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.