The innocents abroad; . nRoman boundlessness of ignorance,what bewildering worlds of unsus-pected wonders I would discover! Ah,if I were only a habitant of the Cam-pagna five and twenty miles fromRome! Tlien I would travel. I would go to America, and see, andlearn, and return to the Campagna andstand before my countrymen an illus-trious discoverer. I would say : I saw there a country which has noovershadowing Mother Church, and yet the people survive. I saw a government which never wasprotected by foreign soldiers at a cost greater than that re-quired to carry on the government itself I saw co
The innocents abroad; . nRoman boundlessness of ignorance,what bewildering worlds of unsus-pected wonders I would discover! Ah,if I were only a habitant of the Cam-pagna five and twenty miles fromRome! Tlien I would travel. I would go to America, and see, andlearn, and return to the Campagna andstand before my countrymen an illus-trious discoverer. I would say : I saw there a country which has noovershadowing Mother Church, and yet the people survive. I saw a government which never wasprotected by foreign soldiers at a cost greater than that re-quired to carry on the government itself I saw common menand common women who could read; I even saw small .children of common country people reading from books ; if I daredthink you would believe it, I would say they could write, the cities I saw people drinking a delicious beverage madeof chalk and water, but never once saw goats driven throughtheir Broadway or their Pennsylvania Avenue or their Mont-gomery street and milked at the doors of the houses. I saw. A ROMAN OF 1869. 268 THE MODERN ROMAN TRAVELETH. real glass windows in tlie houses of even the commonest of the houses are not of stone, nor yet of bricks; I sol-emnly swear they are made of wood. Houses there will takefire and burn, sometimes—actually burn entirely down, andnot leave a single vestige behind. I could state that for atruth, upon my death-bed. And as a proof that the circum-stance is not rare, I aver that they have a thing which theyKail a fire-engine, which vomits forth great streams of water^and is kept always in readiness, by night and by day, to rushto houses that are burning. You would think one engine^vould be sufiicient, but some great cities have a hundred;they keep men hired, and pay them by the month to do nothingbut put out fires. For a certain sum of money other men willInsure that your house shall not burn down; and if it burns-they will pay you for it. There are hundreds and schools, and any body may go an
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectvoyagesandtravels
