[sofas]; curtains and sheets which we saw there were of the choicest calico and some looked like silk. The carpets looked like the finest camel’s hair cloth and many other things which I cannot here describe.--This journey from Provedens to New York was 230 miles and we were 12 hours on the way; now we were among foreign nations and did not understand their language the least. When we came to New York it became worse as we had to go ashore; there came many who talked to us but we didn’t understand them and no more they us; but I suppose they asked us where we were going; at last there came one on board who talked to us; when he heard that we did not understand he said that we should go with him. I went with him, he went into a little store; there was a French man who was to talk to me and asked if I was from France; I said I was Norwegian. He went away from me. Then there came one that so far as I could understand was from the region near France. He asked me where I was from, I answered from Norwegian, this he understood and said, “that is far away”; then I was to stop there while one went out on the street; he soon came back again and had with him a person who could talk a little Norwegian and would come with me on board; when we got on the way he told me that he was Swedish and Norwegian Consul. From the boat we took our baggage and went with this man to a basement which was a boarding house and there this consul had his home and there we should stay and he should advise us and get transportation to Rochester. When we came into the city we saw a Norwegian flag on a ship and some Swedish (flags); now my comrades went to see if they could find these ships; they met first a Swede and afterwards a Norwegian who was from Arendal and had come from England with 140 passengers; when they had talked with these they came to me again who was sitting inside and keeping watch over the baggage, now went I and my brother out for I had letters from our first mate which were addressed to a Swedish ship which lay in the harbor there and was the same one which they had been aboard and so I got the letters properly presented. When we came to the Norwegian ship again there came on board a shoemaker from Bergen who had come to America a year before and had come with one from Christiansand by name Jansen who was married and who was a merchant; when we came to talk with them the merchant said we should get lodgings at his home. We first went with him to his house. He immediately went to the place where we had our baggage; when we got there the house was so full of people that we hardly could get in.