winter foliage, are now thick with young and glossy leaves; the Pride of
India is ready to burst into flower, and the gardens are full of roses in
bloom.




Letter XVI.

An Excursion to Vermont and New Hampshire.



Addison County, Vermont, _July_ 10, 1843.


I do not recollect that I ever heard the canal connecting the Hudson with
Lake Champlain praised for its beauty, yet it is actually beautiful--that
part of it at least which lies between Dunham's Basin and the lake, a
distance of twenty-one miles, for of the rest I can not speak. To form the
canal, two or three streams have been diverted a little from their
original course, and led along a certain level in the valley through which
they flowed to pour themselves into Champlain. In order to keep this
level, a perpetually winding course has been taken, never, even for a few
rods, approaching a straight line. On one side is the path beaten by the
feet of the horses who drag the boats, but the other is an irregular bank,
covered sometimes with grass and sometimes with shrubs or trees, and
sometimes steep with rocks. I was delighted, on my journey to this place,
to exchange a seat in a stage-coach, driven over the sandy and dusty road
north of Saratoga by a sulky and careless driver, for a station on the top