St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1900-11-14
Another Letter From Mr.. CIapp.

Lucky English COlOnel-DiscriptiOns
of Pau.
Dear CALIFORNIAN:
At Faux Chaudes, as l have men,
toned, we were out of the beaten
track of American travel; in fact no
Yankee traces could be found beyond |
those represented in my party. l
found peasants who had never seen
representative of the United States
till | appeared in flesh before
them, and to them New York
was as much terra in
cognita" as any place in the heart of
Africa. At Lourdes we began to
fud Yankee traces, strong surface
indications" of the real native article.
They were pilgrims from New York
and Boston, who had spent a week
there in June, but they had fled, and
left me the only representative of
my country.
One day at the Hotel de la Chapelle
was the victim OF a bitter disap-
pointment. While dining, two ladies
took seats quite near us, and one OF
them had a type of beauty and a
gracious manner which led me to
feel sure that for the first time since
leaving Paris, three months before,
my eye was feasting on one of my
own country women, The other
members of my party both OF foreign
birth, with no memories of American
life, but very American in their SYM
pathies, were delighted by the sample
| called their attention to. They
thought her less stiff than her Eng
fish cousins of that age, and little
more at ease too than the French
girls OF their acquaintance, but with
the fresh color of the English girl she
had a great deal of the French style
in her dress and manner Her arm
was in a sling, and l assumed that
in some gale on the Atlantic she had
been pitched out OF her berth, aud a
broken bone was a souvenir OF her
ocean experience. After dinner | in
duired who this American angel was
and was mortified to learn that she
was Polish girl from Warsaw who
had never seen the United States,
and was equally ignorant of the Eng
lish language.
This place has fully made up for
the social disadvantages of the
Pyrenees in general, and that special
disappointment at Lourdes in par
ticular, for here we find Furnishing
American colony, with many family
names associated with Boston and
New York. Oar hotel windows look
out on villas occupied by Americans,
whose eyes opened for the first time
on Bunker Hill monument, the Bos'
ton State House, and Park stree
church. Some of them have eater
FISH and game dinners, served by
TAFT at Point Shirly, and enjoyed
clam, bakes at Squantum and Nan
tasket beach. Some of the colony IL
the "sere and yellow-leaf' period o
their existence like myself, can recall
men and things of anti-war day
when Everett and Webster anc
Choate and Garrison, and Wendell
Phillips and DR.. Southslde Adams
were familiar figures in the street
and thew remember the excitement II
Boston political circles on the return
of fugitive slaves to their southern
masters, and the stir in Boston musl
cal circles, when in an immense build
ing on the Back Bay a big organ,
monster chorus and a park of artil
larry supplemented the strains of Pa
Gilmore's brass band. Other Villa
here in Pau are the winter homes o
Americans less favored by birth, oc
cupied by New Workers with May
flower blood quite likely in thei
veins, but their infant eyes wer
nourished on such sights as Manhat
tan Island and its surrounding
could furnish and their early mem
cries are of Castle Garden, Cony Is
land and Sandy Hook, and O
events like the draft riots, the Twee'
ring, and men like Peter Cooper AM
Washington Irving, as well as tn
founders of the present Vanderbilt
and Gould families.
We find here also an importan
English annex to this American col
ony which has contributed much t.
our social pleasure during our tw
weeks here. Besides the Residential
element, we have found at our hote
an English colonel, like ourselves