English tongue is in the ascendant; but the eye fails to see many figures or faces to match the hereditary language. The ladies are dressed after the latest French mode, yet the fashion of their apparel is the only thing they have borrowed from Paris. Their looks are native to the soil, and to call them good is not to speak of them in language sufficiently eulogistic. The men are dressed with a regard for appearances which is more common in Paris than in London. There is none of the uniformity in their attire which is akin to monotony. All do not seem to have been condemned, by a law which cannot be gainsaid, to wear the same hideous hat. The wideawake' is as common as the chimney pot' and the mixture of the two produces a pleasing effect.

The purity of the air is delicious. If a dwelling be built of marble, or brick, or stone, the beholder has no difficulty in pronouncing as to the nature of the material, and has the satisfaction of duly appreciating the whiteness of the delicate marble, the warmth of the brick, the solidity of the stone. The principal streets are broad: the principal squares are spacious. The several Avenues which run parallel to each other throughout the greater part of the city are so wide that the tramways which are laid in them do not in the slightest degree interfere

with the traffic. For the passage of all conveyances there is room enough and to spare. At the upper end of the city is the Central Park. This public ground covers an area of more than 800 acres. It is laid out in a style resembling the Bois de Boulogne rather than Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. Several years hence when the trees shall have attained their full height the Central Park will be second to no other place of the kind.

Quite as remarkable as the cosmopolitan aspect of New York streets is the contrast between the different portions of the city. The business quarter has a finished and substantial look; the offices seem as if they had been built for some time. Proceeding westward the several edifices are evidently built for show and are apparently of comparatively recent date. In the former case the buildings have a money-making impress upon them: in the latter the stamp of the successful millionaire is unmistakeable. From the fine mansions of the rich in a fashionable Avenue, the transition is rapid to the miserable shanty of the Irish squatter. At the one end gorgeous carriages roll along: at the other geese are feeding among the grass. Another contrast is that between the splendour of the buildings and the wretchedness of the pavement. The streets are filled with ruts. For this the City Fathers are

severely censured; but they can afford to brave the indignation of their fellow-citizens so long as they are permitted to hold office and to deal with the funds at their disposal in the manner most pleasing to themselves.

In my opinion scant justice has yet been done to New York on the whole. It has its drawbacks, as has every city on the face of the globe, but it possesses excellencies which more than outweigh them. The man of business finds it as good a centre for his operations as London. The pleasure-seeker can amuse himself as well as in Paris, while men of letters and students of art affirm that the prospects of New York becoming an honoured home of literature and art grow brighter every day.

Before beginning my journey by rail from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific slope, I had to ascertain various particulars as to the route. There was no difficulty in purchasing a through ticket. In most of the hotels and in numerous shops the tickets of any railway in the United States can be bought. Although the Pacific railway is constantly spoken of as a line which actually runs between New York and San Francisco, yet this is merely a conventional way of stating the fact that there is communication by rail between the two cities. A traveller can journey in a railway carriage from

Dover to Inverness, but there is no such thing as a Dover and Inverness Railway. He has the choice of two lines of rail between Dover and London, of three between London and Edinburgh and of two over a part of the remainder of the route. a stranger to the country, he may be embarrassed

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with this variety and be at a loss what selection to make. So it is at New York. The stranger sees innumerable advertisements in which Union Pacific Railroad is conspicuous, but in which the names of various lines are enumerated as being in connection with it. He reads in one that the 'Allentown Line' is the shortest and the best; in another that the 'Great Central Route' is indisputably without a rival; he may even see the advantages of the illfated Erie Railway extolled to the skies. As the fare in all cases is the same the puzzle consists in ascertaining the respective merits of the competing lines. He learns that in any event he must first reach Chicago. If, as is possible, the name of Niagara has an attraction for him and if, as is very natural, he is curious to become acquainted with the far-famed Pullman's Cars,' he will probably decide upon travelling by the Great Central Route' and in doing so he will have no reason to repent of his decision. Should time be no object, he cannot do better than ascend the Hudson River

in a steamboat to Albany and enter the train there instead of at New York. The scenery of the Hudson has been highly lauded, but not overpraised. It is quite as romantic as that of the Rhine. In the autumn the aspect of the woods on the river's banks and heights clothed in the gorgeous tints of that season is a spectacle of wonderful beauty. The vine-clad hills between Coblentz and Bingen, when seen at their best, cannot match the Hudson in its most picturesque parts. Nature has done much for that river. One thing, however, is wanting to render it as famous as its European rival; the Hudson has not yet had its Byron. While no great poet has rendered it attractive by his inspired verse, a steamboat company has endeavoured to create an interest of a more prosaic and more practical kind. The steamers which ply between New York and Albany are marvels in their way. To call them 'floating palaces' is not the language of hyperbole, but is the simple truth. Let me suppose that the Great Central Route' has been chosen and that the traveller bound for the Far West starts from New York in the evening by the Pacific Express. On the morning of the following day he arrives at Rochester, where 'Pullman's Palace Cars' are attached to the train; he gets a good view of Niagara Falls as the train