My good old friend was a little mortified, I believe; for he flattered himself that his English was without accent. Night fell while we were yet some distance from London, and still we rattled on at the same velocity, till our heavy friend in the corner thought fit to inform us that we were entering London. It did not seem to be an agreeable entrance at all; for the dark streets, lighted by very dim globe lamps shining through a fog, into which we seemed to plunge, had a somewhat forbidding aspect to the eye of a stranger, and the multitude of figures hurrying along on both sides of the way, now seen, now lost, as they came under the lamps, or passed the blazing shop-fronts, looked like phantoms of the dead pursued by some evil spirit. The noise too was intolerable; for vehicles were running in every direction, making an awful clatter as we clattered by them, while through the whole was heard a dull, everlasting grumble, as if the city suffered under one continual thunder-storm. At length, we dashed up to the door of an inn, and every one began to jump out or down, and to scramble for trunks or portmanteaus, as best he might. I cannot say that our first night’s residence in London was peculiarly agreeable; for besides being both heated and tired, stiff and cramped, we had the delight of being half-devoured by bugs till dawn of day. Poor Father Bonneville rose late, nearly as much fatigued with his night’s rest as with his day’s journey. But immediately after breakfast, we set out to seek for better accommodation. I proposed that we should go to one of the inns which had been mentioned; but he advised, strongly, that we should take a small lodging, adding—“London, when I recollect it, was the greatest place for lodgings in the world.” So we still found it; for in many streets as we walked along, we saw “Furnished lodgings to let,” written on a piece of paper, and stuck up in the window of almost every other house. Some of these we passed by, as likely to be too fine and expensive for our purposes. We looked at others, and were not satisfied. In one, dirt and smoke were too evident to both eye and nose. At another, the young ladies of the mansion appeared not such as we wished to dwell amongst. In other places, again, we were not fortunate enough to give satisfaction ourselves. One stout lady, to whom Father Bonneville addressed some inquiries, stuck her large, bare, blue arms akimbo, and said she would not let her lodgings “to foriners,” adding—in not a very indistinct tone—“They’se all on um so dirty.”