In a restaurant in Pennsylvania Avenue, where, in the midst of all these multifarious labours, we took refuge for a moment, to eat an oyster, there was lying on the table a dish of frogs' legs about the size of those of a chicken, neatly garnished with green leaves, beneath a block of ice. The Duke asked the attendant whether they were really good to eat. "I believe you!" he replies. "For myself I cannot bear poultry, but I can always eat those. And now look!" said he, "I will show you a curious thing. You would think that these legs have no life in them. But just watch." He took up a pinch of salt from a cellar near at hand and sprinkled it on the legs, which immediately were agitated with convulsive twitches, amounting in several instances to vigorous kicks. I felt as surprised as Galvani was when he touched the leg of the frog with his scalpel. Apropos of this _plat_ I may mention that subsequently we overcame our repugnance so far as to order a dish, and found it very excellent indeed, and whenever the delicacy was obtainable it became quite a usual portion of our more sumptuous entertainments. But for my part I considered it very like flavourless but tender chicken. Once, indeed, long ago, I had had an involuntary experience of the taste, for, walking one morning with a southern planter by the side of a shallow ditch bordering his sugar-cane field, I saw an enormous thing about the size of the top of a man's hat, struggling in the mud, upon which one of the black attendants precipitated himself, and seizing it, he mounted the bank with a frog the size of a good fowl in his hand. "What on earth is that for?" "Oh, it is most excellent eating," said my friend. "I would die of starvation," exclaimed I, "before I would touch a morsel of it." At lunch that day there was put upon the table a spatch-cock fowl, which my host asked me to try. "What do you think of it?" "It is excellent." "That," he said, "is a part of the frog you despised so much this morning." The Attorney-General, Mr. MacVeagh, assembled a party to meet the Duke at dinner; and our last night, which was passed at his hospitable mansion, was the pleasantest we had in Washington. FOOTNOTES: [5] It is under the impression of the sad event which has caused the world to take such a profound interest in the President's life that I transcribe the record of the moment. [6] General Burnside, I regret to see, died since our return to England. CHAPTER V. HARRISBURG--NEW YORK--BOSTON--CANADA. Departure from Washington -- Harper's Ferry -- The State Capital -- Rats on the Rampage -- Pennsylvania Farming.