When We Left The Wharf At New York Last Week, In The Good Steamship
Tennessee, We Were Not Conscious, At First, As We Sat In The Cabin, That
She Was In Motion And Proceeding Down The Harbor.
There was no beating or
churning of the sea, no struggling to get forward; her paddles played in
the water as smoothly as those of a terrapin, without jar or noise.
The
Tennessee is one of the tightest and strongest boats that navigate our
coast; the very flooring of her deck is composed of timbers instead of
planks, and helps to keep her massive frame more compactly and solidly
together. It was her first voyage; her fifty-one passengers lolled on
sofas fresh from the upholsterer's, and slept on mattresses which had
never been pressed by the human form before, in state-rooms where foul air
had never collected. Nor is it possible that the air should become impure
in them to any great degree, for the Tennessee is the best-ventilated ship
I ever was in; the main cabin and the state-rooms are connected with each
other and with the deck, by numerous openings and pipes which keep up a
constant circulation of air in every part.
I have spoken of the passengers as remarkably quiet persons. Several of
them, I believe, never spoke during the passage, at least so it seemed to
me. The silence would have been almost irksome, but for two lively little
girls who amused us by their prattle, and two young women, apparently just
married, too happy to do any thing but laugh, even when suffering from
seasickness, and whom we now and then heard shouting and squealing from
their state-rooms.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 297 of 396
Words from 80157 to 80442
of 107287
