CHAPTER II. Under way Daily routine-Passengers-Icebergs-SabbathArrival at Liverpool. The sea! the sea! the open sea! The blue, the fresh, the ever free! It runneth the earth's wide regions round ; Oh! who can tell save he whose heart has tried, The exulting sense-the pulse's madd'ning play, That thrills the wanderer of the trackless way.-BYRON. THE morning of the thirtieth dawned with a clear sky, the storm having spent its strength, and the long clouded sun emitting its bright and welcome rays. At eight o'clock we weighed anchor, and under the guidance of a skillful pilot passed safely through the Narrows and Sandy Hook, gradually losing sight of the hills of Neversink, though still having on our left for thirty or more miles the coasts and towns of Long Island. It was the Sabbath; but for a reason not difficult to conjecture, there was no religious service. Truth to tell, we had ventured upon the domains of Neptune, and he was calling us to a strict account for the intrusion. I could hardly say with my worthy friend Prime, "Sic omnes"; but this unique ailment held complete dominion over a majority of our number, and that without respect to age, sex, rank, or determination not to be conquered. Abundant were the vows made that once ashore no motive should induce a second trial of ocean travel. Daily routine. Sea-sickness. "I'm on the sea! I'm on the sea! Would you?-then it is pretty evident that you have never been there. Just spend one day on board any naval craft afloat outside of Sandy Hook, and your song will be mortified to read, "I am where I would never be!" that is, any longer than necessary. I bargained for poetry, not factsentiment and beauty, not for this nauseating, headachy, loathsome, life-hating, and death-courting malady, which no language can describe, and no fancy conjure. Headley very truly remarks that a "life on the ocean wave is a pleasant thing to sing about, especially if you are in a sunny, warm room, and have Russell to sing; but those who try it find the chorus has never yet been written." Three days of victimizing over, the tables received their occupants all the better prepared to relish the abundant supplies from the long fasting. And here it may not be amiss to mention the daily routine of an ocean steamer when at sea. At seven-and-half o'clock, (I speak now of the summer months), the gong sounds through the long cabin, the hour of rising, and at eight that of breakfast on the table, the cloth remaining spread till nine-and-half o'clock, when it is removed, and mid-day lunch is made ready. At two o'clock dinner is on the table for those who would retain their home usage rather than wait till four, when the leading meal occurs, continuing for another hour and a-half. At seven o'clock, tea is served, and supper at ten-thus making five regular meals, covering six hours. The dishes placed before the voyager are abundant in quantity (at breakfast, twenty and at dinner, two-score), and in quality rarely excelled at a city hotel. The remainder of the day is devoted Routine. Fellow-passengers. to promenading the deck, chatting with newly-formed acquaintances, reading with half an intellect the lightest pages, gazing upon the "blue above and the deep below," playing shuffle board for exercise (a game not beneath the dignity of mitred Bishops), watching the approach and departure of distant vessels, waiting the result of the mid-day observation, conversing of "loved ones at home" and of celebrities designed to be visited abroad, listening to some fair musician at the piano, and taking notes of passing events, to be thereafter woven into a narrative to interest or weary the ear of friendship in father-land. With these and like pursuits, the day begins—continues -ends; the lamps, (except in the saloon), being extinguished at eleven in the evening, quiet reigning on board through the livelong night, except as the bell of the helmsman, responded to at the bow, strikes the watch, and low deep voices pass the necessary orders for regulating the movements of the mighty structure as she makes her twelve or more knots per hour through the deep. In respect to nation, language, taste, habits, and age, our company of two hundred was a mosaic of very marked character. The infant with its nurse and old man with his cane, the parent with his household and the bachelor with his solitary self, the beau with his bows, and the belle with her smiles, with a patrol from each of the learned professions, and representatives of two, if not three, continents united in forming such a company as is seldom brought into so close proximity for so long a time. There was Commander Coe, of the S. A. Squadron, and his accomplished family; Hon. J. B., the able Ed. of the New York Express; Rev. J. A., the popular and useful Author; B* Co-travelers. Prof. P. of Amherst College; an estimable New York Banker, Mr. G., and home groupe, on a visit to Belfast kindred -Mr. H., a retired merchant, his wife and daughters-Miss Caroline N., whom I was permitted to escort from Liverpool to London and Paris, and in company with D. H. H., Esq., and family to Strasbourg; four divines; several bridal couples, with a plentiful interspersing of tradesmen, clerks, representatives of all opinions and usages, social, political and religious. It is pleasant to bear testimony to the uniform courtesy which prevailed among this human conglomerate, nothing occurring in the form of an angry dispute, while of intoxication, profanity, and gambling, scarcely an instance came under my personal observation or knowledge. Coming on board an almost entire stranger, I had acquaintances to form, and was singularly fortunate, especially in respect to the five persons who eventually became my cotravelers through Italy. These were Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Stearns, of Newark, N. J.; Rev. Dr. Messler, of the same State, and his young friend, Mr. Warner, of Utica, N. Y.; and J. B. Norris, Esq., of Springfield, Ohio. A common object in going abroad, with religious sympathies, formed a strong bond of union, and when we parted at Rome, it was with mutual felicitations upon an acquaintance pleasant to enjoy and agreeable to review.* It was well that during the early and acclimating days of our passage nothing of special importance came under observation, as we were not in a mood to derive pleasure from Aside No one should travel through the European Kingdoms alone. from the desirableness of companionship in case of sickness or accident, with material diminution of expense, the pleasure of sight-seeing is greatly heightened by the opportunity of sharing it with another. Icebergs. Their origin. the most novel scenes around. This sameness was not, however, long to continue. At an early hour of Thursday, the fifth day out, an ICEBERG was descried off our larboard bow, the news of which brought the most lethargic to the deck, there to remain with brief episodes for meals till night closed in. With Dr. Kane's "Grinnell Expedition" in one hand and in the other an opera-glass of much power, the hours were spent in gazing upon these wondrous phenomena, studying into their origin, and comparing them with the sketches given by the author of that admirable Narrative. His theory of their formation is briefly this: Upon the islands of the far north, glaciers accumulate stretching downward to the sea, along the shore of which they extend for a far distance, rising upward from one hundred to five hundred feet. Against the base of this mighty mass, the surf is incessantly beating, the saline qualities of which aided by a temperature below freezing causes a gradual dissolution of the lower range until the superincumbent mass becoming too heavy for its position, is detached from the main body, and projected into the abyss below, the fragment of a frozen mountain, or, from the Saxon word for hill or castle, an ice-BERG. Intermingled with the ice, are large pieces of stone, quartz, slate, &c., which are thus borne as on a raft from the Arctic to temperate latitudes, and which impart to the otherwise "frosted silver-like" aspect a spotted and clayey appearance. We saw them in all the configurations so graphically described by Dr. Kane, rising above the water from fifty to one hundred feet -eight-ninths being below the surface. Moving with the tide and current, their progress is slow, and they may be approached and fastened to without serious harm, the great |