This inquisitiveness
had, at every town which I reached, made the search for newspapers
uppermost in my mind; but, by bad luck, I had found only four, all of
them ante-dated to the one which I had read at Dover, though their dates
gave me some idea of the period when printing must have ceased, viz.
soon after the 17th July--about three months subsequent to my arrival at
the Pole--for none I found later than this date; and these contained
nothing scientific, but only orisons and despairings. On arriving,
therefore, at London, I made straight for the office of the _Times_,
only stopping at a chemist's in Oxford Street for a bottle of antiseptic
to hold near my nose, though, having once left the neighbourhood of
Paddington, I had hardly much need of this.
I made my way to the square where the paper was printed, to find that,
even there, the ground was closely strewn with calpac and pugaree, black
abayeh and fringed praying-shawl, hob-nail and sandal, figured lungi and
striped silk, all very muddled and mauled.
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