234 



AN OCTOBER ABROAD. 



night ; but though the position of the vessel was no 

 doubt theoretically all right, yet practically she proved 

 to be much farther out at sea, for all that afternoon and 

 night she held steadily on her course, and not till next 

 morning did the coast of Long Island, like a thin broken 

 cloud just defined on the horizon , come into view. But 

 before many hours we had passed the Hook, and were 

 moving slowly up the bay in the mid-day splendor of 

 the powerful and dazzling light of the New World sun. 

 And how good things looked to me after even so brief 

 an absence ! the brilliancy, the roominess, the deep 

 transparent blue of the sky, the clear, sharp outlines, 

 the metropolitan splendor of New York, and especially 

 of Broadway ; and as I walked up that great thorough- 

 fare and noted the familiar physiognomy and the native 

 nonchalance and independence, I experienced the de- 

 light that only the returned traveller can feel, the instant 

 preference of one's own country and countrymen over 

 all the rest of the world. 



