The “St. John,” and its sister ship, the “Dean Richmond,” are two of the
finest steam-ships on the river. They are buildings rather than boats;
terraces rise one above another, with galleries and verandahs. One would
almost have thought it was a gardener’s floating plantation. There are
twenty flag-staffs, fastened with iron tressings, which consolidate the
whole building. The two enormous paddle-boxes are painted _al fresco_,
like the tympans in the Church of St. Mark, at Venice. Behind each wheel
rises the chimney of the two boilers, the latter placed outside, instead
of in the hull of the steam-ship, a good precaution in case of
explosion. In the centre, between the paddles, is the machinery, which
is very simple, consisting only of a single cylinder, a piston worked by
a long cross-beam, which rises and falls like the monstrous hammer of a
forge, and a single crank, communicating the movement to the axles of
the massive wheels.
Passengers were already crowding on to the deck of the “St. John.” Dean
Pitferge and I went to secure a cabin; we got one which opened into an
immense saloon, a kind of gallery with a vaulted ceiling, supported by a
succession of Corinthian pillars. Comfort and luxury everywhere,
carpets, sofas, ottomans, paintings, mirrors, even gas, made in a small
gasometer on board.
At this moment the gigantic engine trembled and began to work. I went on
to the upper terraces. At the stern was a gaily painted house, which was
the steersman’s room, where four strong men stood at the spokes of the
double rudder-wheel. After walking about for a few minutes, I went down
on to the deck, between the already heated boilers, from which light
blue flames were issuing. Of the Hudson I could see nothing. Night came,
and with it a fog thick enough to be cut. The “St. John” snorted in the
gloom like a true mastodon; we could hardly catch a glimpse of the
lights of the towns scattered along the banks of the river, or the
lanterns of ships ascending the dark water with shrill whistles.
At eight o’clock I went into the saloon. The Doctor took me to have
supper at a magnificent restaurant placed between the decks, where we
were served by an army of black waiters. Dean Pitferge informed me that
the number of passengers on board was more than four thousand, reckoning
fifteen hundred emigrants stowed away in the lower part of the
steam-ship. Supper finished, we retired to our comfortable cabin.
At eleven o’clock I was aroused by a slight shock. The “St. John” had
stopped. The captain, finding it impossible to proceed in the darkness,
had given orders to heave-to, and the enormous boat, moored in the
channel, slept tranquilly at anchor.
At four o’clock in the morning the “St. John” resumed her course. I got
up and went out under one of the verandahs. The rain had ceased, the fog
cleared off, the water appeared, then the shores; the right bank, dotted
with green trees and shrubs, which gave it the appearance of a long
cemetery; in the background rose high hills, closing in the horizon by a
graceful line; the left bank, on the contrary, was flat and marshy.
[Illustration: THE FOG CLEARED OFF.]
Dr. Pitferge had just joined me under the verandah.
“Good morning, friend,” said he, after having drawn a good breath of
air; “do you know we shall not be at Albany in time to catch the train,
thanks to that wretched fog. This will modify my programme.”
“So much the worse, Doctor, for we must be economical with our time.”
“Right; we may expect to reach Niagara Falls at night instead of in the
evening. That is not my fault, but we must be resigned.”
The “St. John,” in fact, did not moor off the Albany quay before eight
o’clock. The train had left, so we were obliged to wait till half-past
one. In consequence of this delay we were able to visit the curious old
city, which forms the legislative centre of the State of New York: the
lower town, commercial and thickly populated, on the right bank of the
Hudson, and the high town, with its brick houses, public buildings, and
its very remarkable museum of fossils. One might almost have thought it
a large quarter of New York transported to the side of this hill, up
which it rises in the shape of an amphitheatre.
At one o’clock, after having breakfasted, we went to the station, which
was without any barrier or officials. The train simply stopped in the
middle of the street, like an omnibus; one could get up and down at
pleasure. The cars communicate with each other by bridges, which allow
the traveller to go from one end of the train to the other. At the
appointed time, without seeing either a guard or a porter, without a
bell, without any warning, the brisk locomotive, a real gem of
workmanship, started, and we were whirled away at the speed of fifty
miles an hour. But instead of being boxed up, as one is in European
trains, we were at liberty to walk about, buy newspapers and books,
without waiting for stations. Refreshment buffets, bookstalls,
everything was at hand for the traveller. We were now crossing fields
without fences, and forests newly cleared, at the risk of a collision
with the felled trees; through new towns, seamed with rails, but still
wanting in houses; through cities adorned with the most poetic names of
ancient literature—Rome, Syracuse, and Palmyra. It was thus the Mohawk
Valley, the land of Fenimore, which belongs to the American novelist, as
does the land of Rob Roy to Walter Scott, glided before our eyes. For a
moment Lake Ontario, which Cooper has made the scene of action of his
master-work, sparkled on the horizon. All this theatre of the grand
epopee of Leather Stocking, formerly a savage country, is now a
civilized land. The Doctor did not appreciate the change, for he
persisted in calling me Hawk’s Eye, and would only answer to the name of
Chingachgook.
At eleven o’clock at night we changed trains at Rochester; the spray
from the Tennessee cascades fell over the cars in showers. At two
o’clock in the morning, after having kept alongside the Niagara for
several leagues without seeing it, we arrived at the village of Niagara
Falls, and the Doctor conducted me to a magnificent hotel, grandly named
“Cataract House.”