CALIRO:

MEN AND MANNERS

IN AMERICA.

CHAPTER I.

JOURNEY-BALTIMORE-WASHINGTON.

THE mail sleigh in which I found myself a passen ger, was one of the most wretched vehicles imaginable. The wind-a north-wester-penetrated the curtains of the machine, at a thousand crevices, and, charged with particles of snow so fine as to be almost impalpable, communicated to the faces of the passengers the sensation of suffering under a hurricane of needles. Our route lay through a country flat and uninteresting, which presented no object to

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JOURNEY TO BALTIMORE.

arrest the attention of a traveller. We breakfasted at a wretched cabaret, and the pretensions of the dinner house were not much greater. The fare, however, though coarse, was abundant; and proceeding on our journey about six o'clock, we reached Lancaster, a town of some note, and famous for its manufacture of rifles. After an hour's halt, we again started in a sort of covered sledge-waggon, and the number of passengers being reduced to myself, my servant, and a Hungarian pedlar, we without ceremony ensconced ourselves among the straw in the bottom of the cart.

This part of the journey was comparatively comfortable. I had passed the night before leaving Philadelphia in writing, and "tired nature's kind restorer" now visited my eyelids very pleasantly. The rumbling of the waggon on the vast wooden bridge which crosses the Susquehanna at length broke my slumber. I rose to gaze on the scenery, which showed finely in the moonlight. There were rocks, and giant trees, and a frozen river, and the thought of Wyoming lent a charm to them all. In a few minutes, however, the Susquehanna was no longer

THE SUSQUEHANNA.

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visible, and resuming my former position, I again became as happy as an oblivion of all earthly cares could make me.

How long I enjoyed this happiness I know not, but it was at length effectually dissipated by a most unpleasant disturbance. The waggon had stopped, and the rascal of a pedlar, in scrambling out of the machine, chose to plant his great hobnailed foot on the pit of my stomach. My first confused impression was that I had been crushed to death by the wheel of the Newcastle waggon, or the great elephant in Exeter Change. But by degrees the truth dawned on my bewildered intellect, and though not, I trust, much given to swearing, I confess I did indulge in a profane objurgation at finding myself thus unceremoniously converted into the footstool of a Magyar pedlar.

Even to my own perceptions at the moment, however, there was something laughable in the whole affair. To be stretched alongside of my servant in straw on the bottom of a cart, and in such pickle to be trampled on by a common hawker of thimbles and pockethandkerchiefs! But travelling in America

is like misery, for it occasionally brings a man acquainted with strange bedfellows.

had already found, that in travelling, it was impossible to adhere to those conventional regulations in regard to servants which in England are held to be inviolable. It is the invariable custom in this country for all the passengers of a stage-coach to eat at the same table, and the time allowed for meals is so short, that unless John dines with his master, the chances are that he goes without dinner altogether. I had already learned that in the United States no man can put forward pretensions to superiority of any kind, without exciting unpleasant observation. A traveller, to get on comfortably, must take things as he finds them, assume nothing, and get rid as soon as possible of all superfluous refinement. He must often associate with men, whose companionship he cannot but feel carries with it something of degradation. Yet a person of true breeding will rarely be treated with disrespect. He will receive tribute without exacting it, and even in this democratic country, may safely leave it "to men's opinion, to tell the world he is a gentleman."

The day's journey terminated at York, where, after all its annoyances and fatigues, I found efficacious restoratives in an excellent supper and comfortable bed. In America, a traveller's sufferings are rarely connected with the table. Go where he may, he always finds abundance of good and wholesome food. To be sure, if the devil send cooks to any part of the world, it is to the United States, for in that country it is a rare thing to meet any dish dressed just as it ought to be. No attention is paid to the preserving of meat, which is generally transferred direct from the shambles to the spit. Then the national propensity for grease is inordinate. It enters largely into the composition of every dish, and constitutes the sole ingredient of many. The very bread is, generally, not only impregnated with some unctuous substance, but when sent up to the breakfast table, is seen to float in a menstruum of oleaginous matter. But with all this, a traveller-not a "very particular gentleman"-will have very little cause of complaint. At dinner he will always find ham, turkey, and a joint of some kind; and if with such materials he cannot contrive to make a tolerable meal, it is pretty