Border and Bastille | Page 7

sight could not pierce
half a ship's length ahead. So there we lay at anchor for weary hours,
listening to the church-bells chiming drowsily through the heavy air,
till an enterprising tug ventured out for the mails, and sent another for
the relief of the passengers.
The custom-house officers were not troublesome, and I was soon at the
Brevoort House, the Parisian Pylades still faithfully following my
fortunes. I was far from entreating him to leave me; landing utterly
alone in a strange land, one does not lightly cast aside companionship.
For reasons easily understood, I had declined to avail myself of many
proffered letters of introduction to New Yorkers.
That lonely feeling did not last long: the first object which caught my
eye on the steps of the Brevoort House was an honest English face--a
face I have known, and liked right well, these dozen years and more.
There stood "the Colonel" (any Ch. Ch. or Rifle Brigade man will
recognize the sobriquet), beaming upon the world in general with the
placid cheerfulness that no changes of time or place or fortune seem
able to alter, looking just as comfortable and thoroughly "at home" as
he did, steering Horniblow to victory at Brixworth. I had heard that my
old friend was on his way to England to join the Staff College, but had
never reckoned on such a successful "nick" as this. By my faith, my

turns of luck beyond the Atlantic were not so frequent as to excuse
forgetfulness, when they did befall.
So I had aid and abetment in performing the little lionization which is
obligatory on a visitor to New York; for the "Colonel's" comrade, my
fellow-voyager of the Asia, came to the same hotel.
Assisted by the Parisian, we made trial of the esculents peculiar to the
country--gombo soup, sweet potatoes, terrapins, and
canvas-backs--with much solemnity and satisfaction, agreeing, that
fame had spoken truth for once, in extolling the two last-named
delicacies. We went to the Opera, and there, in a brilliant salle of white
and gold, spoilt, however, by the incongruity of bonnets mingling
everywhere with full evening toilettes, assisted at a
massacre--unmusical and melancholy--of "Lucrezia." We drove out
through the crude, unfinished Central Park to Harlem lane, whither the
trotters are wont to resort, and saw several teams looking very much
like work (though no celebrities), almost all of the lean, rather ragged
form which characterizes, more or less, all American-bred "fast
horses." The ground was too hard frozen to allow of anything beyond
gentle exercise; but even at quarter-speed, that wonderful hind-action
was very remarkable. Watching those clean, sinewy pasterns shoot
forward--well outside of the fore hoof-track--straight and swift as
Mace's arm in an "upper-cut," you marvel no longer at the mile-time
which hitherto has seemed barely credible.
Perhaps this same bitter weather may account for our disappointment in
the brilliancy of Broadway. Several careful reviews of the sunny side
failed to detect anything dangerously attractive in beauty, equipage, or
attire. It is probable that most of the lionnes had laid them down in their
delicate dens, waiting for a more clement season, to renew external
depredations; though sometimes you could just catch a glimpse of
bright eyes and a little pink nose peering over dark fur wrappings, as a
brougham or barouche, carefully closed, swept quickly by. We visited
Barnum, of course. I think a conversational and communicative Albino
was the most note-worthy curiosity in the Museum, chiefly, from his
intense appreciation of the imposture of the whole concern, originated

and directed by the King of Humbugdom.
The sanguine popular mind was unusually depressed just then. The
President's emancipatory proclamation had recently issued, and seemed
to adapt itself, with wonderful elasticity, to the discontents of all parties;
not comprehensive enough for the ultra-Abolitionists, it was
stigmatized by the Democrats as unconstitutional and oppressive; while
moderate politicians agreed that, beyond irritating feelings already
bitter enough, it would be practically invalid as an offensive measure.
We shall see, hereafter, how these prognostications were justified.
But the first word in all men's mouths, for a day or two at least after my
arrival, was--Monitor. That same gale which had buffeted the Asia so
rudely on the high seas, had raged yet more savagely shorewards: the
Merrimac's antagonist, like a drowning paladin of the mail-clad days,
had sunk under her mighty armor, and now, with half her crew in their
iron coffin, lay at rest in the crowded burial-ground on which Cape
Hatteras looks down. Great discouragement and consternation--greater
than has often been caused by the loss of any single vessel--fell upon
all the North when the news came in. Ever since her famous duel,
which the Federals never would allow was a drawn battle, they had
elevated the Monitor into a national champion, and prophesied weeping