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The Old Kaiser at Historical Window, 71 Louis II, the Mad King of Bavaria, 90 Queen Louise, 126 The Historic Windmill, 131 The Old Lion, Lucerne, 147 The Old Lion at the Arsenal, Venice, 192 Lord Byron’s Palace, Venice, 196 Pantheon, Rome, 242 Strada dei Sepolcri (Street of Tombs), Pompeii, 248 Quirinal, Rome, 259 Naples, General View, 281 Peasant Cart, Palermo, 283 Interior of Museum, Palermo, 285 Archimedes, 288 Head of Medusa, Palermo, 290

LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

HERE to begin? That is the question. The ideas, thoughts, feelings, come, not in battalions, but like the hosts of Alexander, or our own, in “the late unpleasantness,” or like the bubbles in the foam on the crests of the waves “a moment here, then gone forever.” I am wishing for the arms of Briareus, with their hundred hands, to help catch and fix them on the page. Such a trip! The Atlantic was never known to exhibit such a peculiar turbulence of waves and water generally. The steamer Adriatic (in which we sailed April 6th) kept up such a lurching and pitching as I never had an idea of before. One day it was impossible for me to keep my feet, and after trying in vain to dress in the morning, I retired to my berth. But it was as much as the sailors could do to keep their feet, and three were badly hurt. How my friends would have laughed, could they have seen my frantic struggles to accomplish a toilette. The two “steamer trunks” and our hand satchels were chasing each other all around me, and knocking wildly from one side to the other, and I in the midst, shooting and slipping, clutching and grabbing, wildly, frantically, at doors, berth and washstand. But I was so glad not to be seasick, I didn’t mind anything else much.

One spectacle of this turbulence in the “r-r-r-rolling forties,” as the chambermaid called our bearing (I wish I could give that whirr of her r s), was of peculiar and extraordinary sublimity and uniqueness. It kept me at my porthole for I know not how long. The steamer was sweeping right along in an immense hollow, or crater as it were, in the ocean, and in which was comparative calm. Afar off the water rose in encircling ranges of vast mountains—“Alps upon Alps”—capped with white foam. From these snowy cones, like the eruptions of volcanoes, burst forth in swift succession great columns of the seething mass that shot upward apparently to the very heavens and exploded.

I did not know at the time that this was unusual, but in speaking of it afterwards found it had not been observed by the other passengers—all or the most of whom were seasick—nor have I since met with any traveler who had ever seen it; nor read any description of it.

We had a lovely Easter Sunday on the broad Atlantic. The captain presented me with two Easter eggs prepared expressly for me as a testimonial of my good seamanship. I was never seasick. The device was a white star and the name of the steamer—Adriatic. I was the only lady thus honored. We had a pleasant company: R. H. Dana and his wife (a daughter of Longfellow), two charming ladies, relatives of Longfellow, a Unitarian minister and his young sister, all from Boston; and a Mrs. Blake, from Canada. These were the parties we saw the most of, except Mrs. Dana, who was not well. Mr. Dana was one of the most attractive and interesting persons I ever met, the kind that has the effect of a flash of sunlight coming into a room. One of the ladies was a Unitarian, and that brought us together. The minister was going to attend a Unitarian conference of the English Unitarian Church, which met at Liverpool, April 18th. She and I constituted ourselves delegates at large, and decided to attend. We landed Sunday, the 16th, remained till afternoon, attending church at an old cathedral of some note; then lunching at the Northwestern Hotel, and away we came to Chester.

How much do you know about Chester? I’ll take for granted all its history. The “old cathedral city” and the “old walled city” is the way the guide-books speak of it. I walked its two miles of wall, well-preserved, picturesque, and commanding lovely views. I mounted one of the towers on it, called King Charles the First’s, because from it he watched the fatal progress of the battle of Rowton Moor. I looked out of the very queer little windows from which he watched. The old woman who shows it is as bright and keen of tongue, if not as incisive, as Mrs. Poyser. She said she liked Americans,