Page:Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home (Volume 1).djvu/141

138 beautiful cows, white with brown spots, that, cow-fancier as you are, would enchant you. They rival your Victoria and her mother the duchess.

We passed villages at abort intervals, not bearing the smallest resemblance to a New-England village, for there is nothing that bears the name in Europe so beautiful. I may say this without presumption after having seen the English villages. The village here is usually one long street of small, mean houses built contiguously. At almost every house there is something exposed to sell. The tenants are all out of door—the "seven ages" of man—and at least half are smoking. We saw girls not more than six years old with their faces; and they smoke on to old age, apparently cheerful and healthy. Yet we hold tobacco to be a poison; perhaps the out-of-door life is the antidote. We have passed pretty villas to-day, end substantial farm-houses with capital barns and offices, all indicating rural plenty.

With the threats of beggars in our guide-book, we have been surprised at our general exemption; but to-day we have seen enough of them, and a sight it is quite as novel to our New-World eyes as a cathedral or a—police-man. They have followed us in troops, and started out from their little lairs planted along the road, blind old men and old crones on crutches. As we begin the ascension of the hills we hear slender young voices, almost overpowered by the rattling of the wheels on the paved road; by degrees they multiply and grow louder, and before we reach the summit they