for the sake of being buried there. They deemed it an especial pity that
such a grave should ever become a common grave. "Why," said they to me,
"by paying the extra price you may have it for your own grave, or for
your family!" meaning that we should have a right to pile ourselves over
the defunct Captain. I wonder how the English ever attain to any
conception of a future existence, since they so overburden themselves
with earth and mortality in their ideas of funerals. A drive with an
undertaker, in a sable-plumed coach!--talking about graves!--and yet he
was a jolly old fellow, wonderfully corpulent, with a smile breaking out
easily all over his face,--although, once in a while, he looked
professionally lugubrious.

All the time the scent of that horrible mourning-coach is in my nostrils,
and I breathe nothing but a funeral atmosphere.


Saturday, August 27th.--This being the gala-day of the manufacturing
people about Liverpool, the steamboats to Rock Ferry were seasonably
crowded with large parties of both sexes. They were accompanied with two
bands of music, in uniform; and these bands, before I left the hotel,
were playing, in competition and rivalry with each other in the
coach-yard, loud martial strains from shining brass instruments. A prize
is to be assigned to one or to the other of these bands, and I suppose
this was a part of the competition. Meanwhile the merry-making people
who thronged the courtyard were quaffing coffee from blue earthen mugs,
which they brought with them,--as likewise they brought the coffee, and
had it made in the hotel.

It had poured with rain about the time of their arrival, notwithstanding
which they did not seem disheartened; for, of course, in this climate, it