AN OCTOBER ABROAD. 



such rural names among the streets as Long Acre, 

 Snowhill, Poultry, Bush-lane, Hill-road, Hounsditch, 

 etc., and not one grand street or imperial avenue. 



My visit fell at a most favorable juncture as to 

 weather, there being but few rainy days and but little 

 fog. I had imagined that they had barely enough fair 

 weather in London, at any season, to keep alive the 

 tradition of sunshine and of blue sky, but the October 

 days I spent there were not so very far behind what 

 we have at home at this season. London often puts 

 on a night-cap of smoke and fog, which it pulls down 

 over its ears pretty close at times, and the sun has a 

 habit of lying abed very late in the morning, which all 

 the people imitate ; but I remember some very pleas- 

 ant weather there, and some bright moonlight nights. 



I saw but one full-blown characteristic London fog. 

 I was in the National Gallery one day, trying to make 

 up my mind about Turner, when this chimney-pot me- 

 teor came down. It was like a great yellow 7 dog tak- 

 ing possession of the world. The light faded from 

 the room, the pictures ran together in confused masses 

 of shadow on the walls, and in the street only a dim 

 yellowish twilight prevailed, through which faintly 

 twinkled the lights in the shop windows. Vehicles 

 came slowly out of the dirty obscurity on one side and 

 plunged into it on the other. Waterloo Bridge gave 

 one or two leaps and, disappeared, and the Nelson 

 Column in Trafalgar Square was obliterated for half 

 its length. Travel was impeded, boats stopped on the 



