Page:A French Volunteer of the War of Independence.djvu/227

Rh recognized with more or less pleasure (according to whether they reminded me of victories or defeats) the different positions which our army had successively occupied.

My surprise equalled my curiosity when I entered New York. I admired,—from within this time,—this handsome city, which had then but 25,000 inhabitants (it numbers 120,000 to-day), and the beautiful neighbouring island called Long Island. I was enchanted with all I saw, the elegance and cleanliness of the houses joined to the beauties of virgin nature; then the width and extent of the water ways, which are almost seas; the giant trees which form the primaeval forests of the New World; in fact all which is not the work of men's hands is so surprising on account of its imposing and gigantic proportions, that when I returned to Europe I seemed to be in another world—the Continent appeared to me like a pretty miniature reduced from a large picture by means of a pantograph.

I was glad to meet some of my old