company was well accounted
for; and so ends my last fox-chase in America.

Let me here insert that my hospitable host never followed hound again:
he on this day, I remember, regretted to me that a pain in his chest,
with a growing difficulty of respiration, prevented his riding as he had
once done; within a few weeks after he died, leaving a gap in the
hospitality of Baltimore that will be felt by hundreds. Mr. Oliver was
one of a class of excellent open-house men, of which class there are
specimens to be found in every part of this Union, men whose frank
hospitality is of itself sufficient to keep up the reputation of the
country amongst strangers: many of these yet live, and I trust will long
live, to the lasting honour of the States.

By birth, the subject of this notice was an Irishman; but his
affections, his sympathies, his prejudices, were all on the side of his
adopted country, which in his eyes had no equal in the world. It was
amusing to hear him speak of his visits to Europe: to England only did
he cede the right even of comparison; and on the subject of our wines he
was quite a sceptic, although he had dined at the best tables, and spoke
most warmly of his entertainers. He protested against the wines of
England being at all comparable to those of America; nay, I remember he
was heretic enough to deny us the supremacy of a rump-steak, and raised
his voice against the majesty of Dolly's.

I would not have so much heeded his advancing this heterodox doctrine
before Americans, had he not at the same time come well prepared to
prove himself qualified to give judgment by producing, hot-and-hot, a
steak that even I was compelled to admit might have been entered as A.1.
at Lloyd's.

They possess in the States generally as good beef as need be desired;
but, strange to say, with this exception, I have rarely met a tolerable
steak, according to our idea of the matter; the secret of which is, the
meat is not kept, is full of blood and fibre, and, although excellent of
flavour, is not easily disposed of by those who reject the bolting
principle, and desire to adhere to the more toilsome plan of
mastication.

_29th._--Quitted the pleasant banks of the Gunpowder, and, with my old
sporting companion, returned to Baltimore. Same day, embarked on board
steam-boat for an excursion as far as Petersburg, Virginia, _via_
Norfolk; we had a fine day and night whilst steering through this great
bay of the Chesapeake: went to b