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EAST BY WEST.

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CHAPTER I.

OFF SANDY HOOK.”

THERE are few phrases in the English language more familiar than "Off Sandy Hook." It is a standing head-line in most English newspapers; and the fact recorded in the Court Circular that "the Queen walked out yesterday" is not a more frequently reiterated piece of information than that yesterday such-andsuch great steamers were "off Sandy Hook." Like many other familiar phrases, it conveys to the mind no definite idea of the thing itself. It is only in the mighty leisure of a voyage across the Atlantic that one has time to formulate the question, What is Sandy Hook? "Why Rookery?" as Miss Betsy Trotwood sharply asked David Copperfield when he

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mentioned the postal address of the step-paternal home. Is Sandy Hook a curved instrument with which a great and friendly nation seizes incoming ships and gives them a pull on to New York after ascertaining the precise quality of the assisted emigrants on board? Is it a hook at all, and is it in any obtrusive way sandy?

The questions must remain unsolved as far as this record is concerned, for when we passed Sandy Hook it was midnight, and only two beacons indicated the world-famed spot. It was a magnificent night, with the moonlight shining over a smooth and glassy sea. About half-past eleven, when most of the passengers had retired to their state-rooms, the stillness was broken by strains of music coming nearer and nearer. Presently a tug bore down upon us, and an excited crowd began to call on "Brown!" We had on board an inoffensive gentleman of that name travelling with his wife and young daughter. I now learned, with the feeling of regret that fills the mind when one finds too late he has been entertaining angels unawares, that Mr. Brown was the State printer of New York, and that this was the Democratic party who had worked ungrudgingly to obtain for him the office, and now welcomed his return from European

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