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WEST POINT.— STEAMER TO NEWPORT.— NEWPORT.— BISHOP BERKELEY.— BATHING.— ARRIVAL AT BOSTON.

Brevoort House, 5th Avenue, New York,

8th Sept., 1858.

My letter to you of the 3rd instant gave you an account of our voyage, and of our first impressions of this city. In the afternoon of the 4th, William went by steamboat to West Point, on the river Hudson, and we went by railway. This was our first experience of an American Railway, and it certainly bore no comparison in comfort either to our own, or to those we have been so familiar with on the Continent. The carriages are about forty feet long, without any distinction of first and second classes: the benches, with low backs, carrying each two people, are arranged along the two sides, with a passage down the middle. The consequence is, that one may be brought into close contact with people, who, at home, would be in a third-class carriage. There are two other serious drawbacks in a long journey; the one being that there is no rest for the head, and therefore no possible way of sleeping comfortably; the other, that owing to the long range of windows on either side, the unhappy traveller may be exposed to a thorough draught, without any way of escape, unless by closing the window at his side, if he is fortunate enough to have a seat which places it within his reach. Another serious objection is the noise, which is so great as to make conversation most laborious. They are painstaking in their care of the luggage, for besides pasting on labels, each article has a numbered check attached to it, a duplicate of which is given to the owner; time is saved in giving up the tickets, which is done without stoppage, there being a free passage from one end of the train to the other. This enables not only ticket-takers, but sellers of newspapers and railway guides, to pass up and down the carriages; iced water is also offered gratis.

The road to Garrison, where we had to cross the river, runs along the left bank of the Hudson, a distance of fifty miles, close to the water's edge nearly the whole way, and we were much struck by the magnificence of the scenery. The river, generally from two to three miles in breadth, winds between ranges of rocks and hills, mostly covered with wood, and sometimes rising to a height of 800 feet. Owing to the windings and the islands, the river frequently takes the appearance of a lake; while the clearness of the atmosphere, and the colouring of the sunset, added to the beauty of the scene. We travelled at the rate of twenty miles an hour, and arrived in darkness at Garrison. Here we crossed the river in a ferry-boat to West Point, and found William, who had come at the same speed in the steamer. The hotel being full, we accepted the offer of rooms made us by Mr. Osborn, an American friend of papa's, at a little cottage close to the hotel. Mr. and Mrs. Osborn and their two children had passed some weeks there, and said they frequently thus received over-flowings from the hotel, and but for their hospitality on this occasion, we should have been houseless for the night. This cottage belonged to the landlord of the hotel, and there being no cooking accommodation in it, we all took our meals in the public dining-room. The hotel itself is a very spacious building, with a wide verandah at each end. We found an endless variety of cakes spread for tea, which did not exactly suit our appetites, but we made the best of it, and then went into the public drawing-room, where we found all the guests of the hotel assembled, and the room brilliantly lighted. Here balls, or as they call them "hops," take place three or four times a week. The scene is thoroughly foreign, more German than French. The ladies' hoops are extravagant in circumference; the colouring of their dresses is violent and heavy; and there is scarcely a man to be seen without moustachios, a beard, a straw hat, and a cigar. West Point is the Sandhurst of the United States, and is also the nearest summer rendezvous of the fashionables of New York. It is beautifully situated on the heights above the river, and the Military Academy, about ten minutes' drive from the hotel, commands a most splendid view of the Hudson, and the hills on either side.

We went to the chapel on Sunday the 5th, where we joined, for the first time, in the service in America. It differs but little from our own, and was followed by a not very striking sermon. The Holy Communion was afterwards administered, and it was a comfort to us to join in it on this our first Sunday in America. The cadets filled the centre of the chapel, and are a very good-looking set of youths, wearing a pretty uniform, the jacket being pale grey with large silver buttons. We dined at four o'clock at the table d'hôte, in a room capable of holding about four hundred. We sat next to the landlord, who carved at one of the long tables. The dinner was remarkably well cooked in the French style, but most deficient in quantity, and we rose from table nearly as hungry as we sat down. Some of the ladies appeared at dinner in evening dresses, with short sleeves (made very short) and low bodies, a tulle pelerine being stretched tight over their bare necks. In some cases the hair was dressed with large ornamental pins and artificial flowers, as for an evening party. We met them out walking later in the evening, with light shawls or visites on their shoulders, no bonnets, and large fans in their hands. This toilette was fully accounted for by the heat, the thermometer being at 80° in the shade. Many of the younger women were very pretty, and pleasing in their manners.

