188 WINTER SUNSHINE 



soldiers from the specimens I saw. Small, spirit- 

 less, inferior-looking men all of them. They were 

 like Number Three mackerel or the last run of shad, 

 as doubtless they were, — the last pickings and re- 

 siftings of the population. 



I don't know how far it may be a national cus- 

 tom, but I observed that the women of the humbler 

 classes, in meeting or parting with friends at the 

 stations, saluted each other on both cheeks, never 

 upon the mouth, as our dear creatures do, and I 

 commended their good taste, though I certainly ap- 

 prove the American custom, too. 



Among the male population I was struck with 

 the frequent recurrence of the Louis Napoleon type 

 of face. "Has this man," I said, "succeeded in im- 

 pressing himself even upon the physiognomy of the 

 people ? Has he taken such a hold of their imagi- 

 nations that they have grown to look like him 1 " 

 The guard that took our train down to Paris might 

 easily play the double to the ex-emperor; and many 

 times in Paris and among different classes I saw the 

 same countenance. 



Coming from England, the traveling seems very 

 slow in this part of France, taking eight or nine 

 hours to go from Dieppe to Paris, with an hour's 

 delay at Kouen. The valley of the Seine, which 

 the road follows or skirts more than half the way, 

 is very winding, with immense flats or plains shut 

 in by a wall of steep, uniform hills, and, in the 

 progress of the journey, is from time to time laid 

 open to the traveler in a way that is full of novelty 



