There are eight steam-packet companies
connected with the port. They own nearly
a hundred steamers, the original cost of
which was above six millions sterling. The
neighbourhood of Southampton docks is now
crowded with eating-houses, restaurants,
Oriental, American, Dock, Temperance, and
Railway hotels, hotels Français, and Spanish
fondas. Amongst the seamen of the East
and West India and American steamers, are
great numbers of negroes, lascars, creoles,
Arabs, mulattoes, and quadroons. When
a couple of large mail steamers arrive on
the same day, which often happens, the
windows of the hotels are to be seen crowded
with foreign merchants, West India and
American planters, East Indian, Australian,
and Californian nabobs, military or naval
officers, and foreign officials, with their families,
dressed in every variety of costume. All
these people are at the same time besieged
vigorously in all their hotels by English,
Italian, and German street-bands. A great
many street musicians get their bread by
playing before the Southampton hotels on
packet days. Of German bands there are a
dozen located in the town. They are
imported, drilled, paid wages, and furnished
with instruments by a resident German, who
is often to be seen at a short distance from
the performers, paying critical attention to
their music, and perhaps having an eye on
their receipts. This man groups the
performers. Sometimes you may see a band of
twelve with music-stands and books, playing
choice and difficult music before one hotel.
At other times such a band is not to be found
in the town ; its members are broken up into
several parties, who are playing before several
hotels Polkas, Vilikinses, and Last Roses of
Summer. The band arrangements all depend
upon the concentration or dispersion of the
passengers, and upon the rank, taste, and
wealth of the arrivals.

The scenes incident to the incoming and
outgoing of packets are of all kinds. All
dread of observation is apt to be laid aside
when parents are taking leave for years of
children, or wives part from husbands bound
for a port thousands of miles away. It is the
same when nearest relatives are meeting
one another for the first time, after a long
absence. When a homeward packet enters
the Southampton dock, there is a rush
through the dock gates of friends of the
passengers. They have been waiting for the
ship perhaps for days. It is half-an-hour
before the huge bulk of the steamer can be
hauled alongside of the quay. During this
time the passengers are grouped on deck,
intently looking for their friends on shore ;
the friends ashore are not less intently
searching among the passengers with opera-glasses. Presently there are recognitions,
and a kind of sacred pantomime begins. The
friends on the quay seem to be suffering the
pains of Tantalus. They walk hurriedly to
and fro, smiling to themselves ; then they
stop short, stand still, and gaze intently on
the vessel ; then they kiss a hand or wave a
handkerchief, and restlessly walk up and
down again. The minutes spent in bringing
the ship fairly alongside seem to them hours.
At the first moment possible they make a
rush to get on board, but are kept back by
the custom-house officers, with a bluff order
that " they must wait ashore until the
passengers have landed."

At length the passengers do land, and are
received with love expressed unrestrainedly
in open arms. Some time ago an aged soldier
arrived from the east. A peerage and
honours awaited him in this country.
Hundreds of people were in Southampton docks,
cheering him before he landed. They rushed
on board, pushing aside the custom-house
officers to greet him. The deck was crowded.
With much trouble, a lady succeeded in
getting close to him, and whispered a word or
two into his ear. He turned quickly round,
held her out at arm's length, and looked
intently at her, his eyes streaming with
tears. Then he embraced her. She was a
daughter-in-law, whom he had never seen
before ; the only one of his relations able to
come near him for the crowd.

Sometimes the large steam-packets leave
the docks, and go out into what is called the
stream, a day or two before they depart on
their voyages. When that is the case, small
steamers run to and from them and the dock
quay, carrying their mails and passengers.
You may always tell the line to which such
an outward-going packet may belong by the
appearance of the passengers. If you see
about the dock, bearded, moustached, jim-
crow-hatted gentlemen, who smoke much,
the American packet is about to start. If
you see a number of thin, pallid, bilious-
looking persons, with white chip hats, and
accompanied by cadaverous-faced ladies, and
coloured women, carriers of babies that are
neither white nor black, the West India
steamer is about to get under weigh. If
you observe a number of well-dressed,
clean-shaved, healthy-looking fellows, with
heaps of luggage, leisurely going into the
docks in cabs, some turbans and fezzes now
and then appearing, it is the East India
packet that is getting up her steam. Even
the appearance of the mails will show to
what part of the world the ship is bound.
Huge India-rubber sacks contain the American
mails ; canvas bags the West Indian
letters ; and the East India mail is contained
in variously coloured boxes.

Southampton must be a mine of treasure
for the quid-nunc. Almost every week
distinguished passengers arrive there: foreign
monarchs, Royal Bengal tigers, Indian,
African, and Egyptian princes, great
monkeys, distinguished ambassadors,
hippopotamuses, alligators, generals, admirals,
illustrious exiles, Californian bears, colonial