254 AN OCTOBER ABROAD. 



an ocean steamer, and by the third or fourth day a 

 large number of them will break out all over with a 

 sort of literary rash that nothing will assuage but 

 some newspaper or journalistic enterprise, which will 

 give the poems and essays and jokes with which they 

 are surcharged a chance to be seen and heard of men. 

 I doubt if the like ever occurs among travelers of 

 any other nationality. Englishmen or Frenchmen 

 or. Germans want something more warm and human, 

 if less " refined ; " but the average American, when in 

 company, likes nothing so well as an opportunity to 

 show the national trait of " smartness." There is 

 not a bit of danger that we shall ever relapse into 

 barbarism while so much latent literature lies at the 

 bottom of our daily cares and avocations, and is sure 

 to come to the surface the moment the latter are sus- 

 pended or annulled ! 



While abreast of New England, and I don't know 

 how many miles at sea, as I turned in my deck prom- 

 enade, I distinctly scented the land a subtle, de- 

 licious odor of farms and homesteads, warm and 

 human, that floated on the wild sea air, a promise and 

 a token. The broad red line that had been slowly 

 creeping across our chart for so many weary days, 

 indicating the path of the ship, had now completely 

 bridged the chasm, and had got a good purchase 

 down under the southern coast of New England, and 

 according to the reckoning we ought to have made 

 Sandy Hook that night ; but though the position of 

 the vessel was no doubt theoretically all right, yet 



