Excerpt from England From a Back-Window: With Views of Scotland and Ireland
There was nothing particularly attractive about "The Abyssinia" as we came in sight of it at the Jersey-city dock on the afternoon of April 15, 1874. We saw before us a long, narrow, dingy black craft, with a formidable smoke-stack in the middle, three aspiring masts, staring dead-lights, and a forlorn and very uncomfortable air about all. It stood so far out of water as to actually need the huge hawsers holding it at the dock to keep it from tipping over where it was. It seemed as if the great city had slopped over into "The Abyssinia," because of the threatened rain. The passage-ways, decks, and staircases were crowded with people; and such anxious, struggling, crowding people! I never before saw so ostentatious a crowd. We got into the wrong passage, of course, and climbed over a platform, and met some half-dozen people climbing the other way. But everybody was good-natured and bruised. Finally we reached our stateroom, and deposited the luggage. From here we went on deck, the passage up the stairway being a continuous struggle. Out doors was as crowded as in. Scores of people with bouquets and umbrellas blocked up every passage.
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