HOOPED DRESSES. 407 



walk. The first things, of course, that attracted our 

 attention, were the hoops in female dresses ; we had 

 heard marvellous stories of the rotundity of a fashion- 

 ably dressed lady, but had never seen one. One of 

 my informants having told me six months before, 

 whilst we were cruising off the Island of Madagascar, 

 that it w^as not unusual for a lady to wear hoops 

 thirty feet in circumference. In the occupation of 

 mind attendant upon getting ashore, I had totally 

 forgotten the existence of hoops, but was astonished 

 at the corpulence of every w^oman I met, and I 

 thought, no, I won't tell you what I thought; but 

 you must imagine yourself in the same position, and 

 then what would you think ? As yet I had not passed 

 close to a lady with hoops, but in turning the 

 corner of a street I came in contact with one, and in 

 my endeavors to escape from my embarrassing 

 position, I made no allowance for the rolling motion 

 acquired aboard ship, and only made matters w^orse. 

 In a few minutes, however, I managed to get clear, 

 though not without getting into the lady's arms, or 

 she in mine, I do not now remember which; daring 

 said contact I was convinced that the large size of 

 the ladies was a work of art and not of nature. 

 This called my wandering memory back to the de- 

 scriptions of hoops that I had heard, and henceforth 

 the solution of the mystery was easy. 



Having made such a poor attempt on my first 

 promenade, I returned to the house, situated on 

 Union Street (I preferred a private house to a hotel), 

 where also were several other of my shipmates; and 

 in talking of old times we whiled away the hours, nor 

 thought them irksome. When evening came and 



