16
ADVENTURE IN THE FOG.
before our letters of introduction, or the kind invitations of
strangers, have led us into the participation of the hospitable
and refined comforts prepared and enjoyed by the ingenuity
of enlightened man, within. These I soon found were
all around me, in the midst of this gloom ; and a deep
sense of gratitude will often induce me to allude to them
again in the future pages of this work.
My breakfast and a clean face were the first necessary
things accomplished at my hotel, and next to them was my
first sally into the streets of the great metropolis, to inhale
the pleasure of first impressions, and in my rambles to get a
glance at the outer walls and the position of the famous
Egyptian Hall, which I have already said my kind friend the
Hon. C. A. Murray had conditionally secured, as the locale
of my future operations. It is quite unnecessary, and quite
impossible also, for me to describe the route I pursued through
the mud and the fog in search of the Hall. Its direction had
been pointed out to me at my start, and something like the
distance explained, which, to an accustomed woodsman like
myself, seemed a better guarantee of success than the names
of a dozen streets and turnings, &c. ; and I had " leaned off"
on the point of compass, as I thought, without any light of
the sun to keep me to my bearings, until I thought myself
near its vicinity, and at a proper position to make some in-
quiry for its whereabouts. I ran against a young man at the
moment (or, rather, he ran against me, as he darted across
the street to the pavement, with a black bag under his arm),
whom I felt fully at liberty to accost ; and to my inquiry for
the Egyptian Hall, he very civilly and kindly directed me in
the following manner, with his hand pointing down the
street in the opposite direction to the one in which I was
travelling:—" Go to the bottom,d'ye see, sir, and you are at
the top, of Piccadilly ; you then pass the third turning to the
left, and you will see the hexibition of the uge hox ; that
hox is in the Hegyptian All, and ee Ms a wapper, sure
enough !" By this kind fellow's graphic direction I was
soon in the Hall, got a glance of it and " the fat ox," and