Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.
Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from
Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall,
northward. What do you see?--Posted like silent sentinels all around
the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean
reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the
pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some
high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better
seaward peep. But these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in
lath and plaster--tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to
desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What do they
here?
But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and
seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but
the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of
yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh
the water as they possibly can without falling in. And there they
stand--miles of them--leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes
and alleys, streets and avenues--north, east, south, and west.
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