A FREE AND EASY BRITOX. 451 



SO detained in the northern seas. The Esquimaux of 

 the coast, he said, were not at all dangerous ; Franklin 

 was well supplied with provisions, and would probably 

 yet return to give an account of his voyage. Indeed 

 the report that the Esquimaux Indians ^had said that 

 some vessels had long been frozen fast in the ice, away 

 off to the north, seemed to be fully confirmed. 



" He praised the United States for its generous initia- 

 tive in matters of science, and said that the expedition 

 to Chili, for scientific purposes, would not have been 

 undertaken by any country in Europe. He had on the 

 desk near him a letter, which he had apparently been 

 reading when we came in. His eyes falling on it, he 

 asked, ' Do either of you know a Lord K., who is now 

 travelling on the continent ?' On the reply that we had 

 not the honour of his lordship's acquaintance, and indeed 

 had never heard of him, he said that he had just received 

 the most extraordinary letter from him. ' He writes me 

 from Dresden that he will shortlv be in Berlin, and will 

 be most happy to make my acquaintance, and that I must 

 certainly dine with him and a few friends at two o'clock 

 on the 3d, at the British Hotel. He expects an old man 

 like me to come from Potsdam in the middle of winter 

 to dine with a lord whom I know nothing about. This 

 is one of the antics of an eccentric class.' He then went 

 on in some gay and delicately -humoured remarks on the 

 eccentricity of Englishmen, which, if I could put them 

 on paper as he uttered them, would be read with great 

 relish by the lovers of true wit, and by none more than 

 the Enoflish themselves. Thev reminded me of the 

 lively sallies of the Parisian wit, Philarete Chasles. One 

 of us told him that Captain Stone had left for Egypt and 



