+do.&nbsp; They must hoist flags.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Even while he was speaking he seemed, I thought, to have some
+faint idea that his talk was incoherent.&nbsp; Directly he had
+said these words, he lay down again; gave a kind of a groan; and
+covered his hot head with the blankets.</p>
+<p>There was another: a young man, whose madness was love and
+music.&nbsp; After playing on the accordion a march he had
+composed, he was very anxious that I should walk into his
+chamber, which I immediately did.</p>
+<p>By way of being very knowing, and humouring him to the top of
+his bent, I went to the window, which commanded a beautiful
+prospect, and remarked, with an address upon which I greatly
+plumed myself:</p>
+<p>&lsquo;What a delicious country you have about these lodgings
+of yours!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Poh!&rsquo; said he, moving his fingers carelessly over
+the notes of his instrument: &lsquo;<i>Well enough for such an
+Institution as this</i>!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>I don&rsquo;t think I was ever so taken aback in all my
+life.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I come here just for a whim,&rsquo; he said
+coolly.&nbsp; &lsquo;That&rsquo;s all.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Oh!&nbsp; That&rsquo;s all!&rsquo; said I.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Yes.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s all.&nbsp; The Doctor&rsquo;s a
+smart man.&nbsp; He quite enters into it.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s a joke
+of mine.&nbsp; I like it for a time.&nbsp; You needn&rsquo;t
+mention it, but I think I shall go out next Tuesday!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>I assured him that I would consider our interview perfectly
+confidential; and rejoined the Doctor.&nbsp; As we were passing
+through a gallery on our way out, a well-dressed lady, of quiet
+and composed manners, came up, and proffering a slip of paper and
+a pen, begged that I would oblige her with an autograph, I
+complied, and we parted.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I think I remember having had a few interviews like
+that, with ladies out of doors.&nbsp; I hope <i>she</i> is not
+mad?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Yes.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;On what subject?&nbsp; Autographs?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;No.&nbsp; She hears voices in the air.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Well!&rsquo; thought I, &lsquo;it would be well if we
+could shut up a few false prophets of these later times, who have
+professed to do the same; and I should like to try the experiment
+on a Mormonist or two to begin with.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>In this place, there is the best jail for untried offenders in
+the world.&nbsp; There is also a very well-ordered State prison,
+arranged upon the same plan as that at Boston, except that here,
+there is always a sentry on the wall with a loaded gun.&nbsp; It
+contained at that time about two hundred prisoners.&nbsp; A spot
+was shown me in the sleeping ward, where a watchman was murdered
+some years since in the dead of night, in a desperate attempt to
+escape, made by a prisoner who had broken from his cell.&nbsp; A
+woman, too, was pointed out to me, who, for the murder of her
+husband, had been a close prisoner for sixteen years.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Do you think,&rsquo; I asked of my conductor,
+&lsquo;that after so very long an imprisonment, she has any
+thought or hope of ever regaining her liberty?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Oh dear yes,&rsquo; he answered.&nbsp; &lsquo;To be
+sure she has.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;She has no chance of obtaining it, I
+suppose?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Well, I don&rsquo;t know:&rsquo; which, by-the-bye, is
+a national answer. &lsquo;Her friends mistrust her.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;What have <i>they</i> to do with it?&rsquo; I naturally
+inquired.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Well, they won&rsquo;t petition.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;But if they did, they couldn&rsquo;t get her out, I
+suppose?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Well, not the first time, perhaps, nor yet the second,
+but tiring and wearying for a few years might do it.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Does that ever do it?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Why yes, that&rsquo;ll do it sometimes.&nbsp; Political
+friends&rsquo;ll do it sometimes.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s pretty often
+done, one way or another.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>I shall always entertain a very pleasant and grateful
+recollection of Hartford.&nbsp; It is a lovely place, and I had
+many friends there, whom I can never remember with
+indifference.&nbsp; We left it with no little regret on the
+evening of Friday the 11th, and travelled that night by railroad
+to New Haven.&nbsp; Upon the way, the guard and I were formally
+introduced to each other (as we usually were on such occasions),
+and exchanged a variety of small-talk.&nbsp; We reached New Haven
+at about eight o&rsquo;clock, after a journey of three hours, and
+put up for the night at the best inn.</p>
+<p>New Haven, known also as the City of Elms, is a fine
+town.&nbsp; Many of its streets (as its <i>alias</i> sufficiently
+imports) are planted with rows of grand old elm-trees; and the
+same natural ornaments surround Yale College, an establishment of
+considerable eminence and reputation.&nbsp; The various
+departments of this Institution are erected in a kind of park or
+common in the middle of the town, where they are dimly visible
+among the shadowing trees.&nbsp; The effect is very like that of
+an old cathedral yard in England; and when their branches are in
+full leaf, must be extremely picturesque.&nbsp; Even in the
+winter time, these groups of well-grown trees, clustering among
+the busy streets and houses of a thriving city, have a very
+quaint appearance: seeming to bring about a kind of compromise
+between town and country; as if each had met the other half-way,
+and shaken hands upon it; which is at once novel and
+pleasant.</p>
+<p>After a night&rsquo;s rest, we rose early, and in good time
+went down to the wharf, and on board the packet New York
+<i>for</i> New York.&nbsp; This was the first American steamboat
+of any size that I had seen; and certainly to an English eye it
+was infinitely less like a steamboat than a huge floating
+bath.&nbsp; I could hardly persuade myself, indeed, but that the
+bathing establishment off Westminster Bridge, which I left a
+baby, had suddenly grown to an enormous size; run away from home;
+and set up in foreign parts as a steamer.&nbsp; Being in America,
+too, which our vagabonds do so particularly favour, it seemed the
+more probable.</p>
+<p>The great difference in appearance between these packets and
+ours, is, that there is so much of them out of the water: the
+main-deck being enclosed on all sides, and filled with casks and
+goods, like any second or third floor in a stack of warehouses;
+and the promenade or hurricane-deck being a-top of that
+again.&nbsp; A part of the machinery is always above this deck;
+where the connecting-rod, in a strong and lofty frame, is seen
+working away like an iron top-sawyer.&nbsp; There is seldom any
+mast or tackle: nothing aloft but two tall black chimneys.&nbsp;
+The man at the helm is shut up in a little house in the fore part
+of the boat (the wheel being connected with the rudder by iron
+chains, working the whole length of the deck); and the
+passengers, unless the weather be very fine indeed, usually
+congregate below.&nbsp; Directly you have left the wharf, all the
+life, and stir, and bustle of a packet cease.&nbsp; You wonder
+for a long time how she goes on, for there seems to be nobody in
+charge of her; and when another of these dull machines comes
+splashing by, you feel quite indignant with it, as a sullen
+cumbrous, ungraceful, unshiplike leviathan: quite forgetting that
+the vessel you are on board of, is its very counterpart.</p>
+<p>There is always a clerk&rsquo;s office on the lower deck,
+where you pay your fare; a ladies&rsquo; cabin; baggage and
+stowage rooms; engineer&rsquo;s room; and in short a great
+variety of perplexities which render the discovery of the
+gentlemen&rsquo;s cabin, a matter of some difficulty.&nbsp; It
+often occupies the whole length of the boat (as it did in this
+case), and has three or four tiers of berths on each side.&nbsp;
+When I first descended into the cabin of the New York, it looked,
+in my unaccustomed eyes, about as long as the Burlington
+Arcade.</p>
+<p>The Sound which has to be crossed on this passage, is not
+always a very safe or pleasant navigation, and has been the scene
+of some unfortunate accidents.&nbsp; It was a wet morning, and
+very misty, and we soon lost sight of land.&nbsp; The day was
+calm, however, and brightened towards noon.&nbsp; After
+exhausting (with good help from a friend) the larder, and the
+stock of bottled beer, I lay down to sleep; being very much tired
+with the fatigues of yesterday.&nbsp; But I woke from my nap in
+time to hurry up, and see Hell Gate, the Hog&rsquo;s Back, the
+Frying Pan, and other notorious localities, attractive to all
+readers of famous Diedrich Knickerbocker&rsquo;s History.&nbsp;
+We were now in a narrow channel, with sloping banks on either
+side, besprinkled with pleasant villas, and made refreshing to
+the sight by turf and trees.&nbsp; Soon we shot in quick
+succession, past a light-house; a madhouse (how the lunatics
+flung up their caps and roared in sympathy with the headlong
+engine and the driving tide!); a jail; and other buildings: and
+so emerged into a noble bay, whose waters sparkled in the now
+cloudless sunshine like Nature&rsquo;s eyes turned up to
+Heaven.</p>
+<p>Then there lay stretched out before us, to the right, confused
+heaps of buildings, with here and there a spire or steeple,
+looking down upon the herd below; and here and there, again, a
+cloud of lazy smoke; and in the foreground a forest of
+ships&rsquo; masts, cheery with flapping sails and waving
+flags.&nbsp; Crossing from among them to the opposite shore, were
+steam ferry-boats laden with people, coaches, horses, waggons,
+baskets, boxes: crossed and recrossed by other ferry-boats: all
+travelling to and fro: and never idle.&nbsp; Stately among these
+restless Insects, were two or three large ships, moving with slow
+majestic pace, as creatures of a prouder kind, disdainful of
+their puny journeys, and making for the broad sea.&nbsp; Beyond,
+were shining heights, and islands in the glancing river, and a
+distance scarcely less blue and bright than the sky it seemed to
+meet.&nbsp; The city&rsquo;s hum and buzz, the clinking of
+capstans, the ringing of bells, the barking of dogs, the
+clattering of wheels, tingled in the listening ear.&nbsp; All of
+which life and stir, coming across the stirring water, caught new
+life and animation from its free companionship; and, sympathising
+with its buoyant spirits, glistened as it seemed in sport upon
+its surface, and hemmed the vessel round, and plashed the water
+high about her sides, and, floating her gallantly into the dock,
+flew off again to welcome other comers, and speed before them to
+the busy port.</p>
+<h2><a name="page67"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+67</span>CHAPTER VI<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">NEW YORK</span></h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> beautiful metropolis of America
+is by no means so clean a city as Boston, but many of its streets
+have the same characteristics; except that the houses are not
+quite so fresh-coloured, the sign-boards are not quite so gaudy,
+the gilded letters not quite so golden, the bricks not quite so
+red, the stone not quite so white, the blinds and area railings
+not quite so green, the knobs and plates upon the street doors
+not quite so bright and twinkling.&nbsp; There are many
+by-streets, almost as neutral in clean colours, and positive in
+dirty ones, as by-streets in London; and there is one quarter,
+commonly called the Five Points, which, in respect of filth and
+wretchedness, may be safely backed against Seven Dials, or any
+other part of famed St. Giles&rsquo;s.</p>
+<p>The great promenade and thoroughfare, as most people know, is
+Broadway; a wide and bustling street, which, from the Battery
+Gardens to its opposite termination in a country road, may be
+four miles long.&nbsp; Shall we sit down in an upper floor of the
+Carlton House Hotel (situated in the best part of this main
+artery of New York), and when we are tired of looking down upon
+the life below, sally forth arm-in-arm, and mingle with the
+stream?</p>
+<p>Warm weather!&nbsp; The sun strikes upon our heads at this
+open window, as though its rays were concentrated through a
+burning-glass; but the day is in its zenith, and the season an
+unusual one.&nbsp; Was there ever such a sunny street as this
+Broadway!&nbsp; The pavement stones are polished with the tread
+of feet until they shine again; the red bricks of the houses
+might be yet in the dry, hot kilns; and the roofs of those
+omnibuses look as though, if water were poured on them, they
+would hiss and smoke, and smell like half-quenched fires.&nbsp;
+No stint of omnibuses here!&nbsp; Half-a-dozen have gone by
+within as many minutes.&nbsp; Plenty of hackney cabs and coaches
+too; gigs, phaetons, large-wheeled tilburies, and private
+carriages&mdash;rather of a clumsy make, and not very different
+from the public vehicles, but built for the heavy roads beyond
+the city pavement.&nbsp; Negro coachmen and white; in straw hats,
+black hats, white hats, glazed caps, fur caps; in coats of drab,
+black, brown, green, blue, nankeen, striped jean and linen; and
+there, in that one instance (look while it passes, or it will be
+too late), in suits of livery.&nbsp; Some southern republican
+that, who puts his blacks in uniform, and swells with Sultan pomp
+and power.&nbsp; Yonder, where that phaeton with the well-clipped
+pair of grays has stopped&mdash;standing at their heads
+now&mdash;is a Yorkshire groom, who has not been very long in
+these parts, and looks sorrowfully round for a companion pair of
+top-boots, which he may traverse the city half a year without
+meeting.&nbsp; Heaven save the ladies, how they dress!&nbsp; We
+have seen more colours in these ten minutes, than we should have
+seen elsewhere, in as many days.&nbsp; What various parasols!
+what rainbow silks and satins! what pinking of thin stockings,
+and pinching of thin shoes, and fluttering of ribbons and silk
+tassels, and display of rich cloaks with gaudy hoods and
+linings!&nbsp; The young gentlemen are fond, you see, of turning
+down their shirt-collars and cultivating their whiskers,
+especially under the chin; but they cannot approach the ladies in
+their dress or bearing, being, to say the truth, humanity of
+quite another sort.&nbsp; Byrons of the desk and counter, pass
+on, and let us see what kind of men those are behind ye: those
+two labourers in holiday clothes, of whom one carries in his hand
+a crumpled scrap of paper from which he tries to spell out a hard
+name, while the other looks about for it on all the doors and
+windows.</p>
+<p>Irishmen both!&nbsp; You might know them, if they were masked,
+by their long-tailed blue coats and bright buttons, and their
+drab trousers, which they wear like men well used to working
+dresses, who are easy in no others.&nbsp; It would be hard to
+keep your model republics going, without the countrymen and
+countrywomen of those two labourers.&nbsp; For who else would
+dig, and delve, and drudge, and do domestic work, and make canals
+and roads, and execute great lines of Internal Improvement!&nbsp;
+Irishmen both, and sorely puzzled too, to find out what they
+seek.&nbsp; Let us go down, and help them, for the love of home,
+and that spirit of liberty which admits of honest service to
+honest men, and honest work for honest bread, no matter what it
+be.</p>
+<p>That&rsquo;s well!&nbsp; We have got at the right address at
+last, though it is written in strange characters truly, and might
+have been scrawled with the blunt handle of the spade the writer
+better knows the use of, than a pen.&nbsp; Their way lies yonder,
+but what business takes them there?&nbsp; They carry savings: to
+hoard up?&nbsp; No.&nbsp; They are brothers, those men.&nbsp; One
+crossed the sea alone, and working very hard for one half year,
+and living harder, saved funds enough to bring the other
+out.&nbsp; That done, they worked together side by side,
+contentedly sharing hard labour and hard living for another term,
+and then their sisters came, and then another brother, and
+lastly, their old mother.&nbsp; And what now?&nbsp; Why, the poor
+old crone is restless in a strange land, and yearns to lay her
+bones, she says, among her people in the old graveyard at home:
+and so they go to pay her passage back: and God help her and
+them, and every simple heart, and all who turn to the Jerusalem
+of their younger days, and have an altar-fire upon the cold
+hearth of their fathers.</p>
+<p>This narrow thoroughfare, baking and blistering in the sun, is
+Wall Street: the Stock Exchange and Lombard Street of New
+York.&nbsp; Many a rapid fortune has been made in this street,
+and many a no less rapid ruin.&nbsp; Some of these very merchants
+whom you see hanging about here now, have locked up money in
+their strong-boxes, like the man in the Arabian Nights, and
+opening them again, have found but withered leaves.&nbsp; Below,
+here by the water-side, where the bowsprits of ships stretch
+across the footway, and almost thrust themselves into the
+windows, lie the noble American vessels which have made their
+Packet Service the finest in the world.&nbsp; They have brought
+hither the foreigners who abound in all the streets: not,
+perhaps, that there are more here, than in other commercial
+cities; but elsewhere, they have particular haunts, and you must
+find them out; here, they pervade the town.</p>
+<p>We must cross Broadway again; gaining some refreshment from
+the heat, in the sight of the great blocks of clean ice which are
+being carried into shops and bar-rooms; and the pine-apples and
+water-melons profusely displayed for sale.&nbsp; Fine streets of
+spacious houses here, you see!&mdash;Wall Street has furnished
+and dismantled many of them very often&mdash;and here a deep
+green leafy square.&nbsp; Be sure that is a hospitable house with
+inmates to be affectionately remembered always, where they have
+the open door and pretty show of plants within, and where the
+child with laughing eyes is peeping out of window at the little
+dog below.&nbsp; You wonder what may be the use of this tall
+flagstaff in the by-street, with something like Liberty&rsquo;s
+head-dress on its top: so do I.&nbsp; But there is a passion for
+tall flagstaffs hereabout, and you may see its twin brother in
+five minutes, if you have a mind.</p>
+<p>Again across Broadway, and so&mdash;passing from the
+many-coloured crowd and glittering shops&mdash;into another long
+main street, the Bowery.&nbsp; A railroad yonder, see, where two
+stout horses trot along, drawing a score or two of people and a
+great wooden ark, with ease.&nbsp; The stores are poorer here;
+the passengers less gay.&nbsp; Clothes ready-made, and meat
+ready-cooked, are to be bought in these parts; and the lively
+whirl of carriages is exchanged for the deep rumble of carts and
+waggons.&nbsp; These signs which are so plentiful, in shape like
+river buoys, or small balloons, hoisted by cords to poles, and
+dangling there, announce, as you may see by looking up,
+&lsquo;<span class="smcap">Oysters in every
+Style</span>.&rsquo;&nbsp; They tempt the hungry most at night,
+for then dull candles glimmering inside, illuminate these dainty
+words, and make the mouths of idlers water, as they read and
+linger.</p>
+<p>What is this dismal-fronted pile of bastard Egyptian, like an
+enchanter&rsquo;s palace in a melodrama!&mdash;a famous prison,
+called The Tombs.&nbsp; Shall we go in?</p>
+<p>So.&nbsp; A long, narrow, lofty building, stove-heated as
+usual, with four galleries, one above the other, going round it,
+and communicating by stairs.&nbsp; Between the two sides of each
+gallery, and in its centre, a bridge, for the greater convenience
+of crossing.&nbsp; On each of these bridges sits a man: dozing or
+reading, or talking to an idle companion.&nbsp; On each tier, are
+two opposite rows of small iron doors.&nbsp; They look like
+furnace-doors, but are cold and black, as though the fires within
+had all gone out.&nbsp; Some two or three are open, and women,
+with drooping heads bent down, are talking to the inmates.&nbsp;
+The whole is lighted by a skylight, but it is fast closed; and
+from the roof there dangle, limp and drooping, two useless
+windsails.</p>
+<p>A man with keys appears, to show us round.&nbsp; A
+good-looking fellow, and, in his way, civil and obliging.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Are those black doors the cells?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Yes.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Are they all full?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Well, they&rsquo;re pretty nigh full, and that&rsquo;s
+a fact, and no two ways about it.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Those at the bottom are unwholesome, surely?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Why, we <i>do</i> only put coloured people in
+&rsquo;em.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s the truth.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;When do the prisoners take exercise?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Well, they do without it pretty much.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Do they never walk in the yard?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Considerable seldom.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Sometimes, I suppose?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Well, it&rsquo;s rare they do.&nbsp; They keep pretty
+bright without it.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;But suppose a man were here for a twelvemonth.&nbsp; I
+know this is only a prison for criminals who are charged with
+grave offences, while they are awaiting their trial, or under
+remand, but the law here affords criminals many means of
+delay.&nbsp; What with motions for new trials, and in arrest of
+judgment, and what not, a prisoner might be here for twelve
+months, I take it, might he not?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Well, I guess he might.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Do you mean to say that in all that time he would never
+come out at that little iron door, for exercise?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;He might walk some, perhaps&mdash;not much.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Will you open one of the doors?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;All, if you like.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>The fastenings jar and rattle, and one of the doors turns
+slowly on its hinges.&nbsp; Let us look in.&nbsp; A small bare
+cell, into which the light enters through a high chink in the
+wall.&nbsp; There is a rude means of washing, a table, and a
+bedstead.&nbsp; Upon the latter, sits a man of sixty;
+reading.&nbsp; He looks up for a moment; gives an impatient
+dogged shake; and fixes his eyes upon his book again.&nbsp; As we
+withdraw our heads, the door closes on him, and is fastened as
+before.&nbsp; This man has murdered his wife, and will probably
+be hanged.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;How long has he been here?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;A month.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;When will he be tried?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Next term.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;When is that?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Next month.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;In England, if a man be under sentence of death, even
+he has air and exercise at certain periods of the day.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Possible?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>With what stupendous and untranslatable coolness he says this,
+and how loungingly he leads on to the women&rsquo;s side: making,
+as he goes, a kind of iron castanet of the key and the
+stair-rail!</p>
+<p>Each cell door on this side has a square aperture in it.&nbsp;
+Some of the women peep anxiously through it at the sound of
+footsteps; others shrink away in shame.&mdash;For what offence
+can that lonely child, of ten or twelve years old, be shut up
+here?&nbsp; Oh! that boy? He is the son of the prisoner we saw
+just now; is a witness against his father; and is detained here
+for safe keeping, until the trial; that&rsquo;s all.</p>
+<p>But it is a dreadful place for the child to pass the long days
+and nights in.&nbsp; This is rather hard treatment for a young
+witness, is it not?&mdash;What says our conductor?</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Well, it an&rsquo;t a very rowdy life, and
+<i>that&rsquo;s</i> a fact!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Again he clinks his metal castanet, and leads us leisurely
+away.&nbsp; I have a question to ask him as we go.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Pray, why do they call this place The Tombs?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Well, it&rsquo;s the cant name.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I know it is.&nbsp; Why?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Some suicides happened here, when it was first
+built.&nbsp; I expect it come about from that.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I saw just now, that that man&rsquo;s clothes were
+scattered about the floor of his cell.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t you
+oblige the prisoners to be orderly, and put such things
+away?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Where should they put &rsquo;em?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Not on the ground surely.&nbsp; What do you say to
+hanging them up?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>He stops and looks round to emphasise his answer:</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Why, I say that&rsquo;s just it.&nbsp; When they had
+hooks they <i>would</i> hang themselves, so they&rsquo;re taken
+out of every cell, and there&rsquo;s only the marks left where
+they used to be!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>The prison-yard in which he pauses now, has been the scene of
+terrible performances.&nbsp; Into this narrow, grave-like place,
+men are brought out to die.&nbsp; The wretched creature stands
+beneath the gibbet on the ground; the rope about his neck; and
+when the sign is given, a weight at its other end comes running
+down, and swings him up into the air&mdash;a corpse.</p>
+<p>The law requires that there be present at this dismal
+spectacle, the judge, the jury, and citizens to the amount of
+twenty-five.&nbsp; From the community it is hidden.&nbsp; To the
+dissolute and bad, the thing remains a frightful mystery.&nbsp;
+Between the criminal and them, the prison-wall is interposed as a
+thick gloomy veil.&nbsp; It is the curtain to his bed of death,
+his winding-sheet, and grave.&nbsp; From him it shuts out life,
+and all the motives to unrepenting hardihood in that last hour,
+which its mere sight and presence is often all-sufficient to
+sustain.&nbsp; There are no bold eyes to make him bold; no
+ruffians to uphold a ruffian&rsquo;s name before.&nbsp; All
+beyond the pitiless stone wall, is unknown space.</p>
+<p>Let us go forth again into the cheerful streets.</p>
+<p>Once more in Broadway!&nbsp; Here are the same ladies in
+bright colours, walking to and fro, in pairs and singly; yonder
+the very same light blue parasol which passed and repassed the
+hotel-window twenty times while we were sitting there.&nbsp; We
+are going to cross here.&nbsp; Take care of the pigs.&nbsp; Two
+portly sows are trotting up behind this carriage, and a select
+party of half-a-dozen gentlemen hogs have just now turned the
+corner.</p>
+<p>Here is a solitary swine lounging homeward by himself.&nbsp;
+He has only one ear; having parted with the other to vagrant-dogs
+in the course of his city rambles.&nbsp; But he gets on very well
+without it; and leads a roving, gentlemanly, vagabond kind of
+life, somewhat answering to that of our club-men at home.&nbsp;
+He leaves his lodgings every morning at a certain hour, throws
+himself upon the town, gets through his day in some manner quite
+satisfactory to himself, and regularly appears at the door of his
+own house again at night, like the mysterious master of Gil
+Blas.&nbsp; He is a free-and-easy, careless, indifferent kind of
+pig, having a very large acquaintance among other pigs of the
+same character, whom he rather knows by sight than conversation,
+as he seldom troubles himself to stop and exchange civilities,
+but goes grunting down the kennel, turning up the news and
+small-talk of the city in the shape of cabbage-stalks and offal,
+and bearing no tails but his own: which is a very short one, for
+his old enemies, the dogs, have been at that too, and have left
+him hardly enough to swear by.&nbsp; He is in every respect a
+republican pig, going wherever he pleases, and mingling with the
+best society, on an equal, if not superior footing, for every one
+makes way when he appears, and the haughtiest give him the wall,
+if he prefer it.&nbsp; He is a great philosopher, and seldom
+moved, unless by the dogs before mentioned.&nbsp; Sometimes,
+indeed, you may see his small eye twinkling on a slaughtered
+friend, whose carcase garnishes a butcher&rsquo;s door-post, but
+he grunts out &lsquo;Such is life: all flesh is pork!&rsquo;
+buries his nose in the mire again, and waddles down the gutter:
+comforting himself with the reflection that there is one snout
+the less to anticipate stray cabbage-stalks, at any rate.</p>
+<p>They are the city scavengers, these pigs.&nbsp; Ugly brutes
+they are; having, for the most part, scanty brown backs, like the
+lids of old horsehair trunks: spotted with unwholesome black
+blotches.&nbsp; They have long, gaunt legs, too, and such peaked
+snouts, that if one of them could be persuaded to sit for his
+profile, nobody would recognise it for a pig&rsquo;s
+likeness.&nbsp; They are never attended upon, or fed, or driven,
+or caught, but are thrown upon their own resources in early life,
+and become preternaturally knowing in consequence.&nbsp; Every
+pig knows where he lives, much better than anybody could tell
+him.&nbsp; At this hour, just as evening is closing in, you will
+see them roaming towards bed by scores, eating their way to the
+last.&nbsp; Occasionally, some youth among them who has
+over-eaten himself, or has been worried by dogs, trots
+shrinkingly homeward, like a prodigal son: but this is a rare
+case: perfect self-possession and self-reliance, and immovable
+composure, being their foremost attributes.</p>
+<p>The streets and shops are lighted now; and as the eye travels
+down the long thoroughfare, dotted with bright jets of gas, it is
+reminded of Oxford Street, or Piccadilly.&nbsp; Here and there a
+flight of broad stone cellar-steps appears, and a painted lamp
+directs you to the Bowling Saloon, or Ten-Pin alley; Ten-Pins
+being a game of mingled chance and skill, invented when the
+legislature passed an act forbidding Nine-Pins.&nbsp; At other
+downward flights of steps, are other lamps, marking the
+whereabouts of oyster-cellars&mdash;pleasant retreats, say I: not
+only by reason of their wonderful cookery of oysters, pretty nigh
+as large as cheese-plates (or for thy dear sake, heartiest of
+Greek Professors!), but because of all kinds of caters of fish,
+or flesh, or fowl, in these latitudes, the swallowers of oysters
+alone are not gregarious; but subduing themselves, as it were, to
+the nature of what they work in, and copying the coyness of the
+thing they eat, do sit apart in curtained boxes, and consort by
+twos, not by two hundreds.</p>
+<p>But how quiet the streets are!&nbsp; Are there no itinerant
+bands; no wind or stringed instruments?&nbsp; No, not one.&nbsp;
+By day, are there no Punches, Fantoccini, Dancing-dogs, Jugglers,
+Conjurers, Orchestrinas, or even Barrel-organs?&nbsp; No, not
+one.&nbsp; Yes, I remember one.&nbsp; One barrel-organ and a
+dancing-monkey&mdash;sportive by nature, but fast fading into a
+dull, lumpish monkey, of the Utilitarian school.&nbsp; Beyond
+that, nothing lively; no, not so much as a white mouse in a
+twirling cage.</p>
+<p>Are there no amusements?&nbsp; Yes.&nbsp; There is a
+lecture-room across the way, from which that glare of light
+proceeds, and there may be evening service for the ladies thrice
+a week, or oftener.&nbsp; For the young gentlemen, there is the
+counting-house, the store, the bar-room: the latter, as you may
+see through these windows, pretty full.&nbsp; Hark! to the
+clinking sound of hammers breaking lumps of ice, and to the cool
+gurgling of the pounded bits, as, in the process of mixing, they
+are poured from glass to glass!&nbsp; No amusements?&nbsp; What
+are these suckers of cigars and swallowers of strong drinks,
+whose hats and legs we see in every possible variety of twist,
+doing, but amusing themselves?&nbsp; What are the fifty
+newspapers, which those precocious urchins are bawling down the
+street, and which are kept filed within, what are they but
+amusements?&nbsp; Not vapid, waterish amusements, but good strong
+stuff; dealing in round abuse and blackguard names; pulling off
+the roofs of private houses, as the Halting Devil did in Spain;
+pimping and pandering for all degrees of vicious taste, and
+gorging with coined lies the most voracious maw; imputing to
+every man in public life the coarsest and the vilest motives;
+scaring away from the stabbed and prostrate body-politic, every
+Samaritan of clear conscience and good deeds; and setting on,
+with yell and whistle and the clapping of foul hands, the vilest
+vermin and worst birds of prey.&mdash;No amusements!</p>
+<p>Let us go on again; and passing this wilderness of an hotel
+with stores about its base, like some Continental theatre, or the
+London Opera House shorn of its colonnade, plunge into the Five
+Points.&nbsp; But it is needful, first, that we take as our
+escort these two heads of the police, whom you would know for
+sharp and well-trained officers if you met them in the Great
+Desert.&nbsp; So true it is, that certain pursuits, wherever
+carried on, will stamp men with the same character.&nbsp; These
+two might have been begotten, born, and bred, in Bow Street.</p>
+<p>We have seen no beggars in the streets by night or day; but of
+other kinds of strollers, plenty.&nbsp; Poverty, wretchedness,
+and vice, are rife enough where we are going now.</p>
+<p>This is the place: these narrow ways, diverging to the right
+and left, and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth.&nbsp; Such
+lives as are led here, bear the same fruits here as
+elsewhere.&nbsp; The coarse and bloated faces at the doors, have
+counterparts at home, and all the wide world over.&nbsp;
+Debauchery has made the very houses prematurely old.&nbsp; See
+how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and how the patched and
+broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt
+in drunken frays.&nbsp; Many of those pigs live here.&nbsp; Do
+they ever wonder why their masters walk upright in lieu of going
+on all-fours? and why they talk instead of grunting?</p>
+<p>So far, nearly every house is a low tavern; and on the
+bar-room walls, are coloured prints of Washington, and Queen
+Victoria of England, and the American Eagle.&nbsp; Among the
+pigeon-holes that hold the bottles, are pieces of plate-glass and
+coloured paper, for there is, in some sort, a taste for
+decoration, even here.&nbsp; And as seamen frequent these haunts,
+there are maritime pictures by the dozen: of partings between
+sailors and their lady-loves, portraits of William, of the
+ballad, and his Black-Eyed Susan; of Will Watch, the Bold
+Smuggler; of Paul Jones the Pirate, and the like: on which the
+painted eyes of Queen Victoria, and of Washington to boot, rest
+in as strange companionship, as on most of the scenes that are
+enacted in their wondering presence.</p>
+<p>What place is this, to which the squalid street conducts
+us?&nbsp; A kind of square of leprous houses, some of which are
+attainable only by crazy wooden stairs without.&nbsp; What lies
+beyond this tottering flight of steps, that creak beneath our
+tread?&mdash;a miserable room, lighted by one dim candle, and
+destitute of all comfort, save that which may be hidden in a
+wretched bed.&nbsp; Beside it, sits a man: his elbows on his
+knees: his forehead hidden in his hands.&nbsp; &lsquo;What ails
+that man?&rsquo; asks the foremost officer.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Fever,&rsquo; he sullenly replies, without looking
+up.&nbsp; Conceive the fancies of a feverish brain, in such a
+place as this!</p>
+<p>Ascend these pitch-dark stairs, heedful of a false footing on
+the trembling boards, and grope your way with me into this
+wolfish den, where neither ray of light nor breath of air,
+appears to come.&nbsp; A negro lad, startled from his sleep by
+the officer&rsquo;s voice&mdash;he knows it well&mdash;but
+comforted by his assurance that he has not come on business,
+officiously bestirs himself to light a candle.&nbsp; The match
+flickers for a moment, and shows great mounds of dusty rags upon
+the ground; then dies away and leaves a denser darkness than
+before, if there can be degrees in such extremes.&nbsp; He
+stumbles down the stairs and presently comes back, shading a
+flaring taper with his hand.&nbsp; Then the mounds of rags are
+seen to be astir, and rise slowly up, and the floor is covered
+with heaps of negro women, waking from their sleep: their white
+teeth chattering, and their bright eyes glistening and winking on
+all sides with surprise and fear, like the countless repetition
+of one astonished African face in some strange mirror.</p>
+<p>Mount up these other stairs with no less caution (there are
+traps and pitfalls here, for those who are not so well escorted
+as ourselves) into the housetop; where the bare beams and rafters
+meet overhead, and calm night looks down through the crevices in
+the roof.&nbsp; Open the door of one of these cramped hutches
+full of sleeping negroes.&nbsp; Pah!&nbsp; They have a charcoal
+fire within; there is a smell of singeing clothes, or flesh, so
+close they gather round the brazier; and vapours issue forth that
+blind and suffocate.&nbsp; From every corner, as you glance about
+you in these dark retreats, some figure crawls half-awakened, as
+if the judgment-hour were near at hand, and every obscene grave
+were giving up its dead.&nbsp; Where dogs would howl to lie,
+women, and men, and boys slink off to sleep, forcing the
+dislodged rats to move away in quest of better lodgings.</p>
+<p>Here too are lanes and alleys, paved with mud knee-deep,
+underground chambers, where they dance and game; the walls
+bedecked with rough designs of ships, and forts, and flags, and
+American eagles out of number: ruined houses, open to the street,
+whence, through wide gaps in the walls, other ruins loom upon the
+eye, as though the world of vice and misery had nothing else to
+show: hideous tenements which take their name from robbery and
+murder: all that is loathsome, drooping, and decayed is here.</p>
+<p>Our leader has his hand upon the latch of
+&lsquo;Almack&rsquo;s,&rsquo; and calls to us from the bottom of
+the steps; for the assembly-room of the Five Point fashionables
+is approached by a descent.&nbsp; Shall we go in?&nbsp; It is but
+a moment.</p>
+<p>Heyday! the landlady of Almack&rsquo;s thrives!&nbsp; A buxom
+fat mulatto woman, with sparkling eyes, whose head is daintily
+ornamented with a handkerchief of many colours.&nbsp; Nor is the
+landlord much behind her in his finery, being attired in a smart
+blue jacket, like a ship&rsquo;s steward, with a thick gold ring
+upon his little finger, and round his neck a gleaming golden
+watch-guard.&nbsp; How glad he is to see us!&nbsp; What will we
+please to call for?&nbsp; A dance?&nbsp; It shall be done
+directly, sir: &lsquo;a regular break-down.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>The corpulent black fiddler, and his friend who plays the
+tambourine, stamp upon the boarding of the small raised orchestra
+in which they sit, and play a lively measure.&nbsp; Five or six
+couple come upon the floor, marshalled by a lively young negro,
+who is the wit of the assembly, and the greatest dancer
+known.&nbsp; He never leaves off making queer faces, and is the
+delight of all the rest, who grin from ear to ear
+incessantly.&nbsp; Among the dancers are two young mulatto girls,
+with large, black, drooping eyes, and head-gear after the fashion
+of the hostess, who are as shy, or feign to be, as though they
+never danced before, and so look down before the visitors, that
+their partners can see nothing but the long fringed lashes.</p>
+<p>But the dance commences.&nbsp; Every gentleman sets as long as
+he likes to the opposite lady, and the opposite lady to him, and
+all are so long about it that the sport begins to languish, when
+suddenly the lively hero dashes in to the rescue.&nbsp; Instantly
+the fiddler grins, and goes at it tooth and nail; there is new
+energy in the tambourine; new laughter in the dancers; new smiles
+in the landlady; new confidence in the landlord; new brightness
+in the very candles.</p>
+<p>Single shuffle, double shuffle, cut and cross-cut; snapping
+his fingers, rolling his eyes, turning in his knees, presenting
+the backs of his legs in front, spinning about on his toes and
+heels like nothing but the man&rsquo;s fingers on the tambourine;
+dancing with two left legs, two right legs, two wooden legs, two
+wire legs, two spring legs&mdash;all sorts of legs and no
+legs&mdash;what is this to him? And in what walk of life, or
+dance of life, does man ever get such stimulating applause as
+thunders about him, when, having danced his partner off her feet,
+and himself too, he finishes by leaping gloriously on the
+bar-counter, and calling for something to drink, with the chuckle
+of a million of counterfeit Jim Crows, in one inimitable
+sound!</p>
+<p>The air, even in these distempered parts, is fresh after the
+stifling atmosphere of the houses; and now, as we emerge into a
+broader street, it blows upon us with a purer breath, and the
+stars look bright again.&nbsp; Here are The Tombs once
+more.&nbsp; The city watch-house is a part of the building.&nbsp;
+It follows naturally on the sights we have just left.&nbsp; Let
+us see that, and then to bed.</p>
+<p>What! do you thrust your common offenders against the police
+discipline of the town, into such holes as these?&nbsp; Do men
+and women, against whom no crime is proved, lie here all night in
+perfect darkness, surrounded by the noisome vapours which
+encircle that flagging lamp you light us with, and breathing this
+filthy and offensive stench!&nbsp; Why, such indecent and
+disgusting dungeons as these cells, would bring disgrace upon the
+most despotic empire in the world!&nbsp; Look at them,
+man&mdash;you, who see them every night, and keep the keys.&nbsp;
+Do you see what they are?&nbsp; Do you know how drains are made
+below the streets, and wherein these human sewers differ, except
+in being always stagnant?</p>
+<p>Well, he don&rsquo;t know.&nbsp; He has had five-and-twenty
+young women locked up in this very cell at one time, and
+you&rsquo;d hardly realise what handsome faces there were among
+&rsquo;em.</p>
+<p>In God&rsquo;s name! shut the door upon the wretched creature
+who is in it now, and put its screen before a place, quite
+unsurpassed in all the vice, neglect, and devilry, of the worst
+old town in Europe.</p>
+<p>Are people really left all night, untried, in those black
+sties?&mdash;Every night.&nbsp; The watch is set at seven in the
+evening.&nbsp; The magistrate opens his court at five in the
+morning.&nbsp; That is the earliest hour at which the first
+prisoner can be released; and if an officer appear against him,
+he is not taken out till nine o&rsquo;clock or ten.&mdash;But if
+any one among them die in the interval, as one man did, not long
+ago?&nbsp; Then he is half-eaten by the rats in an hour&rsquo;s
+time; as that man was; and there an end.</p>
+<p>What is this intolerable tolling of great bells, and crashing
+of wheels, and shouting in the distance?&nbsp; A fire.&nbsp; And
+what that deep red light in the opposite direction?&nbsp; Another
+fire.&nbsp; And what these charred and blackened walls we stand
+before?&nbsp; A dwelling where a fire has been.&nbsp; It was more
+than hinted, in an official report, not long ago, that some of
+these conflagrations were not wholly accidental, and that
+speculation and enterprise found a field of exertion, even in
+flames: but be this as it may, there was a fire last night, there
+are two to-night, and you may lay an even wager there will be at
+least one, to-morrow.&nbsp; So, carrying that with us for our
+comfort, let us say, Good night, and climb up-stairs to bed.</p>
+<div class="gapshortline">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>One day, during my stay in New York, I paid a visit to the
+different public institutions on Long Island, or Rhode Island: I
+forget which.&nbsp; One of them is a Lunatic Asylum.&nbsp; The
+building is handsome; and is remarkable for a spacious and
+elegant staircase.&nbsp; The whole structure is not yet finished,
+but it is already one of considerable size and extent, and is
+capable of accommodating a very large number of patients.</p>
+<p>I cannot say that I derived much comfort from the inspection
+of this charity.&nbsp; The different wards might have been
+cleaner and better ordered; I saw nothing of that salutary system
+which had impressed me so favourably elsewhere; and everything
+had a lounging, listless, madhouse air, which was very
+painful.&nbsp; The moping idiot, cowering down with long
+dishevelled hair; the gibbering maniac, with his hideous laugh
+and pointed finger; the vacant eye, the fierce wild face, the
+gloomy picking of the hands and lips, and munching of the nails:
+there they were all, without disguise, in naked ugliness and
+horror.&nbsp; In the dining-room, a bare, dull, dreary place,
+with nothing for the eye to rest on but the empty walls, a woman
+was locked up alone.&nbsp; She was bent, they told me, on
+committing suicide.&nbsp; If anything could have strengthened her
+in her resolution, it would certainly have been the insupportable
+monotony of such an existence.</p>
+<p>The terrible crowd with which these halls and galleries were
+filled, so shocked me, that I abridged my stay within the
+shortest limits, and declined to see that portion of the building
+in which the refractory and violent were under closer
+restraint.&nbsp; I have no doubt that the gentleman who presided
+over this establishment at the time I write of, was competent to
+manage it, and had done all in his power to promote its
+usefulness: but will it be believed that the miserable strife of
+Party feeling is carried even into this sad refuge of afflicted
+and degraded humanity?&nbsp; Will it be believed that the eyes
+which are to watch over and control the wanderings of minds on
+which the most dreadful visitation to which our nature is exposed
+has fallen, must wear the glasses of some wretched side in
+Politics?&nbsp; Will it be believed that the governor of such a
+house as this, is appointed, and deposed, and changed
+perpetually, as Parties fluctuate and vary, and as their
+despicable weathercocks are blown this way or that?&nbsp; A
+hundred times in every week, some new most paltry exhibition of
+that narrow-minded and injurious Party Spirit, which is the
+Simoom of America, sickening and blighting everything of
+wholesome life within its reach, was forced upon my notice; but I
+never turned my back upon it with feelings of such deep disgust
+and measureless contempt, as when I crossed the threshold of this
+madhouse.</p>
+<p>At a short distance from this building is another called the
+Alms House, that is to say, the workhouse of New York.&nbsp; This
+is a large Institution also: lodging, I believe, when I was
+there, nearly a thousand poor.&nbsp; It was badly ventilated, and
+badly lighted; was not too clean;&mdash;and impressed me, on the
+whole, very uncomfortably.&nbsp; But it must be remembered that
+New York, as a great emporium of commerce, and as a place of
+general resort, not only from all parts of the States, but from
+most parts of the world, has always a large pauper population to
+provide for; and labours, therefore, under peculiar difficulties
+in this respect.&nbsp; Nor must it be forgotten that New York is
+a large town, and that in all large towns a vast amount of good
+and evil is intermixed and jumbled up together.</p>
+<p>In the same neighbourhood is the Farm, where young orphans are
+nursed and bred.&nbsp; I did not see it, but I believe it is well
+conducted; and I can the more easily credit it, from knowing how
+mindful they usually are, in America, of that beautiful passage
+in the Litany which remembers all sick persons and young
+children.</p>
+<p>I was taken to these Institutions by water, in a boat
+belonging to the Island jail, and rowed by a crew of prisoners,
+who were dressed in a striped uniform of black and buff, in which
+they looked like faded tigers.&nbsp; They took me, by the same
+conveyance, to the jail itself.</p>
+<p>It is an old prison, and quite a pioneer establishment, on the
+plan I have already described.&nbsp; I was glad to hear this, for
+it is unquestionably a very indifferent one.&nbsp; The most is
+made, however, of the means it possesses, and it is as well
+regulated as such a place can be.</p>
+<p>The women work in covered sheds, erected for that
+purpose.&nbsp; If I remember right, there are no shops for the
+men, but be that as it may, the greater part of them labour in
+certain stone-quarries near at hand.&nbsp; The day being very wet
+indeed, this labour was suspended, and the prisoners were in
+their cells.&nbsp; Imagine these cells, some two or three hundred
+in number, and in every one a man locked up; this one at his door
+for air, with his hands thrust through the grate; this one in bed
+(in the middle of the day, remember); and this one flung down in
+a heap upon the ground, with his head against the bars, like a
+wild beast.&nbsp; Make the rain pour down, outside, in
+torrents.&nbsp; Put the everlasting stove in the midst; hot, and
+suffocating, and vaporous, as a witch&rsquo;s cauldron.&nbsp; Add
+a collection of gentle odours, such as would arise from a
+thousand mildewed umbrellas, wet through, and a thousand
+buck-baskets, full of half-washed linen&mdash;and there is the
+prison, as it was that day.</p>
+<p>The prison for the State at Sing Sing is, on the other hand, a
+model jail.&nbsp; That, and Auburn, are, I believe, the largest
+and best examples of the silent system.</p>
+<p>In another part of the city, is the Refuge for the Destitute:
+an Institution whose object is to reclaim youthful offenders,
+male and female, black and white, without distinction; to teach
+them useful trades, apprentice them to respectable masters, and
+make them worthy members of society.&nbsp; Its design, it will be
+seen, is similar to that at Boston; and it is a no less
+meritorious and admirable establishment.&nbsp; A suspicion
+crossed my mind during my inspection of this noble charity,
+whether the superintendent had quite sufficient knowledge of the
+world and worldly characters; and whether he did not commit a
+great mistake in treating some young girls, who were to all
+intents and purposes, by their years and their past lives, women,
+as though they were little children; which certainly had a
+ludicrous effect in my eyes, and, or I am much mistaken, in
+theirs also.&nbsp; As the Institution, however, is always under a
+vigilant examination of a body of gentlemen of great intelligence
+and experience, it cannot fail to be well conducted; and whether
+I am right or wrong in this slight particular, is unimportant to
+its deserts and character, which it would be difficult to
+estimate too highly.</p>
+<p>In addition to these establishments, there are in New York,
+excellent hospitals and schools, literary institutions and
+libraries; an admirable fire department (as indeed it should be,
+having constant practice), and charities of every sort and
+kind.&nbsp; In the suburbs there is a spacious cemetery:
+unfinished yet, but every day improving.&nbsp; The saddest tomb I
+saw there was &lsquo;The Strangers&rsquo; Grave.&nbsp; Dedicated
+to the different hotels in this city.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>There are three principal theatres.&nbsp; Two of them, the
+Park and the Bowery, are large, elegant, and handsome buildings,
+and are, I grieve to write it, generally deserted.&nbsp; The
+third, the Olympic, is a tiny show-box for vaudevilles and
+burlesques.&nbsp; It is singularly well conducted by Mr.
+Mitchell, a comic actor of great quiet humour and originality,
+who is well remembered and esteemed by London playgoers.&nbsp; I
+am happy to report of this deserving gentleman, that his benches
+are usually well filled, and that his theatre rings with
+merriment every night.&nbsp; I had almost forgotten a small
+summer theatre, called Niblo&rsquo;s, with gardens and open air
+amusements attached; but I believe it is not exempt from the
+general depression under which Theatrical Property, or what is
+humorously called by that name, unfortunately labours.</p>
+<p>The country round New York is surpassingly and exquisitely
+picturesque.&nbsp; The climate, as I have already intimated, is
+somewhat of the warmest.&nbsp; What it would be, without the sea
+breezes which come from its beautiful Bay in the evening time, I
+will not throw myself or my readers into a fever by
+inquiring.</p>
+<p>The tone of the best society in this city, is like that of
+Boston; here and there, it may be, with a greater infusion of the
+mercantile spirit, but generally polished and refined, and always
+most hospitable.&nbsp; The houses and tables are elegant; the
+hours later and more rakish; and there is, perhaps, a greater
+spirit of contention in reference to appearances, and the display
+of wealth and costly living.&nbsp; The ladies are singularly
+beautiful.</p>
+<p>Before I left New York I made arrangements for securing a
+passage home in the George Washington packet ship, which was
+advertised to sail in June: that being the month in which I had
+determined, if prevented by no accident in the course of my
+ramblings, to leave America.</p>
+<p>I never thought that going back to England, returning to all
+who are dear to me, and to pursuits that have insensibly grown to
+be a part of my nature, I could have felt so much sorrow as I
+endured, when I parted at last, on board this ship, with the
+friends who had accompanied me from this city.&nbsp; I never
+thought the name of any place, so far away and so lately known,
+could ever associate itself in my mind with the crowd of
+affectionate remembrances that now cluster about it.&nbsp; There
+are those in this city who would brighten, to me, the darkest
+winter-day that ever glimmered and went out in Lapland; and
+before whose presence even Home grew dim, when they and I
+exchanged that painful word which mingles with our every thought
+and deed; which haunts our cradle-heads in infancy, and closes up
+the vista of our lives in age.</p>
+<h2><a name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+81</span>CHAPTER VII<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">PHILADELPHIA, AND ITS SOLITARY
+PRISON</span></h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> journey from New York to
+Philadelphia, is made by railroad, and two ferries; and usually
+occupies between five and six hours.&nbsp; It was a fine evening
+when we were passengers in the train: and watching the bright
+sunset from a little window near the door by which we sat, my
+attention was attracted to a remarkable appearance issuing from
+the windows of the gentleman&rsquo;s car immediately in front of
+us, which I supposed for some time was occasioned by a number of
+industrious persons inside, ripping open feather-beds, and giving
+the feathers to the wind.&nbsp; At length it occurred to me that
+they were only spitting, which was indeed the case; though how
+any number of passengers which it was possible for that car to
+contain, could have maintained such a playful and incessant
+shower of expectoration, I am still at a loss to understand:
+notwithstanding the experience in all salivatory phenomena which
+I afterwards acquired.</p>
+<p>I made acquaintance, on this journey, with a mild and modest
+young quaker, who opened the discourse by informing me, in a
+grave whisper, that his grandfather was the inventor of
+cold-drawn castor oil.&nbsp; I mention the circumstance here,
+thinking it probable that this is the first occasion on which the
+valuable medicine in question was ever used as a conversational
+aperient.</p>
+<p>We reached the city, late that night.&nbsp; Looking out of my
+chamber-window, before going to bed, I saw, on the opposite side
+of the way, a handsome building of white marble, which had a
+mournful ghost-like aspect, dreary to behold.&nbsp; I attributed
+this to the sombre influence of the night, and on rising in the
+morning looked out again, expecting to see its steps and portico
+thronged with groups of people passing in and out.&nbsp; The door
+was still tight shut, however; the same cold cheerless air
+prevailed: and the building looked as if the marble statue of Don
+Guzman could alone have any business to transact within its
+gloomy walls.&nbsp; I hastened to inquire its name and purpose,
+and then my surprise vanished.&nbsp; It was the Tomb of many
+fortunes; the Great Catacomb of investment; the memorable United
+States Bank.</p>
+<p>The stoppage of this bank, with all its ruinous consequences,
+had cast (as I was told on every side) a gloom on Philadelphia,
+under the depressing effect of which it yet laboured.&nbsp; It
+certainly did seem rather dull and out of spirits.</p>
+<p>It is a handsome city, but distractingly regular.&nbsp; After
+walking about it for an hour or two, I felt that I would have
+given the world for a crooked street.&nbsp; The collar of my coat
+appeared to stiffen, and the brim of my hat to expand, beneath
+its quakery influence.&nbsp; My hair shrunk into a sleek short
+crop, my hands folded themselves upon my breast of their own calm
+accord, and thoughts of taking lodgings in Mark Lane over against
+the Market Place, and of making a large fortune by speculations
+in corn, came over me involuntarily.</p>
+<p>Philadelphia is most bountifully provided with fresh water,
+which is showered and jerked about, and turned on, and poured
+off, everywhere.&nbsp; The Waterworks, which are on a height near
+the city, are no less ornamental than useful, being tastefully
+laid out as a public garden, and kept in the best and neatest
+order.&nbsp; The river is dammed at this point, and forced by its
+own power into certain high tanks or reservoirs, whence the whole
+city, to the top stories of the houses, is supplied at a very
+trifling expense.</p>
+<p>There are various public institutions.&nbsp; Among them a most
+excellent Hospital&mdash;a quaker establishment, but not
+sectarian in the great benefits it confers; a quiet, quaint old
+Library, named after Franklin; a handsome Exchange and Post
+Office; and so forth.&nbsp; In connection with the quaker
+Hospital, there is a picture by West, which is exhibited for the
+benefit of the funds of the institution.&nbsp; The subject is,
+our Saviour healing the sick, and it is, perhaps, as favourable a
+specimen of the master as can be seen anywhere.&nbsp; Whether
+this be high or low praise, depends upon the reader&rsquo;s
+taste.</p>
+<p>In the same room, there is a very characteristic and life-like
+portrait by Mr. Sully, a distinguished American artist.</p>
+<p>My stay in Philadelphia was very short, but what I saw of its
+society, I greatly liked.&nbsp; Treating of its general
+characteristics, I should be disposed to say that it is more
+provincial than Boston or New York, and that there is afloat in
+the fair city, an assumption of taste and criticism, savouring
+rather of those genteel discussions upon the same themes, in
+connection with Shakspeare and the Musical Glasses, of which we
+read in the Vicar of Wakefield.&nbsp; Near the city, is a most
+splendid unfinished marble structure for the Girard College,
+founded by a deceased gentleman of that name and of enormous
+wealth, which, if completed according to the original design,
+will be perhaps the richest edifice of modern times.&nbsp; But
+the bequest is involved in legal disputes, and pending them the
+work has stopped; so that like many other great undertakings in
+America, even this is rather going to be done one of these days,
+than doing now.</p>
+<p>In the outskirts, stands a great prison, called the Eastern
+Penitentiary: conducted on a plan peculiar to the state of
+Pennsylvania.&nbsp; The system here, is rigid, strict, and
+hopeless solitary confinement.&nbsp; I believe it, in its
+effects, to be cruel and wrong.</p>
+<p>In its intention, I am well convinced that it is kind, humane,
+and meant for reformation; but I am persuaded that those who
+devised this system of Prison Discipline, and those benevolent
+gentlemen who carry it into execution, do not know what it is
+that they are doing.&nbsp; I believe that very few men are
+capable of estimating the immense amount of torture and agony
+which this dreadful punishment, prolonged for years, inflicts
+upon the sufferers; and in guessing at it myself, and in
+reasoning from what I have seen written upon their faces, and
+what to my certain knowledge they feel within, I am only the more
+convinced that there is a depth of terrible endurance in it which
+none but the sufferers themselves can fathom, and which no man
+has a right to inflict upon his fellow-creature.&nbsp; I hold
+this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain, to
+be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body: and because
+its ghastly signs and tokens are not so palpable to the eye and
+sense of touch as scars upon the flesh; because its wounds are
+not upon the surface, and it extorts few cries that human ears
+can hear; therefore I the more denounce it, as a secret
+punishment which slumbering humanity is not roused up to
+stay.&nbsp; I hesitated once, debating with myself, whether, if I
+had the power of saying &lsquo;Yes&rsquo; or &lsquo;No,&rsquo; I
+would allow it to be tried in certain cases, where the terms of
+imprisonment were short; but now, I solemnly declare, that with
+no rewards or honours could I walk a happy man beneath the open
+sky by day, or lie me down upon my bed at night, with the
+consciousness that one human creature, for any length of time, no
+matter what, lay suffering this unknown punishment in his silent
+cell, and I the cause, or I consenting to it in the least
+degree.</p>
+<p>I was accompanied to this prison by two gentlemen officially
+connected with its management, and passed the day in going from
+cell to cell, and talking with the inmates.&nbsp; Every facility
+was afforded me, that the utmost courtesy could suggest.&nbsp;
+Nothing was concealed or hidden from my view, and every piece of
+information that I sought, was openly and frankly given.&nbsp;
+The perfect order of the building cannot be praised too highly,
+and of the excellent motives of all who are immediately concerned
+in the administration of the system, there can be no kind of
+question.</p>
+<p>Between the body of the prison and the outer wall, there is a
+spacious garden.&nbsp; Entering it, by a wicket in the massive
+gate, we pursued the path before us to its other termination, and
+passed into a large chamber, from which seven long passages
+radiate.&nbsp; On either side of each, is a long, long row of low
+cell doors, with a certain number over every one.&nbsp; Above, a
+gallery of cells like those below, except that they have no
+narrow yard attached (as those in the ground tier have), and are
+somewhat smaller.&nbsp; The possession of two of these, is
+supposed to compensate for the absence of so much air and
+exercise as can be had in the dull strip attached to each of the
+others, in an hour&rsquo;s time every day; and therefore every
+prisoner in this upper story has two cells, adjoining and
+communicating with, each other.</p>
+<p>Standing at the central point, and looking down these dreary
+passages, the dull repose and quiet that prevails, is
+awful.&nbsp; Occasionally, there is a drowsy sound from some lone
+weaver&rsquo;s shuttle, or shoemaker&rsquo;s last, but it is
+stifled by the thick walls and heavy dungeon-door, and only
+serves to make the general stillness more profound.&nbsp; Over
+the head and face of every prisoner who comes into this
+melancholy house, a black hood is drawn; and in this dark shroud,
+an emblem of the curtain dropped between him and the living
+world, he is led to the cell from which he never again comes
+forth, until his whole term of imprisonment has expired.&nbsp; He
+never hears of wife and children; home or friends; the life or
+death of any single creature.&nbsp; He sees the prison-officers,
+but with that exception he never looks upon a human countenance,
+or hears a human voice.&nbsp; He is a man buried alive; to be dug
+out in the slow round of years; and in the mean time dead to
+everything but torturing anxieties and horrible despair.</p>
+<p>His name, and crime, and term of suffering, are unknown, even
+to the officer who delivers him his daily food.&nbsp; There is a
+number over his cell-door, and in a book of which the governor of
+the prison has one copy, and the moral instructor another: this
+is the index of his history.&nbsp; Beyond these pages the prison
+has no record of his existence: and though he live to be in the
+same cell ten weary years, he has no means of knowing, down to
+the very last hour, in which part of the building it is situated;
+what kind of men there are about him; whether in the long winter
+nights there are living people near, or he is in some lonely
+corner of the great jail, with walls, and passages, and iron
+doors between him and the nearest sharer in its solitary
+horrors.</p>
+<p>Every cell has double doors: the outer one of sturdy oak, the
+other of grated iron, wherein there is a trap through which his
+food is handed.&nbsp; He has a Bible, and a slate and pencil,
+and, under certain restrictions, has sometimes other books,
+provided for the purpose, and pen and ink and paper.&nbsp; His
+razor, plate, and can, and basin, hang upon the wall, or shine
+upon the little shelf.&nbsp; Fresh water is laid on in every
+cell, and he can draw it at his pleasure.&nbsp; During the day,
+his bedstead turns up against the wall, and leaves more space for
+him to work in.&nbsp; His loom, or bench, or wheel, is there; and
+there he labours, sleeps and wakes, and counts the seasons as
+they change, and grows old.</p>
+<p>The first man I saw, was seated at his loom, at work.&nbsp; He
+had been there six years, and was to remain, I think, three
+more.&nbsp; He had been convicted as a receiver of stolen goods,
+but even after his long imprisonment, denied his guilt, and said
+he had been hardly dealt by.&nbsp; It was his second offence.</p>
+<p>He stopped his work when we went in, took off his spectacles,
+and answered freely to everything that was said to him, but
+always with a strange kind of pause first, and in a low,
+thoughtful voice.&nbsp; He wore a paper hat of his own making,
+and was pleased to have it noticed and commanded.&nbsp; He had
+very ingeniously manufactured a sort of Dutch clock from some
+disregarded odds and ends; and his vinegar-bottle served for the
+pendulum.&nbsp; Seeing me interested in this contrivance, he
+looked up at it with a great deal of pride, and said that he had
+been thinking of improving it, and that he hoped the hammer and a
+little piece of broken glass beside it &lsquo;would play music
+before long.&rsquo;&nbsp; He had extracted some colours from the
+yarn with which he worked, and painted a few poor figures on the
+wall.&nbsp; One, of a female, over the door, he called &lsquo;The
+Lady of the Lake.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>He smiled as I looked at these contrivances to while away the
+time; but when I looked from them to him, I saw that his lip
+trembled, and could have counted the beating of his heart.&nbsp;
+I forget how it came about, but some allusion was made to his
+having a wife.&nbsp; He shook his head at the word, turned aside,
+and covered his face with his hands.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;But you are resigned now!&rsquo; said one of the
+gentlemen after a short pause, during which he had resumed his
+former manner.&nbsp; He answered with a sigh that seemed quite
+reckless in its hopelessness, &lsquo;Oh yes, oh yes!&nbsp; I am
+resigned to it.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;And are a better man, you
+think?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Well, I hope so: I&rsquo;m sure I hope
+I may be.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;And time goes pretty
+quickly?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Time is very long gentlemen, within
+these four walls!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>He gazed about him&mdash;Heaven only knows how
+wearily!&mdash;as he said these words; and in the act of doing
+so, fell into a strange stare as if he had forgotten
+something.&nbsp; A moment afterwards he sighed heavily, put on
+his spectacles, and went about his work again.</p>
+<p>In another cell, there was a German, sentenced to five
+years&rsquo; imprisonment for larceny, two of which had just
+expired.&nbsp; With colours procured in the same manner, he had
+painted every inch of the walls and ceiling quite
+beautifully.&nbsp; He had laid out the few feet of ground,
+behind, with exquisite neatness, and had made a little bed in the
+centre, that looked, by-the-bye, like a grave.&nbsp; The taste
+and ingenuity he had displayed in everything were most
+extraordinary; and yet a more dejected, heart-broken, wretched
+creature, it would be difficult to imagine.&nbsp; I never saw
+such a picture of forlorn affliction and distress of mind.&nbsp;
+My heart bled for him; and when the tears ran down his cheeks,
+and he took one of the visitors aside, to ask, with his trembling
+hands nervously clutching at his coat to detain him, whether
+there was no hope of his dismal sentence being commuted, the
+spectacle was really too painful to witness.&nbsp; I never saw or
+heard of any kind of misery that impressed me more than the
+wretchedness of this man.</p>
+<p>In a third cell, was a tall, strong black, a burglar, working
+at his proper trade of making screws and the like.&nbsp; His time
+was nearly out.&nbsp; He was not only a very dexterous thief, but
+was notorious for his boldness and hardihood, and for the number
+of his previous convictions.&nbsp; He entertained us with a long
+account of his achievements, which he narrated with such infinite
+relish, that he actually seemed to lick his lips as he told us
+racy anecdotes of stolen plate, and of old ladies whom he had
+watched as they sat at windows in silver spectacles (he had
+plainly had an eye to their metal even from the other side of the
+street) and had afterwards robbed.&nbsp; This fellow, upon the
+slightest encouragement, would have mingled with his professional
+recollections the most detestable cant; but I am very much
+mistaken if he could have surpassed the unmitigated hypocrisy
+with which he declared that he blessed the day on which he came
+into that prison, and that he never would commit another robbery
+as long as he lived.</p>
+<p>There was one man who was allowed, as an indulgence, to keep
+rabbits.&nbsp; His room having rather a close smell in
+consequence, they called to him at the door to come out into the
+passage.&nbsp; He complied of course, and stood shading his
+haggard face in the unwonted sunlight of the great window,
+looking as wan and unearthly as if he had been summoned from the
+grave.&nbsp; He had a white rabbit in his breast; and when the
+little creature, getting down upon the ground, stole back into
+the cell, and he, being dismissed, crept timidly after it, I
+thought it would have been very hard to say in what respect the
+man was the nobler animal of the two.</p>
+<p>There was an English thief, who had been there but a few days
+out of seven years: a villainous, low-browed, thin-lipped fellow,
+with a white face; who had as yet no relish for visitors, and
+who, but for the additional penalty, would have gladly stabbed me
+with his shoemaker&rsquo;s knife.&nbsp; There was another German
+who had entered the jail but yesterday, and who started from his
+bed when we looked in, and pleaded, in his broken English, very
+hard for work.&nbsp; There was a poet, who after doing two
+days&rsquo; work in every four-and-twenty hours, one for himself
+and one for the prison, wrote verses about ships (he was by trade
+a mariner), and &lsquo;the maddening wine-cup,&rsquo; and his
+friends at home.&nbsp; There were very many of them.&nbsp; Some
+reddened at the sight of visitors, and some turned very
+pale.&nbsp; Some two or three had prisoner nurses with them, for
+they were very sick; and one, a fat old negro whose leg had been
+taken off within the jail, had for his attendant a classical
+scholar and an accomplished surgeon, himself a prisoner
+likewise.&nbsp; Sitting upon the stairs, engaged in some slight
+work, was a pretty coloured boy. &lsquo;Is there no refuge for
+young criminals in Philadelphia, then?&rsquo; said I.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Yes, but only for white children.&rsquo;&nbsp; Noble
+aristocracy in crime!</p>
+<p>There was a sailor who had been there upwards of eleven years,
+and who in a few months&rsquo; time would be free.&nbsp; Eleven
+years of solitary confinement!</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I am very glad to hear your time is nearly
+out.&rsquo;&nbsp; What does he say?&nbsp; Nothing.&nbsp; Why does
+he stare at his hands, and pick the flesh upon his fingers, and
+raise his eyes for an instant, every now and then, to those bare
+walls which have seen his head turn grey?&nbsp; It is a way he
+has sometimes.</p>
+<p>Does he never look men in the face, and does he always pluck
+at those hands of his, as though he were bent on parting skin and
+bone?&nbsp; It is his humour: nothing more.</p>
+<p>It is his humour too, to say that he does not look forward to
+going out; that he is not glad the time is drawing near; that he
+did look forward to it once, but that was very long ago; that he
+has lost all care for everything.&nbsp; It is his humour to be a
+helpless, crushed, and broken man.&nbsp; And, Heaven be his
+witness that he has his humour thoroughly gratified!</p>
+<p>There were three young women in adjoining cells, all convicted
+at the same time of a conspiracy to rob their prosecutor.&nbsp;
+In the silence and solitude of their lives they had grown to be
+quite beautiful.&nbsp; Their looks were very sad, and might have
+moved the sternest visitor to tears, but not to that kind of
+sorrow which the contemplation of the men awakens.&nbsp; One was
+a young girl; not twenty, as I recollect; whose snow-white room
+was hung with the work of some former prisoner, and upon whose
+downcast face the sun in all its splendour shone down through the
+high chink in the wall, where one narrow strip of bright blue sky
+was visible.&nbsp; She was very penitent and quiet; had come to
+be resigned, she said (and I believe her); and had a mind at
+peace.&nbsp; &lsquo;In a word, you are happy here?&rsquo; said
+one of my companions.&nbsp; She struggled&mdash;she did struggle
+very hard&mdash;to answer, Yes; but raising her eyes, and meeting
+that glimpse of freedom overhead, she burst into tears, and said,
+&lsquo;She tried to be; she uttered no complaint; but it was
+natural that she should sometimes long to go out of that one
+cell: she could not help <i>that</i>,&rsquo; she sobbed, poor
+thing!</p>
+<p>I went from cell to cell that day; and every face I saw, or
+word I heard, or incident I noted, is present to my mind in all
+its painfulness.&nbsp; But let me pass them by, for one, more
+pleasant, glance of a prison on the same plan which I afterwards
+saw at Pittsburg.</p>
+<p>When I had gone over that, in the same manner, I asked the
+governor if he had any person in his charge who was shortly going
+out.&nbsp; He had one, he said, whose time was up next day; but
+he had only been a prisoner two years.</p>
+<p>Two years!&nbsp; I looked back through two years of my own
+life&mdash;out of jail, prosperous, happy, surrounded by
+blessings, comforts, good fortune&mdash;and thought how wide a
+gap it was, and how long those two years passed in solitary
+captivity would have been.&nbsp; I have the face of this man, who
+was going to be released next day, before me now.&nbsp; It is
+almost more memorable in its happiness than the other faces in
+their misery.&nbsp; How easy and how natural it was for him to
+say that the system was a good one; and that the time went
+&lsquo;pretty quick&mdash;considering;&rsquo; and that when a man
+once felt that he had offended the law, and must satisfy it,
+&lsquo;he got along, somehow:&rsquo; and so forth!</p>
+<p>&lsquo;What did he call you back to say to you, in that
+strange flutter?&rsquo; I asked of my conductor, when he had
+locked the door and joined me in the passage.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Oh!&nbsp; That he was afraid the soles of his boots
+were not fit for walking, as they were a good deal worn when he
+came in; and that he would thank me very much to have them
+mended, ready.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Those boots had been taken off his feet, and put away with the
+rest of his clothes, two years before!</p>
+<p>I took that opportunity of inquiring how they conducted
+themselves immediately before going out; adding that I presumed
+they trembled very much.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Well, it&rsquo;s not so much a trembling,&rsquo; was
+the answer&mdash;&lsquo;though they do quiver&mdash;as a complete
+derangement of the nervous system.&nbsp; They can&rsquo;t sign
+their names to the book; sometimes can&rsquo;t even hold the pen;
+look about &rsquo;em without appearing to know why, or where they
+are; and sometimes get up and sit down again, twenty times in a
+minute.&nbsp; This is when they&rsquo;re in the office, where
+they are taken with the hood on, as they were brought in.&nbsp;
+When they get outside the gate, they stop, and look first one way
+and then the other; not knowing which to take.&nbsp; Sometimes
+they stagger as if they were drunk, and sometimes are forced to
+lean against the fence, they&rsquo;re so bad:&mdash;but they
+clear off in course of time.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>As I walked among these solitary cells, and looked at the
+faces of the men within them, I tried to picture to myself the
+thoughts and feelings natural to their condition.&nbsp; I
+imagined the hood just taken off, and the scene of their
+captivity disclosed to them in all its dismal monotony.</p>
+<p>At first, the man is stunned.&nbsp; His confinement is a
+hideous vision; and his old life a reality.&nbsp; He throws
+himself upon his bed, and lies there abandoned to despair.&nbsp;
+By degrees the insupportable solitude and barrenness of the place
+rouses him from this stupor, and when the trap in his grated door
+is opened, he humbly begs and prays for work.&nbsp; &lsquo;Give
+me some work to do, or I shall go raving mad!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>He has it; and by fits and starts applies himself to labour;
+but every now and then there comes upon him a burning sense of
+the years that must be wasted in that stone coffin, and an agony
+so piercing in the recollection of those who are hidden from his
+view and knowledge, that he starts from his seat, and striding up
+and down the narrow room with both hands clasped on his uplifted
+head, hears spirits tempting him to beat his brains out on the
+wall.</p>
+<p>Again he falls upon his bed, and lies there, moaning.&nbsp;
+Suddenly he starts up, wondering whether any other man is near;
+whether there is another cell like that on either side of him:
+and listens keenly.</p>
+<p>There is no sound, but other prisoners may be near for all
+that.&nbsp; He remembers to have heard once, when he little
+thought of coming here himself, that the cells were so
+constructed that the prisoners could not hear each other, though
+the officers could hear them.&nbsp; <a name="page90"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 90</span>Where is the nearest man&mdash;upon
+the right, or on the left? or is there one in both
+directions?&nbsp; Where is he sitting now&mdash;with his face to
+the light? or is he walking to and fro?&nbsp; How is he dressed?
+Has he been here long?&nbsp; Is he much worn away?&nbsp; Is he
+very white and spectre-like?&nbsp; Does <i>he</i> think of his
+neighbour too?</p>
+<p>Scarcely venturing to breathe, and listening while he thinks,
+he conjures up a figure with his back towards him, and imagines
+it moving about in this next cell.&nbsp; He has no idea of the
+face, but he is certain of the dark form of a stooping man.&nbsp;
+In the cell upon the other side, he puts another figure, whose
+face is hidden from him also.&nbsp; Day after day, and often when
+he wakes up in the middle of the night, he thinks of these two
+men until he is almost distracted.&nbsp; He never changes
+them.&nbsp; There they are always as he first imagined
+them&mdash;an old man on the right; a younger man upon the
+left&mdash;whose hidden features torture him to death, and have a
+mystery that makes him tremble.</p>
+<p>The weary days pass on with solemn pace, like mourners at a
+funeral; and slowly he begins to feel that the white walls of the
+cell have something dreadful in them: that their colour is
+horrible: that their smooth surface chills his blood: that there
+is one hateful corner which torments him.&nbsp; Every morning
+when he wakes, he hides his head beneath the coverlet, and
+shudders to see the ghastly ceiling looking down upon him.&nbsp;
+The blessed light of day itself peeps in, an ugly phantom face,
+through the unchangeable crevice which is his prison window.</p>
+<p>By slow but sure degrees, the terrors of that hateful corner
+swell until they beset him at all times; invade his rest, make
+his dreams hideous, and his nights dreadful.&nbsp; At first, he
+took a strange dislike to it; feeling as though it gave birth in
+his brain to something of corresponding shape, which ought not to
+be there, and racked his head with pains.&nbsp; Then he began to
+fear it, then to dream of it, and of men whispering its name and
+pointing to it.&nbsp; Then he could not bear to look at it, nor
+yet to turn his back upon it.&nbsp; Now, it is every night the
+lurking-place of a ghost: a shadow:&mdash;a silent something,
+horrible to see, but whether bird, or beast, or muffled human
+shape, he cannot tell.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p90b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The Solitary Prisoner"
+title=
+"The Solitary Prisoner"
+src="images/p90s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>When he is in his cell by day, he fears the little yard
+without.&nbsp; When he is in the yard, he dreads to re-enter the
+cell.&nbsp; When night comes, there stands the phantom in the
+corner.&nbsp; If he have the courage to stand in its place, and
+drive it out (he had once: being desperate), it broods upon his
+bed.&nbsp; In the twilight, and always at the same hour, a voice
+calls to him by name; as the darkness thickens, his Loom begins
+to live; and even that, his comfort, is a hideous figure,
+watching him till daybreak.</p>
+<p>Again, by slow degrees, these horrible fancies depart from him
+one by one: returning sometimes, unexpectedly, but at longer
+intervals, and in less alarming shapes.&nbsp; He has talked upon
+religious matters with the gentleman who visits him, and has read
+his Bible, and has written a prayer upon his slate, and hung it
+up as a kind of protection, and an assurance of Heavenly
+companionship.&nbsp; He dreams now, sometimes, of his children or
+his wife, but is sure that they are dead, or have deserted
+him.&nbsp; He is easily moved to tears; is gentle, submissive,
+and broken-spirited.&nbsp; Occasionally, the old agony comes
+back: a very little thing will revive it; even a familiar sound,
+or the scent of summer flowers in the air; but it does not last
+long, now: for the world without, has come to be the vision, and
+this solitary life, the sad reality.</p>
+<p>If his term of imprisonment be short&mdash;I mean
+comparatively, for short it cannot be&mdash;the last half year is
+almost worse than all; for then he thinks the prison will take
+fire and he be burnt in the ruins, or that he is doomed to die
+within the walls, or that he will be detained on some false
+charge and sentenced for another term: or that something, no
+matter what, must happen to prevent his going at large.&nbsp; And
+this is natural, and impossible to be reasoned against, because,
+after his long separation from human life, and his great
+suffering, any event will appear to him more probable in the
+contemplation, than the being restored to liberty and his
+fellow-creatures.</p>
+<p>If his period of confinement have been very long, the prospect
+of release bewilders and confuses him.&nbsp; His broken heart may
+flutter for a moment, when he thinks of the world outside, and
+what it might have been to him in all those lonely years, but
+that is all.&nbsp; The cell-door has been closed too long on all
+its hopes and cares.&nbsp; Better to have hanged him in the
+beginning than bring him to this pass, and send him forth to
+mingle with his kind, who are his kind no more.</p>
+<p>On the haggard face of every man among these prisoners, the
+same expression sat.&nbsp; I know not what to liken it to.&nbsp;
+It had something of that strained attention which we see upon the
+faces of the blind and deaf, mingled with a kind of horror, as
+though they had all been secretly terrified.&nbsp; In every
+little chamber that I entered, and at every grate through which I
+looked, I seemed to see the same appalling countenance.&nbsp; It
+lives in my memory, with the fascination of a remarkable
+picture.&nbsp; Parade before my eyes, a hundred men, with one
+among them newly released from this solitary suffering, and I
+would point him out.</p>
+<p>The faces of the women, as I have said, it humanises and
+refines.&nbsp; Whether this be because of their better nature,
+which is elicited in solitude, or because of their being gentler
+creatures, of greater patience and longer suffering, I do not
+know; but so it is.&nbsp; That the punishment is nevertheless, to
+my thinking, fully as cruel and as wrong in their case, as in
+that of the men, I need scarcely add.</p>
+<p>My firm conviction is that, independent of the mental anguish
+it occasions&mdash;an anguish so acute and so tremendous, that
+all imagination of it must fall far short of the reality&mdash;it
+wears the mind into a morbid state, which renders it unfit for
+the rough contact and busy action of the world.&nbsp; It is my
+fixed opinion that those who have undergone this punishment,
+<span class="smcap">must</span> pass into society again morally
+unhealthy and diseased.&nbsp; There are many instances on record,
+of men who have chosen, or have been condemned, to lives of
+perfect solitude, but I scarcely remember one, even among sages
+of strong and vigorous intellect, where its effect has not become
+apparent, in some disordered train of thought, or some gloomy
+hallucination.&nbsp; What monstrous phantoms, bred of despondency
+and doubt, and born and reared in solitude, have stalked upon the
+earth, making creation ugly, and darkening the face of
+Heaven!</p>
+<p>Suicides are rare among these prisoners: are almost, indeed,
+unknown.&nbsp; But no argument in favour of the system, can
+reasonably be deduced from this circumstance, although it is very
+often urged.&nbsp; All men who have made diseases of the mind
+their study, know perfectly well that such extreme depression and
+despair as will change the whole character, and beat down all its
+powers of elasticity and self-resistance, may be at work within a
+man, and yet stop short of self-destruction.&nbsp; This is a
+common case.</p>
+<p>That it makes the senses dull, and by degrees impairs the
+bodily faculties, I am quite sure.&nbsp; I remarked to those who
+were with me in this very establishment at Philadelphia, that the
+criminals who had been there long, were deaf.&nbsp; They, who
+were in the habit of seeing these men constantly, were perfectly
+amazed at the idea, which they regarded as groundless and
+fanciful.&nbsp; And yet the very first prisoner to whom they
+appealed&mdash;one of their own selection confirmed my impression
+(which was unknown to him) instantly, and said, with a genuine
+air it was impossible to doubt, that he couldn&rsquo;t think how
+it happened, but he <i>was</i> growing very dull of hearing.</p>
+<p>That it is a singularly unequal punishment, and affects the
+worst man least, there is no doubt.&nbsp; In its superior
+efficiency as a means of reformation, compared with that other
+code of regulations which allows the prisoners to work in company
+without communicating together, I have not the smallest
+faith.&nbsp; All the instances of reformation that were mentioned
+to me, were of a kind that might have been&mdash;and I have no
+doubt whatever, in my own mind, would have been&mdash;equally
+well brought about by the Silent System.&nbsp; With regard to
+such men as the negro burglar and the English thief, even the
+most enthusiastic have scarcely any hope of their conversion.</p>
+<p>It seems to me that the objection that nothing wholesome or
+good has ever had its growth in such unnatural solitude, and that
+even a dog or any of the more intelligent among beasts, would
+pine, and mope, and rust away, beneath its influence, would be in
+itself a sufficient argument against this system.&nbsp; But when
+we recollect, in addition, how very cruel and severe it is, and
+that a solitary life is always liable to peculiar and distinct
+objections of a most deplorable nature, which have arisen here,
+and call to mind, moreover, that the choice is not between this
+system, and a bad or ill-considered one, but between it and
+another which has worked well, and is, in its whole design and
+practice, excellent; there is surely more than sufficient reason
+for abandoning a mode of punishment attended by so little hope or
+promise, and fraught, beyond dispute, with such a host of
+evils.</p>
+<p>As a relief to its contemplation, I will close this chapter
+with a curious story arising out of the same theme, which was
+related to me, on the occasion of this visit, by some of the
+gentlemen concerned.</p>
+<p>At one of the periodical meetings of the inspectors of this
+prison, a working man of Philadelphia presented himself before
+the Board, and earnestly requested to be placed in solitary
+confinement.&nbsp; On being asked what motive could possibly
+prompt him to make this strange demand, he answered that he had
+an irresistible propensity to get drunk; that he was constantly
+indulging it, to his great misery and ruin; that he had no power
+of resistance; that he wished to be put beyond the reach of
+temptation; and that he could think of no better way than
+this.&nbsp; It was pointed out to him, in reply, that the prison
+was for criminals who had been tried and sentenced by the law,
+and could not be made available for any such fanciful purposes;
+he was exhorted to abstain from intoxicating drinks, as he surely
+might if he would; and received other very good advice, with
+which he retired, exceedingly dissatisfied with the result of his
+application.</p>
+<p>He came again, and again, and again, and was so very earnest
+and importunate, that at last they took counsel together, and
+said, &lsquo;He will certainly qualify himself for admission, if
+we reject him any more.&nbsp; Let us shut him up.&nbsp; He will
+soon be glad to go away, and then we shall get rid of
+him.&rsquo;&nbsp; So they made him sign a statement which would
+prevent his ever sustaining an action for false imprisonment, to
+the effect that his incarceration was voluntary, and of his own
+seeking; they requested him to take notice that the officer in
+attendance had orders to release him at any hour of the day or
+night, when he might knock upon his door for that purpose; but
+desired him to understand, that once going out, he would not be
+admitted any more.&nbsp; These conditions agreed upon, and he
+still remaining in the same mind, he was conducted to the prison,
+and shut up in one of the cells.</p>
+<p>In this cell, the man, who had not the firmness to leave a
+glass of liquor standing untasted on a table before him&mdash;in
+this cell, in solitary confinement, and working every day at his
+trade of shoemaking, this man remained nearly two years.&nbsp;
+His health beginning to fail at the expiration of that time, the
+surgeon recommended that he should work occasionally in the
+garden; and as he liked the notion very much, he went about this
+new occupation with great cheerfulness.</p>
+<p>He was digging here, one summer day, very industriously, when
+the wicket in the outer gate chanced to be left open: showing,
+beyond, the well-remembered dusty road and sunburnt fields.&nbsp;
+The way was as free to him as to any man living, but he no sooner
+raised his head and caught sight of it, all shining in the light,
+than, with the involuntary instinct of a prisoner, he cast away
+his spade, scampered off as fast as his legs would carry him, and
+never once looked back.</p>
+<h2><a name="page94"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+94</span>CHAPTER VIII<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">WASHINGTON.&nbsp; THE LEGISLATURE.&nbsp;
+AND THE PRESIDENT&rsquo;S HOUSE</span></h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">We</span> left Philadelphia by steamboat,
+at six o&rsquo;clock one very cold morning, and turned our faces
+towards Washington.</p>
+<p>In the course of this day&rsquo;s journey, as on subsequent
+occasions, we encountered some Englishmen (small farmers,
+perhaps, or country publicans at home) who were settled in
+America, and were travelling on their own affairs.&nbsp; Of all
+grades and kinds of men that jostle one in the public conveyances
+of the States, these are often the most intolerable and the most
+insufferable companions.&nbsp; United to every disagreeable
+characteristic that the worst kind of American travellers
+possess, these countrymen of ours display an amount of insolent
+conceit and cool assumption of superiority, quite monstrous to
+behold.&nbsp; In the coarse familiarity of their approach, and
+the effrontery of their inquisitiveness (which they are in great
+haste to assert, as if they panted to revenge themselves upon the
+decent old restraints of home), they surpass any native specimens
+that came within my range of observation: and I often grew so
+patriotic when I saw and heard them, that I would cheerfully have
+submitted to a reasonable fine, if I could have given any other
+country in the whole world, the honour of claiming them for its
+children.</p>
+<p>As Washington may be called the head-quarters of
+tobacco-tinctured saliva, the time is come when I must confess,
+without any disguise, that the prevalence of those two odious
+practices of chewing and expectorating began about this time to
+be anything but agreeable, and soon became most offensive and
+sickening.&nbsp; In all the public places of America, this filthy
+custom is recognised.&nbsp; In the courts of law, the judge has
+his spittoon, the crier his, the witness his, and the prisoner
+his; while the jurymen and spectators are provided for, as so
+many men who in the course of nature must desire to spit
+incessantly.&nbsp; In the hospitals, the students of medicine are
+requested, by notices upon the wall, to eject their tobacco juice
+into the boxes provided for that purpose, and not to discolour
+the stairs.&nbsp; In public buildings, visitors are implored,
+through the same agency, to squirt the essence of their quids, or
+&lsquo;plugs,&rsquo; as I have heard them called by gentlemen
+learned in this kind of sweetmeat, into the national spittoons,
+and not about the bases of the marble columns.&nbsp; But in some
+parts, this custom is inseparably mixed up with every meal and
+morning call, and with all the transactions of social life.&nbsp;
+The stranger, who follows in the track I took myself, will find
+it in its full bloom and glory, luxuriant in all its alarming
+recklessness, at Washington.&nbsp; And let him not persuade
+himself (as I once did, to my shame) that previous tourists have
+exaggerated its extent.&nbsp; The thing itself is an exaggeration
+of nastiness, which cannot be outdone.</p>
+<p>On board this steamboat, there were two young gentlemen, with
+shirt-collars reversed as usual, and armed with very big
+walking-sticks; who planted two seats in the middle of the deck,
+at a distance of some four paces apart; took out their
+tobacco-boxes; and sat down opposite each other, to chew.&nbsp;
+In less than a quarter of an hour&rsquo;s time, these hopeful
+youths had shed about them on the clean boards, a copious shower
+of yellow rain; clearing, by that means, a kind of magic circle,
+within whose limits no intruders dared to come, and which they
+never failed to refresh and re-refresh before a spot was
+dry.&nbsp; This being before breakfast, rather disposed me, I
+confess, to nausea; but looking attentively at one of the
+expectorators, I plainly saw that he was young in chewing, and
+felt inwardly uneasy, himself.&nbsp; A glow of delight came over
+me at this discovery; and as I marked his face turn paler and
+paler, and saw the ball of tobacco in his left cheek, quiver with
+his suppressed agony, while yet he spat, and chewed, and spat
+again, in emulation of his older friend, I could have fallen on
+his neck and implored him to go on for hours.</p>
+<p>We all sat down to a comfortable breakfast in the cabin below,
+where there was no more hurry or confusion than at such a meal in
+England, and where there was certainly greater politeness
+exhibited than at most of our stage-coach banquets.&nbsp; At
+about nine o&rsquo;clock we arrived at the railroad station, and
+went on by the cars.&nbsp; At noon we turned out again, to cross
+a wide river in another steamboat; landed at a continuation of
+the railroad on the opposite shore; and went on by other cars; in
+which, in the course of the next hour or so, we crossed by wooden
+bridges, each a mile in length, two creeks, called respectively
+Great and Little Gunpowder.&nbsp; The water in both was blackened
+with flights of canvas-backed ducks, which are most delicious
+eating, and abound hereabouts at that season of the year.</p>
+<p>These bridges are of wood, have no parapet, and are only just
+wide enough for the passage of the trains; which, in the event of
+the smallest accident, wound inevitably be plunged into the
+river.&nbsp; They are startling contrivances, and are most
+agreeable when passed.</p>
+<p>We stopped to dine at Baltimore, and being now in Maryland,
+were waited on, for the first time, by slaves.&nbsp; The
+sensation of exacting any service from human creatures who are
+bought and sold, and being, for the time, a party as it were to
+their condition, is not an enviable one.&nbsp; The institution
+exists, perhaps, in its least repulsive and most mitigated form
+in such a town as this; but it <i>is</i> slavery; and though I
+was, with respect to it, an innocent man, its presence filled me
+with a sense of shame and self-reproach.</p>
+<p>After dinner, we went down to the railroad again, and took our
+seats in the cars for Washington.&nbsp; Being rather early, those
+men and boys who happened to have nothing particular to do, and
+were curious in foreigners, came (according to custom) round the
+carriage in which I sat; let down all the windows; thrust in
+their heads and shoulders; hooked themselves on conveniently, by
+their elbows; and fell to comparing notes on the subject of my
+personal appearance, with as much indifference as if I were a
+stuffed figure.&nbsp; I never gained so much uncompromising
+information with reference to my own nose and eyes, and various
+impressions wrought by my mouth and chin on different minds, and
+how my head looks when it is viewed from behind, as on these
+occasions.&nbsp; Some gentlemen were only satisfied by exercising
+their sense of touch; and the boys (who are surprisingly
+precocious in America) were seldom satisfied, even by that, but
+would return to the charge over and over again.&nbsp; Many a
+budding president has walked into my room with his cap on his
+head and his hands in his pockets, and stared at me for two whole
+hours: occasionally refreshing himself with a tweak of his nose,
+or a draught from the water-jug; or by walking to the windows and
+inviting other boys in the street below, to come up and do
+likewise: crying, &lsquo;Here he is!&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Come
+on!&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Bring all your brothers!&rsquo; with
+other hospitable entreaties of that nature.</p>
+<p>We reached Washington at about half-past six that evening, and
+had upon the way a beautiful view of the Capitol, which is a fine
+building of the Corinthian order, placed upon a noble and
+commanding eminence.&nbsp; Arrived at the hotel; I saw no more of
+the place that night; being very tired, and glad to get to
+bed.</p>
+<p>Breakfast over next morning, I walk about the streets for an
+hour or two, and, coming home, throw up the window in the front
+and back, and look out.&nbsp; Here is Washington, fresh in my
+mind and under my eye.</p>
+<p>Take the worst parts of the City Road and Pentonville, or the
+straggling outskirts of Paris, where the houses are smallest,
+preserving all their oddities, but especially the small shops and
+dwellings, occupied in Pentonville (but not in Washington) by
+furniture-brokers, keepers of poor eating-houses, and fanciers of
+birds.&nbsp; Burn the whole down; build it up again in wood and
+plaster; widen it a little; throw in part of St. John&rsquo;s
+Wood; put green blinds outside all the private houses, with a red
+curtain and a white one in every window; plough up all the roads;
+plant a great deal of coarse turf in every place where it ought
+<i>not</i> to be; erect three handsome buildings in stone and
+marble, anywhere, but the more entirely out of everybody&rsquo;s
+way the better; call one the Post Office; one the Patent Office,
+and one the Treasury; make it scorching hot in the morning, and
+freezing cold in the afternoon, with an occasional tornado of
+wind and dust; leave a brick-field without the bricks, in all
+central places where a street may naturally be expected: and
+that&rsquo;s Washington.</p>
+<p>The hotel in which we live, is a long row of small houses
+fronting on the street, and opening at the back upon a common
+yard, in which hangs a great triangle.&nbsp; Whenever a servant
+is wanted, somebody beats on this triangle from one stroke up to
+seven, according to the number of the house in which his presence
+is required; and as all the servants are always being wanted, and
+none of them ever come, this enlivening engine is in full
+performance the whole day through.&nbsp; Clothes are drying in
+the same yard; female slaves, with cotton handkerchiefs twisted
+round their heads are running to and fro on the hotel business;
+black waiters cross and recross with dishes in their hands; two
+great dogs are playing upon a mound of loose bricks in the centre
+of the little square; a pig is turning up his stomach to the sun,
+and grunting &lsquo;that&rsquo;s comfortable!&rsquo;; and neither
+the men, nor the women, nor the dogs, nor the pig, nor any
+created creature, takes the smallest notice of the triangle,
+which is tingling madly all the time.</p>
+<p>I walk to the front window, and look across the road upon a
+long, straggling row of houses, one story high, terminating,
+nearly opposite, but a little to the left, in a melancholy piece
+of waste ground with frowzy grass, which looks like a small piece
+of country that has taken to drinking, and has quite lost
+itself.&nbsp; Standing anyhow and all wrong, upon this open
+space, like something meteoric that has fallen down from the
+moon, is an odd, lop-sided, one-eyed kind of wooden building,
+that looks like a church, with a flag-staff as long as itself
+sticking out of a steeple something larger than a
+tea-chest.&nbsp; Under the window is a small stand of coaches,
+whose slave-drivers are sunning themselves on the steps of our
+door, and talking idly together.&nbsp; The three most obtrusive
+houses near at hand are the three meanest.&nbsp; On one&mdash;a
+shop, which never has anything in the window, and never has the
+door open&mdash;is painted in large characters, &lsquo;<span
+class="smcap">The City Lunch</span>.&rsquo;&nbsp; At another,
+which looks like a backway to somewhere else, but is an
+independent building in itself, oysters are procurable in every
+style.&nbsp; At the third, which is a very, very little
+tailor&rsquo;s shop, pants are fixed to order; or in other words,
+pantaloons are made to measure.&nbsp; And that is our street in
+Washington.</p>
+<p>It is sometimes called the City of Magnificent Distances, but
+it might with greater propriety be termed the City of Magnificent
+Intentions; for it is only on taking a bird&rsquo;s-eye view of
+it from the top of the Capitol, that one can at all comprehend
+the vast designs of its projector, an aspiring Frenchman.&nbsp;
+Spacious avenues, that begin in nothing, and lead nowhere;
+streets, mile-long, that only want houses, roads and inhabitants;
+public buildings that need but a public to be complete; and
+ornaments of great thoroughfares, which only lack great
+thoroughfares to ornament&mdash;are its leading features.&nbsp;
+One might fancy the season over, and most of the houses gone out
+of town for ever with their masters.&nbsp; To the admirers of
+cities it is a Barmecide Feast: a pleasant field for the
+imagination to rove in; a monument raised to a deceased project,
+with not even a legible inscription to record its departed
+greatness.</p>
+<p>Such as it is, it is likely to remain.&nbsp; It was originally
+chosen for the seat of Government, as a means of averting the
+conflicting jealousies and interests of the different States; and
+very probably, too, as being remote from mobs: a consideration
+not to be slighted, even in America.&nbsp; It has no trade or
+commerce of its own: having little or no population beyond the
+President and his establishment; the members of the legislature
+who reside there during the session; the Government clerks and
+officers employed in the various departments; the keepers of the
+hotels and boarding-houses; and the tradesmen who supply their
+tables.&nbsp; It is very unhealthy.&nbsp; Few people would live
+in Washington, I take it, who were not obliged to reside there;
+and the tides of emigration and speculation, those rapid and
+regardless currents, are little likely to flow at any time
+towards such dull and sluggish water.</p>
+<p>The principal features of the Capitol, are, of course, the two
+houses of Assembly.&nbsp; But there is, besides, in the centre of
+the building, a fine rotunda, ninety-six feet in diameter, and
+ninety-six high, whose circular wall is divided into
+compartments, ornamented by historical pictures.&nbsp; Four of
+these have for their subjects prominent events in the
+revolutionary struggle.&nbsp; They were painted by Colonel
+Trumbull, himself a member of Washington&rsquo;s staff at the
+time of their occurrence; from which circumstance they derive a
+peculiar interest of their own.&nbsp; In this same hall Mr.
