There is no scenery in the world that can be enjoyed from one of those stools.And when the traveler is at sea, with the land failing away in his horizon, and has to create his own scenery by an effort of the imagination, these stools are no assistance to him.The imagination, when one is sitting, will not work unless the back is supported.Besides, it began to be cold; notwithstanding the shiny, specious appearance of things, it was cold, except in a sheltered nook or two where the sun beat.This was nothing to be complained of by persons who had left the parching land in order to get cool.They knew that there would be a wind and a draught everywhere, and that they would be occupied nearly all the time in moving the little stools about to get out of the wind, or out of the sun, or out of something that is inherent in a steamboat.Most people enjoy riding on a steamboat, shaking and trembling and chow-chowing along in pleasant weather out of sight of land; and they do not feel any ennui, as may be inferred from the intense excitement which seizes them when a poor porpoise leaps from the water half a mile away.
"Did you see the porpoise?" makes conversation for an hour.On our steamboat there was a man who said he saw a whale, saw him just as plain, off to the east, come up to blow; appeared to be a young one.
I wonder where all these men come from who always see a whale.Inever was on a sea-steamer yet that there was not one of these men.
We sailed from Boston Harbor straight for Cape Ann, and passed close by the twin lighthouses of Thacher, so near that we could see the lanterns and the stone gardens, and the young barbarians of Thacher all at play; and then we bore away, straight over the trackless Atlantic, across that part of the map where the title and the publisher's name are usually printed, for the foreign city of St.
John.It was after we passed these lighthouses that we did n't see the whale, and began to regret the hard fate that took us away from a view of the Isles of Shoals.I am not tempted to introduce them into this sketch, much as its surface needs their romantic color, for truth is stronger in me than the love of giving a deceitful pleasure.
There will be nothing in this record that we did not see, or might not have seen.For instance, it might not be wrong to describe a coast, a town, or an island that we passed while we were performing our morning toilets in our staterooms.The traveler owes a duty to his readers, and if he is now and then too weary or too indifferent to go out from the cabin to survey a prosperous village where a landing is made, he has no right to cause the reader to suffer by his indolence.He should describe the village.
I had intended to describe the Maine coast, which is as fascinating on the map as that of Norway.We had all the feelings appropriate to nearness to it, but we couldn't see it.Before we came abreast of it night had settled down, and there was around us only a gray and melancholy waste of salt water.To be sure it was a lovely night, with a young moon in its sky,"I saw the new moon late yestreen Wi' the auld moon in her arms,"and we kept an anxious lookout for the Maine hills that push so boldly down into the sea.At length we saw them,--faint, dusky shadows in the horizon, looming up in an ashy color and with a most poetical light.We made out clearly Mt.Desert, and felt repaid for our journey by the sight of this famous island, even at such a distance.I pointed out the hills to the man at the wheel, and asked if we should go any nearer to Mt.Desert.
"Them!" said he, with the merited contempt which officials in this country have for inquisitive travelers,--" them's Camden Hills.You won't see Mt.Desert till midnight, and then you won't."One always likes to weave in a little romance with summer travel on a steamboat; and we came aboard this one with the purpose and the language to do so.But there was an absolute want of material, that would hardly be credited if we went into details.The first meeting of the passengers at the dinner-table revealed it.There is a kind of female plainness which is pathetic, and many persons can truly say that to them it is homelike; and there are vulgarities of manner that are interesting; and there are peculiarities, pleasant or the reverse, which attract one's attention : but there was absolutely nothing of this sort on our boat.The female passengers were all neutrals, incapable, I should say, of making any impression whatever even under the most favorable circumstances.They were probably women of the Provinces, and took their neutral tint from the foggy land they inhabit, which is neither a republic nor a monarchy, but merely a languid expectation of something undefined.My comrade was disposed to resent the dearth of beauty, not only on this vessel but throughout the Provinces generally,--a resentment that could be shown to be unjust, for this was evidently not the season for beauty in these lands, and it was probably a bad year for it.Nor should an American of the United States be forward to set up his standard of taste in such matters; neither in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, nor Cape Breton have I heard the inhabitants complain of the plainness of the women.
On such a night two lovers might have been seen, but not on our boat, leaning over the taffrail,--if that is the name of the fence around the cabin-deck, looking at the moon in the western sky and the long track of light in the steamer's wake with unutterable tenderness.