asure in going abroad, from the coldness and shyness with which the
English are treated; a coldness and shyness which they think fully
warranted by the conduct of their predecessors in travel. I have heard
ladies say that they find great difficulty in becoming acquainted with
their neighbours at the tables-d'hote; and that, when they have
succeeded, an apology for the reluctance to converse has been offered,
in the form of explanation that English travellers generally "appear to
dislike being spoken to" so much as to render it a matter of civility to
leave them alone. The travelling arrangements of the English seem
designed to cut them off from companionship with the people they go to
see; and they preclude the possibility of studying morals and manners in
a way which is perfectly ludicrous to persons of a more social
temperament and habits.

A good deal may be learned on board steam-boats, and in such vehicles as
the American stages; and when accommodations of the kind become common,
it will be difficult for the sulkiest Englishman to avoid admitting some
ideas into his mind from the conversation and actions of the groups
around him. When steam-boats ply familiarly on the Indus, and we have
the rail-road to Calcutta which people are joking about, and another
across the Pampas,--when we make trips to New Zealand, and think little
of a run down the west coast of Africa,--places where we shall go for
fashion's sake, and cannot go boxed up in a carriage of Long Acre
origin,--our countrymen will, perforce, exchange conversation with the
persons they meet, and may chance to get rid of the unsociability for
which they are notorious, and by which they cast a veil over hearts and
faces, and a shadow over their own path, wherever they go.

Meantime, the wisest and happiest traveller is the pedestrian. If
gentlemen and ladies want to see pictures, let them post to Florence,
and be satisfied with learning what they can from the windows by the
way. But if they want to see either scenery or people, let all who have
strength and courage go on foot. I prefer this even to horseback. A
horse is an anxiety and a trouble. Something is sure to ail it; and one
is more anxious about its accommodation than about one's own. The
pedestrian traveller is wholly free from care. There is no such freeman
on earth as he is for the time. His amount of toil is usually within his
own choice,--in any civilized region. He can go on and stop when he
likes