Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1884-08-21


We received to-day letter with
five mysterious holes bored through
it, from which we give brief ex-
tract believing it will be of interest to
the many friends of the writer, Mr..
w. w. Culver, who while a cadet
made his home among u.s. The letter
is dated at sea, Lon. 2lo W., Lat.
42o n. 1--WE arrived at Brest, on
July 2, and remained until July 8.
We got two days leave of absence
and put in the time sampling every
thing French. After we had tried
all the "ropes,' the unanimous ver-
dict is that we are all thankful we
are Americans. We had as much
trouble with the American Consul as
with the others; he does not speak a
word English, and not creature
about his consulate does. He did
his best to make everything pleasant
for US, as did all the French officers.
Brest is one of the principal naval
and military stations of the French.
There is large navy yard, and sew
eral regiments of infantry there
There were nine iron ciads and about
twelve other men-of-war in the road
stead A Lieutenant escorted our
party, and tried to tell us about the
points of interest, but we lost much of
his explanation from our slim knowl-
edge of frGncids; he said among other
things that he was at la grGnde bal at
Annapolis, in 1878. The peasantry
and soldiery are very stupid and ig-
norant in appearance, our Southern
negroes seem their superior they do
things and wear things just as their
ancestry did centuries ago. The
upper classes are very much better
when compared with the peasants,
yet fail to see that they are superior
in any respect whatever to the aver.
age educated Americans Every bull
ding in Brest has sign whichsreads
commerce dc Vane," and the people
drink water, sparingly at meals you
get all the claret wine you want to
drink, but if yon wish coffee or tea you
are charged extra. The dinners are fine
but was greatly disappointed in the
table manners of the guests. We
greatly shocked the waiter by repeat
edly demanding more bread and but
ter. They don't mix anything. At
cafe we asked for strawberries with
cream and sugar; they brought US the
Strawberries, after waiting long
time, we ate the strawberries, then
they brought the cream, and, after
that, the sugar. One of our party
was equal to the emergency; he took
his cream, sugared it and drank the
mixture; we followed suit.
We arrived in the harbor Of st.
Michael's, the largest of the Azores,
July %. We expected to take the
customary donkey ride and visit the
volcano. But we told the pilot we
were from Brest; at that grim word
he dropped off our "rail," very ex-
peditiousIy and gave his orders from
the boat We.had to run up yellow
quarantine flag and they sent boat
with solitary soldior and two oars
men to guard our ship at night to see
that none escaped and ran the block
ade to the shore. There is no cholera
at Brest, but there is at Toulonn 500
miles distant, and therefore we are
quarantined. TO get our mail ashore
they must have due notice. They
bring out tin box affixed on the end
of ten foot pole, and after boring
i've holes in our letters, that may be
fumigated, we put them in the box
All are well on board. We have had
q very stormy time, just after leaving
New Bedford we were taken aback"
in a gale, and after leaving Brest
there was huge bore"