WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 307 



information, a desire to reap benefit from an acquaintance 

 with our distant fellow-creatures, are the general induce- 

 ments for a man to leave his own fire-side. This ought 

 never to be forgotten ; and then the traveller will journey 

 on under the persuasion that it rather becomes him to 

 court than expect to be courted, as his own interest is the 

 chief object of his travels. With this in view, he will 

 always render himself pleasant to the natives ; and they 

 are sure to repay his little acts of courtesy with ample 

 interest, and with a fund of information which will be of 

 great service to him. 



While in the United States, I found our western brother 

 a very pleasant fellow ; but his portrait has been drawn in 

 such different shades, by different travellers who have been 

 through his territory, that it requires a personal interview 

 before a correct idea can be formed of his true colours. He 

 is very inquisitive ; but it is quite wrong on that account 

 to tax him with being of an impertinent turn. He merely 

 interrogates you for information ; and when you have 

 satisfied him on that score, only ask him in your turn for 

 an account of what is going on in his own country, and he 

 will tell you everything about it with great good humour, 

 and in excellent language. He has certainly hit upon the 

 way (but I could not make out by what means) of speak- 

 ing a much purer English language than that which is in 

 general spoken on the parent soil. This astonished me 

 much ; but it is really the case. Amongst his many good 

 qualities, he has one unenviable, and, I may add, a bad 

 propensity : he is immoderately fond of smoking. He may 

 say, that he learned it from his nurse, with whom it was 

 once much in vogue. In Dutch William's time (he was a 

 man of bad taste), the English gentleman could not do 

 without his pipe. During the short space of time that 

 corporal Trim was at the inn inquiring after poor Lefevre's 



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