Description

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There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves asIndian isles by coral reefs-commerce surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, thestreets take you waterward. Its extreme downtown is the battery, where that noblemole is washed by waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous wereout of sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hookto Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you see?-Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands ofmortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seatedupon the pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; somehigh aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But theseare all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster-tied to counters, nailedto benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What dothey here?