mellow-looking than ours—preposterous orange
gourds, great bell-shaped purple Samboas,
cucumbers as large as ships' telescopes, and
all variations of the extensive and well-known
"cucumber family." And there were egg
plants, that the Americans cut in slices and
roast, and Lima beans, and about three times as
many sorts of vegetables as we ordinarily bring
to table. And, as I was admiring some fragrant
bales of tobacco, an American gentleman entered
into conversation with me, and explained that the
best Virginia tobacco does not go to England,
as the flat, and rough leaves are the best on the
plant, whereas the London merchants choose
the smoothest and cleanest looking: which are
never so strong or good. As for tobacco
arriving from Havannah, that proves nothing,
for there was much sent to Germany from
Virginia, and from Germany sent to Virginia—
thence to be re-exported with the Havannah
marks and brands on the bales or chests.

A part of the show that particularly pleased
me was the display of enormous heads of Indian
corn, looking like the dried rattles of rattlesnakes.
Then I come to the shows scattered
about here and there; but quieter and less
demonstrative than in England. It is too hot
here to shout yourself black in the face; nor
were the shows so crowded as to come into direct
competition. Every now and then on the burnt
turf, near a Black Jack tree, or bordering on a
retired gravel walk, I find a show, with the
usual disproportion between the outside manifest
and the inner wonder. There was a Fat Family,
weighing several thousand stones between them,
and the smallest three brothers in the habitable
world; but no storming bands blurted out the
fact, no speaking-trumpets thundered forth the
news to Young America. There were acrobats
who were always going to do something
wonderful, and then changed their intentions and
did something very common-place—like certain
other men of promise I have known. But above
all, to the simple-hearted delight of the country
people, who are uncritical and easily amused,
there was

       "THE CELEBRATED SINGING MOUSE,"

purchased for one hundred thousand dollars, in
the rocky interior of Cochin China; for this
wonderful, intelligent, and gifted creature, the
proprietor had refused three hundred roubles,
and even larger offers made by the Emperor
of Russia—who was, I guess, infatuated with
the marvellous animal that had attracted the
gaze of thousands, and ministered to
intellectual delight at the Courts of the Dey of
Algiers, the Cham of Tartary, the Emperor
Napoleon, the Ban of Croatia, and Queen
Victoria. Now was the time to see this singular
creature, as the owner was just going to the
old country on a starring engagement. But even
this, and a calf with five legs, I abstained from
seeing. I preferred the open air, and the crowds
of country visitors.

Last of all, I went to the trotting course,
to see one of those races peculiar to America.
The ordinary flat race or steeple-chase the
American does not care for, but everywhere he
practises the trotting-match in tall overgrown
gigs of extreme lightness and strength,
specially manufactured for the purpose. To me,
this sort of race seemed dull, but the people
around me sat absorbed, their faces clouding
and brightening according to the chances of the
match. We sat in the glare of the sun, in a huge
frame of slanting seats, looking down on the
broad dusty circle of the course and the judge's
stand. And here I called to mind that not only in
the "sulky" and the "spider waggon," but also
in the "trotting waggon," ordinary drag, and
every other vehicle, everything American is
lighter than it would be in England. Their
spokes are half the thickness; their harness
half the weight, and half the quantity. American
fire-engines are half the size of ours. In
furniture, there is the same marked difference:
attributable, I think, partly to climate and partly
to hickory wood being as strong as oak and much
lighter. Our solid beefy massive character is
not visible in American manufactures. A light
slimness in their pails, and in their vessels,
in their shops, and in their chairs. The very
dress of their policemen shows it. Everything
manifests how different is the trade ideal of the
two countries. The American trotting-waggon,
with its little box of a seat, its enormous and
slender wheels, and its horse with scarcely any
harness on, would make an English jockey
stare: yet with no great reason, for it is, for its
purpose, admirable and complete, though rather
frail and dangerous. The driver, who passionately
enjoys the excitement, sits, like an ancient
charioteer, grim and with clenched teeth, both
feet wide apart and planted firmly against the
wood-work of his flying car, the reins in either
hand and on the strain.

Their famous trotting-horses are known by the
number of seconds they take to do a mile in: the
figures always accompanying the name, like a
title of honour. Enormous sums are won and
lost on these horses. Certainly as a trial of skill,
endurance, and energy, a trotting-match is not
to be despised. I suppose the more personal
exertion of our jockeys would scarcely be
endurable by an American; at all events, not by
men whose ancestors have been enervated by the
climate, and who do not make themselves less
languid and excitable by unceasing chewing of
tobacco, and habitual indulgence in bilious hot
cakes sodden with butter.

And as I walk home to the hotel, I think how
different a climate this is from that of my own
country. How fiercely blue the sky all day has
been, with no light-laden white clouds to cast
one kindly and grateful shadow! Here the
setting sun falls like a red-hot shell upon the
luminous roofs of the town. Twilight, too, is
more sudden; there is no gradual, rosy
dimness, with dove-coloured greys; no creamy
tinges with here and there a line or vein of
melting amber. No; all-sheltering darkness
comes suddenly, and falls like a black curtain
too hastily released upon the burnt-up earth.