Western wanderings: a record of travel in the evening land

Front matter

[istorian's Office Library

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

< I C m

Chapter I. Across The Atlantic

PAGE

The poetry of motion — A growl — Rough weather — Fellow-passengers— A new-fashioned honeymoon — Emigrants — Life on the ocean-wave — An arrival — The pilot-boat — The Harbour . . 1

Chapter II. New York To Niagara

Civil service — A free country — Street-cars — Hotels — Cookery — Sight-seeing — Billiards — Central Park — Flowers — A naval engagement— The Hudson — A ' Pullman ' car — The old lady and her luggage — Susquehanna — An express train — Buffalo City . 7

Chapter III. Niagara To Chicago

The Cataract House — Proffers of assistance — A soliloquy — The Falls — Tolls — A want of caution — Curiosities — An elevator — Birds — Over the Falls — A ' Sleeping-car ' — Tobacco-chewing — Snoring — Lake Michigan 20

Chapter IV. Chicago To Omaha

Trials — Enterprise — A moving story — Pig-sticking — New version of one of the Labours of Hercules — Hotel life versus home life — To the Mississippi — Reserve — Tower — Farmers' Granges — A bad track — Council Bluffs — Baths — The Missouri . . . .32

CONTENTS.

Chapter V. Omaha To Salt Lake City

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Up the Missouri — Snakes — Nebraska — Indians — Prairie — Buffalo — Eating-stations — Prairie dogs — Denver — Redrocks — Indian races — Agates — Indian battle — Sheep mountain — A storm — Echo Canon— The Devil's Slide— Salt Lake City 47

Chapter VI. Salt Lake City To Virginia City

Early days— The Tabernacle— A vision — Mormons — Ann Eliza — Brigham Young — Mormon shops — American Fork Canon — Salt Lake — A pageant — The Theatre — Mormonism — The Great American Desert — Euchre — Tricks that are vain — Nevada — Train-robbers — Americanisms — Reno ....... 72

Chapter VII. Virginia City To Stockton

Politicians — A silver mine — Sutro Tunnel — A commercial crisis- Geysers — Lake Tahoe — Shakespeare — Donner Lake — The old traveller — Two American forces — Cape Horn — Alabaster Cave — Sacramento — Mosquitoes — The pedlar boy — The poor man's carriage — Gold currency — Wages . . . . .89

Chapter VIII. Stockton To The Yosemite Valley

Stockton — Dust — Gophers — Quails— Staging — Tarantulas — Hydraulic mining — Mammoth Trees — A curious flower — A theory — Table mountain — Deserted villages — Chinese Camp — Wine — The Siamese Twins — Manzanita — The summit .... 103

Chapter IX. The Yosemite Valley

The descent — A patient steed — The Valley — The Hotel — A philosopher— Riding astride — The Yoseniite Falls — Mirror Lake — A legend — Bridal-veil Fall — Glacier Point and Sentinel Dome — The Nevada and Vernal Falls — A rapid — The Cosmopolitan — Improvements— Impressions — Digger Indians — Departure . .120

CONTENTS.

Chapter X. To San Francisco

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Stage jokes — The Golden City — Site — "Vegetation — Dust — Overwork— Lone mountain — Seal rocks — Mission Dolores — Bits — Bars — Free lunch — Julep — A character — Architecture — Chinese — High wages — Hoodlums — Chinese facetiae — Visit to the bad Chinese quarter — Chinese superstitions and troubles . . . 143

Chapter XI. San Francisco

Peculiarities — Quacks — Farallone Islands — Woodward's Gardens — Eucalyptus— Suicide and murders — Schools — American politics — The labouring class — Shoddy — Refinement — Literature — The Press — Advertisements — Side-walks — Street-cars — Occupations — A critic 166

Chapter XII. San Francisco To Mount Shasta

The Bay — Education of turkeys — The sparrow — Larks — Golden grain — Stubble — Bad farming — Fruit — Marysville — Bank robbery — A humming-bird fight — Staging — Companions — Highwaymen — Scenery — No grumbling — ' You bet ' — Making oneself popular — Grizzlies — Spiritualism — Castle Rocks — Soda Springs . . 187

Chapter XIII. Mount Shasta

Game — Foliage — Barrenness — Night — Morning — Clouds — The Crater — Boiling Springs' — View — Sunset — Red snow — Sisson's — Play of colour — Packing — The trail — Our first deer — American deer — Destruction of game out of season 204

CHATTER XIV.

