deck, or stroll up and down singing old home songs or catches, and glees. Lulled by these pleasant sounds and occasional echoes of the sailors’ voices, we sleep soundly through our first night at sea.
To some this voyage is a new experience, and to them everything is a pleasure and delight; their senses are on the qui vive, and they extract a keen enjoyment from the slightest matter; whether they are watching the shifting colours of the sea and skies, strolling idly up and down, or leaning over the bulwarks, straining their eyes over the vast expanse, eagerly expecting a school of whales to go spouting past, they are equally happy and content, seeing mountains where never a molehill exists; the atmospheric changes interest them, the whistling of the wind through the shrouds makes a new music to their ears, and the life on board ship with all its variations has the charm of novelty. But the novelty soon wears off and they gradually awake to the fact that a sea-voyage is a most monotonous affair. This the habitués, to whom the voyage is as an oft-told tale, realise from the first moment; they know precisely how the next ten days are likely to pass, and at once set their minds to enliven the monotony, every one contributing something to the amusement of the whole. We are especially fortunate on the present occasion, there being several of Colonel Mapleson’s company on board, who are most amiable in their endeavours to amuse their fellow-passengers. There is also an unusual amount of amateur musical and dramatic talent on board, and they combine together and organise a concert or some kind of dramatic entertainment every evening.
About eight o’clock everybody turns out in pretty, simple toilettes, and the stream sets towards the music-room. Great Britain is sparsely represented, and I don’t think with the best specimens; the scanty few seem manufactured for foreign travel only, and are not of the finest workmanship, either of art or nature.
On the evening of the first entertainment a gorgeous apparition appeared in the shape of the master of the ceremonies, the only evident reason for his filling that position being his possession of a swallow-tail coat. He was a fair, slim young man, with his hair parted down the middle. He was in full evening dress, with a huge artificial flower—a sunflower—in his buttonhole, and white gloves too long for his fingers. He was a British-Australian, we learned. When he opened his mouth he dropped, not pearls, but h’s; he dropped them in one place and picked them up in another, and in his attempt to announce the different operatic airs he mangled the soft Italian language till it fell upon the ear a mass of mutilated sounds. He had to run the gauntlet of a good deal of masculine chaff, which he bore with a stolid equanimity born of self-contentment; however, he unconsciously contributed to the general amusement, and gave rise to some humorous illustrations which served to beguile the time.
The weather continues delightful, a balmy atmosphere brooding over a smooth, grey sea. In quiet uninteresting calm the days pass by, but at night nature rallies her forces and gives us some glorious sunsets, filling the pale skies with cloud islands of golden light, while white and crimson feathery plumes, like spectral palms, float hither and thither across the sea-green sky. But nobody cares for a second-hand sunset, it must be seen to be appreciated—no word-painting or most brilliant colouring on canvas can convey an idea of it.
About mid-ocean we fall into foul weather, and a violent game of pitch and toss ensues; a clatter of broken china, contused limbs, and half a score of black eyes are the result. There is a tough-fibred, strong-brained missionary on board, whose very face in its stern rigidity is suggestive of torments here and hereafter. He takes advantage of the occasion and lifts up his eyes and voice in violent denunciation of all miserable sinners, exhorts everybody to repent upon the spot as the day of doom is at hand—the Lord has come in storm and tempest to break up the good ship and bury her living freight at the bottom of the sea! He aggravates the fear, and tortures the nerves, of the weaker vessels, till several ladies are carried to their berths in violent hysterics. Some few husbands, fathers, and lovers, expressed a strong desire to have that missionary “heaved overboard.” We pitied the poor heathens who would presently benefit by his ministrations.
We pass out of the storm into genial American weather—blue skies, soft, ambient air, and brilliant sunshine. A foretaste of the lovely Indian summer greets us long before we reach the shore. Our vessel, owing to its gigantic size, is a long time swinging round and entering its dock. We are in sight of New York at three in the afternoon, but it is late in the evening before we are able to effect a landing.
Everybody knows what a New York winter is like. We plunge at once into the hurly-burly, and for the next few months we “do as the world doth—say as it sayeth,” and being bound to the wheel whirl with it till the hard king, frost, melts and disappears under the genial breath of a somewhat humid spring; then we turn our faces southward.
It is impossible for the best disposed person to extract much pleasure from a dismal drive across the plains of Pennsylvania, while the heavens are weeping copiously, drenching the sick earth with their tears, and dropping a grey cloud mantle over it. A heavy mist is hiding everything, and moves like a shrouded funeral procession among the tall trees, as though it had wrapped the dead winter in its grave-clothes, and was carrying it away for burial in some invisible world we know not of. A damp chillness clings and crawls everywhere; it finds its way to our very bones; we shiver, and draw our wraps closer round us. The whole world seems veiled in mourning for the sins of our forefathers; even the buoyant spirits of the famous Mark Tapley must have gone down under these dreary surroundings.
There is nothing to be seen, nothing to be heard, but the pattering rain upon the windows, and the snort or occasional scream of our engine, like the shriek of a bird of prey, as it sweeps on its iron road. We look round us; everything and everybody seems in a state of depression, wrapped in a general gloom. The whimpering cries of the children sink into a dismal rhythmical wail, as though they wrangled by arithmetic, and wept according to rule.
There was a small family of these human fledglings aboard, and the parent bird was sorely tried in her endeavour to keep within bounds the belligerent spirits of her flock; in vain she called their attention to imaginary “gee-gees” and the invisible wonders outside—they stared out into the blankness, discovered the deception, and howled louder than ever. The cock-horse limped on its way to Banbury Cross, and even the lady with rings on her fingers and bells on her toes made music in vain. At last a mysterious voice issued from a muffled man in a corner, offering “ten dollars to anybody who would smother that baby.”
We all sympathised with the spirit of the offer, but perhaps the fear of after-consequences prevented anybody from accepting it. The mother dived into a boneless, baggy umbrella, which apparently served as luncheon basket, wardrobe, and, I verily believe might have been turned into a cradle; thence she abstracted crackers, apples, and candies—and cotton handerchiefs which she vigorously applied to their little damp noses.
This interesting family got off at Baltimore and left us for diversion to our own resources, to feed upon our own reserve fund of spirits, which afforded but poor entertainment.
As we reached Washington there was a rift in the clouds overhead, and a brilliant ray of sunlight darted through, lighting up the city, and gilding the great dome of the Capitol with heavenly alchemy; it might have been that some immortal eye had opened suddenly, winked upon this wicked world, and shut again, for in a moment it was as dark and cheerless as before.
Here we change cars, and as we pass through the little waiting-room there is a general rush, a clustering at one spot, and a babel of voices clash one with another; we catch a few wandering words—“Here’s where he fell, right here,” “Carried out that way,” “The wretch, I hope he’ll be hung,” &c. We look down and see a small brass star let into the ground, which marks the spot where poor Garfield fell; women prod it with their parasols, men assault it with their walking-sticks. We have no time to shed the “tributary tear”; the bell rings “All aboard, all aboard,” and in another moment we are on our way to Richmond. The weather clears, a few glancing gleams of golden sunlight stream through the broken clouds, then the sun closes its watery eye and goes to sleep, with a fair promise of a bright to-morrow.
We roll on through the fresh greenery of Maryland till the evening shadows fall and the death of the day’s life goes out in gloom and heaviness. We spend the hours in anticipatory speculations till we reach Richmond about