The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844: Volume 23, Number 5Various
History
The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844: Volume 23, Number 5
Various
Periodicals
him, who pulled off the boots of another person, thinking the
while--mistaken individual!--that he was disrobing his own
shrunken legs of their leathern integuments, so thick were the
limbs and feet that steamed and moved round about. Another
tourist, fat, oily and round who had bribed the steward for two
chairs placed by the side of his berth, whereon to rest his
abdomen, amused the assembly by calling out; 'Here, waiter! bring
me another pillow! I have got the ear-ache, and have put the first
one into my ear!' Thus wore the hours away. Sleep, you cannot.
Feeble moschetoes, residents in the boat, whose health suffers
from the noisome airs they are nightly compelled to breathe, do
their worst to annoy you; and then, Phoebus Apollo! how the
sleepers snore! There is every variety of this music, from the low
wheeze of the asthmatic, to the stentorian grunt of the corpulent
and profound. Nose after nose lifts up its tuneful oratory, until
the place is vocal. Some communicative free-thinkers talk in their
sleep, and altogether, they make a concerto and a diapason equal
to that which Milton speaks of, when through the sonorous organ
'from many a row of pipes, the sound-board breathes.' At last,
morning dawns; you ascend into pure air, with hair unkempt, body
and spirit unrefreshed, and show yourself to the people of some
populous town into which you are entering, as you wash your face
in canal water on deck, from a hand basin! It is a scene, I say
again, take it for all in all, that throws description upon the
parish, and makes you a pauper in words. '_Ohe jam satis!_'
Let the old bachelor, who 'longs but fears to marry,' perpend the annexed
invitation to matrimony:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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