Lewisburg chronicle. [volume] (Lewisburg, Pa.) 1850-1859, 1851-08-20

Interesting Letter from Europe.

MEMS, DEPARTMENT DE L lSERE, FRANC
Among the Alps, June 81, 1851.
Agreeable to your request, have muc
pleasure in writing to you, PARTICULAR
from this place, Mems, where some of th
scenes mentioned in D'Aubigne's Histor
OF the Reformation took place, and be
cause L can give you some account of tn
Naudois, (the Waldenses,) whose descen
dants are here and whose religion is here
although this town is but on the outskirt
of their country. But first, as this is a,
age Of panoramas, let me give you
bird s-eye view of my tour to these Gal
pine solitudes." Whoever has been ou
on ''the wild waste Of waters" for thirt,
consecutive days, in an old fashioned ship
from New York to Liverpool, knows some
thing about the thousand and one refuge.
that ships company must make to "kil
time" Bad word that, too, but let the
retailer of ''wise saws" make the voyage,
and he will discover that he is obliged to
make himself agreeable to each one of the
mongrel, circumscribed little world, a
crowded ship. And boating on the At
lantic, in sail vessel, the last half of the
voyage, is about as monotonous as voyage
up the West Branch canal, unless it is
when old Neptune gets his back up and
demands the customary but unpleasant
tribute at the shrine of sea knowledge.
Then is the time, when every body is
looking things unutterable, over the ships
side, and when every body, as he holds
on to the ropes, and walls his eyes at the
sharks and porpoises, and sca vuns, the
receivers of the tribute-then is the time
that the men of all nations are all brought
to the same democratic platform, much
the same as the general level when dodg-
ing the bridges on the Susquehanna pack
ct. "a life on the ocean wave" for them
that like it, but, as Juniata Dutchman
would say, the next time go by sail
vessel I'll 60 by a steamer, and be boiled,
in straight line, across the Atlantic, in
"nine days and twenty hours" Or less,
by huge kettle of hot water, and be done
with it, in preference to tacking to every
point of the compass, like a worm fence
around mill dam. The fact is, sail ves-
sells, like canal packets, are too slow for
this progressive age, and for the short life
time we have to do everything in. The
old world and the new has but just dis
covered this grand secret, and all that is
wanting to bring them into about as near
proximity, comparatively, as Philadelphia
and Pittsburg will be when your railroad
is completed, is, that competition bring
down the price Of passage one-half, which,
it is thought, will pay very we'll.
But, saying nothing Of the Brazilian
captain of the vessel, and the negro stew
ard and his Scotch wife of sandy ringlets
passing over the clustering old English
Quaker, of Rochester, New York, who
found fault with every thing in the States,
and declared that the women of the States
pretty generally all swore and did crimes
they would be hung for in England,
whercat l and one Mr.. Flagg, consul to
Venice, took occasion every day or two to
stir up the old wretch, and make him bel
ow and boil over with rage-to say moth
ng more of him, or of the crazy Yankee
who lectured gratis every few
nights, in the steerage, and examined
pumps at dime head, without charging
or the somerscts and ground and lofty
in daytime, which, by the way,
vas Yankee trick to bring out subjects
o his night lectures and passing by the
eturning organ grinder, and the Scotch,
rish, and French, who all intend to re-
urn, and bring all their kin, ifthey can
nd leaving the Irish Jesuit monk to his 4;
'wn gloomy meditations-for he walked
he deck alone and spoke to nobody, y,while t
poor Mormon woman in the steerage t
waited on the sick and prayed over them, i
nd was the first to run to the assistance c
f the third mate, who fell fifty feet upon |
be forecaslte, in gale, at which times t
he captain always swore harder than ever. I
Ieaving all this for variegated back G
round to the panorama, we sweep around a
he southeast coast of Ireland for half a b
ay, seeing nothing but lofty ranges Of C
ocky hills, without trees on them, where q
erds of small, black cattle graze-cattle L
0 small that, as some Larry, wild Irish C
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