We steal quietly along the river without noise, but with a steady progression. Blackwell’s Island prisons are enlivened in color by a little company of women, who are being marched into the penitentiary. They turn to look at the “Maryland” as they enter the stony portals. As we creep along, villas on our left give place to lumber-yards, with coasting-vessels lying alongside. Leaving Blackwell’s on the right, the shore breaks up into picturesque wharfage, backed, in the distance, by the first of the steeples of Fifth avenue. The eye follows them along; wharves and river-craft in front; the spires against the grey sky, until they are repeated, as it were, by forests of masts,—first a few, and then a cluster. We meet another train coming up the river, then another; and now we get glimpses, through the haze, of distant ferry-boats ahead. There is a dull mist on the river, and here and there it hangs about in clouds. We pass Long Island railroad pier. It is very cold; but the children of the company still trot about, ruddy and merry.
“You don’t say so!” exclaims somebody. “Is it true, the train we saw at Harlem, which we thought full of poor emigrants, was the Opera Company on their way to Boston,—the chorus?”
“Then I can now understand,” is the rejoinder, “that the passengers on board the ‘Rome,’ when we came out, thought us a most respectable crowd.”
“That has been remarked before,” says the buxom Martha of “Louis XI,” “and in far more complimentary terms.”
Presently, through the mist on the larboard side, we catch a glimpse of the Brooklyn bridge. A few gulls are sweeping down the river before us. On both banks there are wharves and ships. One of the vessels flies the British flag, which is greeted with a cheer from some of our people. On the left bank of the river is a great sugar factory, with a picturesque red brick tower. We have now left the Harlem river, and for some little time have been steaming down the East towards the North river, with Bedloe’s island—a dot in the distant Sound—and Sandy Hook somewhere in the mist beyond. We now pass Hunter’s Point, and slue gradually round towards the North river. We glide along beneath the wonderful bridge, and look up among its net-work of roads and rails; past Piers 50 and 51 on our right, with freight-cars and steamers ready for the river; past the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railway quays, hugging the South-street docks and ship-repairing yards, Governor’s Island at our bow. Ships and steamers stretch along to Battery Point, which we round into the North river, and pass Castle Garden. It is here that we catch sight of Bedloe’s and other distant islands, and look far in the direction of Sandy Hook, whence fierce tug-boats are steaming along, with great barges in tow. Now we cross the river to Jersey City. It is two o’clock. Our cars are once more on the rails, and, at about nine o’clock that night, we ran into Washington.