+Greenough&rsquo;s large statue of Washington has been lately
+placed.&nbsp; It has great merits of course, but it struck me as
+being rather strained and violent for its subject.&nbsp; I could
+wish, however, to have seen it in a better light than it can ever
+be viewed in, where it stands.</p>
+<p>There is a very pleasant and commodious library in the
+Capitol; and from a balcony in front, the bird&rsquo;s-eye view,
+of which I have just spoken, may be had, together with a
+beautiful prospect of the adjacent country.&nbsp; In one of the
+ornamented portions of the building, there is a figure of
+Justice; whereunto the Guide Book says, &lsquo;the artist at
+first contemplated giving more of nudity, but he was warned that
+the public sentiment in this country would not admit of it, and
+in his caution he has gone, perhaps, into the opposite
+extreme.&rsquo;&nbsp; Poor Justice! she has been made to wear
+much stranger garments in America than those she pines in, in the
+Capitol.&nbsp; Let us hope that she has changed her dress-maker
+since they were fashioned, and that the public sentiment of the
+country did not cut out the clothes she hides her lovely figure
+in, just now.</p>
+<p>The House of Representatives is a beautiful and spacious hall,
+of semicircular shape, supported by handsome pillars.&nbsp; One
+part of the gallery is appropriated to the ladies, and there they
+sit in front rows, and come in, and go out, as at a play or
+concert.&nbsp; The chair is canopied, and raised considerably
+above the floor of the House; and every member has an easy chair
+and a writing desk to himself: which is denounced by some people
+out of doors as a most unfortunate and injudicious arrangement,
+tending to long sittings and prosaic speeches.&nbsp; It is an
+elegant chamber to look at, but a singularly bad one for all
+purposes of hearing.&nbsp; The Senate, which is smaller, is free
+from this objection, and is exceedingly well adapted to the uses
+for which it is designed.&nbsp; The sittings, I need hardly add,
+take place in the day; and the parliamentary forms are modelled
+on those of the old country.</p>
+<p>I was sometimes asked, in my progress through other places,
+whether I had not been very much impressed by the <i>heads</i> of
+the lawmakers at Washington; meaning not their chiefs and
+leaders, but literally their individual and personal heads,
+whereon their hair grew, and whereby the phrenological character
+of each legislator was expressed: and I almost as often struck my
+questioner dumb with indignant consternation by answering
+&lsquo;No, that I didn&rsquo;t remember being at all
+overcome.&rsquo;&nbsp; As I must, at whatever hazard, repeat the
+avowal here, I will follow it up by relating my impressions on
+this subject in as few words as possible.</p>
+<p>In the first place&mdash;it may be from some imperfect
+development of my organ of veneration&mdash;I do not remember
+having ever fainted away, or having even been moved to tears of
+joyful pride, at sight of any legislative body.&nbsp; I have
+borne the House of Commons like a man, and have yielded to no
+weakness, but slumber, in the House of Lords.&nbsp; I have seen
+elections for borough and county, and have never been impelled
+(no matter which party won) to damage my hat by throwing it up
+into the air in triumph, or to crack my voice by shouting forth
+any reference to our Glorious Constitution, to the noble purity
+of our independent voters, or, the unimpeachable integrity of our
+independent members.&nbsp; Having withstood such strong attacks
+upon my fortitude, it is possible that I may be of a cold and
+insensible temperament, amounting to iciness, in such matters;
+and therefore my impressions of the live pillars of the Capitol
+at Washington must be received with such grains of allowance as
+this free confession may seem to demand.</p>
+<p>Did I see in this public body an assemblage of men, bound
+together in the sacred names of Liberty and Freedom, and so
+asserting the chaste dignity of those twin goddesses, in all
+their discussions, as to exalt at once the Eternal Principles to
+which their names are given, and their own character and the
+character of their countrymen, in the admiring eyes of the whole
+world?</p>
+<p>It was but a week, since an aged, grey-haired man, a lasting
+honour to the land that gave him birth, who has done good service
+to his country, as his forefathers did, and who will be
+remembered scores upon scores of years after the worms bred in
+its corruption, are but so many grains of dust&mdash;it was but a
+week, since this old man had stood for days upon his trial before
+this very body, charged with having dared to assert the infamy of
+that traffic, which has for its accursed merchandise men and
+women, and their unborn children.&nbsp; Yes.&nbsp; And publicly
+exhibited in the same city all the while; gilded, framed and
+glazed hung up for general admiration; shown to strangers not
+with shame, but pride; its face not turned towards the wall,
+itself not taken down and burned; is the Unanimous Declaration of
+the Thirteen United States of America, which solemnly declares
+that All Men are created Equal; and are endowed by their Creator
+with the Inalienable Rights of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of
+Happiness!</p>
+<p>It was not a month, since this same body had sat calmly by,
+and heard a man, one of themselves, with oaths which beggars in
+their drink reject, threaten to cut another&rsquo;s throat from
+ear to ear.&nbsp; There he sat, among them; not crushed by the
+general feeling of the assembly, but as good a man as any.</p>
+<p>There was but a week to come, and another of that body, for
+doing his duty to those who sent him there; for claiming in a
+Republic the Liberty and Freedom of expressing their sentiments,
+and making known their prayer; would be tried, found guilty, and
+have strong censure passed upon him by the rest.&nbsp; His was a
+grave offence indeed; for years before, he had risen up and said,
+&lsquo;A gang of male and female slaves for sale, warranted to
+breed like cattle, linked to each other by iron fetters, are
+passing now along the open street beneath the windows of your
+Temple of Equality!&nbsp; Look!&rsquo;&nbsp; But there are many
+kinds of hunters engaged in the Pursuit of Happiness, and they go
+variously armed.&nbsp; It is the Inalienable Right of some among
+them, to take the field after <i>their</i> Happiness equipped
+with cat and cartwhip, stocks, and iron collar, and to shout
+their view halloa! (always in praise of Liberty) to the music of
+clanking chains and bloody stripes.</p>
+<p>Where sat the many legislators of coarse threats; of words and
+blows such as coalheavers deal upon each other, when they forget
+their breeding?&nbsp; On every side.&nbsp; Every session had its
+anecdotes of that kind, and the actors were all there.</p>
+<p>Did I recognise in this assembly, a body of men, who, applying
+themselves in a new world to correct some of the falsehoods and
+vices of the old, purified the avenues to Public Life, paved the
+dirty ways to Place and Power, debated and made laws for the
+Common Good, and had no party but their Country?</p>
+<p>I saw in them, the wheels that move the meanest perversion of
+virtuous Political Machinery that the worst tools ever
+wrought.&nbsp; Despicable trickery at elections; under-handed
+tamperings with public officers; cowardly attacks upon opponents,
+with scurrilous newspapers for shields, and hired pens for
+daggers; shameful trucklings to mercenary knaves, whose claim to
+be considered, is, that every day and week they sow new crops of
+ruin with their venal types, which are the dragon&rsquo;s teeth
+of yore, in everything but sharpness; aidings and abettings of
+every bad inclination in the popular mind, and artful
+suppressions of all its good influences: such things as these,
+and in a word, Dishonest Faction in its most depraved and most
+unblushing form, stared out from every corner of the crowded
+hall.</p>
+<p>Did I see among them, the intelligence and refinement: the
+true, honest, patriotic heart of America?&nbsp; Here and there,
+were drops of its blood and life, but they scarcely coloured the
+stream of desperate adventurers which sets that way for profit
+and for pay.&nbsp; It is the game of these men, and of their
+profligate organs, to make the strife of politics so fierce and
+brutal, and so destructive of all self-respect in worthy men,
+that sensitive and delicate-minded persons shall be kept aloof,
+and they, and such as they, be left to battle out their selfish
+views unchecked.&nbsp; And thus this lowest of all scrambling
+fights goes on, and they who in other countries would, from their
+intelligence and station, most aspire to make the laws, do here
+recoil the farthest from that degradation.</p>
+<p>That there are, among the representatives of the people in
+both Houses, and among all parties, some men of high character
+and great abilities, I need not say.&nbsp; The foremost among
+those politicians who are known in Europe, have been already
+described, and I see no reason to depart from the rule I have
+laid down for my guidance, of abstaining from all mention of
+individuals.&nbsp; It will be sufficient to add, that to the most
+favourable accounts that have been written of them, I more than
+fully and most heartily subscribe; and that personal intercourse
+and free communication have bred within me, not the result
+predicted in the very doubtful proverb, but increased admiration
+and respect.&nbsp; They are striking men to look at, hard to
+deceive, prompt to act, lions in energy, Crichtons in varied
+accomplishments, Indians in fire of eye and gesture, Americans in
+strong and generous impulse; and they as well represent the
+honour and wisdom of their country at home, as the distinguished
+gentleman who is now its Minister at the British Court sustains
+its highest character abroad.</p>
+<p>I visited both houses nearly every day, during my stay in
+Washington.&nbsp; On my initiatory visit to the House of
+Representatives, they divided against a decision of the chair;
+but the chair won.&nbsp; The second time I went, the member who
+was speaking, being interrupted by a laugh, mimicked it, as one
+child would in quarrelling with another, and added, &lsquo;that
+he would make honourable gentlemen opposite, sing out a little
+more on the other side of their mouths presently.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+But interruptions are rare; the speaker being usually heard in
+silence.&nbsp; There are more quarrels than with us, and more
+threatenings than gentlemen are accustomed to exchange in any
+civilised society of which we have record: but farm-yard
+imitations have not as yet been imported from the Parliament of
+the United Kingdom.&nbsp; The feature in oratory which appears to
+be the most practised, and most relished, is the constant
+repetition of the same idea or shadow of an idea in fresh words;
+and the inquiry out of doors is not, &lsquo;What did he
+say?&rsquo; but, &lsquo;How long did he speak?&rsquo;&nbsp;
+These, however, are but enlargements of a principle which
+prevails elsewhere.</p>
+<p>The Senate is a dignified and decorous body, and its
+proceedings are conducted with much gravity and order.&nbsp; Both
+houses are handsomely carpeted; but the state to which these
+carpets are reduced by the universal disregard of the spittoon
+with which every honourable member is accommodated, and the
+extraordinary improvements on the pattern which are squirted and
+dabbled upon it in every direction, do not admit of being
+described.&nbsp; I will merely observe, that I strongly recommend
+all strangers not to look at the floor; and if they happen to
+drop anything, though it be their purse, not to pick it up with
+an ungloved hand on any account.</p>
+<p>It is somewhat remarkable too, at first, to say the least, to
+see so many honourable members with swelled faces; and it is
+scarcely less remarkable to discover that this appearance is
+caused by the quantity of tobacco they contrive to stow within
+the hollow of the cheek.&nbsp; It is strange enough too, to see
+an honourable gentleman leaning back in his tilted chair with his
+legs on the desk before him, shaping a convenient
+&lsquo;plug&rsquo; with his penknife, and when it is quite ready
+for use, shooting the old one from his mouth, as from a pop-gun,
+and clapping the new one in its place.</p>
+<p>I was surprised to observe that even steady old chewers of
+great experience, are not always good marksmen, which has rather
+inclined me to doubt that general proficiency with the rifle, of
+which we have heard so much in England.&nbsp; Several gentlemen
+called upon me who, in the course of conversation, frequently
+missed the spittoon at five paces; and one (but he was certainly
+short-sighted) mistook the closed sash for the open window, at
+three.&nbsp; On another occasion, when I dined out, and was
+sitting with two ladies and some gentlemen round a fire before
+dinner, one of the company fell short of the fireplace, six
+distinct times.&nbsp; I am disposed to think, however, that this
+was occasioned by his not aiming at that object; as there was a
+white marble hearth before the fender, which was more convenient,
+and may have suited his purpose better.</p>
+<p>The Patent Office at Washington, furnishes an extraordinary
+example of American enterprise and ingenuity; for the immense
+number of models it contains are the accumulated inventions of
+only five years; the whole of the previous collection having been
+destroyed by fire.&nbsp; The elegant structure in which they are
+arranged is one of design rather than execution, for there is but
+one side erected out of four, though the works are stopped.&nbsp;
+The Post Office is a very compact and very beautiful
+building.&nbsp; In one of the departments, among a collection of
+rare and curious articles, are deposited the presents which have
+been made from time to time to the American ambassadors at
+foreign courts by the various potentates to whom they were the
+accredited agents of the Republic; gifts which by the law they
+are not permitted to retain.&nbsp; I confess that I looked upon
+this as a very painful exhibition, and one by no means flattering
+to the national standard of honesty and honour.&nbsp; That can
+scarcely be a high state of moral feeling which imagines a
+gentleman of repute and station, likely to be corrupted, in the
+discharge of his duty, by the present of a snuff-box, or a
+richly-mounted sword, or an Eastern shawl; and surely the Nation
+who reposes confidence in her appointed servants, is likely to be
+better served, than she who makes them the subject of such very
+mean and paltry suspicions.</p>
+<p>At George Town, in the suburbs, there is a Jesuit College;
+delightfully situated, and, so far as I had an opportunity of
+seeing, well managed.&nbsp; Many persons who are not members of
+the Romish Church, avail themselves, I believe, of these
+institutions, and of the advantageous opportunities they afford
+for the education of their children.&nbsp; The heights of this
+neighbourhood, above the Potomac River, are very picturesque: and
+are free, I should conceive, from some of the insalubrities of
+Washington.&nbsp; The air, at that elevation, was quite cool and
+refreshing, when in the city it was burning hot.</p>
+<p>The President&rsquo;s mansion is more like an English
+club-house, both within and without, than any other kind of
+establishment with which I can compare it.&nbsp; The ornamental
+ground about it has been laid out in garden walks; they are
+pretty, and agreeable to the eye; though they have that
+uncomfortable air of having been made yesterday, which is far
+from favourable to the display of such beauties.</p>
+<p>My first visit to this house was on the morning after my
+arrival, when I was carried thither by an official gentleman, who
+was so kind as to charge himself with my presentation to the
+President.</p>
+<p>We entered a large hall, and having twice or thrice rung a
+bell which nobody answered, walked without further ceremony
+through the rooms on the ground floor, as divers other gentlemen
+(mostly with their hats on, and their hands in their pockets)
+were doing very leisurely.&nbsp; Some of these had ladies with
+them, to whom they were showing the premises; others were
+lounging on the chairs and sofas; others, in a perfect state of
+exhaustion from listlessness, were yawning drearily.&nbsp; The
+greater portion of this assemblage were rather asserting their
+supremacy than doing anything else, as they had no particular
+business there, that anybody knew of.&nbsp; A few were closely
+eyeing the movables, as if to make quite sure that the President
+(who was far from popular) had not made away with any of the
+furniture, or sold the fixtures for his private benefit.</p>
+<p>After glancing at these loungers; who were scattered over a
+pretty drawing-room, opening upon a terrace which commanded a
+beautiful prospect of the river and the adjacent country; and who
+were sauntering, too, about a larger state-room called the
+Eastern Drawing-room; we went up-stairs into another chamber,
+where were certain visitors, waiting for audiences.&nbsp; At
+sight of my conductor, a black in plain clothes and yellow
+slippers who was gliding noiselessly about, and whispering
+messages in the ears of the more impatient, made a sign of
+recognition, and glided off to announce him.</p>
+<p>We had previously looked into another chamber fitted all round
+with a great, bare, wooden desk or counter, whereon lay files of
+newspapers, to which sundry gentlemen were referring.&nbsp; But
+there were no such means of beguiling the time in this apartment,
+which was as unpromising and tiresome as any waiting-room in one
+of our public establishments, or any physician&rsquo;s
+dining-room during his hours of consultation at home.</p>
+<p>There were some fifteen or twenty persons in the room.&nbsp;
+One, a tall, wiry, muscular old man, from the west; sunburnt and
+swarthy; with a brown white hat on his knees, and a giant
+umbrella resting between his legs; who sat bolt upright in his
+chair, frowning steadily at the carpet, and twitching the hard
+lines about his mouth, as if he had made up his mind &lsquo;to
+fix&rsquo; the President on what he had to say, and
+wouldn&rsquo;t bate him a grain.&nbsp; Another, a Kentucky
+farmer, six-feet-six in height, with his hat on, and his hands
+under his coat-tails, who leaned against the wall and kicked the
+floor with his heel, as though he had Time&rsquo;s head under his
+shoe, and were literally &lsquo;killing&rsquo; him.&nbsp; A
+third, an oval-faced, bilious-looking man, with sleek black hair
+cropped close, and whiskers and beard shaved down to blue dots,
+who sucked the head of a thick stick, and from time to time took
+it out of his mouth, to see how it was getting on.&nbsp; A fourth
+did nothing but whistle.&nbsp; A fifth did nothing but
+spit.&nbsp; And indeed all these gentlemen were so very
+persevering and energetic in this latter particular, and bestowed
+their favours so abundantly upon the carpet, that I take it for
+granted the Presidential housemaids have high wages, or, to speak
+more genteelly, an ample amount of &lsquo;compensation:&rsquo;
+which is the American word for salary, in the case of all public
+servants.</p>
+<p>We had not waited in this room many minutes, before the black
+messenger returned, and conducted us into another of smaller
+dimensions, where, at a business-like table covered with papers,
+sat the President himself.&nbsp; He looked somewhat worn and
+anxious, and well he might; being at war with everybody&mdash;but
+the expression of his face was mild and pleasant, and his manner
+was remarkably unaffected, gentlemanly, and agreeable.&nbsp; I
+thought that in his whole carriage and demeanour, he became his
+station singularly well.</p>
+<p>Being advised that the sensible etiquette of the republican
+court admitted of a traveller, like myself, declining, without
+any impropriety, an invitation to dinner, which did not reach me
+until I had concluded my arrangements for leaving Washington some
+days before that to which it referred, I only returned to this
+house once.&nbsp; It was on the occasion of one of those general
+assemblies which are held on certain nights, between the hours of
+nine and twelve o&rsquo;clock, and are called, rather oddly,
+Levees.</p>
+<p>I went, with my wife, at about ten.&nbsp; There was a pretty
+dense crowd of carriages and people in the court-yard, and so far
+as I could make out, there were no very clear regulations for the
+taking up or setting down of company.&nbsp; There were certainly
+no policemen to soothe startled horses, either by sawing at their
+bridles or flourishing truncheons in their eyes; and I am ready
+to make oath that no inoffensive persons were knocked violently
+on the head, or poked acutely in their backs or stomachs; or
+brought to a standstill by any such gentle means, and then taken
+into custody for not moving on.&nbsp; But there was no confusion
+or disorder.&nbsp; Our carriage reached the porch in its turn,
+without any blustering, swearing, shouting, backing, or other
+disturbance: and we dismounted with as much ease and comfort as
+though we had been escorted by the whole Metropolitan Force from
+A to Z inclusive.</p>
+<p>The suite of rooms on the ground-floor were lighted up, and a
+military band was playing in the hall.&nbsp; In the smaller
+drawing-room, the centre of a circle of company, were the
+President and his daughter-in-law, who acted as the lady of the
+mansion; and a very interesting, graceful, and accomplished lady
+too.&nbsp; One gentleman who stood among this group, appeared to
+take upon himself the functions of a master of the
+ceremonies.&nbsp; I saw no other officers or attendants, and none
+were needed.</p>
+<p>The great drawing-room, which I have already mentioned, and
+the other chambers on the ground-floor, were crowded to
+excess.&nbsp; The company was not, in our sense of the term,
+select, for it comprehended persons of very many grades and
+classes; nor was there any great display of costly attire:
+indeed, some of the costumes may have been, for aught I know,
+grotesque enough.&nbsp; But the decorum and propriety of
+behaviour which prevailed, were unbroken by any rude or
+disagreeable incident; and every man, even among the
+miscellaneous crowd in the hall who were admitted without any
+orders or tickets to look on, appeared to feel that he was a part
+of the Institution, and was responsible for its preserving a
+becoming character, and appearing to the best advantage.</p>
+<p>That these visitors, too, whatever their station, were not
+without some refinement of taste and appreciation of intellectual
+gifts, and gratitude to those men who, by the peaceful exercise
+of great abilities, shed new charms and associations upon the
+homes of their countrymen, and elevate their character in other
+lands, was most earnestly testified by their reception of
+Washington Irving, my dear friend, who had recently been
+appointed Minister at the court of Spain, and who was among them
+that night, in his new character, for the first and last time
+before going abroad.&nbsp; I sincerely believe that in all the
+madness of American politics, few public men would have been so
+earnestly, devotedly, and affectionately caressed, as this most
+charming writer: and I have seldom respected a public assembly
+more, than I did this eager throng, when I saw them turning with
+one mind from noisy orators and officers of state, and flocking
+with a generous and honest impulse round the man of quiet
+pursuits: proud in his promotion as reflecting back upon their
+country: and grateful to him with their whole hearts for the
+store of graceful fancies he had poured out among them.&nbsp;
+Long may he dispense such treasures with unsparing hand; and long
+may they remember him as worthily!</p>
+<div class="gapshortline">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>The term we had assigned for the duration of our stay in
+Washington was now at an end, and we were to begin to travel; for
+the railroad distances we had traversed yet, in journeying among
+these older towns, are on that great continent looked upon as
+nothing.</p>
+<p>I had at first intended going South&mdash;to Charleston.&nbsp;
+But when I came to consider the length of time which this journey
+would occupy, and the premature heat of the season, which even at
+Washington had been often very trying; and weighed moreover, in
+my own mind, the pain of living in the constant contemplation of
+slavery, against the more than doubtful chances of my ever seeing
+it, in the time I had to spare, stripped of the disguises in
+which it would certainly be dressed, and so adding any item to
+the host of facts already heaped together on the subject; I began
+to listen to old whisperings which had often been present to me
+at home in England, when I little thought of ever being here; and
+to dream again of cities growing up, like palaces in fairy tales,
+among the wilds and forests of the west.</p>
+<p>The advice I received in most quarters when I began to yield
+to my desire of travelling towards that point of the compass was,
+according to custom, sufficiently cheerless: my companion being
+threatened with more perils, dangers, and discomforts, than I can
+remember or would catalogue if I could; but of which it will be
+sufficient to remark that blowings-up in steamboats and
+breakings-down in coaches were among the least.&nbsp; But, having
+a western route sketched out for me by the best and kindest
+authority to which I could have resorted, and putting no great
+faith in these discouragements, I soon determined on my plan of
+action.</p>
+<p>This was to travel south, only to Richmond in Virginia; and
+then to turn, and shape our course for the Far West; whither I
+beseech the reader&rsquo;s company, in a new chapter.</p>
+<h2><a name="page107"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+107</span>CHAPTER IX<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">A NIGHT STEAMER ON THE POTOMAC
+RIVER.&nbsp; VIRGINIA ROAD, AND A BLACK DRIVER.&nbsp;
+RICHMOND.&nbsp; BALTIMORE.&nbsp; THE HARRISBURG MAIL, AND A
+GLIMPSE OF THE CITY.&nbsp; A CANAL BOAT</span></h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">We</span> were to proceed in the first
+instance by steamboat; and as it is usual to sleep on board, in
+consequence of the starting-hour being four o&rsquo;clock in the
+morning, we went down to where she lay, at that very
+uncomfortable time for such expeditions when slippers are most
+valuable, and a familiar bed, in the perspective of an hour or
+two, looks uncommonly pleasant.</p>
+<p>It is ten o&rsquo;clock at night: say half-past ten:
+moonlight, warm, and dull enough.&nbsp; The steamer (not unlike a
+child&rsquo;s Noah&rsquo;s ark in form, with the machinery on the
+top of the roof) is riding lazily up and down, and bumping
+clumsily against the wooden pier, as the ripple of the river
+trifles with its unwieldy carcase.&nbsp; The wharf is some
+distance from the city.&nbsp; There is nobody down here; and one
+or two dull lamps upon the steamer&rsquo;s decks are the only
+signs of life remaining, when our coach has driven away.&nbsp; As
+soon as our footsteps are heard upon the planks, a fat negress,
+particularly favoured by nature in respect of bustle, emerges
+from some dark stairs, and marshals my wife towards the
+ladies&rsquo; cabin, to which retreat she goes, followed by a
+mighty bale of cloaks and great-coats.&nbsp; I valiantly resolve
+not to go to bed at all, but to walk up and down the pier till
+morning.</p>
+<p>I begin my promenade&mdash;thinking of all kinds of distant
+things and persons, and of nothing near&mdash;and pace up and
+down for half-an-hour.&nbsp; Then I go on board again; and
+getting into the light of one of the lamps, look at my watch and
+think it must have stopped; and wonder what has become of the
+faithful secretary whom I brought along with me from
+Boston.&nbsp; He is supping with our late landlord (a Field
+Marshal, at least, no doubt) in honour of our departure, and may
+be two hours longer.&nbsp; I walk again, but it gets duller and
+duller: the moon goes down: next June seems farther off in the
+dark, and the echoes of my footsteps make me nervous.&nbsp; It
+has turned cold too; and walking up and down without my companion
+in such lonely circumstances, is but poor amusement.&nbsp; So I
+break my staunch resolution, and think it may be, perhaps, as
+well to go to bed.</p>
+<p>I go on board again; open the door of the gentlemen&rsquo;s
+cabin and walk in.&nbsp; Somehow or other&mdash;from its being so
+quiet, I suppose&mdash;I have taken it into my head that there is
+nobody there.&nbsp; To my horror and amazement it is full of
+sleepers in every stage, shape, attitude, and variety of slumber:
+in the berths, on the chairs, on the floors, on the tables, and
+particularly round the stove, my detested enemy.&nbsp; I take
+another step forward, and slip on the shining face of a black
+steward, who lies rolled in a blanket on the floor.&nbsp; He
+jumps up, grins, half in pain and half in hospitality; whispers
+my own name in my ear; and groping among the sleepers, leads me
+to my berth.&nbsp; Standing beside it, I count these slumbering
+passengers, and get past forty.&nbsp; There is no use in going
+further, so I begin to undress.&nbsp; As the chairs are all
+occupied, and there is nothing else to put my clothes on, I
+deposit them upon the ground: not without soiling my hands, for
+it is in the same condition as the carpets in the Capitol, and
+from the same cause.&nbsp; Having but partially undressed, I
+clamber on my shelf, and hold the curtain open for a few minutes
+while I look round on all my fellow-travellers again.&nbsp; That
+done, I let it fall on them, and on the world: turn round: and go
+to sleep.</p>
+<p>I wake, of course, when we get under weigh, for there is a
+good deal of noise.&nbsp; The day is then just breaking.&nbsp;
+Everybody wakes at the same time.&nbsp; Some are self-possessed
+directly, and some are much perplexed to make out where they are
+until they have rubbed their eyes, and leaning on one elbow,
+looked about them.&nbsp; Some yawn, some groan, nearly all spit,
+and a few get up.&nbsp; I am among the risers: for it is easy to
+feel, without going into the fresh air, that the atmosphere of
+the cabin is vile in the last degree.&nbsp; I huddle on my
+clothes, go down into the fore-cabin, get shaved by the barber,
+and wash myself.&nbsp; The washing and dressing apparatus for the
+passengers generally, consists of two jack-towels, three small
+wooden basins, a keg of water and a ladle to serve it out with,
+six square inches of looking-glass, two ditto ditto of yellow
+soap, a comb and brush for the head, and nothing for the
+teeth.&nbsp; Everybody uses the comb and brush, except
+myself.&nbsp; Everybody stares to see me using my own; and two or
+three gentlemen are strongly disposed to banter me on my
+prejudices, but don&rsquo;t.&nbsp; When I have made my toilet, I
+go upon the hurricane-deck, and set in for two hours of hard
+walking up and down.&nbsp; The sun is rising brilliantly; we are
+passing Mount Vernon, where Washington lies buried; the river is
+wide and rapid; and its banks are beautiful.&nbsp; All the glory
+and splendour of the day are coming on, and growing brighter
+every minute.</p>
+<p>At eight o&rsquo;clock, we breakfast in the cabin where I
+passed the night, but the windows and doors are all thrown open,
+and now it is fresh enough.&nbsp; There is no hurry or greediness
+apparent in the despatch of the meal.&nbsp; It is longer than a
+travelling breakfast with us; more orderly, and more polite.</p>
+<p>Soon after nine o&rsquo;clock we come to Potomac Creek, where
+we are to land; and then comes the oddest part of the
+journey.&nbsp; Seven stage-coaches are preparing to carry us
+on.&nbsp; Some of them are ready, some of them are not
+ready.&nbsp; Some of the drivers are blacks, some whites.&nbsp;
+There are four horses to each coach, and all the horses,
+harnessed or unharnessed, are there.&nbsp; The passengers are
+getting out of the steamboat, and into the coaches; the luggage
+is being transferred in noisy wheelbarrows; the horses are
+frightened, and impatient to start; the black drivers are
+chattering to them like so many monkeys; and the white ones
+whooping like so many drovers: for the main thing to be done in
+all kinds of hostlering here, is to make as much noise as
+possible.&nbsp; The coaches are something like the French
+coaches, but not nearly so good.&nbsp; In lieu of springs, they
+are hung on bands of the strongest leather.&nbsp; There is very
+little choice or difference between them; and they may be likened
+to the car portion of the swings at an English fair, roofed, put
+upon axle-trees and wheels, and curtained with painted
+canvas.&nbsp; They are covered with mud from the roof to the
+wheel-tire, and have never been cleaned since they were first
+built.</p>
+<p>The tickets we have received on board the steamboat are marked
+No. 1, so we belong to coach No. 1.&nbsp; I throw my coat on the
+box, and hoist my wife and her maid into the inside.&nbsp; It has
+only one step, and that being about a yard from the ground, is
+usually approached by a chair: when there is no chair, ladies
+trust in Providence.&nbsp; The coach holds nine inside, having a
+seat across from door to door, where we in England put our legs:
+so that there is only one feat more difficult in the performance
+than getting in, and that is, getting out again.&nbsp; There is
+only one outside passenger, and he sits upon the box.&nbsp; As I
+am that one, I climb up; and while they are strapping the luggage
+on the roof, and heaping it into a kind of tray behind, have a
+good opportunity of looking at the driver.</p>
+<p>He is a negro&mdash;very black indeed.&nbsp; He is dressed in
+a coarse pepper-and-salt suit excessively patched and darned
+(particularly at the knees), grey stockings, enormous unblacked
+high-low shoes, and very short trousers.&nbsp; He has two odd
+gloves: one of parti-coloured worsted, and one of leather.&nbsp;
+He has a very short whip, broken in the middle and bandaged up
+with string.&nbsp; And yet he wears a low-crowned, broad-brimmed,
+black hat: faintly shadowing forth a kind of insane imitation of
+an English coachman!&nbsp; But somebody in authority cries
+&lsquo;Go ahead!&rsquo; as I am making these observations.&nbsp;
+The mail takes the lead in a four-horse waggon, and all the
+coaches follow in procession: headed by No. 1.</p>
+<p>By the way, whenever an Englishman would cry &lsquo;All
+right!&rsquo; an American cries &lsquo;Go ahead!&rsquo; which is
+somewhat expressive of the national character of the two
+countries.</p>
+<p>The first half-mile of the road is over bridges made of loose
+planks laid across two parallel poles, which tilt up as the
+wheels roll over them; and <span class="smcap">in</span> the
+river.&nbsp; The river has a clayey bottom and is full of holes,
+so that half a horse is constantly disappearing unexpectedly, and
+can&rsquo;t be found again for some time.</p>
+<p>But we get past even this, and come to the road itself, which
+is a series of alternate swamps and gravel-pits.&nbsp; A
+tremendous place is close before us, the black driver rolls his
+eyes, screws his mouth up very round, and looks straight between
+the two leaders, as if he were saying to himself, &lsquo;We have
+done this often before, but <i>now</i> I think we shall have a
+crash.&rsquo;&nbsp; He takes a rein in each hand; jerks and pulls
+at both; and dances on the splashboard with both feet (keeping
+his seat, of course) like the late lamented Ducrow on two of his
+fiery coursers.&nbsp; We come to the spot, sink down in the mire
+nearly to the coach windows, tilt on one side at an angle of
+forty-five degrees, and stick there.&nbsp; The insides scream
+dismally; the coach stops; the horses flounder; all the other six
+coaches stop; and their four-and-twenty horses flounder likewise:
+but merely for company, and in sympathy with ours.&nbsp; Then the
+following circumstances occur.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Black Driver</span> (to the horses).&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Hi!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Nothing happens.&nbsp; Insides scream again.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Black Driver</span> (to the horses).&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Ho!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Horses plunge, and splash the black driver.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Gentleman inside</span> (looking
+out).&nbsp; &lsquo;Why, what on airth&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Gentleman receives a variety of splashes and draws his head in
+again, without finishing his question or waiting for an
+answer.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Black Driver</span> (still to the
+horses).&nbsp; &lsquo;Jiddy!&nbsp; Jiddy!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Horses pull violently, drag the coach out of the hole, and
+draw it up a bank; so steep, that the black driver&rsquo;s legs
+fly up into the air, and he goes back among the luggage on the
+roof.&nbsp; But he immediately recovers himself, and cries (still
+to the horses),</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Pill!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>No effect.&nbsp; On the contrary, the coach begins to roll
+back upon No. 2, which rolls back upon No. 3, which rolls back
+upon No. 4, and so on, until No. 7 is heard to curse and swear,
+nearly a quarter of a mile behind.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Black Driver</span> (louder than
+before).&nbsp; &lsquo;Pill!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Horses make another struggle to get up the bank, and again the
+coach rolls backward.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Black Driver</span> (louder than
+before).&nbsp; &lsquo;Pe-e-e-ill!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Horses make a desperate struggle.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Black Driver</span> (recovering
+spirits).&nbsp; &lsquo;Hi, Jiddy, Jiddy, Pill!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Horses make another effort.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Black Driver</span> (with great
+vigour).&nbsp; &lsquo;Ally Loo!&nbsp; Hi.&nbsp; Jiddy,
+Jiddy.&nbsp; Pill.&nbsp; Ally Loo!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Horses almost do it.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Black Driver</span> (with his eyes
+starting out of his head).&nbsp; &lsquo;Lee, den.&nbsp; Lee,
+dere.&nbsp; Hi.&nbsp; Jiddy, Jiddy.&nbsp; Pill.&nbsp; Ally
+Loo.&nbsp; Lee-e-e-e-e!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>They run up the bank, and go down again on the other side at a
+fearful pace.&nbsp; It is impossible to stop them, and at the
+bottom there is a deep hollow, full of water.&nbsp; The coach
+rolls frightfully.&nbsp; The insides scream.&nbsp; The mud and
+water fly about us.&nbsp; The black driver dances like a
+madman.&nbsp; Suddenly we are all right by some extraordinary
+means, and stop to breathe.</p>
+<p>A black friend of the black driver is sitting on a
+fence.&nbsp; The black driver recognises him by twirling his head
+round and round like a harlequin, rolling his eyes, shrugging his
+shoulders, and grinning from ear to ear.&nbsp; He stops short,
+turns to me, and says:</p>
+<p>&lsquo;We shall get you through sa, like a fiddle, and hope a
+please you when we get you through sa.&nbsp; Old &lsquo;ooman at
+home sa:&rsquo; chuckling very much.&nbsp; &lsquo;Outside
+gentleman sa, he often remember old &lsquo;ooman at home
+sa,&rsquo; grinning again.</p>
+<p><a name="page112"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+112</span>&lsquo;Ay ay, we&rsquo;ll take care of the old
+woman.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t be afraid.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>The black driver grins again, but there is another hole, and
+beyond that, another bank, close before us.&nbsp; So he stops
+short: cries (to the horses again) &lsquo;Easy.&nbsp; Easy
+den.&nbsp; Ease.&nbsp; Steady.&nbsp; Hi.&nbsp; Jiddy.&nbsp;
+Pill.&nbsp; Ally.&nbsp; Loo,&rsquo; but never &lsquo;Lee!&rsquo;
+until we are reduced to the very last extremity, and are in the
+midst of difficulties, extrication from which appears to be all
+but impossible.</p>
+<p>And so we do the ten miles or thereabouts in two hours and a
+half; breaking no bones, though bruising a great many; and in
+short getting through the distance, &lsquo;like a
+fiddle.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>This singular kind of coaching terminates at Fredericksburgh,
+whence there is a railway to Richmond.&nbsp; The tract of country
+through which it takes its course was once productive; but the
+soil has been exhausted by the system of employing a great amount
+of slave labour in forcing crops, without strengthening the land:
+and it is now little better than a sandy desert overgrown with
+trees.&nbsp; Dreary and uninteresting as its aspect is, I was
+glad to the heart to find anything on which one of the curses of
+this horrible institution has fallen; and had greater pleasure in
+contemplating the withered ground, than the richest and most
+thriving cultivation in the same place could possibly have
+afforded me.</p>
+<p>In this district, as in all others where slavery sits
+brooding, (I have frequently heard this admitted, even by those
+who are its warmest advocates:) there is an air of ruin and decay
+abroad, which is inseparable from the system.&nbsp; The barns and
+outhouses are mouldering away; the sheds are patched and half
+roofless; the log cabins (built in Virginia with external
+chimneys made of clay or wood) are squalid in the last
+degree.&nbsp; There is no look of decent comfort anywhere.&nbsp;
+The miserable stations by the railway side, the great wild
+wood-yards, whence the engine is supplied with fuel; the negro
+children rolling on the ground before the cabin doors, with dogs
+and pigs; the biped beasts of burden slinking past: gloom and
+dejection are upon them all.</p>
+<p>In the negro car belonging to the train in which we made this
+journey, were a mother and her children who had just been
+purchased; the husband and father being left behind with their
+old owner.&nbsp; The children cried the whole way, and the mother
+was misery&rsquo;s picture.&nbsp; The champion of Life, Liberty,
+and the Pursuit of Happiness, who had bought them, rode in the
+same train; and, every time we stopped, got down to see that they
+were safe.&nbsp; The black in Sinbad&rsquo;s Travels with one eye
+in the middle of his forehead which shone like a burning coal,
+was nature&rsquo;s aristocrat compared with this white
+gentleman.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p112b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Black and White"
+title=
+"Black and White"
+src="images/p112s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>It was between six and seven o&rsquo;clock in the evening,
+when we drove to the hotel: in front of which, and on the top of
+the broad flight of steps leading to the door, two or three
+citizens were balancing themselves on rocking-chairs, and smoking
+cigars.&nbsp; We found it a very large and elegant establishment,
+and were as well entertained as travellers need desire to
+be.&nbsp; The climate being a thirsty one, there was never, at
+any hour of the day, a scarcity of loungers in the spacious bar,
+or a cessation of the mixing of cool liquors: but they were a
+merrier people here, and had musical instruments playing to them
+o&rsquo; nights, which it was a treat to hear again.</p>
+<p>The next day, and the next, we rode and walked about the town,
+which is delightfully situated on eight hills, overhanging James
+River; a sparkling stream, studded here and there with bright
+islands, or brawling over broken rocks.&nbsp; Although it was yet
+but the middle of March, the weather in this southern temperature
+was extremely warm; the peech-trees and magnolias were in full
+bloom; and the trees were green.&nbsp; In a low ground among the
+hills, is a valley known as &lsquo;Bloody Run,&rsquo; from a
+terrible conflict with the Indians which once occurred
+there.&nbsp; It is a good place for such a struggle, and, like
+every other spot I saw associated with any legend of that wild
+people now so rapidly fading from the earth, interested me very
+much.</p>
+<p>The city is the seat of the local parliament of Virginia; and
+in its shady legislative halls, some orators were drowsily
+holding forth to the hot noon day.&nbsp; By dint of constant
+repetition, however, these constitutional sights had very little
+more interest for me than so many parochial vestries; and I was
+glad to exchange this one for a lounge in a well-arranged public
+library of some ten thousand volumes, and a visit to a tobacco
+manufactory, where the workmen are all slaves.</p>
+<p>I saw in this place the whole process of picking, rolling,
+pressing, drying, packing in casks, and branding.&nbsp; All the
+tobacco thus dealt with, was in course of manufacture for
+chewing; and one would have supposed there was enough in that one
+storehouse to have filled even the comprehensive jaws of
+America.&nbsp; In this form, the weed looks like the oil-cake on
+which we fatten cattle; and even without reference to its
+consequences, is sufficiently uninviting.</p>
+<p>Many of the workmen appeared to be strong men, and it is
+hardly necessary to add that they were all labouring quietly,
+then.&nbsp; After two o&rsquo;clock in the day, they are allowed
+to sing, a certain number at a time.&nbsp; The hour striking
+while I was there, some twenty sang a hymn in parts, and sang it
+by no means ill; pursuing their work meanwhile.&nbsp; A bell rang
+as I was about to leave, and they all poured forth into a
+building on the opposite side of the street to dinner.&nbsp; I
+said several times that I should like to see them at their meal;
+but as the gentleman to whom I mentioned this desire appeared to
+be suddenly taken rather deaf, I did not pursue the
+request.&nbsp; Of their appearance I shall have something to say,
+presently.</p>
+<p>On the following day, I visited a plantation or farm, of about
+twelve hundred acres, on the opposite bank of the river.&nbsp;
+Here again, although I went down with the owner of the estate, to
+&lsquo;the quarter,&rsquo; as that part of it in which the slaves
+live is called, I was not invited to enter into any of their
+huts.&nbsp; All I saw of them, was, that they were very crazy,
+wretched cabins, near to which groups of half-naked children
+basked in the sun, or wallowed on the dusty ground.&nbsp; But I
+believe that this gentleman is a considerate and excellent
+master, who inherited his fifty slaves, and is neither a buyer
+nor a seller of human stock; and I am sure, from my own
+observation and conviction, that he is a kind-hearted, worthy
+man.</p>
+<p>The planter&rsquo;s house was an airy, rustic dwelling, that
+brought Defoe&rsquo;s description of such places strongly to my
+recollection.&nbsp; The day was very warm, but the blinds being
+all closed, and the windows and doors set wide open, a shady
+coolness rustled through the rooms, which was exquisitely
+refreshing after the glare and heat without.&nbsp; Before the
+windows was an open piazza, where, in what they call the hot
+weather&mdash;whatever that may be&mdash;they sling hammocks, and
+drink and doze luxuriously.&nbsp; I do not know how their cool
+rejections may taste within the hammocks, but, having experience,
+I can report that, out of them, the mounds of ices and the bowls
+of mint-julep and sherry-cobbler they make in these latitudes,
+are refreshments never to be thought of afterwards, in summer, by
+those who would preserve contented minds.</p>
+<p>There are two bridges across the river: one belongs to the
+railroad, and the other, which is a very crazy affair, is the
+private property of some old lady in the neighbourhood, who
+levies tolls upon the townspeople.&nbsp; Crossing this bridge, on
+my way back, I saw a notice painted on the gate, cautioning all
+persons to drive slowly: under a penalty, if the offender were a
+white man, of five dollars; if a negro, fifteen stripes.</p>
+<p>The same decay and gloom that overhang the way by which it is
+approached, hover above the town of Richmond.&nbsp; There are
+pretty villas and cheerful houses in its streets, and Nature
+smiles upon the country round; but jostling its handsome
+residences, like slavery itself going hand in hand with many
+lofty virtues, are deplorable tenements, fences unrepaired, walls
+crumbling into ruinous heaps.&nbsp; Hinting gloomily at things
+below the surface, these, and many other tokens of the same
+description, force themselves upon the notice, and are remembered
+with depressing influence, when livelier features are
+forgotten.</p>
+<p>To those who are happily unaccustomed to them, the
+countenances in the streets and labouring-places, too, are
+shocking.&nbsp; All men who know that there are laws against
+instructing slaves, of which the pains and penalties greatly
+exceed in their amount the fines imposed on those who maim and
+torture them, must be prepared to find their faces very low in
+the scale of intellectual expression.&nbsp; But the
+darkness&mdash;not of skin, but mind&mdash;which meets the
+stranger&rsquo;s eye at every turn; the brutalizing and blotting
+out of all fairer characters traced by Nature&rsquo;s hand;
+immeasurably outdo his worst belief.&nbsp; That travelled
+creation of the great satirist&rsquo;s brain, who fresh from
+living among horses, peered from a high casement down upon his
+own kind with trembling horror, was scarcely more repelled and
+daunted by the sight, than those who look upon some of these
+faces for the first time must surely be.</p>
+<p>I left the last of them behind me in the person of a wretched
+drudge, who, after running to and fro all day till midnight, and
+moping in his stealthy winks of sleep upon the stairs
+betweenwhiles, was washing the dark passages at four
+o&rsquo;clock in the morning; and went upon my way with a
+grateful heart that I was not doomed to live where slavery was,
+and had never had my senses blunted to its wrongs and horrors in
+a slave-rocked cradle.</p>
+<p>It had been my intention to proceed by James River and
+Chesapeake Bay to Baltimore; but one of the steamboats being
+absent from her station through some accident, and the means of
+conveyance being consequently rendered uncertain, we returned to
+Washington by the way we had come (there were two constables on
+board the steamboat, in pursuit of runaway slaves), and halting
+there again for one night, went on to Baltimore next
+afternoon.</p>
+<p>The most comfortable of all the hotels of which I had any
+experience in the United States, and they were not a few, is
+Barnum&rsquo;s, in that city: where the English traveller will
+find curtains to his bed, for the first and probably the last
+time in America (this is a disinterested remark, for I never use
+them); and where he will be likely to have enough water for
+washing himself, which is not at all a common case.</p>
+<p>This capital of the state of Maryland is a bustling, busy
+town, with a great deal of traffic of various kinds, and in
+particular of water commerce.&nbsp; That portion of the town
+which it most favours is none of the cleanest, it is true; but
+the upper part is of a very different character, and has many
+agreeable streets and public buildings.&nbsp; The Washington
+Monument, which is a handsome pillar with a statue on its summit;
+the Medical College; and the Battle Monument in memory of an
+engagement with the British at North Point; are the most
+conspicuous among them.</p>
+<p>There is a very good prison in this city, and the State
+Penitentiary is also among its institutions.&nbsp; In this latter
+establishment there were two curious cases.</p>
+<p>One was that of a young man, who had been tried for the murder
+of his father.&nbsp; The evidence was entirely circumstantial,
+and was very conflicting and doubtful; nor was it possible to
+assign any motive which could have tempted him to the commission
+of so tremendous a crime.&nbsp; He had been tried twice; and on
+the second occasion the jury felt so much hesitation in
+convicting him, that they found a verdict of manslaughter, or
+murder in the second degree; which it could not possibly be, as
+there had, beyond all doubt, been no quarrel or provocation, and
+if he were guilty at all, he was unquestionably guilty of murder
+in its broadest and worst signification.</p>
+<p>The remarkable feature in the case was, that if the
+unfortunate deceased were not really murdered by this own son of
+his, he must have been murdered by his own brother.&nbsp; The
+evidence lay in a most remarkable manner, between those
+two.&nbsp; On all the suspicious points, the dead man&rsquo;s
+brother was the witness: all the explanations for the prisoner
+(some of them extremely plausible) went, by construction and
+inference, to inculcate him as plotting to fix the guilt upon his
+nephew.&nbsp; It must have been one of them: and the jury had to
+decide between two sets of suspicions, almost equally unnatural,
+unaccountable, and strange.</p>
+<p>The other case, was that of a man who once went to a certain
+distiller&rsquo;s and stole a copper measure containing a
+quantity of liquor.&nbsp; He was pursued and taken with the
+property in his possession, and was sentenced to two years&rsquo;
+imprisonment.&nbsp; On coming out of the jail, at the expiration
+of that term, he went back to the same distiller&rsquo;s, and
+stole the same copper measure containing the same quantity of
+liquor.&nbsp; There was not the slightest reason to suppose that
+the man wished to return to prison: indeed everything, but the
+commission of the offence, made directly against that
+assumption.&nbsp; There are only two ways of accounting for this
+extraordinary proceeding.&nbsp; One is, that after undergoing so
+much for this copper measure he conceived he had established a
+sort of claim and right to it.&nbsp; The other that, by dint of
+long thinking about, it had become a monomania with him, and had
+acquired a fascination which he found it impossible to resist;
+swelling from an Earthly Copper Gallon into an Ethereal Golden
+Vat.</p>
+<p>After remaining here a couple of days I bound myself to a
+rigid adherence to the plan I had laid down so recently, and
+resolved to set forward on our western journey without any more
+delay.&nbsp; Accordingly, having reduced the luggage within the
+smallest possible compass (by sending back to New York, to be
+afterwards forwarded to us in Canada, so much of it as was not
+absolutely wanted); and having procured the necessary credentials
+to banking-houses on the way; and having moreover looked for two
+evenings at the setting sun, with as well-defined an idea of the
+country before us as if we had been going to travel into the very
+centre of that planet; we left Baltimore by another railway at
+half-past eight in the morning, and reached the town of York,
+some sixty miles off, by the early dinner-time of the Hotel which
+was the starting-place of the four-horse coach, wherein we were
+to proceed to Harrisburg.</p>
+<p>This conveyance, the box of which I was fortunate enough to
+secure, had come down to meet us at the railroad station, and was
+as muddy and cumbersome as usual.&nbsp; As more passengers were
+waiting for us at the inn-door, the coachman observed under his
+breath, in the usual self-communicative voice, looking the while
+at his mouldy harness as if it were to that he was addressing
+himself,</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I expect we shall want <i>the big</i> coach.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>I could not help wondering within myself what the size of this
+big coach might be, and how many persons it might be designed to
+hold; for the vehicle which was too small for our purpose was
+something larger than two English heavy night coaches, and might
+have been the twin-brother of a French Diligence.&nbsp; My
+speculations were speedily set at rest, however, for as soon as
+we had dined, there came rumbling up the street, shaking its
+sides like a corpulent giant, a kind of barge on wheels.&nbsp;
+After much blundering and backing, it stopped at the door:
+rolling heavily from side to side when its other motion had
+ceased, as if it had taken cold in its damp stable, and between
+that, and the having been required in its dropsical old age to
+move at any faster pace than a walk, were distressed by shortness
+of wind.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;If here ain&rsquo;t the Harrisburg mail at last, and
+dreadful bright and smart to look at too,&rsquo; cried an elderly
+gentleman in some excitement, &lsquo;darn my mother!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>I don&rsquo;t know what the sensation of being darned may be,
+or whether a man&rsquo;s mother has a keener relish or disrelish
+of the process than anybody else; but if the endurance of this
+mysterious ceremony by the old lady in question had depended on
+the accuracy of her son&rsquo;s vision in respect to the abstract
+brightness and smartness of the Harrisburg mail, she would
+certainly have undergone its infliction.&nbsp; However, they
+booked twelve people inside; and the luggage (including such
+trifles as a large rocking-chair, and a good-sized dining-table)
+being at length made fast upon the roof, we started off in great
+state.</p>
+<p>At the door of another hotel, there was another passenger to
+be taken up.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Any room, sir?&rsquo; cries the new passenger to the
+coachman.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Well, there&rsquo;s room enough,&rsquo; replies the
+coachman, without getting down, or even looking at him.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;There an&rsquo;t no room at all, sir,&rsquo; bawls a
+gentleman inside.&nbsp; Which another gentleman (also inside)
+confirms, by predicting that the attempt to introduce any more
+passengers &lsquo;won&rsquo;t fit nohow.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>The new passenger, without any expression of anxiety, looks
+into the coach, and then looks up at the coachman: &lsquo;Now,
+how do you mean to fix it?&rsquo; says he, after a pause:
+&lsquo;for I <i>must</i> go.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>The coachman employs himself in twisting the lash of his whip
+into a knot, and takes no more notice of the question: clearly
+signifying that it is anybody&rsquo;s business but his, and that
+the passengers would do well to fix it, among themselves.&nbsp;
+In this state of things, matters seem to be approximating to a
+fix of another kind, when another inside passenger in a corner,
+who is nearly suffocated, cries faintly, &lsquo;I&rsquo;ll get
+out.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>This is no matter of relief or self-congratulation to the
+driver, for his immovable philosophy is perfectly undisturbed by
+anything that happens in the coach.&nbsp; Of all things in the
+world, the coach would seem to be the very last upon his
+mind.&nbsp; The exchange is made, however, and then the passenger
+who has given up his seat makes a third upon the box, seating
+himself in what he calls the middle; that is, with half his
+person on my legs, and the other half on the driver&rsquo;s.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Go a-head, cap&rsquo;en,&rsquo; cries the colonel, who
+directs.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;G&#335;-l&#257;ng!&rsquo; cries the cap&rsquo;en to his
+company, the horses, and away we go.</p>
+<p>We took up at a rural bar-room, after we had gone a few miles,
+an intoxicated gentleman who climbed upon the roof among the
+luggage, and subsequently slipping off without hurting himself,
+was seen in the distant perspective reeling back to the grog-shop
+where we had found him.&nbsp; We also parted with more of our
+freight at different times, so that when we came to change
+horses, I was again alone outside.</p>
+<p>The coachmen always change with the horses, and are usually as
+dirty as the coach.&nbsp; The first was dressed like a very
+shabby English baker; the second like a Russian peasant: for he
+wore a loose purple camlet robe, with a fur collar, tied round
+his waist with a parti-coloured worsted sash; grey trousers;
+light blue gloves: and a cap of bearskin.&nbsp; It had by this
+time come on to rain very heavily, and there was a cold damp mist
+besides, which penetrated to the skin.&nbsp; I was glad to take
+advantage of a stoppage and get down to stretch my legs, shake
+the water off my great-coat, and swallow the usual
+anti-temperance recipe for keeping out the cold.</p>
+<p>When I mounted to my seat again, I observed a new parcel lying
+on the coach roof, which I took to be a rather large fiddle in a
+brown bag.&nbsp; In the course of a few miles, however, I
+discovered that it had a glazed cap at one end and a pair of
+muddy shoes at the other and further observation demonstrated it
+to be a small boy in a snuff-coloured coat, with his arms quite
+pinioned to his sides, by deep forcing into his pockets.&nbsp; He
+was, I presume, a relative or friend of the coachman&rsquo;s, as
+he lay a-top of the luggage with his face towards the rain; and
+except when a change of position brought his shoes in contact
+with my hat, he appeared to be asleep.&nbsp; At last, on some
+occasion of our stopping, this thing slowly upreared itself to
+the height of three feet six, and fixing its eyes on me, observed
+in piping accents, with a complaisant yawn, half quenched in an
+obliging air of friendly patronage, &lsquo;Well now, stranger, I
+guess you find this a&rsquo;most like an English arternoon,
+hey?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>The scenery, which had been tame enough at first, was, for the
+last ten or twelve miles, beautiful.&nbsp; Our road wound through
+the pleasant valley of the Susquehanna; the river, dotted with
+innumerable green islands, lay upon our right; and on the left, a
+steep ascent, craggy with broken rock, and dark with pine
+trees.&nbsp; The mist, wreathing itself into a hundred fantastic
+shapes, moved solemnly upon the water; and the gloom of evening
+gave to all an air of mystery and silence which greatly enhanced
+its natural interest.</p>
+<p>We crossed this river by a wooden bridge, roofed and covered
+in on all sides, and nearly a mile in length.&nbsp; It was
+profoundly dark; perplexed, with great beams, crossing and
+recrossing it at every possible angle; and through the broad
+chinks and crevices in the floor, the rapid river gleamed, far
+down below, like a legion of eyes.&nbsp; We had no lamps; and as
+the horses stumbled and floundered through this place, towards
+the distant speck of dying light, it seemed interminable.&nbsp; I
+really could not at first persuade myself as we rumbled heavily
+on, filling the bridge with hollow noises, and I held down my
+head to save it from the rafters above, but that I was in a
+painful dream; for I have often dreamed of toiling through such
+places, and as often argued, even at the time, &lsquo;this cannot
+be reality.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>At length, however, we emerged upon the streets of Harrisburg,
+whose feeble lights, reflected dismally from the wet ground, did
+not shine out upon a very cheerful city.&nbsp; We were soon
+established in a snug hotel, which though smaller and far less
+splendid than many we put up at, it raised above them all in my
+remembrance, by having for its landlord the most obliging,
+considerate, and gentlemanly person I ever had to deal with.</p>
+<p>As we were not to proceed upon our journey until the
+afternoon, I walked out, after breakfast the next morning, to
+look about me; and was duly shown a model prison on the solitary
+system, just erected, and as yet without an inmate; the trunk of
+an old tree to which Harris, the first settler here (afterwards
+buried under it), was tied by hostile Indians, with his funeral
+pile about him, when he was saved by the timely appearance of a
+friendly party on the opposite shore of the river; the local
+legislature (for there was another of those bodies here again, in
+full debate); and the other curiosities of the town.</p>
+<p>I was very much interested in looking over a number of
+treaties made from time to time with the poor Indians, signed by
+the different chiefs at the period of their ratification, and
+preserved in the office of the Secretary to the
+Commonwealth.&nbsp; These signatures, traced of course by their
+own hands, are rough drawings of the creatures or weapons they
+were called after.&nbsp; Thus, the Great Turtle makes a crooked
+pen-and-ink outline of a great turtle; the Buffalo sketches a
+buffalo; the War Hatchet sets a rough image of that weapon for
+his mark.&nbsp; So with the Arrow, the Fish, the Scalp, the Big
+Canoe, and all of them.</p>
+<p>I could not but think&mdash;as I looked at these feeble and
+tremulous productions of hands which could draw the longest arrow
+to the head in a stout elk-horn bow, or split a bead or feather
+with a rifle-ball&mdash;of Crabbe&rsquo;s musings over the Parish
+Register, and the irregular scratches made with a pen, by men who
+would plough a lengthy furrow straight from end to end.&nbsp; Nor
+could I help bestowing many sorrowful thoughts upon the simple
+warriors whose hands and hearts were set there, in all truth and
+honesty; and who only learned in course of time from white men
+how to break their faith, and quibble out of forms and
+bonds.&nbsp; I wonder, too, how many times the credulous Big
+Turtle, or trusting Little Hatchet, had put his mark to treaties
+which were falsely read to him; and had signed away, he knew not
+what, until it went and cast him loose upon the new possessors of
+the land, a savage indeed.</p>
+<p>Our host announced, before our early dinner, that some members
+of the legislative body proposed to do us the honour of
+calling.&nbsp; He had kindly yielded up to us his wife&rsquo;s
+own little parlour, and when I begged that he would show them in,
+I saw him look with painful apprehension at its pretty carpet;
+though, being otherwise occupied at the time, the cause of his
+uneasiness did not occur to me.</p>
+<p>It certainly would have been more pleasant to all parties
+concerned, and would not, I think, have compromised their
+independence in any material degree, if some of these gentlemen
+had not only yielded to the prejudice in favour of spittoons, but
+had abandoned themselves, for the moment, even to the
+conventional absurdity of pocket-handkerchiefs.</p>
+<p>It still continued to rain heavily, and when we went down to
+the Canal Boat (for that was the mode of conveyance by which we
+were to proceed) after dinner, the weather was as unpromising and
+obstinately wet as one would desire to see.&nbsp; Nor was the
+sight of this canal boat, in which we were to spend three or four
+days, by any means a cheerful one; as it involved some uneasy
+speculations concerning the disposal of the passengers at night,
+and opened a wide field of inquiry touching the other domestic
+arrangements of the establishment, which was sufficiently
+disconcerting.</p>
+<p>However, there it was&mdash;a barge with a little house in it,
+viewed from the outside; and a caravan at a fair, viewed from
+within: the gentlemen being accommodated, as the spectators
+usually are, in one of those locomotive museums of penny wonders;
+and the ladies being partitioned off by a red curtain, after the
+manner of the dwarfs and giants in the same establishments, whose
+private lives are passed in rather close exclusiveness.</p>
+<p>We sat here, looking silently at the row of little tables,
+which extended down both sides of the cabin, and listening to the
+rain as it dripped and pattered on the boat, and plashed with a
+dismal merriment in the water, until the arrival of the railway
+train, for whose final contribution to our stock of passengers,
+our departure was alone deferred.&nbsp; It brought a great many
+boxes, which were bumped and tossed upon the roof, almost as
+painfully as if they had been deposited on one&rsquo;s own head,
+without the intervention of a porter&rsquo;s knot; and several
+damp gentlemen, whose clothes, on their drawing round the stove,
+began to steam again.&nbsp; No doubt it would have been a thought
+more comfortable if the driving rain, which now poured down more
+soakingly than ever, had admitted of a window being opened, or if
+our number had been something less than thirty; but there was
+scarcely time to think as much, when a train of three horses was
+attached to the tow-rope, the boy upon the leader smacked his
+whip, the rudder creaked and groaned complainingly, and we had
+begun our journey.</p>
+<h2><a name="page121"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+121</span>CHAPTER X<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">SOME FURTHER ACCOUNT OF THE CANAL BOAT,
+ITS DOMESTIC ECONOMY, AND ITS PASSENGERS.&nbsp; JOURNEY TO
+PITTSBURG ACROSS THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS.&nbsp;
+PITTSBURG</span></h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">As</span> it continued to rain most
+perseveringly, we all remained below: the damp gentlemen round
+the stove, gradually becoming mildewed by the action of the fire;
+and the dry gentlemen lying at full length upon the seats, or
+slumbering uneasily with their faces on the tables, or walking up
+and down the cabin, which it was barely possible for a man of the
+middle height to do, without making bald places on his head by
+scraping it against the roof.&nbsp; At about six o&rsquo;clock,
+all the small tables were put together to form one long table,
+and everybody sat down to tea, coffee, bread, butter, salmon,
+shad, liver, steaks, potatoes, pickles, ham, chops,
+black-puddings, and sausages.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Will you try,&rsquo; said my opposite neighbour,
+handing me a dish of potatoes, broken up in milk and butter,
+&lsquo;will you try some of these fixings?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>There are few words which perform such various duties as this
+word &lsquo;fix.&rsquo;&nbsp; It is the Caleb Quotem of the
+American vocabulary.&nbsp; You call upon a gentleman in a country
+town, and his help informs you that he is &lsquo;fixing
+himself&rsquo; just now, but will be down directly: by which you
+are to understand that he is dressing.&nbsp; You inquire, on
+board a steamboat, of a fellow-passenger, whether breakfast will
+be ready soon, and he tells you he should think so, for when he
+was last below, they were &lsquo;fixing the tables:&rsquo; in
+other words, laying the cloth.&nbsp; You beg a porter to collect
+your luggage, and he entreats you not to be uneasy, for
+he&rsquo;ll &lsquo;fix it presently:&rsquo; and if you complain
+of indisposition, you are advised to have recourse to Doctor
+So-and-so, who will &lsquo;fix you&rsquo; in no time.</p>
+<p>One night, I ordered a bottle of mulled wine at an hotel where
+I was staying, and waited a long time for it; at length it was
+put upon the table with an apology from the landlord that he
+feared it wasn&rsquo;t &lsquo;fixed properly.&rsquo;&nbsp; And I
+recollect once, at a stage-coach dinner, overhearing a very stern
+gentleman demand of a waiter who presented him with a plate of
+underdone roast-beef, &lsquo;whether he called <i>that</i>,
+fixing God A&rsquo;mighty&rsquo;s vittles?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>There is no doubt that the meal, at which the invitation was
+tendered to me which has occasioned this digression, was disposed
+of somewhat ravenously; and that the gentlemen thrust the
+broad-bladed knives and the two-pronged forks further down their
+throats than I ever saw the same weapons go before, except in the
+hands of a skilful juggler: but no man sat down until the ladies
+were seated; or omitted any little act of politeness which could
+contribute to their comfort.&nbsp; Nor did I ever once, on any
+occasion, anywhere, during my rambles in America, see a woman
+exposed to the slightest act of rudeness, incivility, or even
+inattention.</p>
+<p>By the time the meal was over, the rain, which seemed to have
+worn itself out by coming down so fast, was nearly over too; and
+it became feasible to go on deck: which was a great relief,
+notwithstanding its being a very small deck, and being rendered
+still smaller by the luggage, which was heaped together in the
+middle under a tarpaulin covering; leaving, on either side, a
+path so narrow, that it became a science to walk to and fro
+without tumbling overboard into the canal.&nbsp; It was somewhat
+embarrassing at first, too, to have to duck nimbly every five
+minutes whenever the man at the helm cried &lsquo;Bridge!&rsquo;
+and sometimes, when the cry was &lsquo;Low Bridge,&rsquo; to lie
+down nearly flat.&nbsp; But custom familiarises one to anything,
+and there were so many bridges that it took a very short time to
+get used to this.</p>
+<p>As night came on, and we drew in sight of the first range of
+hills, which are the outposts of the Alleghany Mountains, the
+scenery, which had been uninteresting hitherto, became more bold
+and striking.&nbsp; The wet ground reeked and smoked, after the
+heavy fall of rain, and the croaking of the frogs (whose noise in
+these parts is almost incredible) sounded as though a million of
+fairy teams with bells were travelling through the air, and
+keeping pace with us.&nbsp; The night was cloudy yet, but
+moonlight too: and when we crossed the Susquehanna
+river&mdash;over which there is an extraordinary wooden bridge
+with two galleries, one above the other, so that even there, two
+boat teams meeting, may pass without confusion&mdash;it was wild
+and grand.</p>
+<p>I have mentioned my having been in some uncertainty and doubt,
+at first, relative to the sleeping arrangements on board this
+boat.&nbsp; I remained in the same vague state of mind until ten
+o&rsquo;clock or thereabouts, when going below, I found suspended
+on either side of the cabin, three long tiers of hanging
+bookshelves, designed apparently for volumes of the small octavo
+size.&nbsp; Looking with greater attention at these contrivances
+(wondering to find such literary preparations in such a place), I
+descried on each shelf a sort of microscopic sheet and blanket;
+then I began dimly to comprehend that the passengers were the
+library, and that they were to be arranged, edge-wise, on these
+shelves, till morning.</p>
+<p>I was assisted to this conclusion by seeing some of them
+gathered round the master of the boat, at one of the tables,
+drawing lots with all the anxieties and passions of gamesters
+depicted in their countenances; while others, with small pieces
+of cardboard in their hands, were groping among the shelves in
+search of numbers corresponding with those they had drawn.&nbsp;
+As soon as any gentleman found his number, he took possession of
+it by immediately undressing himself and crawling into bed.&nbsp;
+The rapidity with which an agitated gambler subsided into a
+snoring slumberer, was one of the most singular effects I have
+ever witnessed.&nbsp; As to the ladies, they were already abed,
+behind the red curtain, which was carefully drawn and pinned up
+the centre; though as every cough, or sneeze, or whisper, behind
+this curtain, was perfectly audible before it, we had still a
+lively consciousness of their society.</p>
+<p>The politeness of the person in authority had secured to me a
+shelf in a nook near this red curtain, in some degree removed
+from the great body of sleepers: to which place I retired, with
+many acknowledgments to him for his attention.&nbsp; I found it,
+on after-measurement, just the width of an ordinary sheet of Bath
+post letter-paper; and I was at first in some uncertainty as to
+the best means of getting into it.&nbsp; But the shelf being a
+bottom one, I finally determined on lying upon the floor, rolling
+gently in, stopping immediately I touched the mattress, and
+remaining for the night with that side uppermost, whatever it
+might be.&nbsp; Luckily, I came upon my back at exactly the right
+moment.&nbsp; I was much alarmed on looking upward, to see, by
+the shape of his half-yard of sacking (which his weight had bent
+into an exceedingly tight bag), that there was a very heavy
+gentleman above me, whom the slender cords seemed quite incapable
+of holding; and I could not help reflecting upon the grief of my
+wife and family in the event of his coming down in the
+night.&nbsp; But as I could not have got up again without a
+severe bodily struggle, which might have alarmed the ladies; and
+as I had nowhere to go to, even if I had; I shut my eyes upon the
+danger, and remained there.</p>
+<p>One of two remarkable circumstances is indisputably a fact,
+with reference to that class of society who travel in these
+boats.&nbsp; Either they carry their restlessness to such a pitch
+that they never sleep at all; or they expectorate in dreams,
+which would be a remarkable mingling of the real and ideal.&nbsp;
+All night long, and every night, on this canal, there was a
+perfect storm and tempest of spitting; and once my coat, being in
+the very centre of the hurricane sustained by five gentlemen
+(which moved vertically, strictly carrying out Reid&rsquo;s
+Theory of the Law of Storms), I was fain the next morning to lay
+it on the deck, and rub it down with fair water before it was in
+a condition to be worn again.</p>
+<p>Between five and six o&rsquo;clock in the morning we got up,
+and some of us went on deck, to give them an opportunity of
+taking the shelves down; while others, the morning being very
+cold, crowded round the rusty stove, cherishing the newly kindled
+fire, and filling the grate with those voluntary contributions of
+which they had been so liberal all night.&nbsp; The washing
+accommodations were primitive.&nbsp; There was a tin ladle
+chained to the deck, with which every gentleman who thought it
+necessary to cleanse himself (many were superior to this
+weakness), fished the dirty water out of the canal, and poured it
+into a tin basin, secured in like manner.&nbsp; There was also a
+jack-towel.&nbsp; And, hanging up before a little looking-glass
+in the bar, in the immediate vicinity of the bread and cheese and
+biscuits, were a public comb and hair-brush.</p>
+<p>At eight o&rsquo;clock, the shelves being taken down and put
+away and the tables joined together, everybody sat down to the
+tea, coffee, bread, butter, salmon, shad, liver, steak, potatoes,
+pickles, ham, chops, black-puddings, and sausages, all over
+again.&nbsp; Some were fond of compounding this variety, and
+having it all on their plates at once.&nbsp; As each gentleman
+got through his own personal amount of tea, coffee, bread,
+butter, salmon, shad, liver, steak, potatoes, pickles, ham,
+chops, black-puddings, and sausages, he rose up and walked
+off.&nbsp; When everybody had done with everything, the fragments
+were cleared away: and one of the waiters appearing anew in the
+character of a barber, shaved such of the company as desired to
+be shaved; while the remainder looked on, or yawned over their
+newspapers.&nbsp; Dinner was breakfast again, without the tea and
+coffee; and supper and breakfast were identical.</p>
+<p>There was a man on board this boat, with a light
+fresh-coloured face, and a pepper-and-salt suit of clothes, who
+was the most inquisitive fellow that can possibly be
+imagined.&nbsp; He never spoke otherwise than
+interrogatively.&nbsp; He was an embodied inquiry.&nbsp; Sitting
+down or standing up, still or moving, walking the deck or taking
+his meals, there he was, with a great note of interrogation in
+each eye, two in his cocked ears, two more in his turned-up nose
+and chin, at least half a dozen more about the corners of his
+mouth, and the largest one of all in his hair, which was brushed
+pertly off his forehead in a flaxen clump.&nbsp; Every button in
+his clothes said, &lsquo;Eh?&nbsp; What&rsquo;s that?&nbsp; Did
+you speak?&nbsp; Say that again, will you?&rsquo;&nbsp; He was
+always wide awake, like the enchanted bride who drove her husband
+frantic; always restless; always thirsting for answers;
+perpetually seeking and never finding.&nbsp; There never was such
+a curious man.</p>
+<p>I wore a fur great-coat at that time, and before we were well
+clear of the wharf, he questioned me concerning it, and its
+price, and where I bought it, and when, and what fur it was, and
+what it weighed, and what it cost.&nbsp; Then he took notice of
+my watch, and asked me what <i>that</i> cost, and whether it was
+a French watch, and where I got it, and how I got it, and whether
+I bought it or had it given me, and how it went, and where the
+key-hole was, and when I wound it, every night or every morning,
+and whether I ever forgot to wind it at all, and if I did, what
+then?&nbsp; Where had I been to last, and where was I going next,
+and where was I going after that, and had I seen the President,
+and what did he say, and what did I say, and what did he say when
+I had said that?&nbsp; Eh?&nbsp; Lor now! do tell!</p>
+<p>Finding that nothing would satisfy him, I evaded his questions
+after the first score or two, and in particular pleaded ignorance
+respecting the name of the fur whereof the coat was made.&nbsp; I
+am unable to say whether this was the reason, but that coat
+fascinated him afterwards; he usually kept close behind me as I
+walked, and moved as I moved, that he might look at it the
+better; and he frequently dived into narrow places after me at
+the risk of his life, that he might have the satisfaction of
+passing his hand up the back, and rubbing it the wrong way.</p>
+<p>We had another odd specimen on board, of a different
+kind.&nbsp; This was a thin-faced, spare-figured man of middle
+age and stature, dressed in a dusty drabbish-coloured suit, such
+as I never saw before.&nbsp; He was perfectly quiet during the
+first part of the journey: indeed I don&rsquo;t remember having
+so much as seen him until he was brought out by circumstances, as
+great men often are.&nbsp; The conjunction of events which made
+him famous, happened, briefly, thus.</p>
+<p>The canal extends to the foot of the mountain, and there, of
+course, it stops; the passengers being conveyed across it by land
+carriage, and taken on afterwards by another canal boat, the
+counterpart of the first, which awaits them on the other
+side.&nbsp; There are two canal lines of passage-boats; one is
+called The Express, and one (a cheaper one) The Pioneer.&nbsp;
+The Pioneer gets first to the mountain, and waits for the Express
+people to come up; both sets of passengers being conveyed across
+it at the same time.&nbsp; We were the Express company; but when
+we had crossed the mountain, and had come to the second boat, the
+proprietors took it into their beads to draft all the Pioneers
+into it likewise, so that we were five-and-forty at least, and
+the accession of passengers was not at all of that kind which
+improved the prospect of sleeping at night.&nbsp; Our people
+grumbled at this, as people do in such cases; but suffered the
+boat to be towed off with the whole freight aboard nevertheless;
+and away we went down the canal.&nbsp; At home, I should have
+protested lustily, but being a foreigner here, I held my
+peace.&nbsp; Not so this passenger.&nbsp; He cleft a path among
+the people on deck (we were nearly all on deck), and without
+addressing anybody whomsoever, soliloquised as follows:</p>
+<p>&lsquo;This may suit <i>you</i>, this may, but it don&rsquo;t
+suit <i>me</i>.&nbsp; This may be all very well with Down
+Easters, and men of Boston raising, but it won&rsquo;t suit my
+figure nohow; and no two ways about <i>that</i>; and so I tell
+you.&nbsp; Now!&nbsp; I&rsquo;m from the brown forests of
+Mississippi, <i>I</i> am, and when the sun shines on me, it does
+shine&mdash;a little.&nbsp; It don&rsquo;t glimmer where <i>I</i>
+live, the sun don&rsquo;t.&nbsp; No.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m a brown
+forester, I am.&nbsp; I an&rsquo;t a Johnny Cake.&nbsp; There are
+no smooth skins where I live.&nbsp; We&rsquo;re rough men
+there.&nbsp; Rather.&nbsp; If Down Easters and men of Boston
+raising like this, I&rsquo;m glad of it, but I&rsquo;m none of
+that raising nor of that breed.&nbsp; No.&nbsp; This company
+wants a little fixing, <i>it</i> does.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m the wrong
+sort of man for &rsquo;em, <i>I</i> am.&nbsp; They won&rsquo;t
+like me, <i>they</i> won&rsquo;t.&nbsp; This is piling of it up,
+a little too mountainous, this is.&rsquo;&nbsp; At the end of
+every one of these short sentences he turned upon his heel, and
+walked the other way; checking himself abruptly when he had
+finished another short sentence, and turning back again.</p>
+<p>It is impossible for me to say what terrific meaning was
+hidden in the words of this brown forester, but I know that the
+other passengers looked on in a sort of admiring horror, and that
+presently the boat was put back to the wharf, and as many of the
+Pioneers as could be coaxed or bullied into going away, were got
+rid of.</p>
+<p>When we started again, some of the boldest spirits on board,
+made bold to say to the obvious occasion of this improvement in
+our prospects, &lsquo;Much obliged to you, sir;&rsquo; whereunto
+the brown forester (waving his hand, and still walking up and
+down as before), replied, &lsquo;No you an&rsquo;t.&nbsp;
+You&rsquo;re none o&rsquo; my raising.&nbsp; You may act for
+yourselves, <i>you</i> may.&nbsp; I have pinted out the
+way.&nbsp; Down Easters and Johnny Cakes can follow if they
+please.&nbsp; I an&rsquo;t a Johnny Cake, I an&rsquo;t.&nbsp; I
+am from the brown forests of the Mississippi, I
+am&rsquo;&mdash;and so on, as before.&nbsp; He was unanimously
+voted one of the tables for his bed at night&mdash;there is a
+great contest for the tables&mdash;in consideration for his
+public services: and he had the warmest corner by the stove
+throughout the rest of the journey.&nbsp; But I never could find
+out that he did anything except sit there; nor did I hear him
+speak again until, in the midst of the bustle and turmoil of
+getting the luggage ashore in the dark at Pittsburg, I stumbled
+over him as he sat smoking a cigar on the cabin steps, and heard
+him muttering to himself, with a short laugh of defiance,
+&lsquo;I an&rsquo;t a Johnny Cake,&mdash;I an&rsquo;t.&nbsp;
+I&rsquo;m from the brown forests of the Mississippi, I am,
+damme!&rsquo;&nbsp; I am inclined to argue from this, that he had
+never left off saying so; but I could not make an affidavit of
+that part of the story, if required to do so by my Queen and
+Country.</p>
+<p>As we have not reached Pittsburg yet, however, in the order of
+our narrative, I may go on to remark that breakfast was perhaps
+the least desirable meal of the day, as in addition to the many
+savoury odours arising from the eatables already mentioned, there
+were whiffs of gin, whiskey, brandy, and rum, from the little bar
+hard by, and a decided seasoning of stale tobacco.&nbsp; Many of
+the gentlemen passengers were far from particular in respect of
+their linen, which was in some cases as yellow as the little
+rivulets that had trickled from the corners of their mouths in
+chewing, and dried there.&nbsp; Nor was the atmosphere quite free
+from zephyr whisperings of the thirty beds which had just been
+cleared away, and of which we were further and more pressingly
+reminded by the occasional appearance on the table-cloth of a
+kind of Game, not mentioned in the Bill of Fare.</p>
+<p>And yet despite these oddities&mdash;and even they had, for me
+at least, a humour of their own&mdash;there was much in this mode
+of travelling which I heartily enjoyed at the time, and look back
+upon with great pleasure.&nbsp; Even the running up, bare-necked,
+at five o&rsquo;clock in the morning, from the tainted cabin to
+the dirty deck; scooping up the icy water, plunging one&rsquo;s
+head into it, and drawing it out, all fresh and glowing with the
+cold; was a good thing.&nbsp; The fast, brisk walk upon the
+towing-path, between that time and breakfast, when every vein and
+artery seemed to tingle with health; the exquisite beauty of the
+opening day, when light came gleaming off from everything; the
+lazy motion of the boat, when one lay idly on the deck, looking
+through, rather than at, the deep blue sky; the gliding on at
+night, so noiselessly, past frowning hills, sullen with dark
+trees, and sometimes angry in one red, burning spot high up,
+where unseen men lay crouching round a fire; the shining out of
+the bright stars undisturbed by noise of wheels or steam, or any
+other sound than the limpid rippling of the water as the boat
+went on: all these were pure delights.</p>
+<p>Then there were new settlements and detached log-cabins and
+frame-houses, full of interest for strangers from an old country:
+cabins with simple ovens, outside, made of clay; and lodgings for
+the pigs nearly as good as many of the human quarters; broken
+windows, patched with worn-out hats, old clothes, old boards,
+fragments of blankets and paper; and home-made dressers standing
+in the open air without the door, whereon was ranged the
+household store, not hard to count, of earthen jars and
+pots.&nbsp; The eye was pained to see the stumps of great trees
+thickly strewn in every field of wheat, and seldom to lose the
+eternal swamp and dull morass, with hundreds of rotten trunks and
+twisted branches steeped in its unwholesome water.&nbsp; It was
+quite sad and oppressive, to come upon great tracts where
+settlers had been burning down the trees, and where their wounded
+bodies lay about, like those of murdered creatures, while here
+and there some charred and blackened giant reared aloft two
+withered arms, and seemed to call down curses on his foes.&nbsp;
+Sometimes, at night, the way wound through some lonely gorge,
+like a mountain pass in Scotland, shining and coldly glittering
+in the light of the moon, and so closed in by high steep hills
+all round, that there seemed to be no egress save through the
+narrower path by which we had come, until one rugged hill-side
+seemed to open, and shutting out the moonlight as we passed into
+its gloomy throat, wrapped our new course in shade and
+darkness.</p>
+<p>We had left Harrisburg on Friday.&nbsp; On Sunday morning we
+arrived at the foot of the mountain, which is crossed by
+railroad.&nbsp; There are ten inclined planes; five ascending,
+and five descending; the carriages are dragged up the former, and
+let slowly down the latter, by means of stationary engines; the
+comparatively level spaces between, being traversed, sometimes by
+horse, and sometimes by engine power, as the case demands.&nbsp;
+Occasionally the rails are laid upon the extreme verge of a giddy
+precipice; and looking from the carriage window, the traveller
+gazes sheer down, without a stone or scrap of fence between, into
+the mountain depths below.&nbsp; The journey is very carefully
+made, however; only two carriages travelling together; and while
+proper precautions are taken, is not to be dreaded for its
+dangers.</p>
+<p>It was very pretty travelling thus, at a rapid pace along the
+heights of the mountain in a keen wind, to look down into a
+valley full of light and softness; catching glimpses, through the
+tree-tops, of scattered cabins; children running to the doors;
+dogs bursting out to bark, whom we could see without hearing:
+terrified pigs scampering homewards; families sitting out in
+their rude gardens; cows gazing upward with a stupid
+indifference; men in their shirt-sleeves looking on at their
+unfinished houses, planning out to-morrow&rsquo;s work; and we
+riding onward, high above them, like a whirlwind.&nbsp; It was
+amusing, too, when we had dined, and rattled down a steep pass,
+having no other moving power than the weight of the carriages
+themselves, to see the engine released, long after us, come
+buzzing down alone, like a great insect, its back of green and
+gold so shining in the sun, that if it had spread a pair of wings
+and soared away, no one would have had occasion, as I fancied,
+for the least surprise.&nbsp; But it stopped short of us in a
+very business-like manner when we reached the canal: and, before
+we left the wharf, went panting up this hill again, with the
+passengers who had waited our arrival for the means of traversing
+the road by which we had come.</p>
+<p>On the Monday evening, furnace fires and clanking hammers on
+the banks of the canal, warned us that we approached the
+termination of this part of our journey.&nbsp; After going
+through another dreamy place&mdash;a long aqueduct across the
+Alleghany River, which was stranger than the bridge at
+Harrisburg, being a vast, low, wooden chamber full of
+water&mdash;we emerged upon that ugly confusion of backs of
+buildings and crazy galleries and stairs, which always abuts on
+water, whether it be river, sea, canal, or ditch: and were at
+Pittsburg.</p>
+<p>Pittsburg is like Birmingham in England; at least its
+townspeople say so.&nbsp; Setting aside the streets, the shops,
+the houses, waggons, factories, public buildings, and population,
+perhaps it may be.&nbsp; It certainly has a great quantity of
+smoke hanging about it, and is famous for its iron-works.&nbsp;
+Besides the prison to which I have already referred, this town
+contains a pretty arsenal and other institutions.&nbsp; It is
+very beautifully situated on the Alleghany River, over which
+there are two bridges; and the villas of the wealthier citizens
+sprinkled about the high grounds in the neighbourhood, are pretty
+enough.&nbsp; We lodged at a most excellent hotel, and were
+admirably served.&nbsp; As usual it was full of boarders, was
+very large, and had a broad colonnade to every story of the
+house.</p>
+<p>We tarried here three days.&nbsp; Our next point was
+Cincinnati: and as this was a steamboat journey, and western
+steamboats usually blow up one or two a week in the season, it
+was advisable to collect opinions in reference to the comparative
+safety of the vessels bound that way, then lying in the
+river.&nbsp; One called the Messenger was the best
+recommended.&nbsp; She had been advertised to start positively,
+every day for a fortnight or so, and had not gone yet, nor did
+her captain seem to have any very fixed intention on the
+subject.&nbsp; But this is the custom: for if the law were to
+bind down a free and independent citizen to keep his word with
+the public, what would become of the liberty of the
+subject?&nbsp; Besides, it is in the way of trade.&nbsp; And if
+passengers be decoyed in the way of trade, and people be
+inconvenienced in the way of trade, what man, who is a sharp
+tradesman himself, shall say, &lsquo;We must put a stop to
+this?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Impressed by the deep solemnity of the public announcement, I
+(being then ignorant of these usages) was for hurrying on board
+in a breathless state, immediately; but receiving private and
+confidential information that the boat would certainly not start
+until Friday, April the First, we made ourselves very comfortable
+in the mean while, and went on board at noon that day.</p>
+<h2><a name="page130"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+130</span>CHAPTER XI<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">FROM PITTSBURG TO CINCINNATI IN A WESTERN
+STEAMBOAT.&nbsp; CINCINNATI</span></h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Messenger was one among a crowd
+of high-pressure steamboats, clustered together by a wharf-side,
+which, looked down upon from the rising ground that forms the
+landing-place, and backed by the lofty bank on the opposite side
+of the river, appeared no larger than so many floating
+models.&nbsp; She had some forty passengers on board, exclusive
+of the poorer persons on the lower deck; and in half an hour, or
+less, proceeded on her way.</p>
+<p>We had, for ourselves, a tiny state-room with two berths in
+it, opening out of the ladies&rsquo; cabin.&nbsp; There was,
+undoubtedly, something satisfactory in this
+&lsquo;location,&rsquo; inasmuch as it was in the stern, and we
+had been a great many times very gravely recommended to keep as
+far aft as possible, &lsquo;because the steamboats generally blew
+up forward.&rsquo;&nbsp; Nor was this an unnecessary caution, as
+the occurrence and circumstances of more than one such fatality
+during our stay sufficiently testified.&nbsp; Apart from this
+source of self-congratulation, it was an unspeakable relief to
+have any place, no matter how confined, where one could be alone:
+and as the row of little chambers of which this was one, had each
+a second glass-door besides that in the ladies&rsquo; cabin,
+which opened on a narrow gallery outside the vessel, where the
+other passengers seldom came, and where one could sit in peace
+and gaze upon the shifting prospect, we took possession of our
+new quarters with much pleasure.</p>
+<p>If the native packets I have already described be unlike
+anything we are in the habit of seeing on water, these western
+vessels are still more foreign to all the ideas we are accustomed
+to entertain of boats.&nbsp; I hardly know what to liken them to,
+or how to describe them.</p>
+<p>In the first place, they have no mast, cordage, tackle,
+rigging, or other such boat-like gear; nor have they anything in
+their shape at all calculated to remind one of a boat&rsquo;s
+head, stem, sides, or keel.&nbsp; Except that they are in the
+water, and display a couple of paddle-boxes, they might be
+intended, for anything that appears to the contrary, to perform
+some unknown service, high and dry, upon a mountain top.&nbsp;
+There is no visible deck, even: nothing but a long, black, ugly
+roof covered with burnt-out feathery sparks; above which tower
+two iron chimneys, and a hoarse escape valve, and a glass
+steerage-house.&nbsp; Then, in order as the eye descends towards
+the water, are the sides, and doors, and windows of the
+state-rooms, jumbled as oddly together as though they formed a
+small street, built by the varying tastes of a dozen men: the
+whole is supported on beams and pillars resting on a dirty barge,
+but a few inches above the water&rsquo;s edge: and in the narrow
+space between this upper structure and this barge&rsquo;s deck,
+are the furnace fires and machinery, open at the sides to every
+wind that blows, and every storm of rain it drives along its
+path.</p>
+<p>Passing one of these boats at night, and seeing the great body
+of fire, exposed as I have just described, that rages and roars
+beneath the frail pile of painted wood: the machinery, not warded
+off or guarded in any way, but doing its work in the midst of the
+crowd of idlers and emigrants and children, who throng the lower
+deck: under the management, too, of reckless men whose
+acquaintance with its mysteries may have been of six
+months&rsquo; standing: one feels directly that the wonder is,
+not that there should be so many fatal accidents, but that any
+journey should be safely made.</p>
+<p>Within, there is one long narrow cabin, the whole length of
+the boat; from which the state-rooms open, on both sides.&nbsp; A
+small portion of it at the stern is partitioned off for the
+ladies; and the bar is at the opposite extreme.&nbsp; There is a
+long table down the centre, and at either end a stove.&nbsp; The
+washing apparatus is forward, on the deck.&nbsp; It is a little
+better than on board the canal boat, but not much.&nbsp; In all
+modes of travelling, the American customs, with reference to the
+means of personal cleanliness and wholesome ablution, are
+extremely negligent and filthy; and I strongly incline to the
+belief that a considerable amount of illness is referable to this
+cause.</p>
+<p>We are to be on board the Messenger three days: arriving at
+Cincinnati (barring accidents) on Monday morning.&nbsp; There are
+three meals a day.&nbsp; Breakfast at seven, dinner at half-past
+twelve, supper about six.&nbsp; At each, there are a great many
+small dishes and plates upon the table, with very little in them;
+so that although there is every appearance of a mighty
+&lsquo;spread,&rsquo; there is seldom really more than a joint:
+except for those who fancy slices of beet-root, shreds of dried
+beef, complicated entanglements of yellow pickle; maize, Indian
+corn, apple-sauce, and pumpkin.</p>
+<p>Some people fancy all these little dainties together (and
+sweet preserves beside), by way of relish to their roast
+pig.&nbsp; They are generally those dyspeptic ladies and
+gentlemen who eat unheard-of quantities of hot corn bread (almost
+as good for the digestion as a kneaded pin-cushion), for
+breakfast, and for supper.&nbsp; Those who do not observe this
+custom, and who help themselves several times instead, usually
+suck their knives and forks meditatively, until they have decided
+what to take next: then pull them out of their mouths: put them
+in the dish; help themselves; and fall to work again.&nbsp; At
+dinner, there is nothing to drink upon the table, but great jugs
+full of cold water.&nbsp; Nobody says anything, at any meal, to
+anybody.&nbsp; All the passengers are very dismal, and seem to
+have tremendous secrets weighing on their minds.&nbsp; There is
+no conversation, no laughter, no cheerfulness, no sociality,
+except in spitting; and that is done in silent fellowship round
+the stove, when the meal is over.&nbsp; Every man sits down, dull
+and languid; swallows his fare as if breakfasts, dinners, and
+suppers, were necessities of nature never to be coupled with
+recreation or enjoyment; and having bolted his food in a gloomy
+silence, bolts himself, in the same state.&nbsp; But for these
+animal observances, you might suppose the whole male portion of
+the company to be the melancholy ghosts of departed book-keepers,
+who had fallen dead at the desk: such is their weary air of
+business and calculation.&nbsp; Undertakers on duty would be
+sprightly beside them; and a collation of funeral-baked meats, in
+comparison with these meals, would be a sparkling festivity.</p>
+<p>The people are all alike, too.&nbsp; There is no diversity of
+character.&nbsp; They travel about on the same errands, say and
+do the same things in exactly the same manner, and follow in the
+same dull cheerless round.&nbsp; All down the long table, there
+is scarcely a man who is in anything different from his
+neighbour.&nbsp; It is quite a relief to have, sitting opposite,
+that little girl of fifteen with the loquacious chin: who, to do
+her justice, acts up to it, and fully identifies nature&rsquo;s
+handwriting, for of all the small chatterboxes that ever invaded
+the repose of drowsy ladies&rsquo; cabin, she is the first and
+foremost.&nbsp; The beautiful girl, who sits a little beyond
+her&mdash;farther down the table there&mdash;married the young
+man with the dark whiskers, who sits beyond <i>her</i>, only last
+month.&nbsp; They are going to settle in the very Far West, where
+he has lived four years, but where she has never been.&nbsp; They
+were both overturned in a stage-coach the other day (a bad omen
+anywhere else, where overturns are not so common), and his head,
+which bears the marks of a recent wound, is bound up still.&nbsp;
+She was hurt too, at the same time, and lay insensible for some
+days; bright as her eyes are, now.</p>
+<p>Further down still, sits a man who is going some miles beyond
+their place of destination, to &lsquo;improve&rsquo; a
+newly-discovered copper mine.&nbsp; He carries the
+village&mdash;that is to be&mdash;with him: a few frame cottages,
+and an apparatus for smelting the copper.&nbsp; He carries its
+people too.&nbsp; They are partly American and partly Irish, and
+herd together on the lower deck; where they amused themselves
+last evening till the night was pretty far advanced, by
+alternately firing off pistols and singing hymns.</p>
+<p>They, and the very few who have been left at table twenty
+minutes, rise, and go away.&nbsp; We do so too; and passing
+through our little state-room, resume our seats in the quiet
+gallery without.</p>
+<p>A fine broad river always, but in some parts much wider than
+in others: and then there is usually a green island, covered with
+trees, dividing it into two streams.&nbsp; Occasionally, we stop
+for a few minutes, maybe to take in wood, maybe for passengers,
+at some small town or village (I ought to say city, every place
+is a city here); but the banks are for the most part deep
+solitudes, overgrown with trees, which, hereabouts, are already
+in leaf and very green.&nbsp; For miles, and miles, and miles,
+these solitudes are unbroken by any sign of human life or trace
+of human footstep; nor is anything seen to move about them but
+the blue jay, whose colour is so bright, and yet so delicate,
+that it looks like a flying flower.&nbsp; At lengthened intervals
+a log cabin, with its little space of cleared land about it,
+nestles under a rising ground, and sends its thread of blue smoke
+curling up into the sky.&nbsp; It stands in the corner of the
+poor field of wheat, which is full of great unsightly stumps,
+like earthy butchers&rsquo;-blocks.&nbsp; Sometimes the ground is
+only just now cleared: the felled trees lying yet upon the soil:
+and the log-house only this morning begun.&nbsp; As we pass this
+clearing, the settler leans upon his axe or hammer, and looks
+wistfully at the people from the world.&nbsp; The children creep
+out of the temporary hut, which is like a gipsy tent upon the
+ground, and clap their hands and shout.&nbsp; The dog only
+glances round at us, and then looks up into his master&rsquo;s
+face again, as if he were rendered uneasy by any suspension of
+the common business, and had nothing more to do with
+pleasurers.&nbsp; And still there is the same, eternal
+foreground.&nbsp; The river has washed away its banks, and
+stately trees have fallen down into the stream.&nbsp; Some have
+been there so long, that they are mere dry, grizzly
+skeletons.&nbsp; Some have just toppled over, and having earth
+yet about their roots, are bathing their green heads in the
+river, and putting forth new shoots and branches.&nbsp; Some are
+almost sliding down, as you look at them.&nbsp; And some were
+drowned so long ago, that their bleached arms start out from the
+middle of the current, and seem to try to grasp the boat, and
+drag it under water.</p>
+<p>Through such a scene as this, the unwieldy machine takes its
+hoarse, sullen way: venting, at every revolution of the paddles,
+a loud high-pressure blast; enough, one would think, to waken up
+the host of Indians who lie buried in a great mound yonder: so
+old, that mighty oaks and other forest trees have struck their
+roots into its earth; and so high, that it is a hill, even among
+the hills that Nature planted round it.&nbsp; The very river, as
+though it shared one&rsquo;s feelings of compassion for the
+extinct tribes who lived so pleasantly here, in their blessed
+ignorance of white existence, hundreds of years ago, steals out
+of its way to ripple near this mound: and there are few places
+where the Ohio sparkles more brightly than in the Big Grave
+Creek.</p>
+<p>All this I see as I sit in the little stern-gallery mentioned
+just now.&nbsp; Evening slowly steals upon the landscape and
+changes it before me, when we stop to set some emigrants
+ashore.</p>
+<p>Five men, as many women, and a little girl.&nbsp; All their
+worldly goods are a bag, a large chest and an old chair: one,
+old, high-backed, rush-bottomed chair: a solitary settler in
+itself.&nbsp; They are rowed ashore in the boat, while the vessel
+stands a little off awaiting its return, the water being
+shallow.&nbsp; They are landed at the foot of a high bank, on the
+summit of which are a few log cabins, attainable only by a long
+winding path.&nbsp; It is growing dusk; but the sun is very red,
+and shines in the water and on some of the tree-tops, like
+fire.</p>
+<p>The men get out of the boat first; help out the women; take
+out the bag, the chest, the chair; bid the rowers
+&lsquo;good-bye;&rsquo; and shove the boat off for them.&nbsp; At
+the first plash of the oars in the water, the oldest woman of the
+party sits down in the old chair, close to the water&rsquo;s
+edge, without speaking a word.&nbsp; None of the others sit down,
+though the chest is large enough for many seats.&nbsp; They all
+stand where they landed, as if stricken into stone; and look
+after the boat.&nbsp; So they remain, quite still and silent: the
+old woman and her old chair, in the centre the bag and chest upon
+the shore, without anybody heeding them all eyes fixed upon the
+boat.&nbsp; It comes alongside, is made fast, the men jump on
+board, the engine is put in motion, and we go hoarsely on
+again.&nbsp; There they stand yet, without the motion of a
+hand.&nbsp; I can see them through my glass, when, in the
+distance and increasing darkness, they are mere specks to the
+eye: lingering there still: the old woman in the old chair, and
+all the rest about her: not stirring in the least degree.&nbsp;
+And thus I slowly lose them.</p>
+<p>The night is dark, and we proceed within the shadow of the
+wooded bank, which makes it darker.&nbsp; After gliding past the
+sombre maze of boughs for a long time, we come upon an open space
+where the tall trees are burning.&nbsp; The shape of every branch
+and twig is expressed in a deep red glow, and as the light wind
+stirs and ruffles it, they seem to vegetate in fire.&nbsp; It is
+such a sight as we read of in legends of enchanted forests:
+saving that it is sad to see these noble works wasting away so
+awfully, alone; and to think how many years must come and go
+before the magic that created them will rear their like upon this
+ground again.&nbsp; But the time will come; and when, in their
+changed ashes, the growth of centuries unborn has struck its
+roots, the restless men of distant ages will repair to these
+again unpeopled solitudes; and their fellows, in cities far away,
+that slumber now, perhaps, beneath the rolling sea, will read in
+language strange to any ears in being now, but very old to them,
+of primeval forests where the axe was never heard, and where the
+jungled ground was never trodden by a human foot.</p>
+<p>Midnight and sleep blot out these scenes and thoughts: and
+when the morning shines again, it gilds the house-tops of a
+lively city, before whose broad paved wharf the boat is moored;
+with other boats, and flags, and moving wheels, and hum of men
+around it; as though there were not a solitary or silent rood of
+ground within the compass of a thousand miles.</p>
+<p>Cincinnati is a beautiful city; cheerful, thriving, and
+animated.&nbsp; I have not often seen a place that commends
+itself so favourably and pleasantly to a stranger at the first
+glance as this does: with its clean houses of red and white, its
+well-paved roads, and foot-ways of bright tile.&nbsp; Nor does it
+become less prepossessing on a closer acquaintance.&nbsp; The
+streets are broad and airy, the shops extremely good, the private
+residences remarkable for their elegance and neatness.&nbsp;
+There is something of invention and fancy in the varying styles
+of these latter erections, which, after the dull company of the
+steamboat, is perfectly delightful, as conveying an assurance
+that there are such qualities still in existence.&nbsp; The
+disposition to ornament these pretty villas and render them
+attractive, leads to the culture of trees and flowers, and the
+laying out of well-kept gardens, the sight of which, to those who
+walk along the streets, is inexpressibly refreshing and
+agreeable.&nbsp; I was quite charmed with the appearance of the
+town, and its adjoining suburb of Mount Auburn: from which the
+city, lying in an amphitheatre of hills, forms a picture of
+remarkable beauty, and is seen to great advantage.</p>
+<p>There happened to be a great Temperance Convention held here
+on the day after our arrival; and as the order of march brought
+the procession under the windows of the hotel in which we lodged,
+when they started in the morning, I had a good opportunity of
+seeing it.&nbsp; It comprised several thousand men; the members
+of various &lsquo;Washington Auxiliary Temperance
+Societies;&rsquo; and was marshalled by officers on horseback,
+who cantered briskly up and down the line, with scarves and
+ribbons of bright colours fluttering out behind them gaily.&nbsp;
+There were bands of music too, and banners out of number: and it
+was a fresh, holiday-looking concourse altogether.</p>
+<p>I was particularly pleased to see the Irishmen, who formed a
+distinct society among themselves, and mustered very strong with
+their green scarves; carrying their national Harp and their
+Portrait of Father Mathew, high above the people&rsquo;s
+heads.&nbsp; They looked as jolly and good-humoured as ever; and,
+working (here) the hardest for their living and doing any kind of
+sturdy labour that came in their way, were the most independent
+fellows there, I thought.</p>
+<p>The banners were very well painted, and flaunted down the
+street famously.&nbsp; There was the smiting of the rock, and the
+gushing forth of the waters; and there was a temperate man with
+&lsquo;considerable of a hatchet&rsquo; (as the standard-bearer
+would probably have said), aiming a deadly blow at a serpent
+which was apparently about to spring upon him from the top of a
+barrel of spirits.&nbsp; But the chief feature of this part of
+the show was a huge allegorical device, borne among the
+ship-carpenters, on one side whereof the steamboat Alcohol was
+represented bursting her boiler and exploding with a great crash,
+while upon the other, the good ship Temperance sailed away with a
+fair wind, to the heart&rsquo;s content of the captain, crew, and
+passengers.</p>
+<p>After going round the town, the procession repaired to a
+certain appointed place, where, as the printed programme set
+forth, it would be received by the children of the different free
+schools, &lsquo;singing Temperance Songs.&rsquo;&nbsp; I was
+prevented from getting there, in time to hear these Little
+Warblers, or to report upon this novel kind of vocal
+entertainment: novel, at least, to me: but I found in a large
+open space, each society gathered round its own banners, and
+listening in silent attention to its own orator.&nbsp; The
+speeches, judging from the little I could hear of them, were
+certainly adapted to the occasion, as having that degree of
+relationship to cold water which wet blankets may claim: but the
+main thing was the conduct and appearance of the audience
+throughout the day; and that was admirable and full of
+promise.</p>
+<p>Cincinnati is honourably famous for its free schools, of which
+it has so many that no person&rsquo;s child among its population
+can, by possibility, want the means of education, which are
+extended, upon an average, to four thousand pupils,
+annually.&nbsp; I was only present in one of these establishments
+during the hours of instruction.&nbsp; In the boys&rsquo;
+department, which was full of little urchins (varying in their
+ages, I should say, from six years old to ten or twelve), the
+master offered to institute an extemporary examination of the
+pupils in algebra; a proposal, which, as I was by no means
+confident of my ability to detect mistakes in that science, I
+declined with some alarm.&nbsp; In the girls&rsquo; school,
+reading was proposed; and as I felt tolerably equal to that art,
+I expressed my willingness to hear a class.&nbsp; Books were
+distributed accordingly, and some half-dozen girls relieved each
+other in reading paragraphs from English History.&nbsp; But it
+seemed to be a dry compilation, infinitely above their powers;
+and when they had blundered through three or four dreary passages
+concerning the Treaty of Amiens, and other thrilling topics of
+the same nature (obviously without comprehending ten words), I
+expressed myself quite satisfied.&nbsp; It is very possible that
+they only mounted to this exalted stave in the Ladder of Learning
+for the astonishment of a visitor; and that at other times they
+keep upon its lower rounds; but I should have been much better
+pleased and satisfied if I had heard them exercised in simpler
+lessons, which they understood.</p>
+<p>As in every other place I visited, the judges here were
+gentlemen of high character and attainments.&nbsp; I was in one
+of the courts for a few minutes, and found it like those to which
+I have already referred.&nbsp; A nuisance cause was trying; there
+were not many spectators; and the witnesses, counsel, and jury,
+formed a sort of family circle, sufficiently jocose and snug.</p>
+<p>The society with which I mingled, was intelligent, courteous,
+and agreeable.&nbsp; The inhabitants of Cincinnati are proud of
+their city as one of the most interesting in America: and with
+good reason: for beautiful and thriving as it is now, and
+containing, as it does, a population of fifty thousand souls, but
+two-and-fifty years have passed away since the ground on which it
+stands (bought at that time for a few dollars) was a wild wood,
+and its citizens were but a handful of dwellers in scattered log
+huts upon the river&rsquo;s shore.</p>
+<h2><a name="page137"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+137</span>CHAPTER XII<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">FROM CINCINNATI TO LOUISVILLE IN ANOTHER
+WESTERN STEAMBOAT; AND FROM LOUISVILLE TO ST. LOUIS IN
+ANOTHER.&nbsp; ST. LOUIS</span></h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">Leaving</span> Cincinnati at eleven
+o&rsquo;clock in the forenoon, we embarked for Louisville in the
+Pike steamboat, which, carrying the mails, was a packet of a much
+better class than that in which we had come from Pittsburg.&nbsp;
+As this passage does not occupy more than twelve or thirteen
+hours, we arranged to go ashore that night: not coveting the
+distinction of sleeping in a state-room, when it was possible to
+sleep anywhere else.</p>
+<p>There chanced to be on board this boat, in addition to the
+usual dreary crowd of passengers, one Pitchlynn, a chief of the
+Choctaw tribe of Indians, who <i>sent in his card</i> to me, and
+with whom I had the pleasure of a long conversation.</p>
+<p>He spoke English perfectly well, though he had not begun to
+learn the language, he told me, until he was a young man
+grown.&nbsp; He had read many books; and Scott&rsquo;s poetry
+appeared to have left a strong impression on his mind: especially
+the opening of The Lady of the Lake, and the great battle scene
+in Marmion, in which, no doubt from the congeniality of the
+subjects to his own pursuits and tastes, he had great interest
+and delight.&nbsp; He appeared to understand correctly all he had
+read; and whatever fiction had enlisted his sympathy in its
+belief, had done so keenly and earnestly.&nbsp; I might almost
+say fiercely.&nbsp; He was dressed in our ordinary everyday
+costume, which hung about his fine figure loosely, and with
+indifferent grace.&nbsp; On my telling him that I regretted not
+to see him in his own attire, he threw up his right arm, for a
+moment, as though he were brandishing some heavy weapon, and
+answered, as he let it fall again, that his race were losing many
+things besides their dress, and would soon be seen upon the earth
+no more: but he wore it at home, he added proudly.</p>
+<p>He told me that he had been away from his home, west of the
+Mississippi, seventeen months: and was now returning.&nbsp; He
+had been chiefly at Washington on some negotiations pending
+between his Tribe and the Government: which were not settled yet
+(he said in a melancholy way), and he feared never would be: for
+what could a few poor Indians do, against such well-skilled men
+of business as the whites?&nbsp; He had no love for Washington;
+tired of towns and cities very soon; and longed for the Forest
+and the Prairie.</p>
+<p>I asked him what he thought of Congress?&nbsp; He answered,
+with a smile, that it wanted dignity, in an Indian&rsquo;s
+eyes.</p>
+<p>He would very much like, he said, to see England before he
+died; and spoke with much interest about the great things to be
+seen there.&nbsp; When I told him of that chamber in the British
+Museum wherein are preserved household memorials of a race that
+ceased to be, thousands of years ago, he was very attentive, and
+it was not hard to see that he had a reference in his mind to the
+gradual fading away of his own people.</p>
+<p>This led us to speak of Mr. Catlin&rsquo;s gallery, which he
+praised highly: observing that his own portrait was among the
+collection, and that all the likenesses were
+&lsquo;elegant.&rsquo;&nbsp; Mr. Cooper, he said, had painted the
+Red Man well; and so would I, he knew, if I would go home with
+him and hunt buffaloes, which he was quite anxious I should
+do.&nbsp; When I told him that supposing I went, I should not be
+very likely to damage the buffaloes much, he took it as a great
+joke and laughed heartily.</p>
+<p>He was a remarkably handsome man; some years past forty, I
+should judge; with long black hair, an aquiline nose, broad
+cheek-bones, a sunburnt complexion, and a very bright, keen,
+dark, and piercing eye.&nbsp; There were but twenty thousand of
+the Choctaws left, he said, and their number was decreasing every
+day.&nbsp; A few of his brother chiefs had been obliged to become
+civilised, and to make themselves acquainted with what the whites
+knew, for it was their only chance of existence.&nbsp; But they
+were not many; and the rest were as they always had been.&nbsp;
+He dwelt on this: and said several times that unless they tried
+to assimilate themselves to their conquerors, they must be swept
+away before the strides of civilised society.</p>
+<p>When we shook hands at parting, I told him he must come to
+England, as he longed to see the land so much: that I should hope
+to see him there, one day: and that I could promise him he would
+be well received and kindly treated.&nbsp; He was evidently
+pleased by this assurance, though he rejoined with a
+good-humoured smile and an arch shake of his head, that the
+English used to be very fond of the Red Men when they wanted
+their help, but had not cared much for them, since.</p>
+<p>He took his leave; as stately and complete a gentleman of
+Nature&rsquo;s making, as ever I beheld; and moved among the
+people in the boat, another kind of being.&nbsp; He sent me a
+lithographed portrait of himself soon afterwards; very like,
+though scarcely handsome enough; which I have carefully preserved
+in memory of our brief acquaintance.</p>
+<p>There was nothing very interesting in the scenery of this
+day&rsquo;s journey, which brought us at midnight to
+Louisville.&nbsp; We slept at the Galt House; a splendid hotel;
+and were as handsomely lodged as though we had been in Paris,
+rather than hundreds of miles beyond the Alleghanies.</p>
+<p>The city presenting no objects of sufficient interest to
+detain us on our way, we resolved to proceed next day by another
+steamboat, the Fulton, and to join it, about noon, at a suburb
+called Portland, where it would be delayed some time in passing
+through a canal.</p>
+<p>The interval, after breakfast, we devoted to riding through
+the town, which is regular and cheerful: the streets being laid
+out at right angles, and planted with young trees.&nbsp; The
+buildings are smoky and blackened, from the use of bituminous
+coal, but an Englishman is well used to that appearance, and
+indisposed to quarrel with it.&nbsp; There did not appear to be
+much business stirring; and some unfinished buildings and
+improvements seemed to intimate that the city had been overbuilt
+in the ardour of &lsquo;going-a-head,&rsquo; and was suffering
+under the re-action consequent upon such feverish forcing of its
+powers.</p>
+<p>On our way to Portland, we passed a &lsquo;Magistrate&rsquo;s
+office,&rsquo; which amused me, as looking far more like a dame
+school than any police establishment: for this awful Institution
+was nothing but a little lazy, good-for-nothing front parlour,
+open to the street; wherein two or three figures (I presume the
+magistrate and his myrmidons) were basking in the sunshine, the
+very effigies of languor and repose.&nbsp; It was a perfect
+picture of justice retired from business for want of customers;
+her sword and scales sold off; napping comfortably with her legs
+upon the table.</p>
+<p>Here, as elsewhere in these parts, the road was perfectly
+alive with pigs of all ages; lying about in every direction, fast
+asleep.; or grunting along in quest of hidden dainties.&nbsp; I
+had always a sneaking kindness for these odd animals, and found a
+constant source of amusement, when all others failed, in watching
+their proceedings.&nbsp; As we were riding along this morning, I
+observed a little incident between two youthful pigs, which was
+so very human as to be inexpressibly comical and grotesque at the
+time, though I dare say, in telling, it is tame enough.</p>
+<p>One young gentleman (a very delicate porker with several
+straws sticking about his nose, betokening recent investigations
+in a dung-hill) was walking deliberately on, profoundly thinking,
+when suddenly his brother, who was lying in a miry hole unseen by
+him, rose up immediately before his startled eyes, ghostly with
+damp mud.&nbsp; Never was pig&rsquo;s whole mass of blood so
+turned.&nbsp; He started back at least three feet, gazed for a
+moment, and then shot off as hard as he could go: his excessively
+little tail vibrating with speed and terror like a distracted
+pendulum.&nbsp; But before he had gone very far, he began to
+reason with himself as to the nature of this frightful
+appearance; and as he reasoned, he relaxed his speed by gradual
+degrees; until at last he stopped, and faced about.&nbsp; There
+was his brother, with the mud upon him glazing in the sun, yet
+staring out of the very same hole, perfectly amazed at his
+proceedings!&nbsp; He was no sooner assured of this; and he
+assured himself so carefully that one may almost say he shaded
+his eyes with his hand to see the better; than he came back at a
+round trot, pounced upon him, and summarily took off a piece of
+his tail; as a caution to him to be careful what he was about for
+the future, and never to play tricks with his family any
+more.</p>
+<p>We found the steamboat in the canal, waiting for the slow
+process of getting through the lock, and went on board, where we
+shortly afterwards had a new kind of visitor in the person of a
+certain Kentucky Giant whose name is Porter, and who is of the
+moderate height of seven feet eight inches, in his stockings.</p>
+<p>There never was a race of people who so completely gave the
+lie to history as these giants, or whom all the chroniclers have
+so cruelly libelled.&nbsp; Instead of roaring and ravaging about
+the world, constantly catering for their cannibal larders, and
+perpetually going to market in an unlawful manner, they are the
+meekest people in any man&rsquo;s acquaintance: rather inclining
+to milk and vegetable diet, and bearing anything for a quiet
+life.&nbsp; So decidedly are amiability and mildness their
+characteristics, that I confess I look upon that youth who
+distinguished himself by the slaughter of these inoffensive
+persons, as a false-hearted brigand, who, pretending to
+philanthropic motives, was secretly influenced only by the wealth
+stored up within their castles, and the hope of plunder.&nbsp;
+And I lean the more to this opinion from finding that even the
+historian of those exploits, with all his partiality for his
+hero, is fain to admit that the slaughtered monsters in question
+were of a very innocent and simple turn; extremely guileless and
+ready of belief; lending a credulous ear to the most improbable
+tales; suffering themselves to be easily entrapped into pits; and
+even (as in the case of the Welsh Giant) with an excess of the
+hospitable politeness of a landlord, ripping themselves open,
+rather than hint at the possibility of their guests being versed
+in the vagabond arts of sleight-of-hand and hocus-pocus.</p>
+<p>The Kentucky Giant was but another illustration of the truth
+of this position.&nbsp; He had a weakness in the region of the
+knees, and a trustfulness in his long face, which appealed even
+to five-feet nine for encouragement and support.&nbsp; He was
+only twenty-five years old, he said, and had grown recently, for
+it had been found necessary to make an addition to the legs of
+his inexpressibles.&nbsp; At fifteen he was a short boy, and in
+those days his English father and his Irish mother had rather
+snubbed him, as being too small of stature to sustain the credit
+of the family.&nbsp; He added that his health had not been good,
+though it was better now; but short people are not wanting who
+whisper that he drinks too hard.</p>
+<p>I understand he drives a hackney-coach, though how he does it,
+unless he stands on the footboard behind, and lies along the roof
+upon his chest, with his chin in the box, it would be difficult
+to comprehend.&nbsp; He brought his gun with him, as a
+curiosity.</p>
+<p>Christened &lsquo;The Little Rifle,&rsquo; and displayed
+outside a shop-window, it would make the fortune of any retail
+business in Holborn.&nbsp; When he had shown himself and talked a
+little while, he withdrew with his pocket-instrument, and went
+bobbing down the cabin, among men of six feet high and upwards,
+like a light-house walking among lamp-posts.</p>
+<p>Within a few minutes afterwards, we were out of the canal, and
+in the Ohio river again.</p>
+<p>The arrangements of the boat were like those of the Messenger,
+and the passengers were of the same order of people.&nbsp; We fed
+at the same times, on the same kind of viands, in the same dull
+manner, and with the same observances.&nbsp; The company appeared
+to be oppressed by the same tremendous concealments, and had as
+little capacity of enjoyment or light-heartedness.&nbsp; I never
+in my life did see such listless, heavy dulness as brooded over
+these meals: the very recollection of it weighs me down, and
+makes me, for the moment, wretched.&nbsp; Reading and writing on
+my knee, in our little cabin, I really dreaded the coming of the
+hour that summoned us to table; and was as glad to escape from it
+again, as if it had been a penance or a punishment.&nbsp; Healthy
+cheerfulness and good spirits forming a part of the banquet, I
+could soak my crusts in the fountain with Le Sage&rsquo;s
+strolling player, and revel in their glad enjoyment: but sitting
+down with so many fellow-animals to ward off thirst and hunger as
+a business; to empty, each creature, his Yahoo&rsquo;s trough as
+quickly as he can, and then slink sullenly away; to have these
+social sacraments stripped of everything but the mere greedy
+satisfaction of the natural cravings; goes so against the grain
+with me, that I seriously believe the recollection of these
+funeral feasts will be a waking nightmare to me all my life.</p>
+<p>There was some relief in this boat, too, which there had not
+been in the other, for the captain (a blunt, good-natured fellow)
+had his handsome wife with him, who was disposed to be lively and
+agreeable, as were a few other lady-passengers who had their
+seats about us at the same end of the table.&nbsp; But nothing
+could have made head against the depressing influence of the
+general body.&nbsp; There was a magnetism of dulness in them
+which would have beaten down the most facetious companion that
+the earth ever knew.&nbsp; A jest would have been a crime, and a
+smile would have faded into a grinning horror.&nbsp; Such deadly,
+leaden people; such systematic plodding, weary, insupportable
+heaviness; such a mass of animated indigestion in respect of all
+that was genial, jovial, frank, social, or hearty; never, sure,
+was brought together elsewhere since the world began.</p>
+<p>Nor was the scenery, as we approached the junction of the Ohio
+and Mississippi rivers, at all inspiriting in its
+influence.&nbsp; The trees were stunted in their growth; the
+banks were low and flat; the settlements and log cabins fewer in
+number: their inhabitants more wan and wretched than any we had
+encountered yet.&nbsp; No songs of birds were in the air, no
+pleasant scents, no moving lights and shadows from swift passing
+clouds.&nbsp; Hour after hour, the changeless glare of the hot,
+unwinking sky, shone upon the same monotonous objects.&nbsp; Hour
+after hour, the river rolled along, as wearily and slowly as the
+time itself.</p>
+<p>At length, upon the morning of the third day, we arrived at a
+spot so much more desolate than any we had yet beheld, that the
+forlornest places we had passed, were, in comparison with it,
+full of interest.&nbsp; At the junction of the two rivers, on
+ground so flat and low and marshy, that at certain seasons of the
+year it is inundated to the house-tops, lies a breeding-place of
+fever, ague, and death; vaunted in England as a mine of Golden
+Hope, and speculated in, on the faith of monstrous
+representations, to many people&rsquo;s ruin.&nbsp; A dismal
+swamp, on which the half-built houses rot away: cleared here and
+there for the space of a few yards; and teeming, then, with rank
+unwholesome vegetation, in whose baleful shade the wretched
+wanderers who are tempted hither, droop, and die, and lay their
+bones; the hateful Mississippi circling and eddying before it,
+and turning off upon its southern course a slimy monster hideous
+to behold; a hotbed of disease, an ugly sepulchre, a grave
+uncheered by any gleam of promise: a place without one single
+quality, in earth or air or water, to commend it: such is this
+dismal Cairo.</p>
+<p>But what words shall describe the Mississippi, great father of
+rivers, who (praise be to Heaven) has no young children like him!
+An enormous ditch, sometimes two or three miles wide, running
+liquid mud, six miles an hour: its strong and frothy current
+choked and obstructed everywhere by huge logs and whole forest
+trees: now twining themselves together in great rafts, from the
+interstices of which a sedgy, lazy foam works up, to float upon
+the water&rsquo;s top; now rolling past like monstrous bodies,
+their tangled roots showing like matted hair; now glancing singly
+by like giant leeches; and now writhing round and round in the
+vortex of some small whirlpool, like wounded snakes.&nbsp; The
+banks low, the trees dwarfish, the marshes swarming with frogs,
+the wretched cabins few and far apart, their inmates
+hollow-cheeked and pale, the weather very hot, mosquitoes
+penetrating into every crack and crevice of the boat, mud and
+slime on everything: nothing pleasant in its aspect, but the
+harmless lightning which flickers every night upon the dark
+horizon.</p>
+<p>For two days we toiled up this foul stream, striking
+constantly against the floating timber, or stopping to avoid
+those more dangerous obstacles, the snags, or sawyers, which are
+the hidden trunks of trees that have their roots below the
+tide.&nbsp; When the nights are very dark, the look-out stationed
+in the head of the boat, knows by the ripple of the water if any
+great impediment be near at hand, and rings a bell beside him,
+which is the signal for the engine to be stopped: but always in
+the night this bell has work to do, and after every ring, there
+comes a blow which renders it no easy matter to remain in
+bed.</p>
+<p>The decline of day here was very gorgeous; tingeing the
+firmament deeply with red and gold, up to the very keystone of
+the arch above us.&nbsp; As the sun went down behind the bank,
+the slightest blades of grass upon it seemed to become as
+distinctly visible as the arteries in the skeleton of a leaf; and
+when, as it slowly sank, the red and golden bars upon the water
+grew dimmer, and dimmer yet, as if they were sinking too; and all
+the glowing colours of departing day paled, inch by inch, before
+the sombre night; the scene became a thousand times more lonesome
+and more dreary than before, and all its influences darkened with
+the sky.</p>
+<p>We drank the muddy water of this river while we were upon
+it.&nbsp; It is considered wholesome by the natives, and is
+something more opaque than gruel.&nbsp; I have seen water like it
+at the Filter-shops, but nowhere else.</p>
+<p><a name="page144"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 144</span>On
+the fourth night after leaving Louisville, we reached St. Louis,
+and here I witnessed the conclusion of an incident, trifling
+enough in itself, but very pleasant to see, which had interested
+me during the whole journey.</p>
+<p>There was a little woman on board, with a little baby; and
+both little woman and little child were cheerful, good-looking,
+bright-eyed, and fair to see.&nbsp; The little woman had been
+passing a long time with her sick mother in New York, and had
+left her home in St. Louis, in that condition in which ladies who
+truly love their lords desire to be.&nbsp; The baby was born in
+her mother&rsquo;s house; and she had not seen her husband (to
+whom she was now returning), for twelve months: having left him a
+month or two after their marriage.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p144b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The Little Wife"
+title=
+"The Little Wife"
+src="images/p144s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>Well, to be sure, there never was a little woman so full of
+hope, and tenderness, and love, and anxiety, as this little woman
+was: and all day long she wondered whether &lsquo;He&rsquo; would
+be at the wharf; and whether &lsquo;He&rsquo; had got her letter;
+and whether, if she sent the baby ashore by somebody else,
+&lsquo;He&rsquo; would know it, meeting it in the street: which,
+seeing that he had never set eyes upon it in his life, was not
+very likely in the abstract, but was probable enough, to the
+young mother.&nbsp; She was such an artless little creature; and
+was in such a sunny, beaming, hopeful state; and let out all this
+matter clinging close about her heart, so freely; that all the
+other lady passengers entered into the spirit of it as much as
+she; and the captain (who heard all about it from his wife) was
+wondrous sly, I promise you: inquiring, every time we met at
+table, as in forgetfulness, whether she expected anybody to meet
+her at St. Louis, and whether she would want to go ashore the
+night we reached it (but he supposed she wouldn&rsquo;t), and
+cutting many other dry jokes of that nature.&nbsp; There was one
+little weazen, dried-apple-faced old woman, who took occasion to
+doubt the constancy of husbands in such circumstances of
+bereavement; and there was another lady (with a lap-dog) old
+enough to moralize on the lightness of human affections, and yet
+not so old that she could help nursing the baby, now and then, or
+laughing with the rest, when the little woman called it by its
+father&rsquo;s name, and asked it all manner of fantastic
+questions concerning him in the joy of her heart.</p>
+<p>It was something of a blow to the little woman, that when we
+were within twenty miles of our destination, it became clearly
+necessary to put this baby to bed.&nbsp; But she got over it with
+the same good humour; tied a handkerchief round her head; and
+came out into the little gallery with the rest.&nbsp; Then, such
+an oracle as she became in reference to the localities! and such
+facetiousness as was displayed by the married ladies! and such
+sympathy as was shown by the single ones! and such peals of
+laughter as the little woman herself (who would just as soon have
+cried) greeted every jest with!</p>
+<p>At last, there were the lights of St. Louis, and here was the
+wharf, and those were the steps: and the little woman covering
+her face with her hands, and laughing (or seeming to laugh) more
+than ever, ran into her own cabin, and shut herself up.&nbsp; I
+have no doubt that in the charming inconsistency of such
+excitement, she stopped her ears, lest she should hear
+&lsquo;Him&rsquo; asking for her: but I did not see her do
+it.</p>
+<p>Then, a great crowd of people rushed on board, though the boat
+was not yet made fast, but was wandering about, among the other
+boats, to find a landing-place: and everybody looked for the
+husband: and nobody saw him: when, in the midst of us
+all&mdash;Heaven knows how she ever got there&mdash;there was the
+little woman clinging with both arms tight round the neck of a
+fine, good-looking, sturdy young fellow! and in a moment
+afterwards, there she was again, actually clapping her little
+hands for joy, as she dragged him through the small door of her
+small cabin, to look at the baby as he lay asleep!</p>
+<p>We went to a large hotel, called the Planter&rsquo;s House:
+built like an English hospital, with long passages and bare
+walls, and sky-lights above the room-doors for the free
+circulation of air.&nbsp; There were a great many boarders in it;
+and as many lights sparkled and glistened from the windows down
+into the street below, when we drove up, as if it had been
+illuminated on some occasion of rejoicing.&nbsp; It is an
+excellent house, and the proprietors have most bountiful notions
+of providing the creature comforts.&nbsp; Dining alone with my
+wife in our own room, one day, I counted fourteen dishes on the
+table at once.</p>
+<p>In the old French portion of the town, the thoroughfares are
+narrow and crooked, and some of the houses are very quaint and
+picturesque: being built of wood, with tumble-down galleries
+before the windows, approachable by stairs or rather ladders from
+the street.&nbsp; There are queer little barbers&rsquo; shops and
+drinking-houses too, in this quarter; and abundance of crazy old
+tenements with blinking casements, such as may be seen in
+Flanders.&nbsp; Some of these ancient habitations, with high
+garret gable-windows perking into the roofs, have a kind of
+French shrug about them; and being lop-sided with age, appear to
+hold their heads askew, besides, as if they were grimacing in
+astonishment at the American Improvements.</p>
+<p>It is hardly necessary to say, that these consist of wharfs
+and warehouses, and new buildings in all directions; and of a
+great many vast plans which are still
+&lsquo;progressing.&rsquo;&nbsp; Already, however, some very good
+houses, broad streets, and marble-fronted shops, have gone so far
+ahead as to be in a state of completion; and the town bids fair
+in a few years to improve considerably: though it is not likely
+ever to vie, in point of elegance or beauty, with Cincinnati.</p>
+<p>The Roman Catholic religion, introduced here by the early
+French settlers, prevails extensively.&nbsp; Among the public
+institutions are a Jesuit college; a convent for &lsquo;the
+Ladies of the Sacred Heart;&rsquo; and a large chapel attached to
+the college, which was in course of erection at the time of my
+visit, and was intended to be consecrated on the second of
+December in the next year.&nbsp; The architect of this building,
+is one of the reverend fathers of the school, and the works
+proceed under his sole direction.&nbsp; The organ will be sent
+from Belgium.</p>
+<p>In addition to these establishments, there is a Roman Catholic
+cathedral, dedicated to Saint Francis Xavier; and a hospital,
+founded by the munificence of a deceased resident, who was a
+member of that church.&nbsp; It also sends missionaries from
+hence among the Indian tribes.</p>
+<p>The Unitarian church is represented, in this remote place, as
+in most other parts of America, by a gentleman of great worth and
+excellence.&nbsp; The poor have good reason to remember and bless
+it; for it befriends them, and aids the cause of rational
+education, without any sectarian or selfish views.&nbsp; It is
+liberal in all its actions; of kind construction; and of wide
+benevolence.</p>
+<p>There are three free-schools already erected, and in full
+operation in this city.&nbsp; A fourth is building, and will soon
+be opened.</p>
+<p>No man ever admits the unhealthiness of the place he dwells in
+(unless he is going away from it), and I shall therefore, I have
+no doubt, be at issue with the inhabitants of St. Louis, in
+questioning the perfect salubrity of its climate, and in hinting
+that I think it must rather dispose to fever, in the summer and
+autumnal seasons.&nbsp; Just adding, that it is very hot, lies
+among great rivers, and has vast tracts of undrained swampy land
+around it, I leave the reader to form his own opinion.</p>
+<p>As I had a great desire to see a Prairie before turning back
+from the furthest point of my wanderings; and as some gentlemen
+of the town had, in their hospitable consideration, an equal
+desire to gratify me; a day was fixed, before my departure, for
+an expedition to the Looking-Glass Prairie, which is within
+thirty miles of the town.&nbsp; Deeming it possible that my
+readers may not object to know what kind of thing such a gipsy
+party may be at that distance from home, and among what sort of
+objects it moves, I will describe the jaunt in another
+chapter.</p>
+<h2><a name="page147"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+147</span>CHAPTER XIII<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">A JAUNT TO THE LOOKING-GLASS PRAIRIE AND
+BACK</span></h2>
+<p>I <span class="smcap">may</span> premise that the word Prairie
+is variously pronounced <i>paraaer</i>, <i>parearer</i>,
+<i>paroarer</i>.&nbsp; The latter mode of pronunciation is
+perhaps the most in favour.</p>
+<p>We were fourteen in all, and all young men: indeed it is a
+singular though very natural feature in the society of these
+distant settlements, that it is mainly composed of adventurous
+persons in the prime of life, and has very few grey heads among
+it.&nbsp; There were no ladies: the trip being a fatiguing one:
+and we were to start at five o&rsquo;clock in the morning
+punctually.</p>
+<p>I was called at four, that I might be certain of keeping
+nobody waiting; and having got some bread and milk for breakfast,
+threw up the window and looked down into the street, expecting to
+see the whole party busily astir, and great preparations going on
+below.&nbsp; But as everything was very quiet, and the street
+presented that hopeless aspect with which five o&rsquo;clock in
+the morning is familiar elsewhere, I deemed it as well to go to
+bed again, and went accordingly.</p>
+<p>I woke again at seven o&rsquo;clock, and by that time the
+party had assembled, and were gathered round, one light carriage,
+with a very stout axletree; one something on wheels like an
+amateur carrier&rsquo;s cart; one double phaeton of great
+antiquity and unearthly construction; one gig with a great hole
+in its back and a broken head; and one rider on horseback who was
+to go on before.&nbsp; I got into the first coach with three
+companions; the rest bestowed themselves in the other vehicles;
+two large baskets were made fast to the lightest; two large stone
+jars in wicker cases, technically known as demi-johns, were
+consigned to the &lsquo;least rowdy&rsquo; of the party for
+safe-keeping; and the procession moved off to the ferryboat, in
+which it was to cross the river bodily, men, horses, carriages,
+and all, as the manner in these parts is.</p>
+<p>We got over the river in due course, and mustered again before
+a little wooden box on wheels, hove down all aslant in a morass,
+with &lsquo;<span class="smcap">merchant tailor</span>&rsquo;
+painted in very large letters over the door.&nbsp; Having settled
+the order of proceeding, and the road to be taken, we started off
+once more and began to make our way through an ill-favoured Black
+Hollow, called, less expressively, the American Bottom.</p>
+<p>The previous day had been&mdash;not to say hot, for the term
+is weak and lukewarm in its power of conveying an idea of the
+temperature.&nbsp; The town had been on fire; in a blaze.&nbsp;
+But at night it had come on to rain in torrents, and all night
+long it had rained without cessation.&nbsp; We had a pair of very
+strong horses, but travelled at the rate of little more than a
+couple of miles an hour, through one unbroken slough of black mud
+and water.&nbsp; It had no variety but in depth.&nbsp; Now it was
+only half over the wheels, now it hid the axletree, and now the
+coach sank down in it almost to the windows.&nbsp; The air
+resounded in all directions with the loud chirping of the frogs,
+who, with the pigs (a coarse, ugly breed, as unwholesome-looking
+as though they were the spontaneous growth of the country), had
+the whole scene to themselves.&nbsp; Here and there we passed a
+log hut: but the wretched cabins were wide apart and thinly
+scattered, for though the soil is very rich in this place, few
+people can exist in such a deadly atmosphere.&nbsp; On either
+side of the track, if it deserve the name, was the thick
+&lsquo;bush;&rsquo; and everywhere was stagnant, slimy, rotten,
+filthy water.</p>
+<p>As it is the custom in these parts to give a horse a gallon or
+so of cold water whenever he is in a foam with heat, we halted
+for that purpose, at a log inn in the wood, far removed from any
+other residence.&nbsp; It consisted of one room, bare-roofed and
+bare-walled of course, with a loft above.&nbsp; The ministering
+priest was a swarthy young savage, in a shirt of cotton print
+like bed-furniture, and a pair of ragged trousers.&nbsp; There
+were a couple of young boys, too, nearly naked, lying idle by the
+well; and they, and he, and <i>the</i> traveller at the inn,
+turned out to look at us.</p>
+<p>The traveller was an old man with a grey gristly beard two
+inches long, a shaggy moustache of the same hue, and enormous
+eyebrows; which almost obscured his lazy, semi-drunken glance, as
+he stood regarding us with folded arms: poising himself
+alternately upon his toes and heels.&nbsp; On being addressed by
+one of the party, he drew nearer, and said, rubbing his chin
+(which scraped under his horny hand like fresh gravel beneath a
+nailed shoe), that he was from Delaware, and had lately bought a
+farm &lsquo;down there,&rsquo; pointing into one of the marshes
+where the stunted trees were thickest.&nbsp; He was
+&lsquo;going,&rsquo; he added, to St. Louis, to fetch his family,
+whom he had left behind; but he seemed in no great hurry to bring
+on these incumbrances, for when we moved away, he loitered back
+into the cabin, and was plainly bent on stopping there so long as
+his money lasted.&nbsp; He was a great politician of course, and
+explained his opinions at some length to one of our company; but
+I only remember that he concluded with two sentiments, one of
+which was, Somebody for ever; and the other, Blast everybody
+else! which is by no means a bad abstract of the general creed in
+these matters.</p>
+<p>When the horses were swollen out to about twice their natural
+dimensions (there seems to be an idea here, that this kind of
+inflation improves their going), we went forward again, through
+mud and mire, and damp, and festering heat, and brake and bush,
+attended always by the music of the frogs and pigs, until nearly
+noon, when we halted at a place called Belleville.</p>
+<p>Belleville was a small collection of wooden houses, huddled
+together in the very heart of the bush and swamp.&nbsp; Many of
+them had singularly bright doors of red and yellow; for the place
+had been lately visited by a travelling painter, &lsquo;who got
+along,&rsquo; as I was told, &lsquo;by eating his
+way.&rsquo;&nbsp; The criminal court was sitting, and was at that
+moment trying some criminals for horse-stealing: with whom it
+would most likely go hard: for live stock of all kinds being
+necessarily very much exposed in the woods, is held by the
+community in rather higher value than human life; and for this
+reason, juries generally make a point of finding all men indicted
+for cattle-stealing, guilty, whether or no.</p>
+<p>The horses belonging to the bar, the judge, and witnesses,
+were tied to temporary racks set up roughly in the road; by which
+is to be understood, a forest path, nearly knee-deep in mud and
+slime.</p>
+<p>There was an hotel in this place, which, like all hotels in
+America, had its large dining-room for the public table.&nbsp; It
+was an odd, shambling, low-roofed out-house, half-cowshed and
+half-kitchen, with a coarse brown canvas table-cloth, and tin
+sconces stuck against the walls, to hold candles at
+supper-time.&nbsp; The horseman had gone forward to have coffee
+and some eatables prepared, and they were by this time nearly
+ready.&nbsp; He had ordered &lsquo;wheat-bread and chicken
+fixings,&rsquo; in preference to &lsquo;corn-bread and common
+doings.&rsquo;&nbsp; The latter kind of rejection includes only
+pork and bacon.&nbsp; The former comprehends broiled ham,
+sausages, veal cutlets, steaks, and such other viands of that
+nature as may be supposed, by a tolerably wide poetical
+construction, &lsquo;to fix&rsquo; a chicken comfortably in the
+digestive organs of any lady or gentleman.</p>
+<p>On one of the door-posts at this inn, was a tin plate, whereon
+was inscribed in characters of gold, &lsquo;Doctor Crocus;&rsquo;
+and on a sheet of paper, pasted up by the side of this plate, was
+a written announcement that Dr. Crocus would that evening deliver
+a lecture on Phrenology for the benefit of the Belleville public;
+at a charge, for admission, of so much a head.</p>
+<p>Straying up-stairs, during the preparation of the chicken
+fixings, I happened to pass the doctor&rsquo;s chamber; and as
+the door stood wide open, and the room was empty, I made bold to
+peep in.</p>
+<p>It was a bare, unfurnished, comfortless room, with an unframed
+portrait hanging up at the head of the bed; a likeness, I take
+it, of the Doctor, for the forehead was fully displayed, and
+great stress was laid by the artist upon its phrenological
+developments.&nbsp; The bed itself was covered with an old
+patch-work counterpane.&nbsp; The room was destitute of carpet or
+of curtain.&nbsp; There was a damp fireplace without any stove,
+full of wood ashes; a chair, and a very small table; and on the
+last-named piece of furniture was displayed, in grand array, the
+doctor&rsquo;s library, consisting of some half-dozen greasy old
+books.</p>
+<p>Now, it certainly looked about the last apartment on the whole
+earth out of which any man would be likely to get anything to do
+him good.&nbsp; But the door, as I have said, stood coaxingly
+open, and plainly said in conjunction with the chair, the
+portrait, the table, and the books, &lsquo;Walk in, gentlemen,
+walk in!&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t be ill, gentlemen, when you may be
+well in no time.&nbsp; Doctor Crocus is here, gentlemen, the
+celebrated Dr. Crocus!&nbsp; Dr. Crocus has come all this way to
+cure you, gentlemen.&nbsp; If you haven&rsquo;t heard of Dr.
