50 TRUTH AND FICTION. 



Heaven's sake keep clear of them. On board their ships 

 all is riot and confusion, drinking and swearing ; you '11 

 be made to sit up smoking all night, and ten to one but 

 some great bearded, disgusting fellow gets into your berth 

 along with you, with the exclamation of c Stranger, I 

 reckon this here crib o' yourn '11 hold us both,' and that 

 will be agreeable ! As to the comfort of dinner or any 

 meal on board the river steamers, if you do not rush in 

 among the foremost and quickly seize whatever dish is 

 nearest you, the hands of all your neighbours will be 

 tearing everything to pieces, and, in half the time it 

 takes to tell it, nothing will be left on the table. So look 

 out." 



Advice, and such advice as this, was given to me ; the 

 amount of worth which that advice contained my readers, 

 by my succeeding narrations, will learn. Faults enough 

 in America there are, as there are in any other country, 

 but over those faults there are a thousand virtues ; and if 

 I give not both their due I do not deserve the name of 

 an English gentleman. I write not to pander to a morbid 

 taste in England, which delightfully revels in the abuse 

 and condemnation of others, and I attempt not to make 

 a tale wondrous or popularly palatable by false assertion. 

 Truth is not only more beautiful, but it is more astonish 

 ing, than fiction. I wish many of my American friends 

 would think it so ; and the faults of the splendid New 

 World, as well as the perfections of it, shall here be most 

 faithfully recounted, 



