Aye, aye, said the Admiral, from the West Indies.  I guess, said the Southaner, you may have been clean round the world, Admiral, but you have been plaguy little in it, not to know better nor that I shot a wild goose at River Philip last year, with the rice of Varginey fresh in his crops he must have cracked on near about as fast as them other geese, the British travellers.  Which know’d the most of the country they passed over, do you suppose?  I guess it was much of a muchness—­near about six of one and a half dozen of tother; two eyes aint much better than one, if they are both blind.

No, if you want to know all about us and the Blue Noses (a pretty considerable share of Yankee blood in them too, I tell you; the old stock comes from New England, and the breed is tolerable pure yet, near about one half apple sarce, and tother half molasses, all except to the Easterd, where there is a cross of the Scotch,) jist ax me and I’ll tell you candidly.  I’m not one of them that can’t see no good points in my neighbor’s critter, and no bad ones in my own; I’ve seen too much of the world for that, I guess.  Indeed, in a general way, I praise other folks’ beasts, and keep dark about my own.  Says I, when I meet Blue Nose mounted, that’s a real smart horse of yourn, put him out, I guess he’ll trot like mad.  Well, he lets him have the spur, and the critter does his best, and then I pass him like a streak of lightning with mine.  The feller looks all taken aback at that.  Why, says he, that’s a real clipper of yourn, I vow.  Middlin, says I, (quite cool, as if I had heard that are same thing a thousand times,) he’s good enough for me, jist a fair trotter, and nothin to brag of.  That goes near about as far agin in a general way, as a crackin and a boastin does.  Never tell folks you can go a head on ’em, but do it; it spares a great deal of talk, and helps them to save their breath to cool their broth.  No, if you want to know the inns and the outs of the Yankees—­I’ve wintered them and summered them; I know all their points, shape, make and breed; I’ve tried ’em alongside of other folks, and I know where they fall short, where they mate ’em, and where they have the advantage, about as well as some who think they know a plaguy sight more.  It tante them that stare the most, that see the best always, I guess.  Our folks have their faults, and I know them, (I warnt born blind, I reckon,) but your friends, the tour writers, are a little grain too hard on us.  Our old nigger wench had several dirty, ugly lookin children, and was proper cross to ’em.  Mother used to say, ’Juno, its better never to wipe a child’s nose at all, I guess, than to wring it off.’

No.  XII

The American Eagle.