rious Forbes Mackenzie
is venerated!

To commence with, during the early morning we had warped into dock at
Hoboken, the Rotherhithe--and, in some respects, Rosherville--of New
York, being situated on the opposite side of the river; and here, the
_Herzog von Gottingen_ lay, with her bowsprit jammed into a coal shed
and her decks, aforetime so white and clean, all bespattered with dirt,
and encumbered with hawsers and cables. These latter coiling and
uncoiling themselves here, there, and everywhere, like so many writhing
sea-serpents, and, tripping you up suddenly just when you believed you
had discovered a clear space on which you might stand without
imperilling your valuable life.

Besides, the crew were engaged in getting up luggage from the lower hold
by the aid of a donkey engine, which made a great deal of clattering
fuss over doing a minimum amount of work--in which respect it resembled
a good many people of my acquaintance, by the way. It was not pleasant
to have the iron-bound cover of a heavy chest poked into the small of
one's back without leave or licence, and the entire article being
subsequently deposited on one's toes! No, it was not. And, to make
matters worse, the escape steam, puffing off in volumes from the waste
pipe in a hollow roar of relief at being no longer compelled to earn its
living, was condensing an additional shower for our benefit--that was
not more agreeable, in consequence of being warm--as if the drizzling
rain that was falling was not deemed sufficient for wetting purposes!

After settling matters with the Custom House, and crossing the ferry
from Hoboken, myself and all my goods packed in a hackney carriage hung
on very high springs--like the old "glass coaches" that were used in
London during the early part of the century, although, unlike them,
drawn by a pair of remarkably fine horses--my drive through the back
slums of New York to one of the Broadway hotels was not of a nature to
dispel my vapours.

The lower parts of the town, adjacent to the Hudson, are about as
odoriferous and architecturally beautiful as a sixth-rate seaport in
"the old country." While, as for Broadway itself--that much be-praised-
boulevard--Broadway, the "great," the "much pumpkins, I guess"--to see
which, I had been told by enthusiastic Americans, was to behold the very
thirteenth wonder of the world!--Well, the less I say about it, perhaps
the better!

If you are still inquisitive, however, and