Reminiscences of My Irish Journey in 1849 - Thomas Carlyle

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1882. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... or next to nothing: a sorrowful phenomenon often confirmed afterwards. Half-pay-sergeant-looking figure--clean old Lancashire physiognomy of fifty (old Indian soldier, now at Falmouth, as I learned afterwards) -- is talking insipidities about the news from the papers, I forget what. Other figures -- the more spectral in my memory, somewhat like spectral flies in a spectral glue-pot! I was very sick in body, perhaps still more so in soul; and had by no means a lively mirror of attention to hold up to them. At ten o'clock, nevertheless, with unexpected precision, a bell rang, the steam mechanism began growling, and we jumbled forth on our way. To the river-mouth I remember little with distinctness; the day had settled into gray; with more than enough of east wind, now that our own velocity was added to it. The brick chaos and ship-and-boat chaos of big London till after Greenwich lies across my remembrance like an ugly indistinct smear, full of noise and confusion, no figure distinct in it. Passengers, one after oue, came on board; at Greenwich a great many soldiers, "recruits and invalids," Irish both, the latter from India, and "bad-subjects" mostly, as I learned afterwards--these came on board at Gravesend in great number, drunk many of them, with or without officers (wiiliout it afterwards turned out); a nasty sight rather. Pilot-boats hooked themselves astern of us, and went shoving through the foam; sometimes as many as four boats at once--" pilots looking out for a job," favored by the steamers. A tall antelope or panther figure in red coat (about Gravesend, I think) misses the proper boarding-place from his boat; steps into one of these pilot-boats, cool he amid the tumult of noises and splashing of spray; and twists gallantly aloft over the stern...