Encountering squally weather again in the Bay of Fundy, we tumbled 
and rolled about as usual all that night and all next day.  On the 
next afternoon, that is to say, on Saturday, the twenty-second of 
January, an American pilot-boat came alongside, and soon afterwards 
the Britannia steam-packet, from Liverpool, eighteen days out, was 
telegraphed at Boston.

The indescribable interest with which I strained my eyes, as the 
first patches of American soil peeped like molehills from the green 
sea, and followed them, as they swelled, by slow and almost 
imperceptible degrees, into a continuous line of coast, can hardly 
be exaggerated.  A sharp keen wind blew dead against us; a hard 
frost prevailed on shore; and the cold was most severe.  Yet the 
air was so intensely clear, and dry, and bright, that the 
temperature was not only endurable, but delicious.

How I remained on deck, staring about me, until we came alongside 
the dock, and how, though I had had as many eyes as Argus, I should 
have had them all wide open, and all employed on new objects - are 
topics which I will not prolong this chapter to discuss.  Neither 
will I more than hint at my foreigner-like mistake in supposing 
that a party of most active persons, who scrambled on board at the 
peril of their lives as we approached the wharf, were newsmen, 
answering to that industrious class at home; whereas, despite the 
leathern wallets of news slung about the necks of some, and the 
broad sheets in the hands of all, they were Editors, who boarded 
ships in person (as one gentleman in a worsted comforter informed 
me), 'because they liked the excitement of it.'  Suffice it in this 
place to say, that one of these invaders, with a ready courtesy for 
which I thank him here most gratefully, went on before to order 
rooms at the hotel; and that when I followed, as I soon did, I 
found myself rolling through the long passages with an involuntary 
imitation of the gait of Mr. T. P. Cooke, in a new nautical 
melodrama.

'Dinner, if you please,' said I to the waiter.

'When?' said the waiter.

'As quick as possible,' said I.

'Right away?' said the waiter.

After a moment's hesitation, I answered 'No,' at hazard.

'NOT right away?' cried the waiter, with an amount of surprise that 
made me start.

I looked at him doubtfully, and returned, 'No; I would rather have 
it in this private room.  I like it very much.'

At this, I really thought the waiter must have gone out of his 
mind:  as I believe he would have done, but for the interposition 
of another man, who whispered in his ear, 'Directly.'

'Well! and that's a fact!' said the waiter, looking helplessly at 
me:  'Right away.'

I saw now that 'Right away' and 'Directly' were one and the same 
thing.  So I reversed my previous answer, and sat down to dinner in 
ten minutes afterwards; and a capital dinner it was.

The hotel (a very excellent one) is called the Tremont House.  It 
has more galleries, colonnades, piazzas, and passages than I can 
remember, or the reader would believe.

CHAPTER III - BOSTON

IN all the public establishments of America, the utmost courtesy 
prevails.  Most of our Departments are susceptible of considerable 
improvement in this respect, but the Custom-house above all others 
would do well to take example from the United States and render 
itself somewhat less odious and offensive to foreigners.  The 
servile rapacity of the French officials is sufficiently 
contemptible; but there is a surly boorish incivility about our 
men, alike disgusting to all persons who fall into their hands, and 
discreditable to the nation that keeps such ill-conditioned curs 
snarling about its gates.

When I landed in America, I could not help being strongly impressed 
with the contrast their Custom-house presented, and the attention, 
politeness and good humour with which its officers discharged their 
duty.

As we did not land at Boston, in consequence of some detention at 
the wharf, until after dark, I received my first impressions of the 
city in walking down to the Custom-house on the morning after our 
arrival, which was Sunday.  I am afraid to say, by the way, how 
many offers of pews and seats in church for that morning were made 
to us, by formal note of invitation, before we had half finished 
our first dinner in America, but if I may be allowed to make a 
moderate guess, without going into nicer calculation, I should say 
that at least as many sittings were proffered us, as would have 
accommodated a score or two of grown-up families.  The number of 
creeds and forms of religion to which the pleasure of our company 
was requested, was in very fair proportion.

Not being able, in the absence of any change of clothes, to go to 
church that day, we were compelled to decline these kindnesses, one