CAMPING OUT.

A frying-pan — Castle Lake — Famine — Fishing — Dinner — A song — Fresh quarters — Deer-hunting — Ambush — Mountain-sides — Bears — Wild flowers — Home— Camp life — A duel — Woodpeckers —

Maternal love 214

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CONTENTS.

Chapter XV. From Tkeka To The Lava Beds

Eaten by a bear — Forest fires — A desert — Sage-bens — Mountain-sheep — Modocs — Indians — Belief — Cost of Indians — a liberal Government — Indian Agents — Present policy — Reservations — Issuing rations to Indians — Santanta and Big Tree — Red Cloud — War Department 226

Chapter XVI. The Modocs

Treachery — Treaties — War — Murders — Modoc success — Peace Commission—Captain Jack — An interview — Warning — Murder of the Peace Commissioners — Marvellous escape — Lower Klamath Lake --The camp — The Lava Beds — Panic — Savage squaws — Warm Spring Indians — Surrender — Execution — Pelicans — Graves — After dark 239

Chapter XVII. Fort Klamath To The Mystic Lake

A custom — Fort Klamath — The Agency — Dead Indian country — The Lake of the Woods — An Indian workshop — A canon — Snow-fields — The crater's rim — A snow-camp — An alarm — O-po-coninne — Mystic Lake — A canoe — The medicine-man — The island — Law of death — Midnight — Internal fires — Surmises . . . 253

Chapter XVIII. From Jacksonville To The Columbia River

Oregon forests — The Umpqua Canon — A poultry fancier — A fejnale hermit — Willamette Valley — Eugene City — The Three Sisters — The Mackenzie River — Oregon City — Falls of the Willamette — Portland — The Columbia River — Scenery — The Multenomah Falls— Castle Rock — Cape Horn — The Cascades — A portage — Coffin Rock — Dalles — A Sahara — Catching salmon — Great Salmon Falls — Fish-eagles— A crane story ..... 2G7

CONTENTS.

Chapter XIX. Kalama To Victoria

PAGE A tedious journey — A terrible threat — An epithet — Olympia — Paget Sound — Snokomish City — An Indian cemetery — Flat-heads — Use of Indians — American diplomacy — Washington Territory — Salmon not taking a fly — San Juan — Victoria — Dull times — Terminus — A, view — Climate — Roads — Esquimalt Harbour — Sport — Indians — A red admiral — Superstition — Hospitality . . 282

Chapter XX. Up The Fraser

New Westminster — Stumps— Halcyon days — Fishing — A panther — Ferns — Sal-lal — Burrard Inlet — Steam saw-mills — Up the Fraser — Anonymous gifts — Providence — Wood-cutters — Hope — A silver-mine — Rapids — Yale— Hudson's Bay Company — Christianised Indians — Missionaries — A waggon road — A trail — Fatal accident — Hell's Gate — Suspension-bridge — Scenery to Boston Bar — Indian larders —Salmon — Fishing establishments — Boundary line — Haro Straits — The Driard House — British Columbia . . 296

Chapter XXI. Return To Nanaimo

Miners — Difficulties and dangers — Good and bad luck — Gulf of Georgia — Calculating birds — Nanaimo — Duck-shooting — An Indian guide— The beaver-dam — Fishing — A river — Stars — Merit — An entertainment — The coast ....... 314

Chapter XXII. British Columbia

Game in British Columbia — Grouse — Mud Bay — A day's shooting — ■ Raccoons — No woodcocks — Summer ducks — Bears — Indians of British Columbia — Carving — Canoes — Chinook — Indian houses — Burials — Door-posts — Smuggling — Civilised and Christianised Indians — The ' Prince Alfred ' — The coast — Grumbling settlers — A Bohemian — Sunset — The Golden Gate 325

CO A TENTS.

Chapter XXIII. San Francisco To The Geysers

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Tlie rnce for theblue riband — ' Coasting' — Games in America — To the Geysers — Calistoga — The Petrified Forest — Foss — The Summit — Speed — The Geyser Hotel — The Devil's Canon — The Witches' Cauldron — The Pulpit — Indian legend — Indian cuns — The Indian bath — Quicksilver mines — Quails — Return 337

Chapter XXIV. Concluding Remarks

Ilealdsburg —Porters— Jewellery — An art — Rainy season — Catarrh — San Diego — The abalona-hunter — Shooting— Hotel mania — Americans abroad — The West ....... 354

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Niagara Falls — Whirlpool Rapids .... frontispiece Niagara Falls — Entrance to Cave op the Wind . to face p. 23

Witch Rocks, Utah „ 47

Devil's Slide — Front View „ 71

Big Tree — Mother op the Forest ,,103

Father op the Forest .. ,,112

General View of the Valley prom Prospect Point . „ 120

Sea Birds — Cormorants, &c „ 169

South Farallone Island „ 186

View on the Columbia Riyer ,, 273

Vulcan's Steam Works ,, 346

Erratum.

