the most respectable classes at this period
was astounding; it has doubtless all changed since. I have been at a
town of two thousand inhabitants, not one of whom took in a newspaper;
the whole population, therefore, was in as profound ignorance of what
was transpiring in the rest of the world as if they had been in Novaia
Zemlia. I have stayed with a mayor who did not know that England was
an island; I have been the guest of a citizen who had never heard of
Scotland, and to whom, therefore, my nationality was an enigma; but
I never met any one--I mean of this same class--who had not heard of
Palmerston. He was a mysterious personage, execrated by the "blacks" and
adored by the "reds." And I shone with a reflected lustre as the citizen
of a country of which he was the Prime Minister. As a consequence, we
had political discussions, which were protracted far into the night;
for the principal meal of the twenty-four hours was a 10-o'clock-P.M.
supper, at which, after the inevitable macaroni, were many unwholesome
dishes, such as salads made of thistles, cows' udders, and other
delicacies, which deprived one of all desire for sleep. Notwithstanding
which, we rose early, my hostess and the ladies of the establishment
appearing in the early part of the day in the most extreme deshabille.
Indeed, on one occasion when I was first introduced into the family of a
respectable citizen and shown into my bedroom, I mistook one of the two
females who were making the bed for the servant, and was surprised to
see her hand a little douceur I gave her as an earnest of attention on
her part to the other, with a smile. She soon afterward went to bed: we
all did, from 11 A.M. till about 3 P.M., at which hour I was horrified
to meet her arrayed in silks and satins, and to find that she was the
wife of my host. She kindly took me a drive with her in a carriage and
pair, and with a coachman in livery.

It was by this simple means, and by thus imposing myself upon the
hospitality of these unsophisticated people, that I worked my way, by
slow degrees, chiefly on foot, into the part of the country I desired to
visit; and I trust that I in a measure repaid them for it by the stores
of information which I imparted to them, and of which they stood much in
need, and by little sketches of their homes and the surrounding scenery,
with which I presented them. I was, indeed, dependent in some measure
for hospitality of this description, as I had taken no