h short
ha-ho's, and uncadenced grunts. It used to be that the leader sang,
in ever-varying lines of nonsense, and the chorus struck in with fine
effect, like this:

"I wish I was in Liverpool town. Handy-pan, handy O!
O captain! where 'd you ship your crew Handy-pan, handy O!
Oh! pull away, my bully crew, Handy-pan, handy O!"

There are verses enough of this sort to reach across the Atlantic; and
they are not the worst thing about it either, or the most tedious. One
learns to respect this ocean, but not to love it; and he leaves it with
mingled feelings about Columbus.

And now, having crossed it,--a fact that cannot be concealed,--let us
not be under the misapprehension that we are set to any task other than
that of sauntering where it pleases us.

PARIS AND LONDON

SURFACE CONTRASTS OF PARIS AND LONDON

I wonder if it is the Channel? Almost everything is laid to the Channel:
it has no friends. The sailors call it the nastiest bit of water in the
world. All travelers anathematize it. I have now crossed it three times
in different places, by long routes and short ones, and have always
found it as comfortable as any sailing anywhere, sailing being one of
the most tedious and disagreeable inventions of a fallen race. But such
is not the usual experience: most people would make great sacrifices
to avoid the hour and three quarters in one of those loathsome little
Channel boats,--they always call them loathsome, though I did n't see
but they are as good as any boats. I have never found any boat that
hasn't a detestable habit of bobbing round. The Channel is hated: and no
one who has much to do with it is surprised at the projects for bridging
it and for boring a hole under it; though I have scarcely ever met an
Englishman who wants either done,--he does not desire any more facile
communication with the French than now exists. The traditional hatred
may not be so strong as it was, but it is hard to say on which side is
the most ignorance and contempt of the other.

It must be the Channel: that is enough to produce a physical
disagreement even between the two coasts; and there cannot be a greater
contrast in the cultivated world than between the two lands lying so
close to each other; and the contrast of their capitals is even more
decided,--I was about to say rival capitals, but they have not enough
in common to make them rivals. I have lately been over to London for a
week, going by the