NO matter however early in the morning we contrived to get up, our fellow-travellers were sure to be away on their journey long before us, and with so little sound of preparation as scarcely to disturb our repose. This morning the yard was quite untenanted when four o'clock found us getting ready to depart, and rather ashamed at being the last to leave, we were more so when six o'clock saw us only moving through the gateway: this was partly owing to the sulkiness of the carman, who was in a shocking bad temper because he had prematurely insisted upon, but did not obtain, the second half of the contract-hire agreed to be paid to him on reaching our journey's end, and partly to the rebellious dispositions of the two mules, who behaved themselves so badly when being harnessed and put in the traces, that the cross-grained driver was nearly worried out of his senses.

Not many miles after leaving this village with the unpronounceably long name, we came to another one, that had been erected with taste and a view to durability, as well as with a strong leaning to the curious and fanciful — for every house and garden wall was strongly built of cream-coloured granite, in which the feldspar was nearly, if not altogether absent, and the larger pieces of which, disposed to face the outer courses, were covered with beautifully distinct arborescent markings of black oxide of manganese delineated exactly like a fossil plant.