s my prison-chamber, I can call
up one of those cheery scenes quite distinctly: I can hear the "Chief's"
voice close at my ear, trolling forth the traditional West Point ditty
of "Benny Havens," or the rude sea-ballad, full of quaint pathos:--

'Twas a Friday morning when we set sail;

then--deeper and fuller tones, rolling out Barry Cornwall's sonorous
verses of "King Death." It is good to look back on hours like these,
though I doubt if the ill-cooked meats, whereof I hope soon to
partake--not unthankfully--will be improved by the memory.

In spite of this large hospitality, instances even of individual excess
are comparatively rare. I have seen more aberration of intellect and
convivial eccentricity after a Greenwich dinner, or a heavy
"guest-night," than was displayed at any one of these Baltimore
entertainments: a stranger endowed with a fair constitution, abstaining
from morning drinks, and paying attention to the Irishman's paternal
advice--"Keep your back from the fire, and don't mix your liquors"--may
take his place, with comfort and confidence.

But my social recollections of Baltimore are by no means exclusively
bacchanalian. British stock, lamentably at a discount in other parts of
the Union, is, perhaps, a trifle above par here. The popularity of our
representatives--masculine and feminine--may have something to do with
this; at any rate, the avenues of the best and pleasantest circles are
easily opened to any Englishman of warranted position and name.

If a traveler were to enter a drawing-room here, expecting to be
surprised at every turn by some incongruity of speech or demeanor, such
as book-makers have attributed to our American cousins, he would not
fill a page of his mental note-book. I had no such prejudices to be
disappointed. After experience of society in many lands, I begin to
think that well-bred and educated people speak and behave after much the
same fashion all the world over. Few Baltimorean voices are free from a
perceptible accent; it is more marked in the gentler sex, but rarely so
strong as to be disagreeable. The ear is never offended by the New
England twang, or Connecticut drawl, and some tones rang true as silver.

You hear, of course, occasional peculiarities of expression, and words
somewhat distorted from our Anglican meaning, but these are not much
more frequent or strange than provincial idioms at home. I was only once
fairly puzzled in this wise.

It was at a publi