IMMENSITY OF LONDON—VOYAGE TO LEITH—SOCIETY OF THE STEAM PACKET
—ANALOGY BETWEEN SCOTCH AND AMERICAN MANNERS—STRICT OBSERVANCE
OF THE SABBATH ON BOARD—EDINBURGH—UNEXPECTED RECOGNITION.
Almost giddy with the many pleasures and occupations of London, I had
outstayed the last fashionable lingerer; and, appearing again, after a
fortnight’s confinement with the epidemic of the season, I found myself
almost without an acquaintance, and was driven to follow the world. A
preponderance of letters and friends determined my route toward
Scotland.
One realizes the immensity of London when he is compelled to measure its
length on a single errand. I took a cab at my lodgings at nine in the
evening, and drove six miles through one succession of crowded and
blazing streets to the East India Docks, and with the single misfortune
of being robbed, on the way, of a valuable cloak, secured a berth in the
Monarch steamer, bound presently for Edinburgh.
I found the drawing-room cabin quite crowded, cold supper on the two
long tables, every body very busy with knife and fork, and
whiskey-and-water and broad Scotch circulating merrily. All the world
seemed acquainted, and each man talked to his neighbor, and it was as
unlike a ship’s company of dumb English as could easily be conceived. I
had dined too late to attack the solids, but imitating my neighbor’s
potation of whiskey and hot water, I crowded in between two good-humored
Scotchmen, and took the happy color of the spirits of the company. A
small centre-table was occupied by a party who afforded considerable
amusement. An excessively fat old woman, with a tall scraggy daughter
and a stubby little old fellow, whom they called “pa;” and a singular
man, a Major Somebody, who seemed showing them up, composed the
quartette. Noisier women I never saw, nor more hideous. They bullied the
waiter, were facetious with the steward, and talked down all the united
buzz of the cabin. Opposite me sat a pale, severe-looking Scotchman, who
had addressed one or two remarks to me; and, upon an uncommon burst of
uproariousness, he laughed with the rest, and remarked that the ladies
were excusable, for they were doubtless Americans, and knew no better.
“It strikes me,” said I, “that both in manners and accent they are
particularly Scotch.”
“Sir!” said the pale gentleman.
“Sir!” said several of my neighbors on the right and left.
“Have you ever been in Scotland?” asked the pale gentleman, with rather
a ferocious air.
“No, sir! Have you ever been in America?”
“No, sir! but I have read Mrs. Trollope.”
“And I have read Cyril Thornton; and the manners delineated in Mrs.
Trollope, I must say, are rather elegant in comparison.”
I particularized the descriptions I alluded to, which will occur
immediately to those who have read the novel I have named; and then
confessing I was an American, and withdrawing my illiberal remark, which
I had only made to show the gentleman the injustice and absurdity of his
own, we called for another tass of whiskey, and became very good
friends. Heaven knows I have no prejudice against the Scotch, or any
other nation—but it is extraordinary how universal the feeling seems to
be against America. A half hour incog. in any mixed company in England I
should think would satisfy the most rose-colored doubter on the subject.
We got under way at eleven o’clock, and the passengers turned in. The
next morning was Sunday. It was fortunately of a “Sabbath stillness;”
and the open sea through which we were driving, with an easy south wind
in our favor, graciously permitted us to do honor to as substantial a
breakfast as ever was set before a traveller, even in America. (Why _we_
should be ridiculed for our breakfasts I do not know.)
The “Monarch” is a superb boat, and, with the aid of sails and a wind
right aft, we made twelve miles in the hour easily. I was pleased to see
an observance of the Sabbath which had not crossed my path before in
three years’ travel. Half the passengers at least took their Bibles
after breakfast, and devoted an hour or two evidently to grave religious
reading and reflection. With this exception, I have not seen a person
with the Bible in his hand, in travelling over half the world.
The weather continued fine, and smooth water tempted us up to breakfast
again on Monday. The wash-room was full of half-clad men, but the
week-day manners of the passengers were perceptibly gayer. The captain
honored us by taking the head of the table, which he had not done on the
day previous, and his appearance was hailed by three general cheers.
When the meats were removed, a gentleman rose, and, after a very long
and parliamentary speech, proposed the health of the captain. The
company stood up, ladies and all, and it was drank with a tremendous
“hip-hip-hurrah,” in bumpers of whiskey. They don’t do that on the
Mississippi, I reckon. If they did, the travellers would be down upon
us, “I guess,” out-Hamiltoning Hamilton.
We rounded St. Abb’s head into the Forth, at five, in the afternoon, and
soon dropped anchor off Leith. The view of Edinburgh, from the water,
is, I think, second only to that of Constantinople. The singular
resemblance, in one or two features, to the view of Athens, as you
approach from the Piræus, seems to have struck other eyes than mine, and
an imitation Acropolis is commenced on the Calton Hill, and has already,
in its half finished state, much the effect of the Parthenon. Hymettus
is rather loftier than the Pentland-hills, and Pentelicus farther off
and grander than Arthur’s seat, but the old castle of Edinburgh is a
noble and peculiar feature of its own, and soars up against the sky,
with its pinnacle-placed turrets, superbly magnificent. The Forth has a
high shore on either side, and, with the island of Inchkeith in its
broad bosom, it looks more like a lake than an arm of the sea.
It is odd what strange links of acquaintance will develop between people
thrown together in the most casual manner, and in the most
out-of-the-way places. I have never entered a steamboat in my life
without finding, if not an acquaintance, some one who should have been
an acquaintance from mutual knowledge of friends. I thought, through the
first day, that the Monarch would be an exception. On the second
morning, however, a gentleman came up and called me by name. He was an
American, and had seen me in Boston. Soon after, another gentleman
addressed some remark to me, and, in a few minutes, we discovered that
we were members of the same club in London, and bound to the same
hospitable roof in Scotland. We went on, talking together, and I
happened to mention having lately been in Greece, when one of a large
party of ladies, overhearing the remark, turned, and asked me if I had
met Lady —— in my travels. I had met her at Athens, and this was her
sister. I found I had many interesting particulars of the delightful
person in question, which were new to them, and, _sequitur_, a
friendship struck up immediately between me and a party of six. You
would have never dreamed, to have seen the adieux on the landing, that
we had been unaware of each other’s existence forty-four hours previous.
Leith is a mile or more from the town, and we drove into the new side of
Edinburgh—a splendid city of stone—and, with my English friend, I was
soon installed in a comfortable parlor at Douglass’s—an hotel to which
the Tremont, in Boston, is the only parallel. It is built of the same
stone and is smaller, but it has a better situation than the Tremont,
standing in a magnificent square, with a column and statue to Lord
Melville in the centre, and a perspective of a noble street stretching
through the city from the opposite side.
We dined upon _grouse_, to begin Scotland fairly, and nailed down our
sherry with a tass of Glenlivet, and then we had still an hour of
daylight for a ramble.