A. F. Hill

“ The wind was howling, and each blaze of gas in the street-lamps was fluttering and struggling as though it might go out at any moment. I wanted to go to Pier No. 1, North River, from which the boat was to start, and I walked as fast as I could—and that was not slow—toward Broadway, glancing back over my shoulder at intervals of two seconds, to see if my villains were coming. It was the quietest hour I ever saw in New York. Not a stage, carriage, cart or car was astir in that part of the city; and neither policeman nor “any other man” was to be seen. ”

“ Holding firmly to a polished brass railing, I ascended to the deck and took a seat on the companion-hatch.
Before me and all around me was the long wished-for sight. Our ship, the dark-green sea, the sun, the clear blue sky and a few wild sea-birds flitting about, were all that the eye could find to rest on. The sea and sky met on all sides, forming a grand and mighty circle around us. I remember remarking to myself, in my enthusiasm, that to see such a sight as this, was “worth risking a fellow’s life!” ”

“ The amount of water is not great, but it comes streaming down from a height of two hundred feet, sparkling in the sunbeams, and bounding from rock to rock like a thing of life. For calm, quiet enjoyment, I would rather sit among the trees that hover about this romantic cascade and listen to its murmurs, than on the banks of the Niagara, and hear the roars of that grand old cataract.
It was after night-fall when we reached Rochester, and as I wanted to stay there a few days, I went into an hotel that was in the same building with the depot itself, and registered my name. ”

“ Thus, dear public, am I, John Smith, tormented for having sacrificed a leg for my country. How often have I felt that I would be far happier if I were still a mark for the bullets at Malvern Hill, Bull Run, or Antietam! This accursed quizzical disposition on the part of the public has made me feel, at times, that life was actually a burden to me!
One day I met an elderly lady in Philadelphia who stopped me on the street, asked a profusion of questions, and wound up by giving me an accurate history of her son. ”

“ A flight of wooden steps takes the visitor down nearly to the water level, behind the foaming, dashing folds of this fearful curtain; and from the foot of the stairs a narrow plank walk extends some distance, to a point where the sheet of water is again parted by a projecting rock at the brink far above. The visitor, after reaching this welcome recess in the furious torrent, can pass out and take a seat on a great heap of rocks at the foot of the mighty cataract, where he hears nothing but the eternal thunder of waters and a cloud of mist hides the whole world from his view! ”

“ Here was a fix for John Smith! Night; foreign country; a dead woman on the beach; only two of my race present, and they scared like the deuce; surrounded by a score or two of the swarthy, blood-thirsty natives of a semi-barbarous land! O, how I wished that crutch of mine were but clicking on the side-walk in front of Trinity church, New York; or the State House, Philadelphia. ”

“ The New York Central Railroad takes its way through the beautiful Mohawk valley. That valley is famed in history, and we read of a great many bloody scenes enacted there by the savage Mohawk tribe; but I think that now, with its green meadows, its fields of grain, its grazing sheep and cattle, its farm-houses and dairies, with PEACE smiling over all, it is far more beautiful and interesting than it was in its wildness, when the red-skinned son of nature made it his home, and followed killing bears, deer, and the pale-faces for a living. ”

“ So, I arrived at Niagara, eighty miles from Rochester, by nine o’clock; where I left my trunk at an hotel and walked out to see the sights.
It would be presumptuous in any man to attempt a regular description of Niagara Falls, with the expectation of doing the subject justice—much more so in the unpretending John Smith. No one can form a fair idea of the mighty cataract without having seen it. Nor will one mere glance be sufficient. You may spend whole days there before you arrive at a just appreciation of it. The mind cannot grasp it at once. ”

“ A heavy volume of black smoke rolled up toward the blue sky, the flames burst out through roofs and windows, and leaped for mad joy, walls crumbled down at their leisure, and I think that twenty-five minutes or half-an-hour elapsed before any steamer or hose-carriage made its appearance. I do not attach so much blame to the firemen themselves—although they are not so active as New York or Philadelphia firemen—as to the deficiency of the force. ”

“ The lake was nearly smooth, and the red light, making its lengthy paths over the wide waters, from west to east, looked like myriads of playful little flames chasing each other over the crests of the waves.
The sun rose next morning and smiled on us over the north-western shore of the State of Michigan, and we found ourselves approaching Mackinaw Straits. That afternoon the vessel laid for a couple of hours at an island in the Straits, and the passengers all went ashore. We discovered the earth to be about as nearly barren as any soil could be. ”