+Crocus, it&rsquo;s your fault, gentlemen, who live a little way
+out of the world here: not Dr. Crocus&rsquo;s.&nbsp; Walk in,
+gentlemen, walk in!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>In the passage below, when I went down-stairs again, was Dr.
+Crocus himself.&nbsp; A crowd had flocked in from the Court
+House, and a voice from among them called out to the landlord,
+&lsquo;Colonel! introduce Doctor Crocus.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Mr. Dickens,&rsquo; says the colonel, &lsquo;Doctor
+Crocus.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Upon which Doctor Crocus, who is a tall, fine-looking
+Scotchman, but rather fierce and warlike in appearance for a
+professor of the peaceful art of healing, bursts out of the
+concourse with his right arm extended, and his chest thrown out
+as far as it will possibly come, and says:</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Your countryman, sir!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Whereupon Doctor Crocus and I shake hands; and Doctor Crocus
+looks as if I didn&rsquo;t by any means realise his expectations,
+which, in a linen blouse, and a great straw hat, with a green
+ribbon, and no gloves, and my face and nose profusely ornamented
+with the stings of mosquitoes and the bites of bugs, it is very
+likely I did not.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Long in these parts, sir?&rsquo; says I.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Three or four months, sir,&rsquo; says the Doctor.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Do you think of soon returning to the old
+country?&rsquo; says I.</p>
+<p>Doctor Crocus makes no verbal answer, but gives me an
+imploring look, which says so plainly &lsquo;Will you ask me that
+again, a little louder, if you please?&rsquo; that I repeat the
+question.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Think of soon returning to the old country, sir!&rsquo;
+repeats the Doctor.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;To the old country, sir,&rsquo; I rejoin.</p>
+<p>Doctor Crocus looks round upon the crowd to observe the effect
+he produces, rubs his hands, and says, in a very loud voice:</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Not yet awhile, sir, not yet.&nbsp; You won&rsquo;t
+catch me at that just yet, sir.&nbsp; I am a little too fond of
+freedom for <i>that</i>, sir.&nbsp; Ha, ha!&nbsp; It&rsquo;s not
+so easy for a man to tear himself from a free country such as
+this is, sir.&nbsp; Ha, ha!&nbsp; No, no!&nbsp; Ha, ha!&nbsp;
+None of that till one&rsquo;s obliged to do it, sir.&nbsp; No,
+no!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>As Doctor Crocus says these latter words, he shakes his head,
+knowingly, and laughs again.&nbsp; Many of the bystanders shake
+their heads in concert with the doctor, and laugh too, and look
+at each other as much as to say, &lsquo;A pretty bright and
+first-rate sort of chap is Crocus!&rsquo; and unless I am very
+much mistaken, a good many people went to the lecture that night,
+who never thought about phrenology, or about Doctor Crocus
+either, in all their lives before.</p>
+<p>From Belleville, we went on, through the same desolate kind of
+waste, and constantly attended, without the interval of a moment,
+by the same music; until, at three o&rsquo;clock in the
+afternoon, we halted once more at a village called Lebanon to
+inflate the horses again, and give them some corn besides: of
+which they stood much in need.&nbsp; Pending this ceremony, I
+walked into the village, where I met a full-sized dwelling-house
+coming down-hill at a round trot, drawn by a score or more of
+oxen.</p>
+<p>The public-house was so very clean and good a one, that the
+managers of the jaunt resolved to return to it and put up there
+for the night, if possible.&nbsp; This course decided on, and the
+horses being well refreshed, we again pushed forward, and came
+upon the Prairie at sunset.</p>
+<p>It would be difficult to say why, or how&mdash;though it was
+possibly from having heard and read so much about it&mdash;but
+the effect on me was disappointment.&nbsp; Looking towards the
+setting sun, there lay, stretched out before my view, a vast
+expanse of level ground; unbroken, save by one thin line of
+trees, which scarcely amounted to a scratch upon the great blank;
+until it met the glowing sky, wherein it seemed to dip: mingling
+with its rich colours, and mellowing in its distant blue.&nbsp;
+There it lay, a tranquil sea or lake without water, if such a
+simile be admissible, with the day going down upon it: a few
+birds wheeling here and there: and solitude and silence reigning
+paramount around.&nbsp; But the grass was not yet high; there
+were bare black patches on the ground; and the few wild flowers
+that the eye could see, were poor and scanty.&nbsp; Great as the
+picture was, its very flatness and extent, which left nothing to
+the imagination, tamed it down and cramped its interest.&nbsp; I
+felt little of that sense of freedom and exhilaration which a
+Scottish heath inspires, or even our English downs awaken.&nbsp;
+It was lonely and wild, but oppressive in its barren
+monotony.&nbsp; I felt that in traversing the Prairies, I could
+never abandon myself to the scene, forgetful of all else; as I
+should do instinctively, were the heather underneath my feet, or
+an iron-bound coast beyond; but should often glance towards the
+distant and frequently-receding line of the horizon, and wish it
+gained and passed.&nbsp; It is not a scene to be forgotten, but
+it is scarcely one, I think (at all events, as I saw it), to
+remember with much pleasure, or to covet the looking-on again, in
+after-life.</p>
+<p>We encamped near a solitary log-house, for the sake of its
+water, and dined upon the plain.&nbsp; The baskets contained
+roast fowls, buffalo&rsquo;s tongue (an exquisite dainty, by the
+way), ham, bread, cheese, and butter; biscuits, champagne,
+sherry; lemons and sugar for punch; and abundance of rough
+ice.&nbsp; The meal was delicious, and the entertainers were the
+soul of kindness and good humour.&nbsp; I have often recalled
+that cheerful party to my pleasant recollection since, and shall
+not easily forget, in junketings nearer home with friends of
+older date, my boon companions on the Prairie.</p>
+<p>Returning to Lebanon that night, we lay at the little inn at
+which we had halted in the afternoon.&nbsp; In point of
+cleanliness and comfort it would have suffered by no comparison
+with any English alehouse, of a homely kind, in England.</p>
+<p>Rising at five o&rsquo;clock next morning, I took a walk about
+the village: none of the houses were strolling about to-day, but
+it was early for them yet, perhaps: and then amused myself by
+lounging in a kind of farm-yard behind the tavern, of which the
+leading features were, a strange jumble of rough sheds for
+stables; a rude colonnade, built as a cool place of summer
+resort; a deep well; a great earthen mound for keeping vegetables
+in, in winter time; and a pigeon-house, whose little apertures
+looked, as they do in all pigeon-houses, very much too small for
+the admission of the plump and swelling-breasted birds who were
+strutting about it, though they tried to get in never so
+hard.&nbsp; That interest exhausted, I took a survey of the
+inn&rsquo;s two parlours, which were decorated with coloured
+prints of Washington, and President Madison, and of a white-faced
+young lady (much speckled by the flies), who held up her gold
+neck-chain for the admiration of the spectator, and informed all
+admiring comers that she was &lsquo;Just Seventeen:&rsquo;
+although I should have thought her older.&nbsp; In the best room
+were two oil portraits of the kit-cat size, representing the
+landlord and his infant son; both looking as bold as lions, and
+staring out of the canvas with an intensity that would have been
+cheap at any price.&nbsp; They were painted, I think, by the
+artist who had touched up the Belleville doors with red and gold;
+for I seemed to recognise his style immediately.</p>
+<p>After breakfast, we started to return by a different way from
+that which we had taken yesterday, and coming up at ten
+o&rsquo;clock with an encampment of German emigrants carrying
+their goods in carts, who had made a rousing fire which they were
+just quitting, stopped there to refresh.&nbsp; And very pleasant
+the fire was; for, hot though it had been yesterday, it was quite
+cold to-day, and the wind blew keenly.&nbsp; Looming in the
+distance, as we rode along, was another of the ancient Indian
+burial-places, called The Monks&rsquo; Mound; in memory of a body
+of fanatics of the order of La Trappe, who founded a desolate
+convent there, many years ago, when there were no settlers within
+a thousand miles, and were all swept off by the pernicious
+climate: in which lamentable fatality, few rational people will
+suppose, perhaps, that society experienced any very severe
+deprivation.</p>
+<p>The track of to-day had the same features as the track of
+yesterday.&nbsp; There was the swamp, the bush, and the perpetual
+chorus of frogs, the rank unseemly growth, the unwholesome
+steaming earth.&nbsp; Here and there, and frequently too, we
+encountered a solitary broken-down waggon, full of some new
+settler&rsquo;s goods.&nbsp; It was a pitiful sight to see one of
+these vehicles deep in the mire; the axle-tree broken; the wheel
+lying idly by its side; the man gone miles away, to look for
+assistance; the woman seated among their wandering household gods
+with a baby at her breast, a picture of forlorn, dejected
+patience; the team of oxen crouching down mournfully in the mud,
+and breathing forth such clouds of vapour from their mouths and
+nostrils, that all the damp mist and fog around seemed to have
+come direct from them.</p>
+<p>In due time we mustered once again before the merchant
+tailor&rsquo;s, and having done so, crossed over to the city in
+the ferry-boat: passing, on the way, a spot called Bloody Island,
+the duelling-ground of St. Louis, and so designated in honour of
+the last fatal combat fought there, which was with pistols,
+breast to breast.&nbsp; Both combatants fell dead upon the
+ground; and possibly some rational people may think of them, as
+of the gloomy madmen on the Monks&rsquo; Mound, that they were no
+great loss to the community.</p>
+<h2><a name="page153"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+153</span>CHAPTER XIV<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">RETURN TO CINCINNATI.&nbsp; A STAGE-COACH
+RIDE FROM THAT CITY TO COLUMBUS, AND THENCE TO SANDUSKY.&nbsp;
+SO, BY LAKE ERIE, TO THE FALLS OF NIAGARA</span></h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">As</span> I had a desire to travel through
+the interior of the state of Ohio, and to &lsquo;strike the
+lakes,&rsquo; as the phrase is, at a small town called Sandusky,
+to which that route would conduct us on our way to Niagara, we
+had to return from St. Louis by the way we had come, and to
+retrace our former track as far as Cincinnati.</p>
+<p>The day on which we were to take leave of St. Louis being very
+fine; and the steamboat, which was to have started I don&rsquo;t
+know how early in the morning, postponing, for the third or
+fourth time, her departure until the afternoon; we rode forward
+to an old French village on the river, called properly
+Carondelet, and nicknamed Vide Poche, and arranged that the
+packet should call for us there.</p>
+<p>The place consisted of a few poor cottages, and two or three
+public-houses; the state of whose larders certainly seemed to
+justify the second designation of the village, for there was
+nothing to eat in any of them.&nbsp; At length, however, by going
+back some half a mile or so, we found a solitary house where ham
+and coffee were procurable; and there we tarried to wait the
+advent of the boat, which would come in sight from the green
+before the door, a long way off.</p>
+<p>It was a neat, unpretending village tavern, and we took our
+repast in a quaint little room with a bed in it, decorated with
+some old oil paintings, which in their time had probably done
+duty in a Catholic chapel or monastery.&nbsp; The fare was very
+good, and served with great cleanliness.&nbsp; The house was kept
+by a characteristic old couple, with whom we had a long talk, and
+who were perhaps a very good sample of that kind of people in the
+West.</p>
+<p>The landlord was a dry, tough, hard-faced old fellow (not so
+very old either, for he was but just turned sixty, I should
+think), who had been out with the militia in the last war with
+England, and had seen all kinds of service,&mdash;except a
+battle; and he had been very near seeing that, he added: very
+near.&nbsp; He had all his life been restless and locomotive,
+with an irresistible desire for change; and was still the son of
+his old self: for if he had nothing to keep him at home, he said
+(slightly jerking his hat and his thumb towards the window of the
+room in which the old lady sat, as we stood talking in front of
+the house), he would clean up his musket, and be off to Texas
+to-morrow morning.&nbsp; He was one of the very many descendants
+of Cain proper to this continent, who seem destined from their
+birth to serve as pioneers in the great human army: who gladly go
+on from year to year extending its outposts, and leaving home
+after home behind them; and die at last, utterly regardless of
+their graves being left thousands of miles behind, by the
+wandering generation who succeed.</p>
+<p>His wife was a domesticated, kind-hearted old soul, who had
+come with him, &lsquo;from the queen city of the world,&rsquo;
+which, it seemed, was Philadelphia; but had no love for this
+Western country, and indeed had little reason to bear it any;
+having seen her children, one by one, die here of fever, in the
+full prime and beauty of their youth.&nbsp; Her heart was sore,
+she said, to think of them; and to talk on this theme, even to
+strangers, in that blighted place, so far from her old home,
+eased it somewhat, and became a melancholy pleasure.</p>
+<p>The boat appearing towards evening, we bade adieu to the poor
+old lady and her vagrant spouse, and making for the nearest
+landing-place, were soon on board The Messenger again, in our old
+cabin, and steaming down the Mississippi.</p>
+<p>If the coming up this river, slowly making head against the
+stream, be an irksome journey, the shooting down it with the
+turbid current is almost worse; for then the boat, proceeding at
+the rate of twelve or fifteen miles an hour, has to force its
+passage through a labyrinth of floating logs, which, in the dark,
+it is often impossible to see beforehand or avoid.&nbsp; All that
+night, the bell was never silent for five minutes at a time; and
+after every ring the vessel reeled again, sometimes beneath a
+single blow, sometimes beneath a dozen dealt in quick succession,
+the lightest of which seemed more than enough to beat in her
+frail keel, as though it had been pie-crust.&nbsp; Looking down
+upon the filthy river after dark, it seemed to be alive with
+monsters, as these black masses rolled upon the surface, or came
+starting up again, head first, when the boat, in ploughing her
+way among a shoal of such obstructions, drove a few among them
+for the moment under water.&nbsp; Sometimes the engine stopped
+during a long interval, and then before her and behind, and
+gathering close about her on all sides, were so many of these
+ill-favoured obstacles that she was fairly hemmed in; the centre
+of a floating island; and was constrained to pause until they
+parted, somewhere, as dark clouds will do before the wind, and
+opened by degrees a channel out.</p>
+<p>In good time next morning, however, we came again in sight of
+the detestable morass called Cairo; and stopping there to take in
+wood, lay alongside a barge, whose starting timbers scarcely held
+together.&nbsp; It was moored to the bank, and on its side was
+painted &lsquo;Coffee House;&rsquo; that being, I suppose, the
+floating paradise to which the people fly for shelter when they
+lose their houses for a month or two beneath the hideous waters
+of the Mississippi.&nbsp; But looking southward from this point,
+we had the satisfaction of seeing that intolerable river dragging
+its slimy length and ugly freight abruptly off towards New
+Orleans; and passing a yellow line which stretched across the
+current, were again upon the clear Ohio, never, I trust, to see
+the Mississippi more, saving in troubled dreams and
+nightmares.&nbsp; Leaving it for the company of its sparkling
+neighbour, was like the transition from pain to ease, or the
+awakening from a horrible vision to cheerful realities.</p>
+<p>We arrived at Louisville on the fourth night, and gladly
+availed ourselves of its excellent hotel.&nbsp; Next day we went
+on in the Ben Franklin, a beautiful mail steamboat, and reached
+Cincinnati shortly after midnight.&nbsp; Being by this time
+nearly tired of sleeping upon shelves, we had remained awake to
+go ashore straightway; and groping a passage across the dark
+decks of other boats, and among labyrinths of engine-machinery
+and leaking casks of molasses, we reached the streets, knocked up
+the porter at the hotel where we had stayed before, and were, to
+our great joy, safely housed soon afterwards.</p>
+<p>We rested but one day at Cincinnati, and then resumed our
+journey to Sandusky.&nbsp; As it comprised two varieties of
+stage-coach travelling, which, with those I have already glanced
+at, comprehend the main characteristics of this mode of transit
+in America, I will take the reader as our fellow-passenger, and
+pledge myself to perform the distance with all possible
+despatch.</p>
+<p>Our place of destination in the first instance is
+Columbus.&nbsp; It is distant about a hundred and twenty miles
+from Cincinnati, but there is a macadamised road (rare blessing!)
+the whole way, and the rate of travelling upon it is six miles an
+hour.</p>
+<p>We start at eight o&rsquo;clock in the morning, in a great
+mail-coach, whose huge cheeks are so very ruddy and plethoric,
+that it appears to be troubled with a tendency of blood to the
+head.&nbsp; Dropsical it certainly is, for it will hold a dozen
+passengers inside.&nbsp; But, wonderful to add, it is very clean
+and bright, being nearly new; and rattles through the streets of
+Cincinnati gaily.</p>
+<p>Our way lies through a beautiful country, richly cultivated,
+and luxuriant in its promise of an abundant harvest.&nbsp;
+Sometimes we pass a field where the strong bristling stalks of
+Indian corn look like a crop of walking-sticks, and sometimes an
+enclosure where the green wheat is springing up among a labyrinth
+of stumps; the primitive worm-fence is universal, and an ugly
+thing it is; but the farms are neatly kept, and, save for these
+differences, one might be travelling just now in Kent.</p>
+<p>We often stop to water at a roadside inn, which is always dull
+and silent.&nbsp; The coachman dismounts and fills his bucket,
+and holds it to the horses&rsquo; heads.&nbsp; There is scarcely
+ever any one to help him; there are seldom any loungers standing
+round; and never any stable-company with jokes to crack.&nbsp;
+Sometimes, when we have changed our team, there is a difficulty
+in starting again, arising out of the prevalent mode of breaking
+a young horse: which is to catch him, harness him against his
+will, and put him in a stage-coach without further notice: but we
+get on somehow or other, after a great many kicks and a violent
+struggle; and jog on as before again.</p>
+<p>Occasionally, when we stop to change, some two or three
+half-drunken loafers will come loitering out with their hands in
+their pockets, or will be seen kicking their heels in
+rocking-chairs, or lounging on the window-sill, or sitting on a
+rail within the colonnade: they have not often anything to say
+though, either to us or to each other, but sit there idly staring
+at the coach and horses.&nbsp; The landlord of the inn is usually
+among them, and seems, of all the party, to be the least
+connected with the business of the house.&nbsp; Indeed he is with
+reference to the tavern, what the driver is in relation to the
+coach and passengers: whatever happens in his sphere of action,
+he is quite indifferent, and perfectly easy in his mind.</p>
+<p>The frequent change of coachmen works no change or variety in
+the coachman&rsquo;s character.&nbsp; He is always dirty, sullen,
+and taciturn.&nbsp; If he be capable of smartness of any kind,
+moral or physical, he has a faculty of concealing it which is
+truly marvellous.&nbsp; He never speaks to you as you sit beside
+him on the box, and if you speak to him, he answers (if at all)
+in monosyllables.&nbsp; He points out nothing on the road, and
+seldom looks at anything: being, to all appearance, thoroughly
+weary of it and of existence generally.&nbsp; As to doing the
+honours of his coach, his business, as I have said, is with the
+horses.&nbsp; The coach follows because it is attached to them
+and goes on wheels: not because you are in it.&nbsp; Sometimes,
+towards the end of a long stage, he suddenly breaks out into a
+discordant fragment of an election song, but his face never sings
+along with him: it is only his voice, and not often that.</p>
+<p>He always chews and always spits, and never encumbers himself
+with a pocket-handkerchief.&nbsp; The consequences to the box
+passenger, especially when the wind blows towards him, are not
+agreeable.</p>
+<p>Whenever the coach stops, and you can hear the voices of the
+inside passengers; or whenever any bystander addresses them, or
+any one among them; or they address each other; you will hear one
+phrase repeated over and over and over again to the most
+extraordinary extent.&nbsp; It is an ordinary and unpromising
+phrase enough, being neither more nor less than &lsquo;Yes,
+sir;&rsquo; but it is adapted to every variety of circumstance,
+and fills up every pause in the conversation.&nbsp;
+Thus:&mdash;</p>
+<p>The time is one o&rsquo;clock at noon.&nbsp; The scene, a
+place where we are to stay and dine, on this journey.&nbsp; The
+coach drives up to the door of an inn.&nbsp; The day is warm, and
+there are several idlers lingering about the tavern, and waiting
+for the public dinner.&nbsp; Among them, is a stout gentleman in
+a brown hat, swinging himself to and fro in a rocking-chair on
+the pavement.</p>
+<p>As the coach stops, a gentleman in a straw hat looks out of
+the window:</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Straw Hat</span>.&nbsp; (To the stout
+gentleman in the rocking-chair.)&nbsp; I reckon that&rsquo;s
+Judge Jefferson, an&rsquo;t it?</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Brown Hat</span>.&nbsp; (Still swinging;
+speaking very slowly; and without any emotion whatever.)&nbsp;
+Yes, sir.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Straw Hat</span>.&nbsp; Warm weather,
+Judge.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Brown Hat</span>.&nbsp; Yes, sir.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Straw Hat</span>.&nbsp; There was a snap
+of cold, last week.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Brown Hat</span>.&nbsp; Yes, sir.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Straw Hat</span>.&nbsp; Yes, sir.</p>
+<p>A pause.&nbsp; They look at each other, very seriously.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Straw Hat</span>.&nbsp; I calculate
+you&rsquo;ll have got through that case of the corporation,
+Judge, by this time, now?</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Brown Hat</span>.&nbsp; Yes, sir.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Straw Hat</span>.&nbsp; How did the
+verdict go, sir?</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Brown Hat</span>.&nbsp; For the defendant,
+sir.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Straw Hat</span>.&nbsp;
+(Interrogatively.)&nbsp; Yes, sir?</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Brown Hat</span>. (Affirmatively.)&nbsp;
+Yes, sir.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Both</span>.&nbsp; (Musingly, as each
+gazes down the street.)&nbsp; Yes, sir.</p>
+<p>Another pause.&nbsp; They look at each other again, still more
+seriously than before.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Brown Hat</span>.&nbsp; This coach is
+rather behind its time to-day, I guess.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Straw Hat</span>.&nbsp;
+(Doubtingly.)&nbsp; Yes, sir.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Brown Hat</span>.&nbsp; (Looking at his
+watch.)&nbsp; Yes, sir; nigh upon two hours.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Straw Hat</span>.&nbsp; (Raising his
+eyebrows in very great surprise.)&nbsp; Yes, sir!</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Brown Hat</span>.&nbsp; (Decisively, as he
+puts up his watch.)&nbsp; Yes, sir.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">All the other inside
+Passengers</span>.&nbsp; (Among themselves.)&nbsp; Yes, sir.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Coachman</span>.&nbsp; (In a very surly
+tone.)&nbsp; No it an&rsquo;t.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Straw Hat</span>.&nbsp; (To the
+coachman.)&nbsp; Well, I don&rsquo;t know, sir.&nbsp; We were a
+pretty tall time coming that last fifteen mile.&nbsp;
+That&rsquo;s a fact.</p>
+<p>The coachman making no reply, and plainly declining to enter
+into any controversy on a subject so far removed from his
+sympathies and feelings, another passenger says, &lsquo;Yes,
+sir;&rsquo; and the gentleman in the straw hat in acknowledgment
+of his courtesy, says &lsquo;Yes, sir,&rsquo; to him, in
+return.&nbsp; The straw hat then inquires of the brown hat,
+whether that coach in which he (the straw hat) then sits, is not
+a new one?&nbsp; To which the brown hat again makes answer,
+&lsquo;Yes, sir.&rsquo;</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Straw Hat</span>.&nbsp; I thought
+so.&nbsp; Pretty loud smell of varnish, sir?</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Brown Hat</span>.&nbsp; Yes, sir.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">All the other inside
+Passengers</span>.&nbsp; Yes, sir.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Brown Hat</span>.&nbsp; (To the company in
+general.)&nbsp; Yes, sir.</p>
+<p>The conversational powers of the company having been by this
+time pretty heavily taxed, the straw hat opens the door and gets
+out; and all the rest alight also.&nbsp; We dine soon afterwards
+with the boarders in the house, and have nothing to drink but tea
+and coffee.&nbsp; As they are both very bad and the water is
+worse, I ask for brandy; but it is a Temperance Hotel, and
+spirits are not to be had for love or money.&nbsp; This
+preposterous forcing of unpleasant drinks down the reluctant
+throats of travellers is not at all uncommon in America, but I
+never discovered that the scruples of such wincing landlords
+induced them to preserve any unusually nice balance between the
+quality of their fare, and their scale of charges: on the
+contrary, I rather suspected them of diminishing the one and
+exalting the other, by way of recompense for the loss of their
+profit on the sale of spirituous liquors.&nbsp; After all,
+perhaps, the plainest course for persons of such tender
+consciences, would be, a total abstinence from
+tavern-keeping.</p>
+<p>Dinner over, we get into another vehicle which is ready at the
+door (for the coach has been changed in the interval), and resume
+our journey; which continues through the same kind of country
+until evening, when we come to the town where we are to stop for
+tea and supper; and having delivered the mail bags at the
+Post-office, ride through the usual wide street, lined with the
+usual stores and houses (the drapers always having hung up at
+their door, by way of sign, a piece of bright red cloth), to the
+hotel where this meal is prepared.&nbsp; There being many
+boarders here, we sit down, a large party, and a very melancholy
+one as usual.&nbsp; But there is a buxom hostess at the head of
+the table, and opposite, a simple Welsh schoolmaster with his
+wife and child; who came here, on a speculation of greater
+promise than performance, to teach the classics: and they are
+sufficient subjects of interest until the meal is over, and
+another coach is ready.&nbsp; In it we go on once more, lighted
+by a bright moon, until midnight; when we stop to change the
+coach again, and remain for half an hour or so in a miserable
+room, with a blurred lithograph of Washington over the smoky
+fire-place, and a mighty jug of cold water on the table: to which
+refreshment the moody passengers do so apply themselves that they
+would seem to be, one and all, keen patients of Dr.
+Sangrado.&nbsp; Among them is a very little boy, who chews
+tobacco like a very big one; and a droning gentleman, who talks
+arithmetically and statistically on all subjects, from poetry
+downwards; and who always speaks in the same key, with exactly
+the same emphasis, and with very grave deliberation.&nbsp; He
+came outside just now, and told me how that the uncle of a
+certain young lady who had been spirited away and married by a
+certain captain, lived in these parts; and how this uncle was so
+valiant and ferocious that he shouldn&rsquo;t wonder if he were
+to follow the said captain to England, &lsquo;and shoot him down
+in the street wherever he found him;&rsquo; in the feasibility of
+which strong measure I, being for the moment rather prone to
+contradiction, from feeling half asleep and very tired, declined
+to acquiesce: assuring him that if the uncle did resort to it, or
+gratified any other little whim of the like nature, he would find
+himself one morning prematurely throttled at the Old Bailey: and
+that he would do well to make his will before he went, as he
+would certainly want it before he had been in Britain very
+long.</p>
+<p>On we go, all night, and by-and-by the day begins to break,
+and presently the first cheerful rays of the warm sun come
+slanting on us brightly.&nbsp; It sheds its light upon a
+miserable waste of sodden grass, and dull trees, and squalid
+huts, whose aspect is forlorn and grievous in the last
+degree.&nbsp; A very desert in the wood, whose growth of green is
+dank and noxious like that upon the top of standing water: where
+poisonous fungus grows in the rare footprint on the oozy ground,
+and sprouts like witches&rsquo; coral, from the crevices in the
+cabin wall and floor; it is a hideous thing to lie upon the very
+threshold of a city.&nbsp; But it was purchased years ago, and as
+the owner cannot be discovered, the State has been unable to
+reclaim it.&nbsp; So there it remains, in the midst of
+cultivation and improvement, like ground accursed, and made
+obscene and rank by some great crime.</p>
+<p>We reached Columbus shortly before seven o&rsquo;clock, and
+stayed there, to refresh, that day and night: having excellent
+apartments in a very large unfinished hotel called the Neill
+House, which were richly fitted with the polished wood of the
+black walnut, and opened on a handsome portico and stone
+verandah, like rooms in some Italian mansion.&nbsp; The town is
+clean and pretty, and of course is &lsquo;going to be&rsquo; much
+larger.&nbsp; It is the seat of the State legislature of Ohio,
+and lays claim, in consequence, to some consideration and
+importance.</p>
+<p>There being no stage-coach next day, upon the road we wished
+to take, I hired &lsquo;an extra,&rsquo; at a reasonable charge
+to carry us to Tiffin; a small town from whence there is a
+railroad to Sandusky.&nbsp; This extra was an ordinary four-horse
+stage-coach, such as I have described, changing horses and
+drivers, as the stage-coach would, but was exclusively our own
+for the journey.&nbsp; To ensure our having horses at the proper
+stations, and being incommoded by no strangers, the proprietors
+sent an agent on the box, who was to accompany us the whole way
+through; and thus attended, and bearing with us, besides, a
+hamper full of savoury cold meats, and fruit, and wine, we
+started off again in high spirits, at half-past six o&rsquo;clock
+next morning, very much delighted to be by ourselves, and
+disposed to enjoy even the roughest journey.</p>
+<p>It was well for us, that we were in this humour, for the road
+we went over that day, was certainly enough to have shaken
+tempers that were not resolutely at Set Fair, down to some inches
+below Stormy.&nbsp; At one time we were all flung together in a
+heap at the bottom of the coach, and at another we were crushing
+our heads against the roof.&nbsp; Now, one side was down deep in
+the mire, and we were holding on to the other.&nbsp; Now, the
+coach was lying on the tails of the two wheelers; and now it was
+rearing up in the air, in a frantic state, with all four horses
+standing on the top of an insurmountable eminence, looking coolly
+back at it, as though they would say &lsquo;Unharness us.&nbsp;
+It can&rsquo;t be done.&rsquo;&nbsp; The drivers on these roads,
+who certainly get over the ground in a manner which is quite
+miraculous, so twist and turn the team about in forcing a
+passage, corkscrew fashion, through the bogs and swamps, that it
+was quite a common circumstance on looking out of the window, to
+see the coachman with the ends of a pair of reins in his hands,
+apparently driving nothing, or playing at horses, and the leaders
+staring at one unexpectedly from the back of the coach, as if
+they had some idea of getting up behind.&nbsp; A great portion of
+the way was over what is called a corduroy road, which is made by
+throwing trunks of trees into a marsh, and leaving them to settle
+there.&nbsp; The very slightest of the jolts with which the
+ponderous carriage fell from log to log, was enough, it seemed,
+to have dislocated all the bones in the human body.&nbsp; It
+would be impossible to experience a similar set of sensations, in
+any other circumstances, unless perhaps in attempting to go up to
+the top of St. Paul&rsquo;s in an omnibus.&nbsp; Never, never
+once, that day, was the coach in any position, attitude, or kind
+of motion to which we are accustomed in coaches.&nbsp; Never did
+it make the smallest approach to one&rsquo;s experience of the
+proceedings of any sort of vehicle that goes on wheels.</p>
+<p>Still, it was a fine day, and the temperature was delicious,
+and though we had left Summer behind us in the west, and were
+fast leaving Spring, we were moving towards Niagara and
+home.&nbsp; We alighted in a pleasant wood towards the middle of
+the day, dined on a fallen tree, and leaving our best fragments
+with a cottager, and our worst with the pigs (who swarm in this
+part of the country like grains of sand on the sea-shore, to the
+great comfort of our commissariat in Canada), we went forward
+again, gaily.</p>
+<p>As night came on, the track grew narrower and narrower, until
+at last it so lost itself among the trees, that the driver seemed
+to find his way by instinct.&nbsp; We had the comfort of knowing,
+at least, that there was no danger of his falling asleep, for
+every now and then a wheel would strike against an unseen stump
+with such a jerk, that he was fain to hold on pretty tight and
+pretty quick, to keep himself upon the box.&nbsp; Nor was there
+any reason to dread the least danger from furious driving,
+inasmuch as over that broken ground the horses had enough to do
+to walk; as to shying, there was no room for that; and a herd of
+wild elephants could not have run away in such a wood, with such
+a coach at their heels.&nbsp; So we stumbled along, quite
+satisfied.</p>
+<p>These stumps of trees are a curious feature in American
+travelling.&nbsp; The varying illusions they present to the
+unaccustomed eye as it grows dark, are quite astonishing in their
+number and reality.&nbsp; Now, there is a Grecian urn erected in
+the centre of a lonely field; now there is a woman weeping at a
+tomb; now a very commonplace old gentleman in a white waistcoat,
+with a thumb thrust into each arm-hole of his coat; now a student
+poring on a book; now a crouching negro; now, a horse, a dog, a
+cannon, an armed man; a hunch-back throwing off his cloak and
+stepping forth into the light.&nbsp; They were often as
+entertaining to me as so many glasses in a magic lantern, and
+never took their shapes at my bidding, but seemed to force
+themselves upon me, whether I would or no; and strange to say, I
+sometimes recognised in them counterparts of figures once
+familiar to me in pictures attached to childish books, forgotten
+long ago.</p>
+<p>It soon became too dark, however, even for this amusement, and
+the trees were so close together that their dry branches rattled
+against the coach on either side, and obliged us all to keep our
+heads within.&nbsp; It lightened too, for three whole hours; each
+flash being very bright, and blue, and long; and as the vivid
+streaks came darting in among the crowded branches, and the
+thunder rolled gloomily above the tree tops, one could scarcely
+help thinking that there were better neighbourhoods at such a
+time than thick woods afforded.</p>
+<p>At length, between ten and eleven o&rsquo;clock at night, a
+few feeble lights appeared in the distance, and Upper Sandusky,
+an Indian village, where we were to stay till morning, lay before
+us.</p>
+<p>They were gone to bed at the log Inn, which was the only house
+of entertainment in the place, but soon answered to our knocking,
+and got some tea for us in a sort of kitchen or common room,
+tapestried with old newspapers, pasted against the wall.&nbsp;
+The bed-chamber to which my wife and I were shown, was a large,
+low, ghostly room; with a quantity of withered branches on the
+hearth, and two doors without any fastening, opposite to each
+other, both opening on the black night and wild country, and so
+contrived, that one of them always blew the other open: a novelty
+in domestic architecture, which I do not remember to have seen
+before, and which I was somewhat disconcerted to have forced on
+my attention after getting into bed, as I had a considerable sum
+in gold for our travelling expenses, in my dressing-case.&nbsp;
+Some of the luggage, however, piled against the panels, soon
+settled this difficulty, and my sleep would not have been very
+much affected that night, I believe, though it had failed to do
+so.</p>
+<p>My Boston friend climbed up to bed, somewhere in the roof,
+where another guest was already snoring hugely.&nbsp; But being
+bitten beyond his power of endurance, he turned out again, and
+fled for shelter to the coach, which was airing itself in front
+of the house.&nbsp; This was not a very politic step, as it
+turned out; for the pigs scenting him, and looking upon the coach
+as a kind of pie with some manner of meat inside, grunted round
+it so hideously, that he was afraid to come out again, and lay
+there shivering, till morning.&nbsp; Nor was it possible to warm
+him, when he did come out, by means of a glass of brandy: for in
+Indian villages, the legislature, with a very good and wise
+intention, forbids the sale of spirits by tavern keepers.&nbsp;
+The precaution, however, is quite inefficacious, for the Indians
+never fail to procure liquor of a worse kind, at a dearer price,
+from travelling pedlars.</p>
+<p>It is a settlement of the Wyandot Indians who inhabit this
+place.&nbsp; Among the company at breakfast was a mild old
+gentleman, who had been for many years employed by the United
+States Government in conducting negotiations with the Indians,
+and who had just concluded a treaty with these people by which
+they bound themselves, in consideration of a certain annual sum,
+to remove next year to some land provided for them, west of the
+Mississippi, and a little way beyond St. Louis.&nbsp; He gave me
+a moving account of their strong attachment to the familiar
+scenes of their infancy, and in particular to the burial-places
+of their kindred; and of their great reluctance to leave
+them.&nbsp; He had witnessed many such removals, and always with
+pain, though he knew that they departed for their own good.&nbsp;
+The question whether this tribe should go or stay, had been
+discussed among them a day or two before, in a hut erected for
+the purpose, the logs of which still lay upon the ground before
+the inn.&nbsp; When the speaking was done, the ayes and noes were
+ranged on opposite sides, and every male adult voted in his
+turn.&nbsp; The moment the result was known, the minority (a
+large one) cheerfully yielded to the rest, and withdrew all kind
+of opposition.</p>
+<p>We met some of these poor Indians afterwards, riding on shaggy
+ponies.&nbsp; They were so like the meaner sort of gipsies, that
+if I could have seen any of them in England, I should have
+concluded, as a matter of course, that they belonged to that
+wandering and restless people.</p>
+<p>Leaving this town directly after breakfast, we pushed forward
+again, over a rather worse road than yesterday, if possible, and
+arrived about noon at Tiffin, where we parted with the
+extra.&nbsp; At two o&rsquo;clock we took the railroad; the
+travelling on which was very slow, its construction being
+indifferent, and the ground wet and marshy; and arrived at
+Sandusky in time to dine that evening.&nbsp; We put up at a
+comfortable little hotel on the brink of Lake Erie, lay there
+that night, and had no choice but to wait there next day, until a
+steamboat bound for Buffalo appeared.&nbsp; The town, which was
+sluggish and uninteresting enough, was something like the back of
+an English watering-place, out of the season.</p>
+<p>Our host, who was very attentive and anxious to make us
+comfortable, was a handsome middle-aged man, who had come to this
+town from New England, in which part of the country he was
+&lsquo;raised.&rsquo;&nbsp; When I say that he constantly walked
+in and out of the room with his hat on; and stopped to converse
+in the same free-and-easy state; and lay down on our sofa, and
+pulled his newspaper out of his pocket, and read it at his ease;
+I merely mention these traits as characteristic of the country:
+not at all as being matter of complaint, or as having been
+disagreeable to me.&nbsp; I should undoubtedly be offended by
+such proceedings at home, because there they are not the custom,
+and where they are not, they would be impertinencies; but in
+America, the only desire of a good-natured fellow of this kind,
+is to treat his guests hospitably and well; and I had no more
+right, and I can truly say no more disposition, to measure his
+conduct by our English rule and standard, than I had to quarrel
+with him for not being of the exact stature which would qualify
+him for admission into the Queen&rsquo;s grenadier guards.&nbsp;
+As little inclination had I to find fault with a funny old lady
+who was an upper domestic in this establishment, and who, when
+she came to wait upon us at any meal, sat herself down
+comfortably in the most convenient chair, and producing a large
+pin to pick her teeth with, remained performing that ceremony,
+and steadfastly regarding us meanwhile with much gravity and
+composure (now and then pressing us to eat a little more), until
+it was time to clear away.&nbsp; It was enough for us, that
+whatever we wished done was done with great civility and
+readiness, and a desire to oblige, not only here, but everywhere
+else; and that all our wants were, in general, zealously
+anticipated.</p>
+<p>We were taking an early dinner at this house, on the day after
+our arrival, which was Sunday, when a steamboat came in sight,
+and presently touched at the wharf.&nbsp; As she proved to be on
+her way to Buffalo, we hurried on board with all speed, and soon
+left Sandusky far behind us.</p>
+<p>She was a large vessel of five hundred tons, and handsomely
+fitted up, though with high-pressure engines; which always
+conveyed that kind of feeling to me, which I should be likely to
+experience, I think, if I had lodgings on the first-floor of a
+powder-mill.&nbsp; She was laden with flour, some casks of which
+commodity were stored upon the deck.&nbsp; The captain coming up
+to have a little conversation, and to introduce a friend, seated
+himself astride of one of these barrels, like a Bacchus of
+private life; and pulling a great clasp-knife out of his pocket,
+began to &lsquo;whittle&rsquo; it as he talked, by paring thin
+slices off the edges.&nbsp; And he whittled with such industry
+and hearty good will, that but for his being called away very
+soon, it must have disappeared bodily, and left nothing in its
+place but grist and shavings.</p>
+<p>After calling at one or two flat places, with low dams
+stretching out into the lake, whereon were stumpy lighthouses,
+like windmills without sails, the whole looking like a Dutch
+vignette, we came at midnight to Cleveland, where we lay all
+night, and until nine o&rsquo;clock next morning.</p>
+<p>I entertained quite a curiosity in reference to this place,
+from having seen at Sandusky a specimen of its literature in the
+shape of a newspaper, which was very strong indeed upon the
+subject of Lord Ashburton&rsquo;s recent arrival at Washington,
+to adjust the points in dispute between the United States
+Government and Great Britain: informing its readers that as
+America had &lsquo;whipped&rsquo; England in her infancy, and
+whipped her again in her youth, so it was clearly necessary that
+she must whip her once again in her maturity; and pledging its
+credit to all True Americans, that if Mr. Webster did his duty in
+the approaching negotiations, and sent the English Lord home
+again in double quick time, they should, within two years, sing
+&lsquo;Yankee Doodle in Hyde Park, and Hail Columbia in the
+scarlet courts of Westminster!&rsquo;&nbsp; I found it a pretty
+town, and had the satisfaction of beholding the outside of the
+office of the journal from which I have just quoted.&nbsp; I did
+not enjoy the delight of seeing the wit who indited the paragraph
+in question, but I have no doubt he is a prodigious man in his
+way, and held in high repute by a select circle.</p>
+<p>There was a gentleman on board, to whom, as I unintentionally
+learned through the thin partition which divided our state-room
+from the cabin in which he and his wife conversed together, I was
+unwittingly the occasion of very great uneasiness.&nbsp; I
+don&rsquo;t know why or wherefore, but I appeared to run in his
+mind perpetually, and to dissatisfy him very much.&nbsp; First of
+all I heard him say: and the most ludicrous part of the business
+was, that he said it in my very ear, and could not have
+communicated more directly with me, if he had leaned upon my
+shoulder, and whispered me: &lsquo;Boz is on board still, my
+dear.&rsquo;&nbsp; After a considerable pause, he added,
+complainingly, &lsquo;Boz keeps himself very close;&rsquo; which
+was true enough, for I was not very well, and was lying down,
+with a book.&nbsp; I thought he had done with me after this, but
+I was deceived; for a long interval having elapsed, during which
+I imagine him to have been turning restlessly from side to side,
+and trying to go to sleep; he broke out again, with &lsquo;I
+suppose <i>that</i> Boz will be writing a book by-and-by, and
+putting all our names in it!&rsquo; at which imaginary
+consequence of being on board a boat with Boz, he groaned, and
+became silent.</p>
+<p>We called at the town of Erie, at eight o&rsquo;clock that
+night, and lay there an hour.&nbsp; Between five and six next
+morning, we arrived at Buffalo, where we breakfasted; and being
+too near the Great Falls to wait patiently anywhere else, we set
+off by the train, the same morning at nine o&rsquo;clock, to
+Niagara.</p>
+<p>It was a miserable day; chilly and raw; a damp mist falling;
+and the trees in that northern region quite bare and
+wintry.&nbsp; Whenever the train halted, I listened for the roar;
+and was constantly straining my eyes in the direction where I
+knew the Falls must be, from seeing the river rolling on towards
+them; every moment expecting to behold the spray.&nbsp; Within a
+few minutes of our stopping, not before, I saw two great white
+clouds rising up slowly and majestically from the depths of the
+earth.&nbsp; That was all.&nbsp; At length we alighted: and then
+for the first time, I heard the mighty rush of water, and felt
+the ground tremble underneath my feet.</p>
+<p>The bank is very steep, and was slippery with rain, and
+half-melted ice.&nbsp; I hardly know how I got down, but I was
+soon at the bottom, and climbing, with two English officers who
+were crossing and had joined me, over some broken rocks, deafened
+by the noise, half-blinded by the spray, and wet to the
+skin.&nbsp; We were at the foot of the American Fall.&nbsp; I
+could see an immense torrent of water tearing headlong down from
+some great height, but had no idea of shape, or situation, or
+anything but vague immensity.</p>
+<p>When we were seated in the little ferry-boat, and were
+crossing the swollen river immediately before both cataracts, I
+began to feel what it was: but I was in a manner stunned, and
+unable to comprehend the vastness of the scene.&nbsp; It was not
+until I came on Table Rock, and looked&mdash;Great Heaven, on
+what a fall of bright-green water!&mdash;that it came upon me in
+its full might and majesty.</p>
+<p>Then, when I felt how near to my Creator I was standing, the
+first effect, and the enduring one&mdash;instant and
+lasting&mdash;of the tremendous spectacle, was Peace.&nbsp; Peace
+of Mind, tranquillity, calm recollections of the Dead, great
+thoughts of Eternal Rest and Happiness: nothing of gloom or
+terror.&nbsp; Niagara was at once stamped upon my heart, an Image
+of Beauty; to remain there, changeless and indelible, until its
+pulses cease to beat, for ever.</p>
+<p>Oh, how the strife and trouble of daily life receded from my
+view, and lessened in the distance, during the ten memorable days
+we passed on that Enchanted Ground!&nbsp; What voices spoke from
+out the thundering water; what faces, faded from the earth,
+looked out upon me from its gleaming depths; what Heavenly
+promise glistened in those angels&rsquo; tears, the drops of many
+hues, that showered around, and twined themselves about the
+gorgeous arches which the changing rainbows made!</p>
+<p>I never stirred in all that time from the Canadian side,
+whither I had gone at first.&nbsp; I never crossed the river
+again; for I knew there were people on the other shore, and in
+such a place it is natural to shun strange company.&nbsp; To
+wander to and fro all day, and see the cataracts from all points
+of view; to stand upon the edge of the great Horse-Shoe Fall,
+marking the hurried water gathering strength as it approached the
+verge, yet seeming, too, to pause before it shot into the gulf
+below; to gaze from the river&rsquo;s level up at the torrent as
+it came streaming down; to climb the neighbouring heights and
+watch it through the trees, and see the wreathing water in the
+rapids hurrying on to take its fearful plunge; to linger in the
+shadow of the solemn rocks three miles below; watching the river
+as, stirred by no visible cause, it heaved and eddied and awoke
+the echoes, being troubled yet, far down beneath the surface, by
+its giant leap; to have Niagara before me, lighted by the sun and
+by the moon, red in the day&rsquo;s decline, and grey as evening
+slowly fell upon it; to look upon it every day, and wake up in
+the night and hear its ceaseless voice: this was enough.</p>
+<p>I think in every quiet season now, still do those waters roll
+and leap, and roar and tumble, all day long; still are the
+rainbows spanning them, a hundred feet below.&nbsp; Still, when
+the sun is on them, do they shine and glow like molten
+gold.&nbsp; Still, when the day is gloomy, do they fall like
+snow, or seem to crumble away like the front of a great chalk
+cliff, or roll down the rock like dense white smoke.&nbsp; But
+always does the mighty stream appear to die as it comes down, and
+always from its unfathomable grave arises that tremendous ghost
+of spray and mist which is never laid: which has haunted this
+place with the same dread solemnity since Darkness brooded on the
+deep, and that first flood before the
+Deluge&mdash;Light&mdash;came rushing on Creation at the word of
+God.</p>
+<h2><a name="page167"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+167</span>CHAPTER XV<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">IN CANADA; TORONTO; KINGSTON; MONTREAL;
+QUEBEC; ST.&nbsp; JOHN&rsquo;S.&nbsp; IN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN;
+LEBANON; THE SHAKER VILLAGE; WEST POINT</span></h2>
+<p>I <span class="smcap">wish</span> to abstain from instituting
+any comparison, or drawing any parallel whatever, between the
+social features of the United States and those of the British
+Possessions in Canada.&nbsp; For this reason, I shall confine
+myself to a very brief account of our journeyings in the latter
+territory.</p>
+<p>But before I leave Niagara, I must advert to one disgusting
+circumstance which can hardly have escaped the observation of any
+decent traveller who has visited the Falls.</p>
+<p>On Table Rock, there is a cottage belonging to a Guide, where
+little relics of the place are sold, and where visitors register
+their names in a book kept for the purpose.&nbsp; On the wall of
+the room in which a great many of these volumes are preserved,
+the following request is posted: &lsquo;Visitors will please not
+copy nor extract the remarks and poetical effusions from the
+registers and albums kept here.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>But for this intimation, I should have let them lie upon the
+tables on which they were strewn with careful negligence, like
+books in a drawing-room: being quite satisfied with the
+stupendous silliness of certain stanzas with an anti-climax at
+the end of each, which were framed and hung up on the wall.&nbsp;
+Curious, however, after reading this announcement, to see what
+kind of morsels were so carefully preserved, I turned a few
+leaves, and found them scrawled all over with the vilest and the
+filthiest ribaldry that ever human hogs delighted in.</p>
+<p>It is humiliating enough to know that there are among men
+brutes so obscene and worthless, that they can delight in laying
+their miserable profanations upon the very steps of
+Nature&rsquo;s greatest altar.&nbsp; But that these should be
+hoarded up for the delight of their fellow-swine, and kept in a
+public place where any eyes may see them, is a disgrace to the
+English language in which they are written (though I hope few of
+these entries have been made by Englishmen), and a reproach to
+the English side, on which they are preserved.</p>
+<p>The quarters of our soldiers at Niagara, are finely and airily
+situated.&nbsp; Some of them are large detached houses on the
+plain above the Falls, which were originally designed for hotels;
+and in the evening time, when the women and children were leaning
+over the balconies watching the men as they played at ball and
+other games upon the grass before the door, they often presented
+a little picture of cheerfulness and animation which made it
+quite a pleasure to pass that way.</p>
+<p>At any garrisoned point where the line of demarcation between
+one country and another is so very narrow as at Niagara,
+desertion from the ranks can scarcely fail to be of frequent
+occurrence: and it may be reasonably supposed that when the
+soldiers entertain the wildest and maddest hopes of the fortune
+and independence that await them on the other side, the impulse
+to play traitor, which such a place suggests to dishonest minds,
+is not weakened.&nbsp; But it very rarely happens that the men
+who do desert, are happy or contented afterwards; and many
+instances have been known in which they have confessed their
+grievous disappointment, and their earnest desire to return to
+their old service if they could but be assured of pardon, or
+lenient treatment.&nbsp; Many of their comrades, notwithstanding,
+do the like, from time to time; and instances of loss of life in
+the effort to cross the river with this object, are far from
+being uncommon.&nbsp; Several men were drowned in the attempt to
+swim across, not long ago; and one, who had the madness to trust
+himself upon a table as a raft, was swept down to the whirlpool,
+where his mangled body eddied round and round some days.</p>
+<p>I am inclined to think that the noise of the Falls is very
+much exaggerated; and this will appear the more probable when the
+depth of the great basin in which the water is received, is taken
+into account.&nbsp; At no time during our stay there, was the
+wind at all high or boisterous, but we never heard them, three
+miles off, even at the very quiet time of sunset, though we often
+tried.</p>
+<p>Queenston, at which place the steamboats start for Toronto (or
+I should rather say at which place they call, for their wharf is
+at Lewiston, on the opposite shore), is situated in a delicious
+valley, through which the Niagara river, in colour a very deep
+green, pursues its course.&nbsp; It is approached by a road that
+takes its winding way among the heights by which the town is
+sheltered; and seen from this point is extremely beautiful and
+picturesque.&nbsp; On the most conspicuous of these heights stood
+a monument erected by the Provincial Legislature in memory of
+General Brock, who was slain in a battle with the American
+forces, after having won the victory.&nbsp; Some vagabond,
+supposed to be a fellow of the name of Lett, who is now, or who
+lately was, in prison as a felon, blew up this monument two years
+ago, and it is now a melancholy ruin, with a long fragment of
+iron railing hanging dejectedly from its top, and waving to and
+fro like a wild ivy branch or broken vine stem.&nbsp; It is of
+much higher importance than it may seem, that this statue should
+be repaired at the public cost, as it ought to have been long
+ago.&nbsp; Firstly, because it is beneath the dignity of England
+to allow a memorial raised in honour of one of her defenders, to
+remain in this condition, on the very spot where he died.&nbsp;
+Secondly, because the sight of it in its present state, and the
+recollection of the unpunished outrage which brought it to this
+pass, is not very likely to soothe down border feelings among
+English subjects here, or compose their border quarrels and
+dislikes.</p>
+<p>I was standing on the wharf at this place, watching the
+passengers embarking in a steamboat which preceded that whose
+coming we awaited, and participating in the anxiety with which a
+sergeant&rsquo;s wife was collecting her few goods
+together&mdash;keeping one distracted eye hard upon the porters,
+who were hurrying them on board, and the other on a hoopless
+washing-tub for which, as being the most utterly worthless of all
+her movables, she seemed to entertain particular
+affection&mdash;when three or four soldiers with a recruit came
+up and went on board.</p>
+<p>The recruit was a likely young fellow enough, strongly built
+and well made, but by no means sober: indeed he had all the air
+of a man who had been more or less drunk for some days.&nbsp; He
+carried a small bundle over his shoulder, slung at the end of a
+walking-stick, and had a short pipe in his mouth.&nbsp; He was as
+dusty and dirty as recruits usually are, and his shoes betokened
+that he had travelled on foot some distance, but he was in a very
+jocose state, and shook hands with this soldier, and clapped that
+one on the back, and talked and laughed continually, like a
+roaring idle dog as he was.</p>
+<p>The soldiers rather laughed at this blade than with him:
+seeming to say, as they stood straightening their canes in their
+hands, and looking coolly at him over their glazed stocks,
+&lsquo;Go on, my boy, while you may! you&rsquo;ll know better
+by-and-by:&rsquo; when suddenly the novice, who had been backing
+towards the gangway in his noisy merriment, fell overboard before
+their eyes, and splashed heavily down into the river between the
+vessel and the dock.</p>
+<p>I never saw such a good thing as the change that came over
+these soldiers in an instant.&nbsp; Almost before the man was
+down, their professional manner, their stiffness and constraint,
+were gone, and they were filled with the most violent
+energy.&nbsp; In less time than is required to tell it, they had
+him out again, feet first, with the tails of his coat flapping
+over his eyes, everything about him hanging the wrong way, and
+the water streaming off at every thread in his threadbare
+dress.&nbsp; But the moment they set him upright and found that
+he was none the worse, they were soldiers again, looking over
+their glazed stocks more composedly than ever.</p>
+<p>The half-sobered recruit glanced round for a moment, as if his
+first impulse were to express some gratitude for his
+preservation, but seeing them with this air of total unconcern,
+and having his wet pipe presented to him with an oath by the
+soldier who had been by far the most anxious of the party, he
+stuck it in his mouth, thrust his hands into his moist pockets,
+and without even shaking the water off his clothes, walked on
+board whistling; not to say as if nothing had happened, but as if
+he had meant to do it, and it had been a perfect success.</p>
+<p>Our steamboat came up directly this had left the wharf, and
+soon bore us to the mouth of the Niagara; where the stars and
+stripes of America flutter on one side and the Union Jack of
+England on the other: and so narrow is the space between them
+that the sentinels in either fort can often hear the watchword of
+the other country given.&nbsp; Thence we emerged on Lake Ontario,
+an inland sea; and by half-past six o&rsquo;clock were at
+Toronto.</p>
+<p>The country round this town being very flat, is bare of scenic
+interest; but the town itself is full of life and motion, bustle,
+business, and improvement.&nbsp; The streets are well paved, and
+lighted with gas; the houses are large and good; the shops
+excellent.&nbsp; Many of them have a display of goods in their
+windows, such as may be seen in thriving county towns in England;
+and there are some which would do no discredit to the metropolis
+itself.&nbsp; There is a good stone prison here; and there are,
+besides, a handsome church, a court-house, public offices, many
+commodious private residences, and a government observatory for
+noting and recording the magnetic variations.&nbsp; In the
+College of Upper Canada, which is one of the public
+establishments of the city, a sound education in every department
+of polite learning can be had, at a very moderate expense: the
+annual charge for the instruction of each pupil, not exceeding
+nine pounds sterling.&nbsp; It has pretty good endowments in the
+way of land, and is a valuable and useful institution.</p>
+<p>The first stone of a new college had been laid but a few days
+before, by the Governor General.&nbsp; It will be a handsome,
+spacious edifice, approached by a long avenue, which is already
+planted and made available as a public walk.&nbsp; The town is
+well adapted for wholesome exercise at all seasons, for the
+footways in the thoroughfares which lie beyond the principal
+street, are planked like floors, and kept in very good and clean
+repair.</p>
+<p>It is a matter of deep regret that political differences
+should have run high in this place, and led to most discreditable
+and disgraceful results.&nbsp; It is not long since guns were
+discharged from a window in this town at the successful
+candidates in an election, and the coachman of one of them was
+actually shot in the body, though not dangerously wounded.&nbsp;
+But one man was killed on the same occasion; and from the very
+window whence he received his death, the very flag which shielded
+his murderer (not only in the commission of his crime, but from
+its consequences), was displayed again on the occasion of the
+public ceremony performed by the Governor General, to which I
+have just adverted.&nbsp; Of all the colours in the rainbow,
+there is but one which could be so employed: I need not say that
+flag was orange.</p>
+<p>The time of leaving Toronto for Kingston is noon.&nbsp; By
+eight o&rsquo;clock next morning, the traveller is at the end of
+his journey, which is performed by steamboat upon Lake Ontario,
+calling at Port Hope and Coburg, the latter a cheerful, thriving
+little town.&nbsp; Vast quantities of flour form the chief item
+in the freight of these vessels.&nbsp; We had no fewer than one
+thousand and eighty barrels on board, between Coburg and
+Kingston.</p>
+<p>The latter place, which is now the seat of government in
+Canada, is a very poor town, rendered still poorer in the
+appearance of its market-place by the ravages of a recent
+fire.&nbsp; Indeed, it may be said of Kingston, that one half of
+it appears to be burnt down, and the other half not to be built
+up.&nbsp; The Government House is neither elegant nor commodious,
+yet it is almost the only house of any importance in the
+neighbourhood.</p>
+<p>There is an admirable jail here, well and wisely governed, and
+excellently regulated, in every respect.&nbsp; The men were
+employed as shoemakers, ropemakers, blacksmiths, tailors,
+carpenters, and stonecutters; and in building a new prison, which
+was pretty far advanced towards completion.&nbsp; The female
+prisoners were occupied in needlework.&nbsp; Among them was a
+beautiful girl of twenty, who had been there nearly three
+years.&nbsp; She acted as bearer of secret despatches for the
+self-styled Patriots on Navy Island, during the Canadian
+Insurrection: sometimes dressing as a girl, and carrying them in
+her stays; sometimes attiring herself as a boy, and secreting
+them in the lining of her hat.&nbsp; In the latter character she
+always rode as a boy would, which was nothing to her, for she
+could govern any horse that any man could ride, and could drive
+four-in-hand with the best whip in those parts.&nbsp; Setting
+forth on one of her patriotic missions, she appropriated to
+herself the first horse she could lay her hands on; and this
+offence had brought her where I saw her.&nbsp; She had quite a
+lovely face, though, as the reader may suppose from this sketch
+of her history, there was a lurking devil in her bright eye,
+which looked out pretty sharply from between her prison bars.</p>
+<p>There is a bomb-proof fort here of great strength, which
+occupies a bold position, and is capable, doubtless, of doing
+good service; though the town is much too close upon the frontier
+to be long held, I should imagine, for its present purpose in
+troubled times.&nbsp; There is also a small navy-yard, where a
+couple of Government steamboats were building, and getting on
+vigorously.</p>
+<p>We left Kingston for Montreal on the tenth of May, at
+half-past nine in the morning, and proceeded in a steamboat down
+the St. Lawrence river.&nbsp; The beauty of this noble stream at
+almost any point, but especially in the commencement of this
+journey when it winds its way among the thousand Islands, can
+hardly be imagined.&nbsp; The number and constant successions of
+these islands, all green and richly wooded; their fluctuating
+sizes, some so large that for half an hour together one among
+them will appear as the opposite bank of the river, and some so
+small that they are mere dimples on its broad bosom; their
+infinite variety of shapes; and the numberless combinations of
+beautiful forms which the trees growing on them present: all form
+a picture fraught with uncommon interest and pleasure.</p>
+<p>In the afternoon we shot down some rapids where the river
+boiled and bubbled strangely, and where the force and headlong
+violence of the current were tremendous.&nbsp; At seven
+o&rsquo;clock we reached Dickenson&rsquo;s Landing, whence
+travellers proceed for two or three hours by stage-coach: the
+navigation of the river being rendered so dangerous and difficult
+in the interval, by rapids, that steamboats do not make the
+passage.&nbsp; The number and length of those <i>portages</i>,
+over which the roads are bad, and the travelling slow, render the
+way between the towns of Montreal and Kingston, somewhat
+tedious.</p>
+<p>Our course lay over a wide, uninclosed tract of country at a
+little distance from the river-side, whence the bright warning
+lights on the dangerous parts of the St. Lawrence shone
+vividly.&nbsp; The night was dark and raw, and the way dreary
+enough.&nbsp; It was nearly ten o&rsquo;clock when we reached the
+wharf where the next steamboat lay; and went on board, and to
+bed.</p>
+<p>She lay there all night, and started as soon as it was
+day.&nbsp; The morning was ushered in by a violent thunderstorm,
+and was very wet, but gradually improved and brightened up.&nbsp;
+Going on deck after breakfast, I was amazed to see floating down
+with the stream, a most gigantic raft, with some thirty or forty
+wooden houses upon it, and at least as many flag-masts, so that
+it looked like a nautical street.&nbsp; I saw many of these rafts
+afterwards, but never one so large.&nbsp; All the timber, or
+&lsquo;lumber,&rsquo; as it is called in America, which is
+brought down the St. Lawrence, is floated down in this
+manner.&nbsp; When the raft reaches its place of destination, it
+is broken up; the materials are sold; and the boatmen return for
+more.</p>
+<p>At eight we landed again, and travelled by a stage-coach for
+four hours through a pleasant and well-cultivated country,
+perfectly French in every respect: in the appearance of the
+cottages; the air, language, and dress of the peasantry; the
+sign-boards on the shops and taverns: and the Virgin&rsquo;s
+shrines, and crosses, by the wayside.&nbsp; Nearly every common
+labourer and boy, though he had no shoes to his feet, wore round
+his waist a sash of some bright colour: generally red: and the
+women, who were working in the fields and gardens, and doing all
+kinds of husbandry, wore, one and all, great flat straw hats with
+most capacious brims.&nbsp; There were Catholic Priests and
+Sisters of Charity in the village streets; and images of the
+Saviour at the corners of cross-roads, and in other public
+places.</p>
+<p>At noon we went on board another steamboat, and reached the
+village of Lachine, nine miles from Montreal, by three
+o&rsquo;clock.&nbsp; There, we left the river, and went on by
+land.</p>
+<p>Montreal is pleasantly situated on the margin of the St.
+Lawrence, and is backed by some bold heights, about which there
+are charming rides and drives.&nbsp; The streets are generally
+narrow and irregular, as in most French towns of any age; but in
+the more modern parts of the city, they are wide and airy.&nbsp;
+They display a great variety of very good shops; and both in the
+town and suburbs there are many excellent private
+dwellings.&nbsp; The granite quays are remarkable for their
+beauty, solidity, and extent.</p>
+<p>There is a very large Catholic cathedral here, recently
+erected with two tall spires, of which one is yet
+unfinished.&nbsp; In the open space in front of this edifice,
+stands a solitary, grim-looking, square brick tower, which has a
+quaint and remarkable appearance, and which the wiseacres of the
+place have consequently determined to pull down
+immediately.&nbsp; The Government House is very superior to that
+at Kingston, and the town is full of life and bustle.&nbsp; In
+one of the suburbs is a plank road&mdash;not footpath&mdash;five
+or six miles long, and a famous road it is too.&nbsp; All the
+rides in the vicinity were made doubly interesting by the
+bursting out of spring, which is here so rapid, that it is but a
+day&rsquo;s leap from barren winter, to the blooming youth of
+summer.</p>
+<p>The steamboats to Quebec perform the journey in the night;
+that is to say, they leave Montreal at six in the evening, and
+arrive at Quebec at six next morning.&nbsp; We made this
+excursion during our stay in Montreal (which exceeded a
+fortnight), and were charmed by its interest and beauty.</p>
+<p>The impression made upon the visitor by this Gibraltar of
+America: its giddy heights; its citadel suspended, as it were, in
+the air; its picturesque steep streets and frowning gateways; and
+the splendid views which burst upon the eye at every turn: is at
+once unique and lasting.</p>
+<p>It is a place not to be forgotten or mixed up in the mind with
+other places, or altered for a moment in the crowd of scenes a
+traveller can recall.&nbsp; Apart from the realities of this most
+picturesque city, there are associations clustering about it
+which would make a desert rich in interest.&nbsp; The dangerous
+precipice along whose rocky front, Wolfe and his brave companions
+climbed to glory; the Plains of Abraham, where he received his
+mortal wound; the fortress so chivalrously defended by Montcalm;
+and his soldier&rsquo;s grave, dug for him while yet alive, by
+the bursting of a shell; are not the least among them, or among
+the gallant incidents of history.&nbsp; That is a noble Monument
+too, and worthy of two great nations, which perpetuates the
+memory of both brave generals, and on which their names are
+jointly written.</p>
+<p>The city is rich in public institutions and in Catholic
+churches and charities, but it is mainly in the prospect from the
+site of the Old Government House, and from the Citadel, that its
+surpassing beauty lies.&nbsp; The exquisite expanse of country,
+rich in field and forest, mountain-height and water, which lies
+stretched out before the view, with miles of Canadian villages,
+glancing in long white streaks, like veins along the landscape;
+the motley crowd of gables, roofs, and chimney tops in the old
+hilly town immediately at hand; the beautiful St. Lawrence
+sparkling and flashing in the sunlight; and the tiny ships below
+the rock from which you gaze, whose distant rigging looks like
+spiders&rsquo; webs against the light, while casks and barrels on
+their decks dwindle into toys, and busy mariners become so many
+puppets; all this, framed by a sunken window in the fortress and
+looked at from the shadowed room within, forms one of the
+brightest and most enchanting pictures that the eye can rest
+upon.</p>
+<p>In the spring of the year, vast numbers of emigrants who have
+newly arrived from England or from Ireland, pass between Quebec
+and Montreal on their way to the backwoods and new settlements of
+Canada.&nbsp; If it be an entertaining lounge (as I very often
+found it) to take a morning stroll upon the quay at Montreal, and
+see them grouped in hundreds on the public wharfs about their
+chests and boxes, it is matter of deep interest to be their
+fellow-passenger on one of these steamboats, and mingling with
+the concourse, see and hear them unobserved.</p>
+<p>The vessel in which we returned from Quebec to Montreal was
+crowded with them, and at night they spread their beds between
+decks (those who had beds, at least), and slept so close and
+thick about our cabin door, that the passage to and fro was quite
+blocked up.&nbsp; They were nearly all English; from
+Gloucestershire the greater part; and had had a long
+winter-passage out; but it was wonderful to see how clean the
+children had been kept, and how untiring in their love and
+self-denial all the poor parents were.</p>
+<p>Cant as we may, and as we shall to the end of all things, it
+is very much harder for the poor to be virtuous than it is for
+the rich; and the good that is in them, shines the brighter for
+it.&nbsp; In many a noble mansion lives a man, the best of
+husbands and of fathers, whose private worth in both capacities
+is justly lauded to the skies.&nbsp; But bring him here, upon
+this crowded deck.&nbsp; Strip from his fair young wife her
+silken dress and jewels, unbind her braided hair, stamp early
+wrinkles on her brow, pinch her pale cheek with care and much
+privation, array her faded form in coarsely patched attire, let
+there be nothing but his love to set her forth or deck her out,
+and you shall put it to the proof indeed.&nbsp; So change his
+station in the world, that he shall see in those young things who
+climb about his knee: not records of his wealth and name: but
+little wrestlers with him for his daily bread; so many poachers
+on his scanty meal; so many units to divide his every sum of
+comfort, and farther to reduce its small amount.&nbsp; In lieu of
+the endearments of childhood in its sweetest aspect, heap upon
+him all its pains and wants, its sicknesses and ills, its
+fretfulness, caprice, and querulous endurance: let its prattle
+be, not of engaging infant fancies, but of cold, and thirst, and
+hunger: and if his fatherly affection outlive all this, and he be
+patient, watchful, tender; careful of his children&rsquo;s lives,
+and mindful always of their joys and sorrows; then send him back
+to Parliament, and Pulpit, and to Quarter Sessions, and when he
+hears fine talk of the depravity of those who live from hand to
+mouth, and labour hard to do it, let him speak up, as one who
+knows, and tell those holders forth that they, by parallel with
+such a class, should be High Angels in their daily lives, and lay
+but humble siege to Heaven at last.</p>
+<p>Which of us shall say what he would be, if such realities,
+with small relief or change all through his days, were his!&nbsp;
+Looking round upon these people: far from home, houseless,
+indigent, wandering, weary with travel and hard living: and
+seeing how patiently they nursed and tended their young children:
+how they consulted ever their wants first, then half supplied
+their own; what gentle ministers of hope and faith the women
+were; how the men profited by their example; and how very, very
+seldom even a moment&rsquo;s petulance or harsh complaint broke
+out among them: I felt a stronger love and honour of my kind come
+glowing on my heart, and wished to God there had been many
+Atheists in the better part of human nature there, to read this
+simple lesson in the book of Life.</p>
+<div class="gapshortline">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>We left Montreal for New York again, on the thirtieth of May,
+crossing to La Prairie, on the opposite shore of the St.
+Lawrence, in a steamboat; we then took the railroad to St.
+John&rsquo;s, which is on the brink of Lake Champlain.&nbsp; Our
+last greeting in Canada was from the English officers in the
+pleasant barracks at that place (a class of gentlemen who had
+made every hour of our visit memorable by their hospitality and
+friendship); and with &lsquo;Rule Britannia&rsquo; sounding in
+our ears, soon left it far behind.</p>
+<p>But Canada has held, and always will retain, a foremost place
+in my remembrance.&nbsp; Few Englishmen are prepared to find it
+what it is.&nbsp; Advancing quietly; old differences settling
+down, and being fast forgotten; public feeling and private
+enterprise alike in a sound and wholesome state; nothing of flush
+or fever in its system, but health and vigour throbbing in its
+steady pulse: it is full of hope and promise.&nbsp; To
+me&mdash;who had been accustomed to think of it as something left
+behind in the strides of advancing society, as something
+neglected and forgotten, slumbering and wasting in its
+sleep&mdash;the demand for labour and the rates of wages; the
+busy quays of Montreal; the vessels taking in their cargoes, and
+discharging them; the amount of shipping in the different ports;
+the commerce, roads, and public works, all made <i>to last</i>;
+the respectability and character of the public journals; and the
+amount of rational comfort and happiness which honest industry
+may earn: were very great surprises.&nbsp; The steamboats on the
+lakes, in their conveniences, cleanliness, and safety; in the
+gentlemanly character and bearing of their captains; and in the
+politeness and perfect comfort of their social regulations; are
+unsurpassed even by the famous Scotch vessels, deservedly so much
+esteemed at home.&nbsp; The inns are usually bad; because the
+custom of boarding at hotels is not so general here as in the
+States, and the British officers, who form a large portion of the
+society of every town, live chiefly at the regimental messes: but
+in every other respect, the traveller in Canada will find as good
+provision for his comfort as in any place I know.</p>
+<p>There is one American boat&mdash;the vessel which carried us
+on Lake Champlain, from St. John&rsquo;s to Whitehall&mdash;which
+I praise very highly, but no more than it deserves, when I say
+that it is superior even to that in which we went from Queenston
+to Toronto, or to that in which we travelled from the latter
+place to Kingston, or I have no doubt I may add to any other in
+the world.&nbsp; This steamboat, which is called the Burlington,
+is a perfectly exquisite achievement of neatness, elegance, and
+order.&nbsp; The decks are drawing-rooms; the cabins are
+boudoirs, choicely furnished and adorned with prints, pictures,
+and musical instruments; every nook and corner in the vessel is a
+perfect curiosity of graceful comfort and beautiful
+contrivance.&nbsp; Captain Sherman, her commander, to whose
+ingenuity and excellent taste these results are solely
+attributable, has bravely and worthily distinguished himself on
+more than one trying occasion: not least among them, in having
+the moral courage to carry British troops, at a time (during the
+Canadian rebellion) when no other conveyance was open to
+them.&nbsp; He and his vessel are held in universal respect, both
+by his own countrymen and ours; and no man ever enjoyed the
+popular esteem, who, in his sphere of action, won and wore it
+better than this gentleman.</p>
+<p>By means of this floating palace we were soon in the United
+States again, and called that evening at Burlington; a pretty
+town, where we lay an hour or so.&nbsp; We reached Whitehall,
+where we were to disembark, at six next morning; and might have
+done so earlier, but that these steamboats lie by for some hours
+in the night, in consequence of the lake becoming very narrow at
+that part of the journey, and difficult of navigation in the
+dark.&nbsp; Its width is so contracted at one point, indeed, that
+they are obliged to warp round by means of a rope.</p>
+<p>After breakfasting at Whitehall, we took the stage-coach for
+Albany: a large and busy town, where we arrived between five and
+six o&rsquo;clock that afternoon; after a very hot day&rsquo;s
+journey, for we were now in the height of summer again.&nbsp; At
+seven we started for New York on board a great North River
+steamboat, which was so crowded with passengers that the upper
+deck was like the box lobby of a theatre between the pieces, and
+the lower one like Tottenham Court Road on a Saturday
+night.&nbsp; But we slept soundly, notwithstanding, and soon
+after five o&rsquo;clock next morning reached New York.</p>
+<p>Tarrying here, only that day and night, to recruit after our
+late fatigues, we started off once more upon our last journey in
+America.&nbsp; We had yet five days to spare before embarking for
+England, and I had a great desire to see &lsquo;the Shaker
+Village,&rsquo; which is peopled by a religious sect from whom it
+takes its name.</p>
+<p>To this end, we went up the North River again, as far as the
+town of Hudson, and there hired an extra to carry us to Lebanon,
+thirty miles distant: and of course another and a different
+Lebanon from that village where I slept on the night of the
+Prairie trip.</p>
+<p>The country through which the road meandered, was rich and
+beautiful; the weather very fine; and for many miles the
+Kaatskill mountains, where Rip Van Winkle and the ghostly
+Dutchmen played at ninepins one memorable gusty afternoon,
+towered in the blue distance, like stately clouds.&nbsp; At one
+point, as we ascended a steep hill, athwart whose base a
+railroad, yet constructing, took its course, we came upon an
+Irish colony.&nbsp; With means at hand of building decent cabins,
+it was wonderful to see how clumsy, rough, and wretched, its
+hovels were.&nbsp; The best were poor protection from the weather
+the worst let in the wind and rain through wide breaches in the
+roofs of sodden grass, and in the walls of mud; some had neither
+door nor window; some had nearly fallen down, and were
+imperfectly propped up by stakes and poles; all were ruinous and
+filthy.&nbsp; Hideously ugly old women and very buxom young ones,
+pigs, dogs, men, children, babies, pots, kettles, dung-hills,
+vile refuse, rank straw, and standing water, all wallowing
+together in an inseparable heap, composed the furniture of every
+dark and dirty hut.</p>
+<p>Between nine and ten o&rsquo;clock at night, we arrived at
+Lebanon which is renowned for its warm baths, and for a great
+hotel, well adapted, I have no doubt, to the gregarious taste of
+those seekers after health or pleasure who repair here, but
+inexpressibly comfortless to me.&nbsp; We were shown into an
+immense apartment, lighted by two dim candles, called the
+drawing-room: from which there was a descent by a flight of
+steps, to another vast desert, called the dining-room: our
+bed-chambers were among certain long rows of little white-washed
+cells, which opened from either side of a dreary passage; and
+were so like rooms in a prison that I half expected to be locked
+up when I went to bed, and listened involuntarily for the turning
+of the key on the outside.&nbsp; There need be baths somewhere in
+the neighbourhood, for the other washing arrangements were on as
+limited a scale as I ever saw, even in America: indeed, these
+bedrooms were so very bare of even such common luxuries as
+chairs, that I should say they were not provided with enough of
+anything, but that I bethink myself of our having been most
+bountifully bitten all night.</p>
+<p>The house is very pleasantly situated, however, and we had a
+good breakfast.&nbsp; That done, we went to visit our place of
+destination, which was some two miles off, and the way to which
+was soon indicated by a finger-post, whereon was painted,
+&lsquo;To the Shaker Village.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>As we rode along, we passed a party of Shakers, who were at
+work upon the road; who wore the broadest of all broad-brimmed
+hats; and were in all visible respects such very wooden men, that
+I felt about as much sympathy for them, and as much interest in
+them, as if they had been so many figure-heads of ships.&nbsp;
+Presently we came to the beginning of the village, and alighting
+at the door of a house where the Shaker manufactures are sold,
+and which is the headquarters of the elders, requested permission
+to see the Shaker worship.</p>
+<p>Pending the conveyance of this request to some person in
+authority, we walked into a grim room, where several grim hats
+were hanging on grim pegs, and the time was grimly told by a grim
+clock which uttered every tick with a kind of struggle, as if it
+broke the grim silence reluctantly, and under protest.&nbsp;
+Ranged against the wall were six or eight stiff, high-backed
+chairs, and they partook so strongly of the general grimness that
+one would much rather have sat on the floor than incurred the
+smallest obligation to any of them.</p>
+<p>Presently, there stalked into this apartment, a grim old
+Shaker, with eyes as hard, and dull, and cold, as the great round
+metal buttons on his coat and waistcoat; a sort of calm
+goblin.&nbsp; Being informed of our desire, he produced a
+newspaper wherein the body of elders, whereof he was a member,
+had advertised but a few days before, that in consequence of
+certain unseemly interruptions which their worship had received
+from strangers, their chapel was closed to the public for the
+space of one year.</p>
+<p>As nothing was to be urged in opposition to this reasonable
+arrangement, we requested leave to make some trifling purchases
+of Shaker goods; which was grimly conceded.&nbsp; We accordingly
+repaired to a store in the same house and on the opposite side of
+the passage, where the stock was presided over by something alive
+in a russet case, which the elder said was a woman; and which I
+suppose <i>was</i> a woman, though I should not have suspected
+it.</p>
+<p>On the opposite side of the road was their place of worship: a
+cool, clean edifice of wood, with large windows and green blinds:
+like a spacious summer-house.&nbsp; As there was no getting into
+this place, and nothing was to be done but walk up and down, and
+look at it and the other buildings in the village (which were
+chiefly of wood, painted a dark red like English barns, and
+composed of many stories like English factories), I have nothing
+to communicate to the reader, beyond the scanty results I gleaned
+the while our purchases were making.</p>
+<p>These people are called Shakers from their peculiar form of
+adoration, which consists of a dance, performed by the men and
+women of all ages, who arrange themselves for that purpose in
+opposite parties: the men first divesting themselves of their
+hats and coats, which they gravely hang against the wall before
+they begin; and tying a ribbon round their shirt-sleeves, as
+though they were going to be bled.&nbsp; They accompany
+themselves with a droning, humming noise, and dance until they
+are quite exhausted, alternately advancing and retiring in a
+preposterous sort of trot.&nbsp; The effect is said to be
+unspeakably absurd: and if I may judge from a print of this
+ceremony which I have in my possession; and which I am informed
+by those who have visited the chapel, is perfectly accurate; it
+must be infinitely grotesque.</p>
+<p>They are governed by a woman, and her rule is understood to be
+absolute, though she has the assistance of a council of
+elders.&nbsp; She lives, it is said, in strict seclusion, in
+certain rooms above the chapel, and is never shown to profane
+eyes.&nbsp; If she at all resemble the lady who presided over the
+store, it is a great charity to keep her as close as possible,
+and I cannot too strongly express my perfect concurrence in this
+benevolent proceeding.</p>
+<p>All the possessions and revenues of the settlement are thrown
+into a common stock, which is managed by the elders.&nbsp; As
+they have made converts among people who were well to do in the
+world, and are frugal and thrifty, it is understood that this
+fund prospers: the more especially as they have made large
+purchases of land.&nbsp; Nor is this at Lebanon the only Shaker
+settlement: there are, I think, at least, three others.</p>
+<p>They are good farmers, and all their produce is eagerly
+purchased and highly esteemed.&nbsp; &lsquo;Shaker seeds,&rsquo;
+&lsquo;Shaker herbs,&rsquo; and &lsquo;Shaker distilled
+waters,&rsquo; are commonly announced for sale in the shops of
+towns and cities.&nbsp; They are good breeders of cattle, and are
+kind and merciful to the brute creation.&nbsp; Consequently,
+Shaker beasts seldom fail to find a ready market.</p>
+<p>They eat and drink together, after the Spartan model, at a
+great public table.&nbsp; There is no union of the sexes, and
+every Shaker, male and female, is devoted to a life of
+celibacy.&nbsp; Rumour has been busy upon this theme, but here
+again I must refer to the lady of the store, and say, that if
+many of the sister Shakers resemble her, I treat all such slander
+as bearing on its face the strongest marks of wild
+improbability.&nbsp; But that they take as proselytes, persons so
+young that they cannot know their own minds, and cannot possess
+much strength of resolution in this or any other respect, I can
+assert from my own observation of the extreme juvenility of
+certain youthful Shakers whom I saw at work among the party on
+the road.</p>
+<p>They are said to be good drivers of bargains, but to be honest
+and just in their transactions, and even in horse-dealing to
+resist those thievish tendencies which would seem, for some
+undiscovered reason, to be almost inseparable from that branch of
+traffic.&nbsp; In all matters they hold their own course quietly,
+live in their gloomy, silent commonwealth, and show little desire
+to interfere with other people.</p>
+<p>This is well enough, but nevertheless I cannot, I confess,
+incline towards the Shakers; view them with much favour, or
+extend towards them any very lenient construction.&nbsp; I so
+abhor, and from my soul detest that bad spirit, no matter by what
+class or sect it may be entertained, which would strip life of
+its healthful graces, rob youth of its innocent pleasures, pluck
+from maturity and age their pleasant ornaments, and make
+existence but a narrow path towards the grave: that odious spirit
+which, if it could have had full scope and sway upon the earth,
+must have blasted and made barren the imaginations of the
+greatest men, and left them, in their power of raising up
+enduring images before their fellow-creatures yet unborn, no
+better than the beasts: that, in these very broad-brimmed hats
+and very sombre coats&mdash;in stiff-necked, solemn-visaged
+piety, in short, no matter what its garb, whether it have cropped
+hair as in a Shaker village, or long nails as in a Hindoo
+temple&mdash;I recognise the worst among the enemies of Heaven
+and Earth, who turn the water at the marriage feasts of this poor
+world, not into wine, but gall.&nbsp; And if there must be people
+vowed to crush the harmless fancies and the love of innocent
+delights and gaieties, which are a part of human nature: as much
+a part of it as any other love or hope that is our common
+portion: let them, for me, stand openly revealed among the ribald
+and licentious; the very idiots know that <i>they</i> are not on
+the Immortal road, and will despise them, and avoid them
+readily.</p>
+<p>Leaving the Shaker village with a hearty dislike of the old
+Shakers, and a hearty pity for the young ones: tempered by the
+strong probability of their running away as they grow older and
+wiser, which they not uncommonly do: we returned to Lebanon, and
+so to Hudson, by the way we had come upon the previous day.&nbsp;
+There, we took the steamboat down the North River towards New
+York, but stopped, some four hours&rsquo; journey short of it, at
+West Point, where we remained that night, and all next day, and
+next night too.</p>
+<p>In this beautiful place: the fairest among the fair and lovely
+Highlands of the North River: shut in by deep green heights and
+ruined forts, and looking down upon the distant town of Newburgh,
+along a glittering path of sunlit water, with here and there a
+skiff, whose white sail often bends on some new tack as sudden
+flaws of wind come down upon her from the gullies in the hills:
+hemmed in, besides, all round with memories of Washington, and
+events of the revolutionary war: is the Military School of
+America.</p>
+<p>It could not stand on more appropriate ground, and any ground
+more beautiful can hardly be.&nbsp; The course of education is
+severe, but well devised, and manly.&nbsp; Through June, July,
+and August, the young men encamp upon the spacious plain whereon
+the college stands; and all the year their military exercises are
+performed there, daily.&nbsp; The term of study at this
+institution, which the State requires from all cadets, is four
+years; but, whether it be from the rigid nature of the
+discipline, or the national impatience of restraint, or both
+causes combined, not more than half the number who begin their
+studies here, ever remain to finish them.</p>
+<p>The number of cadets being about equal to that of the members
+of Congress, one is sent here from every Congressional district:
+its member influencing the selection.&nbsp; Commissions in the
+service are distributed on the same principle.&nbsp; The
+dwellings of the various Professors are beautifully situated; and
+there is a most excellent hotel for strangers, though it has the
+two drawbacks of being a total abstinence house (wines and
+spirits being forbidden to the students), and of serving the
+public meals at rather uncomfortable hours: to wit, breakfast at
+seven, dinner at one, and supper at sunset.</p>
+<p>The beauty and freshness of this calm retreat, in the very
+dawn and greenness of summer&mdash;it was then the beginning of
+June&mdash;were exquisite indeed.&nbsp; Leaving it upon the
+sixth, and returning to New York, to embark for England on the
+succeeding day, I was glad to think that among the last memorable
+beauties which had glided past us, and softened in the bright
+perspective, were those whose pictures, traced by no common hand,
+are fresh in most men&rsquo;s minds; not easily to grow old, or
+fade beneath the dust of Time: the Kaatskill Mountains, Sleepy
+Hollow, and the Tappaan Zee.</p>
+<h2><a name="page182"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+182</span>CHAPTER XVI<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">THE PASSAGE HOME</span></h2>
+<p>I <span class="smcap">never</span> had so much interest
+before, and very likely I shall never have so much interest
+again, in the state of the wind, as on the long-looked-for
+morning of Tuesday the Seventh of June.&nbsp; Some nautical
+authority had told me a day or two previous, &lsquo;anything with
+west in it, will do;&rsquo; so when I darted out of bed at
+daylight, and throwing up the window, was saluted by a lively
+breeze from the north-west which had sprung up in the night, it
+came upon me so freshly, rustling with so many happy
+associations, that I conceived upon the spot a special regard for
+all airs blowing from that quarter of the compass, which I shall
+cherish, I dare say, until my own wind has breathed its last
+frail puff, and withdrawn itself for ever from the mortal
+calendar.</p>
+<p>The pilot had not been slow to take advantage of this
+favourable weather, and the ship which yesterday had been in such
+a crowded dock that she might have retired from trade for good
+and all, for any chance she seemed to have of going to sea, was
+now full sixteen miles away.&nbsp; A gallant sight she was, when
+we, fast gaining on her in a steamboat, saw her in the distance
+riding at anchor: her tall masts pointing up in graceful lines
+against the sky, and every rope and spar expressed in delicate
+and thread-like outline: gallant, too, when, we being all aboard,
+the anchor came up to the sturdy chorus &lsquo;Cheerily men, oh
+cheerily!&rsquo; and she followed proudly in the towing
+steamboat&rsquo;s wake: but bravest and most gallant of all, when
+the tow-rope being cast adrift, the canvas fluttered from her
+masts, and spreading her white wings she soared away upon her
+free and solitary course.</p>
+<p>In the after cabin we were only fifteen passengers in all, and
+the greater part were from Canada, where some of us had known
+each other.&nbsp; The night was rough and squally, so were the
+next two days, but they flew by quickly, and we were soon as
+cheerful and snug a party, with an honest, manly-hearted captain
+at our head, as ever came to the resolution of being mutually
+agreeable, on land or water.</p>
+<p>We breakfasted at eight, lunched at twelve, dined at three,
+and took our tea at half-past seven.&nbsp; We had abundance of
+amusements, and dinner was not the least among them: firstly, for
+its own sake; secondly, because of its extraordinary length: its
+duration, inclusive of all the long pauses between the courses,
+being seldom less than two hours and a half; which was a subject
+of never-failing entertainment.&nbsp; By way of beguiling the
+tediousness of these banquets, a select association was formed at
+the lower end of the table, below the mast, to whose
+distinguished president modesty forbids me to make any further
+allusion, which, being a very hilarious and jovial institution,
+was (prejudice apart) in high favour with the rest of the
+community, and particularly with a black steward, who lived for
+three weeks in a broad grin at the marvellous humour of these
+incorporated worthies.</p>
+<p>Then, we had chess for those who played it, whist, cribbage,
+books, backgammon, and shovelboard.&nbsp; In all weathers, fair
+or foul, calm or windy, we were every one on deck, walking up and
+down in pairs, lying in the boats, leaning over the side, or
+chatting in a lazy group together.&nbsp; We had no lack of music,
+for one played the accordion, another the violin, and another
+(who usually began at six o&rsquo;clock <span
+class="GutSmall">A.M.</span>) the key-bugle: the combined effect
+of which instruments, when they all played different tunes in
+different parts of the ship, at the same time, and within hearing
+of each other, as they sometimes did (everybody being intensely
+satisfied with his own performance), was sublimely hideous.</p>
+<p>When all these means of entertainment failed, a sail would
+heave in sight: looming, perhaps, the very spirit of a ship, in
+the misty distance, or passing us so close that through our
+glasses we could see the people on her decks, and easily make out
+her name, and whither she was bound.&nbsp; For hours together we
+could watch the dolphins and porpoises as they rolled and leaped
+and dived around the vessel; or those small creatures ever on the
+wing, the Mother Carey&rsquo;s chickens, which had borne us
+company from New York bay, and for a whole fortnight fluttered
+about the vessel&rsquo;s stern.&nbsp; For some days we had a dead
+calm, or very light winds, during which the crew amused
+themselves with fishing, and hooked an unlucky dolphin, who
+expired, in all his rainbow colours, on the deck: an event of
+such importance in our barren calendar, that afterwards we dated
+from the dolphin, and made the day on which he died, an era.</p>
+<p>Besides all this, when we were five or six days out, there
+began to be much talk of icebergs, of which wandering islands an
+unusual number had been seen by the vessels that had come into
+New York a day or two before we left that port, and of whose
+dangerous neighbourhood we were warned by the sudden coldness of
+the weather, and the sinking of the mercury in the
+barometer.&nbsp; While these tokens lasted, a double look-out was
+kept, and many dismal tales were whispered after dark, of ships
+that had struck upon the ice and gone down in the night; but the
+wind obliging us to hold a southward course, we saw none of them,
+and the weather soon grew bright and warm again.</p>
+<p>The observation every day at noon, and the subsequent working
+of the vessel&rsquo;s course, was, as may be supposed, a feature
+in our lives of paramount importance; nor were there wanting (as
+there never are) sagacious doubters of the captain&rsquo;s
+calculations, who, so soon as his back was turned, would, in the
+absence of compasses, measure the chart with bits of string, and
+ends of pocket-handkerchiefs, and points of snuffers, and clearly
+prove him to be wrong by an odd thousand miles or so.&nbsp; It
+was very edifying to see these unbelievers shake their heads and
+frown, and hear them hold forth strongly upon navigation: not
+that they knew anything about it, but that they always mistrusted
+the captain in calm weather, or when the wind was adverse.&nbsp;
+Indeed, the mercury itself is not so variable as this class of
+passengers, whom you will see, when the ship is going nobly
+through the water, quite pale with admiration, swearing that the
+captain beats all captains ever known, and even hinting at
+subscriptions for a piece of plate; and who, next morning, when
+the breeze has lulled, and all the sails hang useless in the idle
+air, shake their despondent heads again, and say, with screwed-up
+lips, they hope that captain is a sailor&mdash;but they shrewdly
+doubt him.</p>
+<p>It even became an occupation in the calm, to wonder when the
+wind <i>would</i> spring up in the favourable quarter, where, it
+was clearly shown by all the rules and precedents, it ought to
+have sprung up long ago.&nbsp; The first mate, who whistled for
+it zealously, was much respected for his perseverance, and was
+regarded even by the unbelievers as a first-rate sailor.&nbsp;
+Many gloomy looks would be cast upward through the cabin
+skylights at the flapping sails while dinner was in progress; and
+some, growing bold in ruefulness, predicted that we should land
+about the middle of July.&nbsp; There are always on board ship, a
+Sanguine One, and a Despondent One.&nbsp; The latter character
+carried it hollow at this period of the voyage, and triumphed
+over the Sanguine One at every meal, by inquiring where he
+supposed the Great Western (which left New York a week after us)
+was <i>now</i>: and where he supposed the &lsquo;Cunard&rsquo;
+steam-packet was <i>now</i>: and what he thought of sailing
+vessels, as compared with steamships <i>now</i>: and so beset his
+life with pestilent attacks of that kind, that he too was obliged
+to affect despondency, for very peace and quietude.</p>
+<p>These were additions to the list of entertaining incidents,
+but there was still another source of interest.&nbsp; We carried
+in the steerage nearly a hundred passengers: a little world of
+poverty: and as we came to know individuals among them by sight,
+from looking down upon the deck where they took the air in the
+daytime, and cooked their food, and very often ate it too, we
+became curious to know their histories, and with what
+expectations they had gone out to America, and on what errands
+they were going home, and what their circumstances were.&nbsp;
+The information we got on these heads from the carpenter, who had
+charge of these people, was often of the strangest kind.&nbsp;
+Some of them had been in America but three days, some but three
+months, and some had gone out in the last voyage of that very
+ship in which they were now returning home.&nbsp; Others had sold
+their clothes to raise the passage-money, and had hardly rags to
+cover them; others had no food, and lived upon the charity of the
+rest: and one man, it was discovered nearly at the end of the
+voyage, not before&mdash;for he kept his secret close, and did
+not court compassion&mdash;had had no sustenance whatever but the
+bones and scraps of fat he took from the plates used in the
+after-cabin dinner, when they were put out to be washed.</p>
+<p>The whole system of shipping and conveying these unfortunate
+persons, is one that stands in need of thorough revision.&nbsp;
+If any class deserve to be protected and assisted by the
+Government, it is that class who are banished from their native
+land in search of the bare means of subsistence.&nbsp; All that
+could be done for these poor people by the great compassion and
+humanity of the captain and officers was done, but they require
+much more.&nbsp; The law is bound, at least upon the English
+side, to see that too many of them are not put on board one ship:
+and that their accommodations are decent: not demoralising, and
+profligate.&nbsp; It is bound, too, in common humanity, to
+declare that no man shall be taken on board without his stock of
+provisions being previously inspected by some proper officer, and
+pronounced moderately sufficient for his support upon the
+voyage.&nbsp; It is bound to provide, or to require that there be
+provided, a medical attendant; whereas in these ships there are
+none, though sickness of adults, and deaths of children, on the
+passage, are matters of the very commonest occurrence.&nbsp;
+Above all it is the duty of any Government, be it monarchy or
+republic, to interpose and put an end to that system by which a
+firm of traders in emigrants purchase of the owners the whole
+&rsquo;tween-decks of a ship, and send on board as many wretched
+people as they can lay hold of, on any terms they can get,
+without the smallest reference to the conveniences of the
+steerage, the number of berths, the slightest separation of the
+sexes, or anything but their own immediate profit.&nbsp; Nor is
+even this the worst of the vicious system: for, certain crimping
+agents of these houses, who have a percentage on all the
+passengers they inveigle, are constantly travelling about those
+districts where poverty and discontent are rife, and tempting the
+credulous into more misery, by holding out monstrous inducements
+to emigration which can never be realised.</p>
+<p>The history of every family we had on board was pretty much
+the same.&nbsp; After hoarding up, and borrowing, and begging,
+and selling everything to pay the passage, they had gone out to
+New York, expecting to find its streets paved with gold; and had
+found them paved with very hard and very real stones.&nbsp;
+Enterprise was dull; labourers were not wanted; jobs of work were
+to be got, but the payment was not.&nbsp; They were coming back,
+even poorer than they went.&nbsp; One of them was carrying an
+open letter from a young English artisan, who had been in New
+York a fortnight, to a friend near Manchester, whom he strongly
+urged to follow him.&nbsp; One of the officers brought it to me
+as a curiosity.&nbsp; &lsquo;This is the country, Jem,&rsquo;
+said the writer.&nbsp; &lsquo;I like America.&nbsp; There is no
+despotism here; that&rsquo;s the great thing.&nbsp; Employment of
+all sorts is going a-begging, and wages are capital.&nbsp; You
+have only to choose a trade, Jem, and be it.&nbsp; I
+haven&rsquo;t made choice of one yet, but I shall soon.&nbsp;
+<i>At present I haven&rsquo;t quite made up my mind whether to be
+a carpenter&mdash;or a tailor</i>.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>There was yet another kind of passenger, and but one more,
+who, in the calm and the light winds, was a constant theme of
+conversation and observation among us.&nbsp; This was an English
+sailor, a smart, thorough-built, English man-of-war&rsquo;s-man
+from his hat to his shoes, who was serving in the American navy,
+and having got leave of absence was on his way home to see his
+friends.&nbsp; When he presented himself to take and pay for his
+passage, it had been suggested to him that being an able seaman
+he might as well work it and save the money, but this piece of
+advice he very indignantly rejected: saying, &lsquo;He&rsquo;d be
+damned but for once he&rsquo;d go aboard ship, as a
+gentleman.&rsquo;&nbsp; Accordingly, they took his money, but he
+no sooner came aboard, than he stowed his kit in the forecastle,
+arranged to mess with the crew, and the very first time the hands
+were turned up, went aloft like a cat, before anybody.&nbsp; And
+all through the passage there he was, first at the braces,
+outermost on the yards, perpetually lending a hand everywhere,
+but always with a sober dignity in his manner, and a sober grin
+on his face, which plainly said, &lsquo;I do it as a
+gentleman.&nbsp; For my own pleasure, mind you!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>At length and at last, the promised wind came up in right good
+earnest, and away we went before it, with every stitch of canvas
+set, slashing through the water nobly.&nbsp; There was a grandeur
+in the motion of the splendid ship, as overshadowed by her mass
+of sails, she rode at a furious pace upon the waves, which filled
+one with an indescribable sense of pride and exultation.&nbsp; As
+she plunged into a foaming valley, how I loved to see the green
+waves, bordered deep with white, come rushing on astern, to buoy
+her upward at their pleasure, and curl about her as she stooped
+again, but always own her for their haughty mistress still!&nbsp;
+On, on we flew, with changing lights upon the water, being now in
+the blessed region of fleecy skies; a bright sun lighting us by
+day, and a bright moon by night; the vane pointing directly
+homeward, alike the truthful index to the favouring wind and to
+our cheerful hearts; until at sunrise, one fair Monday
+morning&mdash;the twenty-seventh of June, I shall not easily
+forget the day&mdash;there lay before us, old Cape Clear, God
+bless it, showing, in the mist of early morning, like a cloud:
+the brightest and most welcome cloud, to us, that ever hid the
+face of Heaven&rsquo;s fallen sister&mdash;Home.</p>
+<p>Dim speck as it was in the wide prospect, it made the sunrise
+a more cheerful sight, and gave to it that sort of human interest
+which it seems to want at sea.&nbsp; There, as elsewhere, the
+return of day is inseparable from some sense of renewed hope and
+gladness; but the light shining on the dreary waste of water, and
+showing it in all its vast extent of loneliness, presents a
+solemn spectacle, which even night, veiling it in darkness and
+uncertainty, does not surpass.&nbsp; The rising of the moon is
+more in keeping with the solitary ocean; and has an air of
+melancholy grandeur, which in its soft and gentle influence,
+seems to comfort while it saddens.&nbsp; I recollect when I was a
+very young child having a fancy that the reflection of the moon
+in water was a path to Heaven, trodden by the spirits of good
+people on their way to God; and this old feeling often came over
+me again, when I watched it on a tranquil night at sea.</p>
+<p>The wind was very light on this same Monday morning, but it
+was still in the right quarter, and so, by slow degrees, we left
+Cape Clear behind, and sailed along within sight of the coast of
+Ireland.&nbsp; And how merry we all were, and how loyal to the
+George Washington, and how full of mutual congratulations, and
+how venturesome in predicting the exact hour at which we should
+arrive at Liverpool, may be easily imagined and readily
+understood.&nbsp; Also, how heartily we drank the captain&rsquo;s
+health that day at dinner; and how restless we became about
+packing up: and how two or three of the most sanguine spirits
+rejected the idea of going to bed at all that night as something
+it was not worth while to do, so near the shore, but went
+nevertheless, and slept soundly; and how to be so near our
+journey&rsquo;s end, was like a pleasant dream, from which one
+feared to wake.</p>
+<p>The friendly breeze freshened again next day, and on we went
+once more before it gallantly: descrying now and then an English
+ship going homeward under shortened sail, while we, with every
+inch of canvas crowded on, dashed gaily past, and left her far
+behind.&nbsp; Towards evening, the weather turned hazy, with a
+drizzling rain; and soon became so thick, that we sailed, as it
+were, in a cloud.&nbsp; Still we swept onward like a phantom
+ship, and many an eager eye glanced up to where the Look-out on
+the mast kept watch for Holyhead.</p>
+<p>At length his long-expected cry was heard, and at the same
+moment there shone out from the haze and mist ahead, a gleaming
+light, which presently was gone, and soon returned, and soon was
+gone again.&nbsp; Whenever it came back, the eyes of all on
+board, brightened and sparkled like itself: and there we all
+stood, watching this revolving light upon the rock at Holyhead,
+and praising it for its brightness and its friendly warning, and
+lauding it, in short, above all other signal lights that ever
+were displayed, until it once more glimmered faintly in the
+distance, far behind us.</p>
+<p>Then, it was time to fire a gun, for a pilot; and almost
+before its smoke had cleared away, a little boat with a light at
+her masthead came bearing down upon us, through the darkness,
+swiftly.&nbsp; And presently, our sails being backed, she ran
+alongside; and the hoarse pilot, wrapped and muffled in pea-coats
+and shawls to the very bridge of his weather-ploughed-up nose,
+stood bodily among us on the deck.&nbsp; And I think if that
+pilot had wanted to borrow fifty pounds for an indefinite period
+on no security, we should have engaged to lend it to him, among
+us, before his boat had dropped astern, or (which is the same
+thing) before every scrap of news in the paper he brought with
+him had become the common property of all on board.</p>
+<p>We turned in pretty late that night, and turned out pretty
+early next morning.&nbsp; By six o&rsquo;clock we clustered on
+the deck, prepared to go ashore; and looked upon the spires, and
+roofs, and smoke, of Liverpool.&nbsp; By eight we all sat down in
+one of its Hotels, to eat and drink together for the last
+time.&nbsp; And by nine we had shaken hands all round, and broken
+up our social company for ever.</p>
+<p>The country, by the railroad, seemed, as we rattled through
+it, like a luxuriant garden.&nbsp; The beauty of the fields (so
+small they looked!), the hedge-rows, and the trees; the pretty
+cottages, the beds of flowers, the old churchyards, the antique
+houses, and every well-known object; the exquisite delights of
+that one journey, crowding in the short compass of a
+summer&rsquo;s day, the joy of many years, with the winding up
+with Home and all that makes it dear; no tongue can tell, or pen
+of mine describe.</p>
+<h2><a name="page189"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+189</span>CHAPTER XVII<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">SLAVERY</span></h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> upholders of slavery in
+America&mdash;of the atrocities of which system, I shall not
+write one word for which I have not had ample proof and
+warrant&mdash;may be divided into three great classes.</p>
+<p>The first, are those more moderate and rational owners of
+human cattle, who have come into the possession of them as so
+many coins in their trading capital, but who admit the frightful
+nature of the Institution in the abstract, and perceive the
+dangers to society with which it is fraught: dangers which
+however distant they may be, or howsoever tardy in their coming
+on, are as certain to fall upon its guilty head, as is the Day of
+Judgment.</p>
+<p>The second, consists of all those owners, breeders, users,
+buyers and sellers of slaves, who will, until the bloody chapter
+has a bloody end, own, breed, use, buy, and sell them at all
+hazards: who doggedly deny the horrors of the system in the teeth
+of such a mass of evidence as never was brought to bear on any
+other subject, and to which the experience of every day
+contributes its immense amount; who would at this or any other
+moment, gladly involve America in a war, civil or foreign,
+provided that it had for its sole end and object the assertion of
+their right to perpetuate slavery, and to whip and work and
+torture slaves, unquestioned by any human authority, and
+unassailed by any human power; who, when they speak of Freedom,
+mean the Freedom to oppress their kind, and to be savage,
+merciless, and cruel; and of whom every man on his own ground, in
+republican America, is a more exacting, and a sterner, and a less
+responsible despot than the Caliph Haroun Alraschid in his angry
+robe of scarlet.</p>
+<p>The third, and not the least numerous or influential, is
+composed of all that delicate gentility which cannot bear a
+superior, and cannot brook an equal; of that class whose
+Republicanism means, &lsquo;I will not tolerate a man above me:
+and of those below, none must approach too near;&rsquo; whose
+pride, in a land where voluntary servitude is shunned as a
+disgrace, must be ministered to by slaves; and whose inalienable
+rights can only have their growth in negro wrongs.</p>
+<p>It has been sometimes urged that, in the unavailing efforts
+which have been made to advance the cause of Human Freedom in the
+republic of America (strange cause for history to treat of!),
+sufficient regard has not been had to the existence of the first
+class of persons; and it has been contended that they are hardly
+used, in being confounded with the second.&nbsp; This is, no
+doubt, the case; noble instances of pecuniary and personal
+sacrifice have already had their growth among them; and it is
+much to be regretted that the gulf between them and the advocates
+of emancipation should have been widened and deepened by any
+means: the rather, as there are, beyond dispute, among these
+slave-owners, many kind masters who are tender in the exercise of
+their unnatural power.&nbsp; Still, it is to be feared that this
+injustice is inseparable from the state of things with which
+humanity and truth are called upon to deal.&nbsp; Slavery is not
+a whit the more endurable because some hearts are to be found
+which can partially resist its hardening influences; nor can the
+indignant tide of honest wrath stand still, because in its onward
+course it overwhelms a few who are comparatively innocent, among
+a host of guilty.</p>
+<p>The ground most commonly taken by these better men among the
+advocates of slavery, is this: &lsquo;It is a bad system; and for
+myself I would willingly get rid of it, if I could; most
+willingly.&nbsp; But it is not so bad, as you in England take it
+to be.&nbsp; You are deceived by the representations of the
+emancipationists.&nbsp; The greater part of my slaves are much
+attached to me.&nbsp; You will say that I do not allow them to be
+severely treated; but I will put it to you whether you believe
+that it can be a general practice to treat them inhumanly, when
+it would impair their value, and would be obviously against the
+interests of their masters.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Is it the interest of any man to steal, to game, to waste his
+health and mental faculties by drunkenness, to lie, forswear
+himself, indulge hatred, seek desperate revenge, or do
+murder?&nbsp; No.&nbsp; All these are roads to ruin.&nbsp; And
+why, then, do men tread them? Because such inclinations are among
+the vicious qualities of mankind.&nbsp; Blot out, ye friends of
+slavery, from the catalogue of human passions, brutal lust,
+cruelty, and the abuse of irresponsible power (of all earthly
+temptations the most difficult to be resisted), and when ye have
+done so, and not before, we will inquire whether it be the
+interest of a master to lash and maim the slaves, over whose
+lives and limbs he has an absolute control!</p>
+<p>But again: this class, together with that last one I have
+named, the miserable aristocracy spawned of a false republic,
+lift up their voices and exclaim &lsquo;Public opinion is
+all-sufficient to prevent such cruelty as you
+denounce.&rsquo;&nbsp; Public opinion!&nbsp; Why, public opinion
+in the slave States <i>is</i> slavery, is it not?&nbsp; Public
+opinion, in the slave States, has delivered the slaves over, to
+the gentle mercies of their masters.&nbsp; Public opinion has
+made the laws, and denied the slaves legislative
+protection.&nbsp; Public opinion has knotted the lash, heated the
+branding-iron, loaded the rifle, and shielded the murderer.&nbsp;
+Public opinion threatens the abolitionist with death, if he
+venture to the South; and drags him with a rope about his middle,
+in broad unblushing noon, through the first city in the
+East.&nbsp; Public opinion has, within a few years, burned a
+slave alive at a slow fire in the city of St. Louis; and public
+opinion has to this day maintained upon the bench that estimable
+judge who charged the jury, impanelled there to try his
+murderers, that their most horrid deed was an act of public
+opinion, and being so, must not be punished by the laws the
+public sentiment had made.&nbsp; Public opinion hailed this
+doctrine with a howl of wild applause, and set the prisoners
+free, to walk the city, men of mark, and influence, and station,
+as they had been before.</p>
+<p>Public opinion! what class of men have an immense
+preponderance over the rest of the community, in their power of
+representing public opinion in the legislature? the
+slave-owners.&nbsp; They send from their twelve States one
+hundred members, while the fourteen free States, with a free
+population nearly double, return but a hundred and
+forty-two.&nbsp; Before whom do the presidential candidates bow
+down the most humbly, on whom do they fawn the most fondly, and
+for whose tastes do they cater the most assiduously in their
+servile protestations?&nbsp; The slave-owners always.</p>
+<p>Public opinion! hear the public opinion of the free South, as
+expressed by its own members in the House of Representatives at
+Washington.&nbsp; &lsquo;I have a great respect for the
+chair,&rsquo; quoth North Carolina, &lsquo;I have a great respect
+for the chair as an officer of the house, and a great respect for
+him personally; nothing but that respect prevents me from rushing
+to the table and tearing that petition which has just been
+presented for the abolition of slavery in the district of
+Columbia, to pieces.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;I warn the
+abolitionists,&rsquo; says South Carolina, &lsquo;ignorant,
+infuriated barbarians as they are, that if chance shall throw any
+of them into our hands, he may expect a felon&rsquo;s
+death.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Let an abolitionist come within the
+borders of South Carolina,&rsquo; cries a third; mild
+Carolina&rsquo;s colleague; &lsquo;and if we can catch him, we
+will try him, and notwithstanding the interference of all the
+governments on earth, including the Federal government, we will
+<span class="smcap">hang</span> him.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Public opinion has made this law.&mdash;It has declared that
+in Washington, in that city which takes its name from the father
+of American liberty, any justice of the peace may bind with
+fetters any negro passing down the street and thrust him into
+jail: no offence on the black man&rsquo;s part is
+necessary.&nbsp; The justice says, &lsquo;I choose to think this
+man a runaway:&rsquo; and locks him up.&nbsp; Public opinion
+impowers the man of law when this is done, to advertise the negro
+in the newspapers, warning his owner to come and claim him, or he
+will be sold to pay the jail fees.&nbsp; But supposing he is a
+free black, and has no owner, it may naturally be presumed that
+he is set at liberty.&nbsp; No: <span class="smcap">he is sold to
+recompense his jailer</span>.&nbsp; This has been done again, and
+again, and again.&nbsp; He has no means of proving his freedom;
+has no adviser, messenger, or assistance of any sort or kind; no
+investigation into his case is made, or inquiry instituted.&nbsp;
+He, a free man, who may have served for years, and bought his
+liberty, is thrown into jail on no process, for no crime, and on
+no pretence of crime: and is sold to pay the jail fees.&nbsp;
+This seems incredible, even of America, but it is the law.</p>
+<p>Public opinion is deferred to, in such cases as the following:
+which is headed in the newspapers:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">&lsquo;<i>Interesting
+Law-Case</i>.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;An interesting case is now on trial in the Supreme
+Court, arising out of the following facts.&nbsp; A gentleman
+residing in Maryland had allowed an aged pair of his slaves,
+substantial though not legal freedom for several years.&nbsp;
+While thus living, a daughter was born to them, who grew up in
+the same liberty, until she married a free negro, and went with
+him to reside in Pennsylvania.&nbsp; They had several children,
+and lived unmolested until the original owner died, when his heir
+attempted to regain them; but the magistrate before whom they
+were brought, decided that he had no jurisdiction in the
+case.&nbsp; <i>The owner seized the woman and her children in the
+night</i>, <i>and carried them to Maryland</i>.&rsquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>&lsquo;Cash for negroes,&rsquo; &lsquo;cash for
+negroes,&rsquo; &lsquo;cash for negroes,&rsquo; is the heading of
+advertisements in great capitals down the long columns of the
+crowded journals.&nbsp; Woodcuts of a runaway negro with manacled
+hands, crouching beneath a bluff pursuer in top boots, who,
+having caught him, grasps him by the throat, agreeably diversify
+the pleasant text.&nbsp; The leading article protests against
+&lsquo;that abominable and hellish doctrine of abolition, which
+is repugnant alike to every law of God and nature.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+The delicate mamma, who smiles her acquiescence in this sprightly
+writing as she reads the paper in her cool piazza, quiets her
+youngest child who clings about her skirts, by promising the boy
+&lsquo;a whip to beat the little niggers with.&rsquo;&mdash;But
+the negroes, little and big, are protected by public opinion.</p>
+<p>Let us try this public opinion by another test, which is
+important in three points of view: first, as showing how
+desperately timid of the public opinion slave-owners are, in
+their delicate descriptions of fugitive slaves in widely
+circulated newspapers; secondly, as showing how perfectly
+contented the slaves are, and how very seldom they run away;
+thirdly, as exhibiting their entire freedom from scar, or
+blemish, or any mark of cruel infliction, as their pictures are
+drawn, not by lying abolitionists, but by their own truthful
+masters.</p>
+<p>The following are a few specimens of the advertisements in the
+public papers.&nbsp; It is only four years since the oldest among
+them appeared; and others of the same nature continue to be
+published every day, in shoals.</p>
+<blockquote><p>&lsquo;Ran away, Negress Caroline.&nbsp; Had on a
+collar with one prong turned down.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Ran away, a black woman, Betsy.&nbsp; Had an iron bar
+on her right leg.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Ran away, the negro Manuel.&nbsp; Much marked with
+irons.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Ran away, the negress Fanny.&nbsp; Had on an iron band
+about her neck.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Ran away, a negro boy about twelve years old.&nbsp; Had
+round his neck a chain dog-collar with &ldquo;De Lampert&rdquo;
+engraved on it.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Ran away, the negro Hown.&nbsp; Has a ring of iron on
+his left foot.&nbsp; Also, Grise, <i>his wife</i>, having a ring
+and chain on the left leg.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Ran away, a negro boy named James.&nbsp; Said boy was
+ironed when he left me.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Committed to jail, a man who calls his name John.&nbsp;
+He has a clog of iron on his right foot which will weigh four or
+five pounds.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Detained at the police jail, the negro wench,
+Myra.&nbsp; Has several marks of <span
+class="smcap">lashing</span>, and has irons on her
+feet.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Ran away, a negro woman and two children.&nbsp; A few
+days before she went off, I burnt her with a hot iron, on the
+left side of her face.&nbsp; I tried to make the letter
+M.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Ran away, a negro man named Henry; his left eye out,
+some scars from a dirk on and under his left arm, and much
+scarred with the whip.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;One hundred dollars reward, for a negro fellow, Pompey,
+40 years old.&nbsp; He is branded on the left jaw.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Committed to jail, a negro man.&nbsp; Has no toes on
+the left foot.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Ran away, a negro woman named Rachel.&nbsp; Has lost
+all her toes except the large one.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Ran away, Sam.&nbsp; He was shot a short time since
+through the hand, and has several shots in his left arm and
+side.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Ran away, my negro man Dennis.&nbsp; Said negro has
+been shot in the left arm between the shoulder and elbow, which
+has paralysed the left hand.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Ran away, my negro man named Simon.&nbsp; He has been
+shot badly, in his back and right arm.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Ran away, a negro named Arthur.&nbsp; Has a
+considerable scar across his breast and each arm, made by a
+knife; loves to talk much of the goodness of God.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Twenty-five dollars reward for my man Isaac.&nbsp; He
+has a scar on his forehead, caused by a blow; and one on his
+back, made by a shot from a pistol.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Ran away, a negro girl called Mary.&nbsp; Has a small
+scar over her eye, a good many teeth missing, the letter A is
+branded on her cheek and forehead.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Ran away, negro Ben.&nbsp; Has a scar on his right
+hand; his thumb and forefinger being injured by being shot last
+fall.&nbsp; A part of the bone came out.&nbsp; He has also one or
+two large scars on his back and hips.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Detained at the jail, a mulatto, named Tom.&nbsp; Has a
+scar on the right cheek, and appears to have been burned with
+powder on the face.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Ran away, a negro man named Ned.&nbsp; Three of his
+fingers are drawn into the palm of his hand by a cut.&nbsp; Has a
+scar on the back of his neck, nearly half round, done by a
+knife.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Was committed to jail, a negro man.&nbsp; Says his name
+is Josiah.&nbsp; His back very much scarred by the whip; and
+branded on the thigh and hips in three or four places, thus (J
+M).&nbsp; The rim of his right ear has been bit or cut
+off.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Fifty dollars reward, for my fellow Edward.&nbsp; He
+has a scar on the corner of his mouth, two cuts on and under his
+arm, and the letter E on his arm.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Ran away, negro boy Ellie.&nbsp; Has a scar on one of
+his arms from the bite of a dog.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Ran away, from the plantation of James Surgette, the
+following negroes: Randal, has one ear cropped; Bob, has lost one
+eye; Kentucky Tom, has one jaw broken.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Ran away, Anthony.&nbsp; One of his ears cut off, and
+his left hand cut with an axe.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Fifty dollars reward for the negro Jim Blake.&nbsp; Has
+a piece cut out of each ear, and the middle finger of the left
+hand cut off to the second joint.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Ran away, a negro woman named Maria.&nbsp; Has a scar
+on one side of her cheek, by a cut.&nbsp; Some scars on her
+back.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Ran away, the Mulatto wench Mary.&nbsp; Has a cut on
+the left arm, a scar on the left shoulder, and two upper teeth
+missing.&rsquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>I should say, perhaps, in explanation of this latter piece of
+description, that among the other blessings which public opinion
+secures to the negroes, is the common practice of violently
+punching out their teeth.&nbsp; To make them wear iron collars by
+day and night, and to worry them with dogs, are practices almost
+too ordinary to deserve mention.</p>
+<blockquote><p>&lsquo;Ran away, my man Fountain.&nbsp; Has holes
+in his ears, a scar on the right side of his forehead, has been
+shot in the hind part of his legs, and is marked on the back with
+the whip.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Two hundred and fifty dollars reward for my negro man
+Jim.&nbsp; He is much marked with shot in his right thigh.&nbsp;
+The shot entered on the outside, halfway between the hip and knee
+joints.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Brought to jail, John.&nbsp; Left ear cropt.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Taken up, a negro man.&nbsp; Is very much scarred about
+the face and body, and has the left ear bit off.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Ran away, a black girl, named Mary.&nbsp; Has a scar on
+her cheek, and the end of one of her toes cut off.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Ran away, my Mulatto woman, Judy.&nbsp; She has had her
+right arm broke.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Ran away, my negro man, Levi.&nbsp; His left hand has
+been burnt, and I think the end of his forefinger is
+off.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Ran away, a negro man, <span class="smcap">named
+Washington</span>.&nbsp; Has lost a part of his middle finger,
+and the end of his little finger.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Twenty-five dollars reward for my man John.&nbsp; The
+tip of his nose is bit off.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Twenty-five dollars reward for the negro slave,
+Sally.&nbsp; Walks <i>as though</i> crippled in the
+back.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Ran away, Joe Dennis.&nbsp; Has a small notch in one of
+his ears.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Ran away, negro boy, Jack.&nbsp; Has a small crop out
+of his left ear.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Ran away, a negro man, named Ivory.&nbsp; Has a small
+piece cut out of the top of each ear.&rsquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>While upon the subject of ears, I may observe that a
+distinguished abolitionist in New York once received a
+negro&rsquo;s ear, which had been cut off close to the head, in a
+general post letter.&nbsp; It was forwarded by the free and
+independent gentleman who had caused it to be amputated, with a
+polite request that he would place the specimen in his
+&lsquo;collection.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>I could enlarge this catalogue with broken arms, and broken
+legs, and gashed flesh, and missing teeth, and lacerated backs,
+and bites of dogs, and brands of red-hot irons innumerable: but
+as my readers will be sufficiently sickened and repelled already,
+I will turn to another branch of the subject.</p>
+<p>These advertisements, of which a similar collection might be
+made for every year, and month, and week, and day; and which are
+coolly read in families as things of course, and as a part of the
+current news and small-talk; will serve to show how very much the
+slaves profit by public opinion, and how tender it is in their
+behalf.&nbsp; But it may be worth while to inquire how the
+slave-owners, and the class of society to which great numbers of
+them belong, defer to public opinion in their conduct, not to
+their slaves but to each other; how they are accustomed to
+restrain their passions; what their bearing is among themselves;
+whether they are fierce or gentle; whether their social customs
+be brutal, sanguinary, and violent, or bear the impress of
+civilisation and refinement.</p>
+<p>That we may have no partial evidence from abolitionists in
+this inquiry, either, I will once more turn to their own
+newspapers, and I will confine myself, this time, to a selection
+from paragraphs which appeared from day to day, during my visit
+to America, and which refer to occurrences happening while I was
+there.&nbsp; The italics in these extracts, as in the foregoing,
+are my own.</p>
+<p>These cases did not <span class="smcap">all</span> occur, it
+will be seen, in territory actually belonging to legalised Slave
+States, though most, and those the very worst among them did, as
+their counterparts constantly do; but the position of the scenes
+of action in reference to places immediately at hand, where
+slavery is the law; and the strong resemblance between that class
+of outrages and the rest; lead to the just presumption that the
+character of the parties concerned was formed in slave districts,
+and brutalised by slave customs.</p>
+<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">&lsquo;<i>Horrible
+Tragedy</i>.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;By a slip from <i>The Southport Telegraph</i>,
+Wisconsin, we learn that the Hon. Charles C. P. Arndt, Member of
+the Council for Brown county, was shot dead <i>on the floor of
+the Council chamber</i>, by James R. Vinyard, Member from Grant
+county.&nbsp; <i>The affair</i> grew out of a nomination for
+Sheriff of Grant county.&nbsp; Mr. E. S. Baker was nominated and
+supported by Mr. Arndt.&nbsp; This nomination was opposed by
+Vinyard, who wanted the appointment to vest in his own
+brother.&nbsp; In the course of debate, the deceased made some
+statements which Vinyard pronounced false, and made use of
+violent and insulting language, dealing largely in personalities,
+to which Mr. A. made no reply.&nbsp; After the adjournment, Mr.
