ongate
or the Saltmarket. I had had a special fancy for reading
and studying topographical books on London, and found myself,
pretty soon, so much at home there that I think I could have
made a very decent living as a guide.

We spent a month in Switzerland. I made the journey over
the mountain passes on foot, keeping up with my companion,
who had a horse or a mule. I could walk twenty-five or thirty
miles a day without great fatigue.

Augustus Flagg of the famous book-selling firm of Little
& Brown, with whom I had dealt a great deal, was on the
ship when I went out. He went abroad to purchase books for
his house. In those days the book-stalls in London were mines
of rare treasures. They had not been much examined by collectors
or dealers, and the men who kept them did not know the value
of books that were almost priceless in the eyes of virtuosos.
Mr. Flagg and I spent together a good many days in ransacking
the old book-stalls and shops, some of them in out-of-the-
way places in the old city, even below the Tower. I could
not afford to buy a great many books then. But I knew something
about them, and the experience was like having in my hands
the costliest rubies or diamonds.

The journey each way, which now takes six or seven days, then
took fourteen. The Cunard steamer, whose successor, with
its bilge keel and its vastly greater size, is as comfortable,
even in very rough weather, as the first class city hotel,
was as disagreeable in rough weather, to a man unaccustomed
to the ocean, as a fishing smack. But the passengers got
well acquainted with one another. There was agreeable society
on board, and the days passed pleasantly.

Among the passengers was Joseph Coolidge of Boston, father
of Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, late Minister to France. Mr.
Coolidge had been a great traveller in his day; had had some
commercial occupations in the East, and was very pleasant
company. His wife was a granddaughter of Mr. Jefferson.
He told me that two of Mr. Jefferson's daughters--or granddaughters,
I am not now absolutely sure which--had kept school and earned
money, which they had applied to the payment of Mr. Jefferson's
debts. The story was highly creditable to these Virginia
ladies, who might well have thought that their illustrious
ancestor's service might excuse his family from making sacrifices
in discharge of such an obligation, if his countrymen at large
did not feel its force.

I went over prett