people,[7] for which purpose a provision is made by government. Thus: a grant of land is given, the revenue of which being estimated, the population of the State are taxed to precisely the same amount; thus furnishing, between the government and the people, an equal sum for the education of all classes.[8] I do nothing but look out of window all the blessed day long: I did not think in my old age to acquire so Jezebel a trick; but the park (as they entitle the green opposite our windows) is so very pretty, and the streets so gay, with their throngs of smartly-dressed women, and so amusing with their abundant proportion of black and white caricatures, that I find my window the most entertaining station in the world. Read Salmonia: the natural-history part of it is curious and interesting; but the local descriptions are beyond measure tantalising; and the "bites," five thousand times more so. Our ship-mate, Mr. ----, called: I was glad to see him. Poor man! how we did _reel_ him off his legs to be sure,--what fun it was! My father dined out: D---- and I dined _tête-à-tête_. Poor D---- has not been well to-day: she is dreadfully bitten by the musquitoes, which, I thank their discrimination, have a thorough contempt for me, and have not come near me: the only things that bother me are little black ants, which I find in my wash-hand basin, and running about in all directions. I think the quantity of fruit brings them into the houses. After dinner, sat looking at the blacks parading up and down; most of them in the height of the fashion, with every colour in the rainbow about them. Several of the black women I saw pass had very fine figures (the women here appear to me to be remarkably small, my own being, I should think, the average height); but the contrast of a bright blue or pink crape bonnet, with the black face, white teeth, and glaring blue whites of the eyes, is beyond description grotesque. The carriages here are all, to my taste, very ugly; hung very high from the ground, and of all manner of ungainly old-fashioned shapes. Now this is where, I think, the Americans are to be quarrelled with: they are beginning at a time when all other nations are arrived at the highest point of perfection, in all matters conducive to the comfort and elegance of life: they go into these countries; into France, into our own dear little snuggery, from whence they might bring models of whatever was most excellent, and give them to their own manufacturers, to imitate or improve upon. When I see these awkward uncomfortable vehicles swinging through the streets, and think of the beauty, the comfort, the strength, and lightness of our English-built carriages and cabs, I am much surprised at the want of emulation and enterprise, which can be satisfied with inferiority, when equality, if not superiority, would be so easy.[9] At seven o'clock, D---- and I walked out together. The evening was very beautiful, and we walked as far as Canal Street and back.