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IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA.

VOL. II.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY,

Dorset Street, Fleet Street.


[Illustration: GROUP OF INDIANS NEAR NIAGARA.
Drawn & Etched by A. Hervieu.]




IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA,

DURING THE YEARS 1833, 1834, AND 1835.


BY TYRONE POWER, ESQ.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET,
Publisher in Ordinary to His Majesty.

1836.




CONTENTS

OF

THE SECOND VOLUME.

                                                         Page
NAHANT                                                      1
THE BALLOON                                                10
Taunton.--Cotton Manufactures.--Pocassett.--Rhode Island._ib._
NEWPORT                                                    22
Rhode Island                                             _ib._
BLOCK ISLAND                                               28
NEW YORK                                                   32
Rockaway.--A Road Adventure.                             _ib._
JOURNAL                                                    40
IMPRESSIONS OF PETERSBURG                                  82
Virginia                                                 _ib._
A Rhapsody                                                 83
Impressions of Petersburg.--The deserted Church.           87
CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA                                 93
Total Eclipse of the Sun                                  102
SAVANNAH                                                  117
COLUMBUS                                                  132
TRAVELLING THROUGH THE CREEK NATION                       140
The Alabama River down to Mobile                         _ib._
JOURNAL                                                   162
NEW ORLEANS                                               171
American Theatre                                         _ib._
French Theatre                                            175
NEW ORLEANS                                               178
Journal                                                  _ib._
The Theatre                                               189
Journal                                                   192
MOBILE                                                    211
NEW ORLEANS                                               227
THE LEVEE MARKET                                          247
JOURNAL RESUMED                                           252
NEW YORK                                                  278
JOURNAL                                                   291
A visit to Quebec, _via_ Lake Champlan and Montreal      _ib._
The Sault au Recollect                                    305
GENERAL IMPRESSIONS OF THE COUNTRY AND OF THE
  AMERICAN PEOPLE                                         339
Adieu                                                     354
APPENDIX                                                  357




IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA.




NAHANT.


This rocky peninsula is truly a very wild and unworldlike little
territory, jutting boldly out as it does into the mighty bay of
Massachusetts, and commanding a view of its whole extent, from Cape Cod
to Cape Anne, together with the many islands, towns, and villages
scattered along the coast; whilst in front spreads out the Atlantic
Ocean.

To sit within the upper gallery of this house upon the cliff, and watch
the rising moon fling her golden bridge from the far horizon's edge,
until it seems to rest upon the beach below, is a sight which would be
worth something in a poet or a painter's eyes.

I never, either in the East or in the Mediterranean, beheld anything
exceed in colour the glory of these evening skies, or their depth by
night. Round about, near to the edge of the cliffs, are scattered a
number of dwellings, built in the style of the southern cottage, having
low projecting eaves covering a broad gallery which usually encircles
the building: these are objects upon which the eye is pleased to rest
when the moon deepens their shadows on the barren rock.

One or two of the highest and most conspicuous points, whether viewed
from the land or the sea, have been very properly selected for
buildings, whose uses, however humble, admitted of classic form. Beneath
the roof of a temple to Minerva, built upon the extreme eastern point of
the lofty headland, may be found the billiard-table of the hotel; lower
down, the little edifice containing a range of baths is entered by a
Doric portico. The proportions of these buildings are in good taste; the
chaste cold moon clothes them in grace and beauty; and for the material,
what matters it, when, by her light, painted pine may be fancied Parian
marble! The cliff itself is a very Leucadia, and as well fitted for a
leap as love-sick heart could seek: but there are no Sapphos now-a-days;
the head of Nahant is likely to remain un-be-rhymed.

A little way to the northward lies a small steep island, between which
and the main land the "sarpint" _par excellence_ has been seen more than
once rushing along at the rate of a steamboat, with a horned face
uplifted some fifty feet above the waves, and a beard blowing about his
ears like the tail of a comet.

This account I had from more