of a land require deep study and
long acquaintance, but the broader traits of nationality are caught in
an instant, or not caught at all Familiarity destroys them, and it is
only at first blush that we learn to appreciate them with force. Who
that has landed at Calais, at Rotterdam, or at Leghorn, has not felt
this? The Flemish peasant, with her long-eared cap and heavy sabots--the
dark Italian, basking his swarthy features in the sun, are striking
objects when we first look on them; but days and weeks roll on, the
wider characteristics of human nature swallow up the smaller and more
narrow features of nationality, and in a short time we forget that the
things which have surprised us at first are not what we have been used
to from our infancy.

Gifted with but slender powers of observation, such as they were, this
was to me always a moment of their exercise. How often in the rural
districts of my own country had the air of cheery comfort and healthy
contentment spoken to my heart; how frequently, in the manufacturing
ones, had the din of hammers, the black smoke, or the lurid flame of
furnaces, turned my thoughts to those great sources of our national
wealth, and made me look on every dark and swarthy face that passed as
on one who ministered to his country's weal! But now I was to view a
new and very different scene. Scarcely had I put foot on shore when
the whole population of the village thronged around me. What are these,
thought I? What art do they practise? what trade do they profess? Alas!
their wan looks, their tattered garments, their outstretched hands, and
imploring voices, gave the answer--they were all beggars! It was not as
if the old, the decrepit, the sickly, or the feeble, had fallen on
the charity of their fellow-men in their hour of need; but here were
all--all--the old man and the infant, the husband and the wife, the aged
grandfather and the tottering grandchild, the white locks of youth,
the whiter hairs of age--pale, pallid, and sickly--trembling between
starvation and suspense, watching with the hectic eye of fever every
gesture of him on whom their momentary hope was fixed; canvassing, in
muttered tones, every step of his proceeding, and hazarding a doubt upon
its bearing oh their own fate.

'Oh, the heavens be your bed, noble gentleman! look at me! The Lord
reward you for the little sixpence that you have in your fingers there!
I 'm the mother of ten of them.'

'Billy Cronin, yer honour; I'