Charles Dickens: Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit

15. Chapter Fifteen (continued)

Off she came, soon after it was light next morning, and lying alongside an hour or more--during which period her very firemen were objects of hardly less interest and curiosity than if they had been so many angels, good or bad--took all her living freight aboard. Among them Mark, who still had his friend and her three children under his close protection; and Martin, who had once more dressed himself in his usual attire, but wore a soiled, old cloak above his ordinary clothes, until such time as he should separate for ever from his late companions.

The steamer--which, with its machinery on deck, looked, as it worked its long slim legs, like some enormously magnified insect or antediluvian monster--dashed at great speed up a beautiful bay; and presently they saw some heights, and islands, and a long, flat, straggling city.

'And this,' said Mr Tapley, looking far ahead, 'is the Land of Liberty, is it? Very well. I'm agreeable. Any land will do for me, after so much water!'