Being hatched in England, I had thought your valleys and streams matchless in beauty; and for anything I know to the contrary they certainly are; but I am now a traveller, and have a traveller's privilege to say what I like. When we reached the great water I was astonished at its width, but more still to see many travelling houses going at a prodigious rate, and sending forth from iron chimneys columns of black smoke over the face of the water, reaching further than you ever flew in your life; they have a contrivance on each side which puts the waves all in commotion, but they are not wings. My mother says that in old times, when swallows came to England, there were no such things to be seen. We crossed this water, and a fine sunny country beyond it, until I was tired, and we
now found flies more abundant, though the oldest amongst us assure me that we must travel further still, over
another wide water, into a country where men's faces are of the same colour as my feathers, black and tawny; but travellers see strange things. When I come to England again I will endeavour to find out your village.[5] I hope, for your sake, you may have a mild winter and good lodgings. This is all the news worth sending, and I must catch flies for myself now, you know.
So farewell,
LETTER XVI.
ON HEARING THE CUCKOO AT MIDNIGHT, MAY 1st. 1822.