Page:Life in Mexico vol 1.djvu/22

2 Mr., and others, from whom we were truly sorry to part.

The Norma was anchored in one of the most beautiful points of the bay, and the steamboat towed us five miles, until we had passed the Narrows. The wind was contrary, but the day began to clear up, and the sun to scatter the watery clouds.

Still there is nothing so sad as a retreating view. It is as if time were visibly in motion; and as here we had to part from, we could only distinguish, as through a misty veil, the beauties of the bay; the shores covered to the water's edge with trees rich in their autumnal coloring; the white houses on Staten Island—the whole gradually growing fainter, till like a dream, they faded away.

The pilot has left us, breaking our last link with the land. We Still see the mountains of Neversink, and the lighthouse of Sandy Hook. The sun is setting, and in a few minutes we must take our leave, probably for years, of places long familiar to us.

Our fellow-passengers do not appear very remarkable. There is Madame A, returning from being prima donna in Mexico, in a packet called after the opera in which she was there a favorite with her husband Señor V and her child. There is M. B with moustaches like a bird's nest; a pretty widow in deep affliction, at least in deep mourning; a maiden lady going out as a governess, and every variety of Spaniard and Havanero. So now we are alone, Cn and I, and my French femme-de-chambre; with her air of Dowager Duchess, and moreover sea-sick.