- A Masked Ball.
Letter XLVII. - Scenery of Cuba. - Its Trees. - Sweet-Potato Plantation. - San
Antonio de los Barios. - Black and Red Soil of Cuba. - A Coffee Estate. -
Attire of the Cubans.
Letter XLVIII. - Matanzas. - Valley of Yumuri. - Cumbre. - Sugar
Estate. - Process of its Manufacture.
Letter XLIX. - Negroes in Cuba. - Execution by the Garrote. - Slave
Market. - African, Indian, and Asiatic Slaves. - Free Blacks in
Cuba. - Annexation of Cuba to the United States.
Letter L. - English Exhibitions of Works of Art. - The Society of
Arts. - Royal Academy. - Jews in Parliament.
Letter LI. - A Visit to the Shetland Isles. - Highland Fishermen. - Lerwick.
- Church-goers in Shetland. - Habitations of the Islanders. - The Noup of
the Noss. - Sheep and Ponies. - Pictish Castle. - The Zetlanders. - A Gale in
the North Sea. - Cathedral of St. Magnus. - Wick.
Letter LII. - Europe under the Bayonet. - Uses of the State of Siege. - The
Hungarians. - Bavaria. - St. Gall. - Zurich. - Target-shooting. - France. -
French Expedition to Rome.
Letter LIII. - Volterra; its Desolation. - The Balza. - Etruscan
Remains. - Fortress of Volterra.
Letters of a Traveller.
Letter I.
First Impressions of an American in France.
Paris, _August_ 9, 1834.
Since we first landed in France, every step of our journey has reminded us
that we were in an old country. Every thing we saw spoke of the past, of
an antiquity without limit; everywhere our eyes rested on the handiwork of
those who had been dead for ages, and we were in the midst of customs
which they had bequeathed to their descendants. The churches were so vast,
so solid, so venerable, and time-eaten; the dwellings so gray, and of such
antique architecture, and in the large towns, like Rouen, rose so high,
and overhung with such quaint projections the narrow and cavernous
streets; the thatched cots were so mossy and so green with grass! The very
hills about them looked scarcely as old, for there was youth in their
vegetation - their shrubs and flowers. The countrywomen wore such high
caps, such long waists, and such short petticoats! - the fashion of
bonnets is an innovation of yesterday, which they regard with scorn. We
passed females riding on donkeys, the Old Testament beast of burden, with
panniers on each side, as was the custom hundreds of years since. We saw
ancient dames sitting at their doors with distaffs, twisting the thread by
twirling the spindle between the thumb and finger, as they did in the days
of Homer. A flock of sheep was grazing on the side of a hill; they were
attended by a shepherd, and a brace of prick-eared dogs, which kept them
from straying, as was done thousands of years ago. Speckled birds were
hopping by the sides of the road; it was the magpie, the bird of ancient
fable. Flocks of what I at first took for the crow of our country were
stalking in the fields, or sailing in the air over the old elms; it was
the rook, the bird made as classical by Addison as his cousin the raven by
the Latin poets.
