CHAP. XXI.] THE &quot; EXECUTIVE MANSION.&quot; 19 



great hardships and privations, because, however 

 severe at the time, he knows they will soon end, and 

 prove momentary in their duration, in comparison 

 with the longer period which he hopes to spend in a 

 happier land. 



At our hotel apologies were made to us by a 

 neatly-dressed coloured maid, for the disorderly 

 state of our room, the two beds having been recently 

 occupied by four members of the Legislature, who, 

 according to her, &quot; had turned the room into a hog 

 pen, by smoking and spilling their brandy and wine 

 about the floor.&quot; 



While I was geologising in the suburbs, the Go 

 vernor s lady called on my wife and took her to her 

 residence, called here the &quot; Executive Mansion,&quot; as 

 appears by the inscription over the door. It con 

 tained some handsome reception-rooms newly fur 

 nished by the last Governor, but the white ground of 

 a beautiful Axminster carpet had been soiled and 

 much damaged the first evening after it was put 

 down, at a levee, attended by several hundred men, 

 each walking in after a heavy rain with his shoes 

 covered with mud. 



When the Governor s wife paid us a second visit, 

 our landlady made herself one of the party just as 

 if we were all visitors at her house. She was very 

 much amused at my wife s muiF, having never seen 

 one since she was a girl, half a century before, at Balti 

 more, yet the weather was now cold enough to make 

 such an article of dress most comfortable. Among 

 other inquiries, she said to my wife, &quot;Do tell me 

 how you make your soap in England.&quot; Great was 



