a person would have been
deemed derogatory.

I do not mean by this description to infer that a crowded table of this
kind is as agreeable as a party whose habits, education, and sympathies,
being on a level, render intercourse a matter of mutual pleasure: what I
would show is, that in this mingling of classes, which is inevitable in
travelling here, there is nothing to disgust or debase man or woman,
however exclusive; for it would really be impossible to feed a like
multitude, of any rank or country, with slighter breaches of decency or
decorum, or throw persons so wholly dissimilar together with less
personal inconvenience either to one class or another.

I had been accustomed to see this set down as one of the chief nuisances
of travelling in this country, and the consequences greatly exaggerated:
things must have improved rapidly; since, as far as I have hitherto
gone, I protest I prefer the steam-boat arrangements here to our own,
and would back them to be considered less objectionable by any candid
traveller who had fairly tested both.

During the night it blew fresh, and the vessel pitched a little, the
consequence of which movement was evident in the desertion of the upper
deck in the morning. I had noticed it, the evening previous, occupied by
sundry little groups reading or chatting, and with more than one couple
of merry promenaders: I now made its circuit, meeting with but one
adventurer, a lively-looking old gentleman, of whom I inquired where all
our passengers were vanished to.

"Most of them in bed yet," said the old gentleman, "or keeping out of
the way in one hole or another. If there's any wind or sea, you always
find the deck pretty clear till we get round Point Judith. Once let us
get to the other side that hill yonder, and you'll see the swarm begin
to muster pretty smart."

I had often heard "Point Judith" mentioned by the New-Yorkers, as the
Cockney voyager talks of Sea-reach, or the buoy at the Nore; and here it
was close under our lee,--a long, low point of land, with a lighthouse
upon it.

We soon after opened the entrance to the fine harbour of Newport, and,
as my informant predicted, the deck gradually recovered its population:
some came up because they felt, and others because they were told, we
had passed Point Judith.

It was about seven o'clock A.M. that we ran alongside the wharf at
Newport to land passengers. The appearance of the town, rising boldly
from the water's edge, wa