A week to spend in America! The “Great Eastern” was to set sail on the
16th of April, and it was now the 9th, and three o’clock in the
afternoon, when I set foot on the land of the Union. A week! There are
furious tourists and express travellers who would probably find this
time enough to visit the whole of North America; but I had no such
pretention, not even to visit New York thoroughly, and to write, after
this extra rapid inspection, a book on the manners and customs of the
Americans. But the constitution and physical aspect of New York is soon
seen; it is hardly more varied than a chess-board. The streets, cut at
right angles, are called avenues when they are straight, and streets
when irregular. The numbers on the principal thoroughfares are a very
practical but monotonous arrangement. American cars run through all the
avenues. Any one who has seen one quarter of New York knows the whole of
the great city, except, perhaps, that intricacy of streets and confused
alleys appropriated by the commercial population.
New York is built on a tongue of land, and all its activity is centred
on the end of that tongue; on either side extend the Hudson and East
River, arms of the sea, in fact, on which ships are seen and ferry-boats
ply, connecting the town on the right hand with Brooklyn, and on the
left with the shores of New Jersey.
A single artery intersects the symmetrical quarters of New York, and
that is old Broadway, the Strand of London, and the Boulevard Montmartre
of Paris; hardly passable at its lower end, where it is crowded with
people, and almost deserted higher up; a street where sheds and marble
palaces are huddled together; a stream of carriages, omnibusses, cabs,
drays, and waggons, with the pavement for its banks, across which a
bridge has been thrown for the traffic of foot passengers. Broadway is
New York, and it was there that the Doctor and I walked until evening.
After having dined at Fifth Avenue Hotel, I ended my day’s work by going
to the Barnum Theatre, where they were acting a play called “New York
Streets,” which attracted a large audience. In the fourth Act there was
a fire, and real fire-engines, worked by real firemen; hence the “great
attraction.”
The next morning I left the Doctor to his own affairs, and agreed to
meet him at the hotel at two o’clock. My first proceeding was to go to
the Post Office, 51, Liberty Street, to get any letters awaiting me
there; then I went to No. 2, Bowling Green, at the bottom of Broadway,
the residence of the French consul, M. le Baron Gauldrée Boilleau, who
received me very kindly. From here I made my way to cash a draft at
Hoffman’s; lastly, I went to No. 25, Thirty-sixth Street, where resided
Mrs. R——, Fabian’s sister. I was impatient to get news of Ellen and my
two friends; and here I learnt that, following the Doctor’s advice, Mrs.
R——, Fabian, and Corsican had left New York, taking with them the young
lady, thinking that the air and quiet of the country might have a
beneficial effect on her. A line from Captain Corsican informed me of
this sudden departure. The kind fellow had been to Fifth Avenue Hotel
without meeting me, but he promised to keep me acquainted with their
whereabouts. They thought of stopping at the first place that attracted
Ellen’s attention, and, staying there as long as the charm lasted; he
hoped that I should not leave without bidding them a last farewell. Yes,
were it but for a few hours, I should be happy to see Ellen, Fabian, and
Corsican once again. But such are the drawbacks of travelling, hurried
as I was, they gone and I going, each our separate ways, it seemed
hardly likely I should see them again.
At two o’clock I returned to the hotel, and found the Doctor in the
bar-room, which was full of people. It is a public hall, where
travellers and passers-by mingled together, finding gratis iced-water,
biscuits, and cheese.
“Well, Doctor,” said I, “when shall we start?”
“At six o’clock this evening.”
“Shall we take the Hudson railroad?”
“No; the ‘St. John;’ a wonderful steamer, another world—a ‘Great
Eastern’ of the river, one of those admirable locomotive engines which
go along with a will. I should have preferred showing you the Hudson by
daylight, but the ‘St. John’ only goes at night. To-morrow, at five
o’clock in the morning, we shall be at Albany. At six o’clock we shall
take the New York Central Railroad, and in the evening we shall sup at
Niagara Falls.”
I did not discuss the Doctor’s programme, but accepted it willingly.
The hotel lift hoisted us to our rooms, and some minutes later we
descended with our tourist knapsacks. A fly took us in a quarter of an
hour to the pier on the Hudson, before which was the “St. John,” the
chimneys of which were already crowned with wreaths of smoke.