Floating City (1904)/Chapter 35
CHAPTER XXXV.
A week to spend in America! The "Great Eastern" was to set sail on the 16th of April, and it was now the 9th, and three o'clock in the afternoon, when I set foot on the land of the Union. A week! There are furious tourists and express travellers who would probably find this time enough to visit the whole of North America; but I had no such pretention, not even to visit New York thoroughly, and to write, after this extra rapid inspection, a book on the manners and customs of the Americans. But the constitution and physical aspect of New York is soon seen; it is hardly more varied than a chess-board. The streets, cut at right angles, are called avenues when they are straight, and streets when irregular. The numbers on the principal thoroughfares are a very practical but monotonous arrangement. American cars run through all the avenues. Any one who has seen one quarter of New York knows the whole of the great city, except, perhaps, that intricacy of streets and confused alleys appropriated by the commercial population.
New York is built on a tongue of land, and all its activity is centred on the end of that tongue; on either side extend the Hudson and East River, arms of the sea, in fact, on which ships are seen and ferry-boats ply, connecting the town on the right hand with Brooklyn, and on the left with the shores of New Jersey.
A single artery intersects the symmetrical quarters of New York, and that is old Broadway, the Strand of London, and the Boulevard Montmatre of Paris; hardly passable at its lower end, where it is crowded with people, and almost deserted higher up; a street where sheds and marble palaces are huddled together; a stream of carriages, omnibusses, cabs, drays, and waggons, with the pavement for its banks, across which a bridge has been thrown for the traffic of foot passengers. Broadway is New York, and it was there that the Doctor and I walked until evening.
After having dined at Fifth Avenue Hotel, I ended my day's work by going to the Barnum Theatre, where they were acting a play called "New York Streets," which attracted a large audience. In the fourth Act there was a fire, and real fire-engines, worked by real firemen; hence the "great attraction."
The next morning I left the Doctor to his own affairs, and agreed to meet him at the hotel at two o'clock. My first proceeding was to go to the Post Office, 51, Liberty Street, to get any letters awaiting me there; then I went to No. 2, Bowling Green, at the bottom of Broadway, the residence of the French consul, M. le Baron Gauldrée Boilleau, who received me very kindly. From here I made my way to cash a draft at Hoffman's; lastly, I went to No. 25, Thirty-sixth Street, where resided Mrs. R———, Fabian's sister. I was impatient to get news of Ellen and my two friends; and here I learnt that, following the Doctor's advice, Mrs. R———, Fabian, and Corsican had left New York, taking with them the young lady, thinking that the air and quiet of the country might have a beneficial effect on her. A line from Captain Corsican informed me of this sudden departure. The kind fellow had been to Fifth Avenue Hotel without meeting me, but he promised to keep me acquainted with their whereabouts. They thought of stopping at the first place that attracted Ellen's attention, and, staying there as long as the charm lasted; he hoped that I should not leave without bidding them a last farewell. Yes, were it but for a few hours, I should be happy to see Ellen, Fabian, and Corsican once again. But such are the drawbacks of travelling, hurried as I was, they gone and I going, each our separate ways, it seemed hardly likely I should see them again.
At two o'clock I returned to the hotel, and found the Doctor in the bar-room, which was full of people. It is a public hall, where travellers and passers-by mingled together, finding gratis iced-water, biscuits, and cheese.
"Well, Doctor," said I, "when shall we start?"
"At six o'clock this evening."
"Shall we take the Hudson railroad?"
"No; the 'St. John;' a wonderful steamer, another world—a 'Great Eastern' of the river, one of those admirable locomotive engines which go along with a will. I should have preferred showing you the Hudson by daylight, but the 'St. John' only goes at night. Tomorrow, at five o'clock in the morning, we shall be at Albany. At six o'clock we shall take the New York Central Railroad, and in the evening we shall sup at Niagara Falls."
I did not discuss the Doctor's programme, but accepted it willingly.
The hotel lift hoisted us to our rooms, and some minutes later we descended with our tourist knapsacks. A fly took us in a quarter of an hour to the pier on the Hudson, before which was the "St John," the chimneys of which were already crowned with wreaths of smoke.