We left West Point early on Monday morning, the 6th, taking the steamboat back to New York, leaving William to pursue his journey to the White Mountains and Montreal alone, and we are to meet him again at Boston next week. The steamboat was well worth seeing, being a wonderful floating house or palace, three stories high, almost consisting of two or three large saloons, much gilt and decorated, and hung with prints and filled with passengers. The machinery rises in the centre of the vessel, as high nearly as the funnel. We went at the rate of twenty miles an hour. We again enjoyed the beauties of the river, and could this time see both sides, which we were unable to do on the railway, by which means too we saw many pretty towns and villas which we had missed on Saturday. We were back at the hotel by twelve o'clock, and are to make our next move to-morrow afternoon to Newport, a sea-bathing place, a little way north of this. We are doing this at the strong recommendation of Lord Napier, who says, at this time of the year Newport is worth seeing, as giving a better idea of an American watering-place than Saratoga, where the season is now drawing to a close.

We have now become more familiar with this place, and I think are beginning to feel the total want of interest of any sort beyond a general admiration of the handsome wide streets and well-built houses. The Brevoort House is in the fifth avenue, which, in point of fashion, answers to Belgrave Square with us, and consists of a long line of houses of large dimensions. A friend, who accompanied us in our drive yesterday evening, pointed out many of the best of them as belonging to button-makers, makers of sarsaparilla, and rich parvenus, who have risen from the shop counter. He took us to his own house in this line, which was moderate in size, and prettily fitted up. He is a collector of pictures, and has one very fine oil painting of a splendid range of mountainous scenery, in the Andes. It is by Church, a rising young American, whose view of the Falls of Niagara was exhibited this year in London. We have made frequent use of the omnibus here; the fares are half the price of the London ones, and the carriages are very clean and superior in every way to ours. Great trust is shown in the honesty of the passengers, there being no one to receive payment at the door, but a notice within directs the money to be paid to the driver, which is done through a hole in the roof, and he presents his fingers to receive it, without apparently knowing how many passengers have entered. We frequently meet woolly-headed negroes in our walks, and they seem to form a large proportion of the servants, both male and female, and of porters and the like. We are disappointed in the fruit. The peaches are cheap, and in great quantities, but they are very inferior to ours in flavour, and the melons are also tasteless. The water-melons are cut in long slices and sold in the streets, and the people eat them as they walk along. The great luxury of the place is ice, which travels about the streets in carts, the blocks being three or four feet thick, and a glass of iced water is the first thing placed on the table at each meal. The cookery at this hotel is French, and first rate. We have had a few dishes that are new to us. The corn-bread and whaffles are cakes made principally of Indian-corn; and the Okra-vegetable, which was to us new, is cut into slices to flavour soup. Lima beans are very good; we have also had yams, and yesterday tasted the Cincinnati champagne, which we thought very poor stuff.

Fillmore House, Newport, Rhode Island, September 13th.—We left New York on Thursday afternoon, and embarked in a Brobdingnagian steamboat, which it would not be very easy to describe. The cabin is on the upper deck, so that at either end you can walk out on to the stern or bow of the vessel; it is about eleven feet high, and most splendidly fitted up and lighted at night with four ormolu lustres, each having eight large globe lights. We paced the length of the cabin and made it 115 paces, so that walking nine times up and down made a nice walk of a mile. The engine of the steamboat in America rises far above the deck in the centre of the vessel, so this formed an obstruction to our seeing the whole length, unless on each side of the engine, where a broad and clear passage allowed a full view from end to end; but instead of taking away from the fine effect, the engine-room added greatly thereto, for it was divided from the cabin, on one side, by a huge sheet of plate glass, through which the most minute workings of the engines could be seen. There was in front a large clock, and dials of every description, to show the atmospheric pressure, the number of revolutions of the wheel, &c. This latter dial was a most beautiful piece of mechanism. Its face showed six digits, so that the number of revolutions could be shown up to 999,999. The series of course began with 000,001, and at the end of the first turn the nothings remained, and the 1 changed first into 2, then into 3, &c., till at the end of the tenth revolution the two last digits changed together, and it stood at 000,010, and at the 1,012th revolution it stood at 001,012.

