WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 299 



There is a pleasing frankness, and ease and becoming 

 dio-nity, in the American ladies ; and the good humour, 

 and absence of all haughtiness and puppyism in the 

 gentlemen, must, no doubt, impress the traveller with 

 elevated notions of the company who visit this famous 

 spa. 



During my stay here, all was joy, and affability, and 

 mirth. In the mornings the ladies played and sang 

 for us ; and the evenings were generally enlivened with 

 the merry dance. Here I bade farewell to the charm- 

 ing family, in whose company I had passed so many 

 happy days, and proceeded to Albany. 



The stage stopped a little while in the town of Troy. 

 The name alone was quite sufficient to recall to the mind 

 scenes long past and gone. Poor king Priam ! Napoleon's 

 sorrows, sad and piercing as they were, did not come 

 up to those of this ill-fated monarch. The Greeks first 

 set his town on fire, and then began to bully : — 



"Incensa Danai dominantiir in urbe." 



One of his sons was slain before his face ; " ante ora 

 parentum, concidit." Another was crushed to mummy 

 by boa-constrictors ; " immeusis orbibus angues." His 

 city was rased to the ground, "jacet Ilion ingens." And 

 Pyrrhus ran him through with his sword, " capulo tenus 

 abdidit ensem." This last may be considered as a for- 

 tunate stroke for the poor old king. Had his life been 

 spared at this juncture he could not have lived long. 

 He must have died broken-hearted. He would have seen 

 his son-in-law, once master of a noble stud, now, for want 

 of a horse, obliged to carry off his father, up hill, on 

 his own back, " cessi et sublato, montem genitore petivi." 

 He would have heard of his grandson being thrown 

 neck and heels from a high tower, " mittitur Astyanax 



