FOOTNOTES:
I had had the good fortune to pick up an agreeable companion on board the "Isabel"—the brother of one of our most distinguished members of the House of Commons—who, like myself, had been visiting Cuba, and was hastening to Washington, to be present at the inauguration of the President Elect, and with him I spent many very pleasant days.
CHAPTER XIV.
Philadelphia and Richmond.
Having spent a very pleasant time at Baltimore, I took rail for Philadelphia, the city of "loving brotherhood," being provided with letters to several most amiable families in that town. I took up my abode at Parkinson's—a restaurant in Chestnut-street—where I found the people very civil and the house very clean; but I saw little of the inside of the house, except at bed and breakfast time. The hospitality for which this city is proverbial soon made me as much at home as if I had been a resident there all my life. Dinner-party upon dinner-party succeeded each other like waves of the ocean; the tables groaned under precious vintages of Madeira, dating back all but to the Flood. I have never before or since tasted such delicious wine, and in such profusion, and everybody stuck to it with such leech-like tenacity. On one occasion, having sat down to dinner at two o'clock, I found myself getting up from table half an hour after midnight, and quite as fresh as when I had sat down. There was no possibility of leaving the hospitable old General's mahogany.[[AD]] One kind friend, Mr. C.H. Fisher, insisted that I must make his house my hotel, either he or his wife were always at dinner at four o'clock, and my cover was always laid. The society of his amiable lady and himself made it too tempting an offer to refuse, and I need scarcely say, it added much to the pleasure of my stay in Philadelphia. The same kind friend had also a seat for me always in his box at the opera, where that most charming and lady-like of actresses, the Countess Rossi,[[AE]] with her sweet voice, was gushing forth soft melody to crammed houses. On every side I met nothing but kindness. Happening one day at dinner to mention incidentally, that I thought the butter unworthy of the reputation of Philadelphia—for it professes to stand pre-eminent in dairy produce—two ladies present exclaimed, "Well!" and accompanied the expression by a look of active benevolence. The next morning, as I was sitting down to breakfast, a plate arrived from each of the rivals in kindness; the dew of the morning was on the green leaf, and underneath, such butter as my mouth waters at the remembrance of, and thus it continued during my whole stay. The club doors, with all its conveniences—and to a solitary stranger they are very great—were thrown open to me: in short, my friends left me nothing to wish, except that my time had permitted me a longer enjoyment of their hospitalities.
The streets of Philadelphia, which run north and south from the Schuylkill to the Delaware, are named after the trees, a row whereof grow on each side; but whether from a poetic spirit, or to aid the memory, some of the names are changed, that the following couplet, embracing the eight principal ones, may form a handy guide to the stranger or the resident:—
"Chestnut, walnut, spruce, and pine,