Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/240

 the numerous small enclosures, the neat and substantia. farm-houses, thickly scattered along the way, the pretty villages, and busy towns, the very roads themselves, which were covered with wagons and travellers, — all these signs of universal thrift and comfort, gave abundant evidence, that at length I saw a country where labor was honorable, and where every one labored for himself. It was an exhilarating and delightful prospect, and in strong contrast with all I had seen in the former part of my journey, in which a wretched and lonely road had led me on through a vast monotonous extent of unprofitable woods, deserted fields grown over with broomsedge and mullen, or fields just ready to be deserted, gullied, barren and with all the evidences upon them, of a negligent, unwilling, and unthrifty cultivation. Here and there, I had passed a mean and comfortless house; and once in fifty miles, a decaying, poverty-stricken village, with a court house, and a store or two, and a great crowd of idlers collected about a tavern door; but without one single sign of industry or improvement.

I was desirous of seeing Philadelphia; but that city, so near the slave-holding border, I feared might be infected with something of the slave-holding spirit; for the worst plagues are the most apt to be contagious, I passed by, without passing through it, and hastened on to New York. T crossed the noble Hudson, and.entered the town. It was the first city I had ever seen; at least, the first one worthy to be called a city; and when I beheld the spacious harbor crowded with shipping; the long lines of warehouses, the numerous streets, the splendid shops, and the swarming crowds of busy people, I was astonished and delighted with the new idea which all this gave me of the resources of human art and industry. I had heard of such things before, but to feel, one ought to see.

I did nothing for several days, but to wander up and down the streets, looking, gazing, and examining with an almost insatiable curiosity. New York then, was far inferior, to what it must by this time, have become; and the commercial restrictions which then prevailed must have tended to diminish its business and its bustle. Yet to my rustic inexperience, the city seemed almost interminable;