Page 47, Hue 10, for Yauhton read Yauctou.

WESTERN WANDERINGS.

Chapter I. Across The Atlantic

The poetry of motion — A growl — Rough weather — Fellow-passengers — A new-fashioned honeymoon — Emigrants — Life on the ocean- wave — An arrival — The pilot-boat— The harbour.

At the present day the voyage to New York is of as little importance and, generally, as devoid of interest as the trip between Dover and Calais. In fact, I think the latter, being shorter, has the more interest and variety of the two. Theoretically, hanging over the side of the gallant ship — a ship is always gallant till she comes to grief — and watching the blue waves as they dance in the sunlight, or shimmer with a phosphoric gleam under the pale moonbeams, is all very nice and poetic ; but, practically, the stricken one seldom realises the poetry of his position, and his thoughts, if he has any, are apt to be very prosaic.

Will it ever be discovered that the safety of a ship is not incompatible with space, ventilation, and cleanliness, and the general comfort of its passengers ?

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WESTERN WANDERINGS.

People often Bay, ' Oh, it's do use grumbling ; we are on board ship, and must put up with it.' Now, I cannot help thinking that a great many improvements, both on board ship and on land, are due to a little good-natured grumbling. But whilst I have been indulging in a quiet growl over the confined arrangements of my cabin — yclept ' state-room ' — the ship has weighed anchor, and we are already some distance from the shore. In the morning a bright April sun was shining, a favourable breeze blowing, and there was every prospect of a speedy end to our troubles. But on returning to the deck to enjoy the sea-air and the conversation of my fellow passengers, how changed the scene !

The brightness of the morning has vanished, and a thick mist, evidently fresh from Scotland, shuts us out from the land. The waves are beginning to heave in an unpleasant manner, and it requires a pair of sealegs — which at present I am not possessed of — to pace the deck with a gait which has any pretensions to grace. Eain, too, begins to fall. No sign is there here of a human being, save myself, and some two or three of the crew, ominously wrapped in huge tarpaulins. Not caring to occupy the deck ' alone in my glory,' I make the dreariness of the scene an excuse for a descent, more rapid than elegant, to the regions below.

ACROSS THE ATLANTIC.

The next day broke more propitiously. Acquaintances were formed, and even friendships, destined to last nine or ten days — that is, if nothing untoward should happen in the interval. We had amongst us no professional celebrities on their way to fortune, and had, therefore, to content ourselves with the companionship of beings of commoner clay. These consisted of some four or five merchants ; two or three invalids ; an old Californian, who told me he had never had a day's illness in his life, but who was as yellow as a guinea — a fact which set me speculating whether the inhabitants of that land gradually change into gold-dust ; several children ; a thin Methodist preacher, who was going out to improve the Pintes ; and a very smart military gentleman, from Illinois. I never exactly ascertained the rank of this gallant son of Mars. Sometimes I heard him addressed as Captain, sometimes as General, but he was familiarly known as ' the Colonel.' He informed us that he was returning from Nice, where he had been passing his honeymoon. As the bride had not yet made her appearance, some one remarked that he was afraid she was suffering a great deal from sea-sickness ; to which ' the Colonel ' replied that she had been spared that misery, as he had left her at Chicago. I wonder whether this mode of enjoying a honeymoon is common with Americans ?

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WESIERN WANDERING .

For the first few days I fancied we had none hut saloon passengers on hoard, hut I was afterwards informed that we carried over eight hundred emigrants. The capacity they exhibited for living down below was something really wonderful. I hardly ever saw a dozen of them on deck ; and how they managed to reach New York alive will ever remain a mystery to me.

Our amusements were not of a very varied description. There was only one complete set of chessmen, and to obtain this it was necessary to get up before daybreak, so great was the rush for it ; and the amount of misery thereby entailed was hardly compensated by the most brilliant check-mate. Then there was an old jangling piano in the saloon, and upon this one lady, as ' the Colonel ' said, * played considerable ;' and two elderly spinsters, who said they delighted in music, once favoured us with a duet, beginning with the appropriate words, ' Oh ! ye voices gone.'

