As the steamer swings out into the stream the
tourist is at once face to face with a rapidly changing panorama.
Steamers arriving, with happy faces on their decks, from southern
ports or distant lands; others with waving handkerchiefs bidding
good-bye to friends on crowded docks; swift-shuttled ferry-boats, with
hurrying passengers, supplying their homespun woof to the great warp
of foreign or coastwise commerce; noisy tug-boats, sombre as dray
horses, drawing long lines of canal boats, or proud in the convoy of
some Atlantic greyhound that has not yet slipped its leash; dignified
"Men of War" at anchor, flying the flags of many nations, happy
excursion boats _en route_ to sea-side resorts, scows, picturesque
in their very clumsiness and uncouthness--all unite in a living
kaleidescope of beauty.
* * *
Rise, stately symbol! Holding forth
Thy light and hope to all who sit
In chains and darkness! Belt the earth
With watch-fires from thy torch uplit!
_John Greenleaf Whittier._
* * *
Across the river on the Jersey Shore are seen extensive docks of great
railways, with elevators and stations that seem like "knotted ends"
of vast railway lines, lest they might forsooth, untwist and become
irrecoverably tangled in approaching the Metropolis.
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