At one point, as we ascended a
steep hill, athwart whose base a railroad, yet constructing, took
its course, we came upon an Irish colony. With means at hand of
building decent cabins, it was wonderful to see how clumsy, rough,
and wretched, its hovels were. The best were poor protection from
the weather the worst let in the wind and rain through wide
breaches in the roofs of sodden grass, and in the walls of mud;
some had neither door nor window; some had nearly fallen down, and
were imperfectly propped up by stakes and poles; all were ruinous
and filthy. Hideously ugly old women and very buxom young ones,
pigs, dogs, men, children, babies, pots, kettles, dung-hills, vile
refuse, rank straw, and standing water, all wallowing together in
an inseparable heap, composed the furniture of every dark and dirty
hut.
Between nine and ten o'clock at night, we arrived at Lebanon which
is renowned for its warm baths, and for a great hotel, well
adapted, I have no doubt, to the gregarious taste of those seekers
after health or pleasure who repair here, but inexpressibly
comfortless to me. We were shown into an immense apartment,
lighted by two dim candles, called the drawing-room: from which
there was a descent by a flight of steps, to another vast desert,
called the dining-room: our bed-chambers were among certain long
rows of little white-washed cells, which opened from either side of
a dreary passage; and were so like rooms in a prison that I half
expected to be locked up when I went to bed, and listened
involuntarily for the turning of the key on the outside.
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