CHAPTER VI.
HOMEWARD BOUND.
After taking a view of the wonders and surroundings of London we spent a month in Paris.

Fifty years ago there was a greater difference in the general appearance of things between France and England than now.

That countries only a few hours' journey apart should differ so widely was to us a great surprise.

How changed the sights and sounds! Here was the old diligence, lumbering along with its various compartments and its indefinite number of horses, harnessed with rope and leather, sometimes two, sometimes three abreast, and sometimes one in advance, with an outrider belaboring the poor beasts without cessation, and the driver yelling and cracking his whip.

The uproar, confusion, and squabbles at every stopping place are overwhelming; the upper classes, men and women alike, rushing into each other's arms, embrace and kiss, while drivers and hostlers on the slightest provocation hurl at each other all the denunciatory adjectives in the language, and with such vehemence that you expect every moment to see a deadly conflict.