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.
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