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pubOne.info thank you for your continued support and wish to present you this new edition. LEAVES FROM THE NOTEBOOK OF AN EMIGRANT BETWEEN NEW YORK AND SAN FRANCISCO

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	23 octobre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819918776
Langue	English

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CHAPTER I - ACROSS THE PLAINS
LEAVES FROM THE NOTEBOOK OF AN EMIGRANT BETWEEN NEWYORK AND SAN FRANCISCO
MONDAY. - It was, if I remember rightly, fiveo'clock when we were all signalled to be present at the Ferry Depotof the railroad. An emigrant ship had arrived at New York on theSaturday night, another on the Sunday morning, our own on Sundayafternoon, a fourth early on Monday; and as there is no emigranttrain on Sunday a great part of the passengers from these fourships was concentrated on the train by which I was to travel. Therewas a babel of bewildered men, women, and children. The wretchedlittle booking-office, and the baggage-room, which was not muchlarger, were crowded thick with emigrants, and were heavy and rankwith the atmosphere of dripping clothes. Open carts full of beddingstood by the half-hour in the rain. The officials loaded each otherwith recriminations. A bearded, mildewed little man, whom I take tohave been an emigrant agent, was all over the place, his mouth fullof brimstone, blustering and interfering. It was plain that thewhole system, if system there was, had utterly broken down underthe strain of so many passengers.
My own ticket was given me at once, and an oldishman, who preserved his head in the midst of this turmoil, got mybaggage registered, and counselled me to stay quietly where I wastill he should give me the word to move. I had taken along with mea small valise, a knapsack, which I carried on my shoulders, and inthe bag of my railway rug the whole of BANCROFT'S HISTORY OF THEUNITED STATES, in six fat volumes. It was as much as I could carrywith convenience even for short distances, but it insured me plentyof clothing, and the valise was at that moment, and often after,useful for a stool. I am sure I sat for an hour in thebaggage-room, and wretched enough it was; yet, when at last theword was passed to me and I picked up my bundles and got under way,it was only to exchange discomfort for downright misery anddanger.
I followed the porters into a long shed reachingdownhill from West Street to the river. It was dark, the wind blewclean through it from end to end; and here I found a great block ofpassengers and baggage, hundreds of one and tons of the other. Ifeel I shall have a difficulty to make myself believed; andcertainly the scene must have been exceptional, for it was toodangerous for daily repetition. It was a tight jam; there was nofair way through the mingled mass of brute and living obstruction.Into the upper skirts of the crowd porters, infuriated by hurry andoverwork, clove their way with shouts. I may say that we stood likesheep, and that the porters charged among us like so many maddenedsheep-dogs; and I believe these men were no longer answerable fortheir acts. It mattered not what they were carrying, they drovestraight into the press, and when they could get no farther,blindly discharged their barrowful. With my own hand, for instance,I saved the life of a child as it sat upon its mother's knee, shesitting on a box; and since I heard of no accident, I must supposethat there were many similar interpositions in the course of theevening. It will give some idea of the state of mind to which wewere reduced if I tell you that neither the porter nor the motherof the child paid the least attention to my act. It was not tillsome time after that I understood what I had done myself, for toward off heavy boxes seemed at the moment a natural incident ofhuman life. Cold, wet, clamour, dead opposition to progress, suchas one encounters in an evil dream, had utterly daunted thespirits. We had accepted this purgatory as a child accepts theconditions of the world. For my part, I shivered a little, and myback ached wearily; but I believe I had neither a hope nor a fear,and all the activities of my nature had become tributary to onemassive sensation of discomfort.
At length, and after how long an interval I hesitateto guess, the crowd began to move, heavily straining throughitself. About the same time some lamps were lighted, and threw asudden flare over the shed. We were being filtered out into theriver boat for Jersey City. You may imagine how slowly thisfiltering proceeded, through the dense, choking crush, every oneoverladen with packages or children, and yet under the necessity offishing out his ticket by the way; but it ended at length for me,and I found myself on deck under a flimsy awning and with a trifleof elbow-room to stretch and breathe in. This was on the starboard;for the bulk of the emigrants stuck hopelessly on the port side, bywhich we had entered. In vain the seamen shouted to them to moveon, and threatened them with shipwreck. These poor people wereunder a spell of stupor, and did not stir a foot. It rained asheavily as ever, but the wind now came in sudden claps and capfuls,not without danger to a boat so badly ballasted as ours; and wecrept over the river in the darkness, trailing one paddle in thewater like a wounded duck, and passed ever and again by huge,illuminated steamers running many knots, and heralding theirapproach by strains of music. The contrast between these pleasureembarkations and our own grim vessel, with her list to port and herfreight of wet and silent emigrants, was of that glaringdescription which we count too obvious for the purposes of art.
