We began the march in good spirits, and by twelve we had handsomely done our four miles and a half. Of course we passed the different _barrieres_, and the gate of Pere Lachaise. The captain commenced with great vigour, and for near two hours, as he expressed himself, he had me a little on his lee quarter; not more, however, he thought, than was due to his superior rank, for he had once been my senior as a midshipman. At the Barriere du Trone we were compelled to diverge a little from the wall, in order to get across the river by the Pont d'Austerlitz. By this time I had ranged up abeam of the commodore, and I proposed that we should follow the river up as far as the wall again, in order to do our work honestly; but to this he objected that he had no wish to puzzle himself with spherical trigonometry; that plane sailing was his humour at the moment; and that he had, moreover, just discovered that one of his boots pinched his foot. Accordingly we proceeded straight from the bridge, not meeting the wall again until we were beyond the _abattoir_. These _abattoirs_ are slaughter-houses, that Napoleon caused to be built near the walls, in some places within, and in others without them, according to the different localities. There are five or six of them, that of Montmartre being the most considerable. They are kept in excellent order, and the regulations respecting them appear to be generally good. The butchers sell their meats, in shops, all over the town, a general custom in Europe, and one that has more advantages than disadvantages, as it enables the inhabitant to order a meal at any moment. This independence in the mode of living distinguishes all the large towns of this part of the world from our own; for I greatly question if there be any civilized people among whom the individual is as much obliged to consult the habits and tastes of _all_, in gratifying his own, as in free and independent America. A part of this uncomfortable feature in our domestic economy is no doubt the result of circumstances unavoidably connected with the condition of a young country; but a great deal is to be ascribed to the practice of referring everything to the public, and not a little to those religious sects who extended their supervision to all the affairs of life, that had a chief concern in settling the country, and who have entailed so much that is inconvenient and ungraceful (I might almost say, in some instances, _disgraceful_) on the nation, blended with so much that forms its purest sources of pride. Men are always an inconsistent medley of good and bad.