Herman Melville

“ The middle charmer poured out the souchong, and handed me the buttered muffins; and such buttered muffins never were spread on the other side of the Atlantic. The butter had an aromatic flavor; by Jove, it was perfectly delicious.
And there they sat—the charmers, I mean—eating these buttered muffins in plain sight. I wished I was a buttered muffin myself. Every minute they grew handsomer and handsomer; and I could not help thinking what a fine thing it would be to carry home a beautiful English wife! how my friends would stare! a lady from England! ”

“ I wanted to mollify this severe looking old lady; for even my short experience of old ladies had convinced me that they are the hereditary enemies of all strange young men.
I soon turned the conversation toward America, a theme which I knew would be interesting, and upon which I could be fluent and agreeable. ”

“ So, coming to a charming little dale, undulating down to a hollow, arched over with foliage, I crossed over toward it; but paused by the road-side at a frightful announcement, nailed against an old tree, used as a gate-post—
"man-traps and spring-guns!"
In America I had never heard of the like. What could it mean? They were not surely cannibals, that dwelt down in that beautiful little dale, and lived by catching men, like weasels and beavers in Canada!
"A man-trap!" It must be so. The announcement could bear but one meaning—that there was something near by, intended to catch human beings ”