tanical state of Rhode
Island! Would any engineer have ventured to propose such a line in
England? I think not. After all, it is but human nature. I have run
over the world a long while, and have always observed that people are
very religious so long as religion does not interfere with their
pockets; but, with gold in one hand and godliness in the other, the
tangible is always preferred to the immaterial. In America everything
is sacrificed to time--for time is money. The New Yorkers would have
dashed right through the church itself; but then, _they_ are publicans,
and don't _pretend_ to be good.

Boston is a fine city, and, as a commercial one, almost as well situated
as New York. It has, however, lost a large portion of its commerce,
which the latter has gradually wrested from it, and it must eventually
lose much more. The population of Boston is about eighty thousand, and
it has probably more people of leisure in it (that is, out of business
and living on their own means) than even Philadelphia; taking into the
estimate the difference between the populations. They are more learned
and scientific here than at New York, though not more so than at
Philadelphia; but they are more English than in any other city in
America. The Massachusetts people are very fond of comparing their
country with that of England. The scenery is not unlike; but it is not
like England in its high state of cultivation. Stone walls are bad
substitutes for green hedges. Still, there are some lovely spots in the
environs of Boston. Mount Auburn, laid out as a Pere la Chaise, is, in
natural beauties, far superior to any other place of the kind. One
would almost wish to be buried there; and the proprietors, anxious to
have it peopled, offer, by their arrangements as to the price of places
of interment, a handsome premium to those who will soonest die and be
buried--which is certainly a consideration.

Fresh Pond is also a very romantic spot. It is a lake of about two
hundred acres, whose water is so pure that the ice is transparent as
glass. Its proprietor clears many thousand dollars a year by the sale
of it. It is cut out in blocks of three feet square, and supplies most
parts of America down to New Orleans; and every winter latterly two or
three ships have been loaded and sent to Calcutta, by which a very
handsome profit has been realised.

Since I have been here, I have made every enquiry relative to the
sea-serpent which fre