There Are Stores Of The Magnitude Of
Bazaars, "Daguerrean Galleries" By Hundreds, Crowded Groggeries And
Subterranean Oyster-Saloons, Huge Hotels,
Coffee-houses, and places of
amusement; while the pavements present men of every land and colour, red,
black, yellow, and
White, in every variety of costume and beard, and
ladies, beautiful and ugly, richly dressed. Then there are mud huts, and
palatial residences, and streets of stately dwelling-houses, shaded by
avenues of ilanthus-trees; waggons discharging goods across the pavements;
shops above and cellars below; railway whistles and steamboat bells,
telegraph-wires, eight and ten to a post, all converging towards Wall
Street - the Lombard Street of New York; militia regiments in many-coloured
uniforms, marching in and out of the city all day; groups of emigrants
bewildered and amazed, emaciated with dysentery and sea-sickness, looking
in at the shop-windows; representatives of every nation under heaven,
speaking in all earth's Babel languages; and as if to render this
ceaseless pageant of business, gaiety, and change, as far removed from
monotony as possible, the quick toll of the fire alarm-bells may be daily
heard, and the huge engines, with their burnished equipments and well-
trained companies, may be seen to dash at full speed along the streets to
the scene of some brilliant conflagration. New York is calculated to
present as imposing an appearance to an Englishman as its antiquated
namesake does to an American, with its age, silence, stateliness, and
decay.
The Indian summer had come and gone, and bright frosty weather had
succeeded it, when I left this city, in which I had received kindness and
hospitality which I can never forget.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 399 of 478
Words from 108484 to 108760
of 129941