+A. stepped up to Vinyard, and requested him to retract, which he
+refused to do, repeating the offensive words.&nbsp; Mr. Arndt
+then made a blow at Vinyard, who stepped back a pace, drew a
+pistol, and shot him dead.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;The issue appears to have been provoked on the part of
+Vinyard, who was determined at all hazards to defeat the
+appointment of Baker, and who, himself defeated, turned his ire
+and revenge upon the unfortunate Arndt.&rsquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">&lsquo;<i>The Wisconsin
+Tragedy</i>.</p>
+<p>Public indignation runs high in the territory of Wisconsin, in
+relation to the murder of C. C. P. Arndt, in the Legislative Hall
+of the Territory.&nbsp; Meetings have been held in different
+counties of Wisconsin, denouncing <i>the practice of secretly
+bearing arms in the Legislative chambers of the
+country</i>.&nbsp; We have seen the account of the expulsion of
+James R. Vinyard, the perpetrator of the bloody deed, and are
+amazed to hear, that, after this expulsion by those who saw
+Vinyard kill Mr. Arndt in the presence of his aged father, who
+was on a visit to see his son, little dreaming that he was to
+witness his murder, <i>Judge Dunn has discharged Vinyard on
+bail</i>.&nbsp; The Miners&rsquo; Free Press speaks <i>in terms
+of merited rebuke</i> at the outrage upon the feelings of the
+people of Wisconsin.&nbsp; Vinyard was within arm&rsquo;s length
+of Mr. Arndt, when he took such deadly aim at him, that he never
+spoke.&nbsp; Vinyard might at pleasure, being so near, have only
+wounded him, but he chose to kill him.&rsquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">&lsquo;<i>Murder</i>.</p>
+<p>By a letter in a St. Louis paper of the &lsquo;4th, we notice
+a terrible outrage at Burlington, Iowa.&nbsp; A Mr. Bridgman
+having had a difficulty with a citizen of the place, Mr. Ross; a
+brother-in-law of the latter provided himself with one of
+Colt&rsquo;s revolving pistols, met Mr. B. in the street, <i>and
+discharged the contents of five of the barrels at him</i>:
+<i>each shot taking effect</i>.&nbsp; Mr. B., though horribly
+wounded, and dying, returned the fire, and killed Ross on the
+spot.&rsquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">&lsquo;<i>Terrible Death of Robert
+Potter</i>.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;From the &ldquo;Caddo Gazette,&rdquo; of the 12th
+inst., we learn the frightful death of Colonel Robert Potter. . .
+. He was beset in his house by an enemy, named Rose.&nbsp; He
+sprang from his couch, seized his gun, and, in his night-clothes,
+rushed from the house.&nbsp; For about two hundred yards his
+speed seemed to defy his pursuers; but, getting entangled in a
+thicket, he was captured.&nbsp; Rose told him <i>that he intended
+to act a generous part</i>, and give him a chance for his
+life.&nbsp; He then told Potter he might run, and he should not
+be interrupted till he reached a certain distance.&nbsp; Potter
+started at the word of command, and before a gun was fired he had
+reached the lake.&nbsp; His first impulse was to jump in the
+water and dive for it, which he did.&nbsp; Rose was close behind
+him, and formed his men on the bank ready to shoot him as he
+rose.&nbsp; In a few seconds he came up to breathe; and scarce
+had his head reached the surface of the water when it was
+completely riddled with the shot of their guns, and he sunk, to
+rise no more!&rsquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">&lsquo;<i>Murder in
+Arkansas</i>.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;We understand <i>that a severe rencontre came off</i> a
+few days since in the Seneca Nation, between Mr. Loose, the
+sub-agent of the mixed band of the Senecas, Quapaw, and Shawnees,
+and Mr. James Gillespie, of the mercantile firm of Thomas G.
+Allison and Co., of Maysville, Benton, County Ark, in which the
+latter was slain with a bowie-knife.&nbsp; Some difficulty had
+for some time existed between the parties.&nbsp; It is said that
+Major Gillespie brought on the attack with a cane.&nbsp; A severe
+conflict ensued, during which two pistols were fired by Gillespie
+and one by Loose.&nbsp; Loose then stabbed Gillespie with one of
+those never-failing weapons, a bowie-knife.&nbsp; The death of
+Major G. is much regretted, as he was a liberal-minded and
+energetic man.&nbsp; Since the above was in type, we have learned
+that Major Allison has stated to some of our citizens in town
+that Mr. Loose gave the first blow.&nbsp; We forbear to give any
+particulars, as <i>the matter will be the subject of judicial
+investigation</i>.&rsquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">&lsquo;<i>Foul Deed</i>.</p>
+<p>The steamer Thames, just from Missouri river, brought us a
+handbill, offering a reward of 500 dollars, for the person who
+assassinated Lilburn W. Baggs, late Governor of this State, at
+Independence, on the night of the 6th inst.&nbsp; Governor Baggs,
+it is stated in a written memorandum, was not dead, but mortally
+wounded.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Since the above was written, we received a note from
+the clerk of the Thames, giving the following particulars.&nbsp;
+Gov. Baggs was shot by some villain on Friday, 6th inst., in the
+evening, while sitting in a room in his own house in
+Independence.&nbsp; His son, a boy, hearing a report, ran into
+the room, and found the Governor sitting in his chair, with his
+jaw fallen down, and his head leaning back; on discovering the
+injury done to his father, he gave the alarm.&nbsp; Foot tracks
+were found in the garden below the window, and a pistol picked up
+supposed to have been overloaded, and thrown from the hand of the
+scoundrel who fired it.&nbsp; Three buck shots of a heavy load,
+took effect; one going through his mouth, one into the brain, and
+another probably in or near the brain; all going into the back
+part of the neck and head.&nbsp; The Governor was still alive on
+the morning of the 7th; but no hopes for his recovery by his
+friends, and but slight hopes from his physicians.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;A man was suspected, and the Sheriff most probably has
+possession of him by this time.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;The pistol was one of a pair stolen some days previous
+from a baker in Independence, and the legal authorities have the
+description of the other.&rsquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">&lsquo;<i>Rencontre</i>.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;An unfortunate <i>affair</i> took place on Friday
+evening in Chatres Street, in which one of our most respectable
+citizens received a dangerous wound, from a poignard, in the
+abdomen.&nbsp; From the Bee (New Orleans) of yesterday, we learn
+the following particulars.&nbsp; It appears that an article was
+published in the French side of the paper on Monday last,
+containing some strictures on the Artillery Battalion for firing
+their guns on Sunday morning, in answer to those from the Ontario
+and Woodbury, and thereby much alarm was caused to the families
+of those persons who were out all night preserving the peace of
+the city.&nbsp; Major C. Gally, Commander of the battalion,
+resenting this, called at the office and demanded the
+author&rsquo;s name; that of Mr. P. Arpin was given to him, who
+was absent at the time.&nbsp; Some angry words then passed with
+one of the proprietors, and a challenge followed; the friends of
+both parties tried to arrange the affair, but failed to do
+so.&nbsp; On Friday evening, about seven o&rsquo;clock, Major
+Gally met Mr. P. Arpin in Chatres Street, and accosted him.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Are you Mr. Arpin?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;&ldquo;Yes, sir.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;&ldquo;Then I have to tell you that you are
+a&mdash;&rdquo; (applying an appropriate epithet).</p>
+<p>&lsquo;&ldquo;I shall remind you of your words,
+sir.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;&ldquo;But I have said I would break my cane on your
+shoulders.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;&ldquo;I know it, but I have not yet received the
+blow.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;At these words, Major Gally, having a cane in his
+hands, struck Mr. Arpin across the face, and the latter drew a
+poignard from his pocket and stabbed Major Gally in the
+abdomen.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Fears are entertained that the wound will be
+mortal.&nbsp; <i>We understand that Mr. Arpin has given security
+for his appearance at the Criminal Court to answer the
+charge</i>.&rsquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">&lsquo;<i>Affray in
+Mississippi</i>.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;On the 27th ult., in an affray near Carthage, Leake
+county, Mississippi, between James Cottingham and John Wilburn,
+the latter was shot by the former, and so horribly wounded, that
+there was no hope of his recovery.&nbsp; On the 2nd instant,
+there was an affray at Carthage between A. C. Sharkey and George
+Goff, in which the latter was shot, and thought mortally
+wounded.&nbsp; Sharkey delivered himself up to the authorities,
+<i>but changed his mind and escaped</i>!&rsquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">&lsquo;<i>Personal
+Encounter</i>.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;An encounter took place in Sparta, a few days since,
+between the barkeeper of an hotel, and a man named Bury.&nbsp; It
+appears that Bury had become somewhat noisy, <i>and that the
+barkeeper</i>, <i>determined to preserve order</i>, <i>had
+threatened to shoot Bury</i>, whereupon Bury drew a pistol and
+shot the barkeeper down.&nbsp; He was not dead at the last
+accounts, but slight hopes were entertained of his
+recovery.&rsquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">&lsquo;<i>Duel</i>.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;The clerk of the steamboat <i>Tribune</i> informs us
+that another duel was fought on Tuesday last, by Mr. Robbins, a
+bank officer in Vicksburg, and Mr. Fall, the editor of the
+Vicksburg Sentinel.&nbsp; According to the arrangement, the
+parties had six pistols each, which, after the word
+&ldquo;Fire!&rdquo; <i>they were to discharge as fast as they
+pleased</i>.&nbsp; Fall fired two pistols without effect.&nbsp;
+Mr. Robbins&rsquo; first shot took effect in Fall&rsquo;s thigh,
+who fell, and was unable to continue the combat.&rsquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">&lsquo;<i>Affray in Clarke
+County</i>.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;An <i>unfortunate affray</i> occurred in Clarke county
+(<span class="smcap">Mo</span>.), near Waterloo, on Tuesday the
+19th ult., which originated in settling the partnership concerns
+of Messrs. M&lsquo;Kane and M&lsquo;Allister, who had been
+engaged in the business of distilling, and resulted in the death
+of the latter, who was shot down by Mr. M&lsquo;Kane, because of
+his attempting to take possession of seven barrels of whiskey,
+the property of M&lsquo;Kane, which had been knocked off to
+M&lsquo;Allister at a sheriff&rsquo;s sale at one dollar per
+barrel.&nbsp; M&lsquo;Kane immediately fled <i>and at the latest
+dates had not been taken</i>.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;<i>This unfortunate affray</i> caused considerable
+excitement in the neighbourhood, as both the parties were men
+with large families depending upon them and stood well in the
+community.&rsquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>I will quote but one more paragraph, which, by reason of its
+monstrous absurdity, may be a relief to these atrocious
+deeds.</p>
+<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">&lsquo;<i>Affair of
+Honour</i>.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;We have just heard the particulars of a meeting which
+took place on Six Mile Island, on Tuesday, between two young
+bloods of our city: Samuel Thurston, <i>aged fifteen</i>, and
+William Hine, <i>aged thirteen</i> years.&nbsp; They were
+attended by young gentlemen of the same age.&nbsp; The weapons
+used on the occasion, were a couple of Dickson&rsquo;s best
+rifles; the distance, thirty yards.&nbsp; They took one fire,
+without any damage being sustained by either party, except the
+ball of Thurston&rsquo;s gun passing through the crown of
+Hine&rsquo;s hat.&nbsp; <i>Through the intercession of the Board
+of Honour</i>, the challenge was withdrawn, and the difference
+amicably adjusted.&rsquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>If the reader will picture to himself the kind of Board of
+Honour which amicably adjusted the difference between these two
+little boys, who in any other part of the world would have been
+amicably adjusted on two porters&rsquo; backs and soundly flogged
+with birchen rods, he will be possessed, no doubt, with as strong
+a sense of its ludicrous character, as that which sets me
+laughing whenever its image rises up before me.</p>
+<p>Now, I appeal to every human mind, imbued with the commonest
+of common sense, and the commonest of common humanity; to all
+dispassionate, reasoning creatures, of any shade of opinion; and
+ask, with these revolting evidences of the state of society which
+exists in and about the slave districts of America before them,
+can they have a doubt of the real condition of the slave, or can
+they for a moment make a compromise between the institution or
+any of its flagrant, fearful features, and their own just
+consciences? Will they say of any tale of cruelty and horror,
+however aggravated in degree, that it is improbable, when they
+can turn to the public prints, and, running, read such signs as
+these, laid before them by the men who rule the slaves: in their
+own acts and under their own hands?</p>
+<p>Do we not know that the worst deformity and ugliness of
+slavery are at once the cause and the effect of the reckless
+license taken by these freeborn outlaws?&nbsp; Do we not know
+that the man who has been born and bred among its wrongs; who has
+seen in his childhood husbands obliged at the word of command to
+flog their wives; women, indecently compelled to hold up their
+own garments that men might lay the heavier stripes upon their
+legs, driven and harried by brutal overseers in their time of
+travail, and becoming mothers on the field of toil, under the
+very lash itself; who has read in youth, and seen his virgin
+sisters read, descriptions of runaway men and women, and their
+disfigured persons, which could not be published elsewhere, of so
+much stock upon a farm, or at a show of beasts:&mdash;do we not
+know that that man, whenever his wrath is kindled up, will be a
+brutal savage?&nbsp; Do we not know that as he is a coward in his
+domestic life, stalking among his shrinking men and women slaves
+armed with his heavy whip, so he will be a coward out of doors,
+and carrying cowards&rsquo; weapons hidden in his breast, will
+shoot men down and stab them when he quarrels?&nbsp; And if our
+reason did not teach us this and much beyond; if we were such
+idiots as to close our eyes to that fine mode of training which
+rears up such men; should we not know that they who among their
+equals stab and pistol in the legislative halls, and in the
+counting-house, and on the marketplace, and in all the elsewhere
+peaceful pursuits of life, must be to their dependants, even
+though they were free servants, so many merciless and unrelenting
+tyrants?</p>
+<p>What! shall we declaim against the ignorant peasantry of
+Ireland, and mince the matter when these American taskmasters are
+in question?&nbsp; Shall we cry shame on the brutality of those
+who hamstring cattle: and spare the lights of Freedom upon earth
+who notch the ears of men and women, cut pleasant posies in the
+shrinking flesh, learn to write with pens of red-hot iron on the
+human face, rack their poetic fancies for liveries of mutilation
+which their slaves shall wear for life and carry to the grave,
+breaking living limbs as did the soldiery who mocked and slew the
+Saviour of the world, and set defenceless creatures up for
+targets! Shall we whimper over legends of the tortures practised
+on each other by the Pagan Indians, and smile upon the cruelties
+of Christian men!&nbsp; Shall we, so long as these things last,
+exult above the scattered remnants of that race, and triumph in
+the white enjoyment of their possessions?&nbsp; Rather, for me,
+restore the forest and the Indian village; in lieu of stars and
+stripes, let some poor feather flutter in the breeze; replace the
+streets and squares by wigwams; and though the death-song of a
+hundred haughty warriors fill the air, it will be music to the
+shriek of one unhappy slave.</p>
+<p>On one theme, which is commonly before our eyes, and in
+respect of which our national character is changing fast, let the
+plain Truth be spoken, and let us not, like dastards, beat about
+the bush by hinting at the Spaniard and the fierce Italian.&nbsp;
+When knives are drawn by Englishmen in conflict let it be said
+and known: &lsquo;We owe this change to Republican Slavery.&nbsp;
+These are the weapons of Freedom.&nbsp; With sharp points and
+edges such as these, Liberty in America hews and hacks her
+slaves; or, failing that pursuit, her sons devote them to a
+better use, and turn them on each other.&rsquo;</p>
+<h2><a name="page202"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+202</span>CHAPTER XVIII<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">CONCLUDING REMARKS</span></h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">There</span> are many passages in this
+book, where I have been at some pains to resist the temptation of
+troubling my readers with my own deductions and conclusions:
+preferring that they should judge for themselves, from such
+premises as I have laid before them.&nbsp; My only object in the
+outset, was, to carry them with me faithfully wheresoever I went:
+and that task I have discharged.</p>
+<p>But I may be pardoned, if on such a theme as the general
+character of the American people, and the general character of
+their social system, as presented to a stranger&rsquo;s eyes, I
+desire to express my own opinions in a few words, before I bring
+these volumes to a close.</p>
+<p>They are, by nature, frank, brave, cordial, hospitable, and
+affectionate.&nbsp; Cultivation and refinement seem but to
+enhance their warmth of heart and ardent enthusiasm; and it is
+the possession of these latter qualities in a most remarkable
+degree, which renders an educated American one of the most
+endearing and most generous of friends.&nbsp; I never was so won
+upon, as by this class; never yielded up my full confidence and
+esteem so readily and pleasurably, as to them; never can make
+again, in half a year, so many friends for whom I seem to
+entertain the regard of half a life.</p>
+<p>These qualities are natural, I implicitly believe, to the
+whole people.&nbsp; That they are, however, sadly sapped and
+blighted in their growth among the mass; and that there are
+influences at work which endanger them still more, and give but
+little present promise of their healthy restoration; is a truth
+that ought to be told.</p>
+<p>It is an essential part of every national character to pique
+itself mightily upon its faults, and to deduce tokens of its
+virtue or its wisdom from their very exaggeration.&nbsp; One
+great blemish in the popular mind of America, and the prolific
+parent of an innumerable brood of evils, is Universal
+Distrust.&nbsp; Yet the American citizen plumes himself upon this
+spirit, even when he is sufficiently dispassionate to perceive
+the ruin it works; and will often adduce it, in spite of his own
+reason, as an instance of the great sagacity and acuteness of the
+people, and their superior shrewdness and independence.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;You carry,&rsquo; says the stranger, &lsquo;this
+jealousy and distrust into every transaction of public
+life.&nbsp; By repelling worthy men from your legislative
+assemblies, it has bred up a class of candidates for the
+suffrage, who, in their very act, disgrace your Institutions and
+your people&rsquo;s choice.&nbsp; It has rendered you so fickle,
+and so given to change, that your inconstancy has passed into a
+proverb; for you no sooner set up an idol firmly, than you are
+sure to pull it down and dash it into fragments: and this,
+because directly you reward a benefactor, or a public servant,
+you distrust him, merely because he is rewarded; and immediately
+apply yourselves to find out, either that you have been too
+bountiful in your acknowledgments, or he remiss in his
+deserts.&nbsp; Any man who attains a high place among you, from
+the President downwards, may date his downfall from that moment;
+for any printed lie that any notorious villain pens, although it
+militate directly against the character and conduct of a life,
+appeals at once to your distrust, and is believed.&nbsp; You will
+strain at a gnat in the way of trustfulness and confidence,
+however fairly won and well deserved; but you will swallow a
+whole caravan of camels, if they be laden with unworthy doubts
+and mean suspicions.&nbsp; Is this well, think you, or likely to
+elevate the character of the governors or the governed, among
+you?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>The answer is invariably the same: &lsquo;There&rsquo;s
+freedom of opinion here, you know.&nbsp; Every man thinks for
+himself, and we are not to be easily overreached.&nbsp;
+That&rsquo;s how our people come to be suspicious.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Another prominent feature is the love of &lsquo;smart&rsquo;
+dealing: which gilds over many a swindle and gross breach of
+trust; many a defalcation, public and private; and enables many a
+knave to hold his head up with the best, who well deserves a
+halter; though it has not been without its retributive operation,
+for this smartness has done more in a few years to impair the
+public credit, and to cripple the public resources, than dull
+honesty, however rash, could have effected in a century.&nbsp;
+The merits of a broken speculation, or a bankruptcy, or of a
+successful scoundrel, are not gauged by its or his observance of
+the golden rule, &lsquo;Do as you would be done by,&rsquo; but
+are considered with reference to their smartness.&nbsp; I
+recollect, on both occasions of our passing that ill-fated Cairo
+on the Mississippi, remarking on the bad effects such gross
+deceits must have when they exploded, in generating a want of
+confidence abroad, and discouraging foreign investment: but I was
+given to understand that this was a very smart scheme by which a
+deal of money had been made: and that its smartest feature was,
+that they forgot these things abroad, in a very short time, and
+speculated again, as freely as ever.&nbsp; The following dialogue
+I have held a hundred times: &lsquo;Is it not a very disgraceful
+circumstance that such a man as So-and-so should be acquiring a
+large property by the most infamous and odious means, and
+notwithstanding all the crimes of which he has been guilty,
+should be tolerated and abetted by your Citizens?&nbsp; He is a
+public nuisance, is he not?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Yes,
+sir.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;A convicted liar?&rsquo;&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Yes, sir.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;He has been kicked, and
+cuffed, and caned?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Yes, sir.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+&lsquo;And he is utterly dishonourable, debased, and
+profligate?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Yes, sir.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;In
+the name of wonder, then, what is his merit?&rsquo;&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Well, sir, he is a smart man.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>In like manner, all kinds of deficient and impolitic usages
+are referred to the national love of trade; though, oddly enough,
+it would be a weighty charge against a foreigner that he regarded
+the Americans as a trading people.&nbsp; The love of trade is
+assigned as a reason for that comfortless custom, so very
+prevalent in country towns, of married persons living in hotels,
+having no fireside of their own, and seldom meeting from early
+morning until late at night, but at the hasty public meals.&nbsp;
+The love of trade is a reason why the literature of America is to
+remain for ever unprotected &lsquo;For we are a trading people,
+and don&rsquo;t care for poetry:&rsquo; though we <i>do</i>, by
+the way, profess to be very proud of our poets: while healthful
+amusements, cheerful means of recreation, and wholesome fancies,
+must fade before the stern utilitarian joys of trade.</p>
+<p>These three characteristics are strongly presented at every
+turn, full in the stranger&rsquo;s view.&nbsp; But, the foul
+growth of America has a more tangled root than this; and it
+strikes its fibres, deep in its licentious Press.</p>
+<p>Schools may be erected, East, West, North, and South; pupils
+be taught, and masters reared, by scores upon scores of
+thousands; colleges may thrive, churches may be crammed,
+temperance may be diffused, and advancing knowledge in all other
+forms walk through the land with giant strides: but while the
+newspaper press of America is in, or near, its present abject
+state, high moral improvement in that country is hopeless.&nbsp;
+Year by year, it must and will go back; year by year, the tone of
+public feeling must sink lower down; year by year, the Congress
+and the Senate must become of less account before all decent men;
+and year by year, the memory of the Great Fathers of the
+Revolution must be outraged more and more, in the bad life of
+their degenerate child.</p>
+<p>Among the herd of journals which are published in the States,
+there are some, the reader scarcely need be told, of character
+and credit.&nbsp; From personal intercourse with accomplished
+gentlemen connected with publications of this class, I have
+derived both pleasure and profit.&nbsp; But the name of these is
+Few, and of the others Legion; and the influence of the good, is
+powerless to counteract the moral poison of the bad.</p>
+<p>Among the gentry of America; among the well-informed and
+moderate: in the learned professions; at the bar and on the
+bench: there is, as there can be, but one opinion, in reference
+to the vicious character of these infamous journals.&nbsp; It is
+sometimes contended&mdash;I will not say strangely, for it is
+natural to seek excuses for such a disgrace&mdash;that their
+influence is not so great as a visitor would suppose.&nbsp; I
+must be pardoned for saying that there is no warrant for this
+plea, and that every fact and circumstance tends directly to the
+opposite conclusion.</p>
+<p>When any man, of any grade of desert in intellect or
+character, can climb to any public distinction, no matter what,
+in America, without first grovelling down upon the earth, and
+bending the knee before this monster of depravity; when any
+private excellence is safe from its attacks; when any social
+confidence is left unbroken by it, or any tie of social decency
+and honour is held in the least regard; when any man in that free
+country has freedom of opinion, and presumes to think for
+himself, and speak for himself, without humble reference to a
+censorship which, for its rampant ignorance and base dishonesty,
+he utterly loathes and despises in his heart; when those who most
+acutely feel its infamy and the reproach it casts upon the
+nation, and who most denounce it to each other, dare to set their
+heels upon, and crush it openly, in the sight of all men: then, I
+will believe that its influence is lessening, and men are
+returning to their manly senses.&nbsp; But while that Press has
+its evil eye in every house, and its black hand in every
+appointment in the state, from a president to a postman; while,
+with ribald slander for its only stock in trade, it is the
+standard literature of an enormous class, who must find their
+reading in a newspaper, or they will not read at all; so long
+must its odium be upon the country&rsquo;s head, and so long must
+the evil it works, be plainly visible in the Republic.</p>
+<p>To those who are accustomed to the leading English journals,
+or to the respectable journals of the Continent of Europe; to
+those who are accustomed to anything else in print and paper; it
+would be impossible, without an amount of extract for which I
+have neither space nor inclination, to convey an adequate idea of
+this frightful engine in America.&nbsp; But if any man desire
+confirmation of my statement on this head, let him repair to any
+place in this city of London, where scattered numbers of these
+publications are to be found; and there, let him form his own
+opinion. <a name="citation206"></a><a href="#footnote206"
+class="citation">[206]</a></p>
+<p>It would be well, there can be no doubt, for the American
+people as a whole, if they loved the Real less, and the Ideal
+somewhat more.&nbsp; It would be well, if there were greater
+encouragement to lightness of heart and gaiety, and a wider
+cultivation of what is beautiful, without being eminently and
+directly useful.&nbsp; But here, I think the general
+remonstrance, &lsquo;we are a new country,&rsquo; which is so
+often advanced as an excuse for defects which are quite
+unjustifiable, as being, of right, only the slow growth of an old
+one, may be very reasonably urged: and I yet hope to hear of
+there being some other national amusement in the United States,
+besides newspaper politics.</p>
+<p>They certainly are not a humorous people, and their
+temperament always impressed me is being of a dull and gloomy
+character.&nbsp; In shrewdness of remark, and a certain cast-iron
+quaintness, the Yankees, or people of New England, unquestionably
+take the lead; as they do in most other evidences of
+intelligence.&nbsp; But in travelling about, out of the large
+cities&mdash;as I have remarked in former parts of these
+volumes&mdash;I was quite oppressed by the prevailing seriousness
+and melancholy air of business: which was so general and
+unvarying, that at every new town I came to, I seemed to meet the
+very same people whom I had left behind me, at the last.&nbsp;
+Such defects as are perceptible in the national manners, seem, to
+me, to be referable, in a great degree, to this cause: which has
+generated a dull, sullen persistence in coarse usages, and
+rejected the graces of life as undeserving of attention.&nbsp;
+There is no doubt that Washington, who was always most scrupulous
+and exact on points of ceremony, perceived the tendency towards
+this mistake, even in his time, and did his utmost to correct
+it.</p>
+<p>I cannot hold with other writers on these subjects that the
+prevalence of various forms of dissent in America, is in any way
+attributable to the non-existence there of an established church:
+indeed, I think the temper of the people, if it admitted of such
+an Institution being founded amongst them, would lead them to
+desert it, as a matter of course, merely because it <i>was</i>
+established.&nbsp; But, supposing it to exist, I doubt its
+probable efficacy in summoning the wandering sheep to one great
+fold, simply because of the immense amount of dissent which
+prevails at home; and because I do not find in America any one
+form of religion with which we in Europe, or even in England, are
+unacquainted.&nbsp; Dissenters resort thither in great numbers,
+as other people do, simply because it is a land of resort; and
+great settlements of them are founded, because ground can be
+purchased, and towns and villages reared, where there were none
+of the human creation before.&nbsp; But even the Shakers
+emigrated from England; our country is not unknown to Mr. Joseph
+Smith, the apostle of Mormonism, or to his benighted disciples; I
+have beheld religious scenes myself in some of our populous towns
+which can hardly be surpassed by an American camp-meeting; and I
+am not aware that any instance of superstitious imposture on the
+one hand, and superstitious credulity on the other, has had its
+origin in the United States, which we cannot more than parallel
+by the precedents of Mrs. Southcote, Mary Tofts the
+rabbit-breeder, or even Mr. Thorn of Canterbury: which latter
+case arose, some time after the dark ages had passed away.</p>
+<p>The Republican Institutions of America undoubtedly lead the
+people to assert their self-respect and their equality; but a
+traveller is bound to bear those Institutions in his mind, and
+not hastily to resent the near approach of a class of strangers,
+who, at home, would keep aloof.&nbsp; This characteristic, when
+it was tinctured with no foolish pride, and stopped short of no
+honest service, never offended me; and I very seldom, if ever,
+experienced its rude or unbecoming display.&nbsp; Once or twice
+it was comically developed, as in the following case; but this
+was an amusing incident, and not the rule, or near it.</p>
+<p>I wanted a pair of boots at a certain town, for I had none to
+travel in, but those with the memorable cork soles, which were
+much too hot for the fiery decks of a steamboat.&nbsp; I
+therefore sent a message to an artist in boots, importing, with
+my compliments, that I should be happy to see him, if he would do
+me the polite favour to call.&nbsp; He very kindly returned for
+answer, that he would &lsquo;look round&rsquo; at six
+o&rsquo;clock that evening.</p>
+<p>I was lying on the sofa, with a book and a wine-glass, at
+about that time, when the door opened, and a gentleman in a stiff
+cravat, within a year or two on either side of thirty, entered,
+in his hat and gloves; walked up to the looking-glass; arranged
+his hair; took off his gloves; slowly produced a measure from the
+uttermost depths of his coat-pocket; and requested me, in a
+languid tone, to &lsquo;unfix&rsquo; my straps.&nbsp; I complied,
+but looked with some curiosity at his hat, which was still upon
+his head.&nbsp; It might have been that, or it might have been
+the heat&mdash;but he took it off.&nbsp; Then, he sat himself
+down on a chair opposite to me; rested an arm on each knee; and,
+leaning forward very much, took from the ground, by a great
+effort, the specimen of metropolitan workmanship which I had just
+pulled off: whistling, pleasantly, as he did so.&nbsp; He turned
+it over and over; surveyed it with a contempt no language can
+express; and inquired if I wished him to fix me a boot like
+<i>that</i>?&nbsp; I courteously replied, that provided the boots
+were large enough, I would leave the rest to him; that if
+convenient and practicable, I should not object to their bearing
+some resemblance to the model then before him; but that I would
+be entirely guided by, and would beg to leave the whole subject
+to, his judgment and discretion. &lsquo;You an&rsquo;t
+partickler, about this scoop in the heel, I suppose then?&rsquo;
+says he: &lsquo;we don&rsquo;t foller that, here.&rsquo;&nbsp; I
+repeated my last observation.&nbsp; He looked at himself in the
+glass again; went closer to it to dash a grain or two of dust out
+of the corner of his eye; and settled his cravat.&nbsp; All this
+time, my leg and foot were in the air.&nbsp; &lsquo;Nearly ready,
+sir?&rsquo; I inquired.&nbsp; &lsquo;Well, pretty nigh,&rsquo; he
+said; &lsquo;keep steady.&rsquo;&nbsp; I kept as steady as I
+could, both in foot and face; and having by this time got the
+dust out, and found his pencil-case, he measured me, and made the
+necessary notes.&nbsp; When he had finished, he fell into his old
+attitude, and taking up the boot again, mused for some
+time.&nbsp; &lsquo;And this,&rsquo; he said, at last, &lsquo;is
+an English boot, is it?&nbsp; This is a London boot,
+eh?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;That, sir,&rsquo; I replied, &lsquo;is a
+London boot.&rsquo;&nbsp; He mused over it again, after the
+manner of Hamlet with Yorick&rsquo;s skull; nodded his head, as
+who should say, &lsquo;I pity the Institutions that led to the
+production of this boot!&rsquo;; rose; put up his pencil, notes,
+and paper&mdash;glancing at himself in the glass, all the
+time&mdash;put on his hat&mdash;drew on his gloves very slowly;
+and finally walked out.&nbsp; When he had been gone about a
+minute, the door reopened, and his hat and his head
+reappeared.&nbsp; He looked round the room, and at the boot
+again, which was still lying on the floor; appeared thoughtful
+for a minute; and then said &lsquo;Well, good
+arternoon.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Good afternoon, sir,&rsquo; said
+I: and that was the end of the interview.</p>
+<p>There is but one other head on which I wish to offer a remark;
+and that has reference to the public health.&nbsp; In so vast a
+country, where there are thousands of millions of acres of land
+yet unsettled and uncleared, and on every rood of which,
+vegetable decomposition is annually taking place; where there are
+so many great rivers, and such opposite varieties of climate;
+there cannot fail to be a great amount of sickness at certain
+seasons.&nbsp; But I may venture to say, after conversing with
+many members of the medical profession in America, that I am not
+singular in the opinion that much of the disease which does
+prevail, might be avoided, if a few common precautions were
+observed.&nbsp; Greater means of personal cleanliness, are
+indispensable to this end; the custom of hastily swallowing large
+quantities of animal food, three times a-day, and rushing back to
+sedentary pursuits after each meal, must be changed; the gentler
+sex must go more wisely clad, and take more healthful exercise;
+and in the latter clause, the males must be included also.&nbsp;
+Above all, in public institutions, and throughout the whole of
+every town and city, the system of ventilation, and drainage, and
+removal of impurities requires to be thoroughly revised.&nbsp;
+There is no local Legislature in America which may not study Mr.
+Chadwick&rsquo;s excellent Report upon the Sanitary Condition of
+our Labouring Classes, with immense advantage.</p>
+<div class="gapshortline">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>I <span class="smcap">have</span> now arrived at the close of
+this book.&nbsp; I have little reason to believe, from certain
+warnings I have had since I returned to England, that it will be
+tenderly or favourably received by the American people; and as I
+have written the Truth in relation to the mass of those who form
+their judgments and express their opinions, it will be seen that
+I have no desire to court, by any adventitious means, the popular
+applause.</p>
+<p>It is enough for me, to know, that what I have set down in
+these pages, cannot cost me a single friend on the other side of
+the Atlantic, who is, in anything, deserving of the name.&nbsp;
+For the rest, I put my trust, implicitly, in the spirit in which
+they have been conceived and penned; and I can bide my time.</p>
+<p>I have made no reference to my reception, nor have I suffered
+it to influence me in what I have written; for, in either case, I
+should have offered but a sorry acknowledgment, compared with
+that I bear within my breast, towards those partial readers of my
+former books, across the Water, who met me with an open hand, and
+not with one that closed upon an iron muzzle.</p>
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">THE
+END</span></p>
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<h2><a name="page210"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+210</span>POSTSCRIPT</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">At</span> a Public Dinner given to me on
+Saturday the 18th of April, 1868, in the City of New York, by two
+hundred representatives of the Press of the United States of
+America, I made the following observations among others:</p>
+<p>&lsquo;So much of my voice has lately been heard in the land,
+that I might have been contented with troubling you no further
+from my present standing-point, were it not a duty with which I
+henceforth charge myself, not only here but on every suitable
+occasion, whatsoever and wheresoever, to express my high and
+grateful sense of my second reception in America, and to bear my
+honest testimony to the national generosity and
+magnanimity.&nbsp; Also, to declare how astounded I have been by
+the amazing changes I have seen around me on every
+side,&mdash;changes moral, changes physical, changes in the
+amount of land subdued and peopled, changes in the rise of vast
+new cities, changes in the growth of older cities almost out of
+recognition, changes in the graces and amenities of life, changes
+in the Press, without whose advancement no advancement can take
+place anywhere.&nbsp; Nor am I, believe me, so arrogant as to
+suppose that in five and twenty years there have been no changes
+in me, and that I had nothing to learn and no extreme impressions
+to correct when I was here first.&nbsp; And this brings me to a
+point on which I have, ever since I landed in the United States
+last November, observed a strict silence, though sometimes
+tempted to break it, but in reference to which I will, with your
+good leave, take you into my confidence now.&nbsp; Even the
+Press, being human, may be sometimes mistaken or misinformed, and
+I rather think that I have in one or two rare instances observed
+its information to be not strictly accurate with reference to
+myself.&nbsp; Indeed, I have, now and again, been more surprised
+by printed news that I have read of myself, than by any printed
+news that I have ever read in my present state of
+existence.&nbsp; Thus, the vigour and perseverance with which I
+have for some months past been collecting materials for, and
+hammering away at, a new book on America has much astonished me;
+seeing that all that time my declaration has been perfectly well
+known to my publishers on both sides of the Atlantic, that no
+consideration on earth would induce me to write one.&nbsp; But
+what I have intended, what I have resolved upon (and this is the
+confidence I seek to place in you) is, on my return to England,
+in my own person, in my own journal, to bear, for the behoof of
+my countrymen, such testimony to the gigantic changes in this
+country as I have hinted at to-night.&nbsp; Also, to record that
+wherever I have been, in the smallest places equally with the
+largest, I have been received with unsurpassable politeness,
+delicacy, sweet temper, hospitality, consideration, and with
+unsurpassable respect for the privacy daily enforced upon me by
+the nature of my avocation here and the state of my health.&nbsp;
+This testimony, so long as I live, and so long as my descendants
+have any legal right in my books, I shall cause to be
+republished, as an appendix to every copy of those two books of
+mine in which I have referred to America.&nbsp; And this I will
+do and cause to be done, not in mere love and thankfulness, but
+because I regard it as an act of plain justice and
+honour.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>I said these words with the greatest earnestness that I could
+lay upon them, and I repeat them in print here with equal
+earnestness.&nbsp; So long as this book shall last, I hope that
+they will form a part of it, and will be fairly read as
+inseparable from my experiences and impressions of America.</p>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Charles
+Dickens</span>.</p>
+<p><i>May</i>, 1868.</p>
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">PRINTED
+BY</span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS,
+LIMITED,</span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">LONDON AND BECCLES.</span></p>
+<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2>
+<p><a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1"
+class="footnote">[1]</a>&nbsp; This Project Gutenberg eText
+contains just <i>American Notes</i>.&nbsp; <i>Pictures from
+Italy</i> is also available from Project Gutenberg as a separate
+eText.&mdash;DP.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote206"></a><a href="#citation206"
+class="footnote">[206]</a>&nbsp; <span class="smcap">Note to the
+Original Edition</span>.&mdash;Or let him refer to an able, and
+perfectly truthful article, in <i>The Foreign Quarterly
+Review</i>, published in the present month of October; to which
+my attention has been attracted, since these sheets have been
+passing through the press.&nbsp; He will find some specimens
+there, by no means remarkable to any man who has been in America,
+but sufficiently striking to one who has not.</p>
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMERICAN NOTES FOR GENERAL
+CIRCULATION***</p>
+<pre>
+
+
+***** This file should be named 675-h.htm or 675-h.zip******
+
+
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/7/675
+
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+  www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at 809
+North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887.  Email
+contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the
+Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:  www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For forty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+</pre></body>
+</html>
diff --git a/675-h/images/fpb.jpg b/675-h/images/fpb.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1fa0c46
--- /dev/null
+++ b/675-h/images/fpb.jpg
diff --git a/675-h/images/fps.jpg b/675-h/images/fps.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5e8b683
--- /dev/null
+++ b/675-h/images/fps.jpg
diff --git a/675-h/images/p112b.jpg b/675-h/images/p112b.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d2ab208
--- /dev/null
+++ b/675-h/images/p112b.jpg
diff --git a/675-h/images/p112s.jpg b/675-h/images/p112s.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ed32847
--- /dev/null
+++ b/675-h/images/p112s.jpg
diff --git a/675-h/images/p144b.jpg b/675-h/images/p144b.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9da05af
--- /dev/null
+++ b/675-h/images/p144b.jpg
diff --git a/675-h/images/p144s.jpg b/675-h/images/p144s.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cff8118
--- /dev/null
+++ b/675-h/images/p144s.jpg
diff --git a/675-h/images/p90b.jpg b/675-h/images/p90b.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7a5a774
--- /dev/null
+++ b/675-h/images/p90b.jpg
diff --git a/675-h/images/p90s.jpg b/675-h/images/p90s.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..77ed169
--- /dev/null
+++ b/675-h/images/p90s.jpg
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..65fb10c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #675 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/675)
diff --git a/old/amnts10.txt b/old/amnts10.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..caa0a82
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/amnts10.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,10887 @@
+The Project Gutenberg Etext of American Notes, by Charles Dickens
+#9 in our series by Charles Dickens
+
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check
+the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!!
+
+Please take a look at the important information in this header.
+We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an
+electronic path open for the next readers.  Do not remove this.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations*
+
+Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and
+further information is included below.  We need your donations.
+
+
+American Notes for General Circulation
+
+by Charles Dickens
+
+October, 1996  [Etext #675]
+[Date last updated: July 28, 2006]
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Etext of American Notes, by Charles Dickens
+*****This file should be named amnts10.txt or amnts10.zip******
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, amnts11.txt.
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, amnts10a.txt.
+
+
+We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance
+of the official release dates, for time for better editing.
+
+Please note:  neither this list nor its contents are final till
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.  To be sure you have an
+up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes
+in the first week of the next month.  Since our ftp program has
+a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a
+look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a
+new copy has at least one byte more or less.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+fifty hours is one conservative estimate for how long it we take
+to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.  This
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If our value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-two text
+files per month:  or 400 more Etexts in 1996 for a total of 800.
+If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the
+total should reach 80 billion Etexts.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext
+Files by the December 31, 2001.  [10,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion]
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only 10% of the present number of computer users.  2001
+should have at least twice as many computer users as that, so it
+will require us reaching less than 5% of the users in 2001.
+
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+
+All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/BU":  and are
+tax deductible to the extent allowable by law. (BU = Benedictine
+University).  (Subscriptions to our paper newsletter go to BU.)
+
+For these and other matters, please mail to:
+
+Project Gutenberg
+P. O. Box  2782
+Champaign, IL 61825
+
+When all other email fails try our Executive Director:
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+
+We would prefer to send you this information by email
+(Internet, Bitnet, Compuserve, ATTMAIL or MCImail).
+
+******
+If you have an FTP program (or emulator), please
+FTP directly to the Project Gutenberg archives:
+[Mac users, do NOT point and click. . .type]
+
+ftp uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu
+login:  anonymous
+password:  your@login
+cd etext/etext90 through /etext96
+or cd etext/articles [get suggest gut for more information]
+dir [to see files]
+get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files]
+GET INDEX?00.GUT
+for a list of books
+and
+GET NEW GUT for general information
+and
+MGET GUT* for newsletters.
+
+**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor**
+(Three Pages)
+
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here?  You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault.  So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you.  It also tells you how
+you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement.  If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from.  If you received this etext on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-
+tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor
+Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at
+Benedictine University (the "Project").  Among other
+things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext
+under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works.  Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects".  Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this
+etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from.  If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy.  If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS".  NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors,
+officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost
+and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or
+indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause:
+[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification,
+or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     etext or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word pro-
+     cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The etext may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the etext (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the
+     net profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Benedictine
+     University" within the 60 days following each
+     date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare)
+     your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time,
+scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty
+free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution
+you can think of.  Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg
+Association / Benedictine University".
+
+*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
+
+
+
+
+
+American Notes for General Circulation by Charles Dickens
+Scanned and proofed by David Price
+email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+
+
+
+
+
+American Notes for General Circulation
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE TO THE FIRST CHEAP EDITION OF "AMERICAN NOTES"
+
+
+
+IT is nearly eight years since this book was first published.  I 
+present it, unaltered, in the Cheap Edition; and such of my 
+opinions as it expresses, are quite unaltered too.
+
+My readers have opportunities of judging for themselves whether the 
+influences and tendencies which I distrust in America, have any 
+existence not in my imagination.  They can examine for themselves 
+whether there has been anything in the public career of that 
+country during these past eight years, or whether there is anything 
+in its present position, at home or abroad, which suggests that 
+those influences and tendencies really do exist.  As they find the 
+fact, they will judge me.  If they discern any evidences of wrong-
+going in any direction that I have indicated, they will acknowledge 
+that I had reason in what I wrote.  If they discern no such thing, 
+they will consider me altogether mistaken.
+
+Prejudiced, I never have been otherwise than in favour of the 
+United States.  No visitor can ever have set foot on those shores, 
+with a stronger faith in the Republic than I had, when I landed in 
+America.
+
+I purposely abstain from extending these observations to any 
+length.  I have nothing to defend, or to explain away.  The truth 
+is the truth; and neither childish absurdities, nor unscrupulous 
+contradictions, can make it otherwise.  The earth would still move 
+round the sun, though the whole Catholic Church said No.
+
+I have many friends in America, and feel a grateful interest in the 
+country.  To represent me as viewing it with ill-nature, animosity, 
+or partisanship, is merely to do a very foolish thing, which is 
+always a very easy one; and which I have disregarded for eight 
+years, and could disregard for eighty more.
+
+LONDON, JUNE 22, 1850.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE TO THE "CHARLES DICKENS" EDITION OF "AMERICAN NOTES"
+
+
+
+MY readers have opportunities of judging for themselves whether the 
+influences and tendencies which I distrusted in America, had, at 
+that time, any existence but in my imagination.  They can examine 
+for themselves whether there has been anything in the public career 
+of that country since, at home or abroad, which suggests that those 
+influences and tendencies really did exist.  As they find the fact, 
+they will judge me.  If they discern any evidences of wrong-going, 
+in any direction that I have indicated, they will acknowledge that 
+I had reason in what I wrote.  If they discern no such indications, 
+they will consider me altogether mistaken - but not wilfully.
+
+Prejudiced, I am not, and never have been, otherwise than in favour 
+of the United States.  I have many friends in America, I feel a 
+grateful interest in the country, I hope and believe it will 
+successfully work out a problem of the highest importance to the 
+whole human race.  To represent me as viewing AMERICA with ill-
+nature, coldness, or animosity, is merely to do a very foolish 
+thing:  which is always a very easy one.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I - GOING AWAY
+
+
+
+I SHALL never forget the one-fourth serious and three-fourths 
+comical astonishment, with which, on the morning of the third of 
+January eighteen-hundred-and-forty-two, I opened the door of, and 
+put my head into, a 'state-room' on board the Britannia steam-
+packet, twelve hundred tons burthen per register, bound for Halifax 
+and Boston, and carrying Her Majesty's mails.
+
+That this state-room had been specially engaged for 'Charles 
+Dickens, Esquire, and Lady,' was rendered sufficiently clear even 
+to my scared intellect by a very small manuscript, announcing the 
+fact, which was pinned on a very flat quilt, covering a very thin 
+mattress, spread like a surgical plaster on a most inaccessible 
+shelf.  But that this was the state-room concerning which Charles 
+Dickens, Esquire, and Lady, had held daily and nightly conferences 
+for at least four months preceding:  that this could by any 
+possibility be that small snug chamber of the imagination, which 
+Charles Dickens, Esquire, with the spirit of prophecy strong upon 
+him, had always foretold would contain at least one little sofa, 
+and which his lady, with a modest yet most magnificent sense of its 
+limited dimensions, had from the first opined would not hold more 
+than two enormous portmanteaus in some odd corner out of sight 
+(portmanteaus which could now no more be got in at the door, not to 
+say stowed away, than a giraffe could be persuaded or forced into a 
+flower-pot):  that this utterly impracticable, thoroughly hopeless, 
+and profoundly preposterous box, had the remotest reference to, or 
+connection with, those chaste and pretty, not to say gorgeous 
+little bowers, sketched by a masterly hand, in the highly varnished 
+lithographic plan hanging up in the agent's counting-house in the 
+city of London:  that this room of state, in short, could be 
+anything but a pleasant fiction and cheerful jest of the captain's, 
+invented and put in practice for the better relish and enjoyment of 
+the real state-room presently to be disclosed:- these were truths 
+which I really could not, for the moment, bring my mind at all to 
+bear upon or comprehend.  And I sat down upon a kind of horsehair 
+slab, or perch, of which there were two within; and looked, without 
+any expression of countenance whatever, at some friends who had 
+come on board with us, and who were crushing their faces into all 
+manner of shapes by endeavouring to squeeze them through the small 
+doorway.
+
+We had experienced a pretty smart shock before coming below, which, 
+but that we were the most sanguine people living, might have 
+prepared us for the worst.  The imaginative artist to whom I have 
+already made allusion, has depicted in the same great work, a 
+chamber of almost interminable perspective, furnished, as Mr. 
+Robins would say, in a style of more than Eastern splendour, and 
+filled (but not inconveniently so) with groups of ladies and 
+gentlemen, in the very highest state of enjoyment and vivacity.  
+Before descending into the bowels of the ship, we had passed from 
+the deck into a long narrow apartment, not unlike a gigantic hearse 
+with windows in the sides; having at the upper end a melancholy 
+stove, at which three or four chilly stewards were warming their 
+hands; while on either side, extending down its whole dreary 
+length, was a long, long table, over each of which a rack, fixed to 
+the low roof, and stuck full of drinking-glasses and cruet-stands, 
+hinted dismally at rolling seas and heavy weather.  I had not at 
+that time seen the ideal presentment of this chamber which has 
+since gratified me so much, but I observed that one of our friends 
+who had made the arrangements for our voyage, turned pale on 
+entering, retreated on the friend behind him, smote his forehead 
+involuntarily, and said below his breath, 'Impossible! it cannot 
+be!' or words to that effect.  He recovered himself however by a 
+great effort, and after a preparatory cough or two, cried, with a 
+ghastly smile which is still before me, looking at the same time 
+round the walls, 'Ha! the breakfast-room, steward - eh?'  We all 
+foresaw what the answer must be:  we knew the agony he suffered.  
+He had often spoken of THE SALOON; had taken in and lived upon the 
+pictorial idea; had usually given us to understand, at home, that 
+to form a just conception of it, it would be necessary to multiply 
+the size and furniture of an ordinary drawing-room by seven, and 
+then fall short of the reality.  When the man in reply avowed the 
+truth; the blunt, remorseless, naked truth; 'This is the saloon, 
+sir' - he actually reeled beneath the blow.
+
+In persons who were so soon to part, and interpose between their 
+else daily communication the formidable barrier of many thousand 
+miles of stormy space, and who were for that reason anxious to cast 
+no other cloud, not even the passing shadow of a moment's 
+disappointment or discomfiture, upon the short interval of happy 
+companionship that yet remained to them - in persons so situated, 
+the natural transition from these first surprises was obviously 
+into peals of hearty laughter, and I can report that I, for one, 
+being still seated upon the slab or perch before mentioned, roared 
+outright until the vessel rang again.  Thus, in less than two 
+minutes after coming upon it for the first time, we all by common 
+consent agreed that this state-room was the pleasantest and most 
+facetious and capital contrivance possible; and that to have had it 
+one inch larger, would have been quite a disagreeable and 
+deplorable state of things.  And with this; and with showing how, - 
+by very nearly closing the door, and twining in and out like 
+serpents, and by counting the little washing slab as standing-room, 
+- we could manage to insinuate four people into it, all at one 
+time; and entreating each other to observe how very airy it was (in 
+dock), and how there was a beautiful port-hole which could be kept 
+open all day (weather permitting), and how there was quite a large 
+bull's-eye just over the looking-glass which would render shaving a 
+perfectly easy and delightful process (when the ship didn't roll 
+too much); we arrived, at last, at the unanimous conclusion that it 
+was rather spacious than otherwise:  though I do verily believe 
+that, deducting the two berths, one above the other, than which 
+nothing smaller for sleeping in was ever made except coffins, it 
+was no bigger than one of those hackney cabriolets which have the 
+door behind, and shoot their fares out, like sacks of coals, upon 
+the pavement.
+
+Having settled this point to the perfect satisfaction of all 
+parties, concerned and unconcerned, we sat down round the fire in 
+the ladies' cabin - just to try the effect.  It was rather dark, 
+certainly; but somebody said, 'of course it would be light, at 
+sea,' a proposition to which we all assented; echoing 'of course, 
+of course;' though it would be exceedingly difficult to say why we 
+thought so.  I remember, too, when we had discovered and exhausted 
+another topic of consolation in the circumstance of this ladies' 
+cabin adjoining our state-room, and the consequently immense 
+feasibility of sitting there at all times and seasons, and had 
+fallen into a momentary silence, leaning our faces on our hands and 
+looking at the fire, one of our party said, with the solemn air of 
+a man who had made a discovery, 'What a relish mulled claret will 
+have down here!' which appeared to strike us all most forcibly; as 
+though there were something spicy and high-flavoured in cabins, 
+which essentially improved that composition, and rendered it quite 
+incapable of perfection anywhere else.
+
+There was a stewardess, too, actively engaged in producing clean 
+sheets and table-cloths from the very entrails of the sofas, and 
+from unexpected lockers, of such artful mechanism, that it made 
+one's head ache to see them opened one after another, and rendered 
+it quite a distracting circumstance to follow her proceedings, and 
+to find that every nook and corner and individual piece of 
+furniture was something else besides what it pretended to be, and 
+was a mere trap and deception and place of secret stowage, whose 
+ostensible purpose was its least useful one.
+
+God bless that stewardess for her piously fraudulent account of 
+January voyages!  God bless her for her clear recollection of the 
+companion passage of last year, when nobody was ill, and everybody 
+dancing from morning to night, and it was 'a run' of twelve days, 
+and a piece of the purest frolic, and delight, and jollity!  All 
+happiness be with her for her bright face and her pleasant Scotch 
+tongue, which had sounds of old Home in it for my fellow-traveller; 
+and for her predictions of fair winds and fine weather (all wrong, 
+or I shouldn't be half so fond of her); and for the ten thousand 
+small fragments of genuine womanly tact, by which, without piecing 
+them elaborately together, and patching them up into shape and form 
+and case and pointed application, she nevertheless did plainly show 
+that all young mothers on one side of the Atlantic were near and 
+close at hand to their little children left upon the other; and 
+that what seemed to the uninitiated a serious journey, was, to 
+those who were in the secret, a mere frolic, to be sung about and 
+whistled at!  Light be her heart, and gay her merry eyes, for 
+years!
+
+The state-room had grown pretty fast; but by this time it had 
+expanded into something quite bulky, and almost boasted a bay-
+window to view the sea from.  So we went upon deck again in high 
+spirits; and there, everything was in such a state of bustle and 
+active preparation, that the blood quickened its pace, and whirled 
+through one's veins on that clear frosty morning with involuntary 
+mirthfulness.  For every gallant ship was riding slowly up and 
+down, and every little boat was splashing noisily in the water; and 
+knots of people stood upon the wharf, gazing with a kind of 'dread 
+delight' on the far-famed fast American steamer; and one party of 
+men were 'taking in the milk,' or, in other words, getting the cow 
+on board; and another were filling the icehouses to the very throat 
+with fresh provisions; with butchers'-meat and garden-stuff, pale 
+sucking-pigs, calves' heads in scores, beef, veal, and pork, and 
+poultry out of all proportion; and others were coiling ropes and 
+busy with oakum yarns; and others were lowering heavy packages into 
+the hold; and the purser's head was barely visible as it loomed in 
+a state, of exquisite perplexity from the midst of a vast pile of 
+passengers' luggage; and there seemed to be nothing going on 
+anywhere, or uppermost in the mind of anybody, but preparations for 
+this mighty voyage.  This, with the bright cold sun, the bracing 
+air, the crisply-curling water, the thin white crust of morning ice 
+upon the decks which crackled with a sharp and cheerful sound 
+beneath the lightest tread, was irresistible.  And when, again upon 
+the shore, we turned and saw from the vessel's mast her name 
+signalled in flags of joyous colours, and fluttering by their side 
+the beautiful American banner with its stars and stripes, - the 
+long three thousand miles and more, and, longer still, the six 
+whole months of absence, so dwindled and faded, that the ship had 
+gone out and come home again, and it was broad spring already in 
+the Coburg Dock at Liverpool.
+
+I have not inquired among my medical acquaintance, whether Turtle, 
+and cold Punch, with Hock, Champagne, and Claret, and all the 
+slight et cetera usually included in an unlimited order for a good 
+dinner - especially when it is left to the liberal construction of 
+my faultless friend, Mr. Radley, of the Adelphi Hotel - are 
+peculiarly calculated to suffer a sea-change; or whether a plain 
+mutton-chop, and a glass or two of sherry, would be less likely of 
+conversion into foreign and disconcerting material.  My own opinion 
+is, that whether one is discreet or indiscreet in these 
+particulars, on the eve of a sea-voyage, is a matter of little 
+consequence; and that, to use a common phrase, 'it comes to very 
+much the same thing in the end.'  Be this as it may, I know that 
+the dinner of that day was undeniably perfect; that it comprehended 
+all these items, and a great many more; and that we all did ample 
+justice to it.  And I know too, that, bating a certain tacit 
+avoidance of any allusion to to-morrow; such as may be supposed to 
+prevail between delicate-minded turnkeys, and a sensitive prisoner 
+who is to be hanged next morning; we got on very well, and, all 
+things considered, were merry enough.
+
+When the morning - THE morning - came, and we met at breakfast, it 
+was curious to see how eager we all were to prevent a moment's 
+pause in the conversation, and how astoundingly gay everybody was:  
+the forced spirits of each member of the little party having as 
+much likeness to his natural mirth, as hot-house peas at five 
+guineas the quart, resemble in flavour the growth of the dews, and 
+air, and rain of Heaven.  But as one o'clock, the hour for going 
+aboard, drew near, this volubility dwindled away by little and 
+little, despite the most persevering efforts to the contrary, until 
+at last, the matter being now quite desperate, we threw off all 
+disguise; openly speculated upon where we should be this time to-
+morrow, this time next day, and so forth; and entrusted a vast 
+number of messages to those who intended returning to town that 
+night, which were to be delivered at home and elsewhere without 
+fail, within the very shortest possible space of time after the 
+arrival of the railway train at Euston Square.  And commissions and 
+remembrances do so crowd upon one at such a time, that we were 
+still busied with this employment when we found ourselves fused, as 
+it were, into a dense conglomeration of passengers and passengers' 
+friends and passengers' luggage, all jumbled together on the deck 
+of a small steamboat, and panting and snorting off to the packet, 
+which had worked out of dock yesterday afternoon and was now lying 
+at her moorings in the river.
+
+And there she is! all eyes are turned to where she lies, dimly 
+discernible through the gathering fog of the early winter 
+afternoon; every finger is pointed in the same direction; and 
+murmurs of interest and admiration - as 'How beautiful she looks!' 
+'How trim she is!' - are heard on every side.  Even the lazy 
+gentleman with his hat on one side and his hands in his pockets, 
+who has dispensed so much consolation by inquiring with a yawn of 
+another gentleman whether he is 'going across' - as if it were a 
+ferry - even he condescends to look that way, and nod his head, as 
+who should say, 'No mistake about THAT:' and not even the sage Lord 
+Burleigh in his nod, included half so much as this lazy gentleman 
+of might who has made the passage (as everybody on board has found 
+out already; it's impossible to say how) thirteen times without a 
+single accident!  There is another passenger very much wrapped-up, 
+who has been frowned down by the rest, and morally trampled upon 
+and crushed, for presuming to inquire with a timid interest how 
+long it is since the poor President went down.  He is standing 
+close to the lazy gentleman, and says with a faint smile that he 
+believes She is a very strong Ship; to which the lazy gentleman, 
+looking first in his questioner's eye and then very hard in the 
+wind's, answers unexpectedly and ominously, that She need be.  Upon 
+this the lazy gentleman instantly falls very low in the popular 
+estimation, and the passengers, with looks of defiance, whisper to 
+each other that he is an ass, and an impostor, and clearly don't 
+know anything at all about it.
+
+But we are made fast alongside the packet, whose huge red funnel is 
+smoking bravely, giving rich promise of serious intentions.  
+Packing-cases, portmanteaus, carpet-bags, and boxes, are already 
+passed from hand to hand, and hauled on board with breathless 
+rapidity.  The officers, smartly dressed, are at the gangway 
+handing the passengers up the side, and hurrying the men.  In five 
+minutes' time, the little steamer is utterly deserted, and the 
+packet is beset and over-run by its late freight, who instantly 
+pervade the whole ship, and are to be met with by the dozen in 
+every nook and corner:  swarming down below with their own baggage, 
+and stumbling over other people's; disposing themselves comfortably 
+in wrong cabins, and creating a most horrible confusion by having 
+to turn out again; madly bent upon opening locked doors, and on 
+forcing a passage into all kinds of out-of-the-way places where 
+there is no thoroughfare; sending wild stewards, with elfin hair, 
+to and fro upon the breezy decks on unintelligible errands, 
+impossible of execution:  and in short, creating the most 
+extraordinary and bewildering tumult.  In the midst of all this, 
+the lazy gentleman, who seems to have no luggage of any kind - not 
+so much as a friend, even - lounges up and down the hurricane deck, 
+coolly puffing a cigar; and, as this unconcerned demeanour again 
+exalts him in the opinion of those who have leisure to observe his 
+proceedings, every time he looks up at the masts, or down at the 
+decks, or over the side, they look there too, as wondering whether 
+he sees anything wrong anywhere, and hoping that, in case he 
+should, he will have the goodness to mention it.
+
+What have we here?  The captain's boat! and yonder the captain 
+himself.  Now, by all our hopes and wishes, the very man he ought 
+to be!  A well-made, tight-built, dapper little fellow; with a 
+ruddy face, which is a letter of invitation to shake him by both 
+hands at once; and with a clear, blue honest eye, that it does one 
+good to see one's sparkling image in.  'Ring the bell!'  'Ding, 
+ding, ding!' the very bell is in a hurry.  'Now for the shore - 
+who's for the shore?' - 'These gentlemen, I am sorry to say.'  They 
+are away, and never said, Good b'ye.  Ah now they wave it from the 
+little boat.  'Good b'ye! Good b'ye!'  Three cheers from them; 
+three more from us; three more from them:  and they are gone.
+
+To and fro, to and fro, to and fro again a hundred times!  This 
+waiting for the latest mail-bags is worse than all.  If we could 
+have gone off in the midst of that last burst, we should have 
+started triumphantly:  but to lie here, two hours and more in the 
+damp fog, neither staying at home nor going abroad, is letting one 
+gradually down into the very depths of dulness and low spirits.  A 
+speck in the mist, at last!  That's something.  It is the boat we 
+wait for!  That's more to the purpose.  The captain appears on the 
+paddle-box with his speaking trumpet; the officers take their 
+stations; all hands are on the alert; the flagging hopes of the 
+passengers revive; the cooks pause in their savoury work, and look 
+out with faces full of interest.  The boat comes alongside; the 
+bags are dragged in anyhow, and flung down for the moment anywhere.  
+Three cheers more:  and as the first one rings upon our ears, the 
+vessel throbs like a strong giant that has just received the breath 
+of life; the two great wheels turn fiercely round for the first 
+time; and the noble ship, with wind and tide astern, breaks proudly 
+through the lashed and roaming water.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II - THE PASSAGE OUT
+
+
+
+WE all dined together that day; and a rather formidable party we 
+were:  no fewer than eighty-six strong.  The vessel being pretty 
+deep in the water, with all her coals on board and so many 
+passengers, and the weather being calm and quiet, there was but 
+little motion; so that before the dinner was half over, even those 
+passengers who were most distrustful of themselves plucked up 
+amazingly; and those who in the morning had returned to the 
+universal question, 'Are you a good sailor?' a very decided 
+negative, now either parried the inquiry with the evasive reply, 
+'Oh! I suppose I'm no worse than anybody else;' or, reckless of all 
+moral obligations, answered boldly 'Yes:' and with some irritation 
+too, as though they would add, 'I should like to know what you see 
+in ME, sir, particularly, to justify suspicion!'
+
+Notwithstanding this high tone of courage and confidence, I could 
+not but observe that very few remained long over their wine; and 
+that everybody had an unusual love of the open air; and that the 
+favourite and most coveted seats were invariably those nearest to 
+the door.  The tea-table, too, was by no means as well attended as 
+the dinner-table; and there was less whist-playing than might have 
+been expected.  Still, with the exception of one lady, who had 
+retired with some precipitation at dinner-time, immediately after 
+being assisted to the finest cut of a very yellow boiled leg of 
+mutton with very green capers, there were no invalids as yet; and 
+walking, and smoking, and drinking of brandy-and-water (but always 
+in the open air), went on with unabated spirit, until eleven 
+o'clock or thereabouts, when 'turning in' - no sailor of seven 
+hours' experience talks of going to bed - became the order of the 
+night.  The perpetual tramp of boot-heels on the decks gave place 
+to a heavy silence, and the whole human freight was stowed away 
+below, excepting a very few stragglers, like myself, who were 
+probably, like me, afraid to go there.
+
+To one unaccustomed to such scenes, this is a very striking time on 
+shipboard.  Afterwards, and when its novelty had long worn off, it 
+never ceased to have a peculiar interest and charm for me.  The 
+gloom through which the great black mass holds its direct and 
+certain course; the rushing water, plainly heard, but dimly seen; 
+the broad, white, glistening track, that follows in the vessel's 
+wake; the men on the look-out forward, who would be scarcely 
+visible against the dark sky, but for their blotting out some score 
+of glistening stars; the helmsman at the wheel, with the 
+illuminated card before him, shining, a speck of light amidst the 
+darkness, like something sentient and of Divine intelligence; the 
+melancholy sighing of the wind through block, and rope, and chain; 
+the gleaming forth of light from every crevice, nook, and tiny 
+piece of glass about the decks, as though the ship were filled with 
+fire in hiding, ready to burst through any outlet, wild with its 
+resistless power of death and ruin.  At first, too, and even when 
+the hour, and all the objects it exalts, have come to be familiar, 
+it is difficult, alone and thoughtful, to hold them to their proper 
+shapes and forms.  They change with the wandering fancy; assume the 
+semblance of things left far away; put on the well-remembered 
+aspect of favourite places dearly loved; and even people them with 
+shadows.  Streets, houses, rooms; figures so like their usual 
+occupants, that they have startled me by their reality, which far 
+exceeded, as it seemed to me, all power of mine to conjure up the 
+absent; have, many and many a time, at such an hour, grown suddenly 
+out of objects with whose real look, and use, and purpose, I was as 
+well acquainted as with my own two hands.
+
+My own two hands, and feet likewise, being very cold, however, on 
+this particular occasion, I crept below at midnight.  It was not 
+exactly comfortable below.  It was decidedly close; and it was 
+impossible to be unconscious of the presence of that extraordinary 
+compound of strange smells, which is to be found nowhere but on 
+board ship, and which is such a subtle perfume that it seems to 
+enter at every pore of the skin, and whisper of the hold.  Two 
+passengers' wives (one of them my own) lay already in silent 
+agonies on the sofa; and one lady's maid (MY lady's) was a mere 
+bundle on the floor, execrating her destiny, and pounding her curl-
+papers among the stray boxes.  Everything sloped the wrong way:  
+which in itself was an aggravation scarcely to be borne.  I had 
+left the door open, a moment before, in the bosom of a gentle 
+declivity, and, when I turned to shut it, it was on the summit of a 
+lofty eminence.  Now every plank and timber creaked, as if the ship 
+were made of wicker-work; and now crackled, like an enormous fire 
+of the driest possible twigs.  There was nothing for it but bed; so 
+I went to bed.
+
+It was pretty much the same for the next two days, with a tolerably 
+fair wind and dry weather.  I read in bed (but to this hour I don't 
+know what) a good deal; and reeled on deck a little; drank cold 
+brandy-and-water with an unspeakable disgust, and ate hard biscuit 
+perseveringly:  not ill, but going to be.
+
+It is the third morning.  I am awakened out of my sleep by a dismal 
+shriek from my wife, who demands to know whether there's any 
+danger.  I rouse myself, and look out of bed.  The water-jug is 
+plunging and leaping like a lively dolphin; all the smaller 
+articles are afloat, except my shoes, which are stranded on a 
+carpet-bag, high and dry, like a couple of coal-barges.  Suddenly I 
+see them spring into the air, and behold the looking-glass, which 
+is nailed to the wall, sticking fast upon the ceiling.  At the same 
+time the door entirely disappears, and a new one is opened in the 
+floor.  Then I begin to comprehend that the state-room is standing 
+on its head.
+
+Before it is possible to make any arrangement at all compatible 
+with this novel state of things, the ship rights.  Before one can 
+say 'Thank Heaven!' she wrongs again.  Before one can cry she IS 
+wrong, she seems to have started forward, and to be a creature 
+actually running of its own accord, with broken knees and failing 
+legs, through every variety of hole and pitfall, and stumbling 
+constantly.  Before one can so much as wonder, she takes a high 
+leap into the air.  Before she has well done that, she takes a deep 
+dive into the water.  Before she has gained the surface, she throws 
+a summerset.  The instant she is on her legs, she rushes backward.  
+And so she goes on staggering, heaving, wrestling, leaping, diving, 
+jumping, pitching, throbbing, rolling, and rocking:  and going 
+through all these movements, sometimes by turns, and sometimes 
+altogether:  until one feels disposed to roar for mercy.
+
+A steward passes.  'Steward!'  'Sir?'  'What IS the matter? what DO 
+you call this?'  'Rather a heavy sea on, sir, and a head-wind.'
+
+A head-wind!  Imagine a human face upon the vessel's prow, with 
+fifteen thousand Samsons in one bent upon driving her back, and 
+hitting her exactly between the eyes whenever she attempts to 
+advance an inch.  Imagine the ship herself, with every pulse and 
+artery of her huge body swollen and bursting under this 
+maltreatment, sworn to go on or die.  Imagine the wind howling, the 
+sea roaring, the rain beating:  all in furious array against her.  
+Picture the sky both dark and wild, and the clouds, in fearful 
+sympathy with the waves, making another ocean in the air.  Add to 
+all this, the clattering on deck and down below; the tread of 
+hurried feet; the loud hoarse shouts of seamen; the gurgling in and 
+out of water through the scuppers; with, every now and then, the 
+striking of a heavy sea upon the planks above, with the deep, dead, 
+heavy sound of thunder heard within a vault; - and there is the 
+head-wind of that January morning.
+
+I say nothing of what may be called the domestic noises of the 
+ship:  such as the breaking of glass and crockery, the tumbling 
+down of stewards, the gambols, overhead, of loose casks and truant 
+dozens of bottled porter, and the very remarkable and far from 
+exhilarating sounds raised in their various state-rooms by the 
+seventy passengers who were too ill to get up to breakfast.  I say 
+nothing of them:  for although I lay listening to this concert for 
+three or four days, I don't think I heard it for more than a 
+quarter of a minute, at the expiration of which term, I lay down 
+again, excessively sea-sick.
+
+Not sea-sick, be it understood, in the ordinary acceptation of the 
+term:  I wish I had been:  but in a form which I have never seen or 
+heard described, though I have no doubt it is very common.  I lay 
+there, all the day long, quite coolly and contentedly; with no 
+sense of weariness, with no desire to get up, or get better, or 
+take the air; with no curiosity, or care, or regret, of any sort or 
+degree, saving that I think I can remember, in this universal 
+indifference, having a kind of lazy joy - of fiendish delight, if 
+anything so lethargic can be dignified with the title - in the fact 
+of my wife being too ill to talk to me.  If I may be allowed to 
+illustrate my state of mind by such an example, I should say that I 
+was exactly in the condition of the elder Mr. Willet, after the 
+incursion of the rioters into his bar at Chigwell.  Nothing would 
+have surprised me.  If, in the momentary illumination of any ray of 
+intelligence that may have come upon me in the way of thoughts of 
+Home, a goblin postman, with a scarlet coat and bell, had come into 
+that little kennel before me, broad awake in broad day, and, 
+apologising for being damp through walking in the sea, had handed 
+me a letter directed to myself, in familiar characters, I am 
+certain I should not have felt one atom of astonishment:  I should 
+have been perfectly satisfied.  If Neptune himself had walked in, 
+with a toasted shark on his trident, I should have looked upon the 
+event as one of the very commonest everyday occurrences.
+
+Once - once - I found myself on deck.  I don't know how I got 
+there, or what possessed me to go there, but there I was; and 
+completely dressed too, with a huge pea-coat on, and a pair of 
+boots such as no weak man in his senses could ever have got into.  
+I found myself standing, when a gleam of consciousness came upon 
+me, holding on to something.  I don't know what.  I think it was 
+the boatswain:  or it may have been the pump:  or possibly the cow.  
+I can't say how long I had been there; whether a day or a minute.  
+I recollect trying to think about something (about anything in the 
+whole wide world, I was not particular) without the smallest 
+effect.  I could not even make out which was the sea, and which the 
+sky, for the horizon seemed drunk, and was flying wildly about in 
+all directions.  Even in that incapable state, however, I 
+recognised the lazy gentleman standing before me:  nautically clad 
+in a suit of shaggy blue, with an oilskin hat.  But I was too 
+imbecile, although I knew it to be he, to separate him from his 
+dress; and tried to call him, I remember, PILOT.  After another 
+interval of total unconsciousness, I found he had gone, and 
+recognised another figure in its place.  It seemed to wave and 
+fluctuate before me as though I saw it reflected in an unsteady 
+looking-glass; but I knew it for the captain; and such was the 
+cheerful influence of his face, that I tried to smile:  yes, even 
+then I tried to smile.  I saw by his gestures that he addressed me; 
+but it was a long time before I could make out that he remonstrated 
+against my standing up to my knees in water - as I was; of course I 
+don't know why.  I tried to thank him, but couldn't.  I could only 
+point to my boots - or wherever I supposed my boots to be - and say 
+in a plaintive voice, 'Cork soles:' at the same time endeavouring, 
+I am told, to sit down in the pool.  Finding that I was quite 
+insensible, and for the time a maniac, he humanely conducted me 
+below.
+
+There I remained until I got better:  suffering, whenever I was 
+recommended to eat anything, an amount of anguish only second to 
+that which is said to be endured by the apparently drowned, in the 
+process of restoration to life.  One gentleman on board had a 
+letter of introduction to me from a mutual friend in London.  He 
+sent it below with his card, on the morning of the head-wind; and I 
+was long troubled with the idea that he might be up, and well, and 
+a hundred times a day expecting me to call upon him in the saloon.  
+I imagined him one of those cast-iron images - I will not call them 
+men - who ask, with red faces, and lusty voices, what sea-sickness 
+means, and whether it really is as bad as it is represented to be.  
+This was very torturing indeed; and I don't think I ever felt such 
+perfect gratification and gratitude of heart, as I did when I heard 
+from the ship's doctor that he had been obliged to put a large 
+mustard poultice on this very gentleman's stomach.  I date my 
+recovery from the receipt of that intelligence.
+
+It was materially assisted though, I have no doubt, by a heavy gale 
+of wind, which came slowly up at sunset, when we were about ten 
+days out, and raged with gradually increasing fury until morning, 
+saving that it lulled for an hour a little before midnight.  There 
+was something in the unnatural repose of that hour, and in the 
+after gathering of the storm, so inconceivably awful and 
+tremendous, that its bursting into full violence was almost a 
+relief.
+
+The labouring of the ship in the troubled sea on this night I shall 
+never forget.  'Will it ever be worse than this?' was a question I 
+had often heard asked, when everything was sliding and bumping 
+about, and when it certainly did seem difficult to comprehend the 
+possibility of anything afloat being more disturbed, without 
+toppling over and going down.  But what the agitation of a steam-
+vessel is, on a bad winter's night in the wild Atlantic, it is 
+impossible for the most vivid imagination to conceive.  To say that 
+she is flung down on her side in the waves, with her masts dipping 
+into them, and that, springing up again, she rolls over on the 
+other side, until a heavy sea strikes her with the noise of a 
+hundred great guns, and hurls her back - that she stops, and 
+staggers, and shivers, as though stunned, and then, with a violent 
+throbbing at her heart, darts onward like a monster goaded into 
+madness, to be beaten down, and battered, and crushed, and leaped 
+on by the angry sea - that thunder, lightning, hail, and rain, and 
+wind, are all in fierce contention for the mastery - that every 
+plank has its groan, every nail its shriek, and every drop of water 
+in the great ocean its howling voice - is nothing.  To say that all 
+is grand, and all appalling and horrible in the last degree, is 
+nothing.  Words cannot express it.  Thoughts cannot convey it.  
+Only a dream can call it up again, in all its fury, rage, and 
+passion.
+
+And yet, in the very midst of these terrors, I was placed in a 
+situation so exquisitely ridiculous, that even then I had as strong 
+a sense of its absurdity as I have now, and could no more help 
+laughing than I can at any other comical incident, happening under 
+circumstances the most favourable to its enjoyment.  About midnight 
+we shipped a sea, which forced its way through the skylights, burst 
+open the doors above, and came raging and roaring down into the 
+ladies' cabin, to the unspeakable consternation of my wife and a 
+little Scotch lady - who, by the way, had previously sent a message 
+to the captain by the stewardess, requesting him, with her 
+compliments, to have a steel conductor immediately attached to the 
+top of every mast, and to the chimney, in order that the ship might 
+not be struck by lightning.  They and the handmaid before 
+mentioned, being in such ecstasies of fear that I scarcely knew 
+what to do with them, I naturally bethought myself of some 
+restorative or comfortable cordial; and nothing better occurring to 
+me, at the moment, than hot brandy-and-water, I procured a tumbler 
+full without delay.  It being impossible to stand or sit without 
+holding on, they were all heaped together in one corner of a long 
+sofa - a fixture extending entirely across the cabin - where they 
+clung to each other in momentary expectation of being drowned.  
+When I approached this place with my specific, and was about to 
+administer it with many consolatory expressions to the nearest 
+sufferer, what was my dismay to see them all roll slowly down to 
+the other end!  And when I staggered to that end, and held out the 
+glass once more, how immensely baffled were my good intentions by 
+the ship giving another lurch, and their all rolling back again!  I 
+suppose I dodged them up and down this sofa for at least a quarter 
+of an hour, without reaching them once; and by the time I did catch 
+them, the brandy-and-water was diminished, by constant spilling, to 
+a teaspoonful.  To complete the group, it is necessary to recognise 
+in this disconcerted dodger, an individual very pale from sea-
+sickness, who had shaved his beard and brushed his hair, last, at 
+Liverpool:  and whose only article of dress (linen not included) 
+were a pair of dreadnought trousers; a blue jacket, formerly 
+admired upon the Thames at Richmond; no stockings; and one slipper.
+
+Of the outrageous antics performed by that ship next morning; which 
+made bed a practical joke, and getting up, by any process short of 
+falling out, an impossibility; I say nothing.  But anything like 
+the utter dreariness and desolation that met my eyes when I 
+literally 'tumbled up' on deck at noon, I never saw.  Ocean and sky 
+were all of one dull, heavy, uniform, lead colour.  There was no 
+extent of prospect even over the dreary waste that lay around us, 
+for the sea ran high, and the horizon encompassed us like a large 
+black hoop.  Viewed from the air, or some tall bluff on shore, it 
+would have been imposing and stupendous, no doubt; but seen from 
+the wet and rolling decks, it only impressed one giddily and 
+painfully.  In the gale of last night the life-boat had been 
+crushed by one blow of the sea like a walnut-shell; and there it 
+hung dangling in the air:  a mere faggot of crazy boards.  The 
+planking of the paddle-boxes had been torn sheer away.  The wheels 
+were exposed and bare; and they whirled and dashed their spray 
+about the decks at random.  Chimney, white with crusted salt; 
+topmasts struck; storm-sails set; rigging all knotted, tangled, 
+wet, and drooping:  a gloomier picture it would be hard to look 
+upon.
+
+I was now comfortably established by courtesy in the ladies' cabin, 
+where, besides ourselves, there were only four other passengers.  
+First, the little Scotch lady before mentioned, on her way to join 
+her husband at New York, who had settled there three years before.  
+Secondly and thirdly, an honest young Yorkshireman, connected with 
+some American house; domiciled in that same city, and carrying 
+thither his beautiful young wife to whom he had been married but a 
+fortnight, and who was the fairest specimen of a comely English 
+country girl I have ever seen.  Fourthly, fifthly, and lastly, 
+another couple:  newly married too, if one might judge from the 
+endearments they frequently interchanged:  of whom I know no more 
+than that they were rather a mysterious, run-away kind of couple; 
+that the lady had great personal attractions also; and that the 
+gentleman carried more guns with him than Robinson Crusoe, wore a 
+shooting-coat, and had two great dogs on board.  On further 
+consideration, I remember that he tried hot roast pig and bottled 
+ale as a cure for sea-sickness; and that he took these remedies 
+(usually in bed) day after day, with astonishing perseverance.  I 
+may add, for the information of the curious, that they decidedly 
+failed.
+
+The weather continuing obstinately and almost unprecedentedly bad, 
+we usually straggled into this cabin, more or less faint and 
+miserable, about an hour before noon, and lay down on the sofas to 
+recover; during which interval, the captain would look in to 
+communicate the state of the wind, the moral certainty of its 
+changing to-morrow (the weather is always going to improve to-
+morrow, at sea), the vessel's rate of sailing, and so forth.  
+Observations there were none to tell us of, for there was no sun to 
+take them by.  But a description of one day will serve for all the 
+rest.  Here it is.
+
+The captain being gone, we compose ourselves to read, if the place 
+be light enough; and if not, we doze and talk alternately.  At one, 
+a bell rings, and the stewardess comes down with a steaming dish of 
+baked potatoes, and another of roasted apples; and plates of pig's 
+face, cold ham, salt beef; or perhaps a smoking mess of rare hot 
+collops.  We fall to upon these dainties; eat as much as we can (we 
+have great appetites now); and are as long as possible about it.  
+If the fire will burn (it WILL sometimes) we are pretty cheerful.  
+If it won't, we all remark to each other that it's very cold, rub 
+our hands, cover ourselves with coats and cloaks, and lie down 
+again to doze, talk, and read (provided as aforesaid), until 
+dinner-time.  At five, another bell rings, and the stewardess 
+reappears with another dish of potatoes - boiled this time - and 
+store of hot meat of various kinds:  not forgetting the roast pig, 
+to be taken medicinally.  We sit down at table again (rather more 
+cheerfully than before); prolong the meal with a rather mouldy 
+dessert of apples, grapes, and oranges; and drink our wine and 
+brandy-and-water.  The bottles and glasses are still upon the 
+table, and the oranges and so forth are rolling about according to 
+their fancy and the ship's way, when the doctor comes down, by 
+special nightly invitation, to join our evening rubber:  
+immediately on whose arrival we make a party at whist, and as it is 
+a rough night and the cards will not lie on the cloth, we put the 
+tricks in our pockets as we take them.  At whist we remain with 
+exemplary gravity (deducting a short time for tea and toast) until 
+eleven o'clock, or thereabouts; when the captain comes down again, 
+in a sou'-wester hat tied under his chin, and a pilot-coat:  making 
+the ground wet where he stands.  By this time the card-playing is 
+over, and the bottles and glasses are again upon the table; and 
+after an hour's pleasant conversation about the ship, the 
+passengers, and things in general, the captain (who never goes to 
+bed, and is never out of humour) turns up his coat collar for the 
+deck again; shakes hands all round; and goes laughing out into the 
+weather as merrily as to a birthday party.
+
+As to daily news, there is no dearth of that commodity.  This 
+passenger is reported to have lost fourteen pounds at Vingt-et-un 
+in the saloon yesterday; and that passenger drinks his bottle of 
+champagne every day, and how he does it (being only a clerk), 
+nobody knows.  The head engineer has distinctly said that there 
+never was such times - meaning weather - and four good hands are 
+ill, and have given in, dead beat.  Several berths are full of 
+water, and all the cabins are leaky.  The ship's cook, secretly 
+swigging damaged whiskey, has been found drunk; and has been played 
+upon by the fire-engine until quite sober.  All the stewards have 
+fallen down-stairs at various dinner-times, and go about with 
+plasters in various places.  The baker is ill, and so is the 
+pastry-cook.  A new man, horribly indisposed, has been required to 
+fill the place of the latter officer; and has been propped and 
+jammed up with empty casks in a little house upon deck, and 
+commanded to roll out pie-crust, which he protests (being highly 
+bilious) it is death to him to look at.  News!  A dozen murders on 
+shore would lack the interest of these slight incidents at sea.
+
+Divided between our rubber and such topics as these, we were 
+running (as we thought) into Halifax Harbour, on the fifteenth 
+night, with little wind and a bright moon - indeed, we had made the 
+Light at its outer entrance, and put the pilot in charge - when 
+suddenly the ship struck upon a bank of mud.  An immediate rush on 
+deck took place of course; the sides were crowded in an instant; 
+and for a few minutes we were in as lively a state of confusion as 
+the greatest lover of disorder would desire to see.  The 
+passengers, and guns, and water-casks, and other heavy matters, 
+being all huddled together aft, however, to lighten her in the 
+head, she was soon got off; and after some driving on towards an 
+uncomfortable line of objects (whose vicinity had been announced 
+very early in the disaster by a loud cry of 'Breakers a-head!') and 
+much backing of paddles, and heaving of the lead into a constantly 
+decreasing depth of water, we dropped anchor in a strange 
+outlandish-looking nook which nobody on board could recognise, 
+although there was land all about us, and so close that we could 
+plainly see the waving branches of the trees.
+
+It was strange enough, in the silence of midnight, and the dead 
+stillness that seemed to be created by the sudden and unexpected 
+stoppage of the engine which had been clanking and blasting in our 
+ears incessantly for so many days, to watch the look of blank 
+astonishment expressed in every face:  beginning with the officers, 
+tracing it through all the passengers, and descending to the very 
+stokers and furnacemen, who emerged from below, one by one, and 
+clustered together in a smoky group about the hatchway of the 
+engine-room, comparing notes in whispers.  After throwing up a few 
+rockets and firing signal guns in the hope of being hailed from the 
+land, or at least of seeing a light - but without any other sight 
+or sound presenting itself - it was determined to send a boat on 
+shore.  It was amusing to observe how very kind some of the 
+passengers were, in volunteering to go ashore in this same boat:  
+for the general good, of course:  not by any means because they 
+thought the ship in an unsafe position, or contemplated the 
+possibility of her heeling over in case the tide were running out.  
+Nor was it less amusing to remark how desperately unpopular the 
+poor pilot became in one short minute.  He had had his passage out 
+from Liverpool, and during the whole voyage had been quite a 
+notorious character, as a teller of anecdotes and cracker of jokes.  
+Yet here were the very men who had laughed the loudest at his 
+jests, now flourishing their fists in his face, loading him with 
+imprecations, and defying him to his teeth as a villain!
+
+The boat soon shoved off, with a lantern and sundry blue lights on 
+board; and in less than an hour returned; the officer in command 
+bringing with him a tolerably tall young tree, which he had plucked 
+up by the roots, to satisfy certain distrustful passengers whose 
+minds misgave them that they were to be imposed upon and 
+shipwrecked, and who would on no other terms believe that he had 
+been ashore, or had done anything but fraudulently row a little way 
+into the mist, specially to deceive them and compass their deaths.  
+Our captain had foreseen from the first that we must be in a place 
+called the Eastern passage; and so we were.  It was about the last 
+place in the world in which we had any business or reason to be, 
+but a sudden fog, and some error on the pilot's part, were the 
+cause.  We were surrounded by banks, and rocks, and shoals of all 
+kinds, but had happily drifted, it seemed, upon the only safe speck 
+that was to be found thereabouts.  Eased by this report, and by the 
+assurance that the tide was past the ebb, we turned in at three 
+o'clock in the morning.
+
+I was dressing about half-past nine next day, when the noise above 
+hurried me on deck.  When I had left it overnight, it was dark, 
+foggy, and damp, and there were bleak hills all round us.  Now, we 
+were gliding down a smooth, broad stream, at the rate of eleven 
+miles an hour:  our colours flying gaily; our crew rigged out in 
+their smartest clothes; our officers in uniform again; the sun 
+shining as on a brilliant April day in England; the land stretched 
+out on either side, streaked with light patches of snow; white 
+wooden houses; people at their doors; telegraphs working; flags 
+hoisted; wharfs appearing; ships; quays crowded with people; 
+distant noises; shouts; men and boys running down steep places 
+towards the pier:  all more bright and gay and fresh to our unused 
+eyes than words can paint them.  We came to a wharf, paved with 
+uplifted faces; got alongside, and were made fast, after some 
+shouting and straining of cables; darted, a score of us along the 
+gangway, almost as soon as it was thrust out to meet us, and before 
+it had reached the ship - and leaped upon the firm glad earth 
+again!
+
+I suppose this Halifax would have appeared an Elysium, though it 
+had been a curiosity of ugly dulness.  But I carried away with me a 
+most pleasant impression of the town and its inhabitants, and have 
+preserved it to this hour.  Nor was it without regret that I came 
+home, without having found an opportunity of returning thither, and 
+once more shaking hands with the friends I made that day.
+
+It happened to be the opening of the Legislative Council and 
+General Assembly, at which ceremonial the forms observed on the 
+commencement of a new Session of Parliament in England were so 
+closely copied, and so gravely presented on a small scale, that it 
+was like looking at Westminster through the wrong end of a 
+telescope.  The governor, as her Majesty's representative, 
+delivered what may be called the Speech from the Throne.  He said 
+what he had to say manfully and well.  The military band outside 
+the building struck up "God save the Queen" with great vigour 
+before his Excellency had quite finished; the people shouted; the 
+in's rubbed their hands; the out's shook their heads; the 
+Government party said there never was such a good speech; the 
+Opposition declared there never was such a bad one; the Speaker and 
+members of the House of Assembly withdrew from the bar to say a 
+great deal among themselves and do a little:  and, in short, 
+everything went on, and promised to go on, just as it does at home 
+upon the like occasions.
+
+The town is built on the side of a hill, the highest point being 
+commanded by a strong fortress, not yet quite finished.  Several 
+streets of good breadth and appearance extend from its summit to 
+the water-side, and are intersected by cross streets running 
+parallel with the river.  The houses are chiefly of wood.  The 
+market is abundantly supplied; and provisions are exceedingly 
+cheap.  The weather being unusually mild at that time for the 
+season of the year, there was no sleighing:  but there were plenty 
+of those vehicles in yards and by-places, and some of them, from 
+the gorgeous quality of their decorations, might have 'gone on' 
+without alteration as triumphal cars in a melodrama at Astley's.  
+The day was uncommonly fine; the air bracing and healthful; the 
+whole aspect of the town cheerful, thriving, and industrious.
+
+We lay there seven hours, to deliver and exchange the mails.  At 
+length, having collected all our bags and all our passengers 
+(including two or three choice spirits, who, having indulged too 
+freely in oysters and champagne, were found lying insensible on 
+their backs in unfrequented streets), the engines were again put in 
+motion, and we stood off for Boston.
+
+Encountering squally weather again in the Bay of Fundy, we tumbled 
+and rolled about as usual all that night and all next day.  On the 
+next afternoon, that is to say, on Saturday, the twenty-second of 
+January, an American pilot-boat came alongside, and soon afterwards 
+the Britannia steam-packet, from Liverpool, eighteen days out, was 
+telegraphed at Boston.
+
+The indescribable interest with which I strained my eyes, as the 
+first patches of American soil peeped like molehills from the green 
+sea, and followed them, as they swelled, by slow and almost 
+imperceptible degrees, into a continuous line of coast, can hardly 
+be exaggerated.  A sharp keen wind blew dead against us; a hard 
+frost prevailed on shore; and the cold was most severe.  Yet the 
+air was so intensely clear, and dry, and bright, that the 
+temperature was not only endurable, but delicious.
+
+How I remained on deck, staring about me, until we came alongside 
+the dock, and how, though I had had as many eyes as Argus, I should 
+have had them all wide open, and all employed on new objects - are 
+topics which I will not prolong this chapter to discuss.  Neither 
+will I more than hint at my foreigner-like mistake in supposing 
+that a party of most active persons, who scrambled on board at the 
+peril of their lives as we approached the wharf, were newsmen, 
+answering to that industrious class at home; whereas, despite the 
+leathern wallets of news slung about the necks of some, and the 
+broad sheets in the hands of all, they were Editors, who boarded 
+ships in person (as one gentleman in a worsted comforter informed 
+me), 'because they liked the excitement of it.'  Suffice it in this 
+place to say, that one of these invaders, with a ready courtesy for 
+which I thank him here most gratefully, went on before to order 
+rooms at the hotel; and that when I followed, as I soon did, I 
+found myself rolling through the long passages with an involuntary 
+imitation of the gait of Mr. T. P. Cooke, in a new nautical 
+melodrama.
+
+'Dinner, if you please,' said I to the waiter.
+
+'When?' said the waiter.
+
+'As quick as possible,' said I.
+
+'Right away?' said the waiter.
+
+After a moment's hesitation, I answered 'No,' at hazard.
+
+'NOT right away?' cried the waiter, with an amount of surprise that 
+made me start.
+
+I looked at him doubtfully, and returned, 'No; I would rather have 
+it in this private room.  I like it very much.'
+
+At this, I really thought the waiter must have gone out of his 
+mind:  as I believe he would have done, but for the interposition 
+of another man, who whispered in his ear, 'Directly.'
+
+'Well! and that's a fact!' said the waiter, looking helplessly at 
+me:  'Right away.'
+
+I saw now that 'Right away' and 'Directly' were one and the same 
+thing.  So I reversed my previous answer, and sat down to dinner in 
+ten minutes afterwards; and a capital dinner it was.
+
+The hotel (a very excellent one) is called the Tremont House.  It 
+has more galleries, colonnades, piazzas, and passages than I can 
+remember, or the reader would believe.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III - BOSTON
+
+
+
+IN all the public establishments of America, the utmost courtesy 
+prevails.  Most of our Departments are susceptible of considerable 
+improvement in this respect, but the Custom-house above all others 
+would do well to take example from the United States and render 
+itself somewhat less odious and offensive to foreigners.  The 
+servile rapacity of the French officials is sufficiently 
+contemptible; but there is a surly boorish incivility about our 
+men, alike disgusting to all persons who fall into their hands, and 
+discreditable to the nation that keeps such ill-conditioned curs 
+snarling about its gates.
+
+When I landed in America, I could not help being strongly impressed 
+with the contrast their Custom-house presented, and the attention, 
+politeness and good humour with which its officers discharged their 
+duty.
+
+As we did not land at Boston, in consequence of some detention at 
+the wharf, until after dark, I received my first impressions of the 
+city in walking down to the Custom-house on the morning after our 
+arrival, which was Sunday.  I am afraid to say, by the way, how 
+many offers of pews and seats in church for that morning were made 
+to us, by formal note of invitation, before we had half finished 
+our first dinner in America, but if I may be allowed to make a 
+moderate guess, without going into nicer calculation, I should say 
+that at least as many sittings were proffered us, as would have 
+accommodated a score or two of grown-up families.  The number of 
+creeds and forms of religion to which the pleasure of our company 
+was requested, was in very fair proportion.
+
+Not being able, in the absence of any change of clothes, to go to 
+church that day, we were compelled to decline these kindnesses, one 
+and all; and I was reluctantly obliged to forego the delight of 
+hearing Dr. Channing, who happened to preach that morning for the 
+first time in a very long interval.  I mention the name of this 
+distinguished and accomplished man (with whom I soon afterwards had 
+the pleasure of becoming personally acquainted), that I may have 
+the gratification of recording my humble tribute of admiration and 
+respect for his high abilities and character; and for the bold 
+philanthropy with which he has ever opposed himself to that most 
+hideous blot and foul disgrace - Slavery.
+
+To return to Boston.  When I got into the streets upon this Sunday 
+morning, the air was so clear, the houses were so bright and gay:  
+the signboards were painted in such gaudy colours; the gilded 
+letters were so very golden; the bricks were so very red, the stone 
+was so very white, the blinds and area railings were so very green, 
+the knobs and plates upon the street doors so marvellously bright 
+and twinkling; and all so slight and unsubstantial in appearance - 
+that every thoroughfare in the city looked exactly like a scene in 
+a pantomime.  It rarely happens in the business streets that a 
+tradesman, if I may venture to call anybody a tradesman, where 
+everybody is a merchant, resides above his store; so that many 
+occupations are often carried on in one house, and the whole front 
+is covered with boards and inscriptions.  As I walked along, I kept 
+glancing up at these boards, confidently expecting to see a few of 
+them change into something; and I never turned a corner suddenly 
+without looking out for the clown and pantaloon, who, I had no 
+doubt, were hiding in a doorway or behind some pillar close at 
+hand.  As to Harlequin and Columbine, I discovered immediately that 
+they lodged (they are always looking after lodgings in a pantomime) 
+at a very small clockmaker's one story high, near the hotel; which, 
+in addition to various symbols and devices, almost covering the 
+whole front, had a great dial hanging out - to be jumped through, 
+of course.
+
+The suburbs are, if possible, even more unsubstantial-looking than 
+the city.  The white wooden houses (so white that it makes one wink 
+to look at them), with their green jalousie blinds, are so 
+sprinkled and dropped about in all directions, without seeming to 
+have any root at all in the ground; and the small churches and 
+chapels are so prim, and bright, and highly varnished; that I 
+almost believed the whole affair could be taken up piecemeal like a 
+child's toy, and crammed into a little box.
+
+The city is a beautiful one, and cannot fail, I should imagine, to 
+impress all strangers very favourably.  The private dwelling-houses 
+are, for the most part, large and elegant; the shops extremely 
+good; and the public buildings handsome.  The State House is built 
+upon the summit of a hill, which rises gradually at first, and 
+afterwards by a steep ascent, almost from the water's edge.  In 
+front is a green enclosure, called the Common.  The site is 
+beautiful:  and from the top there is a charming panoramic view of 
+the whole town and neighbourhood.  In addition to a variety of 
+commodious offices, it contains two handsome chambers; in one the 
+House of Representatives of the State hold their meetings:  in the 
+other, the Senate.  Such proceedings as I saw here, were conducted 
+with perfect gravity and decorum; and were certainly calculated to 
+inspire attention and respect.
+
+There is no doubt that much of the intellectual refinement and 
+superiority of Boston, is referable to the quiet influence of the 
+University of Cambridge, which is within three or four miles of the 
+city.  The resident professors at that university are gentlemen of 
+learning and varied attainments; and are, without one exception 
+that I can call to mind, men who would shed a grace upon, and do 
+honour to, any society in the civilised world.  Many of the 
+resident gentry in Boston and its neighbourhood, and I think I am 
+not mistaken in adding, a large majority of those who are attached 
+to the liberal professions there, have been educated at this same 
+school.  Whatever the defects of American universities may be, they 
+disseminate no prejudices; rear no bigots; dig up the buried ashes 
+of no old superstitions; never interpose between the people and 
+their improvement; exclude no man because of his religious 
+opinions; above all, in their whole course of study and 
+instruction, recognise a world, and a broad one too, lying beyond 
+the college walls.
+
+It was a source of inexpressible pleasure to me to observe the 
+almost imperceptible, but not less certain effect, wrought by this 
+institution among the small community of Boston; and to note at 
+every turn the humanising tastes and desires it has engendered; the 
+affectionate friendships to which it has given rise; the amount of 
+vanity and prejudice it has dispelled.  The golden calf they 
+worship at Boston is a pigmy compared with the giant effigies set 
+up in other parts of that vast counting-house which lies beyond the 
+Atlantic; and the almighty dollar sinks into something 
+comparatively insignificant, amidst a whole Pantheon of better 
+gods.
+
+Above all, I sincerely believe that the public institutions and 
+charities of this capital of Massachusetts are as nearly perfect, 
+as the most considerate wisdom, benevolence, and humanity, can make 
+them.  I never in my life was more affected by the contemplation of 
+happiness, under circumstances of privation and bereavement, than 
+in my visits to these establishments.
+
+It is a great and pleasant feature of all such institutions in 
+America, that they are either supported by the State or assisted by 
+the State; or (in the event of their not needing its helping hand) 
+that they act in concert with it, and are emphatically the 
+people's.  I cannot but think, with a view to the principle and its 
+tendency to elevate or depress the character of the industrious 
+classes, that a Public Charity is immeasurably better than a 
+Private Foundation, no matter how munificently the latter may be 
+endowed.  In our own country, where it has not, until within these 
+later days, been a very popular fashion with governments to display 
+any extraordinary regard for the great mass of the people or to 
+recognise their existence as improvable creatures, private 
+charities, unexampled in the history of the earth, have arisen, to 
+do an incalculable amount of good among the destitute and 
+afflicted.  But the government of the country, having neither act 
+nor part in them, is not in the receipt of any portion of the 
+gratitude they inspire; and, offering very little shelter or relief 
+beyond that which is to be found in the workhouse and the jail, has 
+come, not unnaturally, to be looked upon by the poor rather as a 
+stern master, quick to correct and punish, than a kind protector, 
+merciful and vigilant in their hour of need.
+
+The maxim that out of evil cometh good, is strongly illustrated by 
+these establishments at home; as the records of the Prerogative 
+Office in Doctors' Commons can abundantly prove.  Some immensely 
+rich old gentleman or lady, surrounded by needy relatives, makes, 
+upon a low average, a will a-week.  The old gentleman or lady, 
+never very remarkable in the best of times for good temper, is full 
+of aches and pains from head to foot; full of fancies and caprices; 
+full of spleen, distrust, suspicion, and dislike.  To cancel old 
+wills, and invent new ones, is at last the sole business of such a 
+testator's existence; and relations and friends (some of whom have 
+been bred up distinctly to inherit a large share of the property, 
+and have been, from their cradles, specially disqualified from 
+devoting themselves to any useful pursuit, on that account) are so 
+often and so unexpectedly and summarily cut off, and reinstated, 
+and cut off again, that the whole family, down to the remotest 
+cousin, is kept in a perpetual fever.  At length it becomes plain 
+that the old lady or gentleman has not long to live; and the 
+plainer this becomes, the more clearly the old lady or gentleman 
+perceives that everybody is in a conspiracy against their poor old 
+dying relative; wherefore the old lady or gentleman makes another 
+last will - positively the last this time - conceals the same in a 
+china teapot, and expires next day.  Then it turns out, that the 
+whole of the real and personal estate is divided between half-a-
+dozen charities; and that the dead and gone testator has in pure 
+spite helped to do a great deal of good, at the cost of an immense 
+amount of evil passion and misery.
+
+The Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind, at 
+Boston, is superintended by a body of trustees who make an annual 
+report to the corporation.  The indigent blind of that state are 
+admitted gratuitously.  Those from the adjoining state of 
+Connecticut, or from the states of Maine, Vermont, or New 
+Hampshire, are admitted by a warrant from the state to which they 
+respectively belong; or, failing that, must find security among 
+their friends, for the payment of about twenty pounds English for 
+their first year's board and instruction, and ten for the second.  
+'After the first year,' say the trustees, 'an account current will 
+be opened with each pupil; he will be charged with the actual cost 
+of his board, which will not exceed two dollars per week;' a trifle 
+more than eight shillings English; 'and he will be credited with 
+the amount paid for him by the state, or by his friends; also with 
+his earnings over and above the cost of the stock which he uses; so 
+that all his earnings over one dollar per week will be his own.  By 
+the third year it will be known whether his earnings will more than 
+pay the actual cost of his board; if they should, he will have it 
+at his option to remain and receive his earnings, or not.  Those 
+who prove unable to earn their own livelihood will not be retained; 
+as it is not desirable to convert the establishment into an alms-
+house, or to retain any but working bees in the hive.  Those who by 
+physical or mental imbecility are disqualified from work, are 
+thereby disqualified from being members of an industrious 
+community; and they can be better provided for in establishments 
+fitted for the infirm.'
+
+I went to see this place one very fine winter morning:  an Italian 
+sky above, and the air so clear and bright on every side, that even 
+my eyes, which are none of the best, could follow the minute lines 
+and scraps of tracery in distant buildings.  Like most other public 
+institutions in America, of the same class, it stands a mile or two 
+without the town, in a cheerful healthy spot; and is an airy, 
+spacious, handsome edifice.  It is built upon a height, commanding 
+the harbour.  When I paused for a moment at the door, and marked 
+how fresh and free the whole scene was - what sparkling bubbles 
+glanced upon the waves, and welled up every moment to the surface, 
+as though the world below, like that above, were radiant with the 
+bright day, and gushing over in its fulness of light:  when I gazed 
+from sail to sail away upon a ship at sea, a tiny speck of shining 
+white, the only cloud upon the still, deep, distant blue - and, 
+turning, saw a blind boy with his sightless face addressed that 
+way, as though he too had some sense within him of the glorious 
+distance:  I felt a kind of sorrow that the place should be so very 
+light, and a strange wish that for his sake it were darker.  It was 
+but momentary, of course, and a mere fancy, but I felt it keenly 
+for all that.
+
+The children were at their daily tasks in different rooms, except a 
+few who were already dismissed, and were at play.  Here, as in many 
+institutions, no uniform is worn; and I was very glad of it, for 
+two reasons.  Firstly, because I am sure that nothing but senseless 
+custom and want of thought would reconcile us to the liveries and 
+badges we are so fond of at home.  Secondly, because the absence of 
+these things presents each child to the visitor in his or her own 
+proper character, with its individuality unimpaired; not lost in a 
+dull, ugly, monotonous repetition of the same unmeaning garb:  
+which is really an important consideration.  The wisdom of 
+encouraging a little harmless pride in personal appearance even 
+among the blind, or the whimsical absurdity of considering charity 
+and leather breeches inseparable companions, as we do, requires no 
+comment.
