Was there
ever such a sunny street as this Broadway! The pavement stones are
polished with the tread of feet until they shine again; the red
bricks of the houses might be yet in the dry, hot kilns; and the
roofs of those omnibuses look as though, if water were poured on
them, they would hiss and smoke, and smell like half-quenched
fires. No stint of omnibuses here! Half-a-dozen have gone by
within as many minutes. Plenty of hackney cabs and coaches too;
gigs, phaetons, large-wheeled tilburies, and private carriages -
rather of a clumsy make, and not very different from the public
vehicles, but built for the heavy roads beyond the city pavement.
Negro coachmen and white; in straw hats, black hats, white hats,
glazed caps, fur caps; in coats of drab, black, brown, green, blue,
nankeen, striped jean and linen; and there, in that one instance
(look while it passes, or it will be too late), in suits of livery.
Some southern republican that, who puts his blacks in uniform, and
swells with Sultan pomp and power. Yonder, where that phaeton with
the well-clipped pair of grays has stopped - standing at their
heads now - is a Yorkshire groom, who has not been very long in
these parts, and looks sorrowfully round for a companion pair of
top-boots, which he may traverse the city half a year without
meeting.
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