The History of Western Travel. Harriet Martineau

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СКАЧАТЬ resolved to proceed to the dock, to put our luggage on board, and see for ourselves the true state of affairs. It was not very agreeable. The deck was encumbered with water-casks and chests; the captain was fidgeting about, giving his orders in a voice rather less placid than ordinary; a great number of inquiring persons, who had come down to see us off, had to be told that we were not going to-day, and why; and several of the American passengers were on the spot, looking very melancholy. They had entered the 8th in their journals as the day of sailing, brought down their portmanteaus, paid their bills at the hotel, and taken leave of Boots and chambermaid. Here they were left with four-and-twenty dreary and expensive hours upon their hands, and who knew how many more than four-and-twenty? One declared that the wind appeared as if it had set in against us, and he should not be surprised if it was a week before we sailed. Their fate was so truly mournful, that I was ashamed of feeling any discomfiture on my own account, domesticated as I was in the nearest and dearest of homes next to my own. Our disconsolate acquaintance among the passengers were invited to dispose of their evening with us; and we returned to tell the children, and everybody whom we met, that we were not gone, and wherefore. Of course, we presently recollected several reasons why it was well that we had another day. There were two letters which it was highly desirable I should write from Liverpool rather than from New-York; and the children had never before found leisure to show me the cupboards and shelves where they kept their playthings; so that, if the wind had been fair, I should actually have gone away without seeing them.

      We sauntered all the afternoon in the Zoological Gardens, and, as we returned, caught each other looking up at every weathercock we passed. In the evening our visiters dropped in, each ready with a speculation as to how the wind would be to-morrow.

      On the morrow the weathercock told no better news; and a note was on the breakfast-table which informed us that there was no chance of our sailing that day. I was now really sorry. It was Saturday; and I feared my host would write no sermon if I remained to keep his household in an unsettled state. Our seadresses, too, would not serve for a Sunday in Liverpool, and our books and work were all on board with our wardrobes. The tidings were therefore welcome which were brought early in the forenoon, that the captain had engaged a steamboat to tow us out to sea. By eleven o'clock the carriage of a friend was at the door, with bouquets of flowers, and baskets of grapes and other acid refreshments, which it was thought might be welcome at sea.

      "Have you no misgivings?" asked an intimate, before whose imagination the Western World now rose tremendous in its magnitude. "Have you no misgivings now?" I had none, and it was well. If I had had such as would have made me draw back in the last moment, what a world of good should I have foregone! Not only what knowledge, but what a store of imagery! What intense and varied enjoyment! and, above all, what friendships! When I now look back upon what I have gained, and at how small an expense of peril and inconvenience, I cannot but regard my setting foot on board ship as one of the most fortunate acts of my life.

      When we arrived at the dock we found there was really to be no further delay. The knots of friends, the crowds of gazers were gathering; the steamer was hissing and puffing in the river, and the song of the sailors was heard, as they were warping our ship out of the dock. In a few minutes we and the other passengers were requested to step on board. I first carried my flowers down to my stateroom, intending to hide them there till we should be out of sight of land, when an apparition of fresh flowers upon deck might be more than commonly welcome. I then took my station by a window of the roundhouse, whence I could see all that passed on shore without being much seen. Thence I could observe my brother and sisters speaking to each other, and pointing out things which I could easily interpret. It occurred to me that I could send them one more token, by means of the little waves which rolled away from the sides of our ship, and washed the pier on which the crowd was standing. I threw out a rose at a moment when I caught a watchful eye; and I saw it borne, after many vagaries, directly under their feet. Suddenly I missed them from the spot where they were standing, and supposed they were quite tired (as they well might have been), and had gone home. But it was not so. They had withdrawn only in order to secure front places at the extreme end of the pier, whence they might watch us yet longer than from their former station. There they stood, as long as we could distinguish any forms from among the crowd. Then three cheers were exchanged between the crew and the shore, and the passengers strained their eyes no more.

      The greater number then went below to make arrangements in their staterooms; and afterward ensued the ceremony of introducing the company to each other on deck. Our number was twenty-three, six of whom formed the party to which I belonged; or, rather, so it seemed to ourselves before we went on board. The distinction was afterward forgotten, for the company assembled was, with two or three exceptions, so exceedingly agreeable and so wonderfully congenial, considering how accidentally we were brought together, that we mingled completely as one party. We had among us a Prussian physician; a New-England divine; a Boston merchant, with his sprightly and showy young wife; a high-spirited young South Carolinian, fresh from a German university; a newly-married couple, whose station was not exactly discoverable while on board, but who opened a public-house soon after their arrival in New-York; a Scotch major, whose peculiarities made him the butt of the young men; an elderly widow lady; two amiable young ladies; and a Scotch lady, "of no particular age," but of very particular placidity and good-humour; and a youth out of Yorkshire, who was leaving his parents' roof for the first time alone, and who was destined never to return to it. The number was made up by English and American merchants; young men so accustomed to pass between Liverpool and New-York, that the voyage was little more to them than an expedition to Primrose Hill is to a cockney.

      The cold dinner and drinking of healths customary on the day of sailing succeeded. Then there was the library to look over, and trial to be made of a seat on the rail, whence we could see the dim shores as we glided smoothly along in the wake of the steamer. By the time it was dusk the latter had performed her engagement. We saw the payment handed over, and the shaking of hands of the two captains, and then she disengaged herself from us, and began ploughing her way to the north coast of Ireland. We felt very helpless when she was gone, the little wind there was being unfavourable. There was so little, however, as to allow us novices a night of sound sleep at the outset.

      On Sunday we crept along in almost a calm, having a glimpse of the dim outline of the Isle of Man in the morning, and being still in sight of Holyhead in the evening. To me it was a day of luxury; for, jaded as I had been with business and novelty, there was no circumstance of the voyage that I valued so highly as the impossibility of receiving letters or news for three weeks or a month. The gliding on thus in a calm, with time to think and be still, was all that I wanted; but the Americans, who had home on the horizon before them, and longed to be at rest there, looked grave on this inauspicious beginning of their transit. On Monday, however, they felt, from another cause, a good deal worse. The wind had freshened, but I believe nobody cared which way or how fast it blew us. The only meal at which I was not present was that of Monday's dinner. I can testify to the breakfast and tea being quiet and sad enough, with a sprinkling of languid passengers at table, and a knowledge of how wretched all the rest were in their rooms.

      On Tuesday began my experience of the pleasures of the sea. The wind had freshened to a strong breeze, which had so rocked us in our berths that I rose miserably ill. I was strongly persuaded of the necessity of exertion in seasickness, of having fresh air, and of getting out of the way of the sights and sounds of the cabin; and I therefore persevered in dressing and going up to the deck. There was the captain, with only one passenger to talk with, and heartily glad at the prospect of another being convalescent. He seated me on the rail, where I kept my eyes away from the helpless invalids who were strewed about the deck, and in half an hour I was quite well. We were careering along in most exhilarating style. The wind was so strong as to put the wearing a bonnet out of the question. I had happily been furnished with a sort of cap, which no lady should go to sea without; a black silk cap, well wadded. With the head thus defended, and a large warm cloak, a lady may abide almost any weather, and avoid the désagremens and unwholesomeness of the cabin. My eye was never weary of watching the dashing and boiling of the dark green waves, from the gray horizon to the ship's side; and I know СКАЧАТЬ