We got under way at eleven o’clock, and the passengers turned in. The next morning was Sunday. It was fortunately of a “Sabbath stillness;” and the open sea through which we were driving, with an easy south wind in our favor, graciously permitted us to do honor to as substantial a breakfast as ever was set before a traveller, even in America. (Why _we_ should be ridiculed for our breakfasts I do not know.)
The “Monarch” is a superb boat, and, with the aid of sails and a wind right aft, we made twelve miles in the hour easily. I was pleased to see an observance of the Sabbath which had not crossed my path before in three years’ travel. Half the passengers at least took their Bibles after breakfast, and devoted an hour or two evidently to grave religious reading and reflection. With this exception, I have not seen a person with the Bible in his hand, in travelling over half the world.
The weather continued fine, and smooth water tempted us up to breakfast again on Monday. The wash-room was full of half-clad men, but the week-day manners of the passengers were perceptibly gayer. The captain honored us by taking the head of the table, which he had not done on the day previous, and his appearance was hailed by three general cheers. When the meats were removed, a gentleman rose, and, after a very long and parliamentary speech, proposed the health of the captain. The company stood up, ladies and all, and it was drank with a tremendous “hip-hip-hurrah,” in bumpers of whiskey. They don’t do that on the Mississippi, I reckon. If they did, the travellers would be down upon us, “I guess,” out-Hamiltoning Hamilton.
We rounded St. Abb’s head into the Forth, at five, in the afternoon, and soon dropped anchor off Leith. The view of Edinburgh, from the water, is, I think, second only to that of Constantinople. The singular resemblance, in one or two features, to the view of Athens, as you approach from the Piræus, seems to have struck other eyes than mine, and an imitation Acropolis is commenced on the Calton Hill, and has already, in its half finished state, much the effect of the Parthenon. Hymettus is rather loftier than the Pentland-hills, and Pentelicus farther off and grander than Arthur’s seat, but the old castle of Edinburgh is a noble and peculiar feature of its own, and soars up against the sky, with its pinnacle-placed turrets, superbly magnificent. The Forth has a high shore on either side, and, with the island of Inchkeith in its broad bosom, it looks more like a lake than an arm of the sea.