Imagine two sets
of passengers, about 150 persons in each set, exchanging boats! Three
hundred travellers jostling against each other, with "plunder"
amounting to some thousands of packages, to be removed a distance of
300 or 400 yards, at the risk and responsibility of the owners, without
any care or concern on the part of the officers of the boats! Trunks
seemed to run on wheels, carpet-bags to have wings, and portmanteaus to
jump about like grasshoppers. If you had put down one article while
looking for the rest, in an instant it would be gone. In this amusing
scuffle were involved several members of Congress, returning in the
"down" boat from their legislative duties. The celebrated Judge M'Lean
was among them. But the safety of some box or parcel was just then--to
most of us--of more importance than all the great men in the world. The
baggage storm being over, and the great division and trans-shipment
effected, we moved forward in peace. By-and-by, however, each one was
called upon to show his baggage, that it might be set apart for the
particular coach to which it would have to be consigned.
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