ped up by a stick. Through this window you entered the room ordina-
rily, as it was easier thus than finding your way up or down by the -
gular staircase. The landlord was a fat, dirty man with low shoes,
civil withal, and obliging, in his way. There was a great crowd of people
lived, or took their meals here. The town was commonplace enough,
ranking perhaps a little under Florence or Tuscumbria. The time passed
drearily, (Kellam and I drank some atrocious liquor miscalled ale, at at
distant store once � tobacco water and bad vinagar,) smoked bad cigars,
and to bed; finding the occupant of one already in it.
19 18. Wednesday. Now as the door of our toom wouldn�t close except
by moving a bed post against it, that is precisely what Maurice Keene
and Keene Richards had done. So, when some drowsy, boosy, nameless
functionary, (probably a �clerk,�) came to rout out the stranger for
a midnight stage, he could�nt open it, at first. �I wan-t Smith!�
said he, and Smith waking; by the flaring tallow candle, began to dress
hurriedly. Another friend joined �em, and the boosy clerk having let
his short, blackening pipe out, ignited it at the candle; his execrable
tobacco reek, (if indeed tobacco could smell so vilely,) curling over the
heads of Richards & Keene. It was about 2 in the morning! After
a little sociable talk, the three went down stairs. We laughed awhile
then slept. In the morning, I & Maurice Keene rode on ahead,
Richards staying about telegraphing. Yellow sand below, blistering heat
above, and wide forest land on either side; tall trees, but little under-
growth. By I, we pausing in a ravine ate some wretched scraps, our
Pontotocian host had collected from the remnants of breakfast, (I saw
him at it;) and here Keene Richards and Kellam joined us. On,
wearily, all the afternoon. Into and through a little village at sunset,
and put up at a man with a Welsh name; I think Llewellyn. He
gave us a good supper, but was a politician, and made Maurice read a
