all, I thought a chance
passenger could have no right so greatly to incommode us.

"Right!--there they go--that's just their way--that will do in
Europe, may be; it sounds just like English tyranny, now don't
it? but it won't do here." And thereupon he began thrusting in
the wooden box against our legs, with all his strength.

"No law, sir, can permit such conduct as this."

"Law!" exclaimed a gentleman very particularly drunk, "we makes
our own laws, and governs our own selves."

"Law!" echoed another gentleman of Vernon, "this is a free
country, _we have no laws here_, and we don't want no foreign
power to tyrannize over us."

295

I give the words exactly. It is, however, but fair to state,
that the party had evidently been drinking more than an usual
portion of whiskey, but, perhaps, in whiskey, as in wine, truth
may come to light. At any rate the people of the Western
Paradise follow the Gentiles in this, that they are a law unto
themselves.

During the contest, the coachman sat upon the box without saying
a word, but seemed greatly to enjoy the joke; the question of the
box, however, was finally decided in our favour by the nature of
the human material, which cannot be compressed beyond a certain
degree.

For the great part of this day we had the good fortune to have a
gentleman and his daughter for our fellow-travellers, who were
extremely intelligent and agreeable; but I nearly got myself into
a scrape by venturing to remark upon a phrase used by the
gentleman, and which had met me at every corner from the time I
first entered the country. We had been talking of pictures, and
I had endeavoured to adhere to the rule I had laid down for
myself, of saying very little, where I could say nothing
agreeable. At length he named an American artist, with whose
works I was very familiar, and after having declared him equal to
Lawrence (judging by his portrait of West, now at New York), he
added, "and what is more, madam, he is perfectly _self-taught_."

I prudently took a few moments before I answered; for the
equalling our immortal Lawrence to a most vile dauber stuck in my
throat; I could not say Amen; so for some time I said nothing;
but, at last, I remarked on the frequency with which I had heard
this phrase of _self-taught_ used, not as an apology, but as
positive praise.

"Well, madam, can there be a higher praise?"

"Certainly not, if spoken of the individual merits of a person,
without the me