Acknowledging that relation is the material manifestation of the soul . . .Shit moon, the English month of September, 1810. I created a sensation on the wharf, in the customs house, in the open horse-drawn carriage we took to London piled with luggage covered with Master Dunlop’s giraffe skin. In the lobby of the hotel on Duke Street off St. James’s Square, ladies’ and gentlemen’s mouths dropped open as I excitedly exclaimed in Dutch and my few words of English over the beauty of London and the Londoners themselves.Dazed, I marveled at the flocks of pigeons, the noise and rumble of hundreds of carriages, the porte-chaises, the horse-drawn carts, the wagons pulled by bullocks and the new horse-drawn omnibuses. I clapped my hands over the wide magnificent boulevards that led directly to important public buildings and sumptuous palaces. My master told me that one single noble, the Duke of York, owned almost half the real estate in London. The income from the duke’s properties, he said, was greater than the King’s.