+
+Good order, cleanliness, and comfort, pervaded every corner of the 
+building.  The various classes, who were gathered round their 
+teachers, answered the questions put to them with readiness and 
+intelligence, and in a spirit of cheerful contest for precedence 
+which pleased me very much.  Those who were at play, were gleesome 
+and noisy as other children.  More spiritual and affectionate 
+friendships appeared to exist among them, than would be found among 
+other young persons suffering under no deprivation; but this I 
+expected and was prepared to find.  It is a part of the great 
+scheme of Heaven's merciful consideration for the afflicted.
+
+In a portion of the building, set apart for that purpose, are work-
+shops for blind persons whose education is finished, and who have 
+acquired a trade, but who cannot pursue it in an ordinary 
+manufactory because of their deprivation.  Several people were at 
+work here; making brushes, mattresses, and so forth; and the 
+cheerfulness, industry, and good order discernible in every other 
+part of the building, extended to this department also.
+
+On the ringing of a bell, the pupils all repaired, without any 
+guide or leader, to a spacious music-hall, where they took their 
+seats in an orchestra erected for that purpose, and listened with 
+manifest delight to a voluntary on the organ, played by one of 
+themselves.  At its conclusion, the performer, a boy of nineteen or 
+twenty, gave place to a girl; and to her accompaniment they all 
+sang a hymn, and afterwards a sort of chorus.  It was very sad to 
+look upon and hear them, happy though their condition 
+unquestionably was; and I saw that one blind girl, who (being for 
+the time deprived of the use of her limbs, by illness) sat close 
+beside me with her face towards them, wept silently the while she 
+listened.
+
+It is strange to watch the faces of the blind, and see how free 
+they are from all concealment of what is passing in their thoughts; 
+observing which, a man with eyes may blush to contemplate the mask 
+he wears.  Allowing for one shade of anxious expression which is 
+never absent from their countenances, and the like of which we may 
+readily detect in our own faces if we try to feel our way in the 
+dark, every idea, as it rises within them, is expressed with the 
+lightning's speed and nature's truth.  If the company at a rout, or 
+drawing-room at court, could only for one time be as unconscious of 
+the eyes upon them as blind men and women are, what secrets would 
+come out, and what a worker of hypocrisy this sight, the loss of 
+which we so much pity, would appear to be!
+
+The thought occurred to me as I sat down in another room, before a 
+girl, blind, deaf, and dumb; destitute of smell; and nearly so of 
+taste:  before a fair young creature with every human faculty, and 
+hope, and power of goodness and affection, inclosed within her 
+delicate frame, and but one outward sense - the sense of touch.  
+There she was, before me; built up, as it were, in a marble cell, 
+impervious to any ray of light, or particle of sound; with her poor 
+white hand peeping through a chink in the wall, beckoning to some 
+good man for help, that an Immortal soul might be awakened.
+
+Long before I looked upon her, the help had come.  Her face was 
+radiant with intelligence and pleasure.  Her hair, braided by her 
+own hands, was bound about a head, whose intellectual capacity and 
+development were beautifully expressed in its graceful outline, and 
+its broad open brow; her dress, arranged by herself, was a pattern 
+of neatness and simplicity; the work she had knitted, lay beside 
+her; her writing-book was on the desk she leaned upon. - From the 
+mournful ruin of such bereavement, there had slowly risen up this 
+gentle, tender, guileless, grateful-hearted being.
+
+Like other inmates of that house, she had a green ribbon bound 
+round her eyelids.  A doll she had dressed lay near upon the 
+ground.  I took it up, and saw that she had made a green fillet 
+such as she wore herself, and fastened it about its mimic eyes.
+
+She was seated in a little enclosure, made by school-desks and 
+forms, writing her daily journal.  But soon finishing this pursuit, 
+she engaged in an animated conversation with a teacher who sat 
+beside her.  This was a favourite mistress with the poor pupil.  If 
+she could see the face of her fair instructress, she would not love 
+her less, I am sure.
+
+I have extracted a few disjointed fragments of her history, from an 
+account, written by that one man who has made her what she is.  It 
+is a very beautiful and touching narrative; and I wish I could 
+present it entire.
+
+Her name is Laura Bridgman.  'She was born in Hanover, New 
+Hampshire, on the twenty-first of December, 1829.  She is described 
+as having been a very sprightly and pretty infant, with bright blue 
+eyes.  She was, however, so puny and feeble until she was a year 
+and a half old, that her parents hardly hoped to rear her.  She was 
+subject to severe fits, which seemed to rack her frame almost 
+beyond her power of endurance:  and life was held by the feeblest 
+tenure:  but when a year and a half old, she seemed to rally; the 
+dangerous symptoms subsided; and at twenty months old, she was 
+perfectly well.
+
+'Then her mental powers, hitherto stinted in their growth, rapidly 
+developed themselves; and during the four months of health which 
+she enjoyed, she appears (making due allowance for a fond mother's 
+account) to have displayed a considerable degree of intelligence.
+
+'But suddenly she sickened again; her disease raged with great 
+violence during five weeks, when her eyes and ears were inflamed, 
+suppurated, and their contents were discharged.  But though sight 
+and hearing were gone for ever, the poor child's sufferings were 
+not ended.  The fever raged during seven weeks; for five months she 
+was kept in bed in a darkened room; it was a year before she could 
+walk unsupported, and two years before she could sit up all day.  
+It was now observed that her sense of smell was almost entirely 
+destroyed; and, consequently, that her taste was much blunted.
+
+'It was not until four years of age that the poor child's bodily 
+health seemed restored, and she was able to enter upon her 
+apprenticeship of life and the world.
+
+'But what a situation was hers!  The darkness and the silence of 
+the tomb were around her:  no mother's smile called forth her 
+answering smile, no father's voice taught her to imitate his 
+sounds:- they, brothers and sisters, were but forms of matter which 
+resisted her touch, but which differed not from the furniture of 
+the house, save in warmth, and in the power of locomotion; and not 
+even in these respects from the dog and the cat.
+
+'But the immortal spirit which had been implanted within her could 
+not die, nor be maimed nor mutilated; and though most of its 
+avenues of communication with the world were cut off, it began to 
+manifest itself through the others.  As soon as she could walk, she 
+began to explore the room, and then the house; she became familiar 
+with the form, density, weight, and heat, of every article she 
+could lay her hands upon.  She followed her mother, and felt her 
+hands and arms, as she was occupied about the house; and her 
+disposition to imitate, led her to repeat everything herself.  She 
+even learned to sew a little, and to knit.'
+
+The reader will scarcely need to be told, however, that the 
+opportunities of communicating with her, were very, very limited; 
+and that the moral effects of her wretched state soon began to 
+appear.  Those who cannot be enlightened by reason, can only be 
+controlled by force; and this, coupled with her great privations, 
+must soon have reduced her to a worse condition than that of the 
+beasts that perish, but for timely and unhoped-for aid.
+
+'At this time, I was so fortunate as to hear of the child, and 
+immediately hastened to Hanover to see her.  I found her with a 
+well-formed figure; a strongly-marked, nervous-sanguine 
+temperament; a large and beautifully-shaped head; and the whole 
+system in healthy action.  The parents were easily induced to 
+consent to her coming to Boston, and on the 4th of October, 1837, 
+they brought her to the Institution.
+
+'For a while, she was much bewildered; and after waiting about two 
+weeks, until she became acquainted with her new locality, and 
+somewhat familiar with the inmates, the attempt was made to give 
+her knowledge of arbitrary signs, by which she could interchange 
+thoughts with others.
+
+'There was one of two ways to be adopted:  either to go on to build 
+up a language of signs on the basis of the natural language which 
+she had already commenced herself, or to teach her the purely 
+arbitrary language in common use:  that is, to give her a sign for 
+every individual thing, or to give her a knowledge of letters by 
+combination of which she might express her idea of the existence, 
+and the mode and condition of existence, of any thing.  The former 
+would have been easy, but very ineffectual; the latter seemed very 
+difficult, but, if accomplished, very effectual.  I determined 
+therefore to try the latter.
+
+'The first experiments were made by taking articles in common use, 
+such as knives, forks, spoons, keys, &c., and pasting upon them 
+labels with their names printed in raised letters.  These she felt 
+very carefully, and soon, of course, distinguished that the crooked 
+lines SPOON, differed as much from the crooked lines KEY, as the 
+spoon differed from the key in form.
+
+'Then small detached labels, with the same words printed upon them, 
+were put into her hands; and she soon observed that they were 
+similar to the ones pasted on the articles.'  She showed her 
+perception of this similarity by laying the label KEY upon the key, 
+and the label SPOON upon the spoon.  She was encouraged here by the 
+natural sign of approbation, patting on the head.
+
+'The same process was then repeated with all the articles which she 
+could handle; and she very easily learned to place the proper 
+labels upon them.  It was evident, however, that the only 
+intellectual exercise was that of imitation and memory.  She 
+recollected that the label BOOK was placed upon a book, and she 
+repeated the process first from imitation, next from memory, with 
+only the motive of love of approbation, but apparently without the 
+intellectual perception of any relation between the things.
+
+'After a while, instead of labels, the individual letters were 
+given to her on detached bits of paper:  they were arranged side by 
+side so as to spell BOOK, KEY, &c.; then they were mixed up in a 
+heap and a sign was made for her to arrange them herself so as to 
+express the words BOOK, KEY, &c.; and she did so.
+
+'Hitherto, the process had been mechanical, and the success about 
+as great as teaching a very knowing dog a variety of tricks.  The 
+poor child had sat in mute amazement, and patiently imitated 
+everything her teacher did; but now the truth began to flash upon 
+her:  her intellect began to work:  she perceived that here was a 
+way by which she could herself make up a sign of anything that was 
+in her own mind, and show it to another mind; and at once her 
+countenance lighted up with a human expression:  it was no longer a 
+dog, or parrot:  it was an immortal spirit, eagerly seizing upon a 
+new link of union with other spirits!  I could almost fix upon the 
+moment when this truth dawned upon her mind, and spread its light 
+to her countenance; I saw that the great obstacle was overcome; and 
+that henceforward nothing but patient and persevering, but plain 
+and straightforward, efforts were to be used.
+
+'The result thus far, is quickly related, and easily conceived; but 
+not so was the process; for many weeks of apparently unprofitable 
+labour were passed before it was effected.
+
+'When it was said above that a sign was made, it was intended to 
+say, that the action was performed by her teacher, she feeling his 
+hands, and then imitating the motion.
+
+'The next step was to procure a set of metal types, with the 
+different letters of the alphabet cast upon their ends; also a 
+board, in which were square holes, into which holes she could set 
+the types; so that the letters on their ends could alone be felt 
+above the surface.
+
+'Then, on any article being handed to her, for instance, a pencil, 
+or a watch, she would select the component letters, and arrange 
+them on her board, and read them with apparent pleasure.
+
+'She was exercised for several weeks in this way, until her 
+vocabulary became extensive; and then the important step was taken 
+of teaching her how to represent the different letters by the 
+position of her fingers, instead of the cumbrous apparatus of the 
+board and types.  She accomplished this speedily and easily, for 
+her intellect had begun to work in aid of her teacher, and her 
+progress was rapid.
+
+'This was the period, about three months after she had commenced, 
+that the first report of her case was made, in which it was stated 
+that "she has just learned the manual alphabet, as used by the deaf 
+mutes, and it is a subject of delight and wonder to see how 
+rapidly, correctly, and eagerly, she goes on with her labours.  Her 
+teacher gives her a new object, for instance, a pencil, first lets 
+her examine it, and get an idea of its use, then teaches her how to 
+spell it by making the signs for the letters with her own fingers:  
+the child grasps her hand, and feels her fingers, as the different 
+letters are formed; she turns her head a little on one side like a 
+person listening closely; her lips are apart; she seems scarcely to 
+breathe; and her countenance, at first anxious, gradually changes 
+to a smile, as she comprehends the lesson.  She then holds up her 
+tiny fingers, and spells the word in the manual alphabet; next, she 
+takes her types and arranges her letters; and last, to make sure 
+that she is right, she takes the whole of the types composing the 
+word, and places them upon or in contact with the pencil, or 
+whatever the object may be."
+
+'The whole of the succeeding year was passed in gratifying her 
+eager inquiries for the names of every object which she could 
+possibly handle; in exercising her in the use of the manual 
+alphabet; in extending in every possible way her knowledge of the 
+physical relations of things; and in proper care of her health.
+
+'At the end of the year a report of her case was made, from which 
+the following is an extract.
+
+'"It has been ascertained beyond the possibility of doubt, that she 
+cannot see a ray of light, cannot hear the least sound, and never 
+exercises her sense of smell, if she have any.  Thus her mind 
+dwells in darkness and stillness, as profound as that of a closed 
+tomb at midnight.  Of beautiful sights, and sweet sounds, and 
+pleasant odours, she has no conception; nevertheless, she seems as 
+happy and playful as a bird or a lamb; and the employment of her 
+intellectual faculties, or the acquirement of a new idea, gives her 
+a vivid pleasure, which is plainly marked in her expressive 
+features.  She never seems to repine, but has all the buoyancy and 
+gaiety of childhood.  She is fond of fun and frolic, and when 
+playing with the rest of the children, her shrill laugh sounds 
+loudest of the group.
+
+'"When left alone, she seems very happy if she have her knitting or 
+sewing, and will busy herself for hours; if she have no occupation, 
+she evidently amuses herself by imaginary dialogues, or by 
+recalling past impressions; she counts with her fingers, or spells 
+out names of things which she has recently learned, in the manual 
+alphabet of the deaf mutes.  In this lonely self-communion she 
+seems to reason, reflect, and argue; if she spell a word wrong with 
+the fingers of her right hand, she instantly strikes it with her 
+left, as her teacher does, in sign of disapprobation; if right, 
+then she pats herself upon the head, and looks pleased.  She 
+sometimes purposely spells a word wrong with the left hand, looks 
+roguish for a moment and laughs, and then with the right hand 
+strikes the left, as if to correct it.
+
+'"During the year she has attained great dexterity in the use of 
+the manual alphabet of the deaf mutes; and she spells out the words 
+and sentences which she knows, so fast and so deftly, that only 
+those accustomed to this language can follow with the eye the rapid 
+motions of her fingers.
+
+'"But wonderful as is the rapidity with which she writes her 
+thoughts upon the air, still more so is the ease and accuracy with 
+which she reads the words thus written by another; grasping their 
+hands in hers, and following every movement of their fingers, as 
+letter after letter conveys their meaning to her mind.  It is in 
+this way that she converses with her blind playmates, and nothing 
+can more forcibly show the power of mind in forcing matter to its 
+purpose than a meeting between them.  For if great talent and skill 
+are necessary for two pantomimes to paint their thoughts and 
+feelings by the movements of the body, and the expression of the 
+countenance, how much greater the difficulty when darkness shrouds 
+them both, and the one can hear no sound.
+
+'"When Laura is walking through a passage-way, with her hands 
+spread before her, she knows instantly every one she meets, and 
+passes them with a sign of recognition:  but if it be a girl of her 
+own age, and especially if it be one of her favourites, there is 
+instantly a bright smile of recognition, a twining of arms, a 
+grasping of hands, and a swift telegraphing upon the tiny fingers; 
+whose rapid evolutions convey the thoughts and feelings from the 
+outposts of one mind to those of the other.  There are questions 
+and answers, exchanges of joy or sorrow, there are kissings and 
+partings, just as between little children with all their senses."
+
+'During this year, and six months after she had left home, her 
+mother came to visit her, and the scene of their meeting was an 
+interesting one.
+
+'The mother stood some time, gazing with overflowing eyes upon her 
+unfortunate child, who, all unconscious of her presence, was 
+playing about the room.  Presently Laura ran against her, and at 
+once began feeling her hands, examining her dress, and trying to 
+find out if she knew her; but not succeeding in this, she turned 
+away as from a stranger, and the poor woman could not conceal the 
+pang she felt, at finding that her beloved child did not know her.
+
+'She then gave Laura a string of beads which she used to wear at 
+home, which were recognised by the child at once, who, with much 
+joy, put them around her neck, and sought me eagerly to say she 
+understood the string was from her home.
+
+'The mother now sought to caress her, but poor Laura repelled her, 
+preferring to be with her acquaintances.
+
+'Another article from home was now given her, and she began to look 
+much interested; she examined the stranger much closer, and gave me 
+to understand that she knew she came from Hanover; she even endured 
+her caresses, but would leave her with indifference at the 
+slightest signal.  The distress of the mother was now painful to 
+behold; for, although she had feared that she should not be 
+recognised, the painful reality of being treated with cold 
+indifference by a darling child, was too much for woman's nature to 
+bear.
+
+'After a while, on the mother taking hold of her again, a vague 
+idea seemed to flit across Laura's mind, that this could not be a 
+stranger; she therefore felt her hands very eagerly, while her 
+countenance assumed an expression of intense interest; she became 
+very pale; and then suddenly red; hope seemed struggling with doubt 
+and anxiety, and never were contending emotions more strongly 
+painted upon the human face:  at this moment of painful 
+uncertainty, the mother drew her close to her side, and kissed her 
+fondly, when at once the truth flashed upon the child, and all 
+mistrust and anxiety disappeared from her face, as with an 
+expression of exceeding joy she eagerly nestled to the bosom of her 
+parent, and yielded herself to her fond embraces.
+
+'After this, the beads were all unheeded; the playthings which were 
+offered to her were utterly disregarded; her playmates, for whom 
+but a moment before she gladly left the stranger, now vainly strove 
+to pull her from her mother; and though she yielded her usual 
+instantaneous obedience to my signal to follow me, it was evidently 
+with painful reluctance.  She clung close to me, as if bewildered 
+and fearful; and when, after a moment, I took her to her mother, 
+she sprang to her arms, and clung to her with eager joy.
+
+'The subsequent parting between them, showed alike the affection, 
+the intelligence, and the resolution of the child.
+
+'Laura accompanied her mother to the door, clinging close to her 
+all the way, until they arrived at the threshold, where she paused, 
+and felt around, to ascertain who was near her.  Perceiving the 
+matron, of whom she is very fond, she grasped her with one hand, 
+holding on convulsively to her mother with the other; and thus she 
+stood for a moment:  then she dropped her mother's hand; put her 
+handkerchief to her eyes; and turning round, clung sobbing to the 
+matron; while her mother departed, with emotions as deep as those 
+of her child.
+
+* * * * * *
+
+'It has been remarked in former reports, that she can distinguish 
+different degrees of intellect in others, and that she soon 
+regarded, almost with contempt, a new-comer, when, after a few 
+days, she discovered her weakness of mind.  This unamiable part of 
+her character has been more strongly developed during the past 
+year.
+
+'She chooses for her friends and companions, those children who are 
+intelligent, and can talk best with her; and she evidently dislikes 
+to be with those who are deficient in intellect, unless, indeed, 
+she can make them serve her purposes, which she is evidently 
+inclined to do.  She takes advantage of them, and makes them wait 
+upon her, in a manner that she knows she could not exact of others; 
+and in various ways shows her Saxon blood.
+
+'She is fond of having other children noticed and caressed by the 
+teachers, and those whom she respects; but this must not be carried 
+too far, or she becomes jealous.  She wants to have her share, 
+which, if not the lion's, is the greater part; and if she does not 
+get it, she says, "MY MOTHER WILL LOVE ME."
+
+'Her tendency to imitation is so strong, that it leads her to 
+actions which must be entirely incomprehensible to her, and which 
+can give her no other pleasure than the gratification of an 
+internal faculty.  She has been known to sit for half an hour, 
+holding a book before her sightless eyes, and moving her lips, as 
+she has observed seeing people do when reading.
+
+'She one day pretended that her doll was sick; and went through all 
+the motions of tending it, and giving it medicine; she then put it 
+carefully to bed, and placed a bottle of hot water to its feet, 
+laughing all the time most heartily.  When I came home, she 
+insisted upon my going to see it, and feel its pulse; and when I 
+told her to put a blister on its back, she seemed to enjoy it 
+amazingly, and almost screamed with delight.
+
+'Her social feelings, and her affections, are very strong; and when 
+she is sitting at work, or at her studies, by the side of one of 
+her little friends, she will break off from her task every few 
+moments, to hug and kiss them with an earnestness and warmth that 
+is touching to behold.
+
+'When left alone, she occupies and apparently amuses herself, and 
+seems quite contented; and so strong seems to be the natural 
+tendency of thought to put on the garb of language, that she often 
+soliloquizes in the FINGER LANGUAGE, slow and tedious as it is.  
+But it is only when alone, that she is quiet:  for if she becomes 
+sensible of the presence of any one near her, she is restless until 
+she can sit close beside them, hold their hand, and converse with 
+them by signs.
+
+'In her intellectual character it is pleasing to observe an 
+insatiable thirst for knowledge, and a quick perception of the 
+relations of things.  In her moral character, it is beautiful to 
+behold her continual gladness, her keen enjoyment of existence, her 
+expansive love, her unhesitating confidence, her sympathy with 
+suffering, her conscientiousness, truthfulness, and hopefulness.'
+
+Such are a few fragments from the simple but most interesting and 
+instructive history of Laura Bridgman.  The name of her great 
+benefactor and friend, who writes it, is Dr. Howe.  There are not 
+many persons, I hope and believe, who, after reading these 
+passages, can ever hear that name with indifference.
+
+A further account has been published by Dr. Howe, since the report 
+from which I have just quoted.  It describes her rapid mental 
+growth and improvement during twelve months more, and brings her 
+little history down to the end of last year.  It is very 
+remarkable, that as we dream in words, and carry on imaginary 
+conversations, in which we speak both for ourselves and for the 
+shadows who appear to us in those visions of the night, so she, 
+having no words, uses her finger alphabet in her sleep.  And it has 
+been ascertained that when her slumber is broken, and is much 
+disturbed by dreams, she expresses her thoughts in an irregular and 
+confused manner on her fingers:  just as we should murmur and 
+mutter them indistinctly, in the like circumstances.
+
+I turned over the leaves of her Diary, and found it written in a 
+fair legible square hand, and expressed in terms which were quite 
+intelligible without any explanation.  On my saying that I should 
+like to see her write again, the teacher who sat beside her, bade 
+her, in their language, sign her name upon a slip of paper, twice 
+or thrice.  In doing so, I observed that she kept her left hand 
+always touching, and following up, her right, in which, of course, 
+she held the pen.  No line was indicated by any contrivance, but 
+she wrote straight and freely.
+
+She had, until now, been quite unconscious of the presence of 
+visitors; but, having her hand placed in that of the gentleman who 
+accompanied me, she immediately expressed his name upon her 
+teacher's palm.  Indeed her sense of touch is now so exquisite, 
+that having been acquainted with a person once, she can recognise 
+him or her after almost any interval.  This gentleman had been in 
+her company, I believe, but very seldom, and certainly had not seen 
+her for many months.  My hand she rejected at once, as she does 
+that of any man who is a stranger to her.  But she retained my 
+wife's with evident pleasure, kissed her, and examined her dress with 
+a girl's curiosity and interest.
+
+She was merry and cheerful, and showed much innocent playfulness in 
+her intercourse with her teacher.  Her delight on recognising a 
+favourite playfellow and companion - herself a blind girl - who 
+silently, and with an equal enjoyment of the coming surprise, took 
+a seat beside her, was beautiful to witness.  It elicited from her 
+at first, as other slight circumstances did twice or thrice during 
+my visit, an uncouth noise which was rather painful to hear.  But 
+of her teacher touching her lips, she immediately desisted, and 
+embraced her laughingly and affectionately.
+
+I had previously been into another chamber, where a number of blind 
+boys were swinging, and climbing, and engaged in various sports.  
+They all clamoured, as we entered, to the assistant-master, who 
+accompanied us, 'Look at me, Mr. Hart!  Please, Mr. Hart, look at 
+me!' evincing, I thought, even in this, an anxiety peculiar to 
+their condition, that their little feats of agility should be SEEN.  
+Among them was a small laughing fellow, who stood aloof, 
+entertaining himself with a gymnastic exercise for bringing the 
+arms and chest into play; which he enjoyed mightily; especially 
+when, in thrusting out his right arm, he brought it into contact 
+with another boy.  Like Laura Bridgman, this young child was deaf, 
+and dumb, and blind.
+
+Dr. Howe's account of this pupil's first instruction is so very 
+striking, and so intimately connected with Laura herself, that I 
+cannot refrain from a short extract.  I may premise that the poor 
+boy's name is Oliver Caswell; that he is thirteen years of age; and 
+that he was in full possession of all his faculties, until three 
+years and four months old.  He was then attacked by scarlet fever; 
+in four weeks became deaf; in a few weeks more, blind; in six 
+months, dumb.  He showed his anxious sense of this last 
+deprivation, by often feeling the lips of other persons when they 
+were talking, and then putting his hand upon his own, as if to 
+assure himself that he had them in the right position.
+
+'His thirst for knowledge,' says Dr. Howe, 'proclaimed itself as 
+soon as he entered the house, by his eager examination of 
+everything he could feel or smell in his new location.  For 
+instance, treading upon the register of a furnace, he instantly 
+stooped down, and began to feel it, and soon discovered the way in 
+which the upper plate moved upon the lower one; but this was not 
+enough for him, so lying down upon his face, he applied his tongue 
+first to one, then to the other, and seemed to discover that they 
+were of different kinds of metal.
+
+'His signs were expressive:  and the strictly natural language, 
+laughing, crying, sighing, kissing, embracing, &c., was perfect.
+
+'Some of the analogical signs which (guided by his faculty of 
+imitation) he had contrived, were comprehensible; such as the 
+waving motion of his hand for the motion of a boat, the circular 
+one for a wheel, &c.
+
+'The first object was to break up the use of these signs and to 
+substitute for them the use of purely arbitrary ones.
+
+'Profiting by the experience I had gained in the other cases, I 
+omitted several steps of the process before employed, and commenced 
+at once with the finger language.  Taking, therefore, several 
+articles having short names, such as key, cup, mug, &c., and with 
+Laura for an auxiliary, I sat down, and taking his hand, placed it 
+upon one of them, and then with my own, made the letters KEY.  He 
+felt my hands eagerly with both of his, and on my repeating the 
+process, he evidently tried to imitate the motions of my fingers.  
+In a few minutes he contrived to feel the motions of my fingers 
+with one hand, and holding out the other he tried to imitate them, 
+laughing most heartily when he succeeded.  Laura was by, interested 
+even to agitation; and the two presented a singular sight:  her 
+face was flushed and anxious, and her fingers twining in among ours 
+so closely as to follow every motion, but so slightly as not to 
+embarrass them; while Oliver stood attentive, his head a little 
+aside, his face turned up, his left hand grasping mine, and his 
+right held out:  at every motion of my fingers his countenance 
+betokened keen attention; there was an expression of anxiety as he 
+tried to imitate the motions; then a smile came stealing out as he 
+thought he could do so, and spread into a joyous laugh the moment 
+he succeeded, and felt me pat his head, and Laura clap him heartily 
+upon the back, and jump up and down in her joy.
+
+'He learned more than a half-dozen letters in half an hour, and 
+seemed delighted with his success, at least in gaining approbation.  
+His attention then began to flag, and I commenced playing with him.  
+It was evident that in all this he had merely been imitating the 
+motions of my fingers, and placing his hand upon the key, cup, &c., 
+as part of the process, without any perception of the relation 
+between the sign and the object.
+
+'When he was tired with play I took him back to the table, and he 
+was quite ready to begin again his process of imitation.  He soon 
+learned to make the letters for KEY, PEN, PIN; and by having the 
+object repeatedly placed in his hand, he at last perceived the 
+relation I wished to establish between them.  This was evident, 
+because, when I made the letters PIN, or PEN, or CUP, he would 
+select the article.
+
+'The perception of this relation was not accompanied by that 
+radiant flash of intelligence, and that glow of joy, which marked 
+the delightful moment when Laura first perceived it.  I then placed 
+all the articles on the table, and going away a little distance 
+with the children, placed Oliver's fingers in the positions to 
+spell KEY, on which Laura went and brought the article:  the little 
+fellow seemed much amused by this, and looked very attentive and 
+smiling.  I then caused him to make the letters BREAD, and in an 
+instant Laura went and brought him a piece:  he smelled at it; put 
+it to his lips; cocked up his head with a most knowing look; seemed 
+to reflect a moment; and then laughed outright, as much as to say, 
+"Aha!  I understand now how something may be made out of this."
+
+'It was now clear that he had the capacity and inclination to 
+learn, that he was a proper subject for instruction, and needed 
+only persevering attention.  I therefore put him in the hands of an 
+intelligent teacher, nothing doubting of his rapid progress.'
+
+Well may this gentleman call that a delightful moment, in which 
+some distant promise of her present state first gleamed upon the 
+darkened mind of Laura Bridgman.  Throughout his life, the 
+recollection of that moment will be to him a source of pure, 
+unfading happiness; nor will it shine less brightly on the evening 
+of his days of Noble Usefulness.
+
+The affection which exists between these two - the master and the 
+pupil - is as far removed from all ordinary care and regard, as the 
+circumstances in which it has had its growth, are apart from the 
+common occurrences of life.  He is occupied now, in devising means 
+of imparting to her, higher knowledge; and of conveying to her some 
+adequate idea of the Great Creator of that universe in which, dark 
+and silent and scentless though it be to her, she has such deep 
+delight and glad enjoyment.
+
+Ye who have eyes and see not, and have ears and hear not; ye who 
+are as the hypocrites of sad countenances, and disfigure your faces 
+that ye may seem unto men to fast; learn healthy cheerfulness, and 
+mild contentment, from the deaf, and dumb, and blind!  Self-elected 
+saints with gloomy brows, this sightless, earless, voiceless child 
+may teach you lessons you will do well to follow.  Let that poor 
+hand of hers lie gently on your hearts; for there may be something 
+in its healing touch akin to that of the Great Master whose 
+precepts you misconstrue, whose lessons you pervert, of whose 
+charity and sympathy with all the world, not one among you in his 
+daily practice knows as much as many of the worst among those 
+fallen sinners, to whom you are liberal in nothing but the 
+preachment of perdition!
+
+As I rose to quit the room, a pretty little child of one of the 
+attendants came running in to greet its father.  For the moment, a 
+child with eyes, among the sightless crowd, impressed me almost as 
+painfully as the blind boy in the porch had done, two hours ago.  
+Ah! how much brighter and more deeply blue, glowing and rich though 
+it had been before, was the scene without, contrasting with the 
+darkness of so many youthful lives within!
+
+* * * * * *
+
+At SOUTH BOSTON, as it is called, in a situation excellently 
+adapted for the purpose, several charitable institutions are 
+clustered together.  One of these, is the State Hospital for the 
+insane; admirably conducted on those enlightened principles of 
+conciliation and kindness, which twenty years ago would have been 
+worse than heretical, and which have been acted upon with so much 
+success in our own pauper Asylum at Hanwell.  'Evince a desire to 
+show some confidence, and repose some trust, even in mad people,' 
+said the resident physician, as we walked along the galleries, his 
+patients flocking round us unrestrained.  Of those who deny or 
+doubt the wisdom of this maxim after witnessing its effects, if 
+there be such people still alive, I can only say that I hope I may 
+never be summoned as a Juryman on a Commission of Lunacy whereof 
+they are the subjects; for I should certainly find them out of 
+their senses, on such evidence alone.
+
+Each ward in this institution is shaped like a long gallery or 
+hall, with the dormitories of the patients opening from it on 
+either hand.  Here they work, read, play at skittles, and other 
+games; and when the weather does not admit of their taking exercise 
+out of doors, pass the day together.  In one of these rooms, 
+seated, calmly, and quite as a matter of course, among a throng of 
+mad-women, black and white, were the physician's wife and another 
+lady, with a couple of children.  These ladies were graceful and 
+handsome; and it was not difficult to perceive at a glance that 
+even their presence there, had a highly beneficial influence on the 
+patients who were grouped about them.
+
+Leaning her head against the chimney-piece, with a great assumption 
+of dignity and refinement of manner, sat an elderly female, in as 
+many scraps of finery as Madge Wildfire herself.  Her head in 
+particular was so strewn with scraps of gauze and cotton and bits 
+of paper, and had so many queer odds and ends stuck all about it, 
+that it looked like a bird's-nest.  She was radiant with imaginary 
+jewels; wore a rich pair of undoubted gold spectacles; and 
+gracefully dropped upon her lap, as we approached, a very old 
+greasy newspaper, in which I dare say she had been reading an 
+account of her own presentation at some Foreign Court.
+
+I have been thus particular in describing her, because she will 
+serve to exemplify the physician's manner of acquiring and 
+retaining the confidence of his patients.
+
+'This,' he said aloud, taking me by the hand, and advancing to the 
+fantastic figure with great politeness - not raising her suspicions 
+by the slightest look or whisper, or any kind of aside, to me:  
+'This lady is the hostess of this mansion, sir.  It belongs to her.  
+Nobody else has anything whatever to do with it.  It is a large 
+establishment, as you see, and requires a great number of 
+attendants.  She lives, you observe, in the very first style.  She 
+is kind enough to receive my visits, and to permit my wife and 
+family to reside here; for which it is hardly necessary to say, we 
+are much indebted to her.  She is exceedingly courteous, you 
+perceive,' on this hint she bowed condescendingly, 'and will permit 
+me to have the pleasure of introducing you:  a gentleman from 
+England, Ma'am:  newly arrived from England, after a very 
+tempestuous passage:  Mr. Dickens, - the lady of the house!'
+
+We exchanged the most dignified salutations with profound gravity 
+and respect, and so went on.  The rest of the madwomen seemed to 
+understand the joke perfectly (not only in this case, but in all 
+the others, except their own), and be highly amused by it.  The 
+nature of their several kinds of insanity was made known to me in 
+the same way, and we left each of them in high good humour.  Not 
+only is a thorough confidence established, by those means, between 
+the physician and patient, in respect of the nature and extent of 
+their hallucinations, but it is easy to understand that 
+opportunities are afforded for seizing any moment of reason, to 
+startle them by placing their own delusion before them in its most 
+incongruous and ridiculous light.
+
+Every patient in this asylum sits down to dinner every day with a 
+knife and fork; and in the midst of them sits the gentleman, whose 
+manner of dealing with his charges, I have just described.  At 
+every meal, moral influence alone restrains the more violent among 
+them from cutting the throats of the rest; but the effect of that 
+influence is reduced to an absolute certainty, and is found, even 
+as a means of restraint, to say nothing of it as a means of cure, a 
+hundred times more efficacious than all the strait-waistcoats, 
+fetters, and handcuffs, that ignorance, prejudice, and cruelty have 
+manufactured since the creation of the world.
+
+In the labour department, every patient is as freely trusted with 
+the tools of his trade as if he were a sane man.  In the garden, 
+and on the farm, they work with spades, rakes, and hoes.  For 
+amusement, they walk, run, fish, paint, read, and ride out to take 
+the air in carriages provided for the purpose.  They have among 
+themselves a sewing society to make clothes for the poor, which 
+holds meetings, passes resolutions, never comes to fisty-cuffs or 
+bowie-knives as sane assemblies have been known to do elsewhere; 
+and conducts all its proceedings with the greatest decorum.  The 
+irritability, which would otherwise be expended on their own flesh, 
+clothes, and furniture, is dissipated in these pursuits.  They are 
+cheerful, tranquil, and healthy.
+
+Once a week they have a ball, in which the Doctor and his family, 
+with all the nurses and attendants, take an active part.  Dances 
+and marches are performed alternately, to the enlivening strains of 
+a piano; and now and then some gentleman or lady (whose proficiency 
+has been previously ascertained) obliges the company with a song:  
+nor does it ever degenerate, at a tender crisis, into a screech or 
+howl; wherein, I must confess, I should have thought the danger 
+lay.  At an early hour they all meet together for these festive 
+purposes; at eight o'clock refreshments are served; and at nine 
+they separate.
+
+Immense politeness and good breeding are observed throughout.  They 
+all take their tone from the Doctor; and he moves a very 
+Chesterfield among the company.  Like other assemblies, these 
+entertainments afford a fruitful topic of conversation among the 
+ladies for some days; and the gentlemen are so anxious to shine on 
+these occasions, that they have been sometimes found 'practising 
+their steps' in private, to cut a more distinguished figure in the 
+dance.
+
+It is obvious that one great feature of this system, is the 
+inculcation and encouragement, even among such unhappy persons, of 
+a decent self-respect.  Something of the same spirit pervades all 
+the Institutions at South Boston.
+
+There is the House of Industry.  In that branch of it, which is 
+devoted to the reception of old or otherwise helpless paupers, 
+these words are painted on the walls:  'WORTHY OF NOTICE.  SELF-
+GOVERNMENT, QUIETUDE, AND PEACE, ARE BLESSINGS.'  It is not assumed 
+and taken for granted that being there they must be evil-disposed 
+and wicked people, before whose vicious eyes it is necessary to 
+flourish threats and harsh restraints.  They are met at the very 
+threshold with this mild appeal.  All within-doors is very plain 
+and simple, as it ought to be, but arranged with a view to peace 
+and comfort.  It costs no more than any other plan of arrangement, 
+but it speaks an amount of consideration for those who are reduced 
+to seek a shelter there, which puts them at once upon their 
+gratitude and good behaviour.  Instead of being parcelled out in 
+great, long, rambling wards, where a certain amount of weazen life 
+may mope, and pine, and shiver, all day long, the building is 
+divided into separate rooms, each with its share of light and air.  
+In these, the better kind of paupers live.  They have a motive for 
+exertion and becoming pride, in the desire to make these little 
+chambers comfortable and decent.
+
+I do not remember one but it was clean and neat, and had its plant 
+or two upon the window-sill, or row of crockery upon the shelf, or 
+small display of coloured prints upon the whitewashed wall, or, 
+perhaps, its wooden clock behind the door.
+
+The orphans and young children are in an adjoining building 
+separate from this, but a part of the same Institution.  Some are 
+such little creatures, that the stairs are of Lilliputian 
+measurement, fitted to their tiny strides.  The same consideration 
+for their years and weakness is expressed in their very seats, 
+which are perfect curiosities, and look like articles of furniture 
+for a pauper doll's-house.  I can imagine the glee of our Poor Law 
+Commissioners at the notion of these seats having arms and backs; 
+but small spines being of older date than their occupation of the 
+Board-room at Somerset House, I thought even this provision very 
+merciful and kind.
+
+Here again, I was greatly pleased with the inscriptions on the 
+wall, which were scraps of plain morality, easily remembered and 
+understood:  such as 'Love one another' - 'God remembers the 
+smallest creature in his creation:' and straightforward advice of 
+that nature.  The books and tasks of these smallest of scholars, 
+were adapted, in the same judicious manner, to their childish 
+powers.  When we had examined these lessons, four morsels of girls 
+(of whom one was blind) sang a little song, about the merry month 
+of May, which I thought (being extremely dismal) would have suited 
+an English November better.  That done, we went to see their 
+sleeping-rooms on the floor above, in which the arrangements were 
+no less excellent and gentle than those we had seen below.  And 
+after observing that the teachers were of a class and character 
+well suited to the spirit of the place, I took leave of the infants 
+with a lighter heart than ever I have taken leave of pauper infants 
+yet.
+
+Connected with the House of Industry, there is also an Hospital, 
+which was in the best order, and had, I am glad to say, many beds 
+unoccupied.  It had one fault, however, which is common to all 
+American interiors:  the presence of the eternal, accursed, 
+suffocating, red-hot demon of a stove, whose breath would blight 
+the purest air under Heaven.
+
+There are two establishments for boys in this same neighbourhood.  
+One is called the Boylston school, and is an asylum for neglected 
+and indigent boys who have committed no crime, but who in the 
+ordinary course of things would very soon be purged of that 
+distinction if they were not taken from the hungry streets and sent 
+here.  The other is a House of Reformation for Juvenile Offenders.  
+They are both under the same roof, but the two classes of boys 
+never come in contact.
+
+The Boylston boys, as may be readily supposed, have very much the 
+advantage of the others in point of personal appearance.  They were 
+in their school-room when I came upon them, and answered correctly, 
+without book, such questions as where was England; how far was it; 
+what was its population; its capital city; its form of government; 
+and so forth.  They sang a song too, about a farmer sowing his 
+seed:  with corresponding action at such parts as ''tis thus he 
+sows,' 'he turns him round,' 'he claps his hands;' which gave it 
+greater interest for them, and accustomed them to act together, in 
+an orderly manner.  They appeared exceedingly well-taught, and not 
+better taught than fed; for a more chubby-looking full-waistcoated 
+set of boys, I never saw.
+
+The juvenile offenders had not such pleasant faces by a great deal, 
+and in this establishment there were many boys of colour.  I saw 
+them first at their work (basket-making, and the manufacture of 
+palm-leaf hats), afterwards in their school, where they sang a 
+chorus in praise of Liberty:  an odd, and, one would think, rather 
+aggravating, theme for prisoners.  These boys are divided into four 
+classes, each denoted by a numeral, worn on a badge upon the arm.  
+On the arrival of a new-comer, he is put into the fourth or lowest 
+class, and left, by good behaviour, to work his way up into the 
+first.  The design and object of this Institution is to reclaim the 
+youthful criminal by firm but kind and judicious treatment; to make 
+his prison a place of purification and improvement, not of 
+demoralisation and corruption; to impress upon him that there is 
+but one path, and that one sober industry, which can ever lead him 
+to happiness; to teach him how it may be trodden, if his footsteps 
+have never yet been led that way; and to lure him back to it if 
+they have strayed:  in a word, to snatch him from destruction, and 
+restore him to society a penitent and useful member.  The 
+importance of such an establishment, in every point of view, and 
+with reference to every consideration of humanity and social 
+policy, requires no comment.
+
+One other establishment closes the catalogue.  It is the House of 
+Correction for the State, in which silence is strictly maintained, 
+but where the prisoners have the comfort and mental relief of 
+seeing each other, and of working together.  This is the improved 
+system of Prison Discipline which we have imported into England, 
+and which has been in successful operation among us for some years 
+past.
+
+America, as a new and not over-populated country, has in all her 
+prisons, the one great advantage, of being enabled to find useful 
+and profitable work for the inmates; whereas, with us, the 
+prejudice against prison labour is naturally very strong, and 
+almost insurmountable, when honest men who have not offended 
+against the laws are frequently doomed to seek employment in vain.  
+Even in the United States, the principle of bringing convict labour 
+and free labour into a competition which must obviously be to the 
+disadvantage of the latter, has already found many opponents, whose 
+number is not likely to diminish with access of years.
+
+For this very reason though, our best prisons would seem at the 
+first glance to be better conducted than those of America.  The 
+treadmill is conducted with little or no noise; five hundred men 
+may pick oakum in the same room, without a sound; and both kinds of 
+labour admit of such keen and vigilant superintendence, as will 
+render even a word of personal communication amongst the prisoners 
+almost impossible.  On the other hand, the noise of the loom, the 
+forge, the carpenter's hammer, or the stonemason's saw, greatly 
+favour those opportunities of intercourse - hurried and brief no 
+doubt, but opportunities still - which these several kinds of work, 
+by rendering it necessary for men to be employed very near to each 
+other, and often side by side, without any barrier or partition 
+between them, in their very nature present.  A visitor, too, 
+requires to reason and reflect a little, before the sight of a 
+number of men engaged in ordinary labour, such as he is accustomed 
+to out of doors, will impress him half as strongly as the 
+contemplation of the same persons in the same place and garb would, 
+if they were occupied in some task, marked and degraded everywhere 
+as belonging only to felons in jails.  In an American state prison 
+or house of correction, I found it difficult at first to persuade 
+myself that I was really in a jail:  a place of ignominious 
+punishment and endurance.  And to this hour I very much question 
+whether the humane boast that it is not like one, has its root in 
+the true wisdom or philosophy of the matter.
+
+I hope I may not be misunderstood on this subject, for it is one in 
+which I take a strong and deep interest.  I incline as little to 
+the sickly feeling which makes every canting lie or maudlin speech 
+of a notorious criminal a subject of newspaper report and general 
+sympathy, as I do to those good old customs of the good old times 
+which made England, even so recently as in the reign of the Third 
+King George, in respect of her criminal code and her prison 
+regulations, one of the most bloody-minded and barbarous countries 
+on the earth.  If I thought it would do any good to the rising 
+generation, I would cheerfully give my consent to the disinterment 
+of the bones of any genteel highwayman (the more genteel, the more 
+cheerfully), and to their exposure, piecemeal, on any sign-post, 
+gate, or gibbet, that might be deemed a good elevation for the 
+purpose.  My reason is as well convinced that these gentry were as 
+utterly worthless and debauched villains, as it is that the laws 
+and jails hardened them in their evil courses, or that their 
+wonderful escapes were effected by the prison-turnkeys who, in 
+those admirable days, had always been felons themselves, and were, 
+to the last, their bosom-friends and pot-companions.  At the same 
+time I know, as all men do or should, that the subject of Prison 
+Discipline is one of the highest importance to any community; and 
+that in her sweeping reform and bright example to other countries 
+on this head, America has shown great wisdom, great benevolence, 
+and exalted policy.  In contrasting her system with that which we 
+have modelled upon it, I merely seek to show that with all its 
+drawbacks, ours has some advantages of its own.
+
+The House of Correction which has led to these remarks, is not 
+walled, like other prisons, but is palisaded round about with tall 
+rough stakes, something after the manner of an enclosure for 
+keeping elephants in, as we see it represented in Eastern prints 
+and pictures.  The prisoners wear a parti-coloured dress; and those 
+who are sentenced to hard labour, work at nail-making, or stone-
+cutting.  When I was there, the latter class of labourers were 
+employed upon the stone for a new custom-house in course of 
+erection at Boston.  They appeared to shape it skilfully and with 
+expedition, though there were very few among them (if any) who had 
+not acquired the art within the prison gates.
+
+The women, all in one large room, were employed in making light 
+clothing, for New Orleans and the Southern States.  They did their 
+work in silence like the men; and like them were over-looked by the 
+person contracting for their labour, or by some agent of his 
+appointment.  In addition to this, they are every moment liable to 
+be visited by the prison officers appointed for that purpose.
+
+The arrangements for cooking, washing of clothes, and so forth, are 
+much upon the plan of those I have seen at home.  Their mode of 
+bestowing the prisoners at night (which is of general adoption) 
+differs from ours, and is both simple and effective.  In the centre 
+of a lofty area, lighted by windows in the four walls, are five 
+tiers of cells, one above the other; each tier having before it a 
+light iron gallery, attainable by stairs of the same construction 
+and material:  excepting the lower one, which is on the ground.  
+Behind these, back to back with them and facing the opposite wall, 
+are five corresponding rows of cells, accessible by similar means:  
+so that supposing the prisoners locked up in their cells, an 
+officer stationed on the ground, with his back to the wall, has 
+half their number under his eye at once; the remaining half being 
+equally under the observation of another officer on the opposite 
+side; and all in one great apartment.  Unless this watch be 
+corrupted or sleeping on his post, it is impossible for a man to 
+escape; for even in the event of his forcing the iron door of his 
+cell without noise (which is exceedingly improbable), the moment he 
+appears outside, and steps into that one of the five galleries on 
+which it is situated, he must be plainly and fully visible to the 
+officer below.  Each of these cells holds a small truckle bed, in 
+which one prisoner sleeps; never more.  It is small, of course; and 
+the door being not solid, but grated, and without blind or curtain, 
+the prisoner within is at all times exposed to the observation and 
+inspection of any guard who may pass along that tier at any hour or 
+minute of the night.  Every day, the prisoners receive their 
+dinner, singly, through a trap in the kitchen wall; and each man 
+carries his to his sleeping cell to eat it, where he is locked up, 
+alone, for that purpose, one hour.  The whole of this arrangement 
+struck me as being admirable; and I hope that the next new prison 
+we erect in England may be built on this plan.
+
+I was given to understand that in this prison no swords or fire-
+arms, or even cudgels, are kept; nor is it probable that, so long 
+as its present excellent management continues, any weapon, 
+offensive or defensive, will ever be required within its bounds.
+
+Such are the Institutions at South Boston!  In all of them, the 
+unfortunate or degenerate citizens of the State are carefully 
+instructed in their duties both to God and man; are surrounded by 
+all reasonable means of comfort and happiness that their condition 
+will admit of; are appealed to, as members of the great human 
+family, however afflicted, indigent, or fallen; are ruled by the 
+strong Heart, and not by the strong (though immeasurably weaker) 
+Hand.  I have described them at some length; firstly, because their 
+worth demanded it; and secondly, because I mean to take them for a 
+model, and to content myself with saying of others we may come to, 
+whose design and purpose are the same, that in this or that respect 
+they practically fail, or differ.
+
+I wish by this account of them, imperfect in its execution, but in 
+its just intention, honest, I could hope to convey to my readers 
+one-hundredth part of the gratification, the sights I have 
+described, afforded me.
+
+* * * * * *
+
+To an Englishman, accustomed to the paraphernalia of Westminster 
+Hall, an American Court of Law is as odd a sight as, I suppose, an 
+English Court of Law would be to an American.  Except in the 
+Supreme Court at Washington (where the judges wear a plain black 
+robe), there is no such thing as a wig or gown connected with the 
+administration of justice.  The gentlemen of the bar being 
+barristers and attorneys too (for there is no division of those 
+functions as in England) are no more removed from their clients 
+than attorneys in our Court for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors 
+are, from theirs.  The jury are quite at home, and make themselves 
+as comfortable as circumstances will permit.  The witness is so 
+little elevated above, or put aloof from, the crowd in the court, 
+that a stranger entering during a pause in the proceedings would 
+find it difficult to pick him out from the rest.  And if it chanced 
+to be a criminal trial, his eyes, in nine cases out of ten, would 
+wander to the dock in search of the prisoner, in vain; for that 
+gentleman would most likely be lounging among the most 
+distinguished ornaments of the legal profession, whispering 
+suggestions in his counsel's ear, or making a toothpick out of an 
+old quill with his penknife.
+
+I could not but notice these differences, when I visited the courts 
+at Boston.  I was much surprised at first, too, to observe that the 
+counsel who interrogated the witness under examination at the time, 
+did so SITTING.  But seeing that he was also occupied in writing 
+down the answers, and remembering that he was alone and had no 
+'junior,' I quickly consoled myself with the reflection that law 
+was not quite so expensive an article here, as at home; and that 
+the absence of sundry formalities which we regard as indispensable, 
+had doubtless a very favourable influence upon the bill of costs.
+
+In every Court, ample and commodious provision is made for the 
+accommodation of the citizens.  This is the case all through 
+America.  In every Public Institution, the right of the people to 
+attend, and to have an interest in the proceedings, is most fully 
+and distinctly recognised.  There are no grim door-keepers to dole 
+out their tardy civility by the sixpenny-worth; nor is there, I 
+sincerely believe, any insolence of office of any kind.  Nothing 
+national is exhibited for money; and no public officer is a 
+showman.  We have begun of late years to imitate this good example.  
+I hope we shall continue to do so; and that in the fulness of time, 
+even deans and chapters may be converted.
+
+In the civil court an action was trying, for damages sustained in 
+some accident upon a railway.  The witnesses had been examined, and 
+counsel was addressing the jury.  The learned gentleman (like a few 
+of his English brethren) was desperately long-winded, and had a 
+remarkable capacity of saying the same thing over and over again.  
+His great theme was 'Warren the ENGINE driver,' whom he pressed 
+into the service of every sentence he uttered.  I listened to him 
+for about a quarter of an hour; and, coming out of court at the 
+expiration of that time, without the faintest ray of enlightenment 
+as to the merits of the case, felt as if I were at home again.
+
+In the prisoner's cell, waiting to be examined by the magistrate on 
+a charge of theft, was a boy.  This lad, instead of being committed 
+to a common jail, would be sent to the asylum at South Boston, and 
+there taught a trade; and in the course of time he would be bound 
+apprentice to some respectable master.  Thus, his detection in this 
+offence, instead of being the prelude to a life of infamy and a 
+miserable death, would lead, there was a reasonable hope, to his 
+being reclaimed from vice, and becoming a worthy member of society.
+
+I am by no means a wholesale admirer of our legal solemnities, many 
+of which impress me as being exceedingly ludicrous.  Strange as it 
+may seem too, there is undoubtedly a degree of protection in the 
+wig and gown - a dismissal of individual responsibility in dressing 
+for the part - which encourages that insolent bearing and language, 
+and that gross perversion of the office of a pleader for The Truth, 
+so frequent in our courts of law.  Still, I cannot help doubting 
+whether America, in her desire to shake off the absurdities and 
+abuses of the old system, may not have gone too far into the 
+opposite extreme; and whether it is not desirable, especially in 
+the small community of a city like this, where each man knows the 
+other, to surround the administration of justice with some 
+artificial barriers against the 'Hail fellow, well met' deportment 
+of everyday life.  All the aid it can have in the very high 
+character and ability of the Bench, not only here but elsewhere, it 
+has, and well deserves to have; but it may need something more:  
+not to impress the thoughtful and the well-informed, but the 
+ignorant and heedless; a class which includes some prisoners and 
+many witnesses.  These institutions were established, no doubt, 
+upon the principle that those who had so large a share in making 
+the laws, would certainly respect them.  But experience has proved 
+this hope to be fallacious; for no men know better than the judges 
+of America, that on the occasion of any great popular excitement 
+the law is powerless, and cannot, for the time, assert its own 
+supremacy.
+
+The tone of society in Boston is one of perfect politeness, 
+courtesy, and good breeding.  The ladies are unquestionably very 
+beautiful - in face:  but there I am compelled to stop.  Their 
+education is much as with us; neither better nor worse.  I had 
+heard some very marvellous stories in this respect; but not 
+believing them, was not disappointed.  Blue ladies there are, in 
+Boston; but like philosophers of that colour and sex in most other 
+latitudes, they rather desire to be thought superior than to be so.  
+Evangelical ladies there are, likewise, whose attachment to the 
+forms of religion, and horror of theatrical entertainments, are 
+most exemplary.  Ladies who have a passion for attending lectures 
+are to be found among all classes and all conditions.  In the kind 
+of provincial life which prevails in cities such as this, the 
+Pulpit has great influence.  The peculiar province of the Pulpit in 
+New England (always excepting the Unitarian Ministry) would appear 
+to be the denouncement of all innocent and rational amusements.  
+The church, the chapel, and the lecture-room, are the only means of 
+excitement excepted; and to the church, the chapel, and the 
+lecture-room, the ladies resort in crowds.
+
+Wherever religion is resorted to, as a strong drink, and as an 
+escape from the dull monotonous round of home, those of its 
+ministers who pepper the highest will be the surest to please.  
+They who strew the Eternal Path with the greatest amount of 
+brimstone, and who most ruthlessly tread down the flowers and 
+leaves that grow by the wayside, will be voted the most righteous; 
+and they who enlarge with the greatest pertinacity on the 
+difficulty of getting into heaven, will be considered by all true 
+believers certain of going there:  though it would be hard to say 
+by what process of reasoning this conclusion is arrived at.  It is 
+so at home, and it is so abroad.  With regard to the other means of 
+excitement, the Lecture, it has at least the merit of being always 
+new.  One lecture treads so quickly on the heels of another, that 
+none are remembered; and the course of this month may be safely 
+repeated next, with its charm of novelty unbroken, and its interest 
+unabated.
+
+The fruits of the earth have their growth in corruption.  Out of 
+the rottenness of these things, there has sprung up in Boston a 
+sect of philosophers known as Transcendentalists.  On inquiring 
+what this appellation might be supposed to signify, I was given to 
+understand that whatever was unintelligible would be certainly 
+transcendental.  Not deriving much comfort from this elucidation, I 
+pursued the inquiry still further, and found that the 
+Transcendentalists are followers of my friend Mr. Carlyle, or I 
+should rather say, of a follower of his, Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson.  
+This gentleman has written a volume of Essays, in which, among much 
+that is dreamy and fanciful (if he will pardon me for saying so), 
+there is much more that is true and manly, honest and bold.  
+Transcendentalism has its occasional vagaries (what school has 
+not?), but it has good healthful qualities in spite of them; not 
+least among the number a hearty disgust of Cant, and an aptitude to 
+detect her in all the million varieties of her everlasting 
+wardrobe.  And therefore if I were a Bostonian, I think I would be 
+a Transcendentalist.
+
+The only preacher I heard in Boston was Mr. Taylor, who addresses 
+himself peculiarly to seamen, and who was once a mariner himself.  
+I found his chapel down among the shipping, in one of the narrow, 
+old, water-side streets, with a gay blue flag waving freely from 
+its roof.  In the gallery opposite to the pulpit were a little 
+choir of male and female singers, a violoncello, and a violin.  The 
+preacher already sat in the pulpit, which was raised on pillars, 
+and ornamented behind him with painted drapery of a lively and 
+somewhat theatrical appearance.  He looked a weather-beaten hard-
+featured man, of about six or eight and fifty; with deep lines 
+graven as it were into his face, dark hair, and a stern, keen eye.  
+Yet the general character of his countenance was pleasant and 
+agreeable.  The service commenced with a hymn, to which succeeded 
+an extemporary prayer.  It had the fault of frequent repetition, 
+incidental to all such prayers; but it was plain and comprehensive 
+in its doctrines, and breathed a tone of general sympathy and 
+charity, which is not so commonly a characteristic of this form of 
+address to the Deity as it might be.  That done he opened his 
+discourse, taking for his text a passage from the Song of Solomon, 
+laid upon the desk before the commencement of the service by some 
+unknown member of the congregation:  'Who is this coming up from 
+the wilderness, leaning on the arm of her beloved!'
+
+He handled his text in all kinds of ways, and twisted it into all 
+manner of shapes; but always ingeniously, and with a rude 
+eloquence, well adapted to the comprehension of his hearers.  
+Indeed if I be not mistaken, he studied their sympathies and 
+understandings much more than the display of his own powers.  His 
+imagery was all drawn from the sea, and from the incidents of a 
+seaman's life; and was often remarkably good.  He spoke to them of 
+'that glorious man, Lord Nelson,' and of Collingwood; and drew 
+nothing in, as the saying is, by the head and shoulders, but 
+brought it to bear upon his purpose, naturally, and with a sharp 
+mind to its effect.  Sometimes, when much excited with his subject, 
+he had an odd way - compounded of John Bunyan, and Balfour of 
+Burley - of taking his great quarto Bible under his arm and pacing 
+up and down the pulpit with it; looking steadily down, meantime, 
+into the midst of the congregation.  Thus, when he applied his text 
+to the first assemblage of his hearers, and pictured the wonder of 
+the church at their presumption in forming a congregation among 
+themselves, he stopped short with his Bible under his arm in the 
+manner I have described, and pursued his discourse after this 
+manner:
+
+'Who are these - who are they - who are these fellows? where do 
+they come from?  Where are they going to? - Come from!  What's the 
+answer?' - leaning out of the pulpit, and pointing downward with 
+his right hand:  'From below!' - starting back again, and looking 
+at the sailors before him:  'From below, my brethren.  From under 
+the hatches of sin, battened down above you by the evil one.  
+That's where you came from!' - a walk up and down the pulpit:  'and 
+where are you going' - stopping abruptly:  'where are you going?  
+Aloft!' - very softly, and pointing upward:  'Aloft!' - louder:  
+'aloft!' - louder still:  'That's where you are going - with a fair 
+wind, - all taut and trim, steering direct for Heaven in its glory, 
+where there are no storms or foul weather, and where the wicked 
+cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.' - Another walk:  
+'That's where you're going to, my friends.  That's it.  That's the 
+place.  That's the port.  That's the haven.  It's a blessed harbour 
+- still water there, in all changes of the winds and tides; no 
+driving ashore upon the rocks, or slipping your cables and running 
+out to sea, there:  Peace - Peace - Peace - all peace!' - Another 
+walk, and patting the Bible under his left arm:  'What!  These 
+fellows are coming from the wilderness, are they?  Yes.  From the 
+dreary, blighted wilderness of Iniquity, whose only crop is Death.  
+But do they lean upon anything - do they lean upon nothing, these 
+poor seamen?' - Three raps upon the Bible:  'Oh yes. - Yes. - They 
+lean upon the arm of their Beloved' - three more raps:  'upon the 
+arm of their Beloved' - three more, and a walk:  'Pilot, guiding-
+star, and compass, all in one, to all hands - here it is' - three 
+more:  'Here it is.  They can do their seaman's duty manfully, and 
+be easy in their minds in the utmost peril and danger, with this' - 
+two more:  'They can come, even these poor fellows can come, from 
+the wilderness leaning on the arm of their Beloved, and go up - up 
+- up!' - raising his hand higher, and higher, at every repetition 
+of the word, so that he stood with it at last stretched above his 
+head, regarding them in a strange, rapt manner, and pressing the 
+book triumphantly to his breast, until he gradually subsided into 
+some other portion of his discourse.
+
+I have cited this, rather as an instance of the preacher's 
+eccentricities than his merits, though taken in connection with his 
+look and manner, and the character of his audience, even this was 
+striking.  It is possible, however, that my favourable impression 
+of him may have been greatly influenced and strengthened, firstly, 
+by his impressing upon his hearers that the true observance of 
+religion was not inconsistent with a cheerful deportment and an 
+exact discharge of the duties of their station, which, indeed, it 
+scrupulously required of them; and secondly, by his cautioning them 
+not to set up any monopoly in Paradise and its mercies.  I never 
+heard these two points so wisely touched (if indeed I have ever 
+heard them touched at all), by any preacher of that kind before.
+
+Having passed the time I spent in Boston, in making myself 
+acquainted with these things, in settling the course I should take 
+in my future travels, and in mixing constantly with its society, I 
+am not aware that I have any occasion to prolong this chapter.  
+Such of its social customs as I have not mentioned, however, may be 
+told in a very few words.
+
+The usual dinner-hour is two o'clock.  A dinner party takes place 
+at five; and at an evening party, they seldom sup later than 
+eleven; so that it goes hard but one gets home, even from a rout, 
+by midnight.  I never could find out any difference between a party 
+at Boston and a party in London, saving that at the former place 
+all assemblies are held at more rational hours; that the 
+conversation may possibly be a little louder and more cheerful; and 
+a guest is usually expected to ascend to the very top of the house 
+to take his cloak off; that he is certain to see, at every dinner, 
+an unusual amount of poultry on the table; and at every supper, at 
+least two mighty bowls of hot stewed oysters, in any one of which a 
+half-grown Duke of Clarence might be smothered easily.
+
+There are two theatres in Boston, of good size and construction, 
+but sadly in want of patronage.  The few ladies who resort to them, 
+sit, as of right, in the front rows of the boxes.
+
+The bar is a large room with a stone floor, and there people stand 
+and smoke, and lounge about, all the evening:  dropping in and out 
+as the humour takes them.  There too the stranger is initiated into 
+the mysteries of Gin-sling, Cock-tail, Sangaree, Mint Julep, 
+Sherry-cobbler, Timber Doodle, and other rare drinks.  The house is 
+full of boarders, both married and single, many of whom sleep upon 
+the premises, and contract by the week for their board and lodging:  
+the charge for which diminishes as they go nearer the sky to roost.  
+A public table is laid in a very handsome hall for breakfast, and 
+for dinner, and for supper.  The party sitting down together to 
+these meals will vary in number from one to two hundred:  sometimes 
+more.  The advent of each of these epochs in the day is proclaimed 
+by an awful gong, which shakes the very window-frames as it 
+reverberates through the house, and horribly disturbs nervous 
+foreigners.  There is an ordinary for ladies, and an ordinary for 
+gentlemen.
+
+In our private room the cloth could not, for any earthly 
+consideration, have been laid for dinner without a huge glass dish 
+of cranberries in the middle of the table; and breakfast would have 
+been no breakfast unless the principal dish were a deformed beef-
+steak with a great flat bone in the centre, swimming in hot butter, 
+and sprinkled with the very blackest of all possible pepper.  Our 
+bedroom was spacious and airy, but (like every bedroom on this side 
+of the Atlantic) very bare of furniture, having no curtains to the 
+French bedstead or to the window.  It had one unusual luxury, 
+however, in the shape of a wardrobe of painted wood, something 
+smaller than an English watch-box; or if this comparison should be 
+insufficient to convey a just idea of its dimensions, they may be 
+estimated from the fact of my having lived for fourteen days and 
+nights in the firm belief that it was a shower-bath.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV - AN AMERICAN RAILROAD.  LOWELL AND ITS FACTORY SYSTEM
+
+
+
+BEFORE leaving Boston, I devoted one day to an excursion to Lowell.  
+I assign a separate chapter to this visit; not because I am about 
+to describe it at any great length, but because I remember it as a 
+thing by itself, and am desirous that my readers should do the 
+same.
+
+I made acquaintance with an American railroad, on this occasion, 
+for the first time.  As these works are pretty much alike all 
+through the States, their general characteristics are easily 
+described.
+
+There are no first and second class carriages as with us; but there 
+is a gentleman's car and a ladies' car:  the main distinction 
+between which is that in the first, everybody smokes; and in the 
+second, nobody does.  As a black man never travels with a white 
+one, there is also a negro car; which is a great, blundering, 
+clumsy chest, such as Gulliver put to sea in, from the kingdom of 
+Brobdingnag.  There is a great deal of jolting, a great deal of 
+noise, a great deal of wall, not much window, a locomotive engine, 
+a shriek, and a bell.
+
+The cars are like shabby omnibuses, but larger:  holding thirty, 
+forty, fifty, people.  The seats, instead of stretching from end to 
+end, are placed crosswise.  Each seat holds two persons.  There is 
+a long row of them on each side of the caravan, a narrow passage up 
+the middle, and a door at both ends.  In the centre of the carriage 
+there is usually a stove, fed with charcoal or anthracite coal; 
+which is for the most part red-hot.  It is insufferably close; and 
+you see the hot air fluttering between yourself and any other 
+object you may happen to look at, like the ghost of smoke.
+
+In the ladies' car, there are a great many gentlemen who have 
+ladies with them.  There are also a great many ladies who have 
+nobody with them:  for any lady may travel alone, from one end of 
+the United States to the other, and be certain of the most 
+courteous and considerate treatment everywhere.  The conductor or 
+check-taker, or guard, or whatever he may be, wears no uniform.  He 
+walks up and down the car, and in and out of it, as his fancy 
+dictates; leans against the door with his hands in his pockets and 
+stares at you, if you chance to be a stranger; or enters into 
+conversation with the passengers about him.  A great many 
+newspapers are pulled out, and a few of them are read.  Everybody 
+talks to you, or to anybody else who hits his fancy.  If you are an 
+Englishman, he expects that that railroad is pretty much like an 
+English railroad.  If you say 'No,' he says 'Yes?' 
+(interrogatively), and asks in what respect they differ.  You 
+enumerate the heads of difference, one by one, and he says 'Yes?' 
+(still interrogatively) to each.  Then he guesses that you don't 
+travel faster in England; and on your replying that you do, says 
+'Yes?' again (still interrogatively), and it is quite evident, 
+don't believe it.  After a long pause he remarks, partly to you, 
+and partly to the knob on the top of his stick, that 'Yankees are 
+reckoned to be considerable of a go-ahead people too;' upon which 
+YOU say 'Yes,' and then HE says 'Yes' again (affirmatively this 
+time); and upon your looking out of window, tells you that behind 
+that hill, and some three miles from the next station, there is a 
+clever town in a smart lo-ca-tion, where he expects you have 
+concluded to stop.  Your answer in the negative naturally leads to 
+more questions in reference to your intended route (always 
+pronounced rout); and wherever you are going, you invariably learn 
+that you can't get there without immense difficulty and danger, and 
+that all the great sights are somewhere else.
+
+If a lady take a fancy to any male passenger's seat, the gentleman 
+who accompanies her gives him notice of the fact, and he 
+immediately vacates it with great politeness.  Politics are much 
+discussed, so are banks, so is cotton.  Quiet people avoid the 
+question of the Presidency, for there will be a new election in 
+three years and a half, and party feeling runs very high:  the 
+great constitutional feature of this institution being, that 
+directly the acrimony of the last election is over, the acrimony of 
+the next one begins; which is an unspeakable comfort to all strong 
+politicians and true lovers of their country:  that is to say, to 
+ninety-nine men and boys out of every ninety-nine and a quarter.
+
+Except when a branch road joins the main one, there is seldom more 
+than one track of rails; so that the road is very narrow, and the 
+view, where there is a deep cutting, by no means extensive.  When 
+there is not, the character of the scenery is always the same.  
+Mile after mile of stunted trees:  some hewn down by the axe, some 
+blown down by the wind, some half fallen and resting on their 
+neighbours, many mere logs half hidden in the swamp, others 
+mouldered away to spongy chips.  The very soil of the earth is made 
+up of minute fragments such as these; each pool of stagnant water 
+has its crust of vegetable rottenness; on every side there are the 
+boughs, and trunks, and stumps of trees, in every possible stage of 
+decay, decomposition, and neglect.  Now you emerge for a few brief 
+minutes on an open country, glittering with some bright lake or 
+pool, broad as many an English river, but so small here that it 
+scarcely has a name; now catch hasty glimpses of a distant town, 
+with its clean white houses and their cool piazzas, its prim New 
+England church and school-house; when whir-r-r-r! almost before you 
+have seen them, comes the same dark screen:  the stunted trees, the 
+stumps, the logs, the stagnant water - all so like the last that 
+you seem to have been transported back again by magic.
+
+The train calls at stations in the woods, where the wild 
+impossibility of anybody having the smallest reason to get out, is 
+only to be equalled by the apparently desperate hopelessness of 
+there being anybody to get in.  It rushes across the turnpike road, 
+where there is no gate, no policeman, no signal:  nothing but a 
+rough wooden arch, on which is painted 'WHEN THE BELL RINGS, LOOK 
+OUT FOR THE LOCOMOTIVE.'  On it whirls headlong, dives through the 
+woods again, emerges in the light, clatters over frail arches, 
+rumbles upon the heavy ground, shoots beneath a wooden bridge which 
+intercepts the light for a second like a wink, suddenly awakens all 
+the slumbering echoes in the main street of a large town, and 
+dashes on haphazard, pell-mell, neck-or-nothing, down the middle of 
+the road.  There - with mechanics working at their trades, and 
+people leaning from their doors and windows, and boys flying kites 
+and playing marbles, and men smoking, and women talking, and 
+children crawling, and pigs burrowing, and unaccustomed horses 
+plunging and rearing, close to the very rails - there - on, on, on 
+- tears the mad dragon of an engine with its train of cars; 
+scattering in all directions a shower of burning sparks from its 
+wood fire; screeching, hissing, yelling, panting; until at last the 
+thirsty monster stops beneath a covered way to drink, the people 
+cluster round, and you have time to breathe again.
+
+I was met at the station at Lowell by a gentleman intimately 
+connected with the management of the factories there; and gladly 
+putting myself under his guidance, drove off at once to that 
+quarter of the town in which the works, the object of my visit, 
+were situated.  Although only just of age - for if my recollection 
+serve me, it has been a manufacturing town barely one-and-twenty 
+years - Lowell is a large, populous, thriving place.  Those 
+indications of its youth which first attract the eye, give it a 
+quaintness and oddity of character which, to a visitor from the old 
+country, is amusing enough.  It was a very dirty winter's day, and 
+nothing in the whole town looked old to me, except the mud, which 
+in some parts was almost knee-deep, and might have been deposited 
+there, on the subsiding of the waters after the Deluge.  In one 
+place, there was a new wooden church, which, having no steeple, and 
+being yet unpainted, looked like an enormous packing-case without 
+any direction upon it.  In another there was a large hotel, whose 
+walls and colonnades were so crisp, and thin, and slight, that it 
+had exactly the appearance of being built with cards.  I was 
+careful not to draw my breath as we passed, and trembled when I saw 
+a workman come out upon the roof, lest with one thoughtless stamp 
+of his foot he should crush the structure beneath him, and bring it 
+rattling down.  The very river that moves the machinery in the 
+mills (for they are all worked by water power), seems to acquire a 
+new character from the fresh buildings of bright red brick and 
+painted wood among which it takes its course; and to be as light-
+headed, thoughtless, and brisk a young river, in its murmurings and 
+tumblings, as one would desire to see.  One would swear that every 
+'Bakery,' 'Grocery,' and 'Bookbindery,' and other kind of store, 
+took its shutters down for the first time, and started in business 
+yesterday.  The golden pestles and mortars fixed as signs upon the 
+sun-blind frames outside the Druggists', appear to have been just 
+turned out of the United States' Mint; and when I saw a baby of 
+some week or ten days old in a woman's arms at a street corner, I 
+found myself unconsciously wondering where it came from:  never 
+supposing for an instant that it could have been born in such a 
+young town as that.
+
+There are several factories in Lowell, each of which belongs to 
+what we should term a Company of Proprietors, but what they call in 
+America a Corporation.  I went over several of these; such as a 
+woollen factory, a carpet factory, and a cotton factory:  examined 
+them in every part; and saw them in their ordinary working aspect, 
+with no preparation of any kind, or departure from their ordinary 
+everyday proceedings.  I may add that I am well acquainted with our 
+manufacturing towns in England, and have visited many mills in 
+Manchester and elsewhere in the same manner.
+
+I happened to arrive at the first factory just as the dinner hour 
+was over, and the girls were returning to their work; indeed the 
+stairs of the mill were thronged with them as I ascended.  They 
+were all well dressed, but not to my thinking above their 
+condition; for I like to see the humbler classes of society careful 
+of their dress and appearance, and even, if they please, decorated 
+with such little trinkets as come within the compass of their 
+means.  Supposing it confined within reasonable limits, I would 
+always encourage this kind of pride, as a worthy element of self-
+respect, in any person I employed; and should no more be deterred 
+from doing so, because some wretched female referred her fall to a 
+love of dress, than I would allow my construction of the real 
+intent and meaning of the Sabbath to be influenced by any warning 
+to the well-disposed, founded on his backslidings on that 
+particular day, which might emanate from the rather doubtful 
+authority of a murderer in Newgate.
+
+These girls, as I have said, were all well dressed:  and that 
+phrase necessarily includes extreme cleanliness.  They had 
+serviceable bonnets, good warm cloaks, and shawls; and were not 
+above clogs and pattens.  Moreover, there were places in the mill 
+in which they could deposit these things without injury; and there 
+were conveniences for washing.  They were healthy in appearance, 
+many of them remarkably so, and had the manners and deportment of 
+young women:  not of degraded brutes of burden.  If I had seen in 
+one of those mills (but I did not, though I looked for something of 
+this kind with a sharp eye), the most lisping, mincing, affected, 
+and ridiculous young creature that my imagination could suggest, I 
+should have thought of the careless, moping, slatternly, degraded, 
+dull reverse (I HAVE seen that), and should have been still well 
+pleased to look upon her.
+
+The rooms in which they worked, were as well ordered as themselves.  
+In the windows of some, there were green plants, which were trained 
+to shade the glass; in all, there was as much fresh air, 
+cleanliness, and comfort, as the nature of the occupation would 
+possibly admit of.  Out of so large a number of females, many of 
+whom were only then just verging upon womanhood, it may be 
+reasonably supposed that some were delicate and fragile in 
+appearance:  no doubt there were.  But I solemnly declare, that 
+from all the crowd I saw in the different factories that day, I 
+cannot recall or separate one young face that gave me a painful 
+impression; not one young girl whom, assuming it to be a matter of 
+necessity that she should gain her daily bread by the labour of her 
+hands, I would have removed from those works if I had had the 
+power.
+
+They reside in various boarding-houses near at hand.  The owners of 
+the mills are particularly careful to allow no persons to enter 
+upon the possession of these houses, whose characters have not 
+undergone the most searching and thorough inquiry.  Any complaint 
+that is made against them, by the boarders, or by any one else, is 
+fully investigated; and if good ground of complaint be shown to 
+exist against them, they are removed, and their occupation is 
+handed over to some more deserving person.  There are a few 
+children employed in these factories, but not many.  The laws of 
+the State forbid their working more than nine months in the year, 
+and require that they be educated during the other three.  For this 
+purpose there are schools in Lowell; and there are churches and 
+chapels of various persuasions, in which the young women may 
+observe that form of worship in which they have been educated.
+
+At some distance from the factories, and on the highest and 
+pleasantest ground in the neighbourhood, stands their hospital, or 
+boarding-house for the sick:  it is the best house in those parts, 
+and was built by an eminent merchant for his own residence.  Like 
+that institution at Boston, which I have before described, it is 
+not parcelled out into wards, but is divided into convenient 
+chambers, each of which has all the comforts of a very comfortable 
+home.  The principal medical attendant resides under the same roof; 
+and were the patients members of his own family, they could not be 
+better cared for, or attended with greater gentleness and 
+consideration.  The weekly charge in this establishment for each 
+female patient is three dollars, or twelve shillings English; but 
+no girl employed by any of the corporations is ever excluded for 
+want of the means of payment.  That they do not very often want the 
+means, may be gathered from the fact, that in July, 1841, no fewer 
+than nine hundred and seventy-eight of these girls were depositors 
+in the Lowell Savings Bank:  the amount of whose joint savings was 
+estimated at one hundred thousand dollars, or twenty thousand 
+English pounds.
+
+I am now going to state three facts, which will startle a large 
+class of readers on this side of the Atlantic, very much.
+
+Firstly, there is a joint-stock piano in a great many of the 
+boarding-houses.  Secondly, nearly all these young ladies subscribe 
+to circulating libraries.  Thirdly, they have got up among 
+themselves a periodical called THE LOWELL OFFERING, 'A repository 
+of original articles, written exclusively by females actively 
+employed in the mills,' - which is duly printed, published, and 
+sold; and whereof I brought away from Lowell four hundred good 
+solid pages, which I have read from beginning to end.
+
+The large class of readers, startled by these facts, will exclaim, 
+with one voice, 'How very preposterous!'  On my deferentially 
+inquiring why, they will answer, 'These things are above their 
+station.'  In reply to that objection, I would beg to ask what 
+their station is.
+
+It is their station to work.  And they DO work.  They labour in 
+these mills, upon an average, twelve hours a day, which is 
+unquestionably work, and pretty tight work too.  Perhaps it is 
+above their station to indulge in such amusements, on any terms.  
+Are we quite sure that we in England have not formed our ideas of 
+the 'station' of working people, from accustoming ourselves to the 
+contemplation of that class as they are, and not as they might be?  
+I think that if we examine our own feelings, we shall find that the 
+pianos, and the circulating libraries, and even the Lowell 
+Offering, startle us by their novelty, and not by their bearing 
+upon any abstract question of right or wrong.
+
+For myself, I know no station in which, the occupation of to-day 
+cheerfully done and the occupation of to-morrow cheerfully looked 
+to, any one of these pursuits is not most humanising and laudable.  
+I know no station which is rendered more endurable to the person in 
+it, or more safe to the person out of it, by having ignorance for 
+its associate.  I know no station which has a right to monopolise 
+the means of mutual instruction, improvement, and rational 
+entertainment; or which has ever continued to be a station very 
+long, after seeking to do so.
+
+Of the merits of the Lowell Offering as a literary production, I 
+will only observe, putting entirely out of sight the fact of the 
+articles having been written by these girls after the arduous 
+labours of the day, that it will compare advantageously with a 
+great many English Annuals.  It is pleasant to find that many of 
+its Tales are of the Mills and of those who work in them; that they 
+inculcate habits of self-denial and contentment, and teach good 
+doctrines of enlarged benevolence.  A strong feeling for the 
+beauties of nature, as displayed in the solitudes the writers have 
+left at home, breathes through its pages like wholesome village 
+air; and though a circulating library is a favourable school for 
+the study of such topics, it has very scant allusion to fine 
+clothes, fine marriages, fine houses, or fine life.  Some persons 
+might object to the papers being signed occasionally with rather 
+fine names, but this is an American fashion.  One of the provinces 
+of the state legislature of Massachusetts is to alter ugly names 
+into pretty ones, as the children improve upon the tastes of their 
+parents.  These changes costing little or nothing, scores of Mary 
+Annes are solemnly converted into Bevelinas every session.
+
+It is said that on the occasion of a visit from General Jackson or 
+General Harrison to this town (I forget which, but it is not to the 
+purpose), he walked through three miles and a half of these young 
+ladies all dressed out with parasols and silk stockings.  But as I 
+am not aware that any worse consequence ensued, than a sudden 
+looking-up of all the parasols and silk stockings in the market; 
+and perhaps the bankruptcy of some speculative New Englander who 
+bought them all up at any price, in expectation of a demand that 
+never came; I set no great store by the circumstance.
+
+In this brief account of Lowell, and inadequate expression of the 
+gratification it yielded me, and cannot fail to afford to any 
+foreigner to whom the condition of such people at home is a subject 
+of interest and anxious speculation, I have carefully abstained 
+from drawing a comparison between these factories and those of our 
+own land.  Many of the circumstances whose strong influence has 
+been at work for years in our manufacturing towns have not arisen 
+here; and there is no manufacturing population in Lowell, so to 
+speak:  for these girls (often the daughters of small farmers) come 
+from other States, remain a few years in the mills, and then go 
+home for good.
+
+The contrast would be a strong one, for it would be between the 
+Good and Evil, the living light and deepest shadow.  I abstain from 
+it, because I deem it just to do so.  But I only the more earnestly 
+adjure all those whose eyes may rest on these pages, to pause and 
+reflect upon the difference between this town and those great 
+haunts of desperate misery:  to call to mind, if they can in the 
+midst of party strife and squabble, the efforts that must be made 
+to purge them of their suffering and danger:  and last, and 
+foremost, to remember how the precious Time is rushing by.
+
+I returned at night by the same railroad and in the same kind of 
+car.  One of the passengers being exceedingly anxious to expound at 
+great length to my companion (not to me, of course) the true 
+principles on which books of travel in America should be written by 
+Englishmen, I feigned to fall asleep.  But glancing all the way out 
+at window from the corners of my eyes, I found abundance of 
+entertainment for the rest of the ride in watching the effects of 
+the wood fire, which had been invisible in the morning but were now 
+brought out in full relief by the darkness:  for we were travelling 
+in a whirlwind of bright sparks, which showered about us like a 
+storm of fiery snow.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V - WORCESTER.  THE CONNECTICUT RIVER.  HARTFORD.  NEW 
+HAVEN.  TO NEW YORK
+
+
+
+LEAVING Boston on the afternoon of Saturday the fifth of February, 
+we proceeded by another railroad to Worcester:  a pretty New 
+England town, where we had arranged to remain under the hospitable 
+roof of the Governor of the State, until Monday morning.
+
+These towns and cities of New England (many of which would be 
+villages in Old England), are as favourable specimens of rural 
+America, as their people are of rural Americans.  The well-trimmed 
+lawns and green meadows of home are not there; and the grass, 
+compared with our ornamental plots and pastures, is rank, and 
+rough, and wild:  but delicate slopes of land, gently-swelling 
+hills, wooded valleys, and slender streams, abound.  Every little 
+colony of houses has its church and school-house peeping from among 
+the white roofs and shady trees; every house is the whitest of the 
+white; every Venetian blind the greenest of the green; every fine 
+day's sky the bluest of the blue.  A sharp dry wind and a slight 
+frost had so hardened the roads when we alighted at Worcester, that 
+their furrowed tracks were like ridges of granite.  There was the 
+usual aspect of newness on every object, of course.  All the 
+buildings looked as if they had been built and painted that 
+morning, and could be taken down on Monday with very little 
+trouble.  In the keen evening air, every sharp outline looked a 
+hundred times sharper than ever.  The clean cardboard colonnades 
+had no more perspective than a Chinese bridge on a tea-cup, and 
+appeared equally well calculated for use.  The razor-like edges of 
+the detached cottages seemed to cut the very wind as it whistled 
+against them, and to send it smarting on its way with a shriller 
+cry than before.  Those slightly-built wooden dwellings behind 
+which the sun was setting with a brilliant lustre, could be so 
+looked through and through, that the idea of any inhabitant being 
+able to hide himself from the public gaze, or to have any secrets 
+from the public eye, was not entertainable for a moment.  Even 
+where a blazing fire shone through the uncurtained windows of some 
+distant house, it had the air of being newly lighted, and of 
+lacking warmth; and instead of awakening thoughts of a snug 
+chamber, bright with faces that first saw the light round that same 
+hearth, and ruddy with warm hangings, it came upon one suggestive 
+of the smell of new mortar and damp walls.
+
+So I thought, at least, that evening.  Next morning when the sun 
+was shining brightly, and the clear church bells were ringing, and 
+sedate people in their best clothes enlivened the pathway near at 
+hand and dotted the distant thread of road, there was a pleasant 
+Sabbath peacefulness on everything, which it was good to feel.  It 
+would have been the better for an old church; better still for some 
+old graves; but as it was, a wholesome repose and tranquillity 
+pervaded the scene, which after the restless ocean and the hurried 
+city, had a doubly grateful influence on the spirits.
+
+We went on next morning, still by railroad, to Springfield.  From 
+that place to Hartford, whither we were bound, is a distance of 
+only five-and-twenty miles, but at that time of the year the roads 
+were so bad that the journey would probably have occupied ten or 
+twelve hours.  Fortunately, however, the winter having been 
+unusually mild, the Connecticut River was 'open,' or, in other 
+words, not frozen.  The captain of a small steamboat was going to 
+make his first trip for the season that day (the second February 
+trip, I believe, within the memory of man), and only waited for us 
+to go on board.  Accordingly, we went on board, with as little 
+delay as might be.  He was as good as his word, and started 
+directly.
+
+It certainly was not called a small steamboat without reason.  I 
+omitted to ask the question, but I should think it must have been 
+of about half a pony power.  Mr. Paap, the celebrated Dwarf, might 
+have lived and died happily in the cabin, which was fitted with 
+common sash-windows like an ordinary dwelling-house.  These windows 
+had bright-red curtains, too, hung on slack strings across the 
+lower panes; so that it looked like the parlour of a Lilliputian 
+public-house, which had got afloat in a flood or some other water 
+accident, and was drifting nobody knew where.  But even in this 
+chamber there was a rocking-chair.  It would be impossible to get 
+on anywhere, in America, without a rocking-chair.  I am afraid to 
+tell how many feet short this vessel was, or how many feet narrow:  
+to apply the words length and width to such measurement would be a 
+contradiction in terms.  But I may state that we all kept the 
+middle of the deck, lest the boat should unexpectedly tip over; and 
+that the machinery, by some surprising process of condensation, 
+worked between it and the keel:  the whole forming a warm sandwich, 
+about three feet thick.
+
+It rained all day as I once thought it never did rain anywhere, but 
+in the Highlands of Scotland.  The river was full of floating 
+blocks of ice, which were constantly crunching and cracking under 
+us; and the depth of water, in the course we took to avoid the 
+larger masses, carried down the middle of the river by the current, 
+did not exceed a few inches.  Nevertheless, we moved onward, 
+dexterously; and being well wrapped up, bade defiance to the 
+weather, and enjoyed the journey.  The Connecticut River is a fine 
+stream; and the banks in summer-time are, I have no doubt, 
+beautiful; at all events, I was told so by a young lady in the 
+cabin; and she should be a judge of beauty, if the possession of a 
+quality include the appreciation of it, for a more beautiful 
+creature I never looked upon.
+
+After two hours and a half of this odd travelling (including a 
+stoppage at a small town, where we were saluted by a gun 
+considerably bigger than our own chimney), we reached Hartford, and 
+straightway repaired to an extremely comfortable hotel:  except, as 
+usual, in the article of bedrooms, which, in almost every place we 
+visited, were very conducive to early rising.
+
+We tarried here, four days.  The town is beautifully situated in a 
+basin of green hills; the soil is rich, well-wooded, and carefully 
+improved.  It is the seat of the local legislature of Connecticut, 
+which sage body enacted, in bygone times, the renowned code of 
+'Blue Laws,' in virtue whereof, among other enlightened provisions, 
+any citizen who could be proved to have kissed his wife on Sunday, 
+was punishable, I believe, with the stocks.  Too much of the old 
+Puritan spirit exists in these parts to the present hour; but its 
+influence has not tended, that I know, to make the people less hard 
+in their bargains, or more equal in their dealings.  As I never 
+heard of its working that effect anywhere else, I infer that it 
+never will, here.  Indeed, I am accustomed, with reference to great 
+professions and severe faces, to judge of the goods of the other 
+world pretty much as I judge of the goods of this; and whenever I 
+see a dealer in such commodities with too great a display of them 
+in his window, I doubt the quality of the article within.
+
+In Hartford stands the famous oak in which the charter of King 
+Charles was hidden.  It is now inclosed in a gentleman's garden.  
+In the State House is the charter itself.  I found the courts of 
+law here, just the same as at Boston; the public institutions 
+almost as good.  The Insane Asylum is admirably conducted, and so 
+is the Institution for the Deaf and Dumb.
+
+I very much questioned within myself, as I walked through the 
+Insane Asylum, whether I should have known the attendants from the 
+patients, but for the few words which passed between the former, 
+and the Doctor, in reference to the persons under their charge.  Of 
+course I limit this remark merely to their looks; for the 
+conversation of the mad people was mad enough.
+
+There was one little, prim old lady, of very smiling and good-
+humoured appearance, who came sidling up to me from the end of a 
+long passage, and with a curtsey of inexpressible condescension, 
+propounded this unaccountable inquiry:
+
+'Does Pontefract still flourish, sir, upon the soil of England?'
+
+'He does, ma'am,' I rejoined.
+
+'When you last saw him, sir, he was - '
+
+'Well, ma'am,' said I, 'extremely well.  He begged me to present 
+his compliments.  I never saw him looking better.'
+
+At this, the old lady was very much delighted.  After glancing at 
+me for a moment, as if to be quite sure that I was serious in my 
+respectful air, she sidled back some paces; sidled forward again; 
+made a sudden skip (at which I precipitately retreated a step or 
+two); and said:
+
+'I am an antediluvian, sir.'
+
+I thought the best thing to say was, that I had suspected as much 
+from the first.  Therefore I said so.
+
+'It is an extremely proud and pleasant thing, sir, to be an 
+antediluvian,' said the old lady.
+
+'I should think it was, ma'am,' I rejoined.
+
+The old lady kissed her hand, gave another skip, smirked and sidled 
+down the gallery in a most extraordinary manner, and ambled 
+gracefully into her own bed-chamber.
+
+In another part of the building, there was a male patient in bed; 
+very much flushed and heated.
+
+'Well,' said he, starting up, and pulling off his night-cap:  'It's 
+all settled at last.  I have arranged it with Queen Victoria.'
+
+'Arranged what?' asked the Doctor.
+
+'Why, that business,' passing his hand wearily across his forehead, 
+'about the siege of New York.'
+
+'Oh!' said I, like a man suddenly enlightened.  For he looked at me 
+for an answer.
+
+'Yes.  Every house without a signal will be fired upon by the 
+British troops.  No harm will be done to the others.  No harm at 
+all.  Those that want to be safe, must hoist flags.  That's all 
+they'll have to do.  They must hoist flags.'
+
+Even while he was speaking he seemed, I thought, to have some faint 
+idea that his talk was incoherent.  Directly he had said these 
+words, he lay down again; gave a kind of a groan; and covered his 
+hot head with the blankets.
+
+There was another:  a young man, whose madness was love and music.  
+After playing on the accordion a march he had composed, he was very 
+anxious that I should walk into his chamber, which I immediately 
+did.
+
+By way of being very knowing, and humouring him to the top of his 
+bent, I went to the window, which commanded a beautiful prospect, 
+and remarked, with an address upon which I greatly plumed myself:
+
+'What a delicious country you have about these lodgings of yours!'
+
+'Poh!' said he, moving his fingers carelessly over the notes of his 
+instrument:  'WELL ENOUGH FOR SUCH AN INSTITUTION AS THIS!'
+
+I don't think I was ever so taken aback in all my life.
+
+'I come here just for a whim,' he said coolly.  'That's all.'
+
+'Oh!  That's all!' said I.
+
+'Yes.  That's all.  The Doctor's a smart man.  He quite enters into 
+it.  It's a joke of mine.  I like it for a time.  You needn't 
+mention it, but I think I shall go out next Tuesday!'
+
+I assured him that I would consider our interview perfectly 
+confidential; and rejoined the Doctor.  As we were passing through 
+a gallery on our way out, a well-dressed lady, of quiet and 
+composed manners, came up, and proffering a slip of paper and a 
+pen, begged that I would oblige her with an autograph, I complied, 
+and we parted.
+
+'I think I remember having had a few interviews like that, with 
+ladies out of doors.  I hope SHE is not mad?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'On what subject?  Autographs?'
+
+'No.  She hears voices in the air.'
+
+'Well!' thought I, 'it would be well if we could shut up a few 
+false prophets of these later times, who have professed to do the 
+same; and I should like to try the experiment on a Mormonist or two 
+to begin with.'
+
+In this place, there is the best jail for untried offenders in the 
+world.  There is also a very well-ordered State prison, arranged 
+upon the same plan as that at Boston, except that here, there is 
+always a sentry on the wall with a loaded gun.  It contained at 
+that time about two hundred prisoners.  A spot was shown me in the 
+sleeping ward, where a watchman was murdered some years since in 
+the dead of night, in a desperate attempt to escape, made by a 
+prisoner who had broken from his cell.  A woman, too, was pointed 
+out to me, who, for the murder of her husband, had been a close 
+prisoner for sixteen years.
+
+'Do you think,' I asked of my conductor, 'that after so very long 
+an imprisonment, she has any thought or hope of ever regaining her 
+liberty?'
+
+'Oh dear yes,' he answered.  'To be sure she has.'
+
+'She has no chance of obtaining it, I suppose?'
+
+'Well, I don't know:' which, by-the-bye, is a national answer.  
+'Her friends mistrust her.'
+
+'What have THEY to do with it?' I naturally inquired.
+
+'Well, they won't petition.'
+
+'But if they did, they couldn't get her out, I suppose?'
+
+'Well, not the first time, perhaps, nor yet the second, but tiring 
+and wearying for a few years might do it.'
+
+'Does that ever do it?'
+
+'Why yes, that'll do it sometimes.  Political friends'll do it 
+sometimes.  It's pretty often done, one way or another.'
+
+I shall always entertain a very pleasant and grateful recollection 
+of Hartford.  It is a lovely place, and I had many friends there, 
+whom I can never remember with indifference.  We left it with no 
+little regret on the evening of Friday the 11th, and travelled that 
+night by railroad to New Haven.  Upon the way, the guard and I were 
+formally introduced to each other (as we usually were on such 
+occasions), and exchanged a variety of small-talk.  We reached New 
+Haven at about eight o'clock, after a journey of three hours, and 
+put up for the night at the best inn.
+
+New Haven, known also as the City of Elms, is a fine town.  Many of 
+its streets (as its ALIAS sufficiently imports) are planted with 
+rows of grand old elm-trees; and the same natural ornaments 
+surround Yale College, an establishment of considerable eminence 
+and reputation.  The various departments of this Institution are 
+erected in a kind of park or common in the middle of the town, 
+where they are dimly visible among the shadowing trees.  The effect 
+is very like that of an old cathedral yard in England; and when 
+their branches are in full leaf, must be extremely picturesque.  
+Even in the winter time, these groups of well-grown trees, 
+clustering among the busy streets and houses of a thriving city, 
+have a very quaint appearance:  seeming to bring about a kind of 
+compromise between town and country; as if each had met the other 
+half-way, and shaken hands upon it; which is at once novel and 
+pleasant.
+
+After a night's rest, we rose early, and in good time went down to 
+the wharf, and on board the packet New York FOR New York.  This was 
+the first American steamboat of any size that I had seen; and 
+certainly to an English eye it was infinitely less like a steamboat 
+than a huge floating bath.  I could hardly persuade myself, indeed, 
+but that the bathing establishment off Westminster Bridge, which I 
+left a baby, had suddenly grown to an enormous size; run away from 
+home; and set up in foreign parts as a steamer.  Being in America, 
+too, which our vagabonds do so particularly favour, it seemed the 
+more probable.
+
+The great difference in appearance between these packets and ours, 
+is, that there is so much of them out of the water:  the main-deck 
+being enclosed on all sides, and filled with casks and goods, like 
+any second or third floor in a stack of warehouses; and the 
+promenade or hurricane-deck being a-top of that again.  A part of 
+the machinery is always above this deck; where the connecting-rod, 
+in a strong and lofty frame, is seen working away like an iron top-
+sawyer.  There is seldom any mast or tackle:  nothing aloft but two 
+tall black chimneys.  The man at the helm is shut up in a little 
+house in the fore part of the boat (the wheel being connected with 
+the rudder by iron chains, working the whole length of the deck); 
+and the passengers, unless the weather be very fine indeed, usually 
+congregate below.  Directly you have left the wharf, all the life, 
+and stir, and bustle of a packet cease.  You wonder for a long time 
+how she goes on, for there seems to be nobody in charge of her; and 
+when another of these dull machines comes splashing by, you feel 
+quite indignant with it, as a sullen cumbrous, ungraceful, 
+unshiplike leviathan:  quite forgetting that the vessel you are on 
+board of, is its very counterpart.
+
+There is always a clerk's office on the lower deck, where you pay 
+your fare; a ladies' cabin; baggage and stowage rooms; engineer's 
+room; and in short a great variety of perplexities which render the 
+discovery of the gentlemen's cabin, a matter of some difficulty.  
+It often occupies the whole length of the boat (as it did in this 
+case), and has three or four tiers of berths on each side.  When I 
+first descended into the cabin of the New York, it looked, in my 
+unaccustomed eyes, about as long as the Burlington Arcade.
+
+The Sound which has to be crossed on this passage, is not always a 
+very safe or pleasant navigation, and has been the scene of some 
+unfortunate accidents.  It was a wet morning, and very misty, and 
+we soon lost sight of land.  The day was calm, however, and 
+brightened towards noon.  After exhausting (with good help from a 
+friend) the larder, and the stock of bottled beer, I lay down to 
+sleep; being very much tired with the fatigues of yesterday.  But I 
+woke from my nap in time to hurry up, and see Hell Gate, the Hog's 
+Back, the Frying Pan, and other notorious localities, attractive to 
+all readers of famous Diedrich Knickerbocker's History.  We were 
+now in a narrow channel, with sloping banks on either side, 
+besprinkled with pleasant villas, and made refreshing to the sight 
+by turf and trees.  Soon we shot in quick succession, past a light-
+house; a madhouse (how the lunatics flung up their caps and roared 
+in sympathy with the headlong engine and the driving tide!); a 
+jail; and other buildings:  and so emerged into a noble bay, whose 
+waters sparkled in the now cloudless sunshine like Nature's eyes 
+turned up to Heaven.
+
+Then there lay stretched out before us, to the right, confused 
+heaps of buildings, with here and there a spire or steeple, looking 
+down upon the herd below; and here and there, again, a cloud of 
+lazy smoke; and in the foreground a forest of ships' masts, cheery 
+with flapping sails and waving flags.  Crossing from among them to 
+the opposite shore, were steam ferry-boats laden with people, 
+coaches, horses, waggons, baskets, boxes:  crossed and recrossed by 
+other ferry-boats:  all travelling to and fro:  and never idle.  
+Stately among these restless Insects, were two or three large 
+ships, moving with slow majestic pace, as creatures of a prouder 
+kind, disdainful of their puny journeys, and making for the broad 
+sea.  Beyond, were shining heights, and islands in the glancing 
+river, and a distance scarcely less blue and bright than the sky it 
+seemed to meet.  The city's hum and buzz, the clinking of capstans, 
+the ringing of bells, the barking of dogs, the clattering of 
+wheels, tingled in the listening ear.  All of which life and stir, 
+coming across the stirring water, caught new life and animation 
+from its free companionship; and, sympathising with its buoyant 
+spirits, glistened as it seemed in sport upon its surface, and 
+hemmed the vessel round, and plashed the water high about her 
+sides, and, floating her gallantly into the dock, flew off again to 
+welcome other comers, and speed before them to the busy port.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI - NEW YORK
+
+
+
+THE beautiful metropolis of America is by no means so clean a city 
+as Boston, but many of its streets have the same characteristics; 
+except that the houses are not quite so fresh-coloured, the sign-
+boards are not quite so gaudy, the gilded letters not quite so 
+golden, the bricks not quite so red, the stone not quite so white, 
+the blinds and area railings not quite so green, the knobs and 
+plates upon the street doors not quite so bright and twinkling.  
+There are many by-streets, almost as neutral in clean colours, and 
+positive in dirty ones, as by-streets in London; and there is one 
+quarter, commonly called the Five Points, which, in respect of 
+filth and wretchedness, may be safely backed against Seven Dials, 
+or any other part of famed St. Giles's.
+
+The great promenade and thoroughfare, as most people know, is 
+Broadway; a wide and bustling street, which, from the Battery 
+Gardens to its opposite termination in a country road, may be four 
+miles long.  Shall we sit down in an upper floor of the Carlton 
+House Hotel (situated in the best part of this main artery of New 
+York), and when we are tired of looking down upon the life below, 
+sally forth arm-in-arm, and mingle with the stream?
+
+Warm weather!  The sun strikes upon our heads at this open window, 
+as though its rays were concentrated through a burning-glass; but 
+the day is in its zenith, and the season an unusual one.  Was there 
+ever such a sunny street as this Broadway!  The pavement stones are 
+polished with the tread of feet until they shine again; the red 
+bricks of the houses might be yet in the dry, hot kilns; and the 
+roofs of those omnibuses look as though, if water were poured on 
+them, they would hiss and smoke, and smell like half-quenched 
+fires.  No stint of omnibuses here!  Half-a-dozen have gone by 
+within as many minutes.  Plenty of hackney cabs and coaches too; 
+gigs, phaetons, large-wheeled tilburies, and private carriages - 
+rather of a clumsy make, and not very different from the public 
+vehicles, but built for the heavy roads beyond the city pavement.  
+Negro coachmen and white; in straw hats, black hats, white hats, 
+glazed caps, fur caps; in coats of drab, black, brown, green, blue, 
+nankeen, striped jean and linen; and there, in that one instance 
+(look while it passes, or it will be too late), in suits of livery.  
+Some southern republican that, who puts his blacks in uniform, and 
+swells with Sultan pomp and power.  Yonder, where that phaeton with 
+the well-clipped pair of grays has stopped - standing at their 
+heads now - is a Yorkshire groom, who has not been very long in 
+these parts, and looks sorrowfully round for a companion pair of 
+top-boots, which he may traverse the city half a year without 
+meeting.  Heaven save the ladies, how they dress!  We have seen 
+more colours in these ten minutes, than we should have seen 
+elsewhere, in as many days.  What various parasols! what rainbow 
+silks and satins! what pinking of thin stockings, and pinching of 
+thin shoes, and fluttering of ribbons and silk tassels, and display 
+of rich cloaks with gaudy hoods and linings!  The young gentlemen 
+are fond, you see, of turning down their shirt-collars and 
+cultivating their whiskers, especially under the chin; but they 
+cannot approach the ladies in their dress or bearing, being, to say 
+the truth, humanity of quite another sort.  Byrons of the desk and 
+counter, pass on, and let us see what kind of men those are behind 
+ye:  those two labourers in holiday clothes, of whom one carries in 
+his hand a crumpled scrap of paper from which he tries to spell out 
+a hard name, while the other looks about for it on all the doors 
+and windows.
+
+Irishmen both!  You might know them, if they were masked, by their 
+long-tailed blue coats and bright buttons, and their drab trousers, 
+which they wear like men well used to working dresses, who are easy 
+in no others.  It would be hard to keep your model republics going, 
+without the countrymen and countrywomen of those two labourers.  
+For who else would dig, and delve, and drudge, and do domestic 
+work, and make canals and roads, and execute great lines of 
+Internal Improvement!  Irishmen both, and sorely puzzled too, to 
+find out what they seek.  Let us go down, and help them, for the 
+love of home, and that spirit of liberty which admits of honest 
+service to honest men, and honest work for honest bread, no matter 
+what it be.
+
+That's well!  We have got at the right address at last, though it 
+is written in strange characters truly, and might have been 
+scrawled with the blunt handle of the spade the writer better knows 
+the use of, than a pen.  Their way lies yonder, but what business 
+takes them there?  They carry savings:  to hoard up?  No.  They are 
+brothers, those men.  One crossed the sea alone, and working very 
+hard for one half year, and living harder, saved funds enough to 
+bring the other out.  That done, they worked together side by side, 
+contentedly sharing hard labour and hard living for another term, 
+and then their sisters came, and then another brother, and lastly, 
+their old mother.  And what now?  Why, the poor old crone is 
+restless in a strange land, and yearns to lay her bones, she says, 
+among her people in the old graveyard at home:  and so they go to 
+pay her passage back:  and God help her and them, and every simple 
+heart, and all who turn to the Jerusalem of their younger days, and 
+have an altar-fire upon the cold hearth of their fathers.
+
+This narrow thoroughfare, baking and blistering in the sun, is Wall 
+Street:  the Stock Exchange and Lombard Street of New York.  Many a 
+rapid fortune has been made in this street, and many a no less 
+rapid ruin.  Some of these very merchants whom you see hanging 
+about here now, have locked up money in their strong-boxes, like 
+the man in the Arabian Nights, and opening them again, have found 
+but withered leaves.  Below, here by the water-side, where the 
+bowsprits of ships stretch across the footway, and almost thrust 
+themselves into the windows, lie the noble American vessels which 
+have made their Packet Service the finest in the world.  They 
+have brought hither the foreigners who abound in all the streets:  
+not, perhaps, that there are more here, than in other commercial 
+cities; but elsewhere, they have particular haunts, and you must 
+find them out; here, they pervade the town.
+
+We must cross Broadway again; gaining some refreshment from the 
+heat, in the sight of the great blocks of clean ice which are being 
+carried into shops and bar-rooms; and the pine-apples and water-
+melons profusely displayed for sale.  Fine streets of spacious 
+houses here, you see! - Wall Street has furnished and dismantled 
+many of them very often - and here a deep green leafy square.  Be 
+sure that is a hospitable house with inmates to be affectionately 
+remembered always, where they have the open door and pretty show of 
+plants within, and where the child with laughing eyes is peeping 
+out of window at the little dog below.  You wonder what may be the 
+use of this tall flagstaff in the by-street, with something like 
+Liberty's head-dress on its top:  so do I.  But there is a passion 
+for tall flagstaffs hereabout, and you may see its twin brother in 
+five minutes, if you have a mind.
+
+Again across Broadway, and so - passing from the many-coloured 
+crowd and glittering shops - into another long main street, the 
+Bowery.  A railroad yonder, see, where two stout horses trot along, 
+drawing a score or two of people and a great wooden ark, with ease.  
+The stores are poorer here; the passengers less gay.  Clothes 
+ready-made, and meat ready-cooked, are to be bought in these parts; 
+and the lively whirl of carriages is exchanged for the deep rumble 
+of carts and waggons.  These signs which are so plentiful, in shape 
+like river buoys, or small balloons, hoisted by cords to poles, and 
+dangling there, announce, as you may see by looking up, 'OYSTERS IN 
+EVERY STYLE.'  They tempt the hungry most at night, for then dull 
+candles glimmering inside, illuminate these dainty words, and make 
+the mouths of idlers water, as they read and linger.
+
+What is this dismal-fronted pile of bastard Egyptian, like an 
+enchanter's palace in a melodrama! - a famous prison, called The 
+Tombs.  Shall we go in?
+
+So.  A long, narrow, lofty building, stove-heated as usual, with 
+four galleries, one above the other, going round it, and 
+communicating by stairs.  Between the two sides of each gallery, 
+and in its centre, a bridge, for the greater convenience of 
+crossing.  On each of these bridges sits a man:  dozing or reading, 
+or talking to an idle companion.  On each tier, are two opposite 
+rows of small iron doors.  They look like furnace-doors, but are 
+cold and black, as though the fires within had all gone out.  Some 
+two or three are open, and women, with drooping heads bent down, 
+are talking to the inmates.  The whole is lighted by a skylight, 
+but it is fast closed; and from the roof there dangle, limp and 
+drooping, two useless windsails.
+
+A man with keys appears, to show us round.  A good-looking fellow, 
+and, in his way, civil and obliging.
+
+'Are those black doors the cells?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Are they all full?'
+
+'Well, they're pretty nigh full, and that's a fact, and no two ways 
+about it.'
+
+'Those at the bottom are unwholesome, surely?'
+
+'Why, we DO only put coloured people in 'em.  That's the truth.'
+
+'When do the prisoners take exercise?'
+
+'Well, they do without it pretty much.'
+
+'Do they never walk in the yard?'
+
+'Considerable seldom.'
+
+'Sometimes, I suppose?'
+
+'Well, it's rare they do.  They keep pretty bright without it.'
+
+'But suppose a man were here for a twelvemonth.  I know this is 
+only a prison for criminals who are charged with grave offences, 
+while they are awaiting their trial, or under remand, but the law 
+here affords criminals many means of delay.  What with motions for 
+new trials, and in arrest of judgment, and what not, a prisoner 
+might be here for twelve months, I take it, might he not?'
+
+'Well, I guess he might.'
+
+'Do you mean to say that in all that time he would never come out 
+at that little iron door, for exercise?'
+
+'He might walk some, perhaps - not much.'
+
+'Will you open one of the doors?'
+
+'All, if you like.'
+
+The fastenings jar and rattle, and one of the doors turns slowly on 
+its hinges.  Let us look in.  A small bare cell, into which the 
+light enters through a high chink in the wall.  There is a rude 
+means of washing, a table, and a bedstead.  Upon the latter, sits a 
+man of sixty; reading.  He looks up for a moment; gives an 
+impatient dogged shake; and fixes his eyes upon his book again.  As 
+we withdraw our heads, the door closes on him, and is fastened as 
+before.  This man has murdered his wife, and will probably be 
+hanged.
+
+'How long has he been here?'
+
+'A month.'
+
+'When will he be tried?'
+
+'Next term.'
+
+'When is that?'
+
+'Next month.'
+
+'In England, if a man be under sentence of death, even he has air 
+and exercise at certain periods of the day.'
+
+'Possible?'
+
+With what stupendous and untranslatable coolness he says this, and 
+how loungingly he leads on to the women's side:  making, as he 
+goes, a kind of iron castanet of the key and the stair-rail!
+
+Each cell door on this side has a square aperture in it.  Some of 
+the women peep anxiously through it at the sound of footsteps; 
+others shrink away in shame. - For what offence can that lonely 
+child, of ten or twelve years old, be shut up here?  Oh! that boy?  
+He is the son of the prisoner we saw just now; is a witness against 
+his father; and is detained here for safe keeping, until the trial; 
+that's all.
+
+But it is a dreadful place for the child to pass the long days and 
+nights in.  This is rather hard treatment for a young witness, is 
+it not? - What says our conductor?
+
+'Well, it an't a very rowdy life, and THAT'S a fact!'
+
+Again he clinks his metal castanet, and leads us leisurely away.  I 
+have a question to ask him as we go.
+
+'Pray, why do they call this place The Tombs?'
+
+'Well, it's the cant name.'
+
+'I know it is.  Why?'
+
+'Some suicides happened here, when it was first built.  I expect it 
+come about from that.'
+
+'I saw just now, that that man's clothes were scattered about the 
+floor of his cell.  Don't you oblige the prisoners to be orderly, 
+and put such things away?'
+
+'Where should they put 'em?'
+
+'Not on the ground surely.  What do you say to hanging them up?'
+
+He stops and looks round to emphasise his answer:
+
+'Why, I say that's just it.  When they had hooks they WOULD hang 
+themselves, so they're taken out of every cell, and there's only 
+the marks left where they used to be!'
+
+The prison-yard in which he pauses now, has been the scene of 
+terrible performances.  Into this narrow, grave-like place, men are 
+brought out to die.  The wretched creature stands beneath the 
+gibbet on the ground; the rope about his neck; and when the sign is 
+given, a weight at its other end comes running down, and swings him 
+up into the air - a corpse.
+
+The law requires that there be present at this dismal spectacle, 
+the judge, the jury, and citizens to the amount of twenty-five.  
+From the community it is hidden.  To the dissolute and bad, the 
+thing remains a frightful mystery.  Between the criminal and them, 
+the prison-wall is interposed as a thick gloomy veil.  It is the 
+curtain to his bed of death, his winding-sheet, and grave.  From 
+him it shuts out life, and all the motives to unrepenting hardihood 
+in that last hour, which its mere sight and presence is often all-
+sufficient to sustain.  There are no bold eyes to make him bold; no 
+ruffians to uphold a ruffian's name before.  All beyond the 
+pitiless stone wall, is unknown space.
+
+Let us go forth again into the cheerful streets.
+
+Once more in Broadway!  Here are the same ladies in bright colours, 
+walking to and fro, in pairs and singly; yonder the very same light 
+blue parasol which passed and repassed the hotel-window twenty 
+times while we were sitting there.  We are going to cross here.  
+Take care of the pigs.  Two portly sows are trotting up behind this 
+carriage, and a select party of half-a-dozen gentlemen hogs have 
+just now turned the corner.
+
+Here is a solitary swine lounging homeward by himself.  He has only 
+one ear; having parted with the other to vagrant-dogs in the course 
+of his city rambles.  But he gets on very well without it; and 
+leads a roving, gentlemanly, vagabond kind of life, somewhat 
+answering to that of our club-men at home.  He leaves his lodgings 
+every morning at a certain hour, throws himself upon the town, gets 
+through his day in some manner quite satisfactory to himself, and 
+regularly appears at the door of his own house again at night, like 
+the mysterious master of Gil Blas.  He is a free-and-easy, 
+careless, indifferent kind of pig, having a very large acquaintance 
+among other pigs of the same character, whom he rather knows by 
+sight than conversation, as he seldom troubles himself to stop and 
+exchange civilities, but goes grunting down the kennel, turning up 
+the news and small-talk of the city in the shape of cabbage-stalks 
+and offal, and bearing no tails but his own:  which is a very short 
+one, for his old enemies, the dogs, have been at that too, and have 
+left him hardly enough to swear by.  He is in every respect a 
+republican pig, going wherever he pleases, and mingling with the 
+best society, on an equal, if not superior footing, for every one 
+makes way when he appears, and the haughtiest give him the wall, if 
+he prefer it.  He is a great philosopher, and seldom moved, unless 
+by the dogs before mentioned.  Sometimes, indeed, you may see his 
+small eye twinkling on a slaughtered friend, whose carcase 
+garnishes a butcher's door-post, but he grunts out 'Such is life:  
+all flesh is pork!' buries his nose in the mire again, and waddles 
+down the gutter:  comforting himself with the reflection that there 
+is one snout the less to anticipate stray cabbage-stalks, at any 
+rate.
