the hill" and stood in Odessa for the first time. It looked just like an

American city; fine, broad streets, and straight as well; low houses,

(two or three stories,) wide, neat, and free from any quaintness of

architectural ornamentation; locust trees bordering the sidewalks (they

call them acacias;) a stirring, business-look about the streets and the

stores; fast walkers; a familiar new look about the houses and every

thing; yea, and a driving and smothering cloud of dust that was so like a

message from our own dear native land that we could hardly refrain from

shedding a few grateful tears and execrations in the old time-honored

American way. Look up the street or down the street, this way or that

way, we saw only America! There was not one thing to remind us that we

were in Russia. We walked for some little distance, reveling in this

home vision, and then we came upon a church and a hack-driver, and

presto! the illusion vanished! The church had a slender-spired dome that

rounded inward at its base, and looked like a turnip turned upside down,

and the hackman seemed to be dressed in a long petticoat with out any

hoops. These things were essentially foreign, and so were the carriages

--but every body knows about these things, and there is no occasion for

my describing them.

We were only to stay here a day and a night and take in coal; we

consulted the guide-books and were rejoiced to know that there were no

sights in Odessa to see; and so we had one good, untrammeled holyday on

our hands, with nothing to do but idle about the city and enjoy

ourselves. We sauntered through the markets and criticised the fearful

and wonderful costumes from the back country; examined the populace as

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The Innocents Abroad