To go back to the saloon itself; the walls and ceiling were very much carved, gilt, and ornamented with engravings which, though not equal to our Albert Durers, or Raphael Morghens at home, were respectable modern performances, and gave a drawing-room look to the place. The carpet was gorgeous in colour, and very pretty in design, and the arm-chairs, of which 120 were fixtures ranged round the wall, besides quantities dispersed about the room, were uniform in make, and very comfortable. They were covered with French woven tapestry, very similar to the specimens we bought at Pau. There were no sofas, which was doubtless wise, as they might have been turned to sleeping purposes. Little passages having windows at the end, ran out of the saloon, each opening into little state cabins on either side, containing two berths each, as large as those on board the Africa, and much more airy; but the wonderful part was below stairs. Under the after-part of the saloon was the general sleeping cabin for the ladies who could not afford to pay for state cabins, of which, however, there were nearly a hundred. Our maid slept in this ladies' cabin, and her berth was No. 306, but how many more berths there may have been here we cannot tell. This must have occupied about a quarter of the space underneath the upper saloon. The remaining three quarters of the space constituted the gentlemen's sleeping cabin, and this was a marvellous sight. The berths are ranged in four tiers, forming the sides of the cabin, which was at least fourteen feet high; and as these partook of the curve of the vessel, the line of berths did the same, so as not to be quite one over the other. There were muslin curtains in front of the berths, forming, when drawn, a wall of light floating drapery along each side of the cabin, and this curved appearance of the wall was very pretty; but the prettiest effect was when the supper tables were laid out and the room brilliantly lighted up. Two long tables stretched the whole length, on which were placed alternately bouquets and trash of the sweet-cake kind, though the peaches, water-melons, and ices were very good, and as we had luckily dined at New York, we were satisfied. The waiters were all niggers, grinning from ear to ear, white jacketed, active, and clever, about forty strong. The stewardesses, also of African origin, wore hoops of extravagant dimensions, and open bodies in front, displaying dark brown necks many of them lighted up by a necklace or diamond cross, rivalling Venus herself if she were black. They were really fearful objects to contemplate, for there was a look of display about them which read one a severe lesson on female vanity, so frightful did they appear, and yet rigged out like modern beauties. It was the most lovely afternoon conceivable, and we stayed on deck, sometimes on the bow and sometimes on the stern of the vessel, till long after dark. We preferred the bow, as there was no awning there, and the air was more fresh and invigorating.

The passage through Long Island Sound was like a river studded on both sides with villas and green lawns, something like the Thames between Kingston and Hampton, but much wider, and with higher background, and altogether on a larger scale. When, owing to the darkness, we lost sight of these, they were replaced by lighthouses constantly recurring. This huge Leviathan, considerably longer than the Africa, proceeded at the rate of about eighteen miles an hour, going half-speed only, on account of the darkness of the night. The full speed was twenty-four miles an hour, and remember this was not a high-pressure engine. After proceeding through this narrow channel for about 120 miles, we again entered the Atlantic, but speedily reached the narrow inlet which extends up to this place. You may wonder at our having been able to make such minute observations upon the saloon, &c.; but having tried our state cabin, and not relishing it, we paced up and down the saloon, and occupied by turns most of its 120 chairs, till three o'clock in the morning brought us to the end of our voyage. There was no real objection to the cabin, beyond the feeling that it was not worth while to undress and lie down for so short a time; besides which, papa was in one of his fidgetty states, which he could only relieve by exercise.

But how now to describe Newport? Papa is looking out of the window, and facing it is an avenue of trees running between two lawns of grass as green as any to be seen in England, though certainly the grass is coarser than at home. In these lawns stand houses of every shape and form, and we, being au troisième have a distant view of the sea, which looks like the Mediterranean studded with ships. As this place (the Brighton of New York) stands on a small island, this sea view is discernible from all sides of the house. We walked yesterday a long way round the cliffs, which are covered with houses far superior to the average villas in England, the buildings being of a brilliant white and sometimes stone colour, and of elaborate architecture, with colonnades, verandahs, balconies, bay windows of every shape and variety, and all built of wood. The churches are some of them very beautiful, both Gothic and Grecian. A Gothic one to which we went yesterday afternoon, was high, high, high in its decorations, but not in the least in the doctrine we heard, which was thoroughly sound on "God so loved the world," &c. The fittings up were very simple, and the exterior of the church remarkable for the grace and simplicity of its outline; for being, like the houses, built entirely of wood, elaborate carving cannot be indulged in.

