rarely become mothers.”  Whatever may be the cause, I witnessed a remarkable example of the smallness of the Parisian stature on the day of my arrival, which was the last of the three days kept in memory of the revolution of July.  I went immediately to the Champs Elysees, to see the people engaged in their amusements.  Some twenty boys, not fully grown, as it seemed to me at first, were dancing and capering with great agility, to the music of an instrument.  Looking at them nearer, I saw that those who had seemed to me boys of fourteen or fifteen, were mature young men, some of them with very fierce mustaches.

Since my arrival I have seen the picture which Vanderlyn is painting for the Rotunda at Washington.  It represents the Landing of Columbus on the shores of the New World.  The great discoverer, accompanied by his lieutenant and others, is represented as taking possession of the newly found country.  Some of the crew are seen scrambling for what they imagine to be gold dust in the sands of the shore, and at a little distance among the trees are the naked natives, in attitudes of wonder and worship.  The grouping is happy, the expression and action skillfully varied—­the coloring, so far as I could judge in the present state of the picture, agreeable.  “Eight or ten weeks hard work,” said the artist, “will complete it.”  It is Vanderlyn’s intention to finish it, and take it to the United States in the course of the autumn.

Letter XXVIII.

A Journey through The Netherlands.

Arnheim, Guelderland, August 19, 1848.

After writing my last I was early asleep, that I might set out early the next morning in the diligence for Brussels.  This I did, and passing through Compeigne, where Joan of Arc was made prisoner—­a town lying in the midst of extensive forests, with here and there a noble group of trees; and through Noyon, where Calvin was born, and in the old Gothic church of which he doubtless worshiped; and through Cambray, where Fenelon lived; and through fields of grain and poppy and clover, where women were at work, reaping the wheat, or mowing and stacking the ripe poppies, or digging with spades in their wet clothes, for it had rained every day but one during the thirteen we were in France, we arrived in the afternoon of the second day at the French frontier.  From this a railway took us in a few hours to Brussels.  Imagine a rather clean-looking city, of large light-colored buildings mostly covered with stucco, situated on an irregular declivity, with a shady park in the highest part surrounded by palaces, and a little lower down a fine old Gothic cathedral, and still lower down, the old Town Hall, also of Gothic architecture, and scarcely less venerable, standing in a noble paved square, around which are white and stately edifices, built in the era of the Spanish dominion;—­imagine handsome shops and a good-looking people, with a liberal sprinkling of priests, in their long-skirted garments, and throw in the usual proportion of dirt and misery, and mendicancy, in the corners and by-places, and you have Brussels before you.