Several letters, containing the narrative of a few days spent in New
Orleans, appeared in the _Patriot_. Their favourable reception by the
readers of that journal led to the preparation of the present volume,
in which the letters referred to, having undergone a careful revision,
re-appear, followed by nearly thirty others descriptive of the Author's
tour.
Our Transatlantic friends are morbidly sensitive as to the strictures
of strangers. They hate the whole tribe of Travellers and Tourists,
Roamers and Ramblers, Peepers and Proclaimers, and affect to ridicule
the idea of men who merely pass through the country, presuming to give
opinions on things which it is alleged so cursory a view cannot qualify
them fully to understand. Our cousins have, doubtless, had occasional
provocations from the detested race in question; but their feeling on
this point amounts to a national weakness. It is always worth knowing
how we appear to the eyes of others, and what impression the first
sight of us is apt to produce; and this knowledge none can communicate
but the stranger, the tourist, the passer-by. What faults and failings
soever we may have in England, and their "name is legion," by all means
let them be unsparingly exposed by every foreign tourist that treads
upon our soil.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25