Among the passengers I
recognized _attaches_ of the press, besides several gentlemen of
Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, with whom I was somewhat
acquainted. More circumspect, or less slaves to the imagination than
myself, they had contented themselves with in-door observations. But
their enthusiasm was none the less inflamed. In astonishment they
looked at each other; in restless bewilderment they glanced out of the
windows on the desert, trackless plane traversed by the "Flying Cloud,"
and spoke with a species of awe of the shock which the announcement of
what they were then witnessing would give to sober men's minds; and
suggested, in broken sentences, some of the consequences which would be
likely to flow from the grand invention.
What with excitement and lack of sleep, we all found ourselves a little
nervous. Coffee and Havanas failed to allay the feeling; and, in the
absence of the morning papers, we resorted to whist, chess, and our
pocket supplies of the "Atlantic Monthly," "Harper," and so forth, and
to the very select library provided by Messrs. Bonflon and De Aery, the
proprietors, for the use of the passengers,--and at last to our beds.
It could not be denied that we were nervous. With all the smoothness
and beauty of our running, there was a sensation, an uncertain
quivering motion, not at first noticed and not at all definable, about
our craft, that constantly, suggested the idea that we were standing on
nothing, or, at best, nothing better than dissolving quicksands, which
were liable at any moment wholly to slide away and leave us; and it
required some strength of mind to resist the vagary, and prevent it
from effecting a troublesome lodgment in the imagination.
Pages:
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169