+
+They are the city scavengers, these pigs.  Ugly brutes they are; 
+having, for the most part, scanty brown backs, like the lids of old 
+horsehair trunks:  spotted with unwholesome black blotches.  They 
+have long, gaunt legs, too, and such peaked snouts, that if one of 
+them could be persuaded to sit for his profile, nobody would 
+recognise it for a pig's likeness.  They are never attended upon, 
+or fed, or driven, or caught, but are thrown upon their own 
+resources in early life, and become preternaturally knowing in 
+consequence.  Every pig knows where he lives, much better than 
+anybody could tell him.  At this hour, just as evening is closing 
+in, you will see them roaming towards bed by scores, eating their 
+way to the last.  Occasionally, some youth among them who has over-
+eaten himself, or has been worried by dogs, trots shrinkingly 
+homeward, like a prodigal son:  but this is a rare case:  perfect 
+self-possession and self-reliance, and immovable composure, being 
+their foremost attributes.
+
+The streets and shops are lighted now; and as the eye travels down 
+the long thoroughfare, dotted with bright jets of gas, it is 
+reminded of Oxford Street, or Piccadilly.  Here and there a flight 
+of broad stone cellar-steps appears, and a painted lamp directs you 
+to the Bowling Saloon, or Ten-Pin alley; Ten-Pins being a game of 
+mingled chance and skill, invented when the legislature passed an 
+act forbidding Nine-Pins.  At other downward flights of steps, are 
+other lamps, marking the whereabouts of oyster-cellars - pleasant 
+retreats, say I:  not only by reason of their wonderful cookery of 
+oysters, pretty nigh as large as cheese-plates (or for thy dear 
+sake, heartiest of Greek Professors!), but because of all kinds of 
+caters of fish, or flesh, or fowl, in these latitudes, the 
+swallowers of oysters alone are not gregarious; but subduing 
+themselves, as it were, to the nature of what they work in, and 
+copying the coyness of the thing they eat, do sit apart in 
+curtained boxes, and consort by twos, not by two hundreds.
+
+But how quiet the streets are!  Are there no itinerant bands; no 
+wind or stringed instruments?  No, not one.  By day, are there no 
+Punches, Fantoccini, Dancing-dogs, Jugglers, Conjurers, 
+Orchestrinas, or even Barrel-organs?  No, not one.  Yes, I remember 
+one.  One barrel-organ and a dancing-monkey - sportive by nature, 
+but fast fading into a dull, lumpish monkey, of the Utilitarian 
+school.  Beyond that, nothing lively; no, not so much as a white 
+mouse in a twirling cage.
+
+Are there no amusements?  Yes.  There is a lecture-room across the 
+way, from which that glare of light proceeds, and there may be 
+evening service for the ladies thrice a week, or oftener.  For the 
+young gentlemen, there is the counting-house, the store, the bar-
+room:  the latter, as you may see through these windows, pretty 
+full.  Hark! to the clinking sound of hammers breaking lumps of 
+ice, and to the cool gurgling of the pounded bits, as, in the 
+process of mixing, they are poured from glass to glass!  No 
+amusements?  What are these suckers of cigars and swallowers of 
+strong drinks, whose hats and legs we see in every possible variety 
+of twist, doing, but amusing themselves?  What are the fifty 
+newspapers, which those precocious urchins are bawling down the 
+street, and which are kept filed within, what are they but 
+amusements?  Not vapid, waterish amusements, but good strong stuff; 
+dealing in round abuse and blackguard names; pulling off the roofs 
+of private houses, as the Halting Devil did in Spain; pimping and 
+pandering for all degrees of vicious taste, and gorging with coined 
+lies the most voracious maw; imputing to every man in public life 
+the coarsest and the vilest motives; scaring away from the stabbed 
+and prostrate body-politic, every Samaritan of clear conscience and 
+good deeds; and setting on, with yell and whistle and the clapping 
+of foul hands, the vilest vermin and worst birds of prey. - No 
+amusements!
+
+Let us go on again; and passing this wilderness of an hotel with 
+stores about its base, like some Continental theatre, or the London 
+Opera House shorn of its colonnade, plunge into the Five Points.  
+But it is needful, first, that we take as our escort these two 
+heads of the police, whom you would know for sharp and well-trained 
+officers if you met them in the Great Desert.  So true it is, that 
+certain pursuits, wherever carried on, will stamp men with the same 
+character.  These two might have been begotten, born, and bred, in 
+Bow Street.
+
+We have seen no beggars in the streets by night or day; but of 
+other kinds of strollers, plenty.  Poverty, wretchedness, and vice, 
+are rife enough where we are going now.
+
+This is the place:  these narrow ways, diverging to the right and 
+left, and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth.  Such lives as 
+are led here, bear the same fruits here as elsewhere.  The coarse 
+and bloated faces at the doors, have counterparts at home, and all 
+the wide world over.  Debauchery has made the very houses 
+prematurely old.  See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and 
+how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes 
+that have been hurt in drunken frays.  Many of those pigs live 
+here.  Do they ever wonder why their masters walk upright in lieu 
+of going on all-fours? and why they talk instead of grunting?
+
+So far, nearly every house is a low tavern; and on the bar-room 
+walls, are coloured prints of Washington, and Queen Victoria of 
+England, and the American Eagle.  Among the pigeon-holes that hold 
+the bottles, are pieces of plate-glass and coloured paper, for 
+there is, in some sort, a taste for decoration, even here.  And as 
+seamen frequent these haunts, there are maritime pictures by the 
+dozen:  of partings between sailors and their lady-loves, portraits 
+of William, of the ballad, and his Black-Eyed Susan; of Will Watch, 
+the Bold Smuggler; of Paul Jones the Pirate, and the like:  on 
+which the painted eyes of Queen Victoria, and of Washington to 
+boot, rest in as strange companionship, as on most of the scenes 
+that are enacted in their wondering presence.
+
+What place is this, to which the squalid street conducts us?  A 
+kind of square of leprous houses, some of which are attainable only 
+by crazy wooden stairs without.  What lies beyond this tottering 
+flight of steps, that creak beneath our tread? - a miserable room, 
+lighted by one dim candle, and destitute of all comfort, save that 
+which may be hidden in a wretched bed.  Beside it, sits a man:  his 
+elbows on his knees:  his forehead hidden in his hands.  'What ails 
+that man?' asks the foremost officer.  'Fever,' he sullenly 
+replies, without looking up.  Conceive the fancies of a feverish 
+brain, in such a place as this!
+
+Ascend these pitch-dark stairs, heedful of a false footing on the 
+trembling boards, and grope your way with me into this wolfish den, 
+where neither ray of light nor breath of air, appears to come.  A 
+negro lad, startled from his sleep by the officer's voice - he 
+knows it well - but comforted by his assurance that he has not come 
+on business, officiously bestirs himself to light a candle.  The 
+match flickers for a moment, and shows great mounds of dusty rags 
+upon the ground; then dies away and leaves a denser darkness than 
+before, if there can be degrees in such extremes.  He stumbles down 
+the stairs and presently comes back, shading a flaring taper with 
+his hand.  Then the mounds of rags are seen to be astir, and rise 
+slowly up, and the floor is covered with heaps of negro women, 
+waking from their sleep:  their white teeth chattering, and their 
+bright eyes glistening and winking on all sides with surprise and 
+fear, like the countless repetition of one astonished African face 
+in some strange mirror.
+
+Mount up these other stairs with no less caution (there are traps 
+and pitfalls here, for those who are not so well escorted as 
+ourselves) into the housetop; where the bare beams and rafters meet 
+overhead, and calm night looks down through the crevices in the 
+roof.  Open the door of one of these cramped hutches full of 
+sleeping negroes.  Pah!  They have a charcoal fire within; there is 
+a smell of singeing clothes, or flesh, so close they gather round 
+the brazier; and vapours issue forth that blind and suffocate.  
+From every corner, as you glance about you in these dark retreats, 
+some figure crawls half-awakened, as if the judgment-hour were near 
+at hand, and every obscene grave were giving up its dead.  Where 
+dogs would howl to lie, women, and men, and boys slink off to 
+sleep, forcing the dislodged rats to move away in quest of better 
+lodgings.
+
+Here too are lanes and alleys, paved with mud knee-deep, 
+underground chambers, where they dance and game; the walls bedecked 
+with rough designs of ships, and forts, and flags, and American 
+eagles out of number:  ruined houses, open to the street, whence, 
+through wide gaps in the walls, other ruins loom upon the eye, as 
+though the world of vice and misery had nothing else to show:  
+hideous tenements which take their name from robbery and murder:  
+all that is loathsome, drooping, and decayed is here.
+
+Our leader has his hand upon the latch of 'Almack's,' and calls to 
+us from the bottom of the steps; for the assembly-room of the Five 
+Point fashionables is approached by a descent.  Shall we go in?  It 
+is but a moment.
+
+Heyday! the landlady of Almack's thrives!  A buxom fat mulatto 
+woman, with sparkling eyes, whose head is daintily ornamented with 
+a handkerchief of many colours.  Nor is the landlord much behind 
+her in his finery, being attired in a smart blue jacket, like a 
+ship's steward, with a thick gold ring upon his little finger, and 
+round his neck a gleaming golden watch-guard.  How glad he is to 
+see us!  What will we please to call for?  A dance?  It shall be 
+done directly, sir:  'a regular break-down.'
+
+The corpulent black fiddler, and his friend who plays the 
+tambourine, stamp upon the boarding of the small raised orchestra 
+in which they sit, and play a lively measure.  Five or six couple 
+come upon the floor, marshalled by a lively young negro, who is the 
+wit of the assembly, and the greatest dancer known.  He never 
+leaves off making queer faces, and is the delight of all the rest, 
+who grin from ear to ear incessantly.  Among the dancers are two 
+young mulatto girls, with large, black, drooping eyes, and head-
+gear after the fashion of the hostess, who are as shy, or feign to 
+be, as though they never danced before, and so look down before the 
+visitors, that their partners can see nothing but the long fringed 
+lashes.
+
+But the dance commences.  Every gentleman sets as long as he likes 
+to the opposite lady, and the opposite lady to him, and all are so 
+long about it that the sport begins to languish, when suddenly the 
+lively hero dashes in to the rescue.  Instantly the fiddler grins, 
+and goes at it tooth and nail; there is new energy in the 
+tambourine; new laughter in the dancers; new smiles in the 
+landlady; new confidence in the landlord; new brightness in the 
+very candles.
+
+Single shuffle, double shuffle, cut and cross-cut; snapping his 
+fingers, rolling his eyes, turning in his knees, presenting the 
+backs of his legs in front, spinning about on his toes and heels 
+like nothing but the man's fingers on the tambourine; dancing with 
+two left legs, two right legs, two wooden legs, two wire legs, two 
+spring legs - all sorts of legs and no legs - what is this to him?  
+And in what walk of life, or dance of life, does man ever get such 
+stimulating applause as thunders about him, when, having danced his 
+partner off her feet, and himself too, he finishes by leaping 
+gloriously on the bar-counter, and calling for something to drink, 
+with the chuckle of a million of counterfeit Jim Crows, in one 
+inimitable sound!
+
+The air, even in these distempered parts, is fresh after the 
+stifling atmosphere of the houses; and now, as we emerge into a 
+broader street, it blows upon us with a purer breath, and the stars 
+look bright again.  Here are The Tombs once more.  The city watch-
+house is a part of the building.  It follows naturally on the 
+sights we have just left.  Let us see that, and then to bed.
+
+What! do you thrust your common offenders against the police 
+discipline of the town, into such holes as these?  Do men and 
+women, against whom no crime is proved, lie here all night in 
+perfect darkness, surrounded by the noisome vapours which encircle 
+that flagging lamp you light us with, and breathing this filthy and 
+offensive stench!  Why, such indecent and disgusting dungeons as 
+these cells, would bring disgrace upon the most despotic empire in 
+the world!  Look at them, man - you, who see them every night, and 
+keep the keys.  Do you see what they are?  Do you know how drains 
+are made below the streets, and wherein these human sewers differ, 
+except in being always stagnant?
+
+Well, he don't know.  He has had five-and-twenty young women locked 
+up in this very cell at one time, and you'd hardly realise what 
+handsome faces there were among 'em.
+
+In God's name! shut the door upon the wretched creature who is in 
+it now, and put its screen before a place, quite unsurpassed in all 
+the vice, neglect, and devilry, of the worst old town in Europe.
+
+Are people really left all night, untried, in those black sties? - 
+Every night.  The watch is set at seven in the evening.  The 
+magistrate opens his court at five in the morning.  That is the 
+earliest hour at which the first prisoner can be released; and if 
+an officer appear against him, he is not taken out till nine 
+o'clock or ten. - But if any one among them die in the interval, as 
+one man did, not long ago?  Then he is half-eaten by the rats in an 
+hour's time; as that man was; and there an end.
+
+What is this intolerable tolling of great bells, and crashing of 
+wheels, and shouting in the distance?  A fire.  And what that deep 
+red light in the opposite direction?  Another fire.  And what these 
+charred and blackened walls we stand before?  A dwelling where a 
+fire has been.  It was more than hinted, in an official report, not 
+long ago, that some of these conflagrations were not wholly 
+accidental, and that speculation and enterprise found a field of 
+exertion, even in flames:  but be this as it may, there was a fire 
+last night, there are two to-night, and you may lay an even wager 
+there will be at least one, to-morrow.  So, carrying that with us 
+for our comfort, let us say, Good night, and climb up-stairs to 
+bed.
+
+* * * * * *
+
+One day, during my stay in New York, I paid a visit to the 
+different public institutions on Long Island, or Rhode Island:  I 
+forget which.  One of them is a Lunatic Asylum.  The building is 
+handsome; and is remarkable for a spacious and elegant staircase.  
+The whole structure is not yet finished, but it is already one of 
+considerable size and extent, and is capable of accommodating a 
+very large number of patients.
+
+I cannot say that I derived much comfort from the inspection of 
+this charity.  The different wards might have been cleaner and 
+better ordered; I saw nothing of that salutary system which had 
+impressed me so favourably elsewhere; and everything had a 
+lounging, listless, madhouse air, which was very painful.  The 
+moping idiot, cowering down with long dishevelled hair; the 
+gibbering maniac, with his hideous laugh and pointed finger; the 
+vacant eye, the fierce wild face, the gloomy picking of the hands 
+and lips, and munching of the nails:  there they were all, without 
+disguise, in naked ugliness and horror.  In the dining-room, a 
+bare, dull, dreary place, with nothing for the eye to rest on but 
+the empty walls, a woman was locked up alone.  She was bent, they 
+told me, on committing suicide.  If anything could have 
+strengthened her in her resolution, it would certainly have been 
+the insupportable monotony of such an existence.
+
+The terrible crowd with which these halls and galleries were 
+filled, so shocked me, that I abridged my stay within the shortest 
+limits, and declined to see that portion of the building in which 
+the refractory and violent were under closer restraint.  I have no 
+doubt that the gentleman who presided over this establishment at 
+the time I write of, was competent to manage it, and had done all 
+in his power to promote its usefulness:  but will it be believed 
+that the miserable strife of Party feeling is carried even into 
+this sad refuge of afflicted and degraded humanity?  Will it be 
+believed that the eyes which are to watch over and control the 
+wanderings of minds on which the most dreadful visitation to which 
+our nature is exposed has fallen, must wear the glasses of some 
+wretched side in Politics?  Will it be believed that the governor 
+of such a house as this, is appointed, and deposed, and changed 
+perpetually, as Parties fluctuate and vary, and as their despicable 
+weathercocks are blown this way or that?  A hundred times in every 
+week, some new most paltry exhibition of that narrow-minded and 
+injurious Party Spirit, which is the Simoom of America, sickening 
+and blighting everything of wholesome life within its reach, was 
+forced upon my notice; but I never turned my back upon it with 
+feelings of such deep disgust and measureless contempt, as when I 
+crossed the threshold of this madhouse.
+
+At a short distance from this building is another called the Alms 
+House, that is to say, the workhouse of New York.  This is a large 
+Institution also:  lodging, I believe, when I was there, nearly a 
+thousand poor.  It was badly ventilated, and badly lighted; was not 
+too clean; - and impressed me, on the whole, very uncomfortably.  
+But it must be remembered that New York, as a great emporium of 
+commerce, and as a place of general resort, not only from all parts 
+of the States, but from most parts of the world, has always a large 
+pauper population to provide for; and labours, therefore, under 
+peculiar difficulties in this respect.  Nor must it be forgotten 
+that New York is a large town, and that in all large towns a vast 
+amount of good and evil is intermixed and jumbled up together.
+
+In the same neighbourhood is the Farm, where young orphans are 
+nursed and bred.  I did not see it, but I believe it is well 
+conducted; and I can the more easily credit it, from knowing how 
+mindful they usually are, in America, of that beautiful passage in 
+the Litany which remembers all sick persons and young children.
+
+I was taken to these Institutions by water, in a boat belonging to 
+the Island jail, and rowed by a crew of prisoners, who were dressed 
+in a striped uniform of black and buff, in which they looked like 
+faded tigers.  They took me, by the same conveyance, to the jail 
+itself.
+
+It is an old prison, and quite a pioneer establishment, on the plan 
+I have already described.  I was glad to hear this, for it is 
+unquestionably a very indifferent one.  The most is made, however, 
+of the means it possesses, and it is as well regulated as such a 
+place can be.
+
+The women work in covered sheds, erected for that purpose.  If I 
+remember right, there are no shops for the men, but be that as it 
+may, the greater part of them labour in certain stone-quarries near 
+at hand.  The day being very wet indeed, this labour was suspended, 
+and the prisoners were in their cells.  Imagine these cells, some 
+two or three hundred in number, and in every one a man locked up; 
+this one at his door for air, with his hands thrust through the 
+grate; this one in bed (in the middle of the day, remember); and 
+this one flung down in a heap upon the ground, with his head 
+against the bars, like a wild beast.  Make the rain pour down, 
+outside, in torrents.  Put the everlasting stove in the midst; hot, 
+and suffocating, and vaporous, as a witch's cauldron.  Add a 
+collection of gentle odours, such as would arise from a thousand 
+mildewed umbrellas, wet through, and a thousand buck-baskets, full 
+of half-washed linen - and there is the prison, as it was that day.
+
+The prison for the State at Sing Sing is, on the other hand, a 
+model jail.  That, and Auburn, are, I believe, the largest and best 
+examples of the silent system.
+
+In another part of the city, is the Refuge for the Destitute:  an 
+Institution whose object is to reclaim youthful offenders, male and 
+female, black and white, without distinction; to teach them useful 
+trades, apprentice them to respectable masters, and make them 
+worthy members of society.  Its design, it will be seen, is similar 
+to that at Boston; and it is a no less meritorious and admirable 
+establishment.  A suspicion crossed my mind during my inspection of 
+this noble charity, whether the superintendent had quite sufficient 
+knowledge of the world and worldly characters; and whether he did 
+not commit a great mistake in treating some young girls, who were 
+to all intents and purposes, by their years and their past lives, 
+women, as though they were little children; which certainly had a 
+ludicrous effect in my eyes, and, or I am much mistaken, in theirs 
+also.  As the Institution, however, is always under a vigilant 
+examination of a body of gentlemen of great intelligence and 
+experience, it cannot fail to be well conducted; and whether I am 
+right or wrong in this slight particular, is unimportant to its 
+deserts and character, which it would be difficult to estimate too 
+highly.
+
+In addition to these establishments, there are in New York, 
+excellent hospitals and schools, literary institutions and 
+libraries; an admirable fire department (as indeed it should be, 
+having constant practice), and charities of every sort and kind.  
+In the suburbs there is a spacious cemetery:  unfinished yet, but 
+every day improving.  The saddest tomb I saw there was 'The 
+Strangers' Grave.  Dedicated to the different hotels in this city.'
+
+There are three principal theatres.  Two of them, the Park and the 
+Bowery, are large, elegant, and handsome buildings, and are, I 
+grieve to write it, generally deserted.  The third, the Olympic, is 
+a tiny show-box for vaudevilles and burlesques.  It is singularly 
+well conducted by Mr. Mitchell, a comic actor of great quiet humour 
+and originality, who is well remembered and esteemed by London 
+playgoers.  I am happy to report of this deserving gentleman, that 
+his benches are usually well filled, and that his theatre rings 
+with merriment every night.  I had almost forgotten a small summer 
+theatre, called Niblo's, with gardens and open air amusements 
+attached; but I believe it is not exempt from the general 
+depression under which Theatrical Property, or what is humorously 
+called by that name, unfortunately labours.
+
+The country round New York is surpassingly and exquisitely 
+picturesque.  The climate, as I have already intimated, is somewhat 
+of the warmest.  What it would be, without the sea breezes which 
+come from its beautiful Bay in the evening time, I will not throw 
+myself or my readers into a fever by inquiring.
+
+The tone of the best society in this city, is like that of Boston; 
+here and there, it may be, with a greater infusion of the 
+mercantile spirit, but generally polished and refined, and always 
+most hospitable.  The houses and tables are elegant; the hours 
+later and more rakish; and there is, perhaps, a greater spirit of 
+contention in reference to appearances, and the display of wealth 
+and costly living.  The ladies are singularly beautiful.
+
+Before I left New York I made arrangements for securing a passage 
+home in the George Washington packet ship, which was advertised to 
+sail in June:  that being the month in which I had determined, if 
+prevented by no accident in the course of my ramblings, to leave 
+America.
+
+I never thought that going back to England, returning to all who 
+are dear to me, and to pursuits that have insensibly grown to be a 
+part of my nature, I could have felt so much sorrow as I endured, 
+when I parted at last, on board this ship, with the friends who had 
+accompanied me from this city.  I never thought the name of any 
+place, so far away and so lately known, could ever associate itself 
+in my mind with the crowd of affectionate remembrances that now 
+cluster about it.  There are those in this city who would brighten, 
+to me, the darkest winter-day that ever glimmered and went out in 
+Lapland; and before whose presence even Home grew dim, when they 
+and I exchanged that painful word which mingles with our every 
+thought and deed; which haunts our cradle-heads in infancy, and 
+closes up the vista of our lives in age.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII - PHILADELPHIA, AND ITS SOLITARY PRISON
+
+
+
+THE journey from New York to Philadelphia, is made by railroad, and 
+two ferries; and usually occupies between five and six hours.  It 
+was a fine evening when we were passengers in the train:  and 
+watching the bright sunset from a little window near the door by 
+which we sat, my attention was attracted to a remarkable appearance 
+issuing from the windows of the gentleman's car immediately in 
+front of us, which I supposed for some time was occasioned by a 
+number of industrious persons inside, ripping open feather-beds, 
+and giving the feathers to the wind.  At length it occurred to me 
+that they were only spitting, which was indeed the case; though how 
+any number of passengers which it was possible for that car to 
+contain, could have maintained such a playful and incessant shower 
+of expectoration, I am still at a loss to understand:  
+notwithstanding the experience in all salivatory phenomena which I 
+afterwards acquired.
+
+I made acquaintance, on this journey, with a mild and modest young 
+quaker, who opened the discourse by informing me, in a grave 
+whisper, that his grandfather was the inventor of cold-drawn castor 
+oil.  I mention the circumstance here, thinking it probable that 
+this is the first occasion on which the valuable medicine in 
+question was ever used as a conversational aperient.
+
+We reached the city, late that night.  Looking out of my chamber-
+window, before going to bed, I saw, on the opposite side of the 
+way, a handsome building of white marble, which had a mournful 
+ghost-like aspect, dreary to behold.  I attributed this to the 
+sombre influence of the night, and on rising in the morning looked 
+out again, expecting to see its steps and portico thronged with 
+groups of people passing in and out.  The door was still tight 
+shut, however; the same cold cheerless air prevailed:  and the 
+building looked as if the marble statue of Don Guzman could alone 
+have any business to transact within its gloomy walls.  I hastened 
+to inquire its name and purpose, and then my surprise vanished.  It 
+was the Tomb of many fortunes; the Great Catacomb of investment; 
+the memorable United States Bank.
+
+The stoppage of this bank, with all its ruinous consequences, had 
+cast (as I was told on every side) a gloom on Philadelphia, under 
+the depressing effect of which it yet laboured.  It certainly did 
+seem rather dull and out of spirits.
+
+It is a handsome city, but distractingly regular.  After walking 
+about it for an hour or two, I felt that I would have given the 
+world for a crooked street.  The collar of my coat appeared to 
+stiffen, and the brim of my hat to expand, beneath its quakery 
+influence.  My hair shrunk into a sleek short crop, my hands folded 
+themselves upon my breast of their own calm accord, and thoughts of 
+taking lodgings in Mark Lane over against the Market Place, and of 
+making a large fortune by speculations in corn, came over me 
+involuntarily.
+
+Philadelphia is most bountifully provided with fresh water, which 
+is showered and jerked about, and turned on, and poured off, 
+everywhere.  The Waterworks, which are on a height near the city, 
+are no less ornamental than useful, being tastefully laid out as a 
+public garden, and kept in the best and neatest order.  The river 
+is dammed at this point, and forced by its own power into certain 
+high tanks or reservoirs, whence the whole city, to the top stories 
+of the houses, is supplied at a very trifling expense.
+
+There are various public institutions.  Among them a most excellent 
+Hospital - a quaker establishment, but not sectarian in the great 
+benefits it confers; a quiet, quaint old Library, named after 
+Franklin; a handsome Exchange and Post Office; and so forth.  In 
+connection with the quaker Hospital, there is a picture by West, 
+which is exhibited for the benefit of the funds of the institution.  
+The subject is, our Saviour healing the sick, and it is, perhaps, 
+as favourable a specimen of the master as can be seen anywhere.  
+Whether this be high or low praise, depends upon the reader's 
+taste.
+
+In the same room, there is a very characteristic and life-like 
+portrait by Mr. Sully, a distinguished American artist.
+
+My stay in Philadelphia was very short, but what I saw of its 
+society, I greatly liked.  Treating of its general characteristics, 
+I should be disposed to say that it is more provincial than Boston 
+or New York, and that there is afloat in the fair city, an 
+assumption of taste and criticism, savouring rather of those 
+genteel discussions upon the same themes, in connection with 
+Shakspeare and the Musical Glasses, of which we read in the Vicar 
+of Wakefield.  Near the city, is a most splendid unfinished marble 
+structure for the Girard College, founded by a deceased gentleman 
+of that name and of enormous wealth, which, if completed according 
+to the original design, will be perhaps the richest edifice of 
+modern times.  But the bequest is involved in legal disputes, and 
+pending them the work has stopped; so that like many other great 
+undertakings in America, even this is rather going to be done one 
+of these days, than doing now.
+
+In the outskirts, stands a great prison, called the Eastern 
+Penitentiary:  conducted on a plan peculiar to the state of 
+Pennsylvania.  The system here, is rigid, strict, and hopeless 
+solitary confinement.  I believe it, in its effects, to be cruel 
+and wrong.
+
+In its intention, I am well convinced that it is kind, humane, and 
+meant for reformation; but I am persuaded that those who devised 
+this system of Prison Discipline, and those benevolent gentlemen 
+who carry it into execution, do not know what it is that they are 
+doing.  I believe that very few men are capable of estimating the 
+immense amount of torture and agony which this dreadful punishment, 
+prolonged for years, inflicts upon the sufferers; and in guessing 
+at it myself, and in reasoning from what I have seen written upon 
+their faces, and what to my certain knowledge they feel within, I 
+am only the more convinced that there is a depth of terrible 
+endurance in it which none but the sufferers themselves can fathom, 
+and which no man has a right to inflict upon his fellow-creature.  
+I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the 
+brain, to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body:  and 
+because its ghastly signs and tokens are not so palpable to the eye 
+and sense of touch as scars upon the flesh; because its wounds are 
+not upon the surface, and it extorts few cries that human ears can 
+hear; therefore I the more denounce it, as a secret punishment 
+which slumbering humanity is not roused up to stay.  I hesitated 
+once, debating with myself, whether, if I had the power of saying 
+'Yes' or 'No,' I would allow it to be tried in certain cases, where 
+the terms of imprisonment were short; but now, I solemnly declare, 
+that with no rewards or honours could I walk a happy man beneath 
+the open sky by day, or lie me down upon my bed at night, with the 
+consciousness that one human creature, for any length of time, no 
+matter what, lay suffering this unknown punishment in his silent 
+cell, and I the cause, or I consenting to it in the least degree.
+
+I was accompanied to this prison by two gentlemen officially 
+connected with its management, and passed the day in going from 
+cell to cell, and talking with the inmates.  Every facility was 
+afforded me, that the utmost courtesy could suggest.  Nothing was 
+concealed or hidden from my view, and every piece of information 
+that I sought, was openly and frankly given.  The perfect order of 
+the building cannot be praised too highly, and of the excellent 
+motives of all who are immediately concerned in the administration 
+of the system, there can be no kind of question.
+
+Between the body of the prison and the outer wall, there is a 
+spacious garden.  Entering it, by a wicket in the massive gate, we 
+pursued the path before us to its other termination, and passed 
+into a large chamber, from which seven long passages radiate.  On 
+either side of each, is a long, long row of low cell doors, with a 
+certain number over every one.  Above, a gallery of cells like 
+those below, except that they have no narrow yard attached (as 
+those in the ground tier have), and are somewhat smaller.  The 
+possession of two of these, is supposed to compensate for the 
+absence of so much air and exercise as can be had in the dull strip 
+attached to each of the others, in an hour's time every day; and 
+therefore every prisoner in this upper story has two cells, 
+adjoining and communicating with, each other.
+
+Standing at the central point, and looking down these dreary 
+passages, the dull repose and quiet that prevails, is awful.  
+Occasionally, there is a drowsy sound from some lone weaver's 
+shuttle, or shoemaker's last, but it is stifled by the thick walls 
+and heavy dungeon-door, and only serves to make the general 
+stillness more profound.  Over the head and face of every prisoner 
+who comes into this melancholy house, a black hood is drawn; and in 
+this dark shroud, an emblem of the curtain dropped between him and 
+the living world, he is led to the cell from which he never again 
+comes forth, until his whole term of imprisonment has expired.  He 
+never hears of wife and children; home or friends; the life or 
+death of any single creature.  He sees the prison-officers, but 
+with that exception he never looks upon a human countenance, or 
+hears a human voice.  He is a man buried alive; to be dug out in 
+the slow round of years; and in the mean time dead to everything 
+but torturing anxieties and horrible despair.
+
+His name, and crime, and term of suffering, are unknown, even to 
+the officer who delivers him his daily food.  There is a number 
+over his cell-door, and in a book of which the governor of the 
+prison has one copy, and the moral instructor another:  this is the 
+index of his history.  Beyond these pages the prison has no record 
+of his existence:  and though he live to be in the same cell ten 
+weary years, he has no means of knowing, down to the very last 
+hour, in which part of the building it is situated; what kind of 
+men there are about him; whether in the long winter nights there 
+are living people near, or he is in some lonely corner of the great 
+jail, with walls, and passages, and iron doors between him and the 
+nearest sharer in its solitary horrors.
+
+Every cell has double doors:  the outer one of sturdy oak, the 
+other of grated iron, wherein there is a trap through which his 
+food is handed.  He has a Bible, and a slate and pencil, and, under 
+certain restrictions, has sometimes other books, provided for the 
+purpose, and pen and ink and paper.  His razor, plate, and can, and 
+basin, hang upon the wall, or shine upon the little shelf.  Fresh 
+water is laid on in every cell, and he can draw it at his pleasure.  
+During the day, his bedstead turns up against the wall, and leaves 
+more space for him to work in.  His loom, or bench, or wheel, is 
+there; and there he labours, sleeps and wakes, and counts the 
+seasons as they change, and grows old.
+
+The first man I saw, was seated at his loom, at work.  He had been 
+there six years, and was to remain, I think, three more.  He had 
+been convicted as a receiver of stolen goods, but even after his 
+long imprisonment, denied his guilt, and said he had been hardly 
+dealt by.  It was his second offence.
+
+He stopped his work when we went in, took off his spectacles, and 
+answered freely to everything that was said to him, but always with 
+a strange kind of pause first, and in a low, thoughtful voice.  He 
+wore a paper hat of his own making, and was pleased to have it 
+noticed and commanded.  He had very ingeniously manufactured a sort 
+of Dutch clock from some disregarded odds and ends; and his 
+vinegar-bottle served for the pendulum.  Seeing me interested in 
+this contrivance, he looked up at it with a great deal of pride, 
+and said that he had been thinking of improving it, and that he 
+hoped the hammer and a little piece of broken glass beside it 
+'would play music before long.'  He had extracted some colours from 
+the yarn with which he worked, and painted a few poor figures on 
+the wall.  One, of a female, over the door, he called 'The Lady of 
+the Lake.'
+
+He smiled as I looked at these contrivances to while away the time; 
+but when I looked from them to him, I saw that his lip trembled, 
+and could have counted the beating of his heart.  I forget how it 
+came about, but some allusion was made to his having a wife.  He 
+shook his head at the word, turned aside, and covered his face with 
+his hands.
+
+'But you are resigned now!' said one of the gentlemen after a short 
+pause, during which he had resumed his former manner.  He answered 
+with a sigh that seemed quite reckless in its hopelessness, 'Oh 
+yes, oh yes!  I am resigned to it.'  'And are a better man, you 
+think?'  'Well, I hope so:  I'm sure I hope I may be.'  'And time 
+goes pretty quickly?'  'Time is very long gentlemen, within these 
+four walls!'
+
+He gazed about him - Heaven only knows how wearily! - as he said 
+these words; and in the act of doing so, fell into a strange stare 
+as if he had forgotten something.  A moment afterwards he sighed 
+heavily, put on his spectacles, and went about his work again.
+
+In another cell, there was a German, sentenced to five years' 
+imprisonment for larceny, two of which had just expired.  With 
+colours procured in the same manner, he had painted every inch of 
+the walls and ceiling quite beautifully.  He had laid out the few 
+feet of ground, behind, with exquisite neatness, and had made a 
+little bed in the centre, that looked, by-the-bye, like a grave.  
+The taste and ingenuity he had displayed in everything were most 
+extraordinary; and yet a more dejected, heart-broken, wretched 
+creature, it would be difficult to imagine.  I never saw such a 
+picture of forlorn affliction and distress of mind.  My heart bled 
+for him; and when the tears ran down his cheeks, and he took one of 
+the visitors aside, to ask, with his trembling hands nervously 
+clutching at his coat to detain him, whether there was no hope of 
+his dismal sentence being commuted, the spectacle was really too 
+painful to witness.  I never saw or heard of any kind of misery 
+that impressed me more than the wretchedness of this man.
+
+In a third cell, was a tall, strong black, a burglar, working at 
+his proper trade of making screws and the like.  His time was 
+nearly out.  He was not only a very dexterous thief, but was 
+notorious for his boldness and hardihood, and for the number of his 
+previous convictions.  He entertained us with a long account of his 
+achievements, which he narrated with such infinite relish, that he 
+actually seemed to lick his lips as he told us racy anecdotes of 
+stolen plate, and of old ladies whom he had watched as they sat at 
+windows in silver spectacles (he had plainly had an eye to their 
+metal even from the other side of the street) and had afterwards 
+robbed.  This fellow, upon the slightest encouragement, would have 
+mingled with his professional recollections the most detestable 
+cant; but I am very much mistaken if he could have surpassed the 
+unmitigated hypocrisy with which he declared that he blessed the 
+day on which he came into that prison, and that he never would 
+commit another robbery as long as he lived.
+
+There was one man who was allowed, as an indulgence, to keep 
+rabbits.  His room having rather a close smell in consequence, they 
+called to him at the door to come out into the passage.  He 
+complied of course, and stood shading his haggard face in the 
+unwonted sunlight of the great window, looking as wan and unearthly 
+as if he had been summoned from the grave.  He had a white rabbit 
+in his breast; and when the little creature, getting down upon the 
+ground, stole back into the cell, and he, being dismissed, crept 
+timidly after it, I thought it would have been very hard to say in 
+what respect the man was the nobler animal of the two.
+
+There was an English thief, who had been there but a few days out 
+of seven years:  a villainous, low-browed, thin-lipped fellow, with 
+a white face; who had as yet no relish for visitors, and who, but 
+for the additional penalty, would have gladly stabbed me with his 
+shoemaker's knife.  There was another German who had entered the 
+jail but yesterday, and who started from his bed when we looked in, 
+and pleaded, in his broken English, very hard for work.  There was 
+a poet, who after doing two days' work in every four-and-twenty 
+hours, one for himself and one for the prison, wrote verses about 
+ships (he was by trade a mariner), and 'the maddening wine-cup,' 
+and his friends at home.  There were very many of them.  Some 
+reddened at the sight of visitors, and some turned very pale.  Some 
+two or three had prisoner nurses with them, for they were very 
+sick; and one, a fat old negro whose leg had been taken off within 
+the jail, had for his attendant a classical scholar and an 
+accomplished surgeon, himself a prisoner likewise.  Sitting upon 
+the stairs, engaged in some slight work, was a pretty coloured boy.  
+'Is there no refuge for young criminals in Philadelphia, then?' 
+said I.  'Yes, but only for white children.'  Noble aristocracy in 
+crime!
+
+There was a sailor who had been there upwards of eleven years, and 
+who in a few months' time would be free.  Eleven years of solitary 
+confinement!
+
+'I am very glad to hear your time is nearly out.'  What does he 
+say?  Nothing.  Why does he stare at his hands, and pick the flesh 
+upon his fingers, and raise his eyes for an instant, every now and 
+then, to those bare walls which have seen his head turn grey?  It 
+is a way he has sometimes.
+
+Does he never look men in the face, and does he always pluck at 
+those hands of his, as though he were bent on parting skin and 
+bone?  It is his humour:  nothing more.
+
+It is his humour too, to say that he does not look forward to going 
+out; that he is not glad the time is drawing near; that he did look 
+forward to it once, but that was very long ago; that he has lost 
+all care for everything.  It is his humour to be a helpless, 
+crushed, and broken man.  And, Heaven be his witness that he has 
+his humour thoroughly gratified!
+
+There were three young women in adjoining cells, all convicted at 
+the same time of a conspiracy to rob their prosecutor.  In the 
+silence and solitude of their lives they had grown to be quite 
+beautiful.  Their looks were very sad, and might have moved the 
+sternest visitor to tears, but not to that kind of sorrow which the 
+contemplation of the men awakens.  One was a young girl; not 
+twenty, as I recollect; whose snow-white room was hung with the 
+work of some former prisoner, and upon whose downcast face the sun 
+in all its splendour shone down through the high chink in the wall, 
+where one narrow strip of bright blue sky was visible.  She was 
+very penitent and quiet; had come to be resigned, she said (and I 
+believe her); and had a mind at peace.  'In a word, you are happy 
+here?' said one of my companions.  She struggled - she did struggle 
+very hard - to answer, Yes; but raising her eyes, and meeting that 
+glimpse of freedom overhead, she burst into tears, and said, 'She 
+tried to be; she uttered no complaint; but it was natural that she 
+should sometimes long to go out of that one cell:  she could not 
+help THAT,' she sobbed, poor thing!
+
+I went from cell to cell that day; and every face I saw, or word I 
+heard, or incident I noted, is present to my mind in all its 
+painfulness.  But let me pass them by, for one, more pleasant, 
+glance of a prison on the same plan which I afterwards saw at 
+Pittsburg.
+
+When I had gone over that, in the same manner, I asked the governor 
+if he had any person in his charge who was shortly going out.  He 
+had one, he said, whose time was up next day; but he had only been 
+a prisoner two years.
+
+Two years!  I looked back through two years of my own life - out of 
+jail, prosperous, happy, surrounded by blessings, comforts, good 
+fortune - and thought how wide a gap it was, and how long those two 
+years passed in solitary captivity would have been.  I have the 
+face of this man, who was going to be released next day, before me 
+now.  It is almost more memorable in its happiness than the other 
+faces in their misery.  How easy and how natural it was for him to 
+say that the system was a good one; and that the time went 'pretty 
+quick - considering;' and that when a man once felt that he had 
+offended the law, and must satisfy it, 'he got along, somehow:' and 
+so forth!
+
+'What did he call you back to say to you, in that strange flutter?' 
+I asked of my conductor, when he had locked the door and joined me 
+in the passage.
+
+'Oh!  That he was afraid the soles of his boots were not fit for 
+walking, as they were a good deal worn when he came in; and that he 
+would thank me very much to have them mended, ready.'
+
+Those boots had been taken off his feet, and put away with the rest 
+of his clothes, two years before!
+
+I took that opportunity of inquiring how they conducted themselves 
+immediately before going out; adding that I presumed they trembled 
+very much.
+
+'Well, it's not so much a trembling,' was the answer - 'though they 
+do quiver - as a complete derangement of the nervous system.  They 
+can't sign their names to the book; sometimes can't even hold the 
+pen; look about 'em without appearing to know why, or where they 
+are; and sometimes get up and sit down again, twenty times in a 
+minute.  This is when they're in the office, where they are taken 
+with the hood on, as they were brought in.  When they get outside 
+the gate, they stop, and look first one way and then the other; not 
+knowing which to take.  Sometimes they stagger as if they were 
+drunk, and sometimes are forced to lean against the fence, they're 
+so bad:- but they clear off in course of time.'
+
+As I walked among these solitary cells, and looked at the faces of 
+the men within them, I tried to picture to myself the thoughts and 
+feelings natural to their condition.  I imagined the hood just 
+taken off, and the scene of their captivity disclosed to them in 
+all its dismal monotony.
+
+At first, the man is stunned.  His confinement is a hideous vision; 
+and his old life a reality.  He throws himself upon his bed, and 
+lies there abandoned to despair.  By degrees the insupportable 
+solitude and barrenness of the place rouses him from this stupor, 
+and when the trap in his grated door is opened, he humbly begs and 
+prays for work.  'Give me some work to do, or I shall go raving 
+mad!'
+
+He has it; and by fits and starts applies himself to labour; but 
+every now and then there comes upon him a burning sense of the 
+years that must be wasted in that stone coffin, and an agony so 
+piercing in the recollection of those who are hidden from his view 
+and knowledge, that he starts from his seat, and striding up and 
+down the narrow room with both hands clasped on his uplifted head, 
+hears spirits tempting him to beat his brains out on the wall.
+
+Again he falls upon his bed, and lies there, moaning.  Suddenly he 
+starts up, wondering whether any other man is near; whether there 
+is another cell like that on either side of him:  and listens 
+keenly.
+
+There is no sound, but other prisoners may be near for all that.  
+He remembers to have heard once, when he little thought of coming 
+here himself, that the cells were so constructed that the prisoners 
+could not hear each other, though the officers could hear them.
+
+Where is the nearest man - upon the right, or on the left? or is 
+there one in both directions?  Where is he sitting now - with his 
+face to the light? or is he walking to and fro?  How is he dressed?  
+Has he been here long?  Is he much worn away?  Is he very white and 
+spectre-like?  Does HE think of his neighbour too?
+
+Scarcely venturing to breathe, and listening while he thinks, he 
+conjures up a figure with his back towards him, and imagines it 
+moving about in this next cell.  He has no idea of the face, but he 
+is certain of the dark form of a stooping man.  In the cell upon 
+the other side, he puts another figure, whose face is hidden from 
+him also.  Day after day, and often when he wakes up in the middle 
+of the night, he thinks of these two men until he is almost 
+distracted.  He never changes them.  There they are always as he 
+first imagined them - an old man on the right; a younger man upon 
+the left - whose hidden features torture him to death, and have a 
+mystery that makes him tremble.
+
+The weary days pass on with solemn pace, like mourners at a 
+funeral; and slowly he begins to feel that the white walls of the 
+cell have something dreadful in them:  that their colour is 
+horrible:  that their smooth surface chills his blood:  that there 
+is one hateful corner which torments him.  Every morning when he 
+wakes, he hides his head beneath the coverlet, and shudders to see 
+the ghastly ceiling looking down upon him.  The blessed light of 
+day itself peeps in, an ugly phantom face, through the unchangeable 
+crevice which is his prison window.
+
+By slow but sure degrees, the terrors of that hateful corner swell 
+until they beset him at all times; invade his rest, make his dreams 
+hideous, and his nights dreadful.  At first, he took a strange 
+dislike to it; feeling as though it gave birth in his brain to 
+something of corresponding shape, which ought not to be there, and 
+racked his head with pains.  Then he began to fear it, then to 
+dream of it, and of men whispering its name and pointing to it.  
+Then he could not bear to look at it, nor yet to turn his back upon 
+it.  Now, it is every night the lurking-place of a ghost:  a 
+shadow:- a silent something, horrible to see, but whether bird, or 
+beast, or muffled human shape, he cannot tell.
+
+When he is in his cell by day, he fears the little yard without.  
+When he is in the yard, he dreads to re-enter the cell.  When night 
+comes, there stands the phantom in the corner.  If he have the 
+courage to stand in its place, and drive it out (he had once:  
+being desperate), it broods upon his bed.  In the twilight, and 
+always at the same hour, a voice calls to him by name; as the 
+darkness thickens, his Loom begins to live; and even that, his 
+comfort, is a hideous figure, watching him till daybreak.
+
+Again, by slow degrees, these horrible fancies depart from him one 
+by one:  returning sometimes, unexpectedly, but at longer 
+intervals, and in less alarming shapes.  He has talked upon 
+religious matters with the gentleman who visits him, and has read 
+his Bible, and has written a prayer upon his slate, and hung it up 
+as a kind of protection, and an assurance of Heavenly 
+companionship.  He dreams now, sometimes, of his children or his 
+wife, but is sure that they are dead, or have deserted him.  He is 
+easily moved to tears; is gentle, submissive, and broken-spirited.  
+Occasionally, the old agony comes back:  a very little thing will 
+revive it; even a familiar sound, or the scent of summer flowers in 
+the air; but it does not last long, now:  for the world without, 
+has come to be the vision, and this solitary life, the sad reality.
+
+If his term of imprisonment be short - I mean comparatively, for 
+short it cannot be - the last half year is almost worse than all; 
+for then he thinks the prison will take fire and he be burnt in the 
+ruins, or that he is doomed to die within the walls, or that he 
+will be detained on some false charge and sentenced for another 
+term:  or that something, no matter what, must happen to prevent 
+his going at large.  And this is natural, and impossible to be 
+reasoned against, because, after his long separation from human 
+life, and his great suffering, any event will appear to him more 
+probable in the contemplation, than the being restored to liberty 
+and his fellow-creatures.
+
+If his period of confinement have been very long, the prospect of 
+release bewilders and confuses him.  His broken heart may flutter 
+for a moment, when he thinks of the world outside, and what it 
+might have been to him in all those lonely years, but that is all.  
+The cell-door has been closed too long on all its hopes and cares.  
+Better to have hanged him in the beginning than bring him to this 
+pass, and send him forth to mingle with his kind, who are his kind 
+no more.
+
+On the haggard face of every man among these prisoners, the same 
+expression sat.  I know not what to liken it to.  It had something 
+of that strained attention which we see upon the faces of the blind 
+and deaf, mingled with a kind of horror, as though they had all 
+been secretly terrified.  In every little chamber that I entered, 
+and at every grate through which I looked, I seemed to see the same 
+appalling countenance.  It lives in my memory, with the fascination 
+of a remarkable picture.  Parade before my eyes, a hundred men, 
+with one among them newly released from this solitary suffering, 
+and I would point him out.
+
+The faces of the women, as I have said, it humanises and refines.  
+Whether this be because of their better nature, which is elicited 
+in solitude, or because of their being gentler creatures, of 
+greater patience and longer suffering, I do not know; but so it is.  
+That the punishment is nevertheless, to my thinking, fully as cruel 
+and as wrong in their case, as in that of the men, I need scarcely 
+add.
+
+My firm conviction is that, independent of the mental anguish it 
+occasions - an anguish so acute and so tremendous, that all 
+imagination of it must fall far short of the reality - it wears the 
+mind into a morbid state, which renders it unfit for the rough 
+contact and busy action of the world.  It is my fixed opinion that 
+those who have undergone this punishment, MUST pass into society 
+again morally unhealthy and diseased.  There are many instances on 
+record, of men who have chosen, or have been condemned, to lives of 
+perfect solitude, but I scarcely remember one, even among sages of 
+strong and vigorous intellect, where its effect has not become 
+apparent, in some disordered train of thought, or some gloomy 
+hallucination.  What monstrous phantoms, bred of despondency and 
+doubt, and born and reared in solitude, have stalked upon the 
+earth, making creation ugly, and darkening the face of Heaven!
+
+Suicides are rare among these prisoners:  are almost, indeed, 
+unknown.  But no argument in favour of the system, can reasonably 
+be deduced from this circumstance, although it is very often urged.  
+All men who have made diseases of the mind their study, know 
+perfectly well that such extreme depression and despair as will 
+change the whole character, and beat down all its powers of 
+elasticity and self-resistance, may be at work within a man, and 
+yet stop short of self-destruction.  This is a common case.
+
+That it makes the senses dull, and by degrees impairs the bodily 
+faculties, I am quite sure.  I remarked to those who were with me 
+in this very establishment at Philadelphia, that the criminals who 
+had been there long, were deaf.  They, who were in the habit of 
+seeing these men constantly, were perfectly amazed at the idea, 
+which they regarded as groundless and fanciful.  And yet the very 
+first prisoner to whom they appealed - one of their own selection 
+confirmed my impression (which was unknown to him) instantly, and 
+said, with a genuine air it was impossible to doubt, that he 
+couldn't think how it happened, but he WAS growing very dull of 
+hearing.
+
+That it is a singularly unequal punishment, and affects the worst 
+man least, there is no doubt.  In its superior efficiency as a 
+means of reformation, compared with that other code of regulations 
+which allows the prisoners to work in company without communicating 
+together, I have not the smallest faith.  All the instances of 
+reformation that were mentioned to me, were of a kind that might 
+have been - and I have no doubt whatever, in my own mind, would 
+have been - equally well brought about by the Silent System.  With 
+regard to such men as the negro burglar and the English thief, even 
+the most enthusiastic have scarcely any hope of their conversion.
+
+It seems to me that the objection that nothing wholesome or good 
+has ever had its growth in such unnatural solitude, and that even a 
+dog or any of the more intelligent among beasts, would pine, and 
+mope, and rust away, beneath its influence, would be in itself a 
+sufficient argument against this system.  But when we recollect, in 
+addition, how very cruel and severe it is, and that a solitary life 
+is always liable to peculiar and distinct objections of a most 
+deplorable nature, which have arisen here, and call to mind, 
+moreover, that the choice is not between this system, and a bad or 
+ill-considered one, but between it and another which has worked 
+well, and is, in its whole design and practice, excellent; there is 
+surely more than sufficient reason for abandoning a mode of 
+punishment attended by so little hope or promise, and fraught, 
+beyond dispute, with such a host of evils.
+
+As a relief to its contemplation, I will close this chapter with a 
+curious story arising out of the same theme, which was related to 
+me, on the occasion of this visit, by some of the gentlemen 
+concerned.
+
+At one of the periodical meetings of the inspectors of this prison, 
+a working man of Philadelphia presented himself before the Board, 
+and earnestly requested to be placed in solitary confinement.  On 
+being asked what motive could possibly prompt him to make this 
+strange demand, he answered that he had an irresistible propensity 
+to get drunk; that he was constantly indulging it, to his great 
+misery and ruin; that he had no power of resistance; that he wished 
+to be put beyond the reach of temptation; and that he could think 
+of no better way than this.  It was pointed out to him, in reply, 
+that the prison was for criminals who had been tried and sentenced 
+by the law, and could not be made available for any such fanciful 
+purposes; he was exhorted to abstain from intoxicating drinks, as 
+he surely might if he would; and received other very good advice, 
+with which he retired, exceedingly dissatisfied with the result of 
+his application.
+
+He came again, and again, and again, and was so very earnest and 
+importunate, that at last they took counsel together, and said, 'He 
+will certainly qualify himself for admission, if we reject him any 
+more.  Let us shut him up.  He will soon be glad to go away, and 
+then we shall get rid of him.'  So they made him sign a statement 
+which would prevent his ever sustaining an action for false 
+imprisonment, to the effect that his incarceration was voluntary, 
+and of his own seeking; they requested him to take notice that the 
+officer in attendance had orders to release him at any hour of the 
+day or night, when he might knock upon his door for that purpose; 
+but desired him to understand, that once going out, he would not be 
+admitted any more.  These conditions agreed upon, and he still 
+remaining in the same mind, he was conducted to the prison, and 
+shut up in one of the cells.
+
+In this cell, the man, who had not the firmness to leave a glass of 
+liquor standing untasted on a table before him - in this cell, in 
+solitary confinement, and working every day at his trade of 
+shoemaking, this man remained nearly two years.  His health 
+beginning to fail at the expiration of that time, the surgeon 
+recommended that he should work occasionally in the garden; and as 
+he liked the notion very much, he went about this new occupation 
+with great cheerfulness.
+
+He was digging here, one summer day, very industriously, when the 
+wicket in the outer gate chanced to be left open:  showing, beyond, 
+the well-remembered dusty road and sunburnt fields.  The way was as 
+free to him as to any man living, but he no sooner raised his head 
+and caught sight of it, all shining in the light, than, with the 
+involuntary instinct of a prisoner, he cast away his spade, 
+scampered off as fast as his legs would carry him, and never once 
+looked back.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII - WASHINGTON.  THE LEGISLATURE.  AND THE PRESIDENT'S 
+HOUSE
+
+
+
+WE left Philadelphia by steamboat, at six o'clock one very cold 
+morning, and turned our faces towards Washington.
+
+In the course of this day's journey, as on subsequent occasions, we 
+encountered some Englishmen (small farmers, perhaps, or country 
+publicans at home) who were settled in America, and were travelling 
+on their own affairs.  Of all grades and kinds of men that jostle 
+one in the public conveyances of the States, these are often the 
+most intolerable and the most insufferable companions.  United to 
+every disagreeable characteristic that the worst kind of American 
+travellers possess, these countrymen of ours display an amount of 
+insolent conceit and cool assumption of superiority, quite 
+monstrous to behold.  In the coarse familiarity of their approach, 
+and the effrontery of their inquisitiveness (which they are in 
+great haste to assert, as if they panted to revenge themselves upon 
+the decent old restraints of home), they surpass any native 
+specimens that came within my range of observation:  and I often 
+grew so patriotic when I saw and heard them, that I would 
+cheerfully have submitted to a reasonable fine, if I could have 
+given any other country in the whole world, the honour of claiming 
+them for its children.
+
+As Washington may be called the head-quarters of tobacco-tinctured 
+saliva, the time is come when I must confess, without any disguise, 
+that the prevalence of those two odious practices of chewing and 
+expectorating began about this time to be anything but agreeable, 
+and soon became most offensive and sickening.  In all the public 
+places of America, this filthy custom is recognised.  In the courts 
+of law, the judge has his spittoon, the crier his, the witness his, 
+and the prisoner his; while the jurymen and spectators are provided 
+for, as so many men who in the course of nature must desire to spit 
+incessantly.  In the hospitals, the students of medicine are 
+requested, by notices upon the wall, to eject their tobacco juice 
+into the boxes provided for that purpose, and not to discolour the 
+stairs.  In public buildings, visitors are implored, through the 
+same agency, to squirt the essence of their quids, or 'plugs,' as I 
+have heard them called by gentlemen learned in this kind of 
+sweetmeat, into the national spittoons, and not about the bases of 
+the marble columns.  But in some parts, this custom is inseparably 
+mixed up with every meal and morning call, and with all the 
+transactions of social life.  The stranger, who follows in the 
+track I took myself, will find it in its full bloom and glory, 
+luxuriant in all its alarming recklessness, at Washington.  And let 
+him not persuade himself (as I once did, to my shame) that previous 
+tourists have exaggerated its extent.  The thing itself is an 
+exaggeration of nastiness, which cannot be outdone.
+
+On board this steamboat, there were two young gentlemen, with 
+shirt-collars reversed as usual, and armed with very big walking-
+sticks; who planted two seats in the middle of the deck, at a 
+distance of some four paces apart; took out their tobacco-boxes; 
+and sat down opposite each other, to chew.  In less than a quarter 
+of an hour's time, these hopeful youths had shed about them on the 
+clean boards, a copious shower of yellow rain; clearing, by that 
+means, a kind of magic circle, within whose limits no intruders 
+dared to come, and which they never failed to refresh and re-
+refresh before a spot was dry.  This being before breakfast, rather 
+disposed me, I confess, to nausea; but looking attentively at one 
+of the expectorators, I plainly saw that he was young in chewing, 
+and felt inwardly uneasy, himself.  A glow of delight came over me 
+at this discovery; and as I marked his face turn paler and paler, 
+and saw the ball of tobacco in his left cheek, quiver with his 
+suppressed agony, while yet he spat, and chewed, and spat again, in 
+emulation of his older friend, I could have fallen on his neck and 
+implored him to go on for hours.
+
+We all sat down to a comfortable breakfast in the cabin below, 
+where there was no more hurry or confusion than at such a meal in 
+England, and where there was certainly greater politeness exhibited 
+than at most of our stage-coach banquets.  At about nine o'clock we 
+arrived at the railroad station, and went on by the cars.  At noon 
+we turned out again, to cross a wide river in another steamboat; 
+landed at a continuation of the railroad on the opposite shore; and 
+went on by other cars; in which, in the course of the next hour or 
+so, we crossed by wooden bridges, each a mile in length, two 
+creeks, called respectively Great and Little Gunpowder.  The water 
+in both was blackened with flights of canvas-backed ducks, which 
+are most delicious eating, and abound hereabouts at that season of 
+the year.
+
+These bridges are of wood, have no parapet, and are only just wide 
+enough for the passage of the trains; which, in the event of the 
+smallest accident, wound inevitably be plunged into the river.  
+They are startling contrivances, and are most agreeable when 
+passed.
+
+We stopped to dine at Baltimore, and being now in Maryland, were 
+waited on, for the first time, by slaves.  The sensation of 
+exacting any service from human creatures who are bought and sold, 
+and being, for the time, a party as it were to their condition, is 
+not an enviable one.  The institution exists, perhaps, in its least 
+repulsive and most mitigated form in such a town as this; but it IS 
+slavery; and though I was, with respect to it, an innocent man, its 
+presence filled me with a sense of shame and self-reproach.
+
+After dinner, we went down to the railroad again, and took our 
+seats in the cars for Washington.  Being rather early, those men 
+and boys who happened to have nothing particular to do, and were 
+curious in foreigners, came (according to custom) round the 
+carriage in which I sat; let down all the windows; thrust in their 
+heads and shoulders; hooked themselves on conveniently, by their 
+elbows; and fell to comparing notes on the subject of my personal 
+appearance, with as much indifference as if I were a stuffed 
+figure.  I never gained so much uncompromising information with 
+reference to my own nose and eyes, and various impressions wrought 
+by my mouth and chin on different minds, and how my head looks when 
+it is viewed from behind, as on these occasions.  Some gentlemen 
+were only satisfied by exercising their sense of touch; and the 
+boys (who are surprisingly precocious in America) were seldom 
+satisfied, even by that, but would return to the charge over and 
+over again.  Many a budding president has walked into my room with 
+his cap on his head and his hands in his pockets, and stared at me 
+for two whole hours:  occasionally refreshing himself with a tweak 
+of his nose, or a draught from the water-jug; or by walking to the 
+windows and inviting other boys in the street below, to come up and 
+do likewise:  crying, 'Here he is!'  'Come on!'  'Bring all your 
+brothers!' with other hospitable entreaties of that nature.
+
+We reached Washington at about half-past six that evening, and had 
+upon the way a beautiful view of the Capitol, which is a fine 
+building of the Corinthian order, placed upon a noble and 
+commanding eminence.  Arrived at the hotel; I saw no more of the 
+place that night; being very tired, and glad to get to bed.
+
+Breakfast over next morning, I walk about the streets for an hour 
+or two, and, coming home, throw up the window in the front and 
+back, and look out.  Here is Washington, fresh in my mind and under 
+my eye.
+
+Take the worst parts of the City Road and Pentonville, or the 
+straggling outskirts of Paris, where the houses are smallest, 
+preserving all their oddities, but especially the small shops and 
+dwellings, occupied in Pentonville (but not in Washington) by 
+furniture-brokers, keepers of poor eating-houses, and fanciers of 
+birds.  Burn the whole down; build it up again in wood and plaster; 
+widen it a little; throw in part of St. John's Wood; put green 
+blinds outside all the private houses, with a red curtain and a 
+white one in every window; plough up all the roads; plant a great 
+deal of coarse turf in every place where it ought NOT to be; erect 
+three handsome buildings in stone and marble, anywhere, but the 
+more entirely out of everybody's way the better; call one the Post 
+Office; one the Patent Office, and one the Treasury; make it 
+scorching hot in the morning, and freezing cold in the afternoon, 
+with an occasional tornado of wind and dust; leave a brick-field 
+without the bricks, in all central places where a street may 
+naturally be expected:  and that's Washington.
+
+The hotel in which we live, is a long row of small houses fronting 
+on the street, and opening at the back upon a common yard, in which 
+hangs a great triangle.  Whenever a servant is wanted, somebody 
+beats on this triangle from one stroke up to seven, according to 
+the number of the house in which his presence is required; and as 
+all the servants are always being wanted, and none of them ever 
+come, this enlivening engine is in full performance the whole day 
+through.  Clothes are drying in the same yard; female slaves, with 
+cotton handkerchiefs twisted round their heads are running to and 
+fro on the hotel business; black waiters cross and recross with 
+dishes in their hands; two great dogs are playing upon a mound of 
+loose bricks in the centre of the little square; a pig is turning 
+up his stomach to the sun, and grunting 'that's comfortable!'; and 
+neither the men, nor the women, nor the dogs, nor the pig, nor any 
+created creature, takes the smallest notice of the triangle, which 
+is tingling madly all the time.
+
+I walk to the front window, and look across the road upon a long, 
+straggling row of houses, one story high, terminating, nearly 
+opposite, but a little to the left, in a melancholy piece of waste 
+ground with frowzy grass, which looks like a small piece of country 
+that has taken to drinking, and has quite lost itself.  Standing 
+anyhow and all wrong, upon this open space, like something meteoric 
+that has fallen down from the moon, is an odd, lop-sided, one-eyed 
+kind of wooden building, that looks like a church, with a flag-
+staff as long as itself sticking out of a steeple something larger 
+than a tea-chest.  Under the window is a small stand of coaches, 
+whose slave-drivers are sunning themselves on the steps of our 
+door, and talking idly together.  The three most obtrusive houses 
+near at hand are the three meanest.  On one - a shop, which never 
+has anything in the window, and never has the door open - is 
+painted in large characters, 'THE CITY LUNCH.'  At another, which 
+looks like a backway to somewhere else, but is an independent 
+building in itself, oysters are procurable in every style.  At the 
+third, which is a very, very little tailor's shop, pants are fixed 
+to order; or in other words, pantaloons are made to measure.  And 
+that is our street in Washington.
+
+It is sometimes called the City of Magnificent Distances, but it 
+might with greater propriety be termed the City of Magnificent 
+Intentions; for it is only on taking a bird's-eye view of it from 
+the top of the Capitol, that one can at all comprehend the vast 
+designs of its projector, an aspiring Frenchman.  Spacious avenues, 
+that begin in nothing, and lead nowhere; streets, mile-long, that 
+only want houses, roads and inhabitants; public buildings that need 
+but a public to be complete; and ornaments of great thoroughfares, 
+which only lack great thoroughfares to ornament - are its leading 
+features.  One might fancy the season over, and most of the houses 
+gone out of town for ever with their masters.  To the admirers of 
+cities it is a Barmecide Feast:  a pleasant field for the 
+imagination to rove in; a monument raised to a deceased project, 
+with not even a legible inscription to record its departed 
+greatness.
+
+Such as it is, it is likely to remain.  It was originally chosen 
+for the seat of Government, as a means of averting the conflicting 
+jealousies and interests of the different States; and very 
+probably, too, as being remote from mobs:  a consideration not to 
+be slighted, even in America.  It has no trade or commerce of its 
+own:  having little or no population beyond the President and his 
+establishment; the members of the legislature who reside there 
+during the session; the Government clerks and officers employed in 
+the various departments; the keepers of the hotels and boarding-
+houses; and the tradesmen who supply their tables.  It is very 
+unhealthy.  Few people would live in Washington, I take it, who 
+were not obliged to reside there; and the tides of emigration and 
+speculation, those rapid and regardless currents, are little likely 
+to flow at any time towards such dull and sluggish water.
+
+The principal features of the Capitol, are, of course, the two 
+houses of Assembly.  But there is, besides, in the centre of the 
+building, a fine rotunda, ninety-six feet in diameter, and ninety-
+six high, whose circular wall is divided into compartments, 
+ornamented by historical pictures.  Four of these have for their 
+subjects prominent events in the revolutionary struggle.  They were 
+painted by Colonel Trumbull, himself a member of Washington's staff 
+at the time of their occurrence; from which circumstance they 
+derive a peculiar interest of their own.  In this same hall Mr. 
+Greenough's large statue of Washington has been lately placed.  It 
+has great merits of course, but it struck me as being rather 
+strained and violent for its subject.  I could wish, however, to 
+have seen it in a better light than it can ever be viewed in, where 
+it stands.
+
+There is a very pleasant and commodious library in the Capitol; and 
+from a balcony in front, the bird's-eye view, of which I have just 
+spoken, may be had, together with a beautiful prospect of the 
+adjacent country.  In one of the ornamented portions of the 
+building, there is a figure of Justice; whereunto the Guide Book 
+says, 'the artist at first contemplated giving more of nudity, but 
+he was warned that the public sentiment in this country would not 
+admit of it, and in his caution he has gone, perhaps, into the 
+opposite extreme.'  Poor Justice! she has been made to wear much 
+stranger garments in America than those she pines in, in the 
+Capitol.  Let us hope that she has changed her dress-maker since 
+they were fashioned, and that the public sentiment of the country 
+did not cut out the clothes she hides her lovely figure in, just 
+now.
+
+The House of Representatives is a beautiful and spacious hall, of 
+semicircular shape, supported by handsome pillars.  One part of the 
+gallery is appropriated to the ladies, and there they sit in front 
+rows, and come in, and go out, as at a play or concert.  The chair 
+is canopied, and raised considerably above the floor of the House; 
+and every member has an easy chair and a writing desk to himself:  
+which is denounced by some people out of doors as a most 
+unfortunate and injudicious arrangement, tending to long sittings 
+and prosaic speeches.  It is an elegant chamber to look at, but a 
+singularly bad one for all purposes of hearing.  The Senate, which 
+is smaller, is free from this objection, and is exceedingly well 
+adapted to the uses for which it is designed.  The sittings, I need 
+hardly add, take place in the day; and the parliamentary forms are 
+modelled on those of the old country.
+
+I was sometimes asked, in my progress through other places, whether 
+I had not been very much impressed by the HEADS of the lawmakers at 
+Washington; meaning not their chiefs and leaders, but literally 
+their individual and personal heads, whereon their hair grew, and 
+whereby the phrenological character of each legislator was 
+expressed:  and I almost as often struck my questioner dumb with 
+indignant consternation by answering 'No, that I didn't remember 
+being at all overcome.'  As I must, at whatever hazard, repeat the 
+avowal here, I will follow it up by relating my impressions on this 
+subject in as few words as possible.
+
+In the first place - it may be from some imperfect development of 
+my organ of veneration - I do not remember having ever fainted 
+away, or having even been moved to tears of joyful pride, at sight 
+of any legislative body.  I have borne the House of Commons like a 
+man, and have yielded to no weakness, but slumber, in the House of 
+Lords.  I have seen elections for borough and county, and have 
+never been impelled (no matter which party won) to damage my hat by 
+throwing it up into the air in triumph, or to crack my voice by 
+shouting forth any reference to our Glorious Constitution, to the 
+noble purity of our independent voters, or, the unimpeachable 
+integrity of our independent members.  Having withstood such strong 
+attacks upon my fortitude, it is possible that I may be of a cold 
+and insensible temperament, amounting to iciness, in such matters; 
+and therefore my impressions of the live pillars of the Capitol at 
+Washington must be received with such grains of allowance as this 
+free confession may seem to demand.
+
+Did I see in this public body an assemblage of men, bound together 
+in the sacred names of Liberty and Freedom, and so asserting the 
+chaste dignity of those twin goddesses, in all their discussions, 
+as to exalt at once the Eternal Principles to which their names are 
+given, and their own character and the character of their 
+countrymen, in the admiring eyes of the whole world?
+
+It was but a week, since an aged, grey-haired man, a lasting honour 
+to the land that gave him birth, who has done good service to his 
+country, as his forefathers did, and who will be remembered scores 
+upon scores of years after the worms bred in its corruption, are 
+but so many grains of dust - it was but a week, since this old man 
+had stood for days upon his trial before this very body, charged 
+with having dared to assert the infamy of that traffic, which has 
+for its accursed merchandise men and women, and their unborn 
+children.  Yes.  And publicly exhibited in the same city all the 
+while; gilded, framed and glazed hung up for general admiration; 
+shown to strangers not with shame, but pride; its face not turned 
+towards the wall, itself not taken down and burned; is the 
+Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America, 
+which solemnly declares that All Men are created Equal; and are 
+endowed by their Creator with the Inalienable Rights of Life, 
+Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness!
+
+It was not a month, since this same body had sat calmly by, and 
+heard a man, one of themselves, with oaths which beggars in their 
+drink reject, threaten to cut another's throat from ear to ear.  
+There he sat, among them; not crushed by the general feeling of the 
+assembly, but as good a man as any.
+
+There was but a week to come, and another of that body, for doing 
+his duty to those who sent him there; for claiming in a Republic 
+the Liberty and Freedom of expressing their sentiments, and making 
+known their prayer; would be tried, found guilty, and have strong 
+censure passed upon him by the rest.  His was a grave offence 
+indeed; for years before, he had risen up and said, 'A gang of male 
+and female slaves for sale, warranted to breed like cattle, linked 
+to each other by iron fetters, are passing now along the open 
+street beneath the windows of your Temple of Equality!  Look!'  But 
+there are many kinds of hunters engaged in the Pursuit of 
+Happiness, and they go variously armed.  It is the Inalienable 
+Right of some among them, to take the field after THEIR Happiness 
+equipped with cat and cartwhip, stocks, and iron collar, and to 
+shout their view halloa! (always in praise of Liberty) to the music 
+of clanking chains and bloody stripes.
+
+Where sat the many legislators of coarse threats; of words and 
+blows such as coalheavers deal upon each other, when they forget 
+their breeding?  On every side.  Every session had its anecdotes of 
+that kind, and the actors were all there.
+
+Did I recognise in this assembly, a body of men, who, applying 
+themselves in a new world to correct some of the falsehoods and 
+vices of the old, purified the avenues to Public Life, paved the 
+dirty ways to Place and Power, debated and made laws for the Common 
+Good, and had no party but their Country?
+
+I saw in them, the wheels that move the meanest perversion of 
+virtuous Political Machinery that the worst tools ever wrought.  
+Despicable trickery at elections; under-handed tamperings with 
+public officers; cowardly attacks upon opponents, with scurrilous 
+newspapers for shields, and hired pens for daggers; shameful 
+trucklings to mercenary knaves, whose claim to be considered, is, 
+that every day and week they sow new crops of ruin with their venal 
+types, which are the dragon's teeth of yore, in everything but 
+sharpness; aidings and abettings of every bad inclination in the 
+popular mind, and artful suppressions of all its good influences:  
+such things as these, and in a word, Dishonest Faction in its most 
+depraved and most unblushing form, stared out from every corner of 
+the crowded hall.
+
+Did I see among them, the intelligence and refinement:  the true, 
+honest, patriotic heart of America?  Here and there, were drops of 
+its blood and life, but they scarcely coloured the stream of 
+desperate adventurers which sets that way for profit and for pay.  
+It is the game of these men, and of their profligate organs, to 
+make the strife of politics so fierce and brutal, and so 
+destructive of all self-respect in worthy men, that sensitive and 
+delicate-minded persons shall be kept aloof, and they, and such as 
+they, be left to battle out their selfish views unchecked.  And 
+thus this lowest of all scrambling fights goes on, and they who in 
+other countries would, from their intelligence and station, most 
+aspire to make the laws, do here recoil the farthest from that 
+degradation.
+
+That there are, among the representatives of the people in both 
+Houses, and among all parties, some men of high character and great 
+abilities, I need not say.  The foremost among those politicians 
+who are known in Europe, have been already described, and I see no 
+reason to depart from the rule I have laid down for my guidance, of 
+abstaining from all mention of individuals.  It will be sufficient 
+to add, that to the most favourable accounts that have been written 
+of them, I more than fully and most heartily subscribe; and that 
+personal intercourse and free communication have bred within me, 
+not the result predicted in the very doubtful proverb, but 
+increased admiration and respect.  They are striking men to look 
+at, hard to deceive, prompt to act, lions in energy, Crichtons in 
+varied accomplishments, Indians in fire of eye and gesture, 
+Americans in strong and generous impulse; and they as well 
+represent the honour and wisdom of their country at home, as the 
+distinguished gentleman who is now its Minister at the British 
+Court sustains its highest character abroad.
+
+I visited both houses nearly every day, during my stay in 
+Washington.  On my initiatory visit to the House of 
+Representatives, they divided against a decision of the chair; but 
+the chair won.  The second time I went, the member who was 
+speaking, being interrupted by a laugh, mimicked it, as one child 
+would in quarrelling with another, and added, 'that he would make 
+honourable gentlemen opposite, sing out a little more on the other 
+side of their mouths presently.'  But interruptions are rare; the 
+speaker being usually heard in silence.  There are more quarrels 
+than with us, and more threatenings than gentlemen are accustomed 
+to exchange in any civilised society of which we have record:  but 
+farm-yard imitations have not as yet been imported from the 
+Parliament of the United Kingdom.  The feature in oratory which 
+appears to be the most practised, and most relished, is the 
+constant repetition of the same idea or shadow of an idea in fresh 
+words; and the inquiry out of doors is not, 'What did he say?' but, 
+'How long did he speak?'  These, however, are but enlargements of a 
+principle which prevails elsewhere.
+
+The Senate is a dignified and decorous body, and its proceedings 
+are conducted with much gravity and order.  Both houses are 
+handsomely carpeted; but the state to which these carpets are 
+reduced by the universal disregard of the spittoon with which every 
+honourable member is accommodated, and the extraordinary 
+improvements on the pattern which are squirted and dabbled upon it 
+in every direction, do not admit of being described.  I will merely 
+observe, that I strongly recommend all strangers not to look at the 
+floor; and if they happen to drop anything, though it be their 
+purse, not to pick it up with an ungloved hand on any account.
+
+It is somewhat remarkable too, at first, to say the least, to see 
+so many honourable members with swelled faces; and it is scarcely 
+less remarkable to discover that this appearance is caused by the 
+quantity of tobacco they contrive to stow within the hollow of the 
+cheek.  It is strange enough too, to see an honourable gentleman 
+leaning back in his tilted chair with his legs on the desk before 
+him, shaping a convenient 'plug' with his penknife, and when it is 
+quite ready for use, shooting the old one from his mouth, as from a 
+pop-gun, and clapping the new one in its place.
+
+I was surprised to observe that even steady old chewers of great 
+experience, are not always good marksmen, which has rather inclined 
+me to doubt that general proficiency with the rifle, of which we 
+have heard so much in England.  Several gentlemen called upon me 
+who, in the course of conversation, frequently missed the spittoon 
+at five paces; and one (but he was certainly short-sighted) mistook 
+the closed sash for the open window, at three.  On another 
+occasion, when I dined out, and was sitting with two ladies and 
+some gentlemen round a fire before dinner, one of the company fell 
+short of the fireplace, six distinct times.  I am disposed to 
+think, however, that this was occasioned by his not aiming at that 
+object; as there was a white marble hearth before the fender, which 
+was more convenient, and may have suited his purpose better.
+
+The Patent Office at Washington, furnishes an extraordinary example 
+of American enterprise and ingenuity; for the immense number of 
+models it contains are the accumulated inventions of only five 
+years; the whole of the previous collection having been destroyed 
+by fire.  The elegant structure in which they are arranged is one 
+of design rather than execution, for there is but one side erected 
+out of four, though the works are stopped.  The Post Office is a 
+very compact and very beautiful building.  In one of the 
+departments, among a collection of rare and curious articles, are 
+deposited the presents which have been made from time to time to 
+the American ambassadors at foreign courts by the various 
+potentates to whom they were the accredited agents of the Republic; 
+gifts which by the law they are not permitted to retain.  I confess 
+that I looked upon this as a very painful exhibition, and one by no 
+means flattering to the national standard of honesty and honour.  
+That can scarcely be a high state of moral feeling which imagines a 
+gentleman of repute and station, likely to be corrupted, in the 
+discharge of his duty, by the present of a snuff-box, or a richly-
+mounted sword, or an Eastern shawl; and surely the Nation who 
+reposes confidence in her appointed servants, is likely to be 
+better served, than she who makes them the subject of such very 
+mean and paltry suspicions.
+
+At George Town, in the suburbs, there is a Jesuit College; 
+delightfully situated, and, so far as I had an opportunity of 
+seeing, well managed.  Many persons who are not members of the 
+Romish Church, avail themselves, I believe, of these institutions, 
+and of the advantageous opportunities they afford for the education 
+of their children.  The heights of this neighbourhood, above the 
+Potomac River, are very picturesque:  and are free, I should 
+conceive, from some of the insalubrities of Washington.  The air, 
+at that elevation, was quite cool and refreshing, when in the city 
+it was burning hot.
+
+The President's mansion is more like an English club-house, both 
+within and without, than any other kind of establishment with which 
+I can compare it.  The ornamental ground about it has been laid out 
+in garden walks; they are pretty, and agreeable to the eye; though 
+they have that uncomfortable air of having been made yesterday, 
+which is far from favourable to the display of such beauties.
+
+My first visit to this house was on the morning after my arrival, 
+when I was carried thither by an official gentleman, who was so 
+kind as to charge himself with my presentation to the President.
+
+We entered a large hall, and having twice or thrice rung a bell 
+which nobody answered, walked without further ceremony through the 
+rooms on the ground floor, as divers other gentlemen (mostly with 
+their hats on, and their hands in their pockets) were doing very 
+leisurely.  Some of these had ladies with them, to whom they were 
+showing the premises; others were lounging on the chairs and sofas; 
+others, in a perfect state of exhaustion from listlessness, were 
+yawning drearily.  The greater portion of this assemblage were 
+rather asserting their supremacy than doing anything else, as they 
+had no particular business there, that anybody knew of.  A few were 
+closely eyeing the movables, as if to make quite sure that the 
+President (who was far from popular) had not made away with any of 
+the furniture, or sold the fixtures for his private benefit.
+
+After glancing at these loungers; who were scattered over a pretty 
+drawing-room, opening upon a terrace which commanded a beautiful 
+prospect of the river and the adjacent country; and who were 
+sauntering, too, about a larger state-room called the Eastern 
+Drawing-room; we went up-stairs into another chamber, where were 
+certain visitors, waiting for audiences.  At sight of my conductor, 
+a black in plain clothes and yellow slippers who was gliding 
+noiselessly about, and whispering messages in the ears of the more 
+impatient, made a sign of recognition, and glided off to announce 
+him.
+
+We had previously looked into another chamber fitted all round with 
+a great, bare, wooden desk or counter, whereon lay files of 
+newspapers, to which sundry gentlemen were referring.  But there 
+were no such means of beguiling the time in this apartment, which 
+was as unpromising and tiresome as any waiting-room in one of our 
+public establishments, or any physician's dining-room during his 
+hours of consultation at home.
+
+There were some fifteen or twenty persons in the room.  One, a 
+tall, wiry, muscular old man, from the west; sunburnt and swarthy; 
+with a brown white hat on his knees, and a giant umbrella resting 
+between his legs; who sat bolt upright in his chair, frowning 
+steadily at the carpet, and twitching the hard lines about his 
+mouth, as if he had made up his mind 'to fix' the President on what 
+he had to say, and wouldn't bate him a grain.  Another, a Kentucky 
+farmer, six-feet-six in height, with his hat on, and his hands 
+under his coat-tails, who leaned against the wall and kicked the 
+floor with his heel, as though he had Time's head under his shoe, 
+and were literally 'killing' him.  A third, an oval-faced, bilious-
+looking man, with sleek black hair cropped close, and whiskers and 
+beard shaved down to blue dots, who sucked the head of a thick 
+stick, and from time to time took it out of his mouth, to see how 
+it was getting on.  A fourth did nothing but whistle.  A fifth did 
+nothing but spit.  And indeed all these gentlemen were so very 
+persevering and energetic in this latter particular, and bestowed 
+their favours so abundantly upon the carpet, that I take it for 
+granted the Presidential housemaids have high wages, or, to speak 
+more genteelly, an ample amount of 'compensation:' which is the 
+American word for salary, in the case of all public servants.
+
+We had not waited in this room many minutes, before the black 
+messenger returned, and conducted us into another of smaller 
+dimensions, where, at a business-like table covered with papers, 
+sat the President himself.  He looked somewhat worn and anxious, 
+and well he might; being at war with everybody - but the expression 
+of his face was mild and pleasant, and his manner was remarkably 
+unaffected, gentlemanly, and agreeable.  I thought that in his 
+whole carriage and demeanour, he became his station singularly 
+well.
+
+Being advised that the sensible etiquette of the republican court 
+admitted of a traveller, like myself, declining, without any 
+impropriety, an invitation to dinner, which did not reach me until 
+I had concluded my arrangements for leaving Washington some days 
+before that to which it referred, I only returned to this house 
+once.  It was on the occasion of one of those general assemblies 
+which are held on certain nights, between the hours of nine and 
+twelve o'clock, and are called, rather oddly, Levees.
+
+I went, with my wife, at about ten.  There was a pretty dense crowd 
+of carriages and people in the court-yard, and so far as I could 
+make out, there were no very clear regulations for the taking up or 
+setting down of company.  There were certainly no policemen to 
+soothe startled horses, either by sawing at their bridles or 
+flourishing truncheons in their eyes; and I am ready to make oath 
+that no inoffensive persons were knocked violently on the head, or 
+poked acutely in their backs or stomachs; or brought to a 
+standstill by any such gentle means, and then taken into custody 
+for not moving on.  But there was no confusion or disorder.  Our 
+carriage reached the porch in its turn, without any blustering, 
+swearing, shouting, backing, or other disturbance:  and we 
+dismounted with as much ease and comfort as though we had been 
+escorted by the whole Metropolitan Force from A to Z inclusive.
+
+The suite of rooms on the ground-floor were lighted up, and a 
+military band was playing in the hall.  In the smaller drawing-
+room, the centre of a circle of company, were the President and his 
+daughter-in-law, who acted as the lady of the mansion; and a very 
+interesting, graceful, and accomplished lady too.  One gentleman 
+who stood among this group, appeared to take upon himself the 
+functions of a master of the ceremonies.  I saw no other officers 
+or attendants, and none were needed.
+
+The great drawing-room, which I have already mentioned, and the 
+other chambers on the ground-floor, were crowded to excess.  The 
+company was not, in our sense of the term, select, for it 
+comprehended persons of very many grades and classes; nor was there 
+any great display of costly attire:  indeed, some of the costumes 
+may have been, for aught I know, grotesque enough.  But the decorum 
+and propriety of behaviour which prevailed, were unbroken by any 
+rude or disagreeable incident; and every man, even among the 
+miscellaneous crowd in the hall who were admitted without any 
+orders or tickets to look on, appeared to feel that he was a part 
+of the Institution, and was responsible for its preserving a 
+becoming character, and appearing to the best advantage.
+
+That these visitors, too, whatever their station, were not without 
+some refinement of taste and appreciation of intellectual gifts, 
+and gratitude to those men who, by the peaceful exercise of great 
+abilities, shed new charms and associations upon the homes of their 
+countrymen, and elevate their character in other lands, was most 
+earnestly testified by their reception of Washington Irving, my 
+dear friend, who had recently been appointed Minister at the court 
+of Spain, and who was among them that night, in his new character, 
+for the first and last time before going abroad.  I sincerely 
+believe that in all the madness of American politics, few public 
+men would have been so earnestly, devotedly, and affectionately 
+caressed, as this most charming writer:  and I have seldom 
+respected a public assembly more, than I did this eager throng, 
+when I saw them turning with one mind from noisy orators and 
+officers of state, and flocking with a generous and honest impulse 
+round the man of quiet pursuits:  proud in his promotion as 
+reflecting back upon their country:  and grateful to him with their 
+whole hearts for the store of graceful fancies he had poured out 
+among them.  Long may he dispense such treasures with unsparing 
+hand; and long may they remember him as worthily!
+
+* * * * * *
+
+The term we had assigned for the duration of our stay in Washington 
+was now at an end, and we were to begin to travel; for the railroad 
+distances we had traversed yet, in journeying among these older 
+towns, are on that great continent looked upon as nothing.
+
+I had at first intended going South - to Charleston.  But when I 
+came to consider the length of time which this journey would 
+occupy, and the premature heat of the season, which even at 
+Washington had been often very trying; and weighed moreover, in my 
+own mind, the pain of living in the constant contemplation of 
+slavery, against the more than doubtful chances of my ever seeing 
+it, in the time I had to spare, stripped of the disguises in which 
+it would certainly be dressed, and so adding any item to the host 
+of facts already heaped together on the subject; I began to listen 
+to old whisperings which had often been present to me at home in 
+England, when I little thought of ever being here; and to dream 
+again of cities growing up, like palaces in fairy tales, among the 
+wilds and forests of the west.
+
+The advice I received in most quarters when I began to yield to my 
+desire of travelling towards that point of the compass was, 
+according to custom, sufficiently cheerless:  my companion being 
+threatened with more perils, dangers, and discomforts, than I can 
+remember or would catalogue if I could; but of which it will be 
+sufficient to remark that blowings-up in steamboats and breakings-
+down in coaches were among the least.  But, having a western route 
+sketched out for me by the best and kindest authority to which I 
+could have resorted, and putting no great faith in these 
+discouragements, I soon determined on my plan of action.
+
+This was to travel south, only to Richmond in Virginia; and then to 
+turn, and shape our course for the Far West; whither I beseech the 
+reader's company, in a new chapter.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX - A NIGHT STEAMER ON THE POTOMAC RIVER.  VIRGINIA ROAD, 
+AND A BLACK DRIVER.  RICHMOND.  BALTIMORE.  THE HARRISBURG MAIL, 
+AND A GLIMPSE OF THE CITY.  A CANAL BOAT
+
+
+
+WE were to proceed in the first instance by steamboat; and as it is 
+usual to sleep on board, in consequence of the starting-hour being 
+four o'clock in the morning, we went down to where she lay, at that 
+very uncomfortable time for such expeditions when slippers are most 
+valuable, and a familiar bed, in the perspective of an hour or two, 
+looks uncommonly pleasant.
+
+It is ten o'clock at night:  say half-past ten:  moonlight, warm, 
+and dull enough.  The steamer (not unlike a child's Noah's ark in 
+form, with the machinery on the top of the roof) is riding lazily 
+up and down, and bumping clumsily against the wooden pier, as the 
+ripple of the river trifles with its unwieldy carcase.  The wharf 
+is some distance from the city.  There is nobody down here; and one 
+or two dull lamps upon the steamer's decks are the only signs of 
+life remaining, when our coach has driven away.  As soon as our 
+footsteps are heard upon the planks, a fat negress, particularly 
+favoured by nature in respect of bustle, emerges from some dark 
+stairs, and marshals my wife towards the ladies' cabin, to which 
+retreat she goes, followed by a mighty bale of cloaks and great-
+coats.  I valiantly resolve not to go to bed at all, but to walk up 
+and down the pier till morning.
+
+I begin my promenade - thinking of all kinds of distant things and 
+persons, and of nothing near - and pace up and down for half-an-
+hour.  Then I go on board again; and getting into the light of one 
+of the lamps, look at my watch and think it must have stopped; and 
+wonder what has become of the faithful secretary whom I brought 
+along with me from Boston.  He is supping with our late landlord (a 
+Field Marshal, at least, no doubt) in honour of our departure, and 
+may be two hours longer.  I walk again, but it gets duller and 
+duller:  the moon goes down:  next June seems farther off in the 
+dark, and the echoes of my footsteps make me nervous.  It has 
+turned cold too; and walking up and down without my companion in 
+such lonely circumstances, is but poor amusement.  So I break my 
+staunch resolution, and think it may be, perhaps, as well to go to 
+bed.
+
+I go on board again; open the door of the gentlemen's cabin and 
+walk in.  Somehow or other - from its being so quiet, I suppose - I 
+have taken it into my head that there is nobody there.  To my 
+horror and amazement it is full of sleepers in every stage, shape, 
+attitude, and variety of slumber:  in the berths, on the chairs, on 
+the floors, on the tables, and particularly round the stove, my 
+detested enemy.  I take another step forward, and slip on the 
+shining face of a black steward, who lies rolled in a blanket on 
+the floor.  He jumps up, grins, half in pain and half in 
+hospitality; whispers my own name in my ear; and groping among the 
+sleepers, leads me to my berth.  Standing beside it, I count these 
+slumbering passengers, and get past forty.  There is no use in 
+going further, so I begin to undress.  As the chairs are all 
+occupied, and there is nothing else to put my clothes on, I deposit 
+them upon the ground:  not without soiling my hands, for it is in 
+the same condition as the carpets in the Capitol, and from the same 
+cause.  Having but partially undressed, I clamber on my shelf, and 
+hold the curtain open for a few minutes while I look round on all 
+my fellow-travellers again.  That done, I let it fall on them, and 
+on the world:  turn round:  and go to sleep.
+
+I wake, of course, when we get under weigh, for there is a good 
+deal of noise.  The day is then just breaking.  Everybody wakes at 
+the same time.  Some are self-possessed directly, and some are much 
+perplexed to make out where they are until they have rubbed their 
+eyes, and leaning on one elbow, looked about them.  Some yawn, some 
+groan, nearly all spit, and a few get up.  I am among the risers:  
+for it is easy to feel, without going into the fresh air, that the 
+atmosphere of the cabin is vile in the last degree.  I huddle on my 
+clothes, go down into the fore-cabin, get shaved by the barber, and 
+wash myself.  The washing and dressing apparatus for the passengers 
+generally, consists of two jack-towels, three small wooden basins, 
+a keg of water and a ladle to serve it out with, six square inches 
+of looking-glass, two ditto ditto of yellow soap, a comb and brush 
+for the head, and nothing for the teeth.  Everybody uses the comb 
+and brush, except myself.  Everybody stares to see me using my own; 
+and two or three gentlemen are strongly disposed to banter me on my 
+prejudices, but don't.  When I have made my toilet, I go upon the 
+hurricane-deck, and set in for two hours of hard walking up and 
+down.  The sun is rising brilliantly; we are passing Mount Vernon, 
+where Washington lies buried; the river is wide and rapid; and its 
+banks are beautiful.  All the glory and splendour of the day are 
+coming on, and growing brighter every minute.
+
+At eight o'clock, we breakfast in the cabin where I passed the 
+night, but the windows and doors are all thrown open, and now it is 
+fresh enough.  There is no hurry or greediness apparent in the 
+despatch of the meal.  It is longer than a travelling breakfast 
+with us; more orderly, and more polite.
+
+Soon after nine o'clock we come to Potomac Creek, where we are to 
+land; and then comes the oddest part of the journey.  Seven stage-
+coaches are preparing to carry us on.  Some of them are ready, some 
+of them are not ready.  Some of the drivers are blacks, some 
+whites.  There are four horses to each coach, and all the horses, 
+harnessed or unharnessed, are there.  The passengers are getting 
+out of the steamboat, and into the coaches; the luggage is being 
+transferred in noisy wheelbarrows; the horses are frightened, and 
+impatient to start; the black drivers are chattering to them like 
+so many monkeys; and the white ones whooping like so many drovers:  
+for the main thing to be done in all kinds of hostlering here, is 
+to make as much noise as possible.  The coaches are something like 
+the French coaches, but not nearly so good.  In lieu of springs, 
+they are hung on bands of the strongest leather.  There is very 
+little choice or difference between them; and they may be likened 
+to the car portion of the swings at an English fair, roofed, put 
+upon axle-trees and wheels, and curtained with painted canvas.  
+They are covered with mud from the roof to the wheel-tire, and have 
+never been cleaned since they were first built.
+
+The tickets we have received on board the steamboat are marked No. 
+1, so we belong to coach No. 1.  I throw my coat on the box, and 
+hoist my wife and her maid into the inside.  It has only one step, 
+and that being about a yard from the ground, is usually approached 
+by a chair:  when there is no chair, ladies trust in Providence.  
+The coach holds nine inside, having a seat across from door to 
+door, where we in England put our legs:  so that there is only one 
+feat more difficult in the performance than getting in, and that 
+is, getting out again.  There is only one outside passenger, and he 
+sits upon the box.  As I am that one, I climb up; and while they 
+are strapping the luggage on the roof, and heaping it into a kind 
+of tray behind, have a good opportunity of looking at the driver.
+
+He is a negro - very black indeed.  He is dressed in a coarse 
+pepper-and-salt suit excessively patched and darned (particularly 
+at the knees), grey stockings, enormous unblacked high-low shoes, 
+and very short trousers.  He has two odd gloves:  one of parti-
+coloured worsted, and one of leather.  He has a very short whip, 
+broken in the middle and bandaged up with string.  And yet he wears 
+a low-crowned, broad-brimmed, black hat:  faintly shadowing forth a 
+kind of insane imitation of an English coachman!  But somebody in 
+authority cries 'Go ahead!' as I am making these observations.  The 
+mail takes the lead in a four-horse waggon, and all the coaches 
+follow in procession:  headed by No. 1.
+
+By the way, whenever an Englishman would cry 'All right!' an 
+American cries 'Go ahead!' which is somewhat expressive of the 
+national character of the two countries.
+
+The first half-mile of the road is over bridges made of loose 
+planks laid across two parallel poles, which tilt up as the wheels 
+roll over them; and IN the river.  The river has a clayey bottom 
+and is full of holes, so that half a horse is constantly 
+disappearing unexpectedly, and can't be found again for some time.
+
+But we get past even this, and come to the road itself, which is a 
+series of alternate swamps and gravel-pits.  A tremendous place is 
+close before us, the black driver rolls his eyes, screws his mouth 
+up very round, and looks straight between the two leaders, as if he 
+were saying to himself, 'We have done this often before, but NOW I 
+think we shall have a crash.'  He takes a rein in each hand; jerks 
+and pulls at both; and dances on the splashboard with both feet 
+(keeping his seat, of course) like the late lamented Ducrow on two 
+of his fiery coursers.  We come to the spot, sink down in the mire 
+nearly to the coach windows, tilt on one side at an angle of forty-
+five degrees, and stick there.  The insides scream dismally; the 
+coach stops; the horses flounder; all the other six coaches stop; 
+and their four-and-twenty horses flounder likewise:  but merely for 
+company, and in sympathy with ours.  Then the following 
+circumstances occur.
+
+BLACK DRIVER (to the horses).  'Hi!'
+
+Nothing happens.  Insides scream again.
+
+BLACK DRIVER (to the horses).  'Ho!'
+
+Horses plunge, and splash the black driver.
+
+GENTLEMAN INSIDE (looking out).  'Why, what on airth -
+
+Gentleman receives a variety of splashes and draws his head in 
+again, without finishing his question or waiting for an answer.
+
+BLACK DRIVER (still to the horses).  'Jiddy!  Jiddy!'
+
+Horses pull violently, drag the coach out of the hole, and draw it 
+up a bank; so steep, that the black driver's legs fly up into the 
+air, and he goes back among the luggage on the roof.  But he 
+immediately recovers himself, and cries (still to the horses),
+
+'Pill!'
+
+No effect.  On the contrary, the coach begins to roll back upon No. 
+2, which rolls back upon No. 3, which rolls back upon No. 4, and so 
+on, until No. 7 is heard to curse and swear, nearly a quarter of a 
+mile behind.
+
+BLACK DRIVER (louder than before).  'Pill!'
+
+Horses make another struggle to get up the bank, and again the 
+coach rolls backward.
+
+BLACK DRIVER (louder than before).  'Pe-e-e-ill!'
+
+Horses make a desperate struggle.
+
+BLACK DRIVER (recovering spirits).  'Hi, Jiddy, Jiddy, Pill!'
+
+Horses make another effort.
+
+BLACK DRIVER (with great vigour).  'Ally Loo!  Hi.  Jiddy, Jiddy.  
+Pill.  Ally Loo!'
+
+Horses almost do it.
+
+BLACK DRIVER (with his eyes starting out of his head).  'Lee, den.  
+Lee, dere.  Hi.  Jiddy, Jiddy.  Pill.  Ally Loo.  Lee-e-e-e-e!'
+
+They run up the bank, and go down again on the other side at a 
+fearful pace.  It is impossible to stop them, and at the bottom 
+there is a deep hollow, full of water.  The coach rolls 
+frightfully.  The insides scream.  The mud and water fly about us.  
+The black driver dances like a madman.  Suddenly we are all right 
+by some extraordinary means, and stop to breathe.
+
+A black friend of the black driver is sitting on a fence.  The 
+black driver recognises him by twirling his head round and round 
+like a harlequin, rolling his eyes, shrugging his shoulders, and 
+grinning from ear to ear.  He stops short, turns to me, and says:
+
+'We shall get you through sa, like a fiddle, and hope a please you 
+when we get you through sa.  Old 'ooman at home sa:' chuckling very 
+much.  'Outside gentleman sa, he often remember old 'ooman at home 
+sa,' grinning again.
+
+'Ay ay, we'll take care of the old woman.  Don't be afraid.'
+
+The black driver grins again, but there is another hole, and beyond 
+that, another bank, close before us.  So he stops short:  cries (to 
+the horses again) 'Easy.  Easy den.  Ease.  Steady.  Hi.  Jiddy.  
+Pill.  Ally.  Loo,' but never 'Lee!' until we are reduced to the 
+very last extremity, and are in the midst of difficulties, 
+extrication from which appears to be all but impossible.
+
+And so we do the ten miles or thereabouts in two hours and a half; 
+breaking no bones, though bruising a great many; and in short 
+getting through the distance, 'like a fiddle.'
+
+This singular kind of coaching terminates at Fredericksburgh, 
+whence there is a railway to Richmond.  The tract of country 
+through which it takes its course was once productive; but the soil 
+has been exhausted by the system of employing a great amount of 
+slave labour in forcing crops, without strengthening the land:  and 
+it is now little better than a sandy desert overgrown with trees.  
+Dreary and uninteresting as its aspect is, I was glad to the heart 
+to find anything on which one of the curses of this horrible 
+institution has fallen; and had greater pleasure in contemplating 
+the withered ground, than the richest and most thriving cultivation 
+in the same place could possibly have afforded me.
+
+In this district, as in all others where slavery sits brooding, (I 
+have frequently heard this admitted, even by those who are its 
+warmest advocates:) there is an air of ruin and decay abroad, which 
+is inseparable from the system.  The barns and outhouses are 
+mouldering away; the sheds are patched and half roofless; the log 
+cabins (built in Virginia with external chimneys made of clay or 
+wood) are squalid in the last degree.  There is no look of decent 
+comfort anywhere.  The miserable stations by the railway side, the 
+great wild wood-yards, whence the engine is supplied with fuel; the 
+negro children rolling on the ground before the cabin doors, with 
+dogs and pigs; the biped beasts of burden slinking past:  gloom and 
+dejection are upon them all.
+
+In the negro car belonging to the train in which we made this 
+journey, were a mother and her children who had just been 
+purchased; the husband and father being left behind with their old 
+owner.  The children cried the whole way, and the mother was 
+misery's picture.  The champion of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit 
+of Happiness, who had bought them, rode in the same train; and, 
+every time we stopped, got down to see that they were safe.  The 
+black in Sinbad's Travels with one eye in the middle of his 
+forehead which shone like a burning coal, was nature's aristocrat 
+compared with this white gentleman.
+
+It was between six and seven o'clock in the evening, when we drove 
+to the hotel:  in front of which, and on the top of the broad 
+flight of steps leading to the door, two or three citizens were 
+balancing themselves on rocking-chairs, and smoking cigars.  We 
+found it a very large and elegant establishment, and were as well 
+entertained as travellers need desire to be.  The climate being a 
+thirsty one, there was never, at any hour of the day, a scarcity of 
+loungers in the spacious bar, or a cessation of the mixing of cool 
+liquors:  but they were a merrier people here, and had musical 
+instruments playing to them o' nights, which it was a treat to hear 
+again.
+
+The next day, and the next, we rode and walked about the town, 
+which is delightfully situated on eight hills, overhanging James 
+River; a sparkling stream, studded here and there with bright 
+islands, or brawling over broken rocks.  Although it was yet but 
+the middle of March, the weather in this southern temperature was 
+extremely warm; the peech-trees and magnolias were in full bloom; 
+and the trees were green.  In a low ground among the hills, is a 
+valley known as 'Bloody Run,' from a terrible conflict with the 
+Indians which once occurred there.  It is a good place for such a 
+struggle, and, like every other spot I saw associated with any 
+legend of that wild people now so rapidly fading from the earth, 
+interested me very much.
+
+The city is the seat of the local parliament of Virginia; and in 
+its shady legislative halls, some orators were drowsily holding 
+forth to the hot noon day.  By dint of constant repetition, 
+however, these constitutional sights had very little more interest 
+for me than so many parochial vestries; and I was glad to exchange 
+this one for a lounge in a well-arranged public library of some ten 
+thousand volumes, and a visit to a tobacco manufactory, where the 
+workmen are all slaves.
+
+I saw in this place the whole process of picking, rolling, 
+pressing, drying, packing in casks, and branding.  All the tobacco 
+thus dealt with, was in course of manufacture for chewing; and one 
+would have supposed there was enough in that one storehouse to have 
+filled even the comprehensive jaws of America.  In this form, the 
+weed looks like the oil-cake on which we fatten cattle; and even 
+without reference to its consequences, is sufficiently uninviting.
+
+Many of the workmen appeared to be strong men, and it is hardly 
+necessary to add that they were all labouring quietly, then.  After 
+two o'clock in the day, they are allowed to sing, a certain number 
+at a time.  The hour striking while I was there, some twenty sang a 
+hymn in parts, and sang it by no means ill; pursuing their work 
+meanwhile.  A bell rang as I was about to leave, and they all 
+poured forth into a building on the opposite side of the street to 
+dinner.  I said several times that I should like to see them at 
+their meal; but as the gentleman to whom I mentioned this desire 
+appeared to be suddenly taken rather deaf, I did not pursue the 
+request.  Of their appearance I shall have something to say, 
+presently.
+
+On the following day, I visited a plantation or farm, of about 
+twelve hundred acres, on the opposite bank of the river.  Here 
+again, although I went down with the owner of the estate, to 'the 
+quarter,' as that part of it in which the slaves live is called, I 
+was not invited to enter into any of their huts.  All I saw of 
+them, was, that they were very crazy, wretched cabins, near to 
+which groups of half-naked children basked in the sun, or wallowed 
+on the dusty ground.  But I believe that this gentleman is a 
+considerate and excellent master, who inherited his fifty slaves, 
+and is neither a buyer nor a seller of human stock; and I am sure, 
+from my own observation and conviction, that he is a kind-hearted, 
+worthy man.
+
+The planter's house was an airy, rustic dwelling, that brought 
+Defoe's description of such places strongly to my recollection.  
+The day was very warm, but the blinds being all closed, and the 
+windows and doors set wide open, a shady coolness rustled through 
+the rooms, which was exquisitely refreshing after the glare and 
+heat without.  Before the windows was an open piazza, where, in 
+what they call the hot weather - whatever that may be - they sling 
+hammocks, and drink and doze luxuriously.  I do not know how their 
+cool rejections may taste within the hammocks, but, having 
+experience, I can report that, out of them, the mounds of ices and 
+the bowls of mint-julep and sherry-cobbler they make in these 
+latitudes, are refreshments never to be thought of afterwards, in 
+summer, by those who would preserve contented minds.
+
+There are two bridges across the river:  one belongs to the 
+railroad, and the other, which is a very crazy affair, is the 
+private property of some old lady in the neighbourhood, who levies 
+tolls upon the townspeople.  Crossing this bridge, on my way back, 
+I saw a notice painted on the gate, cautioning all persons to drive 
+slowly:  under a penalty, if the offender were a white man, of five 
+dollars; if a negro, fifteen stripes.
+
+The same decay and gloom that overhang the way by which it is 
+approached, hover above the town of Richmond.  There are pretty 
+villas and cheerful houses in its streets, and Nature smiles upon 
+the country round; but jostling its handsome residences, like 
+slavery itself going hand in hand with many lofty virtues, are 
+deplorable tenements, fences unrepaired, walls crumbling into 
+ruinous heaps.  Hinting gloomily at things below the surface, 
+these, and many other tokens of the same description, force 
+themselves upon the notice, and are remembered with depressing 
+influence, when livelier features are forgotten.
+
+To those who are happily unaccustomed to them, the countenances in 
+the streets and labouring-places, too, are shocking.  All men who 
+know that there are laws against instructing slaves, of which the 
+pains and penalties greatly exceed in their amount the fines 
+imposed on those who maim and torture them, must be prepared to 
+find their faces very low in the scale of intellectual expression.  
+But the darkness - not of skin, but mind - which meets the 
+stranger's eye at every turn; the brutalizing and blotting out of 
+all fairer characters traced by Nature's hand; immeasurably outdo 
+his worst belief.  That travelled creation of the great satirist's 
+brain, who fresh from living among horses, peered from a high 
+casement down upon his own kind with trembling horror, was scarcely 
+more repelled and daunted by the sight, than those who look upon 
+some of these faces for the first time must surely be.
+
+I left the last of them behind me in the person of a wretched 
+drudge, who, after running to and fro all day till midnight, and 
+moping in his stealthy winks of sleep upon the stairs 
+betweenwhiles, was washing the dark passages at four o'clock in the 
+morning; and went upon my way with a grateful heart that I was not 
+doomed to live where slavery was, and had never had my senses 
+blunted to its wrongs and horrors in a slave-rocked cradle.
+
+It had been my intention to proceed by James River and Chesapeake 
+Bay to Baltimore; but one of the steamboats being absent from her 
+station through some accident, and the means of conveyance being 
+consequently rendered uncertain, we returned to Washington by the 
+way we had come (there were two constables on board the steamboat, 
+in pursuit of runaway slaves), and halting there again for one 
+night, went on to Baltimore next afternoon.
+
+The most comfortable of all the hotels of which I had any 
+experience in the United States, and they were not a few, is 
+Barnum's, in that city:  where the English traveller will find 
+curtains to his bed, for the first and probably the last time in 
+America (this is a disinterested remark, for I never use them); and 
+where he will be likely to have enough water for washing himself, 
+which is not at all a common case.
+
+This capital of the state of Maryland is a bustling, busy town, 
+with a great deal of traffic of various kinds, and in particular of 
+water commerce.  That portion of the town which it most favours is 
+none of the cleanest, it is true; but the upper part is of a very 
+different character, and has many agreeable streets and public 
+buildings.  The Washington Monument, which is a handsome pillar 
+with a statue on its summit; the Medical College; and the Battle 
+Monument in memory of an engagement with the British at North 
+Point; are the most conspicuous among them.
+
+There is a very good prison in this city, and the State 
+Penitentiary is also among its institutions.  In this latter 
+establishment there were two curious cases.
+
+One was that of a young man, who had been tried for the murder of 
+his father.  The evidence was entirely circumstantial, and was very 
+conflicting and doubtful; nor was it possible to assign any motive 
+which could have tempted him to the commission of so tremendous a 
+crime.  He had been tried twice; and on the second occasion the 
+jury felt so much hesitation in convicting him, that they found a 
+verdict of manslaughter, or murder in the second degree; which it 
+could not possibly be, as there had, beyond all doubt, been no 
+quarrel or provocation, and if he were guilty at all, he was 
+unquestionably guilty of murder in its broadest and worst 
+signification.
+
+The remarkable feature in the case was, that if the unfortunate 
+deceased were not really murdered by this own son of his, he must 
+have been murdered by his own brother.  The evidence lay in a most 
+remarkable manner, between those two.  On all the suspicious 
+points, the dead man's brother was the witness:  all the 
+explanations for the prisoner (some of them extremely plausible) 
+went, by construction and inference, to inculcate him as plotting 
+to fix the guilt upon his nephew.  It must have been one of them:  
+and the jury had to decide between two sets of suspicions, almost 
+equally unnatural, unaccountable, and strange.
+
+The other case, was that of a man who once went to a certain 
+distiller's and stole a copper measure containing a quantity of 
+liquor.  He was pursued and taken with the property in his 
+possession, and was sentenced to two years' imprisonment.  On 
+coming out of the jail, at the expiration of that term, he went 
+back to the same distiller's, and stole the same copper measure 
+containing the same quantity of liquor.  There was not the 
+slightest reason to suppose that the man wished to return to 
+prison:  indeed everything, but the commission of the offence, made 
+directly against that assumption.  There are only two ways of 
+accounting for this extraordinary proceeding.  One is, that after 
+undergoing so much for this copper measure he conceived he had 
+established a sort of claim and right to it.  The other that, by 
+dint of long thinking about, it had become a monomania with him, 
+and had acquired a fascination which he found it impossible to 
+resist; swelling from an Earthly Copper Gallon into an Ethereal 
+Golden Vat.
+
+After remaining here a couple of days I bound myself to a rigid 
+adherence to the plan I had laid down so recently, and resolved to 
+set forward on our western journey without any more delay.  
+Accordingly, having reduced the luggage within the smallest 
+possible compass (by sending back to New York, to be afterwards 
+forwarded to us in Canada, so much of it as was not absolutely 
+wanted); and having procured the necessary credentials to banking-
+houses on the way; and having moreover looked for two evenings at 
+the setting sun, with as well-defined an idea of the country before 
+us as if we had been going to travel into the very centre of that 
+planet; we left Baltimore by another railway at half-past eight in 
+the morning, and reached the town of York, some sixty miles off, by 
+the early dinner-time of the Hotel which was the starting-place of 
+the four-horse coach, wherein we were to proceed to Harrisburg.
+
+This conveyance, the box of which I was fortunate enough to secure, 
+had come down to meet us at the railroad station, and was as muddy 
+and cumbersome as usual.  As more passengers were waiting for us at 
+the inn-door, the coachman observed under his breath, in the usual 
+self-communicative voice, looking the while at his mouldy harness 
+as if it were to that he was addressing himself,
+
+'I expect we shall want THE BIG coach.'
+
+I could not help wondering within myself what the size of this big 
+coach might be, and how many persons it might be designed to hold; 
+for the vehicle which was too small for our purpose was something 
+larger than two English heavy night coaches, and might have been 
+the twin-brother of a French Diligence.  My speculations were 
+speedily set at rest, however, for as soon as we had dined, there 
+came rumbling up the street, shaking its sides like a corpulent 
+giant, a kind of barge on wheels.  After much blundering and 
+backing, it stopped at the door:  rolling heavily from side to side 
+when its other motion had ceased, as if it had taken cold in its 
+damp stable, and between that, and the having been required in its 
+dropsical old age to move at any faster pace than a walk, were 
+distressed by shortness of wind.
+
+'If here ain't the Harrisburg mail at last, and dreadful bright and 
+smart to look at too,' cried an elderly gentleman in some 
+excitement, 'darn my mother!'
+
+I don't know what the sensation of being darned may be, or whether 
+a man's mother has a keener relish or disrelish of the process than 
+anybody else; but if the endurance of this mysterious ceremony by 
+the old lady in question had depended on the accuracy of her son's 
+vision in respect to the abstract brightness and smartness of the 
+Harrisburg mail, she would certainly have undergone its infliction.  
+However, they booked twelve people inside; and the luggage 
+(including such trifles as a large rocking-chair, and a good-sized 
+dining-table) being at length made fast upon the roof, we started 
+off in great state.
+
+At the door of another hotel, there was another passenger to be 
+taken up.
+
+'Any room, sir?' cries the new passenger to the coachman.
+
+'Well, there's room enough,' replies the coachman, without getting 
+down, or even looking at him.
+
+'There an't no room at all, sir,' bawls a gentleman inside.  Which 
+another gentleman (also inside) confirms, by predicting that the 
+attempt to introduce any more passengers 'won't fit nohow.'
+
+The new passenger, without any expression of anxiety, looks into 
+the coach, and then looks up at the coachman:  'Now, how do you 
+mean to fix it?' says he, after a pause:  'for I MUST go.'
+
+The coachman employs himself in twisting the lash of his whip into 
+a knot, and takes no more notice of the question:  clearly 
+signifying that it is anybody's business but his, and that the 
+passengers would do well to fix it, among themselves.  In this 
+state of things, matters seem to be approximating to a fix of 
+another kind, when another inside passenger in a corner, who is 
+nearly suffocated, cries faintly, 'I'll get out.'
+
+This is no matter of relief or self-congratulation to the driver, 
+for his immovable philosophy is perfectly undisturbed by anything 
+that happens in the coach.  Of all things in the world, the coach 
+would seem to be the very last upon his mind.  The exchange is 
+made, however, and then the passenger who has given up his seat 
+makes a third upon the box, seating himself in what he calls the 
+middle; that is, with half his person on my legs, and the other 
+half on the driver's.
+
+'Go a-head, cap'en,' cries the colonel, who directs.
+
+'Go-lang!' cries the cap'en to his company, the horses, and away we 
+go.
+
+We took up at a rural bar-room, after we had gone a few miles, an 
+intoxicated gentleman who climbed upon the roof among the luggage, 
+and subsequently slipping off without hurting himself, was seen in 
+the distant perspective reeling back to the grog-shop where we had 
+found him.  We also parted with more of our freight at different 
+times, so that when we came to change horses, I was again alone 
+outside.
+
+The coachmen always change with the horses, and are usually as 
+dirty as the coach.  The first was dressed like a very shabby 
+English baker; the second like a Russian peasant:  for he wore a 
+loose purple camlet robe, with a fur collar, tied round his waist 
+with a parti-coloured worsted sash; grey trousers; light blue 
+gloves:  and a cap of bearskin.  It had by this time come on to 
+rain very heavily, and there was a cold damp mist besides, which 
+penetrated to the skin.  I was glad to take advantage of a stoppage 
+and get down to stretch my legs, shake the water off my great-coat, 
+and swallow the usual anti-temperance recipe for keeping out the 
+cold.
+
+When I mounted to my seat again, I observed a new parcel lying on 
+the coach roof, which I took to be a rather large fiddle in a brown 
+bag.  In the course of a few miles, however, I discovered that it 
+had a glazed cap at one end and a pair of muddy shoes at the other 
+and further observation demonstrated it to be a small boy in a 
+snuff-coloured coat, with his arms quite pinioned to his sides, by 
+deep forcing into his pockets.  He was, I presume, a relative or 
+friend of the coachman's, as he lay a-top of the luggage with his 
+face towards the rain; and except when a change of position brought 
+his shoes in contact with my hat, he appeared to be asleep.  At 
+last, on some occasion of our stopping, this thing slowly upreared 
+itself to the height of three feet six, and fixing its eyes on me, 
+observed in piping accents, with a complaisant yawn, half quenched 
+in an obliging air of friendly patronage, 'Well now, stranger, I 
+guess you find this a'most like an English arternoon, hey?'
