"Have you no misgivings?" asked an intimate, before whose imagination the Western World now rose tremendous in its magnitude. "Have you no misgivings now ?" I had none, and it was well. If I had had such as would have made me draw back in the last moment, what a world of good should I have foregone! Not only what knowledge, but what a store of imagery! What intense and varied enjoyment! and, above all, what friendships! When I now look back upon what I have gained, and at how small an expense of peril and inconvenience, I cannot but regard my setting foot on board ship as one of the most fortunate acts of my life.

When we arrived at the dock we found there was really to be no further delay. The knots of friends, the crowds of gazers were gathering; the steamer was hissing and puffing in the river, and the song of the sailors was heard, as they were warping our ship out of the dock. In a few minutes we and the other passengers were requested to step on board. I first carried my flowers down to my stateroom, intending to hide them there till we should be out of sight of land, when an apparition of fresh flowers upon deck might be more than commonly welcome. I then took my station by a window of the roundhouse, whence I could see all that passed on shore without being much seen. Thence I could observe my brother and sisters speaking to each other, and pointing out things which I could easily interpret. It occurred to me that I could send them one more token, by means of the little waves which rolled away from the sides of our ship, and washed the pier on which the crowd was standing. I threw out a rose at a moment when I caught a watchful eye; and I saw it borne, after many vagaries, directly under their feet. Suddenly I missed them from the spot where they were standing, and supposed they were quite tired (as they well might have been), and had gone home. But it was not so. They had withdrawn only in order to secure front places at the extreme end of the pier, whence they might watch us yet longer than from their former station. There they stood, as long as we could distinguish any forms from among the crowd. Then three cheers were exchanged between the crew and the shore, and the passengers strained their eyes no more.

The greater number then went below to make arrangements in their staterooms; and afterward ensued the ceremony of introducing the company to each other on deck.

Our number was twenty-three, six of whom formed the party to which I belonged; or, rather, so it seemed to ourselves before we went on board. The distinction was afterward forgotten, for the company assembled was, with two or three exceptions, so exceedingly agreeable and so wonderfully congenial, considering how accidentally we were brought together, that we mingled completely as one party. We had among us a Prussian physician; a New-England divine; a Boston merchant, with his sprightly and showy young wife; a high-spirited young South Carolinian, fresh from a German university; a newly-married couple, whose station was not exactly discoverable while on board, but who opened a public-house soon after their arrival in New-York; a Scotch major, whose peculiarities made him the butt of the young men; an elderly widow lady; two amiable young ladies; and a Scotch lady, "of no particular age," but of very particular placidity and good-humour; and a youth out of Yorkshire, who was leaving his parents' roof for the first time alone, and who was destined never to return to it. The number was made up by English and American merchants; young men so accustomed to pass between Liverpool and New-York, that the voyage was little more to them than an expedition to Primrose Hill is to a cockney.

The cold dinner and drinking of healths customary on the day of sailing succeeded. Then there was the library to look over, and trial to be made of a seat on the rail, whence we could see the dim shores as we glided smoothly along in the wake of the steamer. By the time it was dusk the latter had performed her engagement. We saw the payment handed over, and the shaking of hands of the two captains, and then she disengaged herself from us, and began ploughing her way to the north coast of Ireland. We

felt very helpless when she was gone, the little wind there was being unfavourable. There was so little, however, as to allow us novices a night of sound sleep at the outset.

On Sunday we crept along in almost a calm, having a glimpse of the dim outline of the Isle of Man in the morning, and being still in sight of Holyhead in the evening. To me it was a day of luxury; for, jaded as I had been with business and novelty, there was no circumstance of the voyage that I valued so highly as the impossibility of receiving letters or news for three weeks or a month. The gliding on thus in a calm, with time to think and be still, was all that I wanted; but the Americans, who had home on the

horizon before them, and longed to be at rest there, looked grave on this inauspicious beginning of their transit. On Monday, however, they felt, from another cause, a good deal worse. The wind had freshened, but I believe nobody cared which way or how fast it blew us. The only meal at which I was not present was that of Monday's dinner. I can testify to the breakfast and tea being quiet and sad enough, with a sprinkling of languid passengers at table, and a knowledge of how wretched all the rest were in their

rooms.

sea.