Whist and euchre whiled away a few hours for most of us, but the latter game absorbed ' the Colonel's ' every spare moment. He was indefatigable; morning, noon, and night he played. And to some purpose too, for I never entered the smoking-room without seeing there a victim to his rapacity.

The ' Heathen Chinee ' was a joke to him, and the

ACROSS THE ATLANTIC.

only man I ever saw beat him was the Methodist preacher.

Life on board ship is very prosaic. At sea one day is far more like another than on land, and the smallest incidents assume there vast importance. Speaking with another ship is an event to be remembered, and the sight of a shoal of porpoises causes as much excitement as a pack of hounds running their fox through a country town on a market-day. Time, however, passed away pleasantly enough, in spite of sea tea, cracked piano, and narrow berths. As regards the berths, I am sure that walking the plank can be nothing to sleeping in one of them, and that their invention can only be due to the fertile brain of an ancient Inquisitor or that of a modern shipbuilder.

Our only event of any importance was the arrival one stormy night of a fresh passenger. Nobody could understand how it was possible for him to have come on board in such weather, and nobody remembered our stopping. Some of the ladies thought we might, perhaps, have picked up a shipwrecked mariner, but anxiety and conjecture were soon set at rest by the information that ' both mother and child were doing well.' There was much discussion as to the nationality of the infant, and I do not know that the question was eventually satisfactorily settled.

On the eleventh day a pilot-boat hove in sight,

WESTERN WANDERINGS.

and was the signal for numerous wagers amongst the betting-men ; the number of the boat, and whether the pilot would first place his right or left foot on deck, causing as much interest as the running of a Derby favourite. I believe if anyone had remarked that the pilot would not stand on his head when he came on board, some one would have been willing to bet that he would.

One of the signs that we were approaching our destination was a change in the kind of beverage in request on board. No longer did you hear pale ale or claret called for, but mixed drinks — ' cock- tails,' 'juleps,' 'smashes' &c. — were the order of the day ; and the quantity and variety of these concoctions consumed by my Yankee fellow-passengers might have astonished me, had I not always heard that ' the bar ' was a great and favourite Institution with the Americans.

We had a glorious day for entering the harbour, and the view was superb. Hills covered with trees, and dotted with picturesquely pretty white houses ; forts, celebrated in history, Staten Island, Brooklyn, and the great city stretching away in the distance on its low level island, formed a picture as striking as it was novel ; whilst the river, with its numerous monster ferry-boats, and crafts of all shapes and sizes, gave the traveller a very fair idea of the busy active life he might expect to witness in the city itself.

NEW YORK TO NIAGARA.

Chapter II. New York To Niagara

Civil service — A free country — Street-cars — Hotels — Cookery — Sight-seeing— Billiards — Central Park — Flowers — A naval engagement — The Hudson — A ' Pullman ' car — The old lady and her luggage — Susquehanna — An express train — Buffalo City.

About two hundred years ago the site of the City of New York was bought from the Indians for the sum of twenty dollars, or its equivalent ; at the present day that is the amount exacted by the Custom-house myrmidons from every four or five individuals who have the privilege of landing there. The ' feeing system ' is certainly the only well-organised arrangement in the Custom-house department. For, unless you would have your portmanteaus opened and their contents scattered over the floor, and are satisfied also to undergo a great deal of annoyance and badgering, called ' civil service,' it is absolutely necessary to slip five dollars into the expectant grasp of one of the rapacious officers. Nothing less will satisfy these harpies ; but from the moment their wants are appeased your way is clear, and though your boxes may be filled with

WESTERN WANDER/ACS.

silks, laces, and other excisable articles, what is that to them ? A friend of mine, who had weakly offered a five-franc piece, thinking to save himself the trouble of opening his luggage, was coolly informed by the inspecting officer that if he had no other money about him he would be happy to wait ou him at his hotel the next morning. This piece of condescension my friend did not avail himself of, and consequently, though he had nothing subject to duty, he was soon surrounded by the contents of his portmanteau and hat-box.

