A CALL ON HUMBOLDT 179 
The same guard goes throughout dressed in a magnificent 
silver-lace uniform, covered with a blue blouse. Altogether 
he was an ill-conditioned dog, and fitted his garments like 
a hog in armour. The drag is curious, being a sort of com- 
pressor, worked by this guard who sits in this Phaeton with 
me and others, turning a thing hke a coffee-mill handle, 
which produces a pressure on the axle of one wheel, aiding 
the diligence in turning and taking the pressure off the 
horses in descent. 
By dark they reached Eouen ; thence by rail to Paris ; 
' 100 miles for 16 francs, 14 stoppages, 4 hours in passage, 
3 tunnels, one 3 miles long.' 
Thanks to Baron Delessert, a wealthy amateur, to whose 
collection alone Sir William's took second place, he was able 
to move from his first hotel, where ' last night I had some of 
my Erehus friends in bed,' for clean rooms at the Hotel de 
Londres in the Eue des Petits Augustins, ' but and ben with 
Baron Humboldt.' One or two impressions of Paris in 1845 
may be quoted from a letter to his mother (February 2). 
My way led through the Champs Elysees, which are 
very dirty indeed, and I soon got terribly splashed with 
mud. I do not think these town avenues at all in good 
keeping ; they are half rural and that is all ; the broad 
flagged pavements and macadamised roads, covered with 
carts and coaches, do not suit the noble trees at all, so that 
I could not in any way compare the Champs Elysees with 
the avenue at Bushej^ Park or at Inverary— the trees look 
much more to advantage in our parks, where we have not 
rows of shops at their backs and restaurateurs under their 
shade. [Apart from the individual beauties of such build- 
ings as the Louvre] there is here nothing so good as Regent 
Street, though a little bit of the rue Eivoli and the rue 
Royale are better than any equal portion taken out of that 
London thoroughfare. [Going to the rue St. Honore to 
call upon Lord Howden] the street is very narrow, so 
that two can scarcely walk abreast upon the pavement, 
and the stoppages of carriages and carts are ten times 
worse and more numerous than (in the) Strand at Temple 
Bar. 
