full sight of the Speaker's chair, a drum, a musket, and a mitre-shaped
soldier's hat-trophies of the fight fought in front of the low earthwork
on Bunker's Hill. Thus the senators of Massachusetts have ever before
them visible reminders of the glory of their fathers: and I am not sure
that these former belongings of some long-waistcoated redcoat are not as
valuable incentives to correct legislation as that historic "bauble" of
our own constitution.

Meantime we must away. Boston and New York have had their stories told
frequently enough-and, in reality, there is not much to tell about them.
The world does not contain a more uninteresting accumulation of men and
houses than the great city of New York: it is a place wherein the
stranger feels inexplicably lonely. The traveller has no mental property
in this city whose enormous growth of life has struck scant roots into
the great heart of the past.

Our course, however, lies west. We will trace the onward stream of empire
in many portions of its way; we will reach its limits, and pass beyond it
into the lone spaces which yet silently await its coming; and farther
still, where the solitude knows not of its approach and the Indian still
reigns in savage supremacy.

NIAGARA--They have all had their say about Niagara. From Hennipin to
Dilke, travellers have written much about this famous cataract, and yet,
put all together, they have not said much about it; description depends
so much on comparison, and comparison necessitates a something like. If
there existed another Niagara on the earth, travellers might compare this
one to that one; but as there does not exist a second Niagara, they are
generally hard up for a comparison. In the matter of roar, however,
comparisons are still open. There is so much noise in the world that