it from those who were enjoying the pleasure of recognising familiar objects; tracing the first features of home. I was taken by surprise by my own emotions. All that I had heard of the Pilgrim Fathers, of the old colonial days, of the great men of the Revolution, and of the busy, prosperous succeeding days, stirred up my mind while I looked upon the sunny reach of land on the horizon. All the morning I sat dreaming, interrupted now and then by the smiling but tearful young mother, who expected tidings of her child before the day was over; or by others, who had less cause for being deeply moved, who came to describe to me the pleasures of Long Branch (the bathing-place in view), or to speculate on how long this tedious calm would last. All the morning I sat on the rail, or played sister Anne to the ladies below, when once the wind had freshened, and we glided slowly along towards Sandy Hook. "Now I see a large white house." "Now I see Neversink. Come up and see Neversink!" "Now I see a flock of sheep on the side of a hill; and now a fisherman standing beside his boat," and so forth.
What were the ladies below for? They were dressing for the shore. The gentlemen, too, vanished from the deck, one by one, and reappeared in glossy hats, coats with the creases of the portmanteau upon them, and the first really black shoes and boots we had seen for weeks. The quizzing which was properly due to the discarded sea-garments was now bestowed on this spruce costume; and every gentleman had to encounter a laugh as he issued from the companion-way. We agreed to snatch our meals as we pleased this day. No one was to remain at table longer than he liked. Everything looked joyous. The passengers were in the most amiable mood: we were in sight of a score of ships crossing the bar at Sandy Hook; the last company of porpoises was sporting alongside, and shoals of glittering white fish rippled the water. The captain was fidgety, however. Those vessels crossing the bar might be rival packet-ships, and no pilot was yet to be seen. "Here he is!" cried a dozen voices at once; and an elegant little affair of a boat was seen approaching. A curious-looking old gentleman swung himself up, and seemed likely to be torn in pieces by the ravenous inquirers for news. He thrust an armful of newspapers among us, and beckoned the captain to the stern, where the two remained in a grave consultation for a few minutes, when the captain called one of the lady passengers aside to ask her a question. What the pilot wanted to know was, whether George Thomson, the abolition missionary, was on board. He was to have been, but was not. The pilot declared that this was well, as he could not have been landed without the certainty of being destroyed within a week, the abolition riots in New-York having taken place just before. What the captain wanted to learn of the lady passenger was, what my opinions on slavery were, in order to know whether he might safely land me. She told him that I was an abolitionist in principle; but that she believed I went to America to learn and not to teach. So the good captain nodded, and said nothing to me on the subject.
Next arrived a boat from the newspaper office of the Courier and Enquirer, whose agent would not hear of dinner or any other delay, but shouldered his bag of news, got the list of our names, and was off. The American passengers, all by this time good friends of mine, came to show me, with much mirth, paragraphs in the newspapers the pilot had brought, exhorting their readers not to chew tobacco or praise themselves in my presence, under penalty of being reported of in London for these national foibles.
After dinner we were off Sandy Hook, and the hills of New-Jersey, Long Island, and Staten Island were growing purple in the cloudy sunset, when a small shabby steamboat was seen emerging from the Narrows. Oh, the speculations and breathless suspense as to whether she was coming to us! In a few minutes there remained no further doubt. Then there was a rush to the side, and one of the young ladies saw through her tears her two brothers, and other passengers other relations showing themselves on the bows of the steamer. They presently boarded us, we strangers having all retired to the other side. I never liked introductions better than those which followed. With broad smiles my passenger friends came up, saying, "I have the great pleasure of introducing to you my brother." "I am sure you will be glad to hear that my family are all well." These are occasions when sympathy is very sweet, and when it is always ready.
Then was heard the captain's loudest voice, crying, "All who wish to go up to the city to-night get ready directly." We had all previously agreed how much better it was that we should spend this night on board, as the harbour would be seen to much more advantage by the morning light; but we forgot all this in a moment, and nobody dreamed of being left behind. Our little bundles were made up in a trice, and we left our ship. The crew and steerage passengers assembled on deck, and gave us three parting cheers, which might be heard all over the harbour. Our gentlemen returned them, and our hearts yearned towards our beautiful ship, as she sat dark upon the evening waters, with all her sails majestically spread. "Does she not look well now?" "Does she not show herself beautifully now?" exclaimed one and another, in the hearing of the gratified captain.
The light was failing as we entered the Narrows. The captain and several other friends pointed out to me every headland, bay, and fortification as we passed. We were detained a long while at the quarantine ground. The doctor was three miles off, and nearly an hour elapsed before the great news reached him that we were all quite well, and we were therefore allowed to proceed. It now rained heavily, and we were obliged to crowd into the small cabin of the poorest steamer in the bay. There, by the light of one dim and dirty lamp, was the question first asked me, in joke, which has since been repeated in so many moods, "How do you like America?" The weather cleared up in another half hour. We stood in the dark on the wet deck, watching the yellow lights and shadowy buildings of the shore we were rapidly nearing, till we felt the expected shock, and jumped upon the wharf amid the warm welcomes of many friends, who, in their own joy at alighting on their native shore, did not forget to make it at once a home to us strangers.
This was at eight in the evening of the 19th of September, 1834, after a long but agreeable voyage of forty-two days.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS.
"Navigia, atque agri culturas, mœnia, leges
Arma, vias, vesteis, et cætera de genere horum
Præmia, delicias quoque vitæ funditus omneis,
Carmina, picturas, ac dædala signa, politus
Usus, et impigræ simul experientia mentis,
Paullatim docuit pedetentim progredienteis."
Lucretius, lib. v.
The moment of first landing in a foreign city is commonly spoken of as a perfect realization of forlornness. My entrance upon American life was anything but this. The spirits of my companions and myself were in a holyday dance while we were receiving our first impressions; and New-York always afterward bore an air of gayety to me from the association of the early pleasures of foreign travel.
Apartments had been secured for us at a boarding-house in Broadway, and a hackney-coach was in waiting at the wharf. The moonlight was flickering through the trees of the Battery, the insects were buzzing all about us, the catydids were grinding, and all the sounds, except human voices, were quite unlike all we had heard for six weeks. One of my companions took the sound of the catydid for a noise in her head for many hours after coming into their neighbourhood. As we rattled over the stones, I was surprised to find that the street we were in was Broadway; the lower and narrower end, however; but nothing that I saw, after all I had heard, and the panorama of New-York that I had visited in London, disappointed me so much as Broadway. Its length is remarkable, but neither its width nor the style of its houses. The trees with which it is lined gave it, this first evening, a foreign air.
Our hostess at the boarding-house shook hands with us, and ordered tea. While we were waiting for it, and within ten minutes after I had crossed the first American threshold, three gentlemen introduced themselves to me, one of whom was the melancholy politician whom I have mentioned elsewhere
