ere fibs or not. There were
no English engineers, fresh from Great George Street, Westminster,
writing home to the _Athenaeum_ to say that they had just opened a branch
railway up to Ephesus, and that (by the way) they had discovered a
prae-Imperial temple of Juno the day before yesterday. Unprotected
females didn't venture in "unwhisperables" into the depths of Norwegian
forests; or, if they hazarded such undertakings their unprotectedness
led them often to fall into cruel hands, and they never returned. A
great fuss used to be made, before the days of steam, about the "Fair
Sophia," who undertook a journey from Turkey to discover her lover, Lord
Bateman; but how long and wearisome was her travail before she reached
his lordship's castle in Northumberland, and was informed by the "proud
young porter" that he was just then "taking of his young bride in"?
Madame Cottin's Elizabeth, when she walked from Tobolsk to St.
Petersburg to crave pardon for the exiles of Siberia; Sir Walter Scott's
Jeanie Deans, when she tramped from Edinburgh to London on her errand of
mercy, were justly regarded as heroines. But what were the achievements
of those valorous young women when compared with the Ladies who make
tours round Monte Rosa; nay, for the matter of that, "all round the
world"? _Il n'y a plus de Pyrenees._ Nay, there are no more Andes,
Himalayas, or Rocky Mountains. When the late Mr. Albert Smith wanted to
change the attractions of his show, he calmly took a trip from
Piccadilly to Hong Kong; it would have been better for him, poor dear
fellow, had he remained at home. When her Majesty wanted to show the
late Sultan of Turkey a slight act of civility, she sent Sir Charles
Young out to Constantinople to invest Abdul Medjid with the Order of
the Garter. Thirty years ago, it is possible the estimable King of Arms
might have thought a mail-coach journey to York a somewhat serious
expedition, yet he took the P. and O. Boat for Stamboul as blithely as
though he were bound for a water-party at Greenwich. If an Emperor is to
be crowned in Russia, or Prussia, or Crim Tartary, all the London
newspapers despatch special correspondents to the scene of the pageant.
Mr. Reuter will soon have completed his Overland Telegraph to China. At
Liverpool they call New York "over the way." The Prince of Wales's
travels in his nonage have made Telemachus a tortoise, and the young
Anacharsis a stay-at-home. Married couples spend their honeymoon
hippop