canoe. The Isis is but a narrow stream, and with a sluggish current. I
believe the students of Oxford are famous for their skill in rowing.

To me as well as to J----- the hot streets were terribly oppressive; so
we went into the Roebuck Hotel, where we found a cool and pleasant
coffee-room. The entrance to this hotel is through an arch, opening from
High Street, and giving admission into a paved court, the buildings all
around being part of the establishment,--old edifices with pointed gables
and old-fashioned projecting windows, but all in fine repair, and wearing
a most quiet, retired, and comfortable aspect. The court was set all
round with flowers, growing in pots or large pedestalled vases; on one
side was the coffee-room, and all the other public apartments, and the
other side seemed to be taken up by the sleeping-chambers and parlors of
the guests. This arrangement of an inn, I presume, is very ancient, and
it resembles what I have seen in the hospitals, free schools, and other
charitable establishments in the old English towns; and, indeed, all
large houses were arranged on somewhat the same principle.

By and by two or three young men came in, in wide-awake hats, and loose,
blouse-like, summerish garments; and from their talk I found them to be
students of the University, although their topics of conversation were
almost entirely horses and boats. One of them sat down to cold beef and
a tankard of ale; the other two drank a tankard of ale together, and went
away without paying for it,--rather to the waiter's discontent. Students
are very much alike, all the world over, and, I suppose, in all time; but
I doubt whether many of my fellows at college would have gone off without
paying for their beer.

We reached Southampton between seven and eight o'clock. I cannot write
to-day.