tom; and he politely and good-humouredly gave up the enviable post to me during the rest of my stay.

He was a clever, agreeable, and gentlemanlike person; an ex-member of Congress; and one of the Executive Council of the State of York. He has given me a letter to the Director of the State Prison at Auburn, which will, I have no doubt, facilitate my investigations in that pattern of all gaols.

Adieu.

LETTER XVII.

Railroad from Saratoga to Utica-Ballston Springs— Scenectedy-Railroad Refreshment Rooms-Rapidity of Movement - Amsterdam-Port Jackson -Johnston Ville-Sir William Johnston and the Indian Chief-Dreams-The Little Falls-West Canada Creek-Mohawk River-Militia Drilling -Military Freaks-UTICA-A Man's Dinner hangs More upon a Minute Commerce of Utica

Militia men-White Negroes-Johnston's Longboat-Birds-Louis XVI.-Drive to TrentonView of the Falls by Moonlight.

Trenton Falls, Sept. 7, 1840.

"There was mounting 'mongst Graemes of the

Netherby clan!

Fosters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode

and they ran !"

SUCH beating of drums, such mustering of troops, such saddling of White Surreys, and such a hurry-skurry I never before witnessed! This has been one of the three

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BALLSTON SPRINGS.

days on which the militia muster for drill. But avast! I must first get you under way from "Saratoga Shaw, man."

We hurried to the breakfast - table Captain of course the last, being probably detained by taking a parting sketch of some of the beauties, animate and inanimate, of the place; and then we hurried to the cars, taking our seats therein at half past seven A.M.; and before we had time to look about us, we were at Ballston Springs. Here the bustle and confusion of changing cars and looking after baggage commenced ; and, from the bungling manner in which it was performed, was perfectly confounding, and I very nearly lost my servant and my luggage also. This operation over, we were pushed on to Scenectedy, and, before we arrived at it, we fell in with the Mohawk river at a point where two bridges are thrown across it; and we continued close to this river until we got to Utica.

Scenectedy is a very old town, and has a

splendid seminary lately finished, called Union College; it is presided over by Dr. Nott, the great improver upon steam. This ancient city was first founded by the Dutch, and formed a frontier fortress. About the middle of the seventeenth century it was attacked by a party of French and Indians from Canada, when the greater part of it was burned, and many of its inhabitants murdered.

It is now large and thriving, and likely to continue so, having the treble advantage of the Erie Canal, the railroad, and the Mohawk river, all passing through it. The first-named splendid work, which they are going to double and to deepen, runs in a parallel direction with the Mohawk and the railroad, through the whole of this rich vale, a distance of eighty miles, to Utica. The Dutch settlers from hence commenced the progress of civilisation along the entire extent of the fertile valley of the Mohawk,

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RAILROAD REPASTS.

once the scat of war, and the bloody scene of many a murderous and scalping feud; the Mohawks having been the most warlike and fierce of all the Indian tribes.

The streets and markets of Scenectedy at one end of this beautiful valley, and of Utica at the other, shew its productiveness; and the periodical rise of the Mohawk, which meanders through it, gives these favoured citics most plentiful crops: peaches, pumpkins, melons, grapes, apples, pears, tomatoes, and Indian corn, all are in abundance.

The refreshment rooms at the different stations along the whole line of the railroad afford an animated spectacle; where, during the short period the cars halt, you observe two or three hundred people lining the tables, the national rapidity of mastication being here fourfold. All of a sudden they are seen flying, helter-skelter, at the tingling of a bell. "All aboard" is then bellowed along the line, and off she goes!