CHAPTER XVI.
FAREWELL TO COLYMBIA.
BEFORE I had quite completed my third year of residence in Colymbia I was thoroughly at home in the country, and had acquired the manners and customs of the people so completely that I was scarcely regarded as a stranger. My time was agreeably divided between study and recreation. I read with avidity the works that treated of the social and political institutions of this strange people. I passed much of my time in the lecture-rooms and the legislative assembly. I frequented the public and private assemblies, and took part in the games and sports of the young men, and derived much pleasure from my intercourse with all classes of society. The little experience I already had of the matrimonial arrangements of Colymbia, had quite disenchanted me of the idea of marriage with any of the charming young ladies with whom I flirted and danced and associated on the most friendly terms. I could not emancipate myself from my English prejudices in regard to the sanctity of marriage, so I determined that I would not run the risk of falling in love again. I had frequent longings for home and the purer delights of our domestic life; and I sighed as I thought of my