The drive to our hotel was another five dollars. In England it would have been half-a-crown ; but then we were not in England, as the driver very cleverly explained to us. But we quickly perceived we were in a free country ; that cabby was evidently free to charge what he liked, and we, as we liked, free to accept his services or not. The excessively high rate of fares for carriages in New York entirely precludes the general use of them. But there are plenty of street-cars ; and the amusing scenes constantly to be witnessed in them, and the necessity for a steady look-out that your pockets are not picked, are as stimulating for the mental powers as the jolts, jerks and struggles to obtain a seat are for the bodily ones.

New York is undoubtedly great in three things — hotels, oysters, and mixed drinks. In the first I was disappointed, with the second delighted, and

NEW YORK TO NIAGARA.

astonished by the third. The hotels, magnificent externally, and sufficiently well-appointed, yet want a home-like air ; and the continual crowd and bustle you find on entering some of the larger ones gives you the impression of being yet in the street. They have a terrible habit in American hotels of serving at meals all the dishes at once, so that by the time one is finished the rest are perfectly cold. Covers, apparently, are unknown luxuries, and the same may be said of a sufficient supply of clean plates, knives and forks, &c.

Mr. Henry Watterson, in a letter to the ' Louisville Courier Journal,' makes the following complimentary remarks on the English : ' The English are a gross, material people. They live on the coarsest food.' Now, anyone- who has travelled in America must have noticed that at most of the hotels in large cities, and at all of them in small towns, coarse food and extremely bad cooking are invariably found, The menu makes a grand display, but will not stand analysing ; and after a short sojourn in America you might easily, before arriving at any hotel in any town, write out the bill of fare that will be found there.

Of course there are exceptions. At the Brevoort House, in New York, as good food and as good cooking will be found as can be wished for ; but the charge for these unusual luxuries is most exorbitant.

io WESTERN WANDERINGS.

The hotel is conducted on the European plan, which for English travellers will be found far preferable to the American one. As for the wines, they are generally good, especially in New York ; but the prices — I suppose on account of the heavy duties — are so enormous that milk, tea, and water entirely take the place of sherry, claret, and other light wines. It is the same with beer — a bottle of Bass costing four or five times its original price.

Finding fault is a very ungracious task ; but hotels may be regarded as belonging to the travelling public. Besides, I have seen so many letters from Americans in England to the different New York papers, constantly abusing ' English cookery,' that it is only fair that the subject of ' American cookery ' should be touched upon by an Englishman.

To the oyster-lover America ought to be a paradise. And to the great variety of those bivalves is added a still greater variety in the manner of preparing them for the table. The clams are not quite so good, and, as with olives, an acquired taste is necessary to appreciate them. When I first ate them I thought them like indiarubber boiled in brine.

Everybody has heard of Broadway, as he has heard of the Eue Eivoli and of Regent Street. Length is its principal feature ; for the rest, it is ill-paved, badly

NEW YORK TO NIAGARA. n

lighted at night, and has very few shops, or stores, worth looking at. On the whole, Broadway is remarkable for little except the crowds that frequent it and their eager haste — each man, seemingly, being bent on making amends, as they say here, for having come into the world half-an-hour too late. The inventor of boots with wheels, which enable the wearer to go as fast as on a bicycle, ought to make his fortune very rapidly in New York. The hare will never be beaten by the tortoise in America.

Several of the New York churches are very beautiful, and some of the great marble buildings stand as monuments of what can be effected by the persevering industry of those who began life as penniless boys.

As London has its East end and West end, so New York has its Bowery and Broadway. But instead of the innumerable squares and streets of the West end of London, the West end of New York is confined to Fifth Avenue and a few of the adjacent streets ; and just as Paris is the paradise which every good American hopes for when he dies, so, a house in Fifth Avenue is what he most covets in this life.

The theatres are mostly fine handsome buildings. They are well-managed, and you find there no disagreeable people on the look-out for a fee for showing you to your seat or for handing a programme, as in our London playhouses. The acting, generally, is indifferent, one ( bright particular siar' being the magnet to attract an audience.

New York must be a very musical city, judging from the immense number of piano stores. I should say they are about as numerous, in proportion to the population, as the drinking-bars — which are calculated at one to every hundred and twenty persons. Yet the charge for hiring a piano is more than double what it is in Europe. However, as a shilling in England, or a franc in France, goes as far as a dollar (four shillings) in America, I suppose this is not a charge to complain of.

We went one day to see a ' great billiard tournament ' between some of the champions of America ; and in spite of the wonderful play of Gamier and Dion, the champions, we found the American game much more tedious for spectators than the English one. Cannons are apt to become monotonous after the first hundred, even when the stakes are silver cups and diamond cues.

