I became conscious of the fact that the captain of the Columbia and Caledonia was at a near table with a gay party.  They had wine, and there was much merriment.  This abandonment was in contrast to the serious, almost dark spirit of a party at another table.  This was composed of men entirely.  I had never seen such faces before.  Their hair was long.  They wore goatees.  They were strangely dressed.  They talked with a broad accent.  Excitement and anger rose in their voices.  They were denouncing President Jackson.  The matter seemed to be a force bill, the tariff imposed by New England’s enterprise, the duty of the Southern States to resist it.  They were insisting that there was no warrant to pass a tariff law, that it was clearly a breach of the Constitution, and that it should be resisted to the death.  There was bitter cursing of Yankees, of the greed of New England, of its disregard of the rights of the South....  But out upon the harbor the sea gulls were drifting.  I could hear the slapping of the waves against the rocks.  And in the midst of this the orchestra began to play “Annie Laurie.”  The tears came to my eyes.  I arose and left the place.  My mind turned to a theater as a means of relief to these pressing thoughts.  I consulted my manual, and started for the American theater.  It was described as an example of Doric architecture, modeled after the temple of Minerva at Athens.  I found it on the Bowery and Elizabeth Street, bought a ticket for seventy-five cents and entered.  The play was Othello, and I had never seen it before.

I could not help but overhear and follow the conversation of the people who sat next to me.  They were wondering what moved Shakespeare to depict the story of a black man married to a white woman.  Could such a theme be dramatized now?  How could a woman, fair and high-bred, become the wife of a sooty creature like Othello?  Was it real?  If not real, what was Shakespeare trying to do?  And much more to the same effect, together with remarks about negroes and that slavery should be let alone by New England, and by everyone else.

The play was dreary to me, played listlessly where it was not ranted and torn to tatters.  I sat it through and then went back to my hotel....  The loneliness of that room as I entered it has never left my memory.  For long hours I did not sleep.  The city had 600 night watch, so the manual said, and I could hear some of them going their rounds.  At last ...  I awoke and it was morning.  I awoke with a sense of delight in the strength and vitality which sleep had restored to me....  I went below to breakfast and to find the way to travel to Illinois.

CHAPTER IV

The clerk of the hotel told me that the best route was by way of Albany, the canal, the Great Lakes to Chicago; that when I got there I would likely find a boat or stage service to Jacksonville.  I could leave at noon for Albany if I wished.  Accordingly, I made ready to do so.