and like Berwick, it was a congregation of mostly red roofs; but, unlike
Berwick (the atmosphere over which was clear and transparent), there came
a gush of smoke from every chimney, which made it the dimmest and
smokiest place I ever saw. This is partly owing to the iron founderies
and furnaces; but each domestic chimney, too, was smoking on its own
account,--coal being so plentiful there, no doubt, that the fire is
always kept freshly heaped with it, reason or none. Out of this
smoke-cloud rose tall steeples; and it was discernible that the town
stretched widely over an uneven surface, on the banks of the Tyne, which
is navigable up hither ten miles from the sea for pretty large vessels.

We established ourselves at the Station Hotel, and then walked out to see
something of the town; but I remember only a few streets of duskiness and
dinginess, with a glimpse of the turrets of a castle to which we could
not find our way. So, as it was getting twilightish and very cold, we
went back to the hotel, which is a very good one, better than any one I
have seen in the South of England, and almost or quite as good as those
of Scotland. The coffee-room is a spacious and handsome apartment,
adorned with a full-length portrait of Wellington, and other pictures,
and in the whole establishment there was a well-ordered alacrity and
liberal provision for the comfort of guests that one seldom sees in
English inns. There are a good many American guests in Newcastle, and
through all the North.

An old Newcastle gentleman and his friend came into the smoking-room, and
drank three glasses of hot whiskey-toddy apiece, and were still going on
to drink more when we left them. These respectable persons probably went
away drunk that night, yet thought none the worse of themselves or of one
another for it. It is like returning to times twenty years gone by for a
New-Englander to witness such simplicity of manners.