CHAPTER XXXV.
A week to spend in America! The "Great Eastern" was to set sail on the 16th of April, and it was now the 9th, and three o'clock in the afternoon, when I set foot on the land of the Union. A week! There are furious tourists and express travellers who would probably find this time enough to visit the whole of North America; but I had no such pretention, not even to visit New York thoroughly, and to write, after this extra rapid inspection, a book on the manners and customs of the Americans. But the constitution and physical aspect of New York is soon seen; it is hardly more varied than a chess-board. The streets, cut at right angles, are called avenues when they are straight, and streets when irregular. The numbers on the principal thoroughfares are a very practical but monotonous arrangement. American cars run through all the avenues. Any one who has seen one quarter of New York knows the whole of the great city, except, perhaps, that intricacy
