And yet--proceeding now, to introduce myself positively--I am both
a town traveller and a country traveller, and am always on the
road. Figuratively speaking, I travel for the great house of Human
Interest Brothers, and have rather a large connection in the fancy
goods way. Literally speaking, I am always wandering here and
there from my rooms in Covent-garden, London--now about the city
streets: now, about the country by-roads--seeing many little
things, and some great things, which, because they interest me, I
think may interest others.

These are my chief credentials as the Uncommercial Traveller.



CHAPTER II--THE SHIPWRECK



Never had I seen a year going out, or going on, under quieter
circumstances. Eighteen hundred and fifty-nine had but another day
to live, and truly its end was Peace on that sea-shore that
morning.

So settled and orderly was everything seaward, in the bright light
of the sun and under the transparent shadows of the clouds, that it
was hard to imagine the bay otherwise, for years past or to come,
than it was that very day. The Tug-steamer lying a little off the
shore, the Lighter lying still nearer to the shore, the boat
alongside the Lighter, the regularly-turning windlass aboard the
Lighter, the methodical figures at work, all slowly and regularly