Atlantic States -- Description and travel; Kemble, Fanny, 1809-1893; United States -- Social life and customs -- 1783-1865
The morning was beautifully bright and clear. While dressing, heard the
breakfast-bell, and received sundry intimations to descend and eat;
however, I declined leaving my cabin until I had done dressing, which I
achieved very comfortably at leisure, during which time the ship
weathered Point Judith, where the Atlantic comes in to the shore between
the termination of Long Island and the southern extremity of Rhode
Island. The water is generally rough here, and I had been prophesied an
agreeable little fit of sea-sickness; but no such matter,--we passed it
very smoothly, and presently stopped at Newport, on Rhode Island, to
leave and take up passengers. The wind was keen and bracing; the morning
beautifully bright and sunny; the blue waters, all curled and crisped
under the arrow-like wind, broke into a thousand sapphire ridges tipped
with silver foam, that drove away in sparkling showers before the bitter
breath of the north. We entered Providence river in a few moments, and
steamed along between Rhode Island and the main land, until we reached
Providence, a town on the shore of Rhode Island, where we were to leave
the boat, and pursue our route by coach to Boston. I walked on deck with
Captain ---- for an hour after breakfast, breasting the wind, which
almost drove us back each time we turned up the deck towards the prow.
After my walk, went in, righted my hair, which the wind had dressed _à
la frantic_, and came and sat in the sun with Brewster's book,--which I
like mainly,--till we reached Providence. The boat was so heavily laden
that she drew an enormous quantity of water, and was fairly aground
once, as we were nearing the pier. When the crowd of passengers had
ebbed away, and we had seen them pack themselves into their stages and
drive off, we adjourned to our exclusive extra, which, to our great
sorrow, could not take all our luggage after all. The distance from
Providence to Boston is forty miles; but we were six hours and a half
doing it over an excellent road. The weather was beautiful, but the
country still sad and wintry-looking. The spring is backwarder here than
in New York by full three weeks: the trees were all bare and leafless,
except the withered foliage of the black oaks; and the face of the
country, with its monotonous rises, and brooks flowing through flat
fields, reminded me of parts of Cumberland. Every now and then, however,
we came to a little lakelet, or, as they call them here, pond, of the
holiest deepest dark-blue water, sparkling like a magic sapphire,
against smooth, bright, golden, sandy shores, and screened by vivid
thickets of cedar bushes. They were like little bits of fairy-land, and
relieved the wearisomeness of the road. As we approached Boston, the
country assumed a more cultivated aspect,--the houses in the road-side
villages were remarkably neat, and pretty, and cottage-like,--the land
was well farmed; and the careful cultivation, and stone walls, which
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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