Lippincotts Magazine, August, 1885 | Page 9

me dreadfully with her European reminiscences. She is
always talking in a foolish, rapturous sort of way about 'dear Melrose,'
or 'noble Tintern Abbey,' or 'enchanting Warwick Castle;' and she has
read simply libraries of books about England, and puts me through a
sort of examination about dozens of places and events, as though I
could carry all England about in my head. I really know less of it than

of most other countries: there is nothing to be got by running about it.
If one knew every foot of it, everybody would think it a matter of
course; but to be able to talk of Siam and the Fiji Islands, Cambodia
and Alaska, and the like, is really an advantage in society. One gets the
name of being a great traveller, and all that, and is asked about
tremendously and taken up to a wonderful extent. I know a man that
didn't wish to go to the trouble and expense of rambling all over the
world, and wanted the reputation of having done it, so he went into
lodgings at intervals near the British Museum and got all the books that
were to be had about a particular country, and, having read them, would
come back to the West End and give out that he had been there. It
answered beautifully for a while, and he was by way of being asked to
become a Fellow of the Royal Geographical, and was thought quite an
authority and wonderfully clever; but somehow he got found out,
which must have been a nuisance and spoiled everything. I can see that
these people consider it quite an honor to have me visit them, all
because of my having been around the world, I dare say. And of course
I have let them see that I know who is who and what is what. They are
imploring me to stay on; but I told them yesterday that it wouldn't suit
my book at all to stay over two weeks longer, when I had seen all there
was to see. That young Ramsay seems to be enjoying himself out there
among those nasty savages; and, as hunting is about the only thing he is
fit for, he had best stay out there altogether."
The unwritten history of Mrs. Sykes's visit to Marbury Park would have
been more interesting than the account she gave. She took with her a
camp-chair, which she placed in any and every spot that suited her or
commanded the pictorial situations which she wished to make her own
permanently. To the horror and surprise of her friends, she plumped it
down immediately in front of Mr. Wickers (after marching past an
immense congregation), and, wholly unembarrassed by her
conspicuous position, settled herself comfortably, took out her block
and pencil, and proceeded to jot down that worthy's features line upon
line, as though he had been a newly-imported animal at the "Zoo" on
exhibition, paying no attention to the precept upon precept he was
trying to impress upon his audience.
She walked all over the place repeatedly, went poking and prying into
such tents as she chanced to find empty, nor considered this an

essential requisite to the conferring of this honor. When less sociably
inclined, she established herself outside, close at hand, and in this way
made those valuable observations and spirited drawings which
subsequently enriched her diary and delighted a discerning British
public. But this is anticipating. When she tired of New York, she wrote
to Sir Robert that she wished to give as much time as possible to the
Mormons, and would leave at once for Salt Lake City, where she would
busy herself in laying bare the domestic system as it really existed, and
hold herself in readiness to join the party again when they should arrive
there en route to the Yosemite.
Sir Robert, being an heroic creature, felt that he could bear this
temporary separation with fortitude, and, being about to start for
Boston when he got the news, forthwith threw himself upon the New
England States in a frenzied search for all the information to be had
about them,--their exact geographical position, by whom discovered,
when settled, climate, productions, population, principal towns and
rivers. He studied three maps of the region as he rattled along in the
south-bound train, and devoted the rest of the time to getting an outline
of its history: so that his nephew found him but an indifferent
companion.
"I suppose there are authorized maps and charts, geographical,
hydrographical, and topographical, issued by the government, and to be
seen at the libraries. I must get a look at them at once. These are
amateur productions, the work of irresponsible men, contradicting each
other in important particulars as to the relative positions of