“ The Sail Boat. NEXT day I left Albany for Rochester, via the New York Central Railroad. Those who have done much traveling by railroad must have been annoyed and tormented from time to time by the flying dust, and the smoke and cinders from the locomotive. Every dying spark that flies from the chimney seems to go right for the eyes of any unhappy visage that dares to thrust itself from a car window for a breath of fresh air or a glance at the scenery ahead. ”

“ Nothing worthy of note occurred during our voyage up the river, except that the mosquitoes tormented us in a style entirely new to me. They were about the first crop of the season, fresh and vigorous, and they attacked the boat in numbers amounting to millions of millions. O, the misery of that night! How the little fiends tormented me! Warm as it was, I shut myself up almost air-tight in my stateroom and tried to defy them. I thought I would rather be smothered to death than eaten up alive. ”

“ The day the Ocean Queen sailed was a rainy, dismal day. The steamer was crowded, and it required the neatest bit of skill to set one’s crutch down anywhere on the steerage deck without injuring any one’s toes. There were more than fourteen hundred passengers aboard.
The steamer did not get out of the harbor before five o’clock, and the purser being busy collecting tickets, I was unable to see him in order to make that little “arrangement;” and as night closed in and we plunged out among the waves of the mighty deep, I felt myself doomed to “turn in” in the steerage. ”

“ Aaron was hurled into a fence-corner; Feeny was scattered along the road behind the sleigh; I, with my crutch and cane strewn all around me, was “chucked” into a snow-bank at the road-side, in an inverted position—fairly buried in the cold snow, and my lonely foot pointing up toward the clouded heavens: and in the midst of this scene of general confusion, our conveyance dashed away through the winter night, and—we had to pick ourselves up and walk home, a distance of two miles and three quarters! ”

“ All appeared equal. All labored for a common end. Death, which lays every one low, with an impartial hand, was apparently near us, and we were comrades now. Kings and emperors, had they been aboard that seemingly doomed ship, must have felt that they were only men!
I remained at the cabin door, most of the time, watching, at times—as the receding sea would allow me to open the door a little way—the second mate, Mr. Gorham, and his watch, working at the pumps, and the phosphorescent sparks chasing each other over the deck and out at the ports and scuppers. ”

“ I can never have a moment’s rest in any public place. I no sooner take a seat in a car, restaurant, or lecture-room, than my right-hand or left-hand lady or gentleman commences. I give below an impartial list of the questions they ask, and which I, at first, answered with pride and pleasure; but which, however, after I had answered them a few hundred thousand times, grew rather stale. Here they are: they have been asked me so often, as to become stereotyped upon my heart and brain:
Did you lose your limb in battle? ”

“ He gave me the oil-cloths, and I donned them and carefully descended into the famous Cave of the Winds, and stood on the frail plank walk, between the thundering torrent and the black, rocky wall over which it tumbled. As I began to descend, I felt as though I was leaving the face of the earth for ever; but who can describe my emotions as I stood at the very heels of the raving and raging cataract? Who shall describe that awful place? It exceeded all the wild storms I had ever dreamed of. The spray dashed into my face, and fairly blinded me ”

“ Some of my comrades carried me from the field, and, after a little diversion in the way of fainting, got me loaded into a one-horse ambulance—a vehicle that can beat a wild-cat jumping on moderately rough ground—and away it went, plunging diagonally across a corn-field, like a schooner hove to in a storm. A shattered limb is one of the most painful things in the world, especially when its owner is jostled about like old rusty nails. ”

“ The cave is about a mile from Wheeling. I had to climb up the rocks fifteen or twenty feet, in order to get into it, and I sat there awhile, aiming my crutch at a stump beyond Wheeling creek, and imagining myself the cunning but unfortunate Indian who personated a turkey and got shot for it. The cave is not large—in fact, one cannot stand erect; but half-a-dozen persons could be stowed in it in a reclining position, provided none of them were ladies in capacious crinoline.
Returning from the cave, via McCulloch’s Leap, it was my lot to encounter one of the greatest bores I ever met. ”

“ That’s no fair expression. I rather felt as though I was a large cask filled a little too full of mixed white lead, putty, or something heavy that way, and that the head was forced down upon it with considerable pressure—especially about the stomach, where I fancied one of the hoops of the imaginary cask might be located, and about the “brow,” where the upper hoop might be, did I experience this indescribable heaviness. I imagined the heavy cask (myself, John Smith,) to be rolling and tumbling about loose, and the white lead or putty straining to get out. ”