+
+The scenery, which had been tame enough at first, was, for the last 
+ten or twelve miles, beautiful.  Our road wound through the 
+pleasant valley of the Susquehanna; the river, dotted with 
+innumerable green islands, lay upon our right; and on the left, a 
+steep ascent, craggy with broken rock, and dark with pine trees.  
+The mist, wreathing itself into a hundred fantastic shapes, moved 
+solemnly upon the water; and the gloom of evening gave to all an 
+air of mystery and silence which greatly enhanced its natural 
+interest.
+
+We crossed this river by a wooden bridge, roofed and covered in on 
+all sides, and nearly a mile in length.  It was profoundly dark; 
+perplexed, with great beams, crossing and recrossing it at every 
+possible angle; and through the broad chinks and crevices in the 
+floor, the rapid river gleamed, far down below, like a legion of 
+eyes.  We had no lamps; and as the horses stumbled and floundered 
+through this place, towards the distant speck of dying light, it 
+seemed interminable.  I really could not at first persuade myself 
+as we rumbled heavily on, filling the bridge with hollow noises, 
+and I held down my head to save it from the rafters above, but that 
+I was in a painful dream; for I have often dreamed of toiling 
+through such places, and as often argued, even at the time, 'this 
+cannot be reality.'
+
+At length, however, we emerged upon the streets of Harrisburg, 
+whose feeble lights, reflected dismally from the wet ground, did 
+not shine out upon a very cheerful city.  We were soon established 
+in a snug hotel, which though smaller and far less splendid than 
+many we put up at, it raised above them all in my remembrance, by 
+having for its landlord the most obliging, considerate, and 
+gentlemanly person I ever had to deal with.
+
+As we were not to proceed upon our journey until the afternoon, I 
+walked out, after breakfast the next morning, to look about me; and 
+was duly shown a model prison on the solitary system, just erected, 
+and as yet without an inmate; the trunk of an old tree to which 
+Harris, the first settler here (afterwards buried under it), was 
+tied by hostile Indians, with his funeral pile about him, when he 
+was saved by the timely appearance of a friendly party on the 
+opposite shore of the river; the local legislature (for there was 
+another of those bodies here again, in full debate); and the other 
+curiosities of the town.
+
+I was very much interested in looking over a number of treaties 
+made from time to time with the poor Indians, signed by the 
+different chiefs at the period of their ratification, and preserved 
+in the office of the Secretary to the Commonwealth.  These 
+signatures, traced of course by their own hands, are rough drawings 
+of the creatures or weapons they were called after.  Thus, the 
+Great Turtle makes a crooked pen-and-ink outline of a great turtle; 
+the Buffalo sketches a buffalo; the War Hatchet sets a rough image 
+of that weapon for his mark.  So with the Arrow, the Fish, the 
+Scalp, the Big Canoe, and all of them.
+
+I could not but think - as I looked at these feeble and tremulous 
+productions of hands which could draw the longest arrow to the head 
+in a stout elk-horn bow, or split a bead or feather with a rifle-
+ball - of Crabbe's musings over the Parish Register, and the 
+irregular scratches made with a pen, by men who would plough a 
+lengthy furrow straight from end to end.  Nor could I help 
+bestowing many sorrowful thoughts upon the simple warriors whose 
+hands and hearts were set there, in all truth and honesty; and who 
+only learned in course of time from white men how to break their 
+faith, and quibble out of forms and bonds.  I wonder, too, how many 
+times the credulous Big Turtle, or trusting Little Hatchet, had put 
+his mark to treaties which were falsely read to him; and had signed 
+away, he knew not what, until it went and cast him loose upon the 
+new possessors of the land, a savage indeed.
+
+Our host announced, before our early dinner, that some members of 
+the legislative body proposed to do us the honour of calling.  He 
+had kindly yielded up to us his wife's own little parlour, and when 
+I begged that he would show them in, I saw him look with painful 
+apprehension at its pretty carpet; though, being otherwise occupied 
+at the time, the cause of his uneasiness did not occur to me.
+
+It certainly would have been more pleasant to all parties 
+concerned, and would not, I think, have compromised their 
+independence in any material degree, if some of these gentlemen had 
+not only yielded to the prejudice in favour of spittoons, but had 
+abandoned themselves, for the moment, even to the conventional 
+absurdity of pocket-handkerchiefs.
+
+It still continued to rain heavily, and when we went down to the 
+Canal Boat (for that was the mode of conveyance by which we were to 
+proceed) after dinner, the weather was as unpromising and 
+obstinately wet as one would desire to see.  Nor was the sight of 
+this canal boat, in which we were to spend three or four days, by 
+any means a cheerful one; as it involved some uneasy speculations 
+concerning the disposal of the passengers at night, and opened a 
+wide field of inquiry touching the other domestic arrangements of 
+the establishment, which was sufficiently disconcerting.
+
+However, there it was - a barge with a little house in it, viewed 
+from the outside; and a caravan at a fair, viewed from within:  the 
+gentlemen being accommodated, as the spectators usually are, in one 
+of those locomotive museums of penny wonders; and the ladies being 
+partitioned off by a red curtain, after the manner of the dwarfs 
+and giants in the same establishments, whose private lives are 
+passed in rather close exclusiveness.
+
+We sat here, looking silently at the row of little tables, which 
+extended down both sides of the cabin, and listening to the rain as 
+it dripped and pattered on the boat, and plashed with a dismal 
+merriment in the water, until the arrival of the railway train, for 
+whose final contribution to our stock of passengers, our departure 
+was alone deferred.  It brought a great many boxes, which were 
+bumped and tossed upon the roof, almost as painfully as if they had 
+been deposited on one's own head, without the intervention of a 
+porter's knot; and several damp gentlemen, whose clothes, on their 
+drawing round the stove, began to steam again.  No doubt it would 
+have been a thought more comfortable if the driving rain, which now 
+poured down more soakingly than ever, had admitted of a window 
+being opened, or if our number had been something less than thirty; 
+but there was scarcely time to think as much, when a train of three 
+horses was attached to the tow-rope, the boy upon the leader 
+smacked his whip, the rudder creaked and groaned complainingly, and 
+we had begun our journey.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X - SOME FURTHER ACCOUNT OF THE CANAL BOAT, ITS DOMESTIC 
+ECONOMY, AND ITS PASSENGERS.  JOURNEY TO PITTSBURG ACROSS THE 
+ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS.  PITTSBURG
+
+
+
+AS it continued to rain most perseveringly, we all remained below:  
+the damp gentlemen round the stove, gradually becoming mildewed by 
+the action of the fire; and the dry gentlemen lying at full length 
+upon the seats, or slumbering uneasily with their faces on the 
+tables, or walking up and down the cabin, which it was barely 
+possible for a man of the middle height to do, without making bald 
+places on his head by scraping it against the roof.  At about six 
+o'clock, all the small tables were put together to form one long 
+table, and everybody sat down to tea, coffee, bread, butter, 
+salmon, shad, liver, steaks, potatoes, pickles, ham, chops, black-
+puddings, and sausages.
+
+'Will you try,' said my opposite neighbour, handing me a dish of 
+potatoes, broken up in milk and butter, 'will you try some of these 
+fixings?'
+
+There are few words which perform such various duties as this word 
+'fix.'  It is the Caleb Quotem of the American vocabulary.  You 
+call upon a gentleman in a country town, and his help informs you 
+that he is 'fixing himself' just now, but will be down directly:  
+by which you are to understand that he is dressing.  You inquire, 
+on board a steamboat, of a fellow-passenger, whether breakfast will 
+be ready soon, and he tells you he should think so, for when he was 
+last below, they were 'fixing the tables:' in other words, laying 
+the cloth.  You beg a porter to collect your luggage, and he 
+entreats you not to be uneasy, for he'll 'fix it presently:' and if 
+you complain of indisposition, you are advised to have recourse to 
+Doctor So-and-so, who will 'fix you' in no time.
+
+One night, I ordered a bottle of mulled wine at an hotel where I 
+was staying, and waited a long time for it; at length it was put 
+upon the table with an apology from the landlord that he feared it 
+wasn't 'fixed properly.' And I recollect once, at a stage-coach 
+dinner, overhearing a very stern gentleman demand of a waiter who 
+presented him with a plate of underdone roast-beef, 'whether he 
+called THAT, fixing God A'mighty's vittles?'
+
+There is no doubt that the meal, at which the invitation was 
+tendered to me which has occasioned this digression, was disposed 
+of somewhat ravenously; and that the gentlemen thrust the broad-
+bladed knives and the two-pronged forks further down their throats 
+than I ever saw the same weapons go before, except in the hands of 
+a skilful juggler:  but no man sat down until the ladies were 
+seated; or omitted any little act of politeness which could 
+contribute to their comfort.  Nor did I ever once, on any occasion, 
+anywhere, during my rambles in America, see a woman exposed to the 
+slightest act of rudeness, incivility, or even inattention.
+
+By the time the meal was over, the rain, which seemed to have worn 
+itself out by coming down so fast, was nearly over too; and it 
+became feasible to go on deck:  which was a great relief, 
+notwithstanding its being a very small deck, and being rendered 
+still smaller by the luggage, which was heaped together in the 
+middle under a tarpaulin covering; leaving, on either side, a path 
+so narrow, that it became a science to walk to and fro without 
+tumbling overboard into the canal.  It was somewhat embarrassing at 
+first, too, to have to duck nimbly every five minutes whenever the 
+man at the helm cried 'Bridge!' and sometimes, when the cry was 
+'Low Bridge,' to lie down nearly flat.  But custom familiarises one 
+to anything, and there were so many bridges that it took a very 
+short time to get used to this.
+
+As night came on, and we drew in sight of the first range of hills, 
+which are the outposts of the Alleghany Mountains, the scenery, 
+which had been uninteresting hitherto, became more bold and 
+striking.  The wet ground reeked and smoked, after the heavy fall 
+of rain, and the croaking of the frogs (whose noise in these parts 
+is almost incredible) sounded as though a million of fairy teams 
+with bells were travelling through the air, and keeping pace with 
+us.  The night was cloudy yet, but moonlight too:  and when we 
+crossed the Susquehanna river - over which there is an 
+extraordinary wooden bridge with two galleries, one above the 
+other, so that even there, two boat teams meeting, may pass without 
+confusion - it was wild and grand.
+
+I have mentioned my having been in some uncertainty and doubt, at 
+first, relative to the sleeping arrangements on board this boat.  I 
+remained in the same vague state of mind until ten o'clock or 
+thereabouts, when going below, I found suspended on either side of 
+the cabin, three long tiers of hanging bookshelves, designed 
+apparently for volumes of the small octavo size.  Looking with 
+greater attention at these contrivances (wondering to find such 
+literary preparations in such a place), I descried on each shelf a 
+sort of microscopic sheet and blanket; then I began dimly to 
+comprehend that the passengers were the library, and that they were 
+to be arranged, edge-wise, on these shelves, till morning.
+
+I was assisted to this conclusion by seeing some of them gathered 
+round the master of the boat, at one of the tables, drawing lots 
+with all the anxieties and passions of gamesters depicted in their 
+countenances; while others, with small pieces of cardboard in their 
+hands, were groping among the shelves in search of numbers 
+corresponding with those they had drawn.  As soon as any gentleman 
+found his number, he took possession of it by immediately 
+undressing himself and crawling into bed.  The rapidity with which 
+an agitated gambler subsided into a snoring slumberer, was one of 
+the most singular effects I have ever witnessed.  As to the ladies, 
+they were already abed, behind the red curtain, which was carefully 
+drawn and pinned up the centre; though as every cough, or sneeze, 
+or whisper, behind this curtain, was perfectly audible before it, 
+we had still a lively consciousness of their society.
+
+The politeness of the person in authority had secured to me a shelf 
+in a nook near this red curtain, in some degree removed from the 
+great body of sleepers:  to which place I retired, with many 
+acknowledgments to him for his attention.  I found it, on after-
+measurement, just the width of an ordinary sheet of Bath post 
+letter-paper; and I was at first in some uncertainty as to the best 
+means of getting into it.  But the shelf being a bottom one, I 
+finally determined on lying upon the floor, rolling gently in, 
+stopping immediately I touched the mattress, and remaining for the 
+night with that side uppermost, whatever it might be.  Luckily, I 
+came upon my back at exactly the right moment.  I was much alarmed 
+on looking upward, to see, by the shape of his half-yard of sacking 
+(which his weight had bent into an exceedingly tight bag), that 
+there was a very heavy gentleman above me, whom the slender cords 
+seemed quite incapable of holding; and I could not help reflecting 
+upon the grief of my wife and family in the event of his coming 
+down in the night.  But as I could not have got up again without a 
+severe bodily struggle, which might have alarmed the ladies; and as 
+I had nowhere to go to, even if I had; I shut my eyes upon the 
+danger, and remained there.
+
+One of two remarkable circumstances is indisputably a fact, with 
+reference to that class of society who travel in these boats.  
+Either they carry their restlessness to such a pitch that they 
+never sleep at all; or they expectorate in dreams, which would be a 
+remarkable mingling of the real and ideal.  All night long, and 
+every night, on this canal, there was a perfect storm and tempest 
+of spitting; and once my coat, being in the very centre of the 
+hurricane sustained by five gentlemen (which moved vertically, 
+strictly carrying out Reid's Theory of the Law of Storms), I was 
+fain the next morning to lay it on the deck, and rub it down with 
+fair water before it was in a condition to be worn again.
+
+Between five and six o'clock in the morning we got up, and some of 
+us went on deck, to give them an opportunity of taking the shelves 
+down; while others, the morning being very cold, crowded round the 
+rusty stove, cherishing the newly kindled fire, and filling the 
+grate with those voluntary contributions of which they had been so 
+liberal all night.  The washing accommodations were primitive.  
+There was a tin ladle chained to the deck, with which every 
+gentleman who thought it necessary to cleanse himself (many were 
+superior to this weakness), fished the dirty water out of the 
+canal, and poured it into a tin basin, secured in like manner.  
+There was also a jack-towel.  And, hanging up before a little 
+looking-glass in the bar, in the immediate vicinity of the bread 
+and cheese and biscuits, were a public comb and hair-brush.
+
+At eight o'clock, the shelves being taken down and put away and the 
+tables joined together, everybody sat down to the tea, coffee, 
+bread, butter, salmon, shad, liver, steak, potatoes, pickles, ham, 
+chops, black-puddings, and sausages, all over again.  Some were 
+fond of compounding this variety, and having it all on their plates 
+at once.  As each gentleman got through his own personal amount of 
+tea, coffee, bread, butter, salmon, shad, liver, steak, potatoes, 
+pickles, ham, chops, black-puddings, and sausages, he rose up and 
+walked off.  When everybody had done with everything, the fragments 
+were cleared away:  and one of the waiters appearing anew in the 
+character of a barber, shaved such of the company as desired to be 
+shaved; while the remainder looked on, or yawned over their 
+newspapers.  Dinner was breakfast again, without the tea and 
+coffee; and supper and breakfast were identical.
+
+There was a man on board this boat, with a light fresh-coloured 
+face, and a pepper-and-salt suit of clothes, who was the most 
+inquisitive fellow that can possibly be imagined.  He never spoke 
+otherwise than interrogatively.  He was an embodied inquiry.  
+Sitting down or standing up, still or moving, walking the deck or 
+taking his meals, there he was, with a great note of interrogation 
+in each eye, two in his cocked ears, two more in his turned-up nose 
+and chin, at least half a dozen more about the corners of his 
+mouth, and the largest one of all in his hair, which was brushed 
+pertly off his forehead in a flaxen clump.  Every button in his 
+clothes said, 'Eh?  What's that?  Did you speak?  Say that again, 
+will you?'  He was always wide awake, like the enchanted bride who 
+drove her husband frantic; always restless; always thirsting for 
+answers; perpetually seeking and never finding.  There never was 
+such a curious man.
+
+I wore a fur great-coat at that time, and before we were well clear 
+of the wharf, he questioned me concerning it, and its price, and 
+where I bought it, and when, and what fur it was, and what it 
+weighed, and what it cost.  Then he took notice of my watch, and 
+asked me what THAT cost, and whether it was a French watch, and 
+where I got it, and how I got it, and whether I bought it or had it 
+given me, and how it went, and where the key-hole was, and when I 
+wound it, every night or every morning, and whether I ever forgot 
+to wind it at all, and if I did, what then?  Where had I been to 
+last, and where was I going next, and where was I going after that, 
+and had I seen the President, and what did he say, and what did I 
+say, and what did he say when I had said that?  Eh?  Lor now! do 
+tell!
+
+Finding that nothing would satisfy him, I evaded his questions 
+after the first score or two, and in particular pleaded ignorance 
+respecting the name of the fur whereof the coat was made.  I am 
+unable to say whether this was the reason, but that coat fascinated 
+him afterwards; he usually kept close behind me as I walked, and 
+moved as I moved, that he might look at it the better; and he 
+frequently dived into narrow places after me at the risk of his 
+life, that he might have the satisfaction of passing his hand up 
+the back, and rubbing it the wrong way.
+
+We had another odd specimen on board, of a different kind.  This 
+was a thin-faced, spare-figured man of middle age and stature, 
+dressed in a dusty drabbish-coloured suit, such as I never saw 
+before.  He was perfectly quiet during the first part of the 
+journey:  indeed I don't remember having so much as seen him until 
+he was brought out by circumstances, as great men often are.  The 
+conjunction of events which made him famous, happened, briefly, 
+thus.
+
+The canal extends to the foot of the mountain, and there, of 
+course, it stops; the passengers being conveyed across it by land 
+carriage, and taken on afterwards by another canal boat, the 
+counterpart of the first, which awaits them on the other side.  
+There are two canal lines of passage-boats; one is called The 
+Express, and one (a cheaper one) The Pioneer.  The Pioneer gets 
+first to the mountain, and waits for the Express people to come up; 
+both sets of passengers being conveyed across it at the same time.  
+We were the Express company; but when we had crossed the mountain, 
+and had come to the second boat, the proprietors took it into their 
+beads to draft all the Pioneers into it likewise, so that we were 
+five-and-forty at least, and the accession of passengers was not at 
+all of that kind which improved the prospect of sleeping at night.  
+Our people grumbled at this, as people do in such cases; but 
+suffered the boat to be towed off with the whole freight aboard 
+nevertheless; and away we went down the canal.  At home, I should 
+have protested lustily, but being a foreigner here, I held my 
+peace.  Not so this passenger.  He cleft a path among the people on 
+deck (we were nearly all on deck), and without addressing anybody 
+whomsoever, soliloquised as follows:
+
+'This may suit YOU, this may, but it don't suit ME.  This may be 
+all very well with Down Easters, and men of Boston raising, but it 
+won't suit my figure nohow; and no two ways about THAT; and so I 
+tell you.  Now!  I'm from the brown forests of Mississippi, I am, 
+and when the sun shines on me, it does shine - a little.  It don't 
+glimmer where I live, the sun don't.  No.  I'm a brown forester, I 
+am.  I an't a Johnny Cake.  There are no smooth skins where I live.  
+We're rough men there.  Rather.  If Down Easters and men of Boston 
+raising like this, I'm glad of it, but I'm none of that raising nor 
+of that breed.  No.  This company wants a little fixing, IT does.  
+I'm the wrong sort of man for 'em, I am.  They won't like me, THEY 
+won't.  This is piling of it up, a little too mountainous, this 
+is.'  At the end of every one of these short sentences he turned 
+upon his heel, and walked the other way; checking himself abruptly 
+when he had finished another short sentence, and turning back 
+again.
+
+It is impossible for me to say what terrific meaning was hidden in 
+the words of this brown forester, but I know that the other 
+passengers looked on in a sort of admiring horror, and that 
+presently the boat was put back to the wharf, and as many of the 
+Pioneers as could be coaxed or bullied into going away, were got 
+rid of.
+
+When we started again, some of the boldest spirits on board, made 
+bold to say to the obvious occasion of this improvement in our 
+prospects, 'Much obliged to you, sir;' whereunto the brown forester 
+(waving his hand, and still walking up and down as before), 
+replied, 'No you an't.  You're none o' my raising.  You may act for 
+yourselves, YOU may.  I have pinted out the way.  Down Easters and 
+Johnny Cakes can follow if they please.  I an't a Johnny Cake, I 
+an't.  I am from the brown forests of the Mississippi, I am' - and 
+so on, as before.  He was unanimously voted one of the tables for 
+his bed at night - there is a great contest for the tables - in 
+consideration for his public services:  and he had the warmest 
+corner by the stove throughout the rest of the journey.  But I 
+never could find out that he did anything except sit there; nor did 
+I hear him speak again until, in the midst of the bustle and 
+turmoil of getting the luggage ashore in the dark at Pittsburg, I 
+stumbled over him as he sat smoking a cigar on the cabin steps, and 
+heard him muttering to himself, with a short laugh of defiance, 'I 
+an't a Johnny Cake, - I an't.  I'm from the brown forests of the 
+Mississippi, I am, damme!'  I am inclined to argue from this, that 
+he had never left off saying so; but I could not make an affidavit 
+of that part of the story, if required to do so by my Queen and 
+Country.
+
+As we have not reached Pittsburg yet, however, in the order of our 
+narrative, I may go on to remark that breakfast was perhaps the 
+least desirable meal of the day, as in addition to the many savoury 
+odours arising from the eatables already mentioned, there were 
+whiffs of gin, whiskey, brandy, and rum, from the little bar hard 
+by, and a decided seasoning of stale tobacco.  Many of the 
+gentlemen passengers were far from particular in respect of their 
+linen, which was in some cases as yellow as the little rivulets 
+that had trickled from the corners of their mouths in chewing, and 
+dried there.  Nor was the atmosphere quite free from zephyr 
+whisperings of the thirty beds which had just been cleared away, 
+and of which we were further and more pressingly reminded by the 
+occasional appearance on the table-cloth of a kind of Game, not 
+mentioned in the Bill of Fare.
+
+And yet despite these oddities - and even they had, for me at 
+least, a humour of their own - there was much in this mode of 
+travelling which I heartily enjoyed at the time, and look back upon 
+with great pleasure.  Even the running up, bare-necked, at five 
+o'clock in the morning, from the tainted cabin to the dirty deck; 
+scooping up the icy water, plunging one's head into it, and drawing 
+it out, all fresh and glowing with the cold; was a good thing.  The 
+fast, brisk walk upon the towing-path, between that time and 
+breakfast, when every vein and artery seemed to tingle with health; 
+the exquisite beauty of the opening day, when light came gleaming 
+off from everything; the lazy motion of the boat, when one lay idly 
+on the deck, looking through, rather than at, the deep blue sky; 
+the gliding on at night, so noiselessly, past frowning hills, 
+sullen with dark trees, and sometimes angry in one red, burning 
+spot high up, where unseen men lay crouching round a fire; the 
+shining out of the bright stars undisturbed by noise of wheels or 
+steam, or any other sound than the limpid rippling of the water as 
+the boat went on:  all these were pure delights.
+
+Then there were new settlements and detached log-cabins and frame-
+houses, full of interest for strangers from an old country:  cabins 
+with simple ovens, outside, made of clay; and lodgings for the pigs 
+nearly as good as many of the human quarters; broken windows, 
+patched with worn-out hats, old clothes, old boards, fragments of 
+blankets and paper; and home-made dressers standing in the open air 
+without the door, whereon was ranged the household store, not hard 
+to count, of earthen jars and pots.  The eye was pained to see the 
+stumps of great trees thickly strewn in every field of wheat, and 
+seldom to lose the eternal swamp and dull morass, with hundreds of 
+rotten trunks and twisted branches steeped in its unwholesome 
+water.  It was quite sad and oppressive, to come upon great tracts 
+where settlers had been burning down the trees, and where their 
+wounded bodies lay about, like those of murdered creatures, while 
+here and there some charred and blackened giant reared aloft two 
+withered arms, and seemed to call down curses on his foes.  
+Sometimes, at night, the way wound through some lonely gorge, like 
+a mountain pass in Scotland, shining and coldly glittering in the 
+light of the moon, and so closed in by high steep hills all round, 
+that there seemed to be no egress save through the narrower path by 
+which we had come, until one rugged hill-side seemed to open, and 
+shutting out the moonlight as we passed into its gloomy throat, 
+wrapped our new course in shade and darkness.
+
+We had left Harrisburg on Friday.  On Sunday morning we arrived at 
+the foot of the mountain, which is crossed by railroad.  There are 
+ten inclined planes; five ascending, and five descending; the 
+carriages are dragged up the former, and let slowly down the 
+latter, by means of stationary engines; the comparatively level 
+spaces between, being traversed, sometimes by horse, and sometimes 
+by engine power, as the case demands.  Occasionally the rails are 
+laid upon the extreme verge of a giddy precipice; and looking from 
+the carriage window, the traveller gazes sheer down, without a 
+stone or scrap of fence between, into the mountain depths below.  
+The journey is very carefully made, however; only two carriages 
+travelling together; and while proper precautions are taken, is not 
+to be dreaded for its dangers.
+
+It was very pretty travelling thus, at a rapid pace along the 
+heights of the mountain in a keen wind, to look down into a valley 
+full of light and softness; catching glimpses, through the tree-
+tops, of scattered cabins; children running to the doors; dogs 
+bursting out to bark, whom we could see without hearing:  terrified 
+pigs scampering homewards; families sitting out in their rude 
+gardens; cows gazing upward with a stupid indifference; men in 
+their shirt-sleeves looking on at their unfinished houses, planning 
+out to-morrow's work; and we riding onward, high above them, like a 
+whirlwind.  It was amusing, too, when we had dined, and rattled 
+down a steep pass, having no other moving power than the weight of 
+the carriages themselves, to see the engine released, long after 
+us, come buzzing down alone, like a great insect, its back of green 
+and gold so shining in the sun, that if it had spread a pair of 
+wings and soared away, no one would have had occasion, as I 
+fancied, for the least surprise.  But it stopped short of us in a 
+very business-like manner when we reached the canal:  and, before 
+we left the wharf, went panting up this hill again, with the 
+passengers who had waited our arrival for the means of traversing 
+the road by which we had come.
+
+On the Monday evening, furnace fires and clanking hammers on the 
+banks of the canal, warned us that we approached the termination of 
+this part of our journey.  After going through another dreamy place 
+- a long aqueduct across the Alleghany River, which was stranger 
+than the bridge at Harrisburg, being a vast, low, wooden chamber 
+full of water - we emerged upon that ugly confusion of backs of 
+buildings and crazy galleries and stairs, which always abuts on 
+water, whether it be river, sea, canal, or ditch:  and were at 
+Pittsburg.
+
+Pittsburg is like Birmingham in England; at least its townspeople 
+say so.  Setting aside the streets, the shops, the houses, waggons, 
+factories, public buildings, and population, perhaps it may be.  It 
+certainly has a great quantity of smoke hanging about it, and is 
+famous for its iron-works.  Besides the prison to which I have 
+already referred, this town contains a pretty arsenal and other 
+institutions.  It is very beautifully situated on the Alleghany 
+River, over which there are two bridges; and the villas of the 
+wealthier citizens sprinkled about the high grounds in the 
+neighbourhood, are pretty enough.  We lodged at a most excellent 
+hotel, and were admirably served.  As usual it was full of 
+boarders, was very large, and had a broad colonnade to every story 
+of the house.
+
+We tarried here three days.  Our next point was Cincinnati:  and as 
+this was a steamboat journey, and western steamboats usually blow 
+up one or two a week in the season, it was advisable to collect 
+opinions in reference to the comparative safety of the vessels 
+bound that way, then lying in the river.  One called the Messenger 
+was the best recommended.  She had been advertised to start 
+positively, every day for a fortnight or so, and had not gone yet, 
+nor did her captain seem to have any very fixed intention on the 
+subject.  But this is the custom:  for if the law were to bind down 
+a free and independent citizen to keep his word with the public, 
+what would become of the liberty of the subject?  Besides, it is in 
+the way of trade.  And if passengers be decoyed in the way of 
+trade, and people be inconvenienced in the way of trade, what man, 
+who is a sharp tradesman himself, shall say, 'We must put a stop to 
+this?'
+
+Impressed by the deep solemnity of the public announcement, I 
+(being then ignorant of these usages) was for hurrying on board in 
+a breathless state, immediately; but receiving private and 
+confidential information that the boat would certainly not start 
+until Friday, April the First, we made ourselves very comfortable 
+in the mean while, and went on board at noon that day.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI - FROM PITTSBURG TO CINCINNATI IN A WESTERN STEAMBOAT.  
+CINCINNATI
+
+
+
+THE Messenger was one among a crowd of high-pressure steamboats, 
+clustered together by a wharf-side, which, looked down upon from 
+the rising ground that forms the landing-place, and backed by the 
+lofty bank on the opposite side of the river, appeared no larger 
+than so many floating models.  She had some forty passengers on 
+board, exclusive of the poorer persons on the lower deck; and in 
+half an hour, or less, proceeded on her way.
+
+We had, for ourselves, a tiny state-room with two berths in it, 
+opening out of the ladies' cabin.  There was, undoubtedly, 
+something satisfactory in this 'location,' inasmuch as it was in 
+the stern, and we had been a great many times very gravely 
+recommended to keep as far aft as possible, 'because the steamboats 
+generally blew up forward.'  Nor was this an unnecessary caution, 
+as the occurrence and circumstances of more than one such fatality 
+during our stay sufficiently testified.  Apart from this source of 
+self-congratulation, it was an unspeakable relief to have any 
+place, no matter how confined, where one could be alone:  and as 
+the row of little chambers of which this was one, had each a second 
+glass-door besides that in the ladies' cabin, which opened on a 
+narrow gallery outside the vessel, where the other passengers 
+seldom came, and where one could sit in peace and gaze upon the 
+shifting prospect, we took possession of our new quarters with much 
+pleasure.
+
+If the native packets I have already described be unlike anything 
+we are in the habit of seeing on water, these western vessels are 
+still more foreign to all the ideas we are accustomed to entertain 
+of boats.  I hardly know what to liken them to, or how to describe 
+them.
+
+In the first place, they have no mast, cordage, tackle, rigging, or 
+other such boat-like gear; nor have they anything in their shape at 
+all calculated to remind one of a boat's head, stem, sides, or 
+keel.  Except that they are in the water, and display a couple of 
+paddle-boxes, they might be intended, for anything that appears to 
+the contrary, to perform some unknown service, high and dry, upon a 
+mountain top.  There is no visible deck, even:  nothing but a long, 
+black, ugly roof covered with burnt-out feathery sparks; above 
+which tower two iron chimneys, and a hoarse escape valve, and a 
+glass steerage-house.  Then, in order as the eye descends towards 
+the water, are the sides, and doors, and windows of the state-
+rooms, jumbled as oddly together as though they formed a small 
+street, built by the varying tastes of a dozen men:  the whole is 
+supported on beams and pillars resting on a dirty barge, but a few 
+inches above the water's edge:  and in the narrow space between 
+this upper structure and this barge's deck, are the furnace fires 
+and machinery, open at the sides to every wind that blows, and 
+every storm of rain it drives along its path.
+
+Passing one of these boats at night, and seeing the great body of 
+fire, exposed as I have just described, that rages and roars 
+beneath the frail pile of painted wood:  the machinery, not warded 
+off or guarded in any way, but doing its work in the midst of the 
+crowd of idlers and emigrants and children, who throng the lower 
+deck:  under the management, too, of reckless men whose 
+acquaintance with its mysteries may have been of six months' 
+standing:  one feels directly that the wonder is, not that there 
+should be so many fatal accidents, but that any journey should be 
+safely made.
+
+Within, there is one long narrow cabin, the whole length of the 
+boat; from which the state-rooms open, on both sides.  A small 
+portion of it at the stern is partitioned off for the ladies; and 
+the bar is at the opposite extreme.  There is a long table down the 
+centre, and at either end a stove.  The washing apparatus is 
+forward, on the deck.  It is a little better than on board the 
+canal boat, but not much.  In all modes of travelling, the American 
+customs, with reference to the means of personal cleanliness and 
+wholesome ablution, are extremely negligent and filthy; and I 
+strongly incline to the belief that a considerable amount of 
+illness is referable to this cause.
+
+We are to be on board the Messenger three days:  arriving at 
+Cincinnati (barring accidents) on Monday morning.  There are three 
+meals a day.  Breakfast at seven, dinner at half-past twelve, 
+supper about six.  At each, there are a great many small dishes and 
+plates upon the table, with very little in them; so that although 
+there is every appearance of a mighty 'spread,' there is seldom 
+really more than a joint:  except for those who fancy slices of 
+beet-root, shreds of dried beef, complicated entanglements of 
+yellow pickle; maize, Indian corn, apple-sauce, and pumpkin.
+
+Some people fancy all these little dainties together (and sweet 
+preserves beside), by way of relish to their roast pig.  They are 
+generally those dyspeptic ladies and gentlemen who eat unheard-of 
+quantities of hot corn bread (almost as good for the digestion as a 
+kneaded pin-cushion), for breakfast, and for supper.  Those who do 
+not observe this custom, and who help themselves several times 
+instead, usually suck their knives and forks meditatively, until 
+they have decided what to take next:  then pull them out of their 
+mouths:  put them in the dish; help themselves; and fall to work 
+again.  At dinner, there is nothing to drink upon the table, but 
+great jugs full of cold water.  Nobody says anything, at any meal, 
+to anybody.  All the passengers are very dismal, and seem to have 
+tremendous secrets weighing on their minds.  There is no 
+conversation, no laughter, no cheerfulness, no sociality, except in 
+spitting; and that is done in silent fellowship round the stove, 
+when the meal is over.  Every man sits down, dull and languid; 
+swallows his fare as if breakfasts, dinners, and suppers, were 
+necessities of nature never to be coupled with recreation or 
+enjoyment; and having bolted his food in a gloomy silence, bolts 
+himself, in the same state.  But for these animal observances, you 
+might suppose the whole male portion of the company to be the 
+melancholy ghosts of departed book-keepers, who had fallen dead at 
+the desk:  such is their weary air of business and calculation.  
+Undertakers on duty would be sprightly beside them; and a collation 
+of funeral-baked meats, in comparison with these meals, would be a 
+sparkling festivity.
+
+The people are all alike, too.  There is no diversity of character.  
+They travel about on the same errands, say and do the same things 
+in exactly the same manner, and follow in the same dull cheerless 
+round.  All down the long table, there is scarcely a man who is in 
+anything different from his neighbour.  It is quite a relief to 
+have, sitting opposite, that little girl of fifteen with the 
+loquacious chin:  who, to do her justice, acts up to it, and fully 
+identifies nature's handwriting, for of all the small chatterboxes 
+that ever invaded the repose of drowsy ladies' cabin, she is the 
+first and foremost.  The beautiful girl, who sits a little beyond 
+her - farther down the table there - married the young man with the 
+dark whiskers, who sits beyond HER, only last month.  They are 
+going to settle in the very Far West, where he has lived four 
+years, but where she has never been.  They were both overturned in 
+a stage-coach the other day (a bad omen anywhere else, where 
+overturns are not so common), and his head, which bears the marks 
+of a recent wound, is bound up still.  She was hurt too, at the 
+same time, and lay insensible for some days; bright as her eyes 
+are, now.
+
+Further down still, sits a man who is going some miles beyond their 
+place of destination, to 'improve' a newly-discovered copper mine.  
+He carries the village - that is to be - with him:  a few frame 
+cottages, and an apparatus for smelting the copper.  He carries its 
+people too.  They are partly American and partly Irish, and herd 
+together on the lower deck; where they amused themselves last 
+evening till the night was pretty far advanced, by alternately 
+firing off pistols and singing hymns.
+
+They, and the very few who have been left at table twenty minutes, 
+rise, and go away.  We do so too; and passing through our little 
+state-room, resume our seats in the quiet gallery without.
+
+A fine broad river always, but in some parts much wider than in 
+others:  and then there is usually a green island, covered with 
+trees, dividing it into two streams.  Occasionally, we stop for a 
+few minutes, maybe to take in wood, maybe for passengers, at some 
+small town or village (I ought to say city, every place is a city 
+here); but the banks are for the most part deep solitudes, 
+overgrown with trees, which, hereabouts, are already in leaf and 
+very green.  For miles, and miles, and miles, these solitudes are 
+unbroken by any sign of human life or trace of human footstep; nor 
+is anything seen to move about them but the blue jay, whose colour 
+is so bright, and yet so delicate, that it looks like a flying 
+flower.  At lengthened intervals a log cabin, with its little space 
+of cleared land about it, nestles under a rising ground, and sends 
+its thread of blue smoke curling up into the sky.  It stands in the 
+corner of the poor field of wheat, which is full of great unsightly 
+stumps, like earthy butchers'-blocks.  Sometimes the ground is only 
+just now cleared:  the felled trees lying yet upon the soil:  and 
+the log-house only this morning begun.  As we pass this clearing, 
+the settler leans upon his axe or hammer, and looks wistfully at 
+the people from the world.  The children creep out of the temporary 
+hut, which is like a gipsy tent upon the ground, and clap their 
+hands and shout.  The dog only glances round at us, and then looks 
+up into his master's face again, as if he were rendered uneasy by 
+any suspension of the common business, and had nothing more to do 
+with pleasurers.  And still there is the same, eternal foreground.  
+The river has washed away its banks, and stately trees have fallen 
+down into the stream.  Some have been there so long, that they are 
+mere dry, grizzly skeletons.  Some have just toppled over, and 
+having earth yet about their roots, are bathing their green heads 
+in the river, and putting forth new shoots and branches.  Some are 
+almost sliding down, as you look at them.  And some were drowned so 
+long ago, that their bleached arms start out from the middle of the 
+current, and seem to try to grasp the boat, and drag it under 
+water.
+
+Through such a scene as this, the unwieldy machine takes its 
+hoarse, sullen way:  venting, at every revolution of the paddles, a 
+loud high-pressure blast; enough, one would think, to waken up the 
+host of Indians who lie buried in a great mound yonder:  so old, 
+that mighty oaks and other forest trees have struck their roots 
+into its earth; and so high, that it is a hill, even among the 
+hills that Nature planted round it.  The very river, as though it 
+shared one's feelings of compassion for the extinct tribes who 
+lived so pleasantly here, in their blessed ignorance of white 
+existence, hundreds of years ago, steals out of its way to ripple 
+near this mound:  and there are few places where the Ohio sparkles 
+more brightly than in the Big Grave Creek.
+
+All this I see as I sit in the little stern-gallery mentioned just 
+now.  Evening slowly steals upon the landscape and changes it 
+before me, when we stop to set some emigrants ashore.
+
+Five men, as many women, and a little girl.  All their worldly 
+goods are a bag, a large chest and an old chair:  one, old, high-
+backed, rush-bottomed chair:  a solitary settler in itself.  They 
+are rowed ashore in the boat, while the vessel stands a little off 
+awaiting its return, the water being shallow.  They are landed at 
+the foot of a high bank, on the summit of which are a few log 
+cabins, attainable only by a long winding path.  It is growing 
+dusk; but the sun is very red, and shines in the water and on some 
+of the tree-tops, like fire.
+
+The men get out of the boat first; help out the women; take out the 
+bag, the chest, the chair; bid the rowers 'good-bye;' and shove the 
+boat off for them.  At the first plash of the oars in the water, 
+the oldest woman of the party sits down in the old chair, close to 
+the water's edge, without speaking a word.  None of the others sit 
+down, though the chest is large enough for many seats.  They all 
+stand where they landed, as if stricken into stone; and look after 
+the boat.  So they remain, quite still and silent:  the old woman 
+and her old chair, in the centre the bag and chest upon the shore, 
+without anybody heeding them all eyes fixed upon the boat.  It 
+comes alongside, is made fast, the men jump on board, the engine is 
+put in motion, and we go hoarsely on again.  There they stand yet, 
+without the motion of a hand.  I can see them through my glass, 
+when, in the distance and increasing darkness, they are mere specks 
+to the eye:  lingering there still:  the old woman in the old 
+chair, and all the rest about her:  not stirring in the least 
+degree.  And thus I slowly lose them.
+
+The night is dark, and we proceed within the shadow of the wooded 
+bank, which makes it darker.  After gliding past the sombre maze of 
+boughs for a long time, we come upon an open space where the tall 
+trees are burning.  The shape of every branch and twig is expressed 
+in a deep red glow, and as the light wind stirs and ruffles it, 
+they seem to vegetate in fire.  It is such a sight as we read of in 
+legends of enchanted forests:  saving that it is sad to see these 
+noble works wasting away so awfully, alone; and to think how many 
+years must come and go before the magic that created them will rear 
+their like upon this ground again.  But the time will come; and 
+when, in their changed ashes, the growth of centuries unborn has 
+struck its roots, the restless men of distant ages will repair to 
+these again unpeopled solitudes; and their fellows, in cities far 
+away, that slumber now, perhaps, beneath the rolling sea, will read 
+in language strange to any ears in being now, but very old to them, 
+of primeval forests where the axe was never heard, and where the 
+jungled ground was never trodden by a human foot.
+
+Midnight and sleep blot out these scenes and thoughts:  and when 
+the morning shines again, it gilds the house-tops of a lively city, 
+before whose broad paved wharf the boat is moored; with other 
+boats, and flags, and moving wheels, and hum of men around it; as 
+though there were not a solitary or silent rood of ground within 
+the compass of a thousand miles.
+
+Cincinnati is a beautiful city; cheerful, thriving, and animated.  
+I have not often seen a place that commends itself so favourably 
+and pleasantly to a stranger at the first glance as this does:  
+with its clean houses of red and white, its well-paved roads, and 
+foot-ways of bright tile.  Nor does it become less prepossessing on 
+a closer acquaintance.  The streets are broad and airy, the shops 
+extremely good, the private residences remarkable for their 
+elegance and neatness.  There is something of invention and fancy 
+in the varying styles of these latter erections, which, after the 
+dull company of the steamboat, is perfectly delightful, as 
+conveying an assurance that there are such qualities still in 
+existence.  The disposition to ornament these pretty villas and 
+render them attractive, leads to the culture of trees and flowers, 
+and the laying out of well-kept gardens, the sight of which, to 
+those who walk along the streets, is inexpressibly refreshing and 
+agreeable.  I was quite charmed with the appearance of the town, 
+and its adjoining suburb of Mount Auburn:  from which the city, 
+lying in an amphitheatre of hills, forms a picture of remarkable 
+beauty, and is seen to great advantage.
+
+There happened to be a great Temperance Convention held here on the 
+day after our arrival; and as the order of march brought the 
+procession under the windows of the hotel in which we lodged, when 
+they started in the morning, I had a good opportunity of seeing it.  
+It comprised several thousand men; the members of various 
+'Washington Auxiliary Temperance Societies;' and was marshalled by 
+officers on horseback, who cantered briskly up and down the line, 
+with scarves and ribbons of bright colours fluttering out behind 
+them gaily.  There were bands of music too, and banners out of 
+number:  and it was a fresh, holiday-looking concourse altogether.
+
+I was particularly pleased to see the Irishmen, who formed a 
+distinct society among themselves, and mustered very strong with 
+their green scarves; carrying their national Harp and their 
+Portrait of Father Mathew, high above the people's heads.  They 
+looked as jolly and good-humoured as ever; and, working (here) the 
+hardest for their living and doing any kind of sturdy labour that 
+came in their way, were the most independent fellows there, I 
+thought.
+
+The banners were very well painted, and flaunted down the street 
+famously.  There was the smiting of the rock, and the gushing forth 
+of the waters; and there was a temperate man with 'considerable of 
+a hatchet' (as the standard-bearer would probably have said), 
+aiming a deadly blow at a serpent which was apparently about to 
+spring upon him from the top of a barrel of spirits.  But the chief 
+feature of this part of the show was a huge allegorical device, 
+borne among the ship-carpenters, on one side whereof the steamboat 
+Alcohol was represented bursting her boiler and exploding with a 
+great crash, while upon the other, the good ship Temperance sailed 
+away with a fair wind, to the heart's content of the captain, crew, 
+and passengers.
+
+After going round the town, the procession repaired to a certain 
+appointed place, where, as the printed programme set forth, it 
+would be received by the children of the different free schools, 
+'singing Temperance Songs.'  I was prevented from getting there, in 
+time to hear these Little Warblers, or to report upon this novel 
+kind of vocal entertainment:  novel, at least, to me:  but I found 
+in a large open space, each society gathered round its own banners, 
+and listening in silent attention to its own orator.  The speeches, 
+judging from the little I could hear of them, were certainly 
+adapted to the occasion, as having that degree of relationship to 
+cold water which wet blankets may claim:  but the main thing was 
+the conduct and appearance of the audience throughout the day; and 
+that was admirable and full of promise.
+
+Cincinnati is honourably famous for its free schools, of which it 
+has so many that no person's child among its population can, by 
+possibility, want the means of education, which are extended, upon 
+an average, to four thousand pupils, annually.  I was only present 
+in one of these establishments during the hours of instruction.  In 
+the boys' department, which was full of little urchins (varying in 
+their ages, I should say, from six years old to ten or twelve), the 
+master offered to institute an extemporary examination of the 
+pupils in algebra; a proposal, which, as I was by no means 
+confident of my ability to detect mistakes in that science, I 
+declined with some alarm.  In the girls' school, reading was 
+proposed; and as I felt tolerably equal to that art, I expressed my 
+willingness to hear a class.  Books were distributed accordingly, 
+and some half-dozen girls relieved each other in reading paragraphs 
+from English History.  But it seemed to be a dry compilation, 
+infinitely above their powers; and when they had blundered through 
+three or four dreary passages concerning the Treaty of Amiens, and 
+other thrilling topics of the same nature (obviously without 
+comprehending ten words), I expressed myself quite satisfied.  It 
+is very possible that they only mounted to this exalted stave in 
+the Ladder of Learning for the astonishment of a visitor; and that 
+at other times they keep upon its lower rounds; but I should have 
+been much better pleased and satisfied if I had heard them 
+exercised in simpler lessons, which they understood.
+
+As in every other place I visited, the judges here were gentlemen 
+of high character and attainments.  I was in one of the courts for 
+a few minutes, and found it like those to which I have already 
+referred.  A nuisance cause was trying; there were not many 
+spectators; and the witnesses, counsel, and jury, formed a sort of 
+family circle, sufficiently jocose and snug.
+
+The society with which I mingled, was intelligent, courteous, and 
+agreeable.  The inhabitants of Cincinnati are proud of their city 
+as one of the most interesting in America:  and with good reason:  
+for beautiful and thriving as it is now, and containing, as it 
+does, a population of fifty thousand souls, but two-and-fifty years 
+have passed away since the ground on which it stands (bought at 
+that time for a few dollars) was a wild wood, and its citizens were 
+but a handful of dwellers in scattered log huts upon the river's 
+shore.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII - FROM CINCINNATI TO LOUISVILLE IN ANOTHER WESTERN 
+STEAMBOAT; AND FROM LOUISVILLE TO ST. LOUIS IN ANOTHER.  ST. LOUIS
+
+
+
+LEAVING Cincinnati at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, we embarked 
+for Louisville in the Pike steamboat, which, carrying the mails, 
+was a packet of a much better class than that in which we had come 
+from Pittsburg.  As this passage does not occupy more than twelve 
+or thirteen hours, we arranged to go ashore that night:  not 
+coveting the distinction of sleeping in a state-room, when it was 
+possible to sleep anywhere else.
+
+There chanced to be on board this boat, in addition to the usual 
+dreary crowd of passengers, one Pitchlynn, a chief of the Choctaw 
+tribe of Indians, who SENT IN HIS CARD to me, and with whom I had 
+the pleasure of a long conversation.
+
+He spoke English perfectly well, though he had not begun to learn 
+the language, he told me, until he was a young man grown.  He had 
+read many books; and Scott's poetry appeared to have left a strong 
+impression on his mind:  especially the opening of The Lady of the 
+Lake, and the great battle scene in Marmion, in which, no doubt 
+from the congeniality of the subjects to his own pursuits and 
+tastes, he had great interest and delight.  He appeared to 
+understand correctly all he had read; and whatever fiction had 
+enlisted his sympathy in its belief, had done so keenly and 
+earnestly.  I might almost say fiercely.  He was dressed in our 
+ordinary everyday costume, which hung about his fine figure 
+loosely, and with indifferent grace.  On my telling him that I 
+regretted not to see him in his own attire, he threw up his right 
+arm, for a moment, as though he were brandishing some heavy weapon, 
+and answered, as he let it fall again, that his race were losing 
+many things besides their dress, and would soon be seen upon the 
+earth no more:  but he wore it at home, he added proudly.
+
+He told me that he had been away from his home, west of the 
+Mississippi, seventeen months:  and was now returning.  He had been 
+chiefly at Washington on some negotiations pending between his 
+Tribe and the Government:  which were not settled yet (he said in a 
+melancholy way), and he feared never would be:  for what could a 
+few poor Indians do, against such well-skilled men of business as 
+the whites?  He had no love for Washington; tired of towns and 
+cities very soon; and longed for the Forest and the Prairie.
+
+I asked him what he thought of Congress?  He answered, with a 
+smile, that it wanted dignity, in an Indian's eyes.
+
+He would very much like, he said, to see England before he died; 
+and spoke with much interest about the great things to be seen 
+there.  When I told him of that chamber in the British Museum 
+wherein are preserved household memorials of a race that ceased to 
+be, thousands of years ago, he was very attentive, and it was not 
+hard to see that he had a reference in his mind to the gradual 
+fading away of his own people.
+
+This led us to speak of Mr. Catlin's gallery, which he praised 
+highly:  observing that his own portrait was among the collection, 
+and that all the likenesses were 'elegant.'  Mr. Cooper, he said, 
+had painted the Red Man well; and so would I, he knew, if I would 
+go home with him and hunt buffaloes, which he was quite anxious I 
+should do.  When I told him that supposing I went, I should not be 
+very likely to damage the buffaloes much, he took it as a great 
+joke and laughed heartily.
+
+He was a remarkably handsome man; some years past forty, I should 
+judge; with long black hair, an aquiline nose, broad cheek-bones, a 
+sunburnt complexion, and a very bright, keen, dark, and piercing 
+eye.  There were but twenty thousand of the Choctaws left, he said, 
+and their number was decreasing every day.  A few of his brother 
+chiefs had been obliged to become civilised, and to make themselves 
+acquainted with what the whites knew, for it was their only chance 
+of existence.  But they were not many; and the rest were as they 
+always had been.  He dwelt on this:  and said several times that 
+unless they tried to assimilate themselves to their conquerors, 
+they must be swept away before the strides of civilised society.
+
+When we shook hands at parting, I told him he must come to England, 
+as he longed to see the land so much:  that I should hope to see 
+him there, one day:  and that I could promise him he would be well 
+received and kindly treated.  He was evidently pleased by this 
+assurance, though he rejoined with a good-humoured smile and an 
+arch shake of his head, that the English used to be very fond of 
+the Red Men when they wanted their help, but had not cared much for 
+them, since.
+
+He took his leave; as stately and complete a gentleman of Nature's 
+making, as ever I beheld; and moved among the people in the boat, 
+another kind of being.  He sent me a lithographed portrait of 
+himself soon afterwards; very like, though scarcely handsome 
+enough; which I have carefully preserved in memory of our brief 
+acquaintance.
+
+There was nothing very interesting in the scenery of this day's 
+journey, which brought us at midnight to Louisville.  We slept at 
+the Galt House; a splendid hotel; and were as handsomely lodged as 
+though we had been in Paris, rather than hundreds of miles beyond 
+the Alleghanies.
+
+The city presenting no objects of sufficient interest to detain us 
+on our way, we resolved to proceed next day by another steamboat, 
+the Fulton, and to join it, about noon, at a suburb called 
+Portland, where it would be delayed some time in passing through a 
+canal.
+
+The interval, after breakfast, we devoted to riding through the 
+town, which is regular and cheerful:  the streets being laid out at 
+right angles, and planted with young trees.  The buildings are 
+smoky and blackened, from the use of bituminous coal, but an 
+Englishman is well used to that appearance, and indisposed to 
+quarrel with it.  There did not appear to be much business 
+stirring; and some unfinished buildings and improvements seemed to 
+intimate that the city had been overbuilt in the ardour of 'going-
+a-head,' and was suffering under the re-action consequent upon such 
+feverish forcing of its powers.
+
+On our way to Portland, we passed a 'Magistrate's office,' which 
+amused me, as looking far more like a dame school than any police 
+establishment:  for this awful Institution was nothing but a little 
+lazy, good-for-nothing front parlour, open to the street; wherein 
+two or three figures (I presume the magistrate and his myrmidons) 
+were basking in the sunshine, the very effigies of languor and 
+repose.  It was a perfect picture of justice retired from business 
+for want of customers; her sword and scales sold off; napping 
+comfortably with her legs upon the table.
+
+Here, as elsewhere in these parts, the road was perfectly alive 
+with pigs of all ages; lying about in every direction, fast 
+asleep.; or grunting along in quest of hidden dainties.  I had 
+always a sneaking kindness for these odd animals, and found a 
+constant source of amusement, when all others failed, in watching 
+their proceedings.  As we were riding along this morning, I 
+observed a little incident between two youthful pigs, which was so 
+very human as to be inexpressibly comical and grotesque at the 
+time, though I dare say, in telling, it is tame enough.
+
+One young gentleman (a very delicate porker with several straws 
+sticking about his nose, betokening recent investigations in a 
+dung-hill) was walking deliberately on, profoundly thinking, when 
+suddenly his brother, who was lying in a miry hole unseen by him, 
+rose up immediately before his startled eyes, ghostly with damp 
+mud.  Never was pig's whole mass of blood so turned.  He started 
+back at least three feet, gazed for a moment, and then shot off as 
+hard as he could go:  his excessively little tail vibrating with 
+speed and terror like a distracted pendulum.  But before he had 
+gone very far, he began to reason with himself as to the nature of 
+this frightful appearance; and as he reasoned, he relaxed his speed 
+by gradual degrees; until at last he stopped, and faced about.  
+There was his brother, with the mud upon him glazing in the sun, 
+yet staring out of the very same hole, perfectly amazed at his 
+proceedings!  He was no sooner assured of this; and he assured 
+himself so carefully that one may almost say he shaded his eyes 
+with his hand to see the better; than he came back at a round trot, 
+pounced upon him, and summarily took off a piece of his tail; as a 
+caution to him to be careful what he was about for the future, and 
+never to play tricks with his family any more.
+
+We found the steamboat in the canal, waiting for the slow process 
+of getting through the lock, and went on board, where we shortly 
+afterwards had a new kind of visitor in the person of a certain 
+Kentucky Giant whose name is Porter, and who is of the moderate 
+height of seven feet eight inches, in his stockings.
+
+There never was a race of people who so completely gave the lie to 
+history as these giants, or whom all the chroniclers have so 
+cruelly libelled.  Instead of roaring and ravaging about the world, 
+constantly catering for their cannibal larders, and perpetually 
+going to market in an unlawful manner, they are the meekest people 
+in any man's acquaintance:  rather inclining to milk and vegetable 
+diet, and bearing anything for a quiet life.  So decidedly are 
+amiability and mildness their characteristics, that I confess I 
+look upon that youth who distinguished himself by the slaughter of 
+these inoffensive persons, as a false-hearted brigand, who, 
+pretending to philanthropic motives, was secretly influenced only 
+by the wealth stored up within their castles, and the hope of 
+plunder.  And I lean the more to this opinion from finding that 
+even the historian of those exploits, with all his partiality for 
+his hero, is fain to admit that the slaughtered monsters in 
+question were of a very innocent and simple turn; extremely 
+guileless and ready of belief; lending a credulous ear to the most 
+improbable tales; suffering themselves to be easily entrapped into 
+pits; and even (as in the case of the Welsh Giant) with an excess 
+of the hospitable politeness of a landlord, ripping themselves 
+open, rather than hint at the possibility of their guests being 
+versed in the vagabond arts of sleight-of-hand and hocus-pocus.
+
+The Kentucky Giant was but another illustration of the truth of 
+this position.  He had a weakness in the region of the knees, and a 
+trustfulness in his long face, which appealed even to five-feet 
+nine for encouragement and support.  He was only twenty-five years 
+old, he said, and had grown recently, for it had been found 
+necessary to make an addition to the legs of his inexpressibles.  
+At fifteen he was a short boy, and in those days his English father 
+and his Irish mother had rather snubbed him, as being too small of 
+stature to sustain the credit of the family.  He added that his 
+health had not been good, though it was better now; but short 
+people are not wanting who whisper that he drinks too hard.
+
+I understand he drives a hackney-coach, though how he does it, 
+unless he stands on the footboard behind, and lies along the roof 
+upon his chest, with his chin in the box, it would be difficult to 
+comprehend.  He brought his gun with him, as a curiosity.
+
+Christened 'The Little Rifle,' and displayed outside a shop-window, 
+it would make the fortune of any retail business in Holborn.  When 
+he had shown himself and talked a little while, he withdrew with 
+his pocket-instrument, and went bobbing down the cabin, among men 
+of six feet high and upwards, like a light-house walking among 
+lamp-posts.
+
+Within a few minutes afterwards, we were out of the canal, and in 
+the Ohio river again.
+
+The arrangements of the boat were like those of the Messenger, and 
+the passengers were of the same order of people.  We fed at the 
+same times, on the same kind of viands, in the same dull manner, 
+and with the same observances.  The company appeared to be 
+oppressed by the same tremendous concealments, and had as little 
+capacity of enjoyment or light-heartedness.  I never in my life did 
+see such listless, heavy dulness as brooded over these meals:  the 
+very recollection of it weighs me down, and makes me, for the 
+moment, wretched.  Reading and writing on my knee, in our little 
+cabin, I really dreaded the coming of the hour that summoned us to 
+table; and was as glad to escape from it again, as if it had been a 
+penance or a punishment.  Healthy cheerfulness and good spirits 
+forming a part of the banquet, I could soak my crusts in the 
+fountain with Le Sage's strolling player, and revel in their glad 
+enjoyment:  but sitting down with so many fellow-animals to ward 
+off thirst and hunger as a business; to empty, each creature, his 
+Yahoo's trough as quickly as he can, and then slink sullenly away; 
+to have these social sacraments stripped of everything but the mere 
+greedy satisfaction of the natural cravings; goes so against the 
+grain with me, that I seriously believe the recollection of these 
+funeral feasts will be a waking nightmare to me all my life.
+
+There was some relief in this boat, too, which there had not been 
+in the other, for the captain (a blunt, good-natured fellow) had 
+his handsome wife with him, who was disposed to be lively and 
+agreeable, as were a few other lady-passengers who had their seats 
+about us at the same end of the table.  But nothing could have made 
+head against the depressing influence of the general body.  There 
+was a magnetism of dulness in them which would have beaten down the 
+most facetious companion that the earth ever knew.  A jest would 
+have been a crime, and a smile would have faded into a grinning 
+horror.  Such deadly, leaden people; such systematic plodding, 
+weary, insupportable heaviness; such a mass of animated indigestion 
+in respect of all that was genial, jovial, frank, social, or 
+hearty; never, sure, was brought together elsewhere since the world 
+began.
+
+Nor was the scenery, as we approached the junction of the Ohio and 
+Mississippi rivers, at all inspiriting in its influence.  The trees 
+were stunted in their growth; the banks were low and flat; the 
+settlements and log cabins fewer in number:  their inhabitants more 
+wan and wretched than any we had encountered yet.  No songs of 
+birds were in the air, no pleasant scents, no moving lights and 
+shadows from swift passing clouds.  Hour after hour, the changeless 
+glare of the hot, unwinking sky, shone upon the same monotonous 
+objects.  Hour after hour, the river rolled along, as wearily and 
+slowly as the time itself.
+
+At length, upon the morning of the third day, we arrived at a spot 
+so much more desolate than any we had yet beheld, that the 
+forlornest places we had passed, were, in comparison with it, full 
+of interest.  At the junction of the two rivers, on ground so flat 
+and low and marshy, that at certain seasons of the year it is 
+inundated to the house-tops, lies a breeding-place of fever, ague, 
+and death; vaunted in England as a mine of Golden Hope, and 
+speculated in, on the faith of monstrous representations, to many 
+people's ruin.  A dismal swamp, on which the half-built houses rot 
+away:  cleared here and there for the space of a few yards; and 
+teeming, then, with rank unwholesome vegetation, in whose baleful 
+shade the wretched wanderers who are tempted hither, droop, and 
+die, and lay their bones; the hateful Mississippi circling and 
+eddying before it, and turning off upon its southern course a slimy 
+monster hideous to behold; a hotbed of disease, an ugly sepulchre, 
+a grave uncheered by any gleam of promise:  a place without one 
+single quality, in earth or air or water, to commend it:  such is 
+this dismal Cairo.
+
+But what words shall describe the Mississippi, great father of 
+rivers, who (praise be to Heaven) has no young children like him!  
+An enormous ditch, sometimes two or three miles wide, running 
+liquid mud, six miles an hour:  its strong and frothy current 
+choked and obstructed everywhere by huge logs and whole forest 
+trees:  now twining themselves together in great rafts, from the 
+interstices of which a sedgy, lazy foam works up, to float upon the 
+water's top; now rolling past like monstrous bodies, their tangled 
+roots showing like matted hair; now glancing singly by like giant 
+leeches; and now writhing round and round in the vortex of some 
+small whirlpool, like wounded snakes.  The banks low, the trees 
+dwarfish, the marshes swarming with frogs, the wretched cabins few 
+and far apart, their inmates hollow-cheeked and pale, the weather 
+very hot, mosquitoes penetrating into every crack and crevice of 
+the boat, mud and slime on everything:  nothing pleasant in its 
+aspect, but the harmless lightning which flickers every night upon 
+the dark horizon.
+
+For two days we toiled up this foul stream, striking constantly 
+against the floating timber, or stopping to avoid those more 
+dangerous obstacles, the snags, or sawyers, which are the hidden 
+trunks of trees that have their roots below the tide.  When the 
+nights are very dark, the look-out stationed in the head of the 
+boat, knows by the ripple of the water if any great impediment be 
+near at hand, and rings a bell beside him, which is the signal for 
+the engine to be stopped:  but always in the night this bell has 
+work to do, and after every ring, there comes a blow which renders 
+it no easy matter to remain in bed.
+
+The decline of day here was very gorgeous; tingeing the firmament 
+deeply with red and gold, up to the very keystone of the arch above 
+us.  As the sun went down behind the bank, the slightest blades of 
+grass upon it seemed to become as distinctly visible as the 
+arteries in the skeleton of a leaf; and when, as it slowly sank, 
+the red and golden bars upon the water grew dimmer, and dimmer yet, 
+as if they were sinking too; and all the glowing colours of 
+departing day paled, inch by inch, before the sombre night; the 
+scene became a thousand times more lonesome and more dreary than 
+before, and all its influences darkened with the sky.
+
+We drank the muddy water of this river while we were upon it.  It 
+is considered wholesome by the natives, and is something more 
+opaque than gruel.  I have seen water like it at the Filter-shops, 
+but nowhere else.
+
+On the fourth night after leaving Louisville, we reached St. Louis, 
+and here I witnessed the conclusion of an incident, trifling enough 
+in itself, but very pleasant to see, which had interested me during 
+the whole journey.
+
+There was a little woman on board, with a little baby; and both 
+little woman and little child were cheerful, good-looking, bright-
+eyed, and fair to see.  The little woman had been passing a long 
+time with her sick mother in New York, and had left her home in St. 
+Louis, in that condition in which ladies who truly love their lords 
+desire to be.  The baby was born in her mother's house; and she had 
+not seen her husband (to whom she was now returning), for twelve 
+months:  having left him a month or two after their marriage.
+
+Well, to be sure, there never was a little woman so full of hope, 
+and tenderness, and love, and anxiety, as this little woman was:  
+and all day long she wondered whether 'He' would be at the wharf; 
+and whether 'He' had got her letter; and whether, if she sent the 
+baby ashore by somebody else, 'He' would know it, meeting it in the 
+street:  which, seeing that he had never set eyes upon it in his 
+life, was not very likely in the abstract, but was probable enough, 
+to the young mother.  She was such an artless little creature; and 
+was in such a sunny, beaming, hopeful state; and let out all this 
+matter clinging close about her heart, so freely; that all the 
+other lady passengers entered into the spirit of it as much as she; 
+and the captain (who heard all about it from his wife) was wondrous 
+sly, I promise you:  inquiring, every time we met at table, as in 
+forgetfulness, whether she expected anybody to meet her at St. 
+Louis, and whether she would want to go ashore the night we reached 
+it (but he supposed she wouldn't), and cutting many other dry jokes 
+of that nature.  There was one little weazen, dried-apple-faced old 
+woman, who took occasion to doubt the constancy of husbands in such 
+circumstances of bereavement; and there was another lady (with a 
+lap-dog) old enough to moralize on the lightness of human 
+affections, and yet not so old that she could help nursing the 
+baby, now and then, or laughing with the rest, when the little 
+woman called it by its father's name, and asked it all manner of 
+fantastic questions concerning him in the joy of her heart.
+
+It was something of a blow to the little woman, that when we were 
+within twenty miles of our destination, it became clearly necessary 
+to put this baby to bed.  But she got over it with the same good 
+humour; tied a handkerchief round her head; and came out into the 
+little gallery with the rest.  Then, such an oracle as she became 
+in reference to the localities! and such facetiousness as was 
+displayed by the married ladies! and such sympathy as was shown by 
+the single ones! and such peals of laughter as the little woman 
+herself (who would just as soon have cried) greeted every jest 
+with!
+
+At last, there were the lights of St. Louis, and here was the 
+wharf, and those were the steps:  and the little woman covering her 
+face with her hands, and laughing (or seeming to laugh) more than 
+ever, ran into her own cabin, and shut herself up.  I have no doubt 
+that in the charming inconsistency of such excitement, she stopped 
+her ears, lest she should hear 'Him' asking for her:  but I did not 
+see her do it.
+
+Then, a great crowd of people rushed on board, though the boat was 
+not yet made fast, but was wandering about, among the other boats, 
+to find a landing-place:  and everybody looked for the husband:  
+and nobody saw him:  when, in the midst of us all - Heaven knows 
+how she ever got there - there was the little woman clinging with 
+both arms tight round the neck of a fine, good-looking, sturdy 
+young fellow! and in a moment afterwards, there she was again, 
+actually clapping her little hands for joy, as she dragged him 
+through the small door of her small cabin, to look at the baby as 
+he lay asleep!
+
+We went to a large hotel, called the Planter's House:  built like 
+an English hospital, with long passages and bare walls, and sky-
+lights above the room-doors for the free circulation of air.  There 
+were a great many boarders in it; and as many lights sparkled and 
+glistened from the windows down into the street below, when we 
+drove up, as if it had been illuminated on some occasion of 
+rejoicing.  It is an excellent house, and the proprietors have most 
+bountiful notions of providing the creature comforts.  Dining alone 
+with my wife in our own room, one day, I counted fourteen dishes on 
+the table at once.
+
+In the old French portion of the town, the thoroughfares are narrow 
+and crooked, and some of the houses are very quaint and 
+picturesque:  being built of wood, with tumble-down galleries 
+before the windows, approachable by stairs or rather ladders from 
+the street.  There are queer little barbers' shops and drinking-
+houses too, in this quarter; and abundance of crazy old tenements 
+with blinking casements, such as may be seen in Flanders.  Some of 
+these ancient habitations, with high garret gable-windows perking 
+into the roofs, have a kind of French shrug about them; and being 
+lop-sided with age, appear to hold their heads askew, besides, as 
+if they were grimacing in astonishment at the American 
+Improvements.
+
+It is hardly necessary to say, that these consist of wharfs and 
+warehouses, and new buildings in all directions; and of a great 
+many vast plans which are still 'progressing.'  Already, however, 
+some very good houses, broad streets, and marble-fronted shops, 
+have gone so far ahead as to be in a state of completion; and the 
+town bids fair in a few years to improve considerably:  though it 
+is not likely ever to vie, in point of elegance or beauty, with 
+Cincinnati.
+
+The Roman Catholic religion, introduced here by the early French 
+settlers, prevails extensively.  Among the public institutions are 
+a Jesuit college; a convent for 'the Ladies of the Sacred Heart;' 
+and a large chapel attached to the college, which was in course of 
+erection at the time of my visit, and was intended to be 
+consecrated on the second of December in the next year.  The 
+architect of this building, is one of the reverend fathers of the 
+school, and the works proceed under his sole direction.  The organ 
+will be sent from Belgium.
+
+In addition to these establishments, there is a Roman Catholic 
+cathedral, dedicated to Saint Francis Xavier; and a hospital, 
+founded by the munificence of a deceased resident, who was a member 
+of that church.  It also sends missionaries from hence among the 
+Indian tribes.
+
+The Unitarian church is represented, in this remote place, as in 
+most other parts of America, by a gentleman of great worth and 
+excellence.  The poor have good reason to remember and bless it; 
+for it befriends them, and aids the cause of rational education, 
+without any sectarian or selfish views.  It is liberal in all its 
+actions; of kind construction; and of wide benevolence.
+
+There are three free-schools already erected, and in full operation 
+in this city.  A fourth is building, and will soon be opened.
+
+No man ever admits the unhealthiness of the place he dwells in 
+(unless he is going away from it), and I shall therefore, I have no 
+doubt, be at issue with the inhabitants of St. Louis, in 
+questioning the perfect salubrity of its climate, and in hinting 
+that I think it must rather dispose to fever, in the summer and 
+autumnal seasons.  Just adding, that it is very hot, lies among 
+great rivers, and has vast tracts of undrained swampy land around 
+it, I leave the reader to form his own opinion.
+
+As I had a great desire to see a Prairie before turning back from 
+the furthest point of my wanderings; and as some gentlemen of the 
+town had, in their hospitable consideration, an equal desire to 
+gratify me; a day was fixed, before my departure, for an expedition 
+to the Looking-Glass Prairie, which is within thirty miles of the 
+town.  Deeming it possible that my readers may not object to know 
+what kind of thing such a gipsy party may be at that distance from 
+home, and among what sort of objects it moves, I will describe the 
+jaunt in another chapter.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII - A JAUNT TO THE LOOKING-GLASS PRAIRIE AND BACK
+
+
+
+I MAY premise that the word Prairie is variously pronounced 
+PARAAER, PAREARER, PAROARER.  The latter mode of pronunciation is 
+perhaps the most in favour.
+
+We were fourteen in all, and all young men:  indeed it is a 
+singular though very natural feature in the society of these 
+distant settlements, that it is mainly composed of adventurous 
+persons in the prime of life, and has very few grey heads among it.  
+There were no ladies:  the trip being a fatiguing one:  and we were 
+to start at five o'clock in the morning punctually.
+
+I was called at four, that I might be certain of keeping nobody 
+waiting; and having got some bread and milk for breakfast, threw up 
+the window and looked down into the street, expecting to see the 
+whole party busily astir, and great preparations going on below.  
+But as everything was very quiet, and the street presented that 
+hopeless aspect with which five o'clock in the morning is familiar 
+elsewhere, I deemed it as well to go to bed again, and went 
+accordingly.
+
+I woke again at seven o'clock, and by that time the party had 
+assembled, and were gathered round, one light carriage, with a very 
+stout axletree; one something on wheels like an amateur carrier's 
+cart; one double phaeton of great antiquity and unearthly 
+construction; one gig with a great hole in its back and a broken 
+head; and one rider on horseback who was to go on before.  I got 
+into the first coach with three companions; the rest bestowed 
+themselves in the other vehicles; two large baskets were made fast 
+to the lightest; two large stone jars in wicker cases, technically 
+known as demi-johns, were consigned to the 'least rowdy' of the 
+party for safe-keeping; and the procession moved off to the 
+ferryboat, in which it was to cross the river bodily, men, horses, 
+carriages, and all, as the manner in these parts is.
+
+We got over the river in due course, and mustered again before a 
+little wooden box on wheels, hove down all aslant in a morass, with 
+'MERCHANT TAILOR' painted in very large letters over the door.  
+Having settled the order of proceeding, and the road to be taken, 
+we started off once more and began to make our way through an ill-
+favoured Black Hollow, called, less expressively, the American 
+Bottom.
+
+The previous day had been - not to say hot, for the term is weak 
+and lukewarm in its power of conveying an idea of the temperature.  
+The town had been on fire; in a blaze.  But at night it had come on 
+to rain in torrents, and all night long it had rained without 
+cessation.  We had a pair of very strong horses, but travelled at 
+the rate of little more than a couple of miles an hour, through one 
+unbroken slough of black mud and water.  It had no variety but in 
+depth.  Now it was only half over the wheels, now it hid the 
+axletree, and now the coach sank down in it almost to the windows.  
+The air resounded in all directions with the loud chirping of the 
+frogs, who, with the pigs (a coarse, ugly breed, as unwholesome-
+looking as though they were the spontaneous growth of the country), 
+had the whole scene to themselves.  Here and there we passed a log 
+hut:  but the wretched cabins were wide apart and thinly scattered, 
+for though the soil is very rich in this place, few people can 
+exist in such a deadly atmosphere.  On either side of the track, if 
+it deserve the name, was the thick 'bush;' and everywhere was 
+stagnant, slimy, rotten, filthy water.
+
+As it is the custom in these parts to give a horse a gallon or so 
+of cold water whenever he is in a foam with heat, we halted for 
+that purpose, at a log inn in the wood, far removed from any other 
+residence.  It consisted of one room, bare-roofed and bare-walled 
+of course, with a loft above.  The ministering priest was a swarthy 
+young savage, in a shirt of cotton print like bed-furniture, and a 
+pair of ragged trousers.  There were a couple of young boys, too, 
+nearly naked, lying idle by the well; and they, and he, and THE 
+traveller at the inn, turned out to look at us.
+
+The traveller was an old man with a grey gristly beard two inches 
+long, a shaggy moustache of the same hue, and enormous eyebrows; 
+which almost obscured his lazy, semi-drunken glance, as he stood 
+regarding us with folded arms:  poising himself alternately upon 
+his toes and heels.  On being addressed by one of the party, he 
+drew nearer, and said, rubbing his chin (which scraped under his 
+horny hand like fresh gravel beneath a nailed shoe), that he was 
+from Delaware, and had lately bought a farm 'down there,' pointing 
+into one of the marshes where the stunted trees were thickest.  He 
+was 'going,' he added, to St. Louis, to fetch his family, whom he 
+had left behind; but he seemed in no great hurry to bring on these 
+incumbrances, for when we moved away, he loitered back into the 
+cabin, and was plainly bent on stopping there so long as his money 
+lasted.  He was a great politician of course, and explained his 
+opinions at some length to one of our company; but I only remember 
+that he concluded with two sentiments, one of which was, Somebody 
+for ever; and the other, Blast everybody else! which is by no means 
+a bad abstract of the general creed in these matters.
+
+When the horses were swollen out to about twice their natural 
+dimensions (there seems to be an idea here, that this kind of 
+inflation improves their going), we went forward again, through mud 
+and mire, and damp, and festering heat, and brake and bush, 
+attended always by the music of the frogs and pigs, until nearly 
+noon, when we halted at a place called Belleville.
+
+Belleville was a small collection of wooden houses, huddled 
+together in the very heart of the bush and swamp.  Many of them had 
+singularly bright doors of red and yellow; for the place had been 
+lately visited by a travelling painter, 'who got along,' as I was 
+told, 'by eating his way.'  The criminal court was sitting, and was 
+at that moment trying some criminals for horse-stealing:  with whom 
+it would most likely go hard:  for live stock of all kinds being 
+necessarily very much exposed in the woods, is held by the 
+community in rather higher value than human life; and for this 
+reason, juries generally make a point of finding all men indicted 
+for cattle-stealing, guilty, whether or no.
+
+The horses belonging to the bar, the judge, and witnesses, were 
+tied to temporary racks set up roughly in the road; by which is to 
+be understood, a forest path, nearly knee-deep in mud and slime.
+
+There was an hotel in this place, which, like all hotels in 
+America, had its large dining-room for the public table.  It was an 
+odd, shambling, low-roofed out-house, half-cowshed and half-
+kitchen, with a coarse brown canvas table-cloth, and tin sconces 
+stuck against the walls, to hold candles at supper-time.  The 
+horseman had gone forward to have coffee and some eatables 
+prepared, and they were by this time nearly ready.  He had ordered 
+'wheat-bread and chicken fixings,' in preference to 'corn-bread and 
+common doings.'  The latter kind of rejection includes only pork 
+and bacon.  The former comprehends broiled ham, sausages, veal 
+cutlets, steaks, and such other viands of that nature as may be 
+supposed, by a tolerably wide poetical construction, 'to fix' a 
+chicken comfortably in the digestive organs of any lady or 
+gentleman.
+
+On one of the door-posts at this inn, was a tin plate, whereon was 
+inscribed in characters of gold, 'Doctor Crocus;' and on a sheet of 
+paper, pasted up by the side of this plate, was a written 
+announcement that Dr. Crocus would that evening deliver a lecture 
+on Phrenology for the benefit of the Belleville public; at a 
+charge, for admission, of so much a head.
+
+Straying up-stairs, during the preparation of the chicken fixings, 
+I happened to pass the doctor's chamber; and as the door stood wide 
+open, and the room was empty, I made bold to peep in.
+
+It was a bare, unfurnished, comfortless room, with an unframed 
+portrait hanging up at the head of the bed; a likeness, I take it, 
+of the Doctor, for the forehead was fully displayed, and great 
+stress was laid by the artist upon its phrenological developments.  
+The bed itself was covered with an old patch-work counterpane.  The 
+room was destitute of carpet or of curtain.  There was a damp 
+fireplace without any stove, full of wood ashes; a chair, and a 
+very small table; and on the last-named piece of furniture was 
+displayed, in grand array, the doctor's library, consisting of some 
+half-dozen greasy old books.
+
+Now, it certainly looked about the last apartment on the whole 
+earth out of which any man would be likely to get anything to do 
+him good.  But the door, as I have said, stood coaxingly open, and 
+plainly said in conjunction with the chair, the portrait, the 
+table, and the books, 'Walk in, gentlemen, walk in!  Don't be ill, 
+gentlemen, when you may be well in no time.  Doctor Crocus is here, 
+gentlemen, the celebrated Dr. Crocus!  Dr. Crocus has come all this 
+way to cure you, gentlemen.  If you haven't heard of Dr. Crocus, 
+it's your fault, gentlemen, who live a little way out of the world 
+here:  not Dr. Crocus's.  Walk in, gentlemen, walk in!'
+
+In the passage below, when I went down-stairs again, was Dr. Crocus 
+himself.  A crowd had flocked in from the Court House, and a voice 
+from among them called out to the landlord, 'Colonel! introduce 
+Doctor Crocus.'
+
+'Mr. Dickens,' says the colonel, 'Doctor Crocus.'
+
+Upon which Doctor Crocus, who is a tall, fine-looking Scotchman, 
+but rather fierce and warlike in appearance for a professor of the 
+peaceful art of healing, bursts out of the concourse with his right 
+arm extended, and his chest thrown out as far as it will possibly 
+come, and says:
+
+'Your countryman, sir!'
+
+Whereupon Doctor Crocus and I shake hands; and Doctor Crocus looks 
+as if I didn't by any means realise his expectations, which, in a 
+linen blouse, and a great straw hat, with a green ribbon, and no 
+gloves, and my face and nose profusely ornamented with the stings 
+of mosquitoes and the bites of bugs, it is very likely I did not.
+
+'Long in these parts, sir?' says I.
+
+'Three or four months, sir,' says the Doctor.
+
+'Do you think of soon returning to the old country?' says I.
+
+Doctor Crocus makes no verbal answer, but gives me an imploring 
+look, which says so plainly 'Will you ask me that again, a little 
+louder, if you please?' that I repeat the question.
+
+'Think of soon returning to the old country, sir!' repeats the 
+Doctor.
+
+'To the old country, sir,' I rejoin.
+
+Doctor Crocus looks round upon the crowd to observe the effect he 
+produces, rubs his hands, and says, in a very loud voice:
+
+'Not yet awhile, sir, not yet.  You won't catch me at that just 
+yet, sir.  I am a little too fond of freedom for THAT, sir.  Ha, 
+ha!  It's not so easy for a man to tear himself from a free country 
+such as this is, sir.  Ha, ha!  No, no!  Ha, ha!  None of that till 
+one's obliged to do it, sir.  No, no!'
+
+As Doctor Crocus says these latter words, he shakes his head, 
+knowingly, and laughs again.  Many of the bystanders shake their 
+heads in concert with the doctor, and laugh too, and look at each 
+other as much as to say, 'A pretty bright and first-rate sort of 
+chap is Crocus!' and unless I am very much mistaken, a good many 
+people went to the lecture that night, who never thought about 
+phrenology, or about Doctor Crocus either, in all their lives 
+before.
+
+From Belleville, we went on, through the same desolate kind of 
+waste, and constantly attended, without the interval of a moment, 
+by the same music; until, at three o'clock in the afternoon, we 
+halted once more at a village called Lebanon to inflate the horses 
+again, and give them some corn besides:  of which they stood much 
+in need.  Pending this ceremony, I walked into the village, where I 
+met a full-sized dwelling-house coming down-hill at a round trot, 
+drawn by a score or more of oxen.
+
+The public-house was so very clean and good a one, that the 
+managers of the jaunt resolved to return to it and put up there for 
+the night, if possible.  This course decided on, and the horses 
+being well refreshed, we again pushed forward, and came upon the 
+Prairie at sunset.
+
+It would be difficult to say why, or how - though it was possibly 
+from having heard and read so much about it - but the effect on me 
+was disappointment.  Looking towards the setting sun, there lay, 
+stretched out before my view, a vast expanse of level ground; 
+unbroken, save by one thin line of trees, which scarcely amounted 
+to a scratch upon the great blank; until it met the glowing sky, 
+wherein it seemed to dip:  mingling with its rich colours, and 
+mellowing in its distant blue.  There it lay, a tranquil sea or 
+lake without water, if such a simile be admissible, with the day 
+going down upon it:  a few birds wheeling here and there:  and 
+solitude and silence reigning paramount around.  But the grass was 
+not yet high; there were bare black patches on the ground; and the 
+few wild flowers that the eye could see, were poor and scanty.  
+Great as the picture was, its very flatness and extent, which left 
+nothing to the imagination, tamed it down and cramped its interest.  
+I felt little of that sense of freedom and exhilaration which a 
+Scottish heath inspires, or even our English downs awaken.  It was 
+lonely and wild, but oppressive in its barren monotony.  I felt 
+that in traversing the Prairies, I could never abandon myself to 
+the scene, forgetful of all else; as I should do instinctively, 
+were the heather underneath my feet, or an iron-bound coast beyond; 
+but should often glance towards the distant and frequently-receding 
+line of the horizon, and wish it gained and passed.  It is not a 
+scene to be forgotten, but it is scarcely one, I think (at all 
+events, as I saw it), to remember with much pleasure, or to covet 
+the looking-on again, in after-life.
+
+We encamped near a solitary log-house, for the sake of its water, 
+and dined upon the plain.  The baskets contained roast fowls, 
+buffalo's tongue (an exquisite dainty, by the way), ham, bread, 
+cheese, and butter; biscuits, champagne, sherry; lemons and sugar 
+for punch; and abundance of rough ice.  The meal was delicious, and 
+the entertainers were the soul of kindness and good humour.  I have 
+often recalled that cheerful party to my pleasant recollection 
+since, and shall not easily forget, in junketings nearer home with 
+friends of older date, my boon companions on the Prairie.
+
+Returning to Lebanon that night, we lay at the little inn at which 
+we had halted in the afternoon.  In point of cleanliness and 
+comfort it would have suffered by no comparison with any English 
+alehouse, of a homely kind, in England.
+
+Rising at five o'clock next morning, I took a walk about the 
+village:  none of the houses were strolling about to-day, but it 
+was early for them yet, perhaps:  and then amused myself by 
+lounging in a kind of farm-yard behind the tavern, of which the 
+leading features were, a strange jumble of rough sheds for stables; 
+a rude colonnade, built as a cool place of summer resort; a deep 
+well; a great earthen mound for keeping vegetables in, in winter 
+time; and a pigeon-house, whose little apertures looked, as they do 
+in all pigeon-houses, very much too small for the admission of the 
+plump and swelling-breasted birds who were strutting about it, 
+though they tried to get in never so hard.  That interest 
+exhausted, I took a survey of the inn's two parlours, which were 
+decorated with coloured prints of Washington, and President 
+Madison, and of a white-faced young lady (much speckled by the 
+flies), who held up her gold neck-chain for the admiration of the 
+spectator, and informed all admiring comers that she was 'Just 
+Seventeen:' although I should have thought her older.  In the best 
+room were two oil portraits of the kit-cat size, representing the 
+landlord and his infant son; both looking as bold as lions, and 
+staring out of the canvas with an intensity that would have been 
+cheap at any price.  They were painted, I think, by the artist who 
+had touched up the Belleville doors with red and gold; for I seemed 
+to recognise his style immediately.
+
+After breakfast, we started to return by a different way from that 
+which we had taken yesterday, and coming up at ten o'clock with an 
+encampment of German emigrants carrying their goods in carts, who 
+had made a rousing fire which they were just quitting, stopped 
+there to refresh.  And very pleasant the fire was; for, hot though 
+it had been yesterday, it was quite cold to-day, and the wind blew 
+keenly.  Looming in the distance, as we rode along, was another of 
+the ancient Indian burial-places, called The Monks' Mound; in 
+memory of a body of fanatics of the order of La Trappe, who founded 
+a desolate convent there, many years ago, when there were no 
+settlers within a thousand miles, and were all swept off by the 
+pernicious climate:  in which lamentable fatality, few rational 
+people will suppose, perhaps, that society experienced any very 
+severe deprivation.
+
+The track of to-day had the same features as the track of 
+yesterday.  There was the swamp, the bush, and the perpetual chorus 
+of frogs, the rank unseemly growth, the unwholesome steaming earth.  
+Here and there, and frequently too, we encountered a solitary 
+broken-down waggon, full of some new settler's goods.  It was a 
+pitiful sight to see one of these vehicles deep in the mire; the 
+axle-tree broken; the wheel lying idly by its side; the man gone 
+miles away, to look for assistance; the woman seated among their 
+wandering household gods with a baby at her breast, a picture of 
+forlorn, dejected patience; the team of oxen crouching down 
+mournfully in the mud, and breathing forth such clouds of vapour 
+from their mouths and nostrils, that all the damp mist and fog 
+around seemed to have come direct from them.
+
+In due time we mustered once again before the merchant tailor's, 
+and having done so, crossed over to the city in the ferry-boat:  
+passing, on the way, a spot called Bloody Island, the duelling-
+ground of St. Louis, and so designated in honour of the last fatal 
+combat fought there, which was with pistols, breast to breast.  
+Both combatants fell dead upon the ground; and possibly some 
+rational people may think of them, as of the gloomy madmen on the 
+Monks' Mound, that they were no great loss to the community.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV - RETURN TO CINCINNATI.  A STAGE-COACH RIDE FROM THAT 
+CITY TO COLUMBUS, AND THENCE TO SANDUSKY.  SO, BY LAKE ERIE, TO THE 
+FALLS OF NIAGARA
+
+
+
+AS I had a desire to travel through the interior of the state of 
+Ohio, and to 'strike the lakes,' as the phrase is, at a small town 
+called Sandusky, to which that route would conduct us on our way to 
+Niagara, we had to return from St. Louis by the way we had come, 
+and to retrace our former track as far as Cincinnati.
+
+The day on which we were to take leave of St. Louis being very 
+fine; and the steamboat, which was to have started I don't know how 
+early in the morning, postponing, for the third or fourth time, her 
+departure until the afternoon; we rode forward to an old French 
+village on the river, called properly Carondelet, and nicknamed 
+Vide Poche, and arranged that the packet should call for us there.
+
+The place consisted of a few poor cottages, and two or three 
+public-houses; the state of whose larders certainly seemed to 
+justify the second designation of the village, for there was 
+nothing to eat in any of them.  At length, however, by going back 
+some half a mile or so, we found a solitary house where ham and 
+coffee were procurable; and there we tarried to wait the advent of 
+the boat, which would come in sight from the green before the door, 
+a long way off.
+
+It was a neat, unpretending village tavern, and we took our repast 
+in a quaint little room with a bed in it, decorated with some old 
+oil paintings, which in their time had probably done duty in a 
+Catholic chapel or monastery.  The fare was very good, and served 
+with great cleanliness.  The house was kept by a characteristic old 
+couple, with whom we had a long talk, and who were perhaps a very 
+good sample of that kind of people in the West.
+
+The landlord was a dry, tough, hard-faced old fellow (not so very 
+old either, for he was but just turned sixty, I should think), who 
+had been out with the militia in the last war with England, and had 
+seen all kinds of service, - except a battle; and he had been very 
+near seeing that, he added:  very near.  He had all his life been 
+restless and locomotive, with an irresistible desire for change; 
+and was still the son of his old self:  for if he had nothing to 
+keep him at home, he said (slightly jerking his hat and his thumb 
+towards the window of the room in which the old lady sat, as we 
+stood talking in front of the house), he would clean up his musket, 
+and be off to Texas to-morrow morning.  He was one of the very many 
+descendants of Cain proper to this continent, who seem destined 
+from their birth to serve as pioneers in the great human army:  who 
+gladly go on from year to year extending its outposts, and leaving 
+home after home behind them; and die at last, utterly regardless of 
+their graves being left thousands of miles behind, by the wandering 
+generation who succeed.
+
+His wife was a domesticated, kind-hearted old soul, who had come 
+with him, 'from the queen city of the world,' which, it seemed, was 
+Philadelphia; but had no love for this Western country, and indeed 
+had little reason to bear it any; having seen her children, one by 
+one, die here of fever, in the full prime and beauty of their 
+youth.  Her heart was sore, she said, to think of them; and to talk 
+on this theme, even to strangers, in that blighted place, so far 
+from her old home, eased it somewhat, and became a melancholy 
+pleasure.
+
+The boat appearing towards evening, we bade adieu to the poor old 
+lady and her vagrant spouse, and making for the nearest landing-
+place, were soon on board The Messenger again, in our old cabin, 
+and steaming down the Mississippi.
+
+If the coming up this river, slowly making head against the stream, 
+be an irksome journey, the shooting down it with the turbid current 
+is almost worse; for then the boat, proceeding at the rate of 
+twelve or fifteen miles an hour, has to force its passage through a 
+labyrinth of floating logs, which, in the dark, it is often 
+impossible to see beforehand or avoid.  All that night, the bell 
+was never silent for five minutes at a time; and after every ring 
+the vessel reeled again, sometimes beneath a single blow, sometimes 
+beneath a dozen dealt in quick succession, the lightest of which 
+seemed more than enough to beat in her frail keel, as though it had 
+been pie-crust.  Looking down upon the filthy river after dark, it 
+seemed to be alive with monsters, as these black masses rolled upon 
+the surface, or came starting up again, head first, when the boat, 
+in ploughing her way among a shoal of such obstructions, drove a 
+few among them for the moment under water.  Sometimes the engine 
+stopped during a long interval, and then before her and behind, and 
+gathering close about her on all sides, were so many of these ill-
+favoured obstacles that she was fairly hemmed in; the centre of a 
+floating island; and was constrained to pause until they parted, 
+somewhere, as dark clouds will do before the wind, and opened by 
+degrees a channel out.
+
+In good time next morning, however, we came again in sight of the 
+detestable morass called Cairo; and stopping there to take in wood, 
+lay alongside a barge, whose starting timbers scarcely held 
+together.  It was moored to the bank, and on its side was painted 
+'Coffee House;' that being, I suppose, the floating paradise to 
+which the people fly for shelter when they lose their houses for a 
+month or two beneath the hideous waters of the Mississippi.  But 
+looking southward from this point, we had the satisfaction of 
+seeing that intolerable river dragging its slimy length and ugly 
+freight abruptly off towards New Orleans; and passing a yellow line 
+which stretched across the current, were again upon the clear Ohio, 
+never, I trust, to see the Mississippi more, saving in troubled 
+dreams and nightmares.  Leaving it for the company of its sparkling 
+neighbour, was like the transition from pain to ease, or the 
+awakening from a horrible vision to cheerful realities.
+
+We arrived at Louisville on the fourth night, and gladly availed 
+ourselves of its excellent hotel.  Next day we went on in the Ben 
+Franklin, a beautiful mail steamboat, and reached Cincinnati 
+shortly after midnight.  Being by this time nearly tired of 
+sleeping upon shelves, we had remained awake to go ashore 
+straightway; and groping a passage across the dark decks of other 
+boats, and among labyrinths of engine-machinery and leaking casks 
+of molasses, we reached the streets, knocked up the porter at the 
+hotel where we had stayed before, and were, to our great joy, 
+safely housed soon afterwards.
+
+We rested but one day at Cincinnati, and then resumed our journey 
+to Sandusky.  As it comprised two varieties of stage-coach 
+travelling, which, with those I have already glanced at, comprehend 
+the main characteristics of this mode of transit in America, I will 
+take the reader as our fellow-passenger, and pledge myself to 
+perform the distance with all possible despatch.
+
+Our place of destination in the first instance is Columbus.  It is 
+distant about a hundred and twenty miles from Cincinnati, but there 
+is a macadamised road (rare blessing!) the whole way, and the rate 
+of travelling upon it is six miles an hour.
+
+We start at eight o'clock in the morning, in a great mail-coach, 
+whose huge cheeks are so very ruddy and plethoric, that it appears 
+to be troubled with a tendency of blood to the head.  Dropsical it 
+certainly is, for it will hold a dozen passengers inside.  But, 
+wonderful to add, it is very clean and bright, being nearly new; 
+and rattles through the streets of Cincinnati gaily.
+
+Our way lies through a beautiful country, richly cultivated, and 
+luxuriant in its promise of an abundant harvest.  Sometimes we pass 
+a field where the strong bristling stalks of Indian corn look like 
+a crop of walking-sticks, and sometimes an enclosure where the 
+green wheat is springing up among a labyrinth of stumps; the 
+primitive worm-fence is universal, and an ugly thing it is; but the 
+farms are neatly kept, and, save for these differences, one might 
+be travelling just now in Kent.
+
+We often stop to water at a roadside inn, which is always dull and 
+silent.  The coachman dismounts and fills his bucket, and holds it 
+to the horses' heads.  There is scarcely ever any one to help him; 
+there are seldom any loungers standing round; and never any stable-
+company with jokes to crack.  Sometimes, when we have changed our 
+team, there is a difficulty in starting again, arising out of the 
+prevalent mode of breaking a young horse:  which is to catch him, 
+harness him against his will, and put him in a stage-coach without 
+further notice:  but we get on somehow or other, after a great many 
+kicks and a violent struggle; and jog on as before again.
+
+Occasionally, when we stop to change, some two or three half-
+drunken loafers will come loitering out with their hands in their 
+pockets, or will be seen kicking their heels in rocking-chairs, or 
+lounging on the window-sill, or sitting on a rail within the 
+colonnade:  they have not often anything to say though, either to 
+us or to each other, but sit there idly staring at the coach and 
+horses.  The landlord of the inn is usually among them, and seems, 
+of all the party, to be the least connected with the business of 
+the house.  Indeed he is with reference to the tavern, what the 
+driver is in relation to the coach and passengers:  whatever 
+happens in his sphere of action, he is quite indifferent, and 
+perfectly easy in his mind.
+
+The frequent change of coachmen works no change or variety in the 
+coachman's character.  He is always dirty, sullen, and taciturn.  
+If he be capable of smartness of any kind, moral or physical, he 
+has a faculty of concealing it which is truly marvellous.  He never 
+speaks to you as you sit beside him on the box, and if you speak to 
+him, he answers (if at all) in monosyllables.  He points out 
+nothing on the road, and seldom looks at anything:  being, to all 
+appearance, thoroughly weary of it and of existence generally.  As 
+to doing the honours of his coach, his business, as I have said, is 
+with the horses.  The coach follows because it is attached to them 
+and goes on wheels:  not because you are in it.  Sometimes, towards 
+the end of a long stage, he suddenly breaks out into a discordant 
+fragment of an election song, but his face never sings along with 
+him:  it is only his voice, and not often that.
+
+He always chews and always spits, and never encumbers himself with 
+a pocket-handkerchief.  The consequences to the box passenger, 
+especially when the wind blows towards him, are not agreeable.
+
+Whenever the coach stops, and you can hear the voices of the inside 
+passengers; or whenever any bystander addresses them, or any one 
+among them; or they address each other; you will hear one phrase 
+repeated over and over and over again to the most extraordinary 
+extent.  It is an ordinary and unpromising phrase enough, being 
+neither more nor less than 'Yes, sir;' but it is adapted to every 
+variety of circumstance, and fills up every pause in the 
+conversation.  Thus:-
+
+The time is one o'clock at noon.  The scene, a place where we are 
+to stay and dine, on this journey.  The coach drives up to the door 
+of an inn.  The day is warm, and there are several idlers lingering 
+about the tavern, and waiting for the public dinner.  Among them, 
+is a stout gentleman in a brown hat, swinging himself to and fro in 
+a rocking-chair on the pavement.
+
+As the coach stops, a gentleman in a straw hat looks out of the 
+window:
+
+STRAW HAT.  (To the stout gentleman in the rocking-chair.)  I 
+reckon that's Judge Jefferson, an't it?
+
+BROWN HAT.  (Still swinging; speaking very slowly; and without any 
+emotion whatever.)  Yes, sir.
+
+STRAW HAT.  Warm weather, Judge.
+
+BROWN HAT.  Yes, sir.
+
+STRAW HAT.  There was a snap of cold, last week.
+
+BROWN HAT.  Yes, sir.
+
+STRAW HAT.  Yes, sir.
+
+A pause.  They look at each other, very seriously.
+
+STRAW HAT.  I calculate you'll have got through that case of the 
+corporation, Judge, by this time, now?
+
+BROWN HAT.  Yes, sir.
+
+STRAW HAT.  How did the verdict go, sir?
+
+BROWN HAT.  For the defendant, sir.
+
+STRAW HAT.  (Interrogatively.)  Yes, sir?
+
+BROWN HAT. (Affirmatively.)  Yes, sir.
+
+BOTH.  (Musingly, as each gazes down the street.)  Yes, sir.
+
+Another pause.  They look at each other again, still more seriously 
+than before.
+
+BROWN HAT.  This coach is rather behind its time to-day, I guess.
+
+STRAW HAT.  (Doubtingly.)  Yes, sir.
+
+BROWN HAT.  (Looking at his watch.)  Yes, sir; nigh upon two hours.
+
+STRAW HAT.  (Raising his eyebrows in very great surprise.)  Yes, 
+sir!
+
+BROWN HAT.  (Decisively, as he puts up his watch.)  Yes, sir.
+
+ALL THE OTHER INSIDE PASSENGERS.  (Among themselves.)  Yes, sir.
+
+COACHMAN.  (In a very surly tone.)  No it an't.
+
+STRAW HAT.  (To the coachman.)  Well, I don't know, sir.  We were a 
+pretty tall time coming that last fifteen mile.  That's a fact.
+
+The coachman making no reply, and plainly declining to enter into 
+any controversy on a subject so far removed from his sympathies and 
+feelings, another passenger says, 'Yes, sir;' and the gentleman in 
+the straw hat in acknowledgment of his courtesy, says 'Yes, sir,' 
+to him, in return.  The straw hat then inquires of the brown hat, 
+whether that coach in which he (the straw hat) then sits, is not a 
+new one?  To which the brown hat again makes answer, 'Yes, sir.'
+
+STRAW HAT.  I thought so.  Pretty loud smell of varnish, sir?
+
+BROWN HAT.  Yes, sir.
+
+ALL THE OTHER INSIDE PASSENGERS.  Yes, sir.
+
+BROWN HAT.  (To the company in general.)  Yes, sir.
+
+The conversational powers of the company having been by this time 
+pretty heavily taxed, the straw hat opens the door and gets out; 
+and all the rest alight also.  We dine soon afterwards with the 
+boarders in the house, and have nothing to drink but tea and 
+coffee.  As they are both very bad and the water is worse, I ask 
+for brandy; but it is a Temperance Hotel, and spirits are not to be 
+had for love or money.  This preposterous forcing of unpleasant 
+drinks down the reluctant throats of travellers is not at all 
+uncommon in America, but I never discovered that the scruples of 
+such wincing landlords induced them to preserve any unusually nice 
+balance between the quality of their fare, and their scale of 
+charges:  on the contrary, I rather suspected them of diminishing 
+the one and exalting the other, by way of recompense for the loss 
+of their profit on the sale of spirituous liquors.  After all, 
+perhaps, the plainest course for persons of such tender 
+consciences, would be, a total abstinence from tavern-keeping.
+
+Dinner over, we get into another vehicle which is ready at the door 
+(for the coach has been changed in the interval), and resume our 
+journey; which continues through the same kind of country until 
+evening, when we come to the town where we are to stop for tea and 
+supper; and having delivered the mail bags at the Post-office, ride 
+through the usual wide street, lined with the usual stores and 
+houses (the drapers always having hung up at their door, by way of 
+sign, a piece of bright red cloth), to the hotel where this meal is 
+prepared.  There being many boarders here, we sit down, a large 
+party, and a very melancholy one as usual.  But there is a buxom 
+hostess at the head of the table, and opposite, a simple Welsh 
+schoolmaster with his wife and child; who came here, on a 
+speculation of greater promise than performance, to teach the 
+classics:  and they are sufficient subjects of interest until the 
+meal is over, and another coach is ready.  In it we go on once 
+more, lighted by a bright moon, until midnight; when we stop to 
+change the coach again, and remain for half an hour or so in a 
+miserable room, with a blurred lithograph of Washington over the 
+smoky fire-place, and a mighty jug of cold water on the table:  to 
+which refreshment the moody passengers do so apply themselves that 
+they would seem to be, one and all, keen patients of Dr. Sangrado.  
+Among them is a very little boy, who chews tobacco like a very big 
+one; and a droning gentleman, who talks arithmetically and 
+statistically on all subjects, from poetry downwards; and who 
+always speaks in the same key, with exactly the same emphasis, and 
+with very grave deliberation.  He came outside just now, and told 
+me how that the uncle of a certain young lady who had been spirited 
+away and married by a certain captain, lived in these parts; and 
+how this uncle was so valiant and ferocious that he shouldn't 
+wonder if he were to follow the said captain to England, 'and shoot 
+him down in the street wherever he found him;' in the feasibility 
+of which strong measure I, being for the moment rather prone to 
+contradiction, from feeling half asleep and very tired, declined to 
+acquiesce:  assuring him that if the uncle did resort to it, or 
+gratified any other little whim of the like nature, he would find 
+himself one morning prematurely throttled at the Old Bailey:  and 
+that he would do well to make his will before he went, as he would 
+certainly want it before he had been in Britain very long.
+
+On we go, all night, and by-and-by the day begins to break, and 
+presently the first cheerful rays of the warm sun come slanting on 
+us brightly.  It sheds its light upon a miserable waste of sodden 
+grass, and dull trees, and squalid huts, whose aspect is forlorn 
+and grievous in the last degree.  A very desert in the wood, whose 
+growth of green is dank and noxious like that upon the top of 
+standing water:  where poisonous fungus grows in the rare footprint 
+on the oozy ground, and sprouts like witches' coral, from the 
+crevices in the cabin wall and floor; it is a hideous thing to lie 
+upon the very threshold of a city.  But it was purchased years ago, 
+and as the owner cannot be discovered, the State has been unable to 
+reclaim it.  So there it remains, in the midst of cultivation and 
+improvement, like ground accursed, and made obscene and rank by 
+some great crime.
+
+We reached Columbus shortly before seven o'clock, and stayed there, 
+to refresh, that day and night:  having excellent apartments in a 
+very large unfinished hotel called the Neill House, which were 
+richly fitted with the polished wood of the black walnut, and 
+opened on a handsome portico and stone verandah, like rooms in some 
+Italian mansion.  The town is clean and pretty, and of course is 
+'going to be' much larger.  It is the seat of the State legislature 
+of Ohio, and lays claim, in consequence, to some consideration and 
+importance.
+
+There being no stage-coach next day, upon the road we wished to 
+take, I hired 'an extra,' at a reasonable charge to carry us to 
+Tiffin; a small town from whence there is a railroad to Sandusky.  
+This extra was an ordinary four-horse stage-coach, such as I have 
+described, changing horses and drivers, as the stage-coach would, 
+but was exclusively our own for the journey.  To ensure our having 
+horses at the proper stations, and being incommoded by no 
+strangers, the proprietors sent an agent on the box, who was to 
+accompany us the whole way through; and thus attended, and bearing 
+with us, besides, a hamper full of savoury cold meats, and fruit, 
+and wine, we started off again in high spirits, at half-past six 
+o'clock next morning, very much delighted to be by ourselves, and 
+disposed to enjoy even the roughest journey.
+
+It was well for us, that we were in this humour, for the road we 
+went over that day, was certainly enough to have shaken tempers 
+that were not resolutely at Set Fair, down to some inches below 
+Stormy.  At one time we were all flung together in a heap at the 
+bottom of the coach, and at another we were crushing our heads 
+against the roof.  Now, one side was down deep in the mire, and we 
+were holding on to the other.  Now, the coach was lying on the 
+tails of the two wheelers; and now it was rearing up in the air, in 
+a frantic state, with all four horses standing on the top of an 
+insurmountable eminence, looking coolly back at it, as though they 
+would say 'Unharness us.  It can't be done.'  The drivers on these 
+roads, who certainly get over the ground in a manner which is quite 
+miraculous, so twist and turn the team about in forcing a passage, 
+corkscrew fashion, through the bogs and swamps, that it was quite a 
+common circumstance on looking out of the window, to see the 
+coachman with the ends of a pair of reins in his hands, apparently 
+driving nothing, or playing at horses, and the leaders staring at 
+one unexpectedly from the back of the coach, as if they had some 
+idea of getting up behind.  A great portion of the way was over 
+what is called a corduroy road, which is made by throwing trunks of 
+trees into a marsh, and leaving them to settle there.  The very 
+slightest of the jolts with which the ponderous carriage fell from 
+log to log, was enough, it seemed, to have dislocated all the bones 
+in the human body.  It would be impossible to experience a similar 
+set of sensations, in any other circumstances, unless perhaps in 
+attempting to go up to the top of St. Paul's in an omnibus.  Never, 
+never once, that day, was the coach in any position, attitude, or 
+kind of motion to which we are accustomed in coaches.  Never did it 
+make the smallest approach to one's experience of the proceedings 
+of any sort of vehicle that goes on wheels.
+
+Still, it was a fine day, and the temperature was delicious, and 
+though we had left Summer behind us in the west, and were fast 
+leaving Spring, we were moving towards Niagara and home.  We 
+alighted in a pleasant wood towards the middle of the day, dined on 
+a fallen tree, and leaving our best fragments with a cottager, and 
+our worst with the pigs (who swarm in this part of the country like 
+grains of sand on the sea-shore, to the great comfort of our 
+commissariat in Canada), we went forward again, gaily.
+
+As night came on, the track grew narrower and narrower, until at 
+last it so lost itself among the trees, that the driver seemed to 
+find his way by instinct.  We had the comfort of knowing, at least, 
+that there was no danger of his falling asleep, for every now and 
+then a wheel would strike against an unseen stump with such a jerk, 
+that he was fain to hold on pretty tight and pretty quick, to keep 
+himself upon the box.  Nor was there any reason to dread the least 
+danger from furious driving, inasmuch as over that broken ground 
+the horses had enough to do to walk; as to shying, there was no 
+room for that; and a herd of wild elephants could not have run away 
+in such a wood, with such a coach at their heels.  So we stumbled 
+along, quite satisfied.
+
+These stumps of trees are a curious feature in American travelling.  
+The varying illusions they present to the unaccustomed eye as it 
+grows dark, are quite astonishing in their number and reality.  
+Now, there is a Grecian urn erected in the centre of a lonely 
+field; now there is a woman weeping at a tomb; now a very 
+commonplace old gentleman in a white waistcoat, with a thumb thrust 
+into each arm-hole of his coat; now a student poring on a book; now 
+a crouching negro; now, a horse, a dog, a cannon, an armed man; a 
+hunch-back throwing off his cloak and stepping forth into the 
+light.  They were often as entertaining to me as so many glasses in 
+a magic lantern, and never took their shapes at my bidding, but 
+seemed to force themselves upon me, whether I would or no; and 
+strange to say, I sometimes recognised in them counterparts of 
+figures once familiar to me in pictures attached to childish books, 
+forgotten long ago.
+
+It soon became too dark, however, even for this amusement, and the 
+trees were so close together that their dry branches rattled 
+against the coach on either side, and obliged us all to keep our 
+heads within.  It lightened too, for three whole hours; each flash 
+being very bright, and blue, and long; and as the vivid streaks 
+came darting in among the crowded branches, and the thunder rolled 
+gloomily above the tree tops, one could scarcely help thinking that 
+there were better neighbourhoods at such a time than thick woods 
+afforded.
+
+At length, between ten and eleven o'clock at night, a few feeble 
+lights appeared in the distance, and Upper Sandusky, an Indian 
+village, where we were to stay till morning, lay before us.
+
+They were gone to bed at the log Inn, which was the only house of 
+entertainment in the place, but soon answered to our knocking, and 
+got some tea for us in a sort of kitchen or common room, tapestried 
+with old newspapers, pasted against the wall.  The bed-chamber to 
+which my wife and I were shown, was a large, low, ghostly room; 
+with a quantity of withered branches on the hearth, and two doors 
+without any fastening, opposite to each other, both opening on the 
+black night and wild country, and so contrived, that one of them 
+always blew the other open:  a novelty in domestic architecture, 
+which I do not remember to have seen before, and which I was 
+somewhat disconcerted to have forced on my attention after getting 
+into bed, as I had a considerable sum in gold for our travelling 
+expenses, in my dressing-case.  Some of the luggage, however, piled 
+against the panels, soon settled this difficulty, and my sleep 
+would not have been very much affected that night, I believe, 
+though it had failed to do so.
+
+My Boston friend climbed up to bed, somewhere in the roof, where 
+another guest was already snoring hugely.  But being bitten beyond 
+his power of endurance, he turned out again, and fled for shelter 
+to the coach, which was airing itself in front of the house.  This 
+was not a very politic step, as it turned out; for the pigs 
+scenting him, and looking upon the coach as a kind of pie with some 
+manner of meat inside, grunted round it so hideously, that he was 
+afraid to come out again, and lay there shivering, till morning.  
+Nor was it possible to warm him, when he did come out, by means of 
+a glass of brandy:  for in Indian villages, the legislature, with a 
+very good and wise intention, forbids the sale of spirits by tavern 
+keepers.  The precaution, however, is quite inefficacious, for the 
+Indians never fail to procure liquor of a worse kind, at a dearer 
+price, from travelling pedlars.
+
+It is a settlement of the Wyandot Indians who inhabit this place.  
+Among the company at breakfast was a mild old gentleman, who had 
+been for many years employed by the United States Government in 
+conducting negotiations with the Indians, and who had just 
+concluded a treaty with these people by which they bound 
+themselves, in consideration of a certain annual sum, to remove 
+next year to some land provided for them, west of the Mississippi, 
+and a little way beyond St. Louis.  He gave me a moving account of 
+their strong attachment to the familiar scenes of their infancy, 
+and in particular to the burial-places of their kindred; and of 
+their great reluctance to leave them.  He had witnessed many such 
+removals, and always with pain, though he knew that they departed 
+for their own good.  The question whether this tribe should go or 
+stay, had been discussed among them a day or two before, in a hut 
+erected for the purpose, the logs of which still lay upon the 
+ground before the inn.  When the speaking was done, the ayes and 
+noes were ranged on opposite sides, and every male adult voted in 
+his turn.  The moment the result was known, the minority (a large 
+one) cheerfully yielded to the rest, and withdrew all kind of 
+opposition.
+
+We met some of these poor Indians afterwards, riding on shaggy 
+ponies.  They were so like the meaner sort of gipsies, that if I 
+could have seen any of them in England, I should have concluded, as 
+a matter of course, that they belonged to that wandering and 
+restless people.
+
+Leaving this town directly after breakfast, we pushed forward 
+again, over a rather worse road than yesterday, if possible, and 
+arrived about noon at Tiffin, where we parted with the extra.  At 
+two o'clock we took the railroad; the travelling on which was very 
+slow, its construction being indifferent, and the ground wet and 
+marshy; and arrived at Sandusky in time to dine that evening.  We 
+put up at a comfortable little hotel on the brink of Lake Erie, lay 
+there that night, and had no choice but to wait there next day, 
+until a steamboat bound for Buffalo appeared.  The town, which was 
+sluggish and uninteresting enough, was something like the back of 
+an English watering-place, out of the season.
+
+Our host, who was very attentive and anxious to make us 
+comfortable, was a handsome middle-aged man, who had come to this 
+town from New England, in which part of the country he was 
+'raised.'  When I say that he constantly walked in and out of the 
+room with his hat on; and stopped to converse in the same free-and-
+easy state; and lay down on our sofa, and pulled his newspaper out 
+of his pocket, and read it at his ease; I merely mention these 
+traits as characteristic of the country:  not at all as being 
+matter of complaint, or as having been disagreeable to me.  I 
+should undoubtedly be offended by such proceedings at home, because 
+there they are not the custom, and where they are not, they would 
+be impertinencies; but in America, the only desire of a good-
+natured fellow of this kind, is to treat his guests hospitably and 
+well; and I had no more right, and I can truly say no more 
+disposition, to measure his conduct by our English rule and 
+standard, than I had to quarrel with him for not being of the exact 
+stature which would qualify him for admission into the Queen's 
+grenadier guards.  As little inclination had I to find fault with a 
+funny old lady who was an upper domestic in this establishment, and 
+who, when she came to wait upon us at any meal, sat herself down 
+comfortably in the most convenient chair, and producing a large pin 
+to pick her teeth with, remained performing that ceremony, and 
+steadfastly regarding us meanwhile with much gravity and composure 
+(now and then pressing us to eat a little more), until it was time 
+to clear away.  It was enough for us, that whatever we wished done 
+was done with great civility and readiness, and a desire to oblige, 
+not only here, but everywhere else; and that all our wants were, in 
+general, zealously anticipated.
+
+We were taking an early dinner at this house, on the day after our 
+arrival, which was Sunday, when a steamboat came in sight, and 
+presently touched at the wharf.  As she proved to be on her way to 
+Buffalo, we hurried on board with all speed, and soon left Sandusky 
+far behind us.
+
+She was a large vessel of five hundred tons, and handsomely fitted 
+up, though with high-pressure engines; which always conveyed that 
+kind of feeling to me, which I should be likely to experience, I 
+think, if I had lodgings on the first-floor of a powder-mill.  She 
+was laden with flour, some casks of which commodity were stored 
+upon the deck.  The captain coming up to have a little 
+conversation, and to introduce a friend, seated himself astride of 
+one of these barrels, like a Bacchus of private life; and pulling a 
+great clasp-knife out of his pocket, began to 'whittle' it as he 
+talked, by paring thin slices off the edges.  And he whittled with 
+such industry and hearty good will, that but for his being called 
+away very soon, it must have disappeared bodily, and left nothing 
+in its place but grist and shavings.
