JOURNEY. 



SOUTH AMERICA. 285 



being of an impertinent turn. He merely inter- 

 rogates 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 every thing 

 about it with great good humour, and in excel- 

 lent language. He has certainly hit upon the 

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

 of speaking 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 pro- 

 pensity ; 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 with- 

 out his pipe. During the short space of time 

 that corporal Trim was at the inn inquiring after 

 poor Lefevre's health, my uncle Toby had knocked 

 the ashes out of three pipes. " It was not till 

 my uncle Toby had knocked the ashes out of his 

 third pipe," &c. Now these times have luckily 

 gone by, and the custom of smoking amongst 

 genteel Englishmen has nearly died away with 

 them ; it is a foul custom ; it makes a foul mouth, 

 and a foul place where the smoker stands : how- 

 ever every nation has its whims. John Bull re- 

 lishes stinking venison ; a Frenchman depopulates 



