First Impressions of the New World | Page 6

proportion of the servants, both male and female, and of
porters and the like. We are disappointed in the fruit. The peaches are
cheap, and in great quantities, but they are very inferior to ours in
flavour, and the melons are also tasteless. The water-melons are cut in
long slices and sold in the streets, and the people eat them as they walk
along. The great luxury of the place is ice, which travels about the
streets in carts, the blocks being three or four feet thick, and a glass of
iced water is the first thing placed on the table at each meal. The
cookery at this hotel is French, and first rate. We have had a few dishes
that are new to us. The corn-bread and whaffles are cakes made
principally of Indian-corn; and the Okra-vegetable, which was to us
new, is cut into slices to flavour soup. Lima beans are very good; we
have also had yams, and yesterday tasted the Cincinnati champagne,
which we thought very poor stuff.
Fillmore House, Newport, Rhode Island, September 13th.--We left
New York on Thursday afternoon, and embarked in a Brobdingnagian
steamboat, which it would not be very easy to describe. The cabin is on
the upper deck, so that at either end you can walk out on to the stern or
bow of the vessel; it is about eleven feet high, and most splendidly
fitted up and lighted at night with four ormolu lustres, each having
eight large globe lights. We paced the length of the cabin and made it

115 paces, so that walking nine times up and down made a nice walk of
a mile. The engine of the steamboat in America rises far above the deck
in the centre of the vessel, so this formed an obstruction to our seeing
the whole length, unless on each side of the engine, where a broad and
clear passage allowed a full view from end to end; but instead of taking
away from the fine effect, the engine-room added greatly thereto, for it
was divided from the cabin, on one side, by a huge sheet of plate glass,
through which the most minute workings of the engines could be seen.
There was in front a large clock, and dials of every description, to show
the atmospheric pressure, the number of revolutions of the wheel, &c.
This latter dial was a most beautiful piece of mechanism. Its face
showed six digits, so that the number of revolutions could be shown up
to 999,999. The series of course began with 000,001, and at the end of
the first turn the nothings remained, and the 1 changed first into 2, then
into 3, &c., till at the end of the tenth revolution the two last digits
changed together, and it stood at 000,010, and at the 1,012th revolution
it stood at 001,012.
To go back to the saloon itself; the walls and ceiling were very much
carved, gilt, and ornamented with engravings which, though not equal
to our Albert Durers, or Raphael Morghens at home, were respectable
modern performances, and gave a drawing-room look to the place. The
carpet was gorgeous in colour, and very pretty in design, and the
arm-chairs, of which 120 were fixtures ranged round the wall, besides
quantities dispersed about the room, were uniform in make, and very
comfortable. They were covered with French woven tapestry, very
similar to the specimens we bought at Pau. There were no sofas, which
was doubtless wise, as they might have been turned to sleeping
purposes. Little passages having windows at the end, ran out of the
saloon, each opening into little state cabins on either side, containing
two berths each, as large as those on board the Africa, and much more
airy; but the wonderful part was below stairs. Under the after-part of
the saloon was the general sleeping cabin for the ladies who could not
afford to pay for state cabins, of which, however, there were nearly a
hundred. Our maid slept in this ladies' cabin, and her berth was No. 306,
but how many more berths there may have been here we cannot tell.
This must have occupied about a quarter of the space underneath the

upper saloon. The remaining three quarters of the space constituted the
gentlemen's sleeping cabin, and this was a marvellous sight. The berths
are ranged in four tiers, forming the sides of the cabin, which was at
least fourteen feet high; and as these partook of the curve of the vessel,
the line of berths did the same, so as not to be quite one over the other.
There were muslin curtains in front of the berths, forming, when drawn,
a wall of light floating drapery along each side of the cabin, and this
curved appearance of