+
+After calling at one or two flat places, with low dams stretching 
+out into the lake, whereon were stumpy lighthouses, like windmills 
+without sails, the whole looking like a Dutch vignette, we came at 
+midnight to Cleveland, where we lay all night, and until nine 
+o'clock next morning.
+
+I entertained quite a curiosity in reference to this place, from 
+having seen at Sandusky a specimen of its literature in the shape 
+of a newspaper, which was very strong indeed upon the subject of 
+Lord Ashburton's recent arrival at Washington, to adjust the points 
+in dispute between the United States Government and Great Britain:  
+informing its readers that as America had 'whipped' England in her 
+infancy, and whipped her again in her youth, so it was clearly 
+necessary that she must whip her once again in her maturity; and 
+pledging its credit to all True Americans, that if Mr. Webster did 
+his duty in the approaching negotiations, and sent the English Lord 
+home again in double quick time, they should, within two years, 
+sing 'Yankee Doodle in Hyde Park, and Hail Columbia in the scarlet 
+courts of Westminster!'  I found it a pretty town, and had the 
+satisfaction of beholding the outside of the office of the journal 
+from which I have just quoted.  I did not enjoy the delight of 
+seeing the wit who indited the paragraph in question, but I have no 
+doubt he is a prodigious man in his way, and held in high repute by 
+a select circle.
+
+There was a gentleman on board, to whom, as I unintentionally 
+learned through the thin partition which divided our state-room 
+from the cabin in which he and his wife conversed together, I was 
+unwittingly the occasion of very great uneasiness.  I don't know 
+why or wherefore, but I appeared to run in his mind perpetually, 
+and to dissatisfy him very much.  First of all I heard him say:  
+and the most ludicrous part of the business was, that he said it in 
+my very ear, and could not have communicated more directly with me, 
+if he had leaned upon my shoulder, and whispered me:  'Boz is on 
+board still, my dear.'  After a considerable pause, he added, 
+complainingly, 'Boz keeps himself very close;' which was true 
+enough, for I was not very well, and was lying down, with a book.  
+I thought he had done with me after this, but I was deceived; for a 
+long interval having elapsed, during which I imagine him to have 
+been turning restlessly from side to side, and trying to go to 
+sleep; he broke out again, with 'I suppose THAT Boz will be writing 
+a book by-and-by, and putting all our names in it!' at which 
+imaginary consequence of being on board a boat with Boz, he 
+groaned, and became silent.
+
+We called at the town of Erie, at eight o'clock that night, and lay 
+there an hour.  Between five and six next morning, we arrived at 
+Buffalo, where we breakfasted; and being too near the Great Falls 
+to wait patiently anywhere else, we set off by the train, the same 
+morning at nine o'clock, to Niagara.
+
+It was a miserable day; chilly and raw; a damp mist falling; and 
+the trees in that northern region quite bare and wintry.  Whenever 
+the train halted, I listened for the roar; and was constantly 
+straining my eyes in the direction where I knew the Falls must be, 
+from seeing the river rolling on towards them; every moment 
+expecting to behold the spray.  Within a few minutes of our 
+stopping, not before, I saw two great white clouds rising up slowly 
+and majestically from the depths of the earth.  That was all.  At 
+length we alighted:  and then for the first time, I heard the 
+mighty rush of water, and felt the ground tremble underneath my 
+feet.
+
+The bank is very steep, and was slippery with rain, and half-melted 
+ice.  I hardly know how I got down, but I was soon at the bottom, 
+and climbing, with two English officers who were crossing and had 
+joined me, over some broken rocks, deafened by the noise, half-
+blinded by the spray, and wet to the skin.  We were at the foot of 
+the American Fall.  I could see an immense torrent of water tearing 
+headlong down from some great height, but had no idea of shape, or 
+situation, or anything but vague immensity.
+
+When we were seated in the little ferry-boat, and were crossing the 
+swollen river immediately before both cataracts, I began to feel 
+what it was:  but I was in a manner stunned, and unable to 
+comprehend the vastness of the scene.  It was not until I came on 
+Table Rock, and looked - Great Heaven, on what a fall of bright-
+green water! - that it came upon me in its full might and majesty.
+
+Then, when I felt how near to my Creator I was standing, the first 
+effect, and the enduring one - instant and lasting - of the 
+tremendous spectacle, was Peace.  Peace of Mind, tranquillity, calm 
+recollections of the Dead, great thoughts of Eternal Rest and 
+Happiness:  nothing of gloom or terror.  Niagara was at once 
+stamped upon my heart, an Image of Beauty; to remain there, 
+changeless and indelible, until its pulses cease to beat, for ever.
+
+Oh, how the strife and trouble of daily life receded from my view, 
+and lessened in the distance, during the ten memorable days we 
+passed on that Enchanted Ground!  What voices spoke from out the 
+thundering water; what faces, faded from the earth, looked out upon 
+me from its gleaming depths; what Heavenly promise glistened in 
+those angels' tears, the drops of many hues, that showered around, 
+and twined themselves about the gorgeous arches which the changing 
+rainbows made!
+
+I never stirred in all that time from the Canadian side, whither I 
+had gone at first.  I never crossed the river again; for I knew 
+there were people on the other shore, and in such a place it is 
+natural to shun strange company.  To wander to and fro all day, and 
+see the cataracts from all points of view; to stand upon the edge 
+of the great Horse-Shoe Fall, marking the hurried water gathering 
+strength as it approached the verge, yet seeming, too, to pause 
+before it shot into the gulf below; to gaze from the river's level 
+up at the torrent as it came streaming down; to climb the 
+neighbouring heights and watch it through the trees, and see the 
+wreathing water in the rapids hurrying on to take its fearful 
+plunge; to linger in the shadow of the solemn rocks three miles 
+below; watching the river as, stirred by no visible cause, it 
+heaved and eddied and awoke the echoes, being troubled yet, far 
+down beneath the surface, by its giant leap; to have Niagara before 
+me, lighted by the sun and by the moon, red in the day's decline, 
+and grey as evening slowly fell upon it; to look upon it every day, 
+and wake up in the night and hear its ceaseless voice:  this was 
+enough.
+
+I think in every quiet season now, still do those waters roll and 
+leap, and roar and tumble, all day long; still are the rainbows 
+spanning them, a hundred feet below.  Still, when the sun is on 
+them, do they shine and glow like molten gold.  Still, when the day 
+is gloomy, do they fall like snow, or seem to crumble away like the 
+front of a great chalk cliff, or roll down the rock like dense 
+white smoke.  But always does the mighty stream appear to die as it 
+comes down, and always from its unfathomable grave arises that 
+tremendous ghost of spray and mist which is never laid:  which has 
+haunted this place with the same dread solemnity since Darkness 
+brooded on the deep, and that first flood before the Deluge - Light 
+- came rushing on Creation at the word of God.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV - IN CANADA; TORONTO; KINGSTON; MONTREAL; QUEBEC; ST. 
+JOHN'S.  IN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN; LEBANON; THE SHAKER VILLAGE; 
+WEST POINT
+
+
+
+I wish to abstain from instituting any comparison, or drawing any 
+parallel whatever, between the social features of the United States 
+and those of the British Possessions in Canada.  For this reason, I 
+shall confine myself to a very brief account of our journeyings in 
+the latter territory.
+
+But before I leave Niagara, I must advert to one disgusting 
+circumstance which can hardly have escaped the observation of any 
+decent traveller who has visited the Falls.
+
+On Table Rock, there is a cottage belonging to a Guide, where 
+little relics of the place are sold, and where visitors register 
+their names in a book kept for the purpose.  On the wall of the 
+room in which a great many of these volumes are preserved, the 
+following request is posted:  'Visitors will please not copy nor 
+extract the remarks and poetical effusions from the registers and 
+albums kept here.'
+
+But for this intimation, I should have let them lie upon the tables 
+on which they were strewn with careful negligence, like books in a 
+drawing-room:  being quite satisfied with the stupendous silliness 
+of certain stanzas with an anti-climax at the end of each, which 
+were framed and hung up on the wall.  Curious, however, after 
+reading this announcement, to see what kind of morsels were so 
+carefully preserved, I turned a few leaves, and found them scrawled 
+all over with the vilest and the filthiest ribaldry that ever human 
+hogs delighted in.
+
+It is humiliating enough to know that there are among men brutes so 
+obscene and worthless, that they can delight in laying their 
+miserable profanations upon the very steps of Nature's greatest 
+altar.  But that these should be hoarded up for the delight of 
+their fellow-swine, and kept in a public place where any eyes may 
+see them, is a disgrace to the English language in which they are 
+written (though I hope few of these entries have been made by 
+Englishmen), and a reproach to the English side, on which they are 
+preserved.
+
+The quarters of our soldiers at Niagara, are finely and airily 
+situated.  Some of them are large detached houses on the plain 
+above the Falls, which were originally designed for hotels; and in 
+the evening time, when the women and children were leaning over the 
+balconies watching the men as they played at ball and other games 
+upon the grass before the door, they often presented a little 
+picture of cheerfulness and animation which made it quite a 
+pleasure to pass that way.
+
+At any garrisoned point where the line of demarcation between one 
+country and another is so very narrow as at Niagara, desertion from 
+the ranks can scarcely fail to be of frequent occurrence:  and it 
+may be reasonably supposed that when the soldiers entertain the 
+wildest and maddest hopes of the fortune and independence that 
+await them on the other side, the impulse to play traitor, which 
+such a place suggests to dishonest minds, is not weakened.  But it 
+very rarely happens that the men who do desert, are happy or 
+contented afterwards; and many instances have been known in which 
+they have confessed their grievous disappointment, and their 
+earnest desire to return to their old service if they could but be 
+assured of pardon, or lenient treatment.  Many of their comrades, 
+notwithstanding, do the like, from time to time; and instances of 
+loss of life in the effort to cross the river with this object, are 
+far from being uncommon.  Several men were drowned in the attempt 
+to swim across, not long ago; and one, who had the madness to trust 
+himself upon a table as a raft, was swept down to the whirlpool, 
+where his mangled body eddied round and round some days.
+
+I am inclined to think that the noise of the Falls is very much 
+exaggerated; and this will appear the more probable when the depth 
+of the great basin in which the water is received, is taken into 
+account.  At no time during our stay there, was the wind at all 
+high or boisterous, but we never heard them, three miles off, even 
+at the very quiet time of sunset, though we often tried.
+
+Queenston, at which place the steamboats start for Toronto (or I 
+should rather say at which place they call, for their wharf is at 
+Lewiston, on the opposite shore), is situated in a delicious 
+valley, through which the Niagara river, in colour a very deep 
+green, pursues its course.  It is approached by a road that takes 
+its winding way among the heights by which the town is sheltered; 
+and seen from this point is extremely beautiful and picturesque.  
+On the most conspicuous of these heights stood a monument erected 
+by the Provincial Legislature in memory of General Brock, who was 
+slain in a battle with the American forces, after having won the 
+victory.  Some vagabond, supposed to be a fellow of the name of 
+Lett, who is now, or who lately was, in prison as a felon, blew up 
+this monument two years ago, and it is now a melancholy ruin, with 
+a long fragment of iron railing hanging dejectedly from its top, 
+and waving to and fro like a wild ivy branch or broken vine stem.  
+It is of much higher importance than it may seem, that this statue 
+should be repaired at the public cost, as it ought to have been 
+long ago.  Firstly, because it is beneath the dignity of England to 
+allow a memorial raised in honour of one of her defenders, to 
+remain in this condition, on the very spot where he died.  
+Secondly, because the sight of it in its present state, and the 
+recollection of the unpunished outrage which brought it to this 
+pass, is not very likely to soothe down border feelings among 
+English subjects here, or compose their border quarrels and 
+dislikes.
+
+I was standing on the wharf at this place, watching the passengers 
+embarking in a steamboat which preceded that whose coming we 
+awaited, and participating in the anxiety with which a sergeant's 
+wife was collecting her few goods together - keeping one distracted 
+eye hard upon the porters, who were hurrying them on board, and the 
+other on a hoopless washing-tub for which, as being the most 
+utterly worthless of all her movables, she seemed to entertain 
+particular affection - when three or four soldiers with a recruit 
+came up and went on board.
+
+The recruit was a likely young fellow enough, strongly built and 
+well made, but by no means sober:  indeed he had all the air of a 
+man who had been more or less drunk for some days.  He carried a 
+small bundle over his shoulder, slung at the end of a walking-
+stick, and had a short pipe in his mouth.  He was as dusty and 
+dirty as recruits usually are, and his shoes betokened that he had 
+travelled on foot some distance, but he was in a very jocose state, 
+and shook hands with this soldier, and clapped that one on the 
+back, and talked and laughed continually, like a roaring idle dog 
+as he was.
+
+The soldiers rather laughed at this blade than with him:  seeming 
+to say, as they stood straightening their canes in their hands, and 
+looking coolly at him over their glazed stocks, 'Go on, my boy, 
+while you may! you'll know better by-and-by:' when suddenly the 
+novice, who had been backing towards the gangway in his noisy 
+merriment, fell overboard before their eyes, and splashed heavily 
+down into the river between the vessel and the dock.
+
+I never saw such a good thing as the change that came over these 
+soldiers in an instant.  Almost before the man was down, their 
+professional manner, their stiffness and constraint, were gone, and 
+they were filled with the most violent energy.  In less time than 
+is required to tell it, they had him out again, feet first, with 
+the tails of his coat flapping over his eyes, everything about him 
+hanging the wrong way, and the water streaming off at every thread 
+in his threadbare dress.  But the moment they set him upright and 
+found that he was none the worse, they were soldiers again, looking 
+over their glazed stocks more composedly than ever.
+
+The half-sobered recruit glanced round for a moment, as if his 
+first impulse were to express some gratitude for his preservation, 
+but seeing them with this air of total unconcern, and having his 
+wet pipe presented to him with an oath by the soldier who had been 
+by far the most anxious of the party, he stuck it in his mouth, 
+thrust his hands into his moist pockets, and without even shaking 
+the water off his clothes, walked on board whistling; not to say as 
+if nothing had happened, but as if he had meant to do it, and it 
+had been a perfect success.
+
+Our steamboat came up directly this had left the wharf, and soon 
+bore us to the mouth of the Niagara; where the stars and stripes of 
+America flutter on one side and the Union Jack of England on the 
+other:  and so narrow is the space between them that the sentinels 
+in either fort can often hear the watchword of the other country 
+given.  Thence we emerged on Lake Ontario, an inland sea; and by 
+half-past six o'clock were at Toronto.
+
+The country round this town being very flat, is bare of scenic 
+interest; but the town itself is full of life and motion, bustle, 
+business, and improvement.  The streets are well paved, and lighted 
+with gas; the houses are large and good; the shops excellent.  Many 
+of them have a display of goods in their windows, such as may be 
+seen in thriving county towns in England; and there are some which 
+would do no discredit to the metropolis itself.  There is a good 
+stone prison here; and there are, besides, a handsome church, a 
+court-house, public offices, many commodious private residences, 
+and a government observatory for noting and recording the magnetic 
+variations.  In the College of Upper Canada, which is one of the 
+public establishments of the city, a sound education in every 
+department of polite learning can be had, at a very moderate 
+expense:  the annual charge for the instruction of each pupil, not 
+exceeding nine pounds sterling.  It has pretty good endowments in 
+the way of land, and is a valuable and useful institution.
+
+The first stone of a new college had been laid but a few days 
+before, by the Governor General.  It will be a handsome, spacious 
+edifice, approached by a long avenue, which is already planted and 
+made available as a public walk.  The town is well adapted for 
+wholesome exercise at all seasons, for the footways in the 
+thoroughfares which lie beyond the principal street, are planked 
+like floors, and kept in very good and clean repair.
+
+It is a matter of deep regret that political differences should 
+have run high in this place, and led to most discreditable and 
+disgraceful results.  It is not long since guns were discharged 
+from a window in this town at the successful candidates in an 
+election, and the coachman of one of them was actually shot in the 
+body, though not dangerously wounded.  But one man was killed on 
+the same occasion; and from the very window whence he received his 
+death, the very flag which shielded his murderer (not only in the 
+commission of his crime, but from its consequences), was displayed 
+again on the occasion of the public ceremony performed by the 
+Governor General, to which I have just adverted.  Of all the 
+colours in the rainbow, there is but one which could be so 
+employed:  I need not say that flag was orange.
+
+The time of leaving Toronto for Kingston is noon.  By eight o'clock 
+next morning, the traveller is at the end of his journey, which is 
+performed by steamboat upon Lake Ontario, calling at Port Hope and 
+Coburg, the latter a cheerful, thriving little town.  Vast 
+quantities of flour form the chief item in the freight of these 
+vessels.  We had no fewer than one thousand and eighty barrels on 
+board, between Coburg and Kingston.
+
+The latter place, which is now the seat of government in Canada, is 
+a very poor town, rendered still poorer in the appearance of its 
+market-place by the ravages of a recent fire.  Indeed, it may be 
+said of Kingston, that one half of it appears to be burnt down, and 
+the other half not to be built up.  The Government House is neither 
+elegant nor commodious, yet it is almost the only house of any 
+importance in the neighbourhood.
+
+There is an admirable jail here, well and wisely governed, and 
+excellently regulated, in every respect.  The men were employed as 
+shoemakers, ropemakers, blacksmiths, tailors, carpenters, and 
+stonecutters; and in building a new prison, which was pretty far 
+advanced towards completion.  The female prisoners were occupied in 
+needlework.  Among them was a beautiful girl of twenty, who had 
+been there nearly three years.  She acted as bearer of secret 
+despatches for the self-styled Patriots on Navy Island, during the 
+Canadian Insurrection:  sometimes dressing as a girl, and carrying 
+them in her stays; sometimes attiring herself as a boy, and 
+secreting them in the lining of her hat.  In the latter character 
+she always rode as a boy would, which was nothing to her, for she 
+could govern any horse that any man could ride, and could drive 
+four-in-hand with the best whip in those parts.  Setting forth on 
+one of her patriotic missions, she appropriated to herself the 
+first horse she could lay her hands on; and this offence had 
+brought her where I saw her.  She had quite a lovely face, though, 
+as the reader may suppose from this sketch of her history, there 
+was a lurking devil in her bright eye, which looked out pretty 
+sharply from between her prison bars.
+
+There is a bomb-proof fort here of great strength, which occupies a 
+bold position, and is capable, doubtless, of doing good service; 
+though the town is much too close upon the frontier to be long 
+held, I should imagine, for its present purpose in troubled times.  
+There is also a small navy-yard, where a couple of Government 
+steamboats were building, and getting on vigorously.
+
+We left Kingston for Montreal on the tenth of May, at half-past 
+nine in the morning, and proceeded in a steamboat down the St. 
+Lawrence river.  The beauty of this noble stream at almost any 
+point, but especially in the commencement of this journey when it 
+winds its way among the thousand Islands, can hardly be imagined.  
+The number and constant successions of these islands, all green and 
+richly wooded; their fluctuating sizes, some so large that for half 
+an hour together one among them will appear as the opposite bank of 
+the river, and some so small that they are mere dimples on its 
+broad bosom; their infinite variety of shapes; and the numberless 
+combinations of beautiful forms which the trees growing on them 
+present:  all form a picture fraught with uncommon interest and 
+pleasure.
+
+In the afternoon we shot down some rapids where the river boiled 
+and bubbled strangely, and where the force and headlong violence of 
+the current were tremendous.  At seven o'clock we reached 
+Dickenson's Landing, whence travellers proceed for two or three 
+hours by stage-coach:  the navigation of the river being rendered 
+so dangerous and difficult in the interval, by rapids, that 
+steamboats do not make the passage.  The number and length of those 
+PORTAGES, over which the roads are bad, and the travelling slow, 
+render the way between the towns of Montreal and Kingston, somewhat 
+tedious.
+
+Our course lay over a wide, uninclosed tract of country at a little 
+distance from the river-side, whence the bright warning lights on 
+the dangerous parts of the St. Lawrence shone vividly.  The night 
+was dark and raw, and the way dreary enough.  It was nearly ten 
+o'clock when we reached the wharf where the next steamboat lay; and 
+went on board, and to bed.
+
+She lay there all night, and started as soon as it was day.  The 
+morning was ushered in by a violent thunderstorm, and was very wet, 
+but gradually improved and brightened up.  Going on deck after 
+breakfast, I was amazed to see floating down with the stream, a 
+most gigantic raft, with some thirty or forty wooden houses upon 
+it, and at least as many flag-masts, so that it looked like a 
+nautical street.  I saw many of these rafts afterwards, but never 
+one so large.  All the timber, or 'lumber,' as it is called in 
+America, which is brought down the St. Lawrence, is floated down in 
+this manner.  When the raft reaches its place of destination, it is 
+broken up; the materials are sold; and the boatmen return for more.
+
+At eight we landed again, and travelled by a stage-coach for four 
+hours through a pleasant and well-cultivated country, perfectly 
+French in every respect:  in the appearance of the cottages; the 
+air, language, and dress of the peasantry; the sign-boards on the 
+shops and taverns:  and the Virgin's shrines, and crosses, by the 
+wayside.  Nearly every common labourer and boy, though he had no 
+shoes to his feet, wore round his waist a sash of some bright 
+colour:  generally red:  and the women, who were working in the 
+fields and gardens, and doing all kinds of husbandry, wore, one and 
+all, great flat straw hats with most capacious brims.  There were 
+Catholic Priests and Sisters of Charity in the village streets; and 
+images of the Saviour at the corners of cross-roads, and in other 
+public places.
+
+At noon we went on board another steamboat, and reached the village 
+of Lachine, nine miles from Montreal, by three o'clock.  There, we 
+left the river, and went on by land.
+
+Montreal is pleasantly situated on the margin of the St. Lawrence, 
+and is backed by some bold heights, about which there are charming 
+rides and drives.  The streets are generally narrow and irregular, 
+as in most French towns of any age; but in the more modern parts of 
+the city, they are wide and airy.  They display a great variety of 
+very good shops; and both in the town and suburbs there are many 
+excellent private dwellings.  The granite quays are remarkable for 
+their beauty, solidity, and extent.
+
+There is a very large Catholic cathedral here, recently erected 
+with two tall spires, of which one is yet unfinished.  In the open 
+space in front of this edifice, stands a solitary, grim-looking, 
+square brick tower, which has a quaint and remarkable appearance, 
+and which the wiseacres of the place have consequently determined 
+to pull down immediately.  The Government House is very superior to 
+that at Kingston, and the town is full of life and bustle.  In one 
+of the suburbs is a plank road - not footpath - five or six miles 
+long, and a famous road it is too.  All the rides in the vicinity 
+were made doubly interesting by the bursting out of spring, which 
+is here so rapid, that it is but a day's leap from barren winter, 
+to the blooming youth of summer.
+
+The steamboats to Quebec perform the journey in the night; that is 
+to say, they leave Montreal at six in the evening, and arrive at 
+Quebec at six next morning.  We made this excursion during our stay 
+in Montreal (which exceeded a fortnight), and were charmed by its 
+interest and beauty.
+
+The impression made upon the visitor by this Gibraltar of America:  
+its giddy heights; its citadel suspended, as it were, in the air; 
+its picturesque steep streets and frowning gateways; and the 
+splendid views which burst upon the eye at every turn:  is at once 
+unique and lasting.
+
+It is a place not to be forgotten or mixed up in the mind with 
+other places, or altered for a moment in the crowd of scenes a 
+traveller can recall.  Apart from the realities of this most 
+picturesque city, there are associations clustering about it which 
+would make a desert rich in interest.  The dangerous precipice 
+along whose rocky front, Wolfe and his brave companions climbed to 
+glory; the Plains of Abraham, where he received his mortal wound; 
+the fortress so chivalrously defended by Montcalm; and his 
+soldier's grave, dug for him while yet alive, by the bursting of a 
+shell; are not the least among them, or among the gallant incidents 
+of history.  That is a noble Monument too, and worthy of two great 
+nations, which perpetuates the memory of both brave generals, and 
+on which their names are jointly written.
+
+The city is rich in public institutions and in Catholic churches 
+and charities, but it is mainly in the prospect from the site of 
+the Old Government House, and from the Citadel, that its surpassing 
+beauty lies.  The exquisite expanse of country, rich in field and 
+forest, mountain-height and water, which lies stretched out before 
+the view, with miles of Canadian villages, glancing in long white 
+streaks, like veins along the landscape; the motley crowd of 
+gables, roofs, and chimney tops in the old hilly town immediately 
+at hand; the beautiful St. Lawrence sparkling and flashing in the 
+sunlight; and the tiny ships below the rock from which you gaze, 
+whose distant rigging looks like spiders' webs against the light, 
+while casks and barrels on their decks dwindle into toys, and busy 
+mariners become so many puppets; all this, framed by a sunken 
+window in the fortress and looked at from the shadowed room within, 
+forms one of the brightest and most enchanting pictures that the 
+eye can rest upon.
+
+In the spring of the year, vast numbers of emigrants who have newly 
+arrived from England or from Ireland, pass between Quebec and 
+Montreal on their way to the backwoods and new settlements of 
+Canada.  If it be an entertaining lounge (as I very often found it) 
+to take a morning stroll upon the quay at Montreal, and see them 
+grouped in hundreds on the public wharfs about their chests and 
+boxes, it is matter of deep interest to be their fellow-passenger 
+on one of these steamboats, and mingling with the concourse, see 
+and hear them unobserved.
+
+The vessel in which we returned from Quebec to Montreal was crowded 
+with them, and at night they spread their beds between decks (those 
+who had beds, at least), and slept so close and thick about our 
+cabin door, that the passage to and fro was quite blocked up.  They 
+were nearly all English; from Gloucestershire the greater part; and 
+had had a long winter-passage out; but it was wonderful to see how 
+clean the children had been kept, and how untiring in their love 
+and self-denial all the poor parents were.
+
+Cant as we may, and as we shall to the end of all things, it is 
+very much harder for the poor to be virtuous than it is for the 
+rich; and the good that is in them, shines the brighter for it.  In 
+many a noble mansion lives a man, the best of husbands and of 
+fathers, whose private worth in both capacities is justly lauded to 
+the skies.  But bring him here, upon this crowded deck.  Strip from 
+his fair young wife her silken dress and jewels, unbind her braided 
+hair, stamp early wrinkles on her brow, pinch her pale cheek with 
+care and much privation, array her faded form in coarsely patched 
+attire, let there be nothing but his love to set her forth or deck 
+her out, and you shall put it to the proof indeed.  So change his 
+station in the world, that he shall see in those young things who 
+climb about his knee:  not records of his wealth and name:  but 
+little wrestlers with him for his daily bread; so many poachers on 
+his scanty meal; so many units to divide his every sum of comfort, 
+and farther to reduce its small amount.  In lieu of the endearments 
+of childhood in its sweetest aspect, heap upon him all its pains 
+and wants, its sicknesses and ills, its fretfulness, caprice, and 
+querulous endurance:  let its prattle be, not of engaging infant 
+fancies, but of cold, and thirst, and hunger:  and if his fatherly 
+affection outlive all this, and he be patient, watchful, tender; 
+careful of his children's lives, and mindful always of their joys 
+and sorrows; then send him back to Parliament, and Pulpit, and to 
+Quarter Sessions, and when he hears fine talk of the depravity of 
+those who live from hand to mouth, and labour hard to do it, let 
+him speak up, as one who knows, and tell those holders forth that 
+they, by parallel with such a class, should be High Angels in their 
+daily lives, and lay but humble siege to Heaven at last.
+
+Which of us shall say what he would be, if such realities, with 
+small relief or change all through his days, were his!  Looking 
+round upon these people:  far from home, houseless, indigent, 
+wandering, weary with travel and hard living:  and seeing how 
+patiently they nursed and tended their young children:  how they 
+consulted ever their wants first, then half supplied their own; 
+what gentle ministers of hope and faith the women were; how the men 
+profited by their example; and how very, very seldom even a 
+moment's petulance or harsh complaint broke out among them:  I felt 
+a stronger love and honour of my kind come glowing on my heart, and 
+wished to God there had been many Atheists in the better part of 
+human nature there, to read this simple lesson in the book of Life.
+
+* * * * * *
+
+We left Montreal for New York again, on the thirtieth of May, 
+crossing to La Prairie, on the opposite shore of the St. Lawrence, 
+in a steamboat; we then took the railroad to St. John's, which is 
+on the brink of Lake Champlain.  Our last greeting in Canada was 
+from the English officers in the pleasant barracks at that place (a 
+class of gentlemen who had made every hour of our visit memorable 
+by their hospitality and friendship); and with 'Rule Britannia' 
+sounding in our ears, soon left it far behind.
+
+But Canada has held, and always will retain, a foremost place in my 
+remembrance.  Few Englishmen are prepared to find it what it is.  
+Advancing quietly; old differences settling down, and being fast 
+forgotten; public feeling and private enterprise alike in a sound 
+and wholesome state; nothing of flush or fever in its system, but 
+health and vigour throbbing in its steady pulse:  it is full of 
+hope and promise.  To me - who had been accustomed to think of it 
+as something left behind in the strides of advancing society, as 
+something neglected and forgotten, slumbering and wasting in its 
+sleep - the demand for labour and the rates of wages; the busy 
+quays of Montreal; the vessels taking in their cargoes, and 
+discharging them; the amount of shipping in the different ports; 
+the commerce, roads, and public works, all made TO LAST; the 
+respectability and character of the public journals; and the amount 
+of rational comfort and happiness which honest industry may earn:  
+were very great surprises.  The steamboats on the lakes, in their 
+conveniences, cleanliness, and safety; in the gentlemanly character 
+and bearing of their captains; and in the politeness and perfect 
+comfort of their social regulations; are unsurpassed even by the 
+famous Scotch vessels, deservedly so much esteemed at home.  The 
+inns are usually bad; because the custom of boarding at hotels is 
+not so general here as in the States, and the British officers, who 
+form a large portion of the society of every town, live chiefly at 
+the regimental messes:  but in every other respect, the traveller 
+in Canada will find as good provision for his comfort as in any 
+place I know.
+
+There is one American boat - the vessel which carried us on Lake 
+Champlain, from St. John's to Whitehall - which I praise very 
+highly, but no more than it deserves, when I say that it is 
+superior even to that in which we went from Queenston to Toronto, 
+or to that in which we travelled from the latter place to Kingston, 
+or I have no doubt I may add to any other in the world.  This 
+steamboat, which is called the Burlington, is a perfectly exquisite 
+achievement of neatness, elegance, and order.  The decks are 
+drawing-rooms; the cabins are boudoirs, choicely furnished and 
+adorned with prints, pictures, and musical instruments; every nook 
+and corner in the vessel is a perfect curiosity of graceful comfort 
+and beautiful contrivance.  Captain Sherman, her commander, to 
+whose ingenuity and excellent taste these results are solely 
+attributable, has bravely and worthily distinguished himself on 
+more than one trying occasion:  not least among them, in having the 
+moral courage to carry British troops, at a time (during the 
+Canadian rebellion) when no other conveyance was open to them.  He 
+and his vessel are held in universal respect, both by his own 
+countrymen and ours; and no man ever enjoyed the popular esteem, 
+who, in his sphere of action, won and wore it better than this 
+gentleman.
+
+By means of this floating palace we were soon in the United States 
+again, and called that evening at Burlington; a pretty town, where 
+we lay an hour or so.  We reached Whitehall, where we were to 
+disembark, at six next morning; and might have done so earlier, but 
+that these steamboats lie by for some hours in the night, in 
+consequence of the lake becoming very narrow at that part of the 
+journey, and difficult of navigation in the dark.  Its width is so 
+contracted at one point, indeed, that they are obliged to warp 
+round by means of a rope.
+
+After breakfasting at Whitehall, we took the stage-coach for 
+Albany:  a large and busy town, where we arrived between five and 
+six o'clock that afternoon; after a very hot day's journey, for we 
+were now in the height of summer again.  At seven we started for 
+New York on board a great North River steamboat, which was so 
+crowded with passengers that the upper deck was like the box lobby 
+of a theatre between the pieces, and the lower one like Tottenham 
+Court Road on a Saturday night.  But we slept soundly, 
+notwithstanding, and soon after five o'clock next morning reached 
+New York.
+
+Tarrying here, only that day and night, to recruit after our late 
+fatigues, we started off once more upon our last journey in 
+America.  We had yet five days to spare before embarking for 
+England, and I had a great desire to see 'the Shaker Village,' 
+which is peopled by a religious sect from whom it takes its name.
+
+To this end, we went up the North River again, as far as the town 
+of Hudson, and there hired an extra to carry us to Lebanon, thirty 
+miles distant:  and of course another and a different Lebanon from 
+that village where I slept on the night of the Prairie trip.
+
+The country through which the road meandered, was rich and 
+beautiful; the weather very fine; and for many miles the Kaatskill 
+mountains, where Rip Van Winkle and the ghostly Dutchmen played at 
+ninepins one memorable gusty afternoon, towered in the blue 
+distance, like stately clouds.  At one point, as we ascended a 
+steep hill, athwart whose base a railroad, yet constructing, took 
+its course, we came upon an Irish colony.  With means at hand of 
+building decent cabins, it was wonderful to see how clumsy, rough, 
+and wretched, its hovels were.  The best were poor protection from 
+the weather the worst let in the wind and rain through wide 
+breaches in the roofs of sodden grass, and in the walls of mud; 
+some had neither door nor window; some had nearly fallen down, and 
+were imperfectly propped up by stakes and poles; all were ruinous 
+and filthy.  Hideously ugly old women and very buxom young ones, 
+pigs, dogs, men, children, babies, pots, kettles, dung-hills, vile 
+refuse, rank straw, and standing water, all wallowing together in 
+an inseparable heap, composed the furniture of every dark and dirty 
+hut.
+
+Between nine and ten o'clock at night, we arrived at Lebanon which 
+is renowned for its warm baths, and for a great hotel, well 
+adapted, I have no doubt, to the gregarious taste of those seekers 
+after health or pleasure who repair here, but inexpressibly 
+comfortless to me.  We were shown into an immense apartment, 
+lighted by two dim candles, called the drawing-room:  from which 
+there was a descent by a flight of steps, to another vast desert, 
+called the dining-room:  our bed-chambers were among certain long 
+rows of little white-washed cells, which opened from either side of 
+a dreary passage; and were so like rooms in a prison that I half 
+expected to be locked up when I went to bed, and listened 
+involuntarily for the turning of the key on the outside.  There 
+need be baths somewhere in the neighbourhood, for the other washing 
+arrangements were on as limited a scale as I ever saw, even in 
+America:  indeed, these bedrooms were so very bare of even such 
+common luxuries as chairs, that I should say they were not provided 
+with enough of anything, but that I bethink myself of our having 
+been most bountifully bitten all night.
+
+The house is very pleasantly situated, however, and we had a good 
+breakfast.  That done, we went to visit our place of destination, 
+which was some two miles off, and the way to which was soon 
+indicated by a finger-post, whereon was painted, 'To the Shaker 
+Village.'
+
+As we rode along, we passed a party of Shakers, who were at work 
+upon the road; who wore the broadest of all broad-brimmed hats; and 
+were in all visible respects such very wooden men, that I felt 
+about as much sympathy for them, and as much interest in them, as 
+if they had been so many figure-heads of ships.  Presently we came 
+to the beginning of the village, and alighting at the door of a 
+house where the Shaker manufactures are sold, and which is the 
+headquarters of the elders, requested permission to see the Shaker 
+worship.
+
+Pending the conveyance of this request to some person in authority, 
+we walked into a grim room, where several grim hats were hanging on 
+grim pegs, and the time was grimly told by a grim clock which 
+uttered every tick with a kind of struggle, as if it broke the grim 
+silence reluctantly, and under protest.  Ranged against the wall 
+were six or eight stiff, high-backed chairs, and they partook so 
+strongly of the general grimness that one would much rather have 
+sat on the floor than incurred the smallest obligation to any of 
+them.
+
+Presently, there stalked into this apartment, a grim old Shaker, 
+with eyes as hard, and dull, and cold, as the great round metal 
+buttons on his coat and waistcoat; a sort of calm goblin.  Being 
+informed of our desire, he produced a newspaper wherein the body of 
+elders, whereof he was a member, had advertised but a few days 
+before, that in consequence of certain unseemly interruptions which 
+their worship had received from strangers, their chapel was closed 
+to the public for the space of one year.
+
+As nothing was to be urged in opposition to this reasonable 
+arrangement, we requested leave to make some trifling purchases of 
+Shaker goods; which was grimly conceded.  We accordingly repaired 
+to a store in the same house and on the opposite side of the 
+passage, where the stock was presided over by something alive in a 
+russet case, which the elder said was a woman; and which I suppose 
+WAS a woman, though I should not have suspected it.
+
+On the opposite side of the road was their place of worship:  a 
+cool, clean edifice of wood, with large windows and green blinds:  
+like a spacious summer-house.  As there was no getting into this 
+place, and nothing was to be done but walk up and down, and look at 
+it and the other buildings in the village (which were chiefly of 
+wood, painted a dark red like English barns, and composed of many 
+stories like English factories), I have nothing to communicate to 
+the reader, beyond the scanty results I gleaned the while our 
+purchases were making.
+
+These people are called Shakers from their peculiar form of 
+adoration, which consists of a dance, performed by the men and 
+women of all ages, who arrange themselves for that purpose in 
+opposite parties:  the men first divesting themselves of their hats 
+and coats, which they gravely hang against the wall before they 
+begin; and tying a ribbon round their shirt-sleeves, as though they 
+were going to be bled.  They accompany themselves with a droning, 
+humming noise, and dance until they are quite exhausted, 
+alternately advancing and retiring in a preposterous sort of trot.  
+The effect is said to be unspeakably absurd:  and if I may judge 
+from a print of this ceremony which I have in my possession; and 
+which I am informed by those who have visited the chapel, is 
+perfectly accurate; it must be infinitely grotesque.
+
+They are governed by a woman, and her rule is understood to be 
+absolute, though she has the assistance of a council of elders.  
+She lives, it is said, in strict seclusion, in certain rooms above 
+the chapel, and is never shown to profane eyes.  If she at all 
+resemble the lady who presided over the store, it is a great 
+charity to keep her as close as possible, and I cannot too strongly 
+express my perfect concurrence in this benevolent proceeding.
+
+All the possessions and revenues of the settlement are thrown into 
+a common stock, which is managed by the elders.  As they have made 
+converts among people who were well to do in the world, and are 
+frugal and thrifty, it is understood that this fund prospers:  the 
+more especially as they have made large purchases of land.  Nor is 
+this at Lebanon the only Shaker settlement:  there are, I think, at 
+least, three others.
+
+They are good farmers, and all their produce is eagerly purchased 
+and highly esteemed.  'Shaker seeds,' 'Shaker herbs,' and 'Shaker 
+distilled waters,' are commonly announced for sale in the shops of 
+towns and cities.  They are good breeders of cattle, and are kind 
+and merciful to the brute creation.  Consequently, Shaker beasts 
+seldom fail to find a ready market.
+
+They eat and drink together, after the Spartan model, at a great 
+public table.  There is no union of the sexes, and every Shaker, 
+male and female, is devoted to a life of celibacy.  Rumour has been 
+busy upon this theme, but here again I must refer to the lady of 
+the store, and say, that if many of the sister Shakers resemble 
+her, I treat all such slander as bearing on its face the strongest 
+marks of wild improbability.  But that they take as proselytes, 
+persons so young that they cannot know their own minds, and cannot 
+possess much strength of resolution in this or any other respect, I 
+can assert from my own observation of the extreme juvenility of 
+certain youthful Shakers whom I saw at work among the party on the 
+road.
+
+They are said to be good drivers of bargains, but to be honest and 
+just in their transactions, and even in horse-dealing to resist 
+those thievish tendencies which would seem, for some undiscovered 
+reason, to be almost inseparable from that branch of traffic.  In 
+all matters they hold their own course quietly, live in their 
+gloomy, silent commonwealth, and show little desire to interfere 
+with other people.
+
+This is well enough, but nevertheless I cannot, I confess, incline 
+towards the Shakers; view them with much favour, or extend towards 
+them any very lenient construction.  I so abhor, and from my soul 
+detest that bad spirit, no matter by what class or sect it may be 
+entertained, which would strip life of its healthful graces, rob 
+youth of its innocent pleasures, pluck from maturity and age their 
+pleasant ornaments, and make existence but a narrow path towards 
+the grave:  that odious spirit which, if it could have had full 
+scope and sway upon the earth, must have blasted and made barren 
+the imaginations of the greatest men, and left them, in their power 
+of raising up enduring images before their fellow-creatures yet 
+unborn, no better than the beasts:  that, in these very broad-
+brimmed hats and very sombre coats - in stiff-necked, solemn-
+visaged piety, in short, no matter what its garb, whether it have 
+cropped hair as in a Shaker village, or long nails as in a Hindoo 
+temple - I recognise the worst among the enemies of Heaven and 
+Earth, who turn the water at the marriage feasts of this poor 
+world, not into wine, but gall.  And if there must be people vowed 
+to crush the harmless fancies and the love of innocent delights and 
+gaieties, which are a part of human nature:  as much a part of it 
+as any other love or hope that is our common portion:  let them, 
+for me, stand openly revealed among the ribald and licentious; the 
+very idiots know that THEY are not on the Immortal road, and will 
+despise them, and avoid them readily.
+
+Leaving the Shaker village with a hearty dislike of the old 
+Shakers, and a hearty pity for the young ones:  tempered by the 
+strong probability of their running away as they grow older and 
+wiser, which they not uncommonly do:  we returned to Lebanon, and 
+so to Hudson, by the way we had come upon the previous day.  There, 
+we took the steamboat down the North River towards New York, but 
+stopped, some four hours' journey short of it, at West Point, where 
+we remained that night, and all next day, and next night too.
+
+In this beautiful place:  the fairest among the fair and lovely 
+Highlands of the North River:  shut in by deep green heights and 
+ruined forts, and looking down upon the distant town of Newburgh, 
+along a glittering path of sunlit water, with here and there a 
+skiff, whose white sail often bends on some new tack as sudden 
+flaws of wind come down upon her from the gullies in the hills:  
+hemmed in, besides, all round with memories of Washington, and 
+events of the revolutionary war:  is the Military School of 
+America.
+
+It could not stand on more appropriate ground, and any ground more 
+beautiful can hardly be.  The course of education is severe, but 
+well devised, and manly.  Through June, July, and August, the young 
+men encamp upon the spacious plain whereon the college stands; and 
+all the year their military exercises are performed there, daily.  
+The term of study at this institution, which the State requires 
+from all cadets, is four years; but, whether it be from the rigid 
+nature of the discipline, or the national impatience of restraint, 
+or both causes combined, not more than half the number who begin 
+their studies here, ever remain to finish them.
+
+The number of cadets being about equal to that of the members of 
+Congress, one is sent here from every Congressional district:  its 
+member influencing the selection.  Commissions in the service are 
+distributed on the same principle.  The dwellings of the various 
+Professors are beautifully situated; and there is a most excellent 
+hotel for strangers, though it has the two drawbacks of being a 
+total abstinence house (wines and spirits being forbidden to the 
+students), and of serving the public meals at rather uncomfortable 
+hours:  to wit, breakfast at seven, dinner at one, and supper at 
+sunset.
+
+The beauty and freshness of this calm retreat, in the very dawn and 
+greenness of summer - it was then the beginning of June - were 
+exquisite indeed.  Leaving it upon the sixth, and returning to New 
+York, to embark for England on the succeeding day, I was glad to 
+think that among the last memorable beauties which had glided past 
+us, and softened in the bright perspective, were those whose 
+pictures, traced by no common hand, are fresh in most men's minds; 
+not easily to grow old, or fade beneath the dust of Time:  the 
+Kaatskill Mountains, Sleepy Hollow, and the Tappaan Zee.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI - THE PASSAGE HOME
+
+
+
+I NEVER had so much interest before, and very likely I shall never 
+have so much interest again, in the state of the wind, as on the 
+long-looked-for morning of Tuesday the Seventh of June.  Some 
+nautical authority had told me a day or two previous, 'anything 
+with west in it, will do;' so when I darted out of bed at daylight, 
+and throwing up the window, was saluted by a lively breeze from the 
+north-west which had sprung up in the night, it came upon me so 
+freshly, rustling with so many happy associations, that I conceived 
+upon the spot a special regard for all airs blowing from that 
+quarter of the compass, which I shall cherish, I dare say, until my 
+own wind has breathed its last frail puff, and withdrawn itself for 
+ever from the mortal calendar.
+
+The pilot had not been slow to take advantage of this favourable 
+weather, and the ship which yesterday had been in such a crowded 
+dock that she might have retired from trade for good and all, for 
+any chance she seemed to have of going to sea, was now full sixteen 
+miles away.  A gallant sight she was, when we, fast gaining on her 
+in a steamboat, saw her in the distance riding at anchor:  her tall 
+masts pointing up in graceful lines against the sky, and every rope 
+and spar expressed in delicate and thread-like outline:  gallant, 
+too, when, we being all aboard, the anchor came up to the sturdy 
+chorus 'Cheerily men, oh cheerily!' and she followed proudly in the 
+towing steamboat's wake:  but bravest and most gallant of all, when 
+the tow-rope being cast adrift, the canvas fluttered from her 
+masts, and spreading her white wings she soared away upon her free 
+and solitary course.
+
+In the after cabin we were only fifteen passengers in all, and the 
+greater part were from Canada, where some of us had known each 
+other.  The night was rough and squally, so were the next two days, 
+but they flew by quickly, and we were soon as cheerful and snug a 
+party, with an honest, manly-hearted captain at our head, as ever 
+came to the resolution of being mutually agreeable, on land or 
+water.
+
+We breakfasted at eight, lunched at twelve, dined at three, and 
+took our tea at half-past seven.  We had abundance of amusements, 
+and dinner was not the least among them:  firstly, for its own 
+sake; secondly, because of its extraordinary length:  its duration, 
+inclusive of all the long pauses between the courses, being seldom 
+less than two hours and a half; which was a subject of never-
+failing entertainment.  By way of beguiling the tediousness of 
+these banquets, a select association was formed at the lower end of 
+the table, below the mast, to whose distinguished president modesty 
+forbids me to make any further allusion, which, being a very 
+hilarious and jovial institution, was (prejudice apart) in high 
+favour with the rest of the community, and particularly with a 
+black steward, who lived for three weeks in a broad grin at the 
+marvellous humour of these incorporated worthies.
+
+Then, we had chess for those who played it, whist, cribbage, books, 
+backgammon, and shovelboard.  In all weathers, fair or foul, calm 
+or windy, we were every one on deck, walking up and down in pairs, 
+lying in the boats, leaning over the side, or chatting in a lazy 
+group together.  We had no lack of music, for one played the 
+accordion, another the violin, and another (who usually began at 
+six o'clock A.M.) the key-bugle:  the combined effect of which 
+instruments, when they all played different tunes in different 
+parts of the ship, at the same time, and within hearing of each 
+other, as they sometimes did (everybody being intensely satisfied 
+with his own performance), was sublimely hideous.
+
+When all these means of entertainment failed, a sail would heave in 
+sight:  looming, perhaps, the very spirit of a ship, in the misty 
+distance, or passing us so close that through our glasses we could 
+see the people on her decks, and easily make out her name, and 
+whither she was bound.  For hours together we could watch the 
+dolphins and porpoises as they rolled and leaped and dived around 
+the vessel; or those small creatures ever on the wing, the Mother 
+Carey's chickens, which had borne us company from New York bay, and 
+for a whole fortnight fluttered about the vessel's stern.  For some 
+days we had a dead calm, or very light winds, during which the crew 
+amused themselves with fishing, and hooked an unlucky dolphin, who 
+expired, in all his rainbow colours, on the deck:  an event of such 
+importance in our barren calendar, that afterwards we dated from 
+the dolphin, and made the day on which he died, an era.
+
+Besides all this, when we were five or six days out, there began to 
+be much talk of icebergs, of which wandering islands an unusual 
+number had been seen by the vessels that had come into New York a 
+day or two before we left that port, and of whose dangerous 
+neighbourhood we were warned by the sudden coldness of the weather, 
+and the sinking of the mercury in the barometer.  While these 
+tokens lasted, a double look-out was kept, and many dismal tales 
+were whispered after dark, of ships that had struck upon the ice 
+and gone down in the night; but the wind obliging us to hold a 
+southward course, we saw none of them, and the weather soon grew 
+bright and warm again.
+
+The observation every day at noon, and the subsequent working of 
+the vessel's course, was, as may be supposed, a feature in our 
+lives of paramount importance; nor were there wanting (as there 
+never are) sagacious doubters of the captain's calculations, who, 
+so soon as his back was turned, would, in the absence of compasses, 
+measure the chart with bits of string, and ends of pocket-
+handkerchiefs, and points of snuffers, and clearly prove him to be 
+wrong by an odd thousand miles or so.  It was very edifying to see 
+these unbelievers shake their heads and frown, and hear them hold 
+forth strongly upon navigation:  not that they knew anything about 
+it, but that they always mistrusted the captain in calm weather, or 
+when the wind was adverse.  Indeed, the mercury itself is not so 
+variable as this class of passengers, whom you will see, when the 
+ship is going nobly through the water, quite pale with admiration, 
+swearing that the captain beats all captains ever known, and even 
+hinting at subscriptions for a piece of plate; and who, next 
+morning, when the breeze has lulled, and all the sails hang useless 
+in the idle air, shake their despondent heads again, and say, with 
+screwed-up lips, they hope that captain is a sailor - but they 
+shrewdly doubt him.
+
+It even became an occupation in the calm, to wonder when the wind 
+WOULD spring up in the favourable quarter, where, it was clearly 
+shown by all the rules and precedents, it ought to have sprung up 
+long ago.  The first mate, who whistled for it zealously, was much 
+respected for his perseverance, and was regarded even by the 
+unbelievers as a first-rate sailor.  Many gloomy looks would be 
+cast upward through the cabin skylights at the flapping sails while 
+dinner was in progress; and some, growing bold in ruefulness, 
+predicted that we should land about the middle of July.  There are 
+always on board ship, a Sanguine One, and a Despondent One.  The 
+latter character carried it hollow at this period of the voyage, 
+and triumphed over the Sanguine One at every meal, by inquiring 
+where he supposed the Great Western (which left New York a week 
+after us) was NOW:  and where he supposed the 'Cunard' steam-packet 
+was NOW:  and what he thought of sailing vessels, as compared with 
+steamships NOW:  and so beset his life with pestilent attacks of 
+that kind, that he too was obliged to affect despondency, for very 
+peace and quietude.
+
+These were additions to the list of entertaining incidents, but 
+there was still another source of interest.  We carried in the 
+steerage nearly a hundred passengers:  a little world of poverty:  
+and as we came to know individuals among them by sight, from 
+looking down upon the deck where they took the air in the daytime, 
+and cooked their food, and very often ate it too, we became curious 
+to know their histories, and with what expectations they had gone 
+out to America, and on what errands they were going home, and what 
+their circumstances were.  The information we got on these heads 
+from the carpenter, who had charge of these people, was often of 
+the strangest kind.  Some of them had been in America but three 
+days, some but three months, and some had gone out in the last 
+voyage of that very ship in which they were now returning home.  
+Others had sold their clothes to raise the passage-money, and had 
+hardly rags to cover them; others had no food, and lived upon the 
+charity of the rest:  and one man, it was discovered nearly at the 
+end of the voyage, not before - for he kept his secret close, and 
+did not court compassion - had had no sustenance whatever but the 
+bones and scraps of fat he took from the plates used in the after-
+cabin dinner, when they were put out to be washed.
+
+The whole system of shipping and conveying these unfortunate 
+persons, is one that stands in need of thorough revision.  If any 
+class deserve to be protected and assisted by the Government, it is 
+that class who are banished from their native land in search of the 
+bare means of subsistence.  All that could be done for these poor 
+people by the great compassion and humanity of the captain and 
+officers was done, but they require much more.  The law is bound, 
+at least upon the English side, to see that too many of them are 
+not put on board one ship:  and that their accommodations are 
+decent:  not demoralising, and profligate.  It is bound, too, in 
+common humanity, to declare that no man shall be taken on board 
+without his stock of provisions being previously inspected by some 
+proper officer, and pronounced moderately sufficient for his 
+support upon the voyage.  It is bound to provide, or to require 
+that there be provided, a medical attendant; whereas in these ships 
+there are none, though sickness of adults, and deaths of children, 
+on the passage, are matters of the very commonest occurrence.  
+Above all it is the duty of any Government, be it monarchy or 
+republic, to interpose and put an end to that system by which a 
+firm of traders in emigrants purchase of the owners the whole 
+'tween-decks of a ship, and send on board as many wretched people 
+as they can lay hold of, on any terms they can get, without the 
+smallest reference to the conveniences of the steerage, the number 
+of berths, the slightest separation of the sexes, or anything but 
+their own immediate profit.  Nor is even this the worst of the 
+vicious system:  for, certain crimping agents of these houses, who 
+have a percentage on all the passengers they inveigle, are 
+constantly travelling about those districts where poverty and 
+discontent are rife, and tempting the credulous into more misery, 
+by holding out monstrous inducements to emigration which can never 
+be realised.
+
+The history of every family we had on board was pretty much the 
+same.  After hoarding up, and borrowing, and begging, and selling 
+everything to pay the passage, they had gone out to New York, 
+expecting to find its streets paved with gold; and had found them 
+paved with very hard and very real stones.  Enterprise was dull; 
+labourers were not wanted; jobs of work were to be got, but the 
+payment was not.  They were coming back, even poorer than they 
+went.  One of them was carrying an open letter from a young English 
+artisan, who had been in New York a fortnight, to a friend near 
+Manchester, whom he strongly urged to follow him.  One of the 
+officers brought it to me as a curiosity.  'This is the country, 
+Jem,' said the writer.  'I like America.  There is no despotism 
+here; that's the great thing.  Employment of all sorts is going a-
+begging, and wages are capital.  You have only to choose a trade, 
+Jem, and be it.  I haven't made choice of one yet, but I shall 
+soon.  AT PRESENT I HAVEN'T QUITE MADE UP MY MIND WHETHER TO BE A 
+CARPENTER - OR A TAILOR.'
+
+There was yet another kind of passenger, and but one more, who, in 
+the calm and the light winds, was a constant theme of conversation 
+and observation among us.  This was an English sailor, a smart, 
+thorough-built, English man-of-war's-man from his hat to his shoes, 
+who was serving in the American navy, and having got leave of 
+absence was on his way home to see his friends.  When he presented 
+himself to take and pay for his passage, it had been suggested to 
+him that being an able seaman he might as well work it and save the 
+money, but this piece of advice he very indignantly rejected:  
+saying, 'He'd be damned but for once he'd go aboard ship, as a 
+gentleman.'  Accordingly, they took his money, but he no sooner 
+came aboard, than he stowed his kit in the forecastle, arranged to 
+mess with the crew, and the very first time the hands were turned 
+up, went aloft like a cat, before anybody.  And all through the 
+passage there he was, first at the braces, outermost on the yards, 
+perpetually lending a hand everywhere, but always with a sober 
+dignity in his manner, and a sober grin on his face, which plainly 
+said, 'I do it as a gentleman.  For my own pleasure, mind you!'
+
+At length and at last, the promised wind came up in right good 
+earnest, and away we went before it, with every stitch of canvas 
+set, slashing through the water nobly.  There was a grandeur in the 
+motion of the splendid ship, as overshadowed by her mass of sails, 
+she rode at a furious pace upon the waves, which filled one with an 
+indescribable sense of pride and exultation.  As she plunged into a 
+foaming valley, how I loved to see the green waves, bordered deep 
+with white, come rushing on astern, to buoy her upward at their 
+pleasure, and curl about her as she stooped again, but always own 
+her for their haughty mistress still!  On, on we flew, with 
+changing lights upon the water, being now in the blessed region of 
+fleecy skies; a bright sun lighting us by day, and a bright moon by 
+night; the vane pointing directly homeward, alike the truthful 
+index to the favouring wind and to our cheerful hearts; until at 
+sunrise, one fair Monday morning - the twenty-seventh of June, I 
+shall not easily forget the day - there lay before us, old Cape 
+Clear, God bless it, showing, in the mist of early morning, like a 
+cloud:  the brightest and most welcome cloud, to us, that ever hid 
+the face of Heaven's fallen sister - Home.
+
+Dim speck as it was in the wide prospect, it made the sunrise a 
+more cheerful sight, and gave to it that sort of human interest 
+which it seems to want at sea.  There, as elsewhere, the return of 
+day is inseparable from some sense of renewed hope and gladness; 
+but the light shining on the dreary waste of water, and showing it 
+in all its vast extent of loneliness, presents a solemn spectacle, 
+which even night, veiling it in darkness and uncertainty, does not 
+surpass.  The rising of the moon is more in keeping with the 
+solitary ocean; and has an air of melancholy grandeur, which in its 
+soft and gentle influence, seems to comfort while it saddens.  I 
+recollect when I was a very young child having a fancy that the 
+reflection of the moon in water was a path to Heaven, trodden by 
+the spirits of good people on their way to God; and this old 
+feeling often came over me again, when I watched it on a tranquil 
+night at sea.
+
+The wind was very light on this same Monday morning, but it was 
+still in the right quarter, and so, by slow degrees, we left Cape 
+Clear behind, and sailed along within sight of the coast of 
+Ireland.  And how merry we all were, and how loyal to the George 
+Washington, and how full of mutual congratulations, and how 
+venturesome in predicting the exact hour at which we should arrive 
+at Liverpool, may be easily imagined and readily understood.  Also, 
+how heartily we drank the captain's health that day at dinner; and 
+how restless we became about packing up:  and how two or three of 
+the most sanguine spirits rejected the idea of going to bed at all 
+that night as something it was not worth while to do, so near the 
+shore, but went nevertheless, and slept soundly; and how to be so 
+near our journey's end, was like a pleasant dream, from which one 
+feared to wake.
+
+The friendly breeze freshened again next day, and on we went once 
+more before it gallantly:  descrying now and then an English ship 
+going homeward under shortened sail, while we, with every inch of 
+canvas crowded on, dashed gaily past, and left her far behind.  
+Towards evening, the weather turned hazy, with a drizzling rain; 
+and soon became so thick, that we sailed, as it were, in a cloud.  
+Still we swept onward like a phantom ship, and many an eager eye 
+glanced up to where the Look-out on the mast kept watch for 
+Holyhead.
+
+At length his long-expected cry was heard, and at the same moment 
+there shone out from the haze and mist ahead, a gleaming light, 
+which presently was gone, and soon returned, and soon was gone 
+again.  Whenever it came back, the eyes of all on board, brightened 
+and sparkled like itself:  and there we all stood, watching this 
+revolving light upon the rock at Holyhead, and praising it for its 
+brightness and its friendly warning, and lauding it, in short, 
+above all other signal lights that ever were displayed, until it 
+once more glimmered faintly in the distance, far behind us.
+
+Then, it was time to fire a gun, for a pilot; and almost before its 
+smoke had cleared away, a little boat with a light at her masthead 
+came bearing down upon us, through the darkness, swiftly.  And 
+presently, our sails being backed, she ran alongside; and the 
+hoarse pilot, wrapped and muffled in pea-coats and shawls to the 
+very bridge of his weather-ploughed-up nose, stood bodily among us 
+on the deck.  And I think if that pilot had wanted to borrow fifty 
+pounds for an indefinite period on no security, we should have 
+engaged to lend it to him, among us, before his boat had dropped 
+astern, or (which is the same thing) before every scrap of news in 
+the paper he brought with him had become the common property of all 
+on board.
+
+We turned in pretty late that night, and turned out pretty early 
+next morning.  By six o'clock we clustered on the deck, prepared to 
+go ashore; and looked upon the spires, and roofs, and smoke, of 
+Liverpool.  By eight we all sat down in one of its Hotels, to eat 
+and drink together for the last time.  And by nine we had shaken 
+hands all round, and broken up our social company for ever.
+
+The country, by the railroad, seemed, as we rattled through it, 
+like a luxuriant garden.  The beauty of the fields (so small they 
+looked!), the hedge-rows, and the trees; the pretty cottages, the 
+beds of flowers, the old churchyards, the antique houses, and every 
+well-known object; the exquisite delights of that one journey, 
+crowding in the short compass of a summer's day, the joy of many 
+years, with the winding up with Home and all that makes it dear; no 
+tongue can tell, or pen of mine describe.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII - SLAVERY
+
+
+
+THE upholders of slavery in America - of the atrocities of which 
+system, I shall not write one word for which I have not had ample 
+proof and warrant - may be divided into three great classes.
+
+The first, are those more moderate and rational owners of human 
+cattle, who have come into the possession of them as so many coins 
+in their trading capital, but who admit the frightful nature of the 
+Institution in the abstract, and perceive the dangers to society 
+with which it is fraught:  dangers which however distant they may 
+be, or howsoever tardy in their coming on, are as certain to fall 
+upon its guilty head, as is the Day of Judgment.
+
+The second, consists of all those owners, breeders, users, buyers 
+and sellers of slaves, who will, until the bloody chapter has a 
+bloody end, own, breed, use, buy, and sell them at all hazards:  
+who doggedly deny the horrors of the system in the teeth of such a 
+mass of evidence as never was brought to bear on any other subject, 
+and to which the experience of every day contributes its immense 
+amount; who would at this or any other moment, gladly involve 
+America in a war, civil or foreign, provided that it had for its 
+sole end and object the assertion of their right to perpetuate 
+slavery, and to whip and work and torture slaves, unquestioned by 
+any human authority, and unassailed by any human power; who, when 
+they speak of Freedom, mean the Freedom to oppress their kind, and 
+to be savage, merciless, and cruel; and of whom every man on his 
+own ground, in republican America, is a more exacting, and a 
+sterner, and a less responsible despot than the Caliph Haroun 
+Alraschid in his angry robe of scarlet.
+
+The third, and not the least numerous or influential, is composed 
+of all that delicate gentility which cannot bear a superior, and 
+cannot brook an equal; of that class whose Republicanism means, 'I 
+will not tolerate a man above me:  and of those below, none must 
+approach too near;' whose pride, in a land where voluntary 
+servitude is shunned as a disgrace, must be ministered to by 
+slaves; and whose inalienable rights can only have their growth in 
+negro wrongs.
+
+It has been sometimes urged that, in the unavailing efforts which 
+have been made to advance the cause of Human Freedom in the 
+republic of America (strange cause for history to treat of!), 
+sufficient regard has not been had to the existence of the first 
+class of persons; and it has been contended that they are hardly 
+used, in being confounded with the second.  This is, no doubt, the 
+case; noble instances of pecuniary and personal sacrifice have 
+already had their growth among them; and it is much to be regretted 
+that the gulf between them and the advocates of emancipation should 
+have been widened and deepened by any means:  the rather, as there 
+are, beyond dispute, among these slave-owners, many kind masters 
+who are tender in the exercise of their unnatural power.  Still, it 
+is to be feared that this injustice is inseparable from the state 
+of things with which humanity and truth are called upon to deal.  
+Slavery is not a whit the more endurable because some hearts are to 
+be found which can partially resist its hardening influences; nor 
+can the indignant tide of honest wrath stand still, because in its 
+onward course it overwhelms a few who are comparatively innocent, 
+among a host of guilty.
+
+The ground most commonly taken by these better men among the 
+advocates of slavery, is this:  'It is a bad system; and for myself 
+I would willingly get rid of it, if I could; most willingly.  But 
+it is not so bad, as you in England take it to be.  You are 
+deceived by the representations of the emancipationists.  The 
+greater part of my slaves are much attached to me.  You will say 
+that I do not allow them to be severely treated; but I will put it 
+to you whether you believe that it can be a general practice to 
+treat them inhumanly, when it would impair their value, and would 
+be obviously against the interests of their masters.'
+
+Is it the interest of any man to steal, to game, to waste his 
+health and mental faculties by drunkenness, to lie, forswear 
+himself, indulge hatred, seek desperate revenge, or do murder?  No.  
+All these are roads to ruin.  And why, then, do men tread them?  
+Because such inclinations are among the vicious qualities of 
+mankind.  Blot out, ye friends of slavery, from the catalogue of 
+human passions, brutal lust, cruelty, and the abuse of 
+irresponsible power (of all earthly temptations the most difficult 
+to be resisted), and when ye have done so, and not before, we will 
+inquire whether it be the interest of a master to lash and maim the 
+slaves, over whose lives and limbs he has an absolute control!
+
+But again:  this class, together with that last one I have named, 
+the miserable aristocracy spawned of a false republic, lift up 
+their voices and exclaim 'Public opinion is all-sufficient to 
+prevent such cruelty as you denounce.'  Public opinion!  Why, 
+public opinion in the slave States IS slavery, is it not?  Public 
+opinion, in the slave States, has delivered the slaves over, to the 
+gentle mercies of their masters.  Public opinion has made the laws, 
+and denied the slaves legislative protection.  Public opinion has 
+knotted the lash, heated the branding-iron, loaded the rifle, and 
+shielded the murderer.  Public opinion threatens the abolitionist 
+with death, if he venture to the South; and drags him with a rope 
+about his middle, in broad unblushing noon, through the first city 
+in the East.  Public opinion has, within a few years, burned a 
+slave alive at a slow fire in the city of St. Louis; and public 
+opinion has to this day maintained upon the bench that estimable 
+judge who charged the jury, impanelled there to try his murderers, 
+that their most horrid deed was an act of public opinion, and being 
+so, must not be punished by the laws the public sentiment had made.  
+Public opinion hailed this doctrine with a howl of wild applause, 
+and set the prisoners free, to walk the city, men of mark, and 
+influence, and station, as they had been before.
+
+Public opinion! what class of men have an immense preponderance 
+over the rest of the community, in their power of representing 
+public opinion in the legislature? the slave-owners.  They send 
+from their twelve States one hundred members, while the fourteen 
+free States, with a free population nearly double, return but a 
+hundred and forty-two.  Before whom do the presidential candidates 
+bow down the most humbly, on whom do they fawn the most fondly, and 
+for whose tastes do they cater the most assiduously in their 
+servile protestations?  The slave-owners always.
+
+Public opinion! hear the public opinion of the free South, as 
+expressed by its own members in the House of Representatives at 
+Washington.  'I have a great respect for the chair,' quoth North 
+Carolina, 'I have a great respect for the chair as an officer of 
+the house, and a great respect for him personally; nothing but that 
+respect prevents me from rushing to the table and tearing that 
+petition which has just been presented for the abolition of slavery 
+in the district of Columbia, to pieces.' - 'I warn the 
+abolitionists,' says South Carolina, 'ignorant, infuriated 
+barbarians as they are, that if chance shall throw any of them into 
+our hands, he may expect a felon's death.' - 'Let an abolitionist 
+come within the borders of South Carolina,' cries a third; mild 
+Carolina's colleague; 'and if we can catch him, we will try him, 
+and notwithstanding the interference of all the governments on 
+earth, including the Federal government, we will HANG him.'
+
+Public opinion has made this law. - It has declared that in 
+Washington, in that city which takes its name from the father of 
+American liberty, any justice of the peace may bind with fetters 
+any negro passing down the street and thrust him into jail:  no 
+offence on the black man's part is necessary.  The justice says, 'I 
+choose to think this man a runaway:' and locks him up.  Public 
+opinion impowers the man of law when this is done, to advertise the 
+negro in the newspapers, warning his owner to come and claim him, 
+or he will be sold to pay the jail fees.  But supposing he is a 
+free black, and has no owner, it may naturally be presumed that he 
+is set at liberty.  No:  HE IS SOLD TO RECOMPENSE HIS JAILER.  This 
+has been done again, and again, and again.  He has no means of 
+proving his freedom; has no adviser, messenger, or assistance of 
+any sort or kind; no investigation into his case is made, or 
+inquiry instituted.  He, a free man, who may have served for years, 
+and bought his liberty, is thrown into jail on no process, for no 
+crime, and on no pretence of crime:  and is sold to pay the jail 
+fees.  This seems incredible, even of America, but it is the law.
+
+Public opinion is deferred to, in such cases as the following:  
+which is headed in the newspapers:-
+
+
+'INTERESTING LAW-CASE.
+
+'An interesting case is now on trial in the Supreme Court, arising 
+out of the following facts.  A gentleman residing in Maryland had 
+allowed an aged pair of his slaves, substantial though not legal 
+freedom for several years.  While thus living, a daughter was born 
+to them, who grew up in the same liberty, until she married a free 
+negro, and went with him to reside in Pennsylvania.  They had 
+several children, and lived unmolested until the original owner 
+died, when his heir attempted to regain them; but the magistrate 
+before whom they were brought, decided that he had no jurisdiction 
+in the case.  THE OWNER SEIZED THE WOMAN AND HER CHILDREN IN THE 
+NIGHT, AND CARRIED THEM TO MARYLAND.'
+
+
+'Cash for negroes,' 'cash for negroes,' 'cash for negroes,' is the 
+heading of advertisements in great capitals down the long columns 
+of the crowded journals.  Woodcuts of a runaway negro with manacled 
+hands, crouching beneath a bluff pursuer in top boots, who, having 
+caught him, grasps him by the throat, agreeably diversify the 
+pleasant text.  The leading article protests against 'that 
+abominable and hellish doctrine of abolition, which is repugnant 
+alike to every law of God and nature.'  The delicate mamma, who 
+smiles her acquiescence in this sprightly writing as she reads the 
+paper in her cool piazza, quiets her youngest child who clings 
+about her skirts, by promising the boy 'a whip to beat the little 
+niggers with.' - But the negroes, little and big, are protected by 
+public opinion.
+
+Let us try this public opinion by another test, which is important 
+in three points of view:  first, as showing how desperately timid 
+of the public opinion slave-owners are, in their delicate 
+descriptions of fugitive slaves in widely circulated newspapers; 
+secondly, as showing how perfectly contented the slaves are, and 
+how very seldom they run away; thirdly, as exhibiting their entire 
+freedom from scar, or blemish, or any mark of cruel infliction, as 
+their pictures are drawn, not by lying abolitionists, but by their 
+own truthful masters.
+
+The following are a few specimens of the advertisements in the 
+public papers.  It is only four years since the oldest among them 
+appeared; and others of the same nature continue to be published 
+every day, in shoals.
+
+'Ran away, Negress Caroline.  Had on a collar with one prong turned 
+down.'
+
+'Ran away, a black woman, Betsy.  Had an iron bar on her right 
+leg.'
+
+'Ran away, the negro Manuel.  Much marked with irons.'
+
+'Ran away, the negress Fanny.  Had on an iron band about her neck.'
+
+'Ran away, a negro boy about twelve years old.  Had round his neck 
+a chain dog-collar with "De Lampert" engraved on it.'
+
+'Ran away, the negro Hown.  Has a ring of iron on his left foot.  
+Also, Grise, HIS WIFE, having a ring and chain on the left leg.'
+
+'Ran away, a negro boy named James.  Said boy was ironed when he 
+left me.'
+
+'Committed to jail, a man who calls his name John.  He has a clog 
+of iron on his right foot which will weigh four or five pounds.'
+
+'Detained at the police jail, the negro wench, Myra.  Has several 
+marks of LASHING, and has irons on her feet.'
+
+'Ran away, a negro woman and two children.  A few days before she 
+went off, I burnt her with a hot iron, on the left side of her 
+face.  I tried to make the letter M.'
+
+'Ran away, a negro man named Henry; his left eye out, some scars 
+from a dirk on and under his left arm, and much scarred with the 
+whip.'
+
+'One hundred dollars reward, for a negro fellow, Pompey, 40 years 
+old.  He is branded on the left jaw.'
+
+'Committed to jail, a negro man.  Has no toes on the left foot.'
+
+'Ran away, a negro woman named Rachel.  Has lost all her toes 
+except the large one.'
+
+'Ran away, Sam.  He was shot a short time since through the hand, 
+and has several shots in his left arm and side.'
+
+'Ran away, my negro man Dennis.  Said negro has been shot in the 
+left arm between the shoulder and elbow, which has paralysed the 
+left hand.'
+
+'Ran away, my negro man named Simon.  He has been shot badly, in 
+his back and right arm.'
+
+'Ran away, a negro named Arthur.  Has a considerable scar across 
+his breast and each arm, made by a knife; loves to talk much of the 
+goodness of God.'
+
+'Twenty-five dollars reward for my man Isaac.  He has a scar on his 
+forehead, caused by a blow; and one on his back, made by a shot 
+from a pistol.'
+
+'Ran away, a negro girl called Mary.  Has a small scar over her 
+eye, a good many teeth missing, the letter A is branded on her 
+cheek and forehead.'
+
+'Ran away, negro Ben.  Has a scar on his right hand; his thumb and 
+forefinger being injured by being shot last fall.  A part of the 
+bone came out.  He has also one or two large scars on his back and 
+hips.'
+
+'Detained at the jail, a mulatto, named Tom.  Has a scar on the 
+right cheek, and appears to have been burned with powder on the 
+face.'
+
+'Ran away, a negro man named Ned.  Three of his fingers are drawn 
+into the palm of his hand by a cut.  Has a scar on the back of his 
+neck, nearly half round, done by a knife.'
+
+'Was committed to jail, a negro man.  Says his name is Josiah.  His 
+back very much scarred by the whip; and branded on the thigh and 
+hips in three or four places, thus (J M).  The rim of his right ear 
+has been bit or cut off.'
+
+'Fifty dollars reward, for my fellow Edward.  He has a scar on the 
+corner of his mouth, two cuts on and under his arm, and the letter 
+E on his arm.'
+
+'Ran away, negro boy Ellie.  Has a scar on one of his arms from the 
+bite of a dog.'
+
+'Ran away, from the plantation of James Surgette, the following 
+negroes:  Randal, has one ear cropped; Bob, has lost one eye; 
+Kentucky Tom, has one jaw broken.'
+
+'Ran away, Anthony.  One of his ears cut off, and his left hand cut 
+with an axe.'
+
+'Fifty dollars reward for the negro Jim Blake.  Has a piece cut out 
+of each ear, and the middle finger of the left hand cut off to the 
+second joint.'
+
+'Ran away, a negro woman named Maria.  Has a scar on one side of 
+her cheek, by a cut.  Some scars on her back.'
+
+'Ran away, the Mulatto wench Mary.  Has a cut on the left arm, a 
+scar on the left shoulder, and two upper teeth missing.'
+
+I should say, perhaps, in explanation of this latter piece of 
+description, that among the other blessings which public opinion 
+secures to the negroes, is the common practice of violently 
+punching out their teeth.  To make them wear iron collars by day 
+and night, and to worry them with dogs, are practices almost too 
+ordinary to deserve mention.
+
+'Ran away, my man Fountain.  Has holes in his ears, a scar on the 
+right side of his forehead, has been shot in the hind part of his 
+legs, and is marked on the back with the whip.'
+
+'Two hundred and fifty dollars reward for my negro man Jim.  He is 
+much marked with shot in his right thigh.  The shot entered on the 
+outside, halfway between the hip and knee joints.'
+
+'Brought to jail, John.  Left ear cropt.'
+
+'Taken up, a negro man.  Is very much scarred about the face and 
+body, and has the left ear bit off.'
+
+'Ran away, a black girl, named Mary.  Has a scar on her cheek, and 
+the end of one of her toes cut off.'
+
+'Ran away, my Mulatto woman, Judy.  She has had her right arm 
+broke.'
+
+'Ran away, my negro man, Levi.  His left hand has been burnt, and I 
+think the end of his forefinger is off.'
+
+'Ran away, a negro man, NAMED WASHINGTON.  Has lost a part of his 
+middle finger, and the end of his little finger.'
+
+'Twenty-five dollars reward for my man John.  The tip of his nose 
+is bit off.'
+
+'Twenty-five dollars reward for the negro slave, Sally.  Walks AS 
+THOUGH crippled in the back.'
+
+'Ran away, Joe Dennis.  Has a small notch in one of his ears.'
+
+'Ran away, negro boy, Jack.  Has a small crop out of his left ear.'
+
+'Ran away, a negro man, named Ivory.  Has a small piece cut out of 
+the top of each ear.'
+
+While upon the subject of ears, I may observe that a distinguished 
+abolitionist in New York once received a negro's ear, which had 
+been cut off close to the head, in a general post letter.  It was 
+forwarded by the free and independent gentleman who had caused it 
+to be amputated, with a polite request that he would place the 
+specimen in his 'collection.'
+
+I could enlarge this catalogue with broken arms, and broken legs, 
+and gashed flesh, and missing teeth, and lacerated backs, and bites 
+of dogs, and brands of red-hot irons innumerable:  but as my 
+readers will be sufficiently sickened and repelled already, I will 
+turn to another branch of the subject.
+
+These advertisements, of which a similar collection might be made 
+for every year, and month, and week, and day; and which are coolly 
+read in families as things of course, and as a part of the current 
+news and small-talk; will serve to show how very much the slaves 
+profit by public opinion, and how tender it is in their behalf.  
+But it may be worth while to inquire how the slave-owners, and the 
+class of society to which great numbers of them belong, defer to 
+public opinion in their conduct, not to their slaves but to each 
+other; how they are accustomed to restrain their passions; what 
+their bearing is among themselves; whether they are fierce or 
+gentle; whether their social customs be brutal, sanguinary, and 
+violent, or bear the impress of civilisation and refinement.
+
+That we may have no partial evidence from abolitionists in this 
+inquiry, either, I will once more turn to their own newspapers, and 
+I will confine myself, this time, to a selection from paragraphs 
+which appeared from day to day, during my visit to America, and 
+which refer to occurrences happening while I was there.  The 
+italics in these extracts, as in the foregoing, are my own.
+
+These cases did not ALL occur, it will be seen, in territory 
+actually belonging to legalised Slave States, though most, and 
+those the very worst among them did, as their counterparts 
+constantly do; but the position of the scenes of action in 
+reference to places immediately at hand, where slavery is the law; 
+and the strong resemblance between that class of outrages and the 
+rest; lead to the just presumption that the character of the 
+parties concerned was formed in slave districts, and brutalised by 
+slave customs.
+
+
+'HORRIBLE TRAGEDY.
+
+
+'By a slip from THE SOUTHPORT TELEGRAPH, Wisconsin, we learn that 
+the Hon. Charles C. P. Arndt, Member of the Council for Brown 
+county, was shot dead ON THE FLOOR OF THE COUNCIL CHAMBER, by James 
+R. Vinyard, Member from Grant county.  THE AFFAIR grew out of a 
+nomination for Sheriff of Grant county.  Mr. E. S. Baker was 
+nominated and supported by Mr. Arndt.  This nomination was opposed 
+by Vinyard, who wanted the appointment to vest in his own brother.  
+In the course of debate, the deceased made some statements which 
+Vinyard pronounced false, and made use of violent and insulting 
+language, dealing largely in personalities, to which Mr. A. made no 
+reply.  After the adjournment, Mr. A. stepped up to Vinyard, and 
+requested him to retract, which he refused to do, repeating the 
+offensive words.  Mr. Arndt then made a blow at Vinyard, who 
+stepped back a pace, drew a pistol, and shot him dead.
+
+'The issue appears to have been provoked on the part of Vinyard, 
+who was determined at all hazards to defeat the appointment of 
+Baker, and who, himself defeated, turned his ire and revenge upon 
+the unfortunate Arndt.'
+
+
+'THE WISCONSIN TRAGEDY.
+
+
+Public indignation runs high in the territory of Wisconsin, in 
+relation to the murder of C. C. P. Arndt, in the Legislative Hall 
+of the Territory.  Meetings have been held in different counties of 
+Wisconsin, denouncing THE PRACTICE OF SECRETLY BEARING ARMS IN THE 
+LEGISLATIVE CHAMBERS OF THE COUNTRY.  We have seen the account of 
+the expulsion of James R. Vinyard, the perpetrator of the bloody 
+deed, and are amazed to hear, that, after this expulsion by those 
+who saw Vinyard kill Mr. Arndt in the presence of his aged father, 
+who was on a visit to see his son, little dreaming that he was to 
+witness his murder, JUDGE DUNN HAS DISCHARGED VINYARD ON BAIL.  The 
+Miners' Free Press speaks IN TERMS OF MERITED REBUKE at the outrage 
+upon the feelings of the people of Wisconsin.  Vinyard was within 
+arm's length of Mr. Arndt, when he took such deadly aim at him, 
+that he never spoke.  Vinyard might at pleasure, being so near, 
+have only wounded him, but he chose to kill him.'
+
+
+'MURDER.
+
+
+By a letter in a St. Louis paper of the '4th, we notice a terrible 
+outrage at Burlington, Iowa.  A Mr. Bridgman having had a 
+difficulty with a citizen of the place, Mr. Ross; a brother-in-law 
+of the latter provided himself with one of Colt's revolving 
+pistols, met Mr. B. in the street, AND DISCHARGED THE CONTENTS OF 
+FIVE OF THE BARRELS AT HIM:  EACH SHOT TAKING EFFECT.  Mr. B., 
+though horribly wounded, and dying, returned the fire, and killed 
+Ross on the spot.'
+
+
+'TERRIBLE DEATH OF ROBERT POTTER.
+
+
+'From the "Caddo Gazette," of the 12th inst., we learn the 
+frightful death of Colonel Robert Potter. . . . He was beset in his 
+house by an enemy, named Rose.  He sprang from his couch, seized 
+his gun, and, in his night-clothes, rushed from the house.  For 
+about two hundred yards his speed seemed to defy his pursuers; but, 
+getting entangled in a thicket, he was captured.  Rose told him 
+THAT HE INTENDED TO ACT A GENEROUS PART, and give him a chance for 
+his life.  He then told Potter he might run, and he should not be 
+interrupted till he reached a certain distance.  Potter started at 
+the word of command, and before a gun was fired he had reached the 
+lake.  His first impulse was to jump in the water and dive for it, 
+which he did.  Rose was close behind him, and formed his men on the 
+bank ready to shoot him as he rose.  In a few seconds he came up to 
+breathe; and scarce had his head reached the surface of the water 
+when it was completely riddled with the shot of their guns, and he 
+sunk, to rise no more!'
+
+
+'MURDER IN ARKANSAS.
+
+
+'We understand THAT A SEVERE RENCONTRE CAME OFF a few days since in 
+the Seneca Nation, between Mr. Loose, the sub-agent of the mixed 
+band of the Senecas, Quapaw, and Shawnees, and Mr. James Gillespie, 
+of the mercantile firm of Thomas G. Allison and Co., of Maysville, 
+Benton, County Ark, in which the latter was slain with a bowie-
+knife.  Some difficulty had for some time existed between the 
+parties.  It is said that Major Gillespie brought on the attack 
+with a cane.  A severe conflict ensued, during which two pistols 
+were fired by Gillespie and one by Loose.  Loose then stabbed 
+Gillespie with one of those never-failing weapons, a bowie-knife.  
+The death of Major G. is much regretted, as he was a liberal-minded 
+and energetic man.  Since the above was in type, we have learned 
+that Major Allison has stated to some of our citizens in town that 
+Mr. Loose gave the first blow.  We forbear to give any particulars, 
+as THE MATTER WILL BE THE SUBJECT OF JUDICIAL INVESTIGATION.'
+
+
+'FOUL DEED.
+
+
+The steamer Thames, just from Missouri river, brought us a 
+handbill, offering a reward of 500 dollars, for the person who 
+assassinated Lilburn W. Baggs, late Governor of this State, at 
+Independence, on the night of the 6th inst.  Governor Baggs, it is 
+stated in a written memorandum, was not dead, but mortally wounded.
+
+'Since the above was written, we received a note from the clerk of 
+the Thames, giving the following particulars.  Gov. Baggs was shot 
+by some villain on Friday, 6th inst., in the evening, while sitting 
+in a room in his own house in Independence.  His son, a boy, 
+hearing a report, ran into the room, and found the Governor sitting 
+in his chair, with his jaw fallen down, and his head leaning back; 
+on discovering the injury done to his father, he gave the alarm.  
+Foot tracks were found in the garden below the window, and a pistol 
+picked up supposed to have been overloaded, and thrown from the 
+hand of the scoundrel who fired it.  Three buck shots of a heavy 
+load, took effect; one going through his mouth, one into the brain, 
+and another probably in or near the brain; all going into the back 
+part of the neck and head.  The Governor was still alive on the 
+morning of the 7th; but no hopes for his recovery by his friends, 
+and but slight hopes from his physicians.
+
+'A man was suspected, and the Sheriff most probably has possession 
+of him by this time.
+
+'The pistol was one of a pair stolen some days previous from a 
+baker in Independence, and the legal authorities have the 
+description of the other.'
+
+
+'RENCONTRE.
+
+
+'An unfortunate AFFAIR took place on Friday evening in Chatres 
+Street, in which one of our most respectable citizens received a 
+dangerous wound, from a poignard, in the abdomen.  From the Bee 
+(New Orleans) of yesterday, we learn the following particulars.  It 
+appears that an article was published in the French side of the 
+paper on Monday last, containing some strictures on the Artillery 
+Battalion for firing their guns on Sunday morning, in answer to 
+those from the Ontario and Woodbury, and thereby much alarm was 
+caused to the families of those persons who were out all night 
+preserving the peace of the city.  Major C. Gally, Commander of the 
+battalion, resenting this, called at the office and demanded the 
+author's name; that of Mr. P. Arpin was given to him, who was 
+absent at the time.  Some angry words then passed with one of the 
+proprietors, and a challenge followed; the friends of both parties 
+tried to arrange the affair, but failed to do so.  On Friday 
+evening, about seven o'clock, Major Gally met Mr. P. Arpin in 
+Chatres Street, and accosted him.  "Are you Mr. Arpin?"
+
+'"Yes, sir."
+
+'"Then I have to tell you that you are a - " (applying an 
+appropriate epithet).
+
+'"I shall remind you of your words, sir."
+
+'"But I have said I would break my cane on your shoulders."
+
+'"I know it, but I have not yet received the blow."
+
+'At these words, Major Gally, having a cane in his hands, struck 
+Mr. Arpin across the face, and the latter drew a poignard from his 
+pocket and stabbed Major Gally in the abdomen.
+
+'Fears are entertained that the wound will be mortal.  WE 
+UNDERSTAND THAT MR. ARPIN HAS GIVEN SECURITY FOR HIS APPEARANCE AT 
+THE CRIMINAL COURT TO ANSWER THE CHARGE.'
+
+
+'AFFRAY IN MISSISSIPPI.
+
+
+'On the 27th ult., in an affray near Carthage, Leake county, 
+Mississippi, between James Cottingham and John Wilburn, the latter 
+was shot by the former, and so horribly wounded, that there was no 
+hope of his recovery.  On the 2nd instant, there was an affray at 
+Carthage between A. C. Sharkey and George Goff, in which the latter 
+was shot, and thought mortally wounded.  Sharkey delivered himself 
+up to the authorities, BUT CHANGED HIS MIND AND ESCAPED!'
+
+
+'PERSONAL ENCOUNTER.
+
+
+'An encounter took place in Sparta, a few days since, between the 
+barkeeper of an hotel, and a man named Bury.  It appears that Bury 
+had become somewhat noisy, AND THAT THE BARKEEPER, DETERMINED TO 
+PRESERVE ORDER, HAD THREATENED TO SHOOT BURY, whereupon Bury drew a 
+pistol and shot the barkeeper down.  He was not dead at the last 
+accounts, but slight hopes were entertained of his recovery.'
+
+
+'DUEL.
+
+
+'The clerk of the steamboat TRIBUNE informs us that another duel 
+was fought on Tuesday last, by Mr. Robbins, a bank officer in 
+Vicksburg, and Mr. Fall, the editor of the Vicksburg Sentinel.  
+According to the arrangement, the parties had six pistols each, 
+which, after the word "Fire!" THEY WERE TO DISCHARGE AS FAST AS 
+THEY PLEASED.  Fall fired two pistols without effect.  Mr. Robbins' 
+first shot took effect in Fall's thigh, who fell, and was unable to 
+continue the combat.'
+
+
+'AFFRAY IN CLARKE COUNTY.
+
+
+'An UNFORTUNATE AFFRAY occurred in Clarke county (MO.), near 
+Waterloo, on Tuesday the 19th ult., which originated in settling 
+the partnership concerns of Messrs. M'Kane and M'Allister, who had 
+been engaged in the business of distilling, and resulted in the 
+death of the latter, who was shot down by Mr. M'Kane, because of 
+his attempting to take possession of seven barrels of whiskey, the 
+property of M'Kane, which had been knocked off to M'Allister at a 
+sheriff's sale at one dollar per barrel.  M'Kane immediately fled 
+AND AT THE LATEST DATES HAD NOT BEEN TAKEN.
+
+'THIS UNFORTUNATE AFFRAY caused considerable excitement in the 
+neighbourhood, as both the parties were men with large families 
+depending upon them and stood well in the community.'
+
+
+I will quote but one more paragraph, which, by reason of its 
+monstrous absurdity, may be a relief to these atrocious deeds.
+
+
+'AFFAIR OF HONOUR.
+
+
+'We have just heard the particulars of a meeting which took place 
+on Six Mile Island, on Tuesday, between two young bloods of our 
+city:  Samuel Thurston, AGED FIFTEEN, and William Hine, AGED 
+THIRTEEN years.  They were attended by young gentlemen of the same 
+age.  The weapons used on the occasion, were a couple of Dickson's 
+best rifles; the distance, thirty yards.  They took one fire, 
+without any damage being sustained by either party, except the ball 
+of Thurston's gun passing through the crown of Hine's hat.  THROUGH 
+THE INTERCESSION OF THE BOARD OF HONOUR, the challenge was 
+withdrawn, and the difference amicably adjusted.'
+
+If the reader will picture to himself the kind of Board of Honour 
+which amicably adjusted the difference between these two little 
+boys, who in any other part of the world would have been amicably 
+adjusted on two porters' backs and soundly flogged with birchen 
+rods, he will be possessed, no doubt, with as strong a sense of its 
+ludicrous character, as that which sets me laughing whenever its 
+image rises up before me.
+
+Now, I appeal to every human mind, imbued with the commonest of 
+common sense, and the commonest of common humanity; to all 
+dispassionate, reasoning creatures, of any shade of opinion; and 
+ask, with these revolting evidences of the state of society which 
+exists in and about the slave districts of America before them, can 
+they have a doubt of the real condition of the slave, or can they 
+for a moment make a compromise between the institution or any of 
+its flagrant, fearful features, and their own just consciences?  
+Will they say of any tale of cruelty and horror, however aggravated 
+in degree, that it is improbable, when they can turn to the public 
+prints, and, running, read such signs as these, laid before them by 
+the men who rule the slaves:  in their own acts and under their own 
+hands?
+
+Do we not know that the worst deformity and ugliness of slavery are 
+at once the cause and the effect of the reckless license taken by 
+these freeborn outlaws?  Do we not know that the man who has been 
+born and bred among its wrongs; who has seen in his childhood 
+husbands obliged at the word of command to flog their wives; women, 
+indecently compelled to hold up their own garments that men might 
+lay the heavier stripes upon their legs, driven and harried by 
+brutal overseers in their time of travail, and becoming mothers on 
+the field of toil, under the very lash itself; who has read in 
+youth, and seen his virgin sisters read, descriptions of runaway 
+men and women, and their disfigured persons, which could not be 
+published elsewhere, of so much stock upon a farm, or at a show of 
+beasts:- do we not know that that man, whenever his wrath is 
+kindled up, will be a brutal savage?  Do we not know that as he is 
+a coward in his domestic life, stalking among his shrinking men and 
+women slaves armed with his heavy whip, so he will be a coward out 
+of doors, and carrying cowards' weapons hidden in his breast, will 
+shoot men down and stab them when he quarrels?  And if our reason 
+did not teach us this and much beyond; if we were such idiots as to 
+close our eyes to that fine mode of training which rears up such 
+men; should we not know that they who among their equals stab and 
+pistol in the legislative halls, and in the counting-house, and on 
+the marketplace, and in all the elsewhere peaceful pursuits of 
+life, must be to their dependants, even though they were free 
+servants, so many merciless and unrelenting tyrants?
+
+What! shall we declaim against the ignorant peasantry of Ireland, 
+and mince the matter when these American taskmasters are in 
+question?  Shall we cry shame on the brutality of those who 
+hamstring cattle:  and spare the lights of Freedom upon earth who 
+notch the ears of men and women, cut pleasant posies in the 
+shrinking flesh, learn to write with pens of red-hot iron on the 
+human face, rack their poetic fancies for liveries of mutilation 
+which their slaves shall wear for life and carry to the grave, 
+breaking living limbs as did the soldiery who mocked and slew the 
+Saviour of the world, and set defenceless creatures up for targets!  
+Shall we whimper over legends of the tortures practised on each 
+other by the Pagan Indians, and smile upon the cruelties of 
+Christian men!  Shall we, so long as these things last, exult above 
+the scattered remnants of that race, and triumph in the white 
+enjoyment of their possessions?  Rather, for me, restore the forest 
+and the Indian village; in lieu of stars and stripes, let some poor 
+feather flutter in the breeze; replace the streets and squares by 
+wigwams; and though the death-song of a hundred haughty warriors 
+fill the air, it will be music to the shriek of one unhappy slave.
+
+On one theme, which is commonly before our eyes, and in respect of 
+which our national character is changing fast, let the plain Truth 
+be spoken, and let us not, like dastards, beat about the bush by 
+hinting at the Spaniard and the fierce Italian.  When knives are 
+drawn by Englishmen in conflict let it be said and known:  'We owe 
+this change to Republican Slavery.  These are the weapons of 
+Freedom.  With sharp points and edges such as these, Liberty in 
+America hews and hacks her slaves; or, failing that pursuit, her 
+sons devote them to a better use, and turn them on each other.'
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII - CONCLUDING REMARKS
+
+
+
+THERE are many passages in this book, where I have been at some 
+pains to resist the temptation of troubling my readers with my own 
+deductions and conclusions:  preferring that they should judge for 
+themselves, from such premises as I have laid before them.  My only 
+object in the outset, was, to carry them with me faithfully 
+wheresoever I went:  and that task I have discharged.
+
+But I may be pardoned, if on such a theme as the general character 
+of the American people, and the general character of their social 
+system, as presented to a stranger's eyes, I desire to express my 
+own opinions in a few words, before I bring these volumes to a 
+close.
+
+They are, by nature, frank, brave, cordial, hospitable, and 
+affectionate.  Cultivation and refinement seem but to enhance their 
+warmth of heart and ardent enthusiasm; and it is the possession of 
+these latter qualities in a most remarkable degree, which renders 
+an educated American one of the most endearing and most generous of 
+friends.  I never was so won upon, as by this class; never yielded 
+up my full confidence and esteem so readily and pleasurably, as to 
+them; never can make again, in half a year, so many friends for 
+whom I seem to entertain the regard of half a life.
+
+These qualities are natural, I implicitly believe, to the whole 
+people.  That they are, however, sadly sapped and blighted in their 
+growth among the mass; and that there are influences at work which 
+endanger them still more, and give but little present promise of 
+their healthy restoration; is a truth that ought to be told.
+
+It is an essential part of every national character to pique itself 
+mightily upon its faults, and to deduce tokens of its virtue or its 
+wisdom from their very exaggeration.  One great blemish in the 
+popular mind of America, and the prolific parent of an innumerable 
+brood of evils, is Universal Distrust.  Yet the American citizen 
+plumes himself upon this spirit, even when he is sufficiently 
+dispassionate to perceive the ruin it works; and will often adduce 
+it, in spite of his own reason, as an instance of the great 
+sagacity and acuteness of the people, and their superior shrewdness 
+and independence.
+
+'You carry,' says the stranger, 'this jealousy and distrust into 
+every transaction of public life.  By repelling worthy men from 
+your legislative assemblies, it has bred up a class of candidates 
+for the suffrage, who, in their very act, disgrace your 
+Institutions and your people's choice.  It has rendered you so 
+fickle, and so given to change, that your inconstancy has passed 
+into a proverb; for you no sooner set up an idol firmly, than you 
+are sure to pull it down and dash it into fragments:  and this, 
+because directly you reward a benefactor, or a public servant, you 
+distrust him, merely because he is rewarded; and immediately apply 
+yourselves to find out, either that you have been too bountiful in 
+your acknowledgments, or he remiss in his deserts.  Any man who 
+attains a high place among you, from the President downwards, may 
+date his downfall from that moment; for any printed lie that any 
+notorious villain pens, although it militate directly against the 
+character and conduct of a life, appeals at once to your distrust, 
+and is believed.  You will strain at a gnat in the way of 
+trustfulness and confidence, however fairly won and well deserved; 
+but you will swallow a whole caravan of camels, if they be laden 
+with unworthy doubts and mean suspicions.  Is this well, think you, 
+or likely to elevate the character of the governors or the 
+governed, among you?'
+
+The answer is invariably the same:  'There's freedom of opinion 
+here, you know.  Every man thinks for himself, and we are not to be 
+easily overreached.  That's how our people come to be suspicious.'
+
+Another prominent feature is the love of 'smart' dealing:  which 
+gilds over many a swindle and gross breach of trust; many a 
+defalcation, public and private; and enables many a knave to hold 
+his head up with the best, who well deserves a halter; though it 
+has not been without its retributive operation, for this smartness 
+has done more in a few years to impair the public credit, and to 
+cripple the public resources, than dull honesty, however rash, 
+could have effected in a century.  The merits of a broken 
+speculation, or a bankruptcy, or of a successful scoundrel, are not 
+gauged by its or his observance of the golden rule, 'Do as you 
+would be done by,' but are considered with reference to their 
+smartness.  I recollect, on both occasions of our passing that ill-
+fated Cairo on the Mississippi, remarking on the bad effects such 
+gross deceits must have when they exploded, in generating a want of 
+confidence abroad, and discouraging foreign investment:  but I was 
+given to understand that this was a very smart scheme by which a 
+deal of money had been made:  and that its smartest feature was, 
+that they forgot these things abroad, in a very short time, and 
+speculated again, as freely as ever.  The following dialogue I have 
+held a hundred times:  'Is it not a very disgraceful circumstance 
+that such a man as So-and-so should be acquiring a large property 
+by the most infamous and odious means, and notwithstanding all the 
+crimes of which he has been guilty, should be tolerated and abetted 
+by your Citizens?  He is a public nuisance, is he not?'  'Yes, 
+sir.'  'A convicted liar?'  'Yes, sir.'  'He has been kicked, and 
+cuffed, and caned?'  'Yes, sir.'  'And he is utterly dishonourable, 
+debased, and profligate?'  'Yes, sir.'  'In the name of wonder, 
+then, what is his merit?'  'Well, sir, he is a smart man.'
+
+In like manner, all kinds of deficient and impolitic usages are 
+referred to the national love of trade; though, oddly enough, it 
+would be a weighty charge against a foreigner that he regarded the 
+Americans as a trading people.  The love of trade is assigned as a 
+reason for that comfortless custom, so very prevalent in country 
+towns, of married persons living in hotels, having no fireside of 
+their own, and seldom meeting from early morning until late at 
+night, but at the hasty public meals.  The love of trade is a 
+reason why the literature of America is to remain for ever 
+unprotected 'For we are a trading people, and don't care for 
+poetry:' though we DO, by the way, profess to be very proud of our 
+poets:  while healthful amusements, cheerful means of recreation, 
+and wholesome fancies, must fade before the stern utilitarian joys 
+of trade.
+
+These three characteristics are strongly presented at every turn, 
+full in the stranger's view.  But, the foul growth of America has a 
+more tangled root than this; and it strikes its fibres, deep in its 
+licentious Press.
+
+Schools may be erected, East, West, North, and South; pupils be 
+taught, and masters reared, by scores upon scores of thousands; 
+colleges may thrive, churches may be crammed, temperance may be 
+diffused, and advancing knowledge in all other forms walk through 
+the land with giant strides:  but while the newspaper press of 
+America is in, or near, its present abject state, high moral 
+improvement in that country is hopeless.  Year by year, it must and 
+will go back; year by year, the tone of public feeling must sink 
+lower down; year by year, the Congress and the Senate must become 
+of less account before all decent men; and year by year, the memory 
+of the Great Fathers of the Revolution must be outraged more and 
+more, in the bad life of their degenerate child.
+
+Among the herd of journals which are published in the States, there 
+are some, the reader scarcely need be told, of character and 
+credit.  From personal intercourse with accomplished gentlemen 
+connected with publications of this class, I have derived both 
+pleasure and profit.  But the name of these is Few, and of the 
+others Legion; and the influence of the good, is powerless to 
+counteract the moral poison of the bad.
+
+Among the gentry of America; among the well-informed and moderate:  
+in the learned professions; at the bar and on the bench:  there is, 
+as there can be, but one opinion, in reference to the vicious 
+character of these infamous journals.  It is sometimes contended - 
+I will not say strangely, for it is natural to seek excuses for 
+such a disgrace - that their influence is not so great as a visitor 
+would suppose.  I must be pardoned for saying that there is no 
+warrant for this plea, and that every fact and circumstance tends 
+directly to the opposite conclusion.
+
+When any man, of any grade of desert in intellect or character, can 
+climb to any public distinction, no matter what, in America, 
+without first grovelling down upon the earth, and bending the knee 
+before this monster of depravity; when any private excellence is 
+safe from its attacks; when any social confidence is left unbroken 
+by it, or any tie of social decency and honour is held in the least 
+regard; when any man in that free country has freedom of opinion, 
+and presumes to think for himself, and speak for himself, without 
+humble reference to a censorship which, for its rampant ignorance 
+and base dishonesty, he utterly loathes and despises in his heart; 
+when those who most acutely feel its infamy and the reproach it 
+casts upon the nation, and who most denounce it to each other, dare 
+to set their heels upon, and crush it openly, in the sight of all 
+men:  then, I will believe that its influence is lessening, and men 
+are returning to their manly senses.  But while that Press has its 
+evil eye in every house, and its black hand in every appointment in 
+the state, from a president to a postman; while, with ribald 
+slander for its only stock in trade, it is the standard literature 
+of an enormous class, who must find their reading in a newspaper, 
+or they will not read at all; so long must its odium be upon the 
+country's head, and so long must the evil it works, be plainly 
+visible in the Republic.
+
+To those who are accustomed to the leading English journals, or to 
+the respectable journals of the Continent of Europe; to those who 
+are accustomed to anything else in print and paper; it would be 
+impossible, without an amount of extract for which I have neither 
+space nor inclination, to convey an adequate idea of this frightful 
+engine in America.  But if any man desire confirmation of my 
+statement on this head, let him repair to any place in this city of 
+London, where scattered numbers of these publications are to be 
+found; and there, let him form his own opinion. (1)
+
+It would be well, there can be no doubt, for the American people as 
+a whole, if they loved the Real less, and the Ideal somewhat more.  
+It would be well, if there were greater encouragement to lightness 
+of heart and gaiety, and a wider cultivation of what is beautiful, 
+without being eminently and directly useful.  But here, I think the 
+general remonstrance, 'we are a new country,' which is so often 
+advanced as an excuse for defects which are quite unjustifiable, as 
+being, of right, only the slow growth of an old one, may be very 
+reasonably urged:  and I yet hope to hear of there being some other 
+national amusement in the United States, besides newspaper 
+politics.
+
+They certainly are not a humorous people, and their temperament 
+always impressed me is being of a dull and gloomy character.  In 
+shrewdness of remark, and a certain cast-iron quaintness, the 
+Yankees, or people of New England, unquestionably take the lead; as 
+they do in most other evidences of intelligence.  But in travelling 
+about, out of the large cities - as I have remarked in former parts 
+of these volumes - I was quite oppressed by the prevailing 
+seriousness and melancholy air of business:  which was so general 
+and unvarying, that at every new town I came to, I seemed to meet 
+the very same people whom I had left behind me, at the last.  Such 
+defects as are perceptible in the national manners, seem, to me, to 
+be referable, in a great degree, to this cause:  which has 
+generated a dull, sullen persistence in coarse usages, and rejected 
+the graces of life as undeserving of attention.  There is no doubt 
+that Washington, who was always most scrupulous and exact on points 
+of ceremony, perceived the tendency towards this mistake, even in 
+his time, and did his utmost to correct it.
+
+I cannot hold with other writers on these subjects that the 
+prevalence of various forms of dissent in America, is in any way 
+attributable to the non-existence there of an established church:  
+indeed, I think the temper of the people, if it admitted of such an 
+Institution being founded amongst them, would lead them to desert 
+it, as a matter of course, merely because it WAS established.  But, 
+supposing it to exist, I doubt its probable efficacy in summoning 
+the wandering sheep to one great fold, simply because of the 
+immense amount of dissent which prevails at home; and because I do 
+not find in America any one form of religion with which we in 
+Europe, or even in England, are unacquainted.  Dissenters resort 
+thither in great numbers, as other people do, simply because it is 
+a land of resort; and great settlements of them are founded, 
+because ground can be purchased, and towns and villages reared, 
+where there were none of the human creation before.  But even the 
+Shakers emigrated from England; our country is not unknown to Mr. 
+Joseph Smith, the apostle of Mormonism, or to his benighted 
+disciples; I have beheld religious scenes myself in some of our 
+populous towns which can hardly be surpassed by an American camp-
+meeting; and I am not aware that any instance of superstitious 
+imposture on the one hand, and superstitious credulity on the 
+other, has had its origin in the United States, which we cannot 
+more than parallel by the precedents of Mrs. Southcote, Mary Tofts 
+the rabbit-breeder, or even Mr. Thorn of Canterbury:  which latter 
+case arose, some time after the dark ages had passed away.
+
+The Republican Institutions of America undoubtedly lead the people 
+to assert their self-respect and their equality; but a traveller is 
+bound to bear those Institutions in his mind, and not hastily to 
+resent the near approach of a class of strangers, who, at home, 
+would keep aloof.  This characteristic, when it was tinctured with 
+no foolish pride, and stopped short of no honest service, never 
+offended me; and I very seldom, if ever, experienced its rude or 
+unbecoming display.  Once or twice it was comically developed, as 
+in the following case; but this was an amusing incident, and not 
+the rule, or near it.
+
+I wanted a pair of boots at a certain town, for I had none to 
+travel in, but those with the memorable cork soles, which were much 
+too hot for the fiery decks of a steamboat.  I therefore sent a 
+message to an artist in boots, importing, with my compliments, that 
+I should be happy to see him, if he would do me the polite favour 
+to call.  He very kindly returned for answer, that he would 'look 
+round' at six o'clock that evening.
+
+I was lying on the sofa, with a book and a wine-glass, at about 
+that time, when the door opened, and a gentleman in a stiff cravat, 
+within a year or two on either side of thirty, entered, in his hat 
+and gloves; walked up to the looking-glass; arranged his hair; took 
+off his gloves; slowly produced a measure from the uttermost depths 
+of his coat-pocket; and requested me, in a languid tone, to 'unfix' 
+my straps.  I complied, but looked with some curiosity at his hat, 
+which was still upon his head.  It might have been that, or it 
+might have been the heat - but he took it off.  Then, he sat 
+himself down on a chair opposite to me; rested an arm on each knee; 
+and, leaning forward very much, took from the ground, by a great 
+effort, the specimen of metropolitan workmanship which I had just 
+pulled off:  whistling, pleasantly, as he did so.  He turned it 
+over and over; surveyed it with a contempt no language can express; 
+and inquired if I wished him to fix me a boot like THAT?  I 
+courteously replied, that provided the boots were large enough, I 
+would leave the rest to him; that if convenient and practicable, I 
+should not object to their bearing some resemblance to the model 
+then before him; but that I would be entirely guided by, and would 
+beg to leave the whole subject to, his judgment and discretion.  
+'You an't partickler, about this scoop in the heel, I suppose 
+then?' says he:  'we don't foller that, here.'  I repeated my last 
+observation.  He looked at himself in the glass again; went closer 
+to it to dash a grain or two of dust out of the corner of his eye; 
+and settled his cravat.  All this time, my leg and foot were in the 
+air.  'Nearly ready, sir?' I inquired.  'Well, pretty nigh,' he 
+said; 'keep steady.'  I kept as steady as I could, both in foot and 
+face; and having by this time got the dust out, and found his 
+pencil-case, he measured me, and made the necessary notes.  When he 
+had finished, he fell into his old attitude, and taking up the boot 
+again, mused for some time.  'And this,' he said, at last, 'is an 
+English boot, is it?  This is a London boot, eh?'  'That, sir,' I 
+replied, 'is a London boot.'  He mused over it again, after the 
+manner of Hamlet with Yorick's skull; nodded his head, as who 
+should say, 'I pity the Institutions that led to the production of 
+this boot!'; rose; put up his pencil, notes, and paper - glancing 
+at himself in the glass, all the time - put on his hat - drew on 
+his gloves very slowly; and finally walked out.  When he had been 
+gone about a minute, the door reopened, and his hat and his head 
+reappeared.  He looked round the room, and at the boot again, which 
+was still lying on the floor; appeared thoughtful for a minute; and 
+then said 'Well, good arternoon.'  'Good afternoon, sir,' said I:  
+and that was the end of the interview.
+
+There is but one other head on which I wish to offer a remark; and 
+that has reference to the public health.  In so vast a country, 
+where there are thousands of millions of acres of land yet 
+unsettled and uncleared, and on every rood of which, vegetable 
+decomposition is annually taking place; where there are so many 
+great rivers, and such opposite varieties of climate; there cannot 
+fail to be a great amount of sickness at certain seasons.  But I 
+may venture to say, after conversing with many members of the 
+medical profession in America, that I am not singular in the 
+opinion that much of the disease which does prevail, might be 
+avoided, if a few common precautions were observed.  Greater means 
+of personal cleanliness, are indispensable to this end; the custom 
+of hastily swallowing large quantities of animal food, three times 
+a-day, and rushing back to sedentary pursuits after each meal, must 
+be changed; the gentler sex must go more wisely clad, and take more 
+healthful exercise; and in the latter clause, the males must be 
+included also.  Above all, in public institutions, and throughout 
+the whole of every town and city, the system of ventilation, and 
+drainage, and removal of impurities requires to be thoroughly 
+revised.  There is no local Legislature in America which may not 
+study Mr. Chadwick's excellent Report upon the Sanitary Condition 
+of our Labouring Classes, with immense advantage.
+
+* * * * * *
+
+I HAVE now arrived at the close of this book.  I have little reason 
+to believe, from certain warnings I have had since I returned to 
+England, that it will be tenderly or favourably received by the 
+American people; and as I have written the Truth in relation to the 
+mass of those who form their judgments and express their opinions, 
+it will be seen that I have no desire to court, by any adventitious 
+means, the popular applause.
+
+It is enough for me, to know, that what I have set down in these 
+pages, cannot cost me a single friend on the other side of the 
+Atlantic, who is, in anything, deserving of the name.  For the 
+rest, I put my trust, implicitly, in the spirit in which they have 
+been conceived and penned; and I can bide my time.
+
+I have made no reference to my reception, nor have I suffered it to 
+influence me in what I have written; for, in either case, I should 
+have offered but a sorry acknowledgment, compared with that I bear 
+within my breast, towards those partial readers of my former books, 
+across the Water, who met me with an open hand, and not with one 
+that closed upon an iron muzzle.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+POSTSCRIPT
+
+
+
+AT a Public Dinner given to me on Saturday the 18th of April, 1868, 
+in the City of New York, by two hundred representatives of the 
+Press of the United States of America, I made the following 
+observations among others:
+
+'So much of my voice has lately been heard in the land, that I 
+might have been contented with troubling you no further from my 
+present standing-point, were it not a duty with which I henceforth 
+charge myself, not only here but on every suitable occasion, 
+whatsoever and wheresoever, to express my high and grateful sense 
+of my second reception in America, and to bear my honest testimony 
+to the national generosity and magnanimity.  Also, to declare how 
+astounded I have been by the amazing changes I have seen around me 
+on every side, - changes moral, changes physical, changes in the 
+amount of land subdued and peopled, changes in the rise of vast new 
+cities, changes in the growth of older cities almost out of 
+recognition, changes in the graces and amenities of life, changes 
+in the Press, without whose advancement no advancement can take 
+place anywhere.  Nor am I, believe me, so arrogant as to suppose 
+that in five and twenty years there have been no changes in me, and 
+that I had nothing to learn and no extreme impressions to correct 
+when I was here first.  And this brings me to a point on which I 
+have, ever since I landed in the United States last November, 
+observed a strict silence, though sometimes tempted to break it, 
+but in reference to which I will, with your good leave, take you 
+into my confidence now.  Even the Press, being human, may be 
+sometimes mistaken or misinformed, and I rather think that I have 
+in one or two rare instances observed its information to be not 
+strictly accurate with reference to myself.  Indeed, I have, now 
+and again, been more surprised by printed news that I have read of 
+myself, than by any printed news that I have ever read in my 
+present state of existence.  Thus, the vigour and perseverance with 
+which I have for some months past been collecting materials for, 
+and hammering away at, a new book on America has much astonished 
+me; seeing that all that time my declaration has been perfectly 
+well known to my publishers on both sides of the Atlantic, that no 
+consideration on earth would induce me to write one.  But what I 
+have intended, what I have resolved upon (and this is the 
+confidence I seek to place in you) is, on my return to England, in 
+my own person, in my own journal, to bear, for the behoof of my 
+countrymen, such testimony to the gigantic changes in this country 
+as I have hinted at to-night.  Also, to record that wherever I have 
+been, in the smallest places equally with the largest, I have been 
+received with unsurpassable politeness, delicacy, sweet temper, 
+hospitality, consideration, and with unsurpassable respect for the 
+privacy daily enforced upon me by the nature of my avocation here 
+and the state of my health.  This testimony, so long as I live, and 
+so long as my descendants have any legal right in my books, I shall 
+cause to be republished, as an appendix to every copy of those two 
+books of mine in which I have referred to America.  And this I will 
+do and cause to be done, not in mere love and thankfulness, but 
+because I regard it as an act of plain justice and honour.'
+
+I said these words with the greatest earnestness that I could lay 
+upon them, and I repeat them in print here with equal earnestness.  
+So long as this book shall last, I hope that they will form a part 
+of it, and will be fairly read as inseparable from my experiences 
+and impressions of America.
+
+CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+MAY, 1868.
+
+
+
+Footnotes:
+
+(1) NOTE TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION. - Or let him refer to an able, 
+and perfectly truthful article, in THE FOREIGN QUARTERLY REVIEW, 
+published in the present month of October; to which my attention 
+has been attracted, since these sheets have been passing through 
+the press.  He will find some specimens there, by no means 
+remarkable to any man who has been in America, but sufficiently 
+striking to one who has not.
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of American Notes, by Charles Dickens
+
diff --git a/old/amnts10.zip b/old/amnts10.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7dec22d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/amnts10.zip