The church which we went to in the morning offered a great contrast to this, the interior being fitted up with high old-fashioned pews, like many a village church at home; but besides this, a further interest attached to Trinity Church, as being the one in which Dean Berkeley used to preach, and from its remaining unaltered in its internal appearance from what it was in his days. The pulpit is still the same, and there is still in the church the organ which he presented to it, at least the original case of English oak is there, and part of the works are the same, though some pipes have lately been added. Independently of Trinity Church, the town of Newport has many associations connected with Bishop Berkeley's memory, the place where he lived, and where he wrote his "Minute Philosopher" being still pointed out, as well as the spot on the beach where he used to sit and meditate. The most striking buildings, however, are the hotels, one of which, the "Ocean House," is the largest building of the kind we have ever seen. It has very much the appearance of the huge convents one sees in Italy, and, standing on the top of the cliffs, it has a most remarkable effect. There are some very good streets, but the greatest part of the town consists of detached houses standing in gardens. There are very few stone buildings of any kind. The hotel we are in is not the largest, but is considered the best, and in the height of the season the place must be very gay.

The next, perhaps the greatest, feature here is the bathing. There are three beaches formed round a succession of points, the whole forming a lovely drive on dry hard sand; and such a sun as we gazed upon yesterday setting over these distant sands passes description. On the first of these beaches are ranged more than a hundred bathing machines at about a hundred yards above high-water mark, looking like sentry boxes on a large scale, with fine dry sand between them and the sea. We went down on Saturday to see the bathing, which is here quite a public affair; and having fixed our eyes on a machine about a dozen yards off, we saw two damsels enter it, while a young gentleman, who accompanied them went into an adjoining one. In a few minutes he came out attired in his bathing dress and knocked at the ladies' door. As the damsels were apparently not ready, he went into the water to wait their coming, and in due time they sallied forth dressed in thick red baize trowsers and a short dress of the same colour and material, drawn in at the waist by a girdle. The gentleman's toilet was coloured trowsers and a tight flannel jacket without sleeves. He wore no hat, but the ladies had on very piquante straw hats trimmed with velvet, very like the Nice ones, to preserve them from a coup de soleil. They joined each other in the water, where they amused themselves together for a long time; a gentleman friend's presence on these occasions is essential, from the Atlantic surf being sometimes very heavy; but the young gentleman in question did not enact the part of Mr. Jacob, of Cromer, not being professional. The number of bathers is generally very great, though now the season being nearly over there are not many, but there were still enough to let us judge of the fun that is said to go on.

There are few guests in this house now. A "hop" was attempted on Friday evening in the entrance hall, but the unhappy musicians exerted themselves in playing the Lancers' Quadrilles and all sorts of ugly jerking polkas without success, although an attempt at one quadrille, we were told, was made after we had retired for the night. The table d'hôte toilettes here now are much quieter than they were at Westpoint, there being but two short sleevers yesterday at our two o'clock dinner. There is a large and handsome public drawing-room, where we can rock in rocking chairs (even the bed-rooms have them), or pass an hour in the evening. We are waited on at dinner by twelve darkies, as the niggers are called, marshalled by a head waiter as tall as papa and as black as his hat. A black thumb on your plate, as he hands it to you, is not pleasant. The housemaids are also niggeresses, and usually go about in coloured cotton sun bonnets. I now leave off, as we start for Boston in an hour.

Boston, 14th September, 1858.—We reached this yesterday, and were looking for William all the evening, but were disappointed at his non-appearance. He arrived here, however, at three this morning by the steamer, and is now recounting his adventures; he enjoyed himself very much, and looks all the better for his trip.

I ought to tell you of a few Yankee expressions, but I believe the most racy of them are used by the young men whom we do not come across: "I guess" is as common as "I think" in England. In directing you on any road or street, they tell you always to go "right away." If you do not feel very well, and think you are headachy, and that perhaps the weather is the cause, you are told you are "under the weather this morning." An excellent expression we think; so truly describing the state papa is often in when in dear old England. Then when you ask for information on any subject, the answer is frequently, "I can't say, sir, for I am not posted up on that subject." I asked an American gentleman, who was walking with us last night, not to walk quite so fast, and he answered, "Oh, I understand; you do not like that Yankee hitch." "Yankee" is no term of offence among themselves. Our friend certainly made use of the last expression as a quotation, but said it was a common one. They will "fix you a little ginger in your tea, if you wish it;" and they all, ladies and gentlemen, say, Sir, and Ma'am, at every sentence, and all through the conversation, giving a most common style to all they say; although papa declares it is Grandisonian, and that they have retained good manners, from which we have fallen off.

I reserve my description of the journey here, and of this town, for my next letter.