The landing at Jersey City was done in a stampede. Ihad a fixed sense of calamity, and to judge by conduct, the samepersuasion was common to us all. A panic selfishness, like thatproduced by fear, presided over the disorder of our landing. Peoplepushed, and elbowed, and ran, their families following how theycould. Children fell, and were picked up to be rewarded by a blow.One child, who had lost her parents, screamed steadily and withincreasing shrillness, as though verging towards a fit; an officialkept her by him, but no one else seemed so much as to remark herdistress; and I am ashamed to say that I ran among the rest. I wasso weary that I had twice to make a halt and set down my bundles inthe hundred yards or so between the pier and the railway station,so that I was quite wet by the time that I got under cover. Therewas no waiting-room, no refreshment room; the cars were locked; andfor at least another hour, or so it seemed, we had to camp upon thedraughty, gaslit platform. I sat on my valise, too crushed toobserve my neighbours; but as they were all cold, and wet, andweary, and driven stupidly crazy by the mismanagement to which wehad been subjected, I believe they can have been no happier thanmyself. I bought half-a-dozen oranges from a boy, for oranges andnuts were the only refection to be had. As only two of them hadeven a pretence of juice, I threw the other four under the cars,and beheld, as in a dream, grown people and children groping on thetrack after my leavings.
At last we were admitted into the cars, utterlydejected, and far from dry. For my own part, I got out aclothes-brush, and brushed my trousers as hard as I could till Ihad dried them and warmed my blood into the bargain; but no oneelse, except my next neighbour to whom I lent the brush, appearedto take the least precaution. As they were, they composedthemselves to sleep. I had seen the lights of Philadelphia, andbeen twice ordered to change carriages and twice countermanded,before I allowed myself to follow their example.
TUESDAY. - When I awoke, it was already day; thetrain was standing idle; I was in the last carriage, and, seeingsome others strolling to and fro about the lines, I opened the doorand stepped forth, as from a caravan by the wayside. We were nearno station, nor even, as far as I could see, within reach of anysignal. A green, open, undulating country stretched away upon allsides. Locust trees and a single field of Indian corn gave it aforeign grace and interest; but the contours of the land were softand English. It was not quite England, neither was it quite France;yet like enough either to seem natural in my eyes. And it was inthe sky, and not upon the earth, that I was surprised to find achange. Explain it how you may, and for my part I cannot explain itat all, the sun rises with a different splendour in America andEurope. There is more clear gold and scarlet in our old countrymornings; more purple, brown, and smoky orange in those of the new.It may be from habit, but to me the coming of day is less fresh andinspiriting in the latter; it has a duskier glory, and more nearlyresembles sunset; it seems to fit some subsequential, evening epochof the world, as though America were in fact, and not merely infancy, farther from the orient of Aurora and the springs of day. Ithought so then, by the railroad side in Pennsylvania, and I havethought so a dozen times since in far distant parts of thecontinent. If it be an illusion it is one very deeply rooted, andin which my eyesight is accomplice.
Soon after a train whisked by, announcing andaccompanying its passage by the swift beating of a sort of chapelbell upon the engine; and as it was for this we had been waiting,we were summoned by the cry of "All aboard!" and went on again uponour way. The whole line, it appeared, was topsy-turvy; an accidentat midnight having thrown all the traffic hours into arrear. Wepaid for this in the flesh, for we had no meals all that day. Fruitwe could buy upon the cars; and now and then we had a few minutesat some station with a meagre show of rolls and sandwiches forsale; but we were so many and so ravenous that, though I tried atevery opportunity, the coffee was always exhausted before I couldelbow my way to the counter.
Our American sunrise had ushered in a noble summer'sday. There was not a cloud; the sunshine was baking; yet in thewoody river valleys among which we wound our way, the atmospherepreserved a sparkling freshness till late in the afternoon. It hadan inland sweetness and variety to one newly from the sea; it smeltof woods, rivers, and the delved earth. These, though in so far acountry, were airs from home. I