“This Dog, Sire, is constantly affording the most astounding proofs of his intelligence. It will therefore hardly surprise you, to learn that he belongs to a celebrated administration, situated in the Rue de Jerusalem, devoted to the guidance of strangers in France. [Illustration] “He led us, as I have just said, to the Boulevard des Italiens, where, as indeed all over this large town, Nature’s share is very small. There are trees, but such trees. Instead of pure air, smoke; instead of rain, dust; so that the leaves are bronzed, and the trees are mere sticks, supporting a tuft like the crown of leaves on the brows of the bronze heroes of France. There is nothing grand in Paris; everything is small, and the cooking is execrable! I entered a café for breakfast, and {182} asked for a horse, but the waiter seemed so astonished that we profited by his surprise, took him round the corner and devoured him. The Dog cautioned us not to make this a rule, as it might be {183} misunderstood. He nevertheless accepted a bone which he polished with manifest joy. “Our guide rather likes talking politics, and his conversation is not without its fruit. I have picked up wonderful scraps of knowledge from him. On my return to Leona no tumult shall disturb me, as I have discovered the best mode of governing the world. The chief in Paris does not rule; the business of governing and collecting the revenue is entrusted to a body of senators. Some of whom are descended from sheep, foxes, and donkeys, but the title of statesmen has made them lions. When any important question has to be settled, they all speak in turn, without paying the slightest attention to the views of their predecessors. One discusses the Eastern question, after some member who has exhausted himself on the subject of cod-fishing. When they have all done talking, it is not unfrequently discovered that the wise ones have carried through some important measure, while the donkeys have been braying to their heart’s content. “I noticed a sculpture in the palace, wherein you were represented struggling with the revolutionary serpent, a work infinitely superior to any of the statues of men by which it was surrounded. Many of these poor devils are represented with long dinner-napkins over their left arms, just like waiters; others, with pots on their heads. Such a contrast proves our superiority over men, whose imagination delights in building stones one upon the other, and cutting on their surface the finest flowers and forms of Nature. “My Dog informed me that he would take us to a place where we would behold lions, lynxes, panthers, and Paris birds of night. “ ‘Why,’ I inquired, ‘does a lynx live in such a country?’