About a mile from it,
however, is the landing-place of a steamer (which runs regularly, except
in the winter months), where a large, new hotel is built. The grounds
about it are extensive and well wooded. We got some biscuits at the
hotel, and I gave the waiter (a splendid gentleman in black) four
halfpence, being the surplus of a shilling. He bowed and thanked me very
humbly. An American does not easily bring his mind to the small measure
of English liberality to servants; if anything is to be given, we are
ashamed not to give more, especially to clerical-looking persons, in
black suits and white neckcloths.
I stood on the Exchange at noon, to-day, to see the 18th Regiment, the
Connaught Rangers, marching down to embark for the East. They were a
body of young, healthy, and cheerful-looking men, and looked greatly
better than the dirty crowd that thronged to gaze at them. The royal
banner of England, quartering the lion, the leopard, and the harp, waved
on the town-house, and looked gorgeous and venerable. Here and there a
woman exchanged greetings with an individual soldier, as he marched
along, and gentlemen shook hands with officers with whom they happened to
be acquainted. Being a stranger in the land, it seemed as if I could see
the future in the present better than if I had been an Englishman; so I
questioned with myself how many of these ruddy-cheeked young fellows,
marching so stoutly away, would ever tread English ground again.
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