seen in many cities of the South.  I do not give the names of these remarkable people, unless, by some wondrous chance, in inventing a name I should light upon that real one which some of them bore; but if you please I will say that our fellow-passengers whom we took in at Memphis were no less personages than the Vermont Giant and the famous Bearded Lady of Kentucky and her son.  Their pictures I had seen in many cities through which I travelled with my own little performance.  I think the Vermont Giant was a trifle taller in his pictures than he was in life (being represented in the former as, at least, some two stories high):  but the lady’s prodigious beard received no more than justice at the hands of the painter; that portion of it which I saw being really most black, rich, and curly—­I say the portion of beard, for this modest or prudent woman kept I don’t know how much of the beard covered up with a red handkerchief, from which I suppose it only emerged when she went to bed, or when she exhibited it professionally.

The Giant, I must think, was an overrated giant.  I have known gentlemen, not in the profession, better made, and I should say taller, than the Vermont gentleman.  A strange feeling I used to have at meals; when, on looking round our little society, I saw the Giant, the Bearded Lady of Kentucky, the little Bearded Boy of three years old, the Captain, (this I think; but at this distance of time I would not like to make the statement on affidavit,) and the three other passengers, all with their knives in their mouths making play at the dinner—­a strange feeling I say it was, and as though I was in a castle of ogres.  But, after all, why so squeamish?  A few scores of years back, the finest gentlemen and ladies of Europe did the like.  Belinda ate with her knife; and Saccharissa had only that weapon, or a two-pronged fork, or a spoon, for her pease.  Have you ever looked at Gilray’s print of the Prince of Wales, a languid voluptuary, retiring after his meal, and noted the toothpick which he uses? . . .  You are right, madam; I own that the subject is revolting and terrible.  I will not pursue it.  Only—­allow that a gentleman, in a shaky steamboat, on a dangerous river, in a far-off country, which caught fire three times during the voyage—­(of course I mean the steamboat, not the country,)—­seeing a giant, a voracious supercargo, a bearded lady, and a little boy, not three years of age, with a chin already quite black and curly, all plying their victuals down their throats with their knives—­allow, madam, that in such a company a man had a right to feel a little nervous.  I don’t know whether you have ever remarked the Indian jugglers swallowing their knives, or seen, as I have, a whole table of people performing the same trick, but if you look at their eyes when they do it, I assure you there is a roll in them which is dreadful.