with Fulton ferry, already becoming the greatest of its sort in
the world for general importance, volume, variety, rapidity, and
picturesqueness. Almost daily, later, ('50 to '60,) I cross'd on the
boats, often up in the pilot-houses where I could get a full sweep,
absorbing shows, accompaniments, surroundings. What oceanic
currents, eddies, underneath--the great tides of humanity also, with
ever-shifting movements. Indeed, I have always had a passion for
ferries; to me they afford inimitable, streaming, never-failing,
living poems. The river and bay scenery, all about New York island,
any time of a fine day--the hurrying, splashing sea-tides--the
changing panorama of steamers, all sizes, often a string of big ones
outward bound to distant ports--the myriads of white-sail'd schooners,
sloops, skiffs, and the marvellously beautiful yachts--the majestic
sound boats as they rounded the Battery and came along towards 5,
afternoon, eastward bound--the prospect off towards Staten Island, or
down the Narrows, or the other way up the Hudson--what refreshment of
spirit such sights and experiences gave me years ago (and many a time
since.) My old pilot friends, the Balsirs, Johnny Cole, Ira Smith,
William White, and my young ferry friend, Tom Gere--how well I
remember them all.


BROADWAY SIGHTS

Besides Fulton ferry, off and on for years, I knew and frequented
Broadway--that noted avenue of New York's crowded and mixed humanity,
and of so many notables. Here I saw, during those times, Andrew
Jackson, Webster, Clay, Seward, Martin Van Buren, filibuster Walker,
Kossuth, Fitz Greene Halleck, Bryant, the Prince of Wales, Charles
Dickens, the first Japanese ambassadors, and lots of other celebrities