“ My crutch and cane escaped me, however, striking an opposite stateroom door in less than a second, and throwing themselves savagely about over the cabin floor.
“Never mind them just now,” said the mate. “I’ll help you in.” And he helped me in.
“There’s a bucket hanging to the side of the berth,” said he. “If you should feel a little sick——”
Ugh! Human nature couldn’t stand it any longer. I tumbled recklessly into the berth, and—O, wasn’t I sick! Even now, after the lapse of several years, I shudder to think of it! Supper, dinner, breakfast—all eaten in vain! ”

“ I knew that this state of things could not last long before the car should break to pieces. The stove was soon shaken from its moorings, and fell over, scattering the fire about and filling the car with smoke and dust; several of the seats were also shaken loose, a deliberate crashing was heard; and, glancing around among the passengers, I saw as delicious a collection of pale faces as I had ever seen. The men all sprang to their feet, the women screamed, and some raised their windows, as though to squeeze through and drop out. ”

“ As we cannot know, positively, what shape we are to assume after leaving the scenes of our present existence, I have selected my beau ideal of an angel from among the sons of men. The angel I shall describe has a handsome, manly, noble, genial, smiling face; the calm gray eyes twinkle with merriment and good nature; a heavy black beard flows from the lower half of the countenance; the brow is one of the intelligent order, the hair is dark; the figure is full and strong, and dressed—not in a flowing white robe—but in black pantaloons, vest and frock-coat, actually made by a corporeal tailor. ”

“ WHEN morning came, I tried for an hour to get a conveyance to Sharpsburg, near Antietam Creek, twelve miles distant; but in vain. Not a horse or carriage of any kind was to be had for love or money; and I made up my mind to walk it, although I had never yet walked any such distance on one leg. When a man makes up his mind to do a thing, however, he will do it, if he has firmness, no matter whether he has any limbs or not. ”

“ John Smith always bewares of ’em, and it pays.
A description of a forty hours’ ride by railroad, would prove as tiresome to the reader as the ride always does to me. It is a delightful thing, in fine weather, to take a ride of fifty or a hundred miles on a train; to see the fields, and houses, and gardens, and barns, and woods, and fences flying past you, and to feel that lightning would get tired before it could catch you: but when you have to ride a thousand miles, as I have often done, the thing becomes frightfully monotonous, and is any thing but a pastime. ”

“ One day, in the middle of the skating season, I concluded to go down to Eastwick Park, Mr. R. O. Lowry’s popular resort, and amuse myself awhile by watching the skaters tumbling head over heels and cracking their brain-pans on the ice. I always had a passion for seeing any one fall, especially on skates. There is a calm, quiet enjoyment about it—to the observer—that is not equaled by any thing else. “We always,” remarks La Rochefoucault “have strength enough to bear the misfortunes of others,” a saying which, however humiliating it may be to confess it, has a certain truth. ”

“ The air is usually quiet in the morning, at San Francisco, but as the day advances, a stiff breeze springs up, and, on meeting the ebbing tide, stirs up the waters of the harbor, as though a young son of Neptune were just beneath the surface, lashing them with his toy-whip: the waterman must then exercise his utmost strength and skill to navigate with safety. ”

“ Never can I forget how I saw him, just after a dull splash aft of the leeward wheel announced that the corpse had been committed to the deep, come languidly out of his stateroom, surrounded by his wondering little ones, sit down on the deck under the shadow of a companion-way, bury his face in his hands, and weep like a lone and friendless child!
It is sad to see a woman weep; but when a strong man sheds tears they must be wrung out by an anguish of soul too poignant for the simple name of grief! ”

“ Every one who has had any experience in the matter, must have observed that a person is more lonely in a crowded city, where he is unacquainted, than in the depths of the forest where no human being is seen.
As I had no money to throw away, I stayed at a modest hotel in Park Row, where one could live on less than twenty-five dollars a day. ”

“ The ship was rocking somewhat, but I had not yet grown sea-sick. In fact, persons who have once been sea-sick are not quite so easily or so severely affected the second time.
I walked to the bulwark, scanned the north-western horizon, and perceived that it was beginning to wear a threatening aspect. The wind was stronger, the waves rolling higher, and the sailors grave and thoughtful.
It was no easy matter for me to stand, without holding to something: and hatch-houses, masts, bulwarks, ropes and belaying-pins came quite handy to brace myself against, or cling to with one hand. ”