abomination
of desolation. Every thing looked so ruined, decayed, and rotten, that I
felt sick and disgusted at the prospect before me. I had not expected to
find matters half so bad. Of the hedge round the garden only a few
sticks were here and there standing; in the garden itself some
unwholesome-looking pigs were rooting and grubbing. As to the house!
Merciful heavens! Not a whole pane in the windows! all the frames
stopped and crammed with old rags and bunches of Indian corn leaves! I
could not expect groves of orange and citron trees--I had planted none;
but this! no, it was really too bad. Every picture must have its shady
side, but here there was no bright one; all was darkness and gloom. We
did not meet a living creature as we walked up from the shore, winding
our way amongst the prostrate and decaying tree-trunks that encumbered
the ground. At last, near the house, we stumbled upon a trio of black
little monsters, that were rolling in the mud with the dogs, half a
shirt upon their bodies, and dirty as only the children of men possibly
can be. The quadrupeds, for such they looked, jumped up on our approach,
stared at us with their rolling eyes, and then scuttled away to hide
themselves behind the house. Ha! Old Sybille! Is it you? She was
standing before a caldron, suspended, gipsy-fashion, from a triangle of
sticks--looking, for all the world, like a dingy parody of one of
Macbeth's witches. She, too, stared at us, but without moving. I must
introduce myself, I suppose. Now she has recognised me, and comes
towards us with her enormous spoon in her hand. I wonder that her
shriveled old turkey's neck--which cost me seventy-five dollars, by the
by--has not got twisted before now. She runs up to me, screaming and
crying for joy. There _is_ one creature, then, glad to see me. It is
amusing to observe the anxiety with which she looks at the caldron, and
at three pans in which ham and dried buffalo are stewing and grizzling;
she is evidently quite unable to decide whether she shall abandon me to
my fate, or the fleshpots to theirs. She sets up her pipe and makes a
most awful outcry, but nobody answers the call. "_Et les chambres_,"
howls she, "_et la maison, et tout, tout!_" I could not make out what
the deuce she would be at. She looked at my companion, evidently much
embarrassed.

"_Mais, mon Dieu!_" croaked she, "_pourrai-je seulement un moment? Tenez
la_, Massa!" she continued in an imploring tone, holding out th