Chapter 60

HOME AT LAST

Next day was Sunday; and the mid-day sun shone upon a glassy sea.

After the uproar of the breeze and the gale, this profound, pervading
calm seemed suited to the tranquil spirit of a day, which, in godly
towns, makes quiet vistas of the most tumultuous thoroughfares.

The ship lay gently rolling in the soft, subdued ocean swell; while all
around were faint white spots; and nearer to, broad, milky patches,
betokening the vicinity of scores of ships, all bound to one common
port, and tranced in one common calm. Here the long, devious wakes from
Europe, Africa, India, and Peru converged to a line, which braided them
all in one.

Full before us quivered and danced, in the noon-day heat and mid-air,
the green heights of New Jersey; and by an optical delusion, the blue
sea seemed to flow under them.

The sailors whistled and whistled for a wind; the impatient cabin-
passengers were arrayed in their best; and the emigrants clustered
around the bows, with eyes intent upon the long-sought land.

But leaning over, in a reverie, against the side, my Carlo gazed down
into the calm, violet sea, as if it were an eye that answered his own;
and turning to Harry, said, "This America's skies must be down in the
sea; for, looking down in this water, I behold what, in Italy, we also
behold overhead. Ah! after all, I find my Italy somewhere, wherever I
go. I even found it in rainy Liverpool."

Presently, up came a dainty breeze, wafting to us a white wing from the
shore--the pilot-boat! Soon a monkey-jacket mounted the side, and was
beset by the captain and cabin people for news. And out of bottomless
pockets came bundles of newspapers, which were eagerly caught by the
throng.

The captain now abdicated in the pilot's favor, who proved to be a tiger
of a fellow, keeping us hard at work, pulling and hauling the braces,
and trimming the ship, to catch the least cat's-paw of wind.

When, among sea-worn people, a strange man from shore suddenly stands
among them, with the smell of the land in his beard, it conveys a
realization of the vicinity of the green grass, that not even the
distant sight of the shore itself can transcend.

The steerage was now as a bedlam; trunks and chests were locked and tied
round with ropes; and a general washing and rinsing of faces and hands
was beheld. While this was going on, forth came an order from the
quarter-deck, for every bed, blanket, bolster, and bundle of straw in
the steerage to be committed to the deep.--A command that was received by
the emigrants with dismay, and then with wrath. But they were assured,
that this was indispensable to the getting rid of an otherwise long
detention of some weeks at the quarantine.