Salisbury, Saturday, June 15, 1850.

I am beginning to have enough of this country. I am exceedingly tired of their perpendicular style of architecture, and of the equally perpendicular manners of the natives. I spent two days at Cambridge and at Oxford with some reverends, and, taking everything into consideration, I prefer the Capucines. I am particularly incensed against Oxford, where a fellow had the insolence to invite me to dinner. There was a fish four inches long in a large silver platter, and a cutlet in another. All this, with potatoes in a carved wooden dish, was served in magnificent style. Meanwhile I was nearly starved. This is an indication of the hypocrisy of those people. They like to make a show to strangers of their temperance, and if they have luncheon they do not dine.

It is deuced windy and wretchedly cold. If it were not still bright daylight at eight o’clock at night one could readily believe it was December. This does not prevent all the women from carrying their parasols raised. I have just committed a blunder. I gave a half-crown to a person in black who showed me the Cathedral, and when I asked him for the address of a gentleman to whom the Dean had given me a letter of introduction, it turned out that it was to himself that the letter was addressed. He looked confused, and so did I, but he kept the money.

I expect to revisit Stonehenge to-morrow, and if the fog lifts I shall dine at night in London. Monday or Tuesday I am going to Canterbury, and hope to reach Paris Friday. I wish you were here in Salisbury. Stonehenge would astonish you greatly. Good-bye. I am going to return to the Cathedral. My letter will start, God knows when! I have just been told that on the Lord’s Day the post-office is closed. I have an abominable cold and cough, and can get nothing but port wine to drink.

The women here wear hoops under their gowns. It is impossible to find anything more ridiculous than an Englishwoman in a hoop-skirt. Who is Miss Jewsberry, who has carroty hair and writes novels? I met her the other evening, and she told me that all her life she had dreamed of a pleasure which she never expected to realise, and this was to see me (I quote). She has written a novel entitled ZoË. You, who read so much, must tell me all about this person, to whom I am a book. In the Zoological Garden there is a baby hippopotamus, which is fed on rice and milk. In Punch, of the 15th, there is a portrait of him, which is a speaking likeness.

Good-bye. Will you try to give me a good walk to make up for my three weeks’ journey?