place, and no sign of his having died of starvation, for a piece of biscuit was found in his pocket. He was supposed to have died of terror, the terrible darkness working upon the nervous system, and the hopelessness of penetrating it making the minutes appear hours. A guide, who had once been lost there himself for some twenty hours, said he never could believe that he had not been there for several days.

NE of the principal fallacies of which a stranger has to disabuse his mind is that "superior accommodation," under any circumstances, is obtainable in America; though it be promised to him, in every shape and form, by public advertisement and private information. It is one favourite practice of the Americans to recommend a stranger to "the best hotel in the place, where you will get superior accommodation." They consider, then, that they have conferred an obligation which you would find it difficult to repay on the other side of the Atlantic. All the hotels advertise

superior accommodation," and the railways assert that you will find it in their cars; even the stages have the audacity to put "superior accommodation" on their way-bills, and invite you to travel forty miles, in a broiling sun or deluging rain, upon a tea-tray on wheels (but not

japanned), with a rail across it for a seat. is their idea of "accommodation."

This

"We shall be burnt to cinders," I remarked to the "coloured gentleman" in charge of the vehicle, termed by courtesy "a stage." The thermometer marked 110°.

"I'll accommodate you with an umbrella," he replied.

"And pray who is to hold it for forty miles?" I asked. He shook his head.

"It is the only accommodation we can offer you."

Needless to say, we declined, in this instance, the "superior accommodation," and were able, subsequently, to find water-transit, always a far more agreeable mode of travelling in America than by stage. For anywhere except on board the steamer, "accommodation" is a word less understood than any other in "Johnson."

In the hotels you are sometimes accommodated with a bell in your room; sometimes the chambermaid accommodates you with towels, water, or a drinking-glass, and sometimes she does not. Then you have to accommodate yourself to circumstances, by going in search of them through a quarter of a mile of passages. Sometimes the cockroaches accommodate themselves by running over your bed and investigating whatever you may have, in cup or glass,

on the table, and sometimes a thousand ants will carry off bodily a lump of sugar. In hot climates you are accommodated with a musquitonet, to shield you from the voracity of the musquitoes; but it is usually so full of rents and tears that, if nature has accommodated you with a thin skin, a bed of nettles would be "superior accommodation" to half a dozen to half a dozen musquitoes inside the net. If, by perseverance and labour, you can get all the holes sewn up, you may contrive to sleep if you are not fastidious.

The mattress is usually made of corn-shucks, bearing a close affinity to straw; and an ear sometimes left in the mattress, has all the effect of the thick end of a poker. If you chance to arrive after supper, having probably travelled all day, you are accommodated by having your name registered on the books of the hotel, paying for your supper, and going to bed without it, which-so doctors say-is good for the digestion. On the other hand, if after travelling all night you arrive at five o'clock in the morning— a very frequent case-and throwing yourself on the bed, sleep heavily till nine or ten, the chambermaid accommodates you with the information that breakfast is over, and you can't be accommodated with anything to eat until dinner-time, although you see by one of the rules behind your door, that " visitors must pay

for their meals whether they take them or

not.

The hotel-keeper is generally the most unaccommodating of individuals. American men usually are civil and obliging, but in the capacity of hotel-keeper, and apart from his private character—which, no doubt, is amiable-he casts off all courtesy, all responsibility for the safety of visitors' property. One of the accommodations, therefore, which naturally follow is the being relieved of any stray property-as knives, pencil-cases, gloves, boots and umbrellas. A lamentable case occurred at an hotel where we stopped, of a gentleman being reduced to one suit of clothes, and even that finally disappeared in the night; so that the next morning he could neither come out of his room nor let anybody in. The dilemma was a serious one, for he was very stout and the few other gentlemen in the house were very thin. Every effort was therefore made to recover the missing garments, which were discovered the following day hanging on a tree; but his watch and chain were not hanging with them.

On another occasion my friend, the Marquise de T., lost the watch she had left under her pillow a quarter of an hour before. It had a magnificent antique seal attached, which had belonged to the great Talleyrand. It was per