United States or Guinea-Bissau ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It was quite calm and pleasant when we entered the harbor of Marseilles, which lies at the foot of very fair hills, and is set among great cliffs of stone. I did not attend much to this, however, being in dread of the difficulty of landing and passing through the custom-house with our twelve or fourteen trunks and numberless carpet-bags.
The warning came too late; a rope handle of one of the carpet-bags broke. The swollen budget struck the unyielding ground and burst like a squash.
The pipe- master had, therefore, ordered the coachman; and the field-marshal's carriage, drawn by four black horses, had just come to the door. Blucher was still in his room, but all his preparations were completed. On the table lay two letters one addressed to the king, the other to General Gneisenau; the carpet-bags had already been conveyed into the carriage, together with his pipe-box.
About mid-day we came, wet, and weary, and cold, to the Duana on the Tuscan frontier, where was a poor inn, at which, after our passports had been viséed, and our trunks and carpet-bags plumbed, we dined. There were some twenty of us at table; a priest taking the top, and the conducteur the bottom.
I pray thee that within thy heart The lesson that 'Police Court' teaches thee, That other Jones' rob hen-roosts, and take part In many a rousing fight and drunken spree, May have its influence; and that thou wilt start And have thy name changed, quickly as may be. Who has not had his attention called to the small, black carpet-bags which so greatly prevail in this very traveling community?
And now ensued the usual turmoil of landing waiters running twenty ways at once men tugging trunks, carpet-bags, boxes women anxiously calling to their children, and everybody crowding in a dense mass to the plank towards the landing.
Barrels of flour are being rolled into the boat, and sheep and cattle are led off men hurry on board with trunks and carpet-bags and women, with children in their arms or led by the hand, hasten on board; while our passengers, descending to the wharf, are shaking hands with merchants and farmers, and talking over the current prices of grain and merchandise at their respective towns.
Our pace was commonly very slow, for the baggage-horses served us for a drag, and kept us to a rate of little more than five miles in the hour, but now and then, and chiefly at night, a spirit of movement would suddenly animate the whole party; the baggage-horses would be teased into a gallop, and when once this was done, there would be such a banging of portmanteaus, and such convulsions of carpet-bags upon their panting sides, and the Suridgees would follow them up with such a hurricane of blows, and screams, and curses, that stopping or relaxing was scarcely possible; then the rest of us would put our horses into a gallop, and so all shouting cheerily, would hunt, and drive the sumpter beasts like a flock of goats, up hill and down dale, right on to the end of their journey.
Jump up, then; be lively! what luggage have you?" "Two carpet-bags, with J. J., Great Coram Street, upon them." "There, then we'll put them in the front boot, and you'll have them under you. All right behind? Sit tight!" Hist! off we go by St. Mertain's Church into the Strand, to the booking-office there.
Word Of The Day