The
river, however, is by no means crowded; because the immense multitude of
ships are ensconced in the docks, where their masts make an intricate
forest for miles up and down the Liverpool shore. The small black
steamers, whizzing industriously along, many of them crowded with
passengers, snake up the chief life of the scene. The Mersey has the
color of a mud-puddle, and no atmospheric effect, as far as I have seen,
ever gives it a more agreeable tinge.
Visitors to-day, thus far, have been H. A. B., with whom I have arranged
to dine with us at Rock Ferry, and then he is to take us on board the
Great Britain, of which his father is owner (in great part). Secondly,
Monsieur H., the French Consul, who can speak hardly any English, and who
was more powerfully scented with cigar-smoke than any man I ever
encountered; a polite, gray-haired, red-nosed gentleman, very courteous
and formal. Heaven keep him from me! At one o'clock, or thereabouts, I
walked into the city, down through Lord Street, Church Street, and back
to the Consulate through various untraceable crookednesses. Coming to
Chapel Street, I crossed the graveyard of the old Church of St. Nicholas.
This is, I suppose, the oldest sacred site in Liverpool, a church having
stood here ever since the Conquest, though, probably, there is little or
nothing of the old edifice in the present one, either the whole of the
edifice or else the steeple, being thereto shaken by a chime of bells,--
perhaps both, at different times,--has tumbled down; but the present
church is what we Americans should call venerable.
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