And there was handsome silks of all colors; there was one piece of a soft grey color, that I told Josiah I would love dearly to have a dress of it, and after I said that, that man hurried me along so I didn’t hardly see anything—I s’pose he wanted to git the idee out of my head, for he never seemed easy a minute till he got me out of Turkey back into Portugal. I never felt intimately acquainted with this Nation—I knew our port come from Portugal, and that they raised considerable cork—but I found many handsome things there; splendid paper of all sorts, writin’ paper, and elegant bound books, and some printin’ on satin, invitations to bull fights, and other choice amusements. I told Josiah I should think they would have to be printed on satin to git anybody started to ’em. And jest as I was sayin’ this, a good-lookin’ woman says to me: “Splendid stationery, isn’t it?”
I see she had made a blunder and it was my duty to set her right, so says I to her: “I don’t know as it is any more stationery than paper and books commonly is; they are always stationary unless you move ’em round.”
She looked at me sort o’ wonderin’ and then laughed but kep’ her head up as high as ever. It beats all what mistakes some folks will make and not act mortified a mite; but if _I_ should make such blunders I should feel cheap as dirt. Then we took a short tower into Spain, and we found she had trimmed and ornamented herself beautiful. You could stand for hours a lookin’ at the front of this Nation painted to look like colored marble, and all figured off so emblematical and curious. And then we started for Russia, and we see that if any Nation had done well, and put her best foot forred, she had. Such furs as I see there I don’t never expect to see again.
Such awful sights of silks and velvets, and embroideries in gold! There was one man all embroidered in gold that looked splendid, with a crown of the most brilliant jewels on his head, and another shinin’ one on the table by the side of him; and all round in a border was as many as twenty other gold saints; they looked rich. And then there was all sorts of linen and cotton goods and umberells and everything.
And in Austria and Hungary we see beautiful bent wood furniture of all kinds, and the awfulest sight of kid gloves, and chromos, and oil paintins, and musical instruments, and the most beautiful Bohemian glass anybody ever did see. And it was there we see the biggest opal in the world; it is worth 25,000 dollars, and the man told me it weighed six hundred and two carats.