Works of Jules Verne/A Floating City/Chapter 30
CHAPTER XXX
A WEEK IN AMERICA
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 travelers who would probably find this time enough to visit the whole of North America; but I had no such pretension, 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. Anyone 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 centered on the end of that tongue; on either side extend the Hudson and East Rivers, 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, like the Strand of London, and the Boulevard Montmartre 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, omnibuses, cabs, drays, and wagons, with the pavement for its banks, across which a bridge had 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 the Fifth Avenue Hotel, I ended my day's work by going to the Barnum Theater, where they were acting a play called "The Streets of New York," 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. 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 the 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 traveling, 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 travelers 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. I should have preferred showing you the Hudson by daylight, but the St. John only goes at night. To-morrow, 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.