Rétrospective d'un voyage en Occident, volume 1 (sur 2)

than from their former station. There they stood, as long as we could distinguish any forms from among the crowd. Then three cheers were exchanged between the crew and the shore, and the passengers strained their eyes no more. The greater number then went below to make arrangements in their staterooms; and afterward ensued the ceremony of introducing the company to each other on deck. Our number was twenty-three, six of whom formed the party to which I belonged; or, rather, so it seemed to ourselves before we went on board. The distinction was afterward forgotten, for the company assembled was, with two or three exceptions, so exceedingly agreeable and so wonderfully congenial, considering how accidentally we were brought together, that we mingled completely as one party. We had among us a Prussian physician; a New-England divine; a Boston merchant, with his sprightly and showy young wife; a high-spirited young South Carolinian, fresh from a German university; a newly-married couple, whose station was not exactly discoverable while on board, but who opened a public-house soon after their arrival in New-York; a Scotch major, whose peculiarities made him the butt of the young men; an elderly widow lady; two amiable young ladies; and a Scotch lady, "of no particular age," but of very particular placidity and good-humour; and a youth out of Yorkshire, who was leaving his parents' roof for the first time alone, and who was destined never to return to it. The number was made up by English and American merchants; young men so accustomed to pass between Liverpool and New-York, that the voyage was little more to them than an expedition to Primrose Hill is to a cockney. The cold dinner and drinking of healths customary on the day of sailing succeeded. Then there was the library to look over, and trial to be made of a seat on the rail, whence we could see the dim shores as we glided smoothly along in the wake of the steamer.…