had nothing of the palatial and aesthetic gorgeousness which educates
us in these later ages. The company of passengers was so small that a
single cow, housed in a pen on deck, sufficed for their needs in the
way of milk, and there were still left alive and pecking contentedly
about their coop a number of fowls, after we had eaten all we could of
their brethren at the ten dinners that were served during the voyage.
The crew, from the captain down, were all able seamen, friendly and
companionable, and not so numerous but that it was easy to make their
individual acquaintance. The most engaging friend of the small people
was the carpenter, who had his shop on deck, and from whom I acquired
that passion for the profession which every normal boy ought to have,
and from the practice of which I derived deep enjoyment and many
bloody thumbs and fingers for ten years afterwards.

But we had companionship historically at least more edifying. William
D. Ticknor, the senior partner of my father's publishers, was the only
figure familiar at the outset. He was one of the most amiable of men,
with thick whiskers all round his face and spectacles shining over his
kindly eyes; a sturdy, thick-set personage, active in movement and
genial in conversation. It was James T. Fields who usually made the
trips to England; but on this occasion Fields got no farther than the
wharf, where the last object visible was his comely and smiling
countenance as he waved his adieux. Conspicuous among the group on the
after-deck, as we glided out of the smooth harbor of Boston, was an
urbane and dignified gentleman of perhaps sixty years of age, with a
clean-shaven mouth and chin, finely moulded, and with what Tennyson
would call an educated whisker, short and gray, defining the region in
front of and below his ears. He spoke deliberately, and in language
carefully and yet easily chosen, with intonations singularly distinct
and agreeable, giving its full value to every word. This was our first