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B

BACK AGAIN.

ACK again to dear, old, misty, grumbling England-back again to Lon

don fog and mud, and sturdy snobbishness, from the glittering Alpine snow, and the deep-blue Italian lake, and the bowing, close-cropped Monsieur. Hurrah! for home, after a summer away on the paper-sanded, flimsy-journaled, many-hatted, harness-roped, table-d'hôted Continent. The run back was delicious. I had had some business to do abroad, and therefore could not return directly the whim took me. I was bound to remain up to a certain date, whether I grew tired of foreign scenery and cooks or not. But directly the term of my engagement was up, I hastened back, partly because I had pressing business at home, partly because I was getting rather bored by Monsieur. Excellent fellow! we English owe him more than we can repay; we give him a change, no doubt, when he visits us, but small entertainment. We are too glum to

420

Glad to go Home.

be immediately ridiculous, and too expensive to permit economy. Monsieur begins to spend more, and laugh less, directly he crosses the Channel. One thing, however, we do for him : we whet the love of home; in that we mutually interchange good offices.

When I sat down in the great salle-à-manger at Belladogana for the last time, and for the last time the waiter skated up, and said, “X,” which I gratified him every day by understanding as an inquiry whether I would have eggs for breakfast-when, as I say, I sat there for the last time, and thought that the wheels of the diligence were probably being already greased, preparatory to its carrying me away at eleven o'clock, a.m., that very day, I was glad. I had seen the season begin and end; I had chatted with the early tourists, and bonvoyaged the late; I had seen them come pale and dapper, and go away sun-burned and travel-stained; I had watched the transition from a modest spirit of inexperience to one of insolent cynicism; and now they had all gone. The small Swiss inns were shut up, the big ones in the towns nearly empty. The bustling crowd had melted down to a few loiterers working their way homewards, or now and then a family passing into Italy for the winter,

The Close of Summer Touring.

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before the snow got too deep on the passes for Paterfamilias. There were but a few trickling drops in the channel of the great summertouring stream. My wife and I found ourselves alone on several occasions at the breakfast hour in the largest hotels, and took our meal in a corner of a huge apartment, like two mice in a barn. Most of the waiters, who were hired for the summer, had left; the small remnant read the papers openly in the salon, or smoked without rebuke at the door of the inn.

Our last resting-place was one of the large establishments in the Italian lake district. The low hills round Como and Maggiore were powdered with snow; the chestnuts were all beaten down and housed; the paths which in the height of summer were checkered with the shade of interlacing boughs, now rustled with withered leaves; the winter service of diligences, &c. was begun; guides had no one to follow them but the scenery of the lake district was far more lovely than in the fullblooded autumn, with its heat and dust.

It was very lovely, but we were glad to be gone; and the nearer we got to England the faster we went. It seemed as if the speed was accelerated as we approached the busiest

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Accelerated Speed.

metropolis of Europe. At first, we crunched slowly up the old familiar Alpine road, now white with snow, and hedged with icicles, the hoar-frost dusting our shaggy horses as we crossed the summit. The trot down the other side was followed by a passage in a lake steamer, whence, again, the pace was increased on a Swiss railway. A long express took us with more safety than swiftness to Paris, and a shorter one whisked us at very tolerable speed to our port of departure. Once at Dover, however, and seated in the carriage, we were reminded of English expedition by our tickets being immediately collected; and then, phit! the engine screamed, and we ran smack into London without a pause, the Sydenham Palace having apparently been moved to the entrance of the tunnel under Shakespeare's Cliff.

Perhaps the first sensation of surprise on a return to England, after even a few months' absence, is caused by the great proficiency in the English language exhibited by illiterate people. Railway guards, cabmen, and little rude streetboys converse in it without hesitation; it is most remarkable.

But let us to our retrospect-back again. Now that I have kicked the carpet-bag into a corner, and tasted the first returning sense of

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First Impressions on Return. possession, let me think what contrasts strike me with the freshest force.

Imprimis, London is the cleanest town I know; yes, in fog, mud, or thaw. Think of its smells-what are they? Have they any peculiar edge or striking variety? No doubt, in some hot summers, the Thames has produced a steady mass of odour; but, as a rule, the streets are scentless. As to the slums, as they are called, I visit them every day, but I never come across anything so keen and nasty as I do even in renovated Paris. As for

Rome, pheugh! ramble about a ruin, but hold your nose. As for Naples, is not the deep blue of the Mediterranean tinged-no, not tinged, but grossly dyed with sewerage in face of the town? Walk along the beach of that tideless sea, but do not attempt to sit down on it. As there is no smoke without fire, so the dirt of continental towns can be detected by most unmistakable symptoms. Mischievous dirt betrays itself. Nature did not give us noses merely to blow, or adorn a profile; they tell us what is bad to breathe and see; but in the most frequented parts of London they seldom convey a warning of the presence of dirt, because there is none. Simple mud is harmless enough; it is a witness of clouds and