An Englishman's Travels In America: His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States - 1857 - By J. Benwell.
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The City Of New York Is Built Almost Close To The Water's Edge, With A
Broad Levee Or Wharf Running Round A Great Portion Of It.
Its general
appearance gives to a stranger an impression of its extent and
importance.
It has been aptly and accurately described as a dense pack
of buildings, comprising every imaginable variety, and of all known
orders of modernized architecture. The tide flows close up to the
wharves which run outside of the city, and differs so little in height
at ebb or flow, that vessels of the largest class ride, I believe, at
all times as safely as in the West India docks in London, or the
imperial docks of Liverpool. Here was assembled an incalculable number
of vessels of all sizes and all nations, forming a beautiful and
picturesque view of commercial enterprise and grandeur, perhaps outvying
every other port in the world, not excepting Liverpool itself.
As our vessel could not at once be accommodated with a berth, owing to
the crowded state of the harbour, she was moored in the middle of the
stream, and being anxious to go on shore, I availed myself of the
captain's offer to take me to the landing-place in his gig. We went on
shore in an alcove, at the foot of Wall-street, and I experienced the
most delightful sensation on once more setting foot on _terra firma_,
after our dreary voyage. The day, notwithstanding it was now October,
was intensely hot (although a severe frost for two or three days before
gave indications of approaching winter), and the streets being
unmacadamized, had that arid look we read of in accounts of the plains
of Arabia, the dust being quite deep, and exceeding in quantity anything
of the kind I had ever seen in European cities:
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