This is good; but it is the result of a state of things by no means good.
For many days there has been a great deal of fog on the river, and the
boats have groped their way along, continually striking their bells,
while, on all sides, there are responses of bell and gong; and the
vessels at anchor look shadow-like as we glide past them, and the master
of one steamer shouts a warning to the master of another which he meets.
The Englishmen, who hate to run any risk without an equivalent object,
show a good deal of caution and timidity on these foggy days.
December 13th.--Chill, frosty weather; such an atmosphere as forebodes
snow in New England, and there has been a little here. Yet I saw a
barefooted young woman yesterday. The feet of these poor creatures have
exactly the red complexion of their hands, acquired by constant exposure
to the cold air.
At the ferry-room, this morning, was a small, thin, anxious-looking
woman, with a bundle, seeming in rather poor circumstances, but decently
dressed, and eying other women, I thought, with an expression of slight
ill-will and distrust; also, an elderly, stout, gray-haired woman, of
respectable aspect, and two young lady-like persons, quite pretty, one of
whom was reading a shilling volume of James's "Arabella Stuart." They
talked to one another with that up-and-down intonation which English
ladies practise, and which strikes an unaccustomed ear as rather
affected, especially in women of size and mass.
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