run, we saw houses of very aged aspect, with steep, peaked gables. The
front gable-end was supported on stone pillars, and the sidewalk passed
beneath. Most of these old houses seemed to be taverns,--the Black Bear,
the Green Dragon, and such names. We thought of dining at one of them,
but, on inspection, they looked rather too dingy and close, and of
questionable neatness. So we went to the Royal Hotel, where we probably
fared just as badly at much more expense, and where there was a
particularly gruff and crabbed old waiter, who, I suppose, thought
himself free to display his surliness because we arrived at the hotel on
foot. For my part, I love to see John Bull show himself. I must go
again and again and again to Chester, for I suppose there is not a more
curious place in the world.

Mr. Ticknor, who has been staying at Rock Park with us since Tuesday, has
steamed away in the Canada this morning. His departure seems to make me
feel more abroad, more dissevered from my native country, than before.


October 3d.--Saturday evening, at six, I went to dine with Mr. Aiken, a
wealthy merchant here, to meet two of the sons of Burns. There was a
party of ten or twelve, Mr. Aiken and his two daughters included. The
two sons of Burns have both been in the Indian army, and have attained
the ranks of Colonel and Major; one having spent thirty, and the other
twenty-seven years in India. They are now old gentlemen of sixty and
upwards, the elder with a gray head, the younger with a perfectly white
one,--rather under than above the middle stature, and with a British
roundness of figure,--plain, respectable, intelligent-looking persons,
with quiet manners. I saw no resemblance in either of them to any
portrait of their father. After the ladies left the table, I sat next to
the Major, the younger of the two, and had a good deal of talk with him.