Library, j 



A SECOND VISIT 



TO 



THE UNITED STATES, 



CHAPTER I. 



Voyage from Liverpool to Halifax. Gale. Iceberg. Drift Ice and Gulf 

 Stream. Coast of Newfoundland. Engine-room of Steamer. Conver 

 sations on Coolies in the West Indies. Halifax. News of Judge Story s 

 Death. Boston. Success of the Mail Steam Packets. Custom House 

 Officers. 



Sept. 4. 1845. EMBARKED with my wife at Liverpool, in 

 the Britannia, one of the Cunard line of steam-ships, bound for 

 Halifax and Boston. On leaving the wharf, we had first been 

 crammed, with a crowd of passengers and heaps of luggage, into 

 a diminutive steamer, which looked like a toy by the side of the 

 larger ship, of 1200 tons, in which we were to cross the ocean. 

 I was reminded, however, by a friend, that this small craft was 

 more than three times as large as one of the open caravels of 

 Columbus, in his first voyage, which was only 1 5 tons burden, 

 and without a deck. It is, indeed, marvelous to reflect on the 

 daring of the early adventurers; for Frobisher, in 1576, mado 

 his way from the Thames to the shores of Labrador with two 

 small barks of 20 and 25 tons each, not much surpassing in size 

 the barge of a man-of-war ; and Sir Humphry Gilbert crossed to 

 Newfoundland, in 1583, in a bark of 10 tons only, which was 

 lost in a tempest on the return voyage. 



