Ever since my earliest remembrance I have had a great passion for travelling, seeing foreign countries, and studying foreign manners. I believe this disposition runs in our family, for all the Trotters, I am assured, have been great travellers. My great grandfather, Absalom Trotter, was famous for having the longest legs in the state of Massachusetts, and for making the best use of them. He could beat a horse at a stretch of a month or so; but he died just as the Providence railroad was completed. My great aunt, Peggy Trotter, was also celebrated among her neighbors for an unconquerable propensity to move about. There was not a story circulating in the town, but she was the first to find it out, and the most industrious in communicating it to all her acquaintance. If she had lived till this day, I verily believe the newspaper editors would have hired her to carry expresses; for when she once got hold of a piece of intelligence, it is inconceivable how rapidly she made it fly through all quarters of the town. When she died, people were afraid that news would be scarce forever afterwards; but steamboats came into fashion about that time, so that we have not been without a supply of intelligence from various parts. I was born in Fleet street, down at the north end, in Boston. My father was a West-India captain, who used to sail in a little schooner from Boston to Guadaloupe. He commonly carried out a load of lumber, that is, pine boards, plank, timber, and shingles; and brought back a cargo of molasses. Every time he returned from a voyage, he brought us oranges, lemons, and pine-apples, fruits which do not grow hereabouts. These rarities always excited my admiration; and I was delighted to sit in the chimney-corner during the long winter evenings, and listen to his description of the West-India islands, where the summer and the fruits and the green fields last the whole year round; and where no snow or ice chills the air, but fresh verdure and bright flowers enliven the landscape from the beginning of the year to the end of it.