I may as well say at once what my after-experience taught
me--namely, that with all their faults and extraordinary obliquity of
mental vision upon many subjects, they are the very best-bred people that
I ever fell in with.
The village was just like the one we had left, only rather larger. The
streets were narrow and unpaved, but very fairly clean. The vine grew
outside many of the houses; and there were some with sign-boards, on
which was painted a bottle and a glass, that made me feel much at home.
Even on this ledge of human society there was a stunted growth of
shoplets, which had taken root and vegetated somehow, though as in an air
mercantile of the bleakest. It was here as hitherto: all things were
generically the same as in Europe, the differences being of species only;
and I was amused at seeing in a window some bottles with barley-sugar and
sweetmeats for children, as at home; but the barley-sugar was in plates,
not in twisted sticks, and was coloured blue. Glass was plentiful in the
better houses.
Lastly, I should say that the people were of a physical beauty which was
simply amazing. I never saw anything in the least comparable to them.
The women were vigorous, and had a most majestic gait, their heads being
set upon their shoulders with a grace beyond all power of expression.
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