ntrodden, except by a straggler or twain bending
their steps hurriedly towards Chestnut. As you turn out of South-third
into this great thoroughfare you observe an immediate change; the
stragglers preceding you have mingled with the main current, and are
quickly confounded amidst a confused jumble of men, women, and children,
carts, coaches, and wheelbarrows, pressing in long columns of march down
towards the Delaware.

In the distance may be seen, curling from below, wavy pillars of dense
black smoke, intermingled with vicious-looking lines of thin whitish
vapour, which rush through and tower high over the more sluggish smoke
with a savage, hissing sound that almost drowns the bell, now tolling a
last summons.

The wharf is gained: here lie the boats side by side, one going north,
the other south: they are surrounded by a crowd,--friends making hasty
adieus; porters, of all shades of colour, hurrying to and fro, aiding,
scrambling, and squabbling, with the important air and ceaseless
loquacity everywhere characteristic of the African race.

Amidst this motley throng the unoccupied and observant man will easily
pick out many individuals of gaunt outline, a bilious aspect and a staid
sober demeanour, each carrying a small valise, a carpet-bag, a long
Boston coat or cloak, and steadily and deliberately making a straight
course for the common bourne, unaided and unaiding, self-sustained,
independent, and, each for himself alone.

At length, after a few last hasty bangs, the heavy bell clappers cease
to move; the porters quit the luggage-cars and spring nimbly ashore; the
independent gentlemen dispose of their _kits_, each after the fashion
and on the spot he "judges" most convenient; the hissing sound of
escaping steam suddenly stops, and this momentary silence is succeeded
by the quick motion of the paddle-wheels.

The vicious-looking columns of white vapour melt away; wheeling
majestically about, the huge boats steadily head towards their opposite
courses, and, in the next moment, are rushing, like unslipped
greyhounds, through the smooth waters of the Delaware.

And now occasionally arrive discoveries, at once whimsical and amusing
to all save the sufferers. A lady with her children going South, for
instance, finds out that her husband, or her carriage and horses, one or
both, have gotten by mistake aboard the New York boat, and are off back
again to the North: perhaps you get a glimpse of the miserable biped in