Charles Dickens

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908. Excerpt: ... gree, is nothing. Words cannot express it. Thoughts cannot convey it. Only a dream can call it up again, in all its fury, rage, and passion." One night, during the gale, the sea crushed the lifeboat like a walnutshell, and tore away the planking of the paddleboxes, leaving the wheels exposed and bare; the next morning the funnel was white with crusted salt, and the rigging all knotted, tangled, wet, and drooping. "A gloomier picture it would be hard to look upon." 1 The climatic conditions were undoubtedly of exceptional severity, and the experienced head-engineer acknowledged that he had never seen such stress of weather. At one time Dickens himself apprehended, and with justification, that all was lost--that the Britannia, with its living freight, was doomed to destruction--and he quietly waited for the worst. "I never expected to see the day again," he wrote, "and resigned myself to God as well as I could." At the close of the memorable voyage the ship suddenly struck upon a bank of mud, creating the greatest confusion on board, and after much backing of paddles and heaving of lead, anchor was dropped in a strange-looking nook, surrounded by banks, rocks, and shoals; the next morning found the ship gliding down a smooth, broad stream, the sun shining brightly, and the officers and crew rigged out in their smartest clothes. Presently they came to the wharf at Halifax, "and leaped upon the firm, glad earth again;" after delivering and exchanging mails, the ship stood off for Boston, where it was telegraphed on the eighteenth day out from Liverpool. The interest with which Dickens strained his eyes "as the first patches of American soil peeped like molehills from the green sea, and 1 "American Notes," chap. ii. followed them, as they swelled, by slow and ...