I should no more think of it than of putting on a clean dicky and blacking my shoes to go a fishing. As if you were going out to dine, when in fact the genuine traveller is going out to work hard and fare harder, to eat a crust by the way-side whenever he can get it. Honest travelling is about as dirty work as you can do. Why, a man needs a pair of overalls for it. As for blacking my shoes in such a case, I should as soon think of blacking my face. I carry a piece of tallow to preserve the leather, and keep out the water, thates all; and many an officious shoe-black, who carried off my shoes when I was slumbering, mistaking me for a gentleman, has had occasion to repent it before he produced a gloss on them. My pack, in fact, was soon made, for I keep a short list of those articles, which, from frequent experience I have found indispensable to the foot traveller, and when I am about to start, I have only to consult that to be sure that nothing is omitted, and, what is more important, nothing superfluous inserted. Most of my fellow travellers carried carpet-bags or valises. Sometimes one had two or three ponderous yellow valises in his clutch at each hitch of the cars, as if we were going to have another rush for seats; and when there was a rush in earnest, and there were not a few, I would see my man in the crowd, with two or three affectionate lusty fellows along each side of his arm, between his shoulder and his valises, which last held them tight to his back, like the nut on the end of a screw. I could not help asking in my mind,—what so great cause for showing Canada to those valises, when perchance your very nieces had to stay at home for want of an escort? I should have liked to be present when the custom-house officer came aboard of him, and asked him to declare upon his honor if he had anything but wearing apparel in them. Even the elephant carries but a small trunk on his journeys. The perfection of travelling is to travel without baggage. After considerable reflection and experience, I have concluded that the best bag for the foot traveller is made with a handkerchief, or if he studies appearances, a piece of stiff brown paper, well tied up, with a fresh piece within to put outside when the first is torn. That is good for both town and country, and none will know but you are carrying home the silk for a new gown for your wife, when it may be a dirty shirt. A bundle which you can carry literally under your arm, and which will shrink and swell with its contents. I never found the carpet-bag of equal capacity which was not a bundle of itself. We styled ourselves the knights of the umbrella and the bundle, for wherever we went, whether to Notre Dame, or Mount Royal, or the Champ de Mars, to the Town Majores, or the Bishopes Palace, to the Citadel with a barelegged Highlander for our escort, or to the Plains of Abraham, to dinner or to bed, the umbrella and the bundle went with us, for we wished to be ready to digress at any moment. We made it our home nowhere in particular, but everywhere where our umbrella and bundle were. It would have been an amusing circumstance if the mayor of one of those cities had politely asked us where we were staying; we could only have answered that we were staying with his honor for the time being. I was amused when, after our return, some green ones inquired if we found it easy to get accommodated, as if we went abroad to get accommodated, when we can get that at home. There was no crowd where we put up. The best houses, in my opinion, are never crowded.