Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: WESTERN BANK-NOTES SOT AT PAR. 23 CHAPTER II. Trip from Baltimore to West Point—Western Bank-Notes not at Par—Letter from General Grant—Receives Instruction in Geometry and Algebra—Voyage to Norfolk—Meets an Inquisitive, Ill-bred Man, and disposes of him— Visit to Tailor Hartshorn—" Keep your Receipts and make no Tailor-Bills" —Turns out in his Uniform—Reports to Commodore Warrington, who orders him to report to Lieutenant Commanding Dornin—Commodore Thomas ap Catesby Jones—Story of a Collision with a Whale on Board the Macedonian—The Feejee Island Cannibals—A Midshipman tries a Practical Joke and gets the worst of it—The Hospitality of Norfolk—Ordered to the West Indies on the Levant—Admiral Farragut a Passenger—Assigned to the Sloop-of-War Vandalia. The following morning I went on board a steamboat for Frenchtown, en rouie for West Point, and thence by a railroad, sixteen miles in length, to New Castle, then a small place, situated on the Delaware River some thirty-five miles below Philadelphia. At New Castle we took another steamboat, and found a considerable interruption from the ice then in the river. It was sunset when we reached Philadelphia. As we passed the navy-yard, below the city, the large ship-house was pointed out, in which was the line-of-battle-ship Pennsylvania, then regarded as among the grandest naval constructions of the world. Before we reached the city, word was passed that persons wishing to go directly to New York could obtain tickets at the captain's office. On presenting myself and offering Western bank-notes, I was informed that they were at a discount and not receivable. I proposed that the discount should be taken off, but that offer was refused. I was thus compelled to remain over, and went to the United States Hotel, opposite the old Sta...