In the large billiard halls it is very amusing to watch the different players, and it is not difficult to estimate a man's character by his play.

One player prefers ' following strokes ; ' quietly and delicately coaxing the hard balls to do what he wants without their being aware of it. Another, is always twisting and 'putting on side' and scoring just where you do not expect it ; whilst another, by sheer straightforward play, drives the balls about with far-seeing combinations: Then there is the cunning man, who gets the balls in a corner and keeps on scoring till the helpless opponent longs to hit him over the head with the butt-end of his cue.

But let us get into the fresh air ; and the Central Park will be the very place to drive away the effects of the hot billiard-room.

This park, the pride of New York, is very picturesque ; it has a great variety of surface and ornamentation. But a short time ago it was a barren, bleak, unwholesome stretch of land, a place of deposit for rubbish and old bricks, with here and there a marshy spot and a few stagnant pools. Now, it is most admirably laid out, planted with trees and shrubs, and diversified by hills, rocks, slopes, plains, and lakes ; arranged, too, by the hand of a master, and with a most thorough effect of natural scenery. All sorts of means for elevating the surface and breaking the monotony of outline have been used. Doubtless, in future ages learned men will dig deep into some of the vast mounds and wonder how volcanic action could raise and collect in these spots such a wonderful assemblage of old Indian curiosities, in the shape of tin cans, oyster-shells, shoes, cast-off crinolines, and broken china.

The prohibition to walk on the grass seems rather strange in a People's Park ; but perhaps during the hot

dry summers the grass would be so soon worn away that the rule is necessary. At all events, the place is a source of immense enjoyment and benefit to everyone.

In New York one misses very much the flowers and 1 hanging gardens ' which make London houses so gay. It is a pity that houses whose interiors are so lavishly adorned with works of art should not display on their exteriors a few of the works of nature.

Whilst passing a few days at Eockaway, on Long Island, we witnessed a very curious naval engagement. There was a great noise one morning in front of the hotel, and on going out to ascertain what was the matter we saw a number of large porpoises in hot pursuit of what are called ' drum-fish.' Such a noise ! such splashing ! the porpoises striking with their tails, and actually driving several of their enemies on shore. More than twenty dead fish were taken out of the shallow water. They must have weighed on an average twenty or thirty pounds each. One old porpoise nearly stranded himself in his laudable endeavours to outdo his friends in this onslaught ; and he grunted terribly, and seemed quite put out when the battle was over.

We had reserved the Hudson river for a bonnelouche, and very fortunately so, as we were thereby enabled to carry away with us more pleasing impressions of New York than we otherwise should have done. The banks of very few rivers display more beautiful and romantic scenery than do those of the magnificent stream which flows beneath the Palisades.

From Hoboken to beyond West Point (the Staff College of America) objects of great interest, historical and legendary, present themselves at every turn ; whilst the natural beauty of the scenes, viewed from the deck of most capitally-appointed steamers, combine to make this trip one of the most charming imaginable. In these river steamboats food for the body is not lost sight of in the intellectual treat, and in my recollections of the first glimpse of Poughkeepsie there still lingers a reminiscence of the most delicious terrapene stew I ever tasted. To attempt any description of the beautiful river after one rapid journey up and down it would be absurd. It would require weeks to inspect but a part of its beauties, and even then I could not do it anything like justice.

Eeturning to New York, we said good-bye to the many kind friends we had met in that hospitable city ; paid a last visit to busy Broadway and wealthy Wall Street — the latter destined so soon to witness a terrible financial crisis — gave ourselves a farewell dinner at Delmonico's, and finally left the most Hibernian city to be met with out of Ireland, and proceeded on our way to Niagara. We took the Erie Eoad, as it seemed by the map to pass through a more picturesque country than the other routes, and on a dull damp morning ensconced ourselves in a ' Pullman Silver Palace Drawing-room and Hotel Car.' Such a high-soundin<r title was enough to take one's breath away. It reminded me of a palace scene in the 'Arabian Nights.' The reality, however, was simply a long railway carriage, with chairs like music-stools with arms ; some nets, of a size quite incapable of holding anything, and a brilliant array of spittoons. Nor must I forget the filter of water, with one glass or tin cup chained to it, out of which everybody, from the pea-nut boy and porters, was supposed to drink. What would life be to an American without his filter of iced-water !