CHAPTER XXXIV.
The next day, Tuesday, the 9th of April, the "Great Eastern" weighed anchor, and set sail to enter the Hudson, the pilot guiding her with an unerring eye. The storm had spent itself in the night, and the last black clouds disappeared below the horizon. The aspect of the sea was enlivened by a flotilla of schooners, waiting along the coast for the breeze.
A small steamer came alongside, and we were boarded by the officer of the New York sanitary commissioners.
It was not long before we passed the light-boat which marks the channels of the Hudson, and ranged near Sandy Hook Point, where a group of spectators greeted us with a volley of hurrahs.
When the "Great Eastern" had gone round the interior bay formed by Sandy Hook Point, through the flotilla of fishing-smacks, I caught a glimpse of the verdant heights of New Jersey, the enormous forts on the bay, then the
