papers in readiness for the journey, and declared that I should go as soon
as the ship was ready to sail; having a hundred dollars,--just money
enough to pay my passage. He would not give his consent, unless my sister
Anna accompanied me; thinking her, I suppose, a counterpoise to any rash
undertakings in which I might engage in a foreign land. If I wished to go,
I was, therefore, forced to have her company; of which I should have been
very glad, had I not feared the moral care and responsibility. We decided
to go in a fortnight. My father paid her passage, and gave her a hundred
dollars in cash,--just enough to enable us to spend a short time in New
York: after which he expected either to send us more money, or that we
would return; and, in case we did this, an agreement was made with the
shipping-merchant that payment should be made on our arrival in Hamburg.

On the 13th of March, 1853, we left the paternal roof, to which we should
never return. My mother bade us adieu with tears in her eyes; saying, "_Au
revoir_ in America!" She was determined to follow us.

Dear Mary, here ends my Berlin and European life; and I can assure you
that this was the hardest moment I ever knew. Upon my memory is for ever
imprinted the street, the house, the window behind which my mother stood
waving her handkerchief. Not a tear did I suffer to mount to my eyes, in
order to make her believe that the departure was an easy one; but a heart
beating convulsively within punished me for the restraint.

My father and brothers accompanied us to the _dépôt_, where the cars
received us for Hamburg. On our arrival there, we found that the ice had
not left the Elbe, and that the ships could not sail until the river was
entirely free. We were forced to remain three weeks in Hamburg. We had
taken staterooms in the clipper ship "Deutschland." Besides ourselves,
there were sixteen passengers in the first cabin; people good enough in