It was a dark night.

The coachman instantly drove off as soon as he had got his fare: the watermen commenced a struggle for me and my trunk.

Their oaths I hear at this moment: they shook my philosophy more than did the night, or the isolation, or the strangeness of the scene.

One laid hands on my trunk.
I looked on and waited quietly; but when another laid hands on me, I spoke up, shook off his touch, stepped at once into a boat, desired austerely that the trunk should be placed beside me--"Just there,"-- which was instantly done; for the owner of the boat I had chosen became now an ally: I was rowed off.
Black was the river as a torrent of ink; lights glanced on it from the piles of building round, ships rocked on its bosom.

They rowed me up to several vessels; I read by lantern-light their names painted in great white letters on a dark ground.