FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE 273 
pulously they were washed and how carefully 
put together. 
The one overwhelming fact of the first day 
abroad is the simple sensation that one zs 
abroad: a truth that can never be made any- 
thing but commonplace in the telling, or any- 
thing but wonderful in the fulfilling. What 
Emerson says of the landscape is true here: 
no particular foreign country is so remarkable 
as the necessity of being remarkable under 
which every foreign country lies. Horace Wal- 
pole found nothing in Europe so astonishing as 
Calais; and we felt that at every moment the 
first edge of novelty was being taken off for 
life, and that, if we were to continue our journey 
round the world, we never could have that first 
day’s sensations again. Yet because no one 
can spare time to describe it at the moment, 
this first day has never yet been described ; all 
books of travels begin on the second day; the 
photographic machine is not ready till the ex- 
pression has begun to fade out. Months had 
been spent in questioning our travelled friends, 
sheets of old correspondence had been disin- 
terred, sketches studied, Bullar’s unsatisfactory 
book read ; and now we were on the spot, and 
it seemed as if every line and letter must have 
been intended to describe some other place on 
the earth, and not this strange, picturesque, 
Portuguese, Semi-Moorish Fayal. 