On Tuesday began my experience of the pleasures of the The wind had freshened to a strong breeze, which had so rocked us in our births that I rose miserably ill. I was strongly persuaded of the necessity of exertion in seasickness, of having fresh air, and of getting out of the way of the sights and sounds of the cabin; and I therefore persevered in dressing and going up to the deck. There was the captain, with only one passenger to talk with, and heartily glad at the prospect of another being convalescent. He seated me on the rail, where I kept my eyes away from the helpless invalids who were strewed about the deck, and in half an hour I was quite well. We were careering along in most exhilarating style. The wind was so strong as to put the wearing a bonnet out of the question. I had happily been furnished with a sort of cap, which no lady should go to sea without; a black silk cap, well wadded. With the head thus defended, and a large warm cloak, a lady may abide almost any weather, and avoid the désagremens and unwholesomeness of the cabin. My eye was never weary of watching the dashing and boiling of the dark green waves, from the gray horizon to the ship's side; and I know of no motion so gladsome as that of riding the high billows in a brisk breeze. The captain pointed out to me the first of the monsters of the deep that I ever saw; a large blackfish, tumbling about joyously by itself in the stormy sea, now throwing its thick body forward in ungainly gambols, and now rearing its forked tail perpendicularly as it prepared to dive.

My flowers did not disappoint my expectations. They were still quite fresh on the Wednesday, when, as we were out of sight of land, I carried them up to the deck, and gave each passenger one, that being precisely my supply. I never saw flowers give so much pleasure before, except in

cases of long confinement from illness. Truly they were very like a message from home.

In two or three days more all but two ladies and one gentleman had settled themselves into the routine of sea life. It was very desirable that they should do so, as on the 15th we were still little more than three hundred miles from Liverpool. It would have been dismal to add idleness and unsettledness to the discouragement caused by such a beginning of our voyage. Our mode of life was very simple and quiet; to me, very delightful. I enjoyed it so much that I delayed beginning my letters home till we had been a week at sea, lest I should write some extravagance which I should afterward have to qualify or retract. None of my subsequent experience, however, has altered my feeling that a voyage is the most pleasant pastime I have ever known.

The passengers showed themselves upon deck some time between seven and nine in the morning. Each one either made his way to the binnacle to see for himself what course we were upon, or learned the important intelligence from some obliging individual who held the fact at the general service. We all asked the captain at first, but soon discontinued the practice when we found that favourable answers were likely to be rare, and how it must vex him to tell us every morning that we were scarcely getting on at all.

After a brisk morning's walk upon deck, no one was sorry to hear the breakfast-bell. Breakfast was the most cheerful meal of the day. If ever there was any news to tell, it was then. The early risers could sometimes speak to the sluggards of a big fish, of a passing sail, of a frolic among the sailors. I was asked once by a passenger, in a tone whose laziness cannot be conveyed on paper, "What, did ye see the whale this mornin'?"

"No. It came at four o'clock, when was asleep; but the captain promises to have me called next time, whatever the hour may be."

"What, d'ye want to see a whale ?"

66

'Yes, very much."

"Well, but I dare say you have seen a pictur' o' one.' It was not apparent to him that this was not an equally good thing.

After breakfast, the gentlemen who kept journals produced their writing-cases in the cabin. The ladies sat in sunny or shaded places on deck, netting, making table-mats, or reading, or mounted the railing to talk or look abroad. I

had a task to do, which is a thing that should be avoided on board ship. I had a long article to write; and nothing else would I do, on fine mornings, till it was finished. It is disagreeable writing in the cabin, with people flitting all about one. It is unwholesome writing in one's stateroom in the month of August. The deck is the only place. The first care, after breakfast, of my clerical friend the NewEnglander, was to find me a corner where the wind would not blow my paper about, where the sun would not dazzle me, and where I might be quiet; and then he took his seat behind the roundhouse, with a row of children from the steerage before him to do their lessons. I wondered at first how he would teach them without books, slates, or any other visible implements of instruction; but when I saw him get a potato, and cut it into two and four parts, to show the children what halves and quarters were, I was assured he would prosper with them. And so he did. They went to school to excellent purpose; and I dare say they will send back grateful thoughts all through their lives upon the kind gentleman who attended to them on the voyage.

For some time I was daily baffled in my purpose of writing by the observation of persons who seemed not only entirely ignorant of the process of composition, but very anxious to learn it. Not only did the children from the steerage spy from behind chests and casks, and peep over my shoulder, but the inquirer about the whale was wont to place himself directly in front of me, with his arms akimbo, and his eyes fixed on the point of my pen. Somebody gave him a hint at last, and I was left in peace. By two o'clock, when the deck began to fill again after luncheon, my head and eyes had had enough of writing, and I joyfully mounted the rail. If I wanted to watch the sea undisturbed, I held a Shakspeare in my hand. If I carried no book, somebody came to talk. What fleets of Portuguese men-of-war did we see at those hours! I hardly know whether these little mariners of the deep are most beautiful when gliding, rich in their violet hues, along the calm sunny surface of the summer sea, or when they are tossed about like toys by rough dark waves. One day, when I was exclaiming on their beauty, a young lady, industriously working at her table-mats, observed that it was very odd that she had crossed this ocean three times, and had never seen a Portuguese man-of-war: I concluded that she had never looked for them, and asked the favour of her to stand by my side for one half hour.