he assistance of the paving-surgeons, and by the
time our luggage was ticketed the train had arrived: some tumbled out,
others tumbled in; the kettle hissed, and off we went, the first few
hundred yards of our journey being along the street. Not being
accustomed to see a train going in full cry through the streets, I
expected every minute to hear a dying squeak, as some of the little
urchins came out, jumping and playing close to the cars; but they seem
to be protected by a kind of instinct; and I believe it would be as easy
to drive a train over a cock-sparrow as over a Yankee boy. At last we
emerged from the town, and went steaming away merrily over the country.
Our companions inside were a motley group of all classes. By good
fortune, we found a spare seat on which to put our cloaks, &c., which
was a luxury rarely enjoyed in my future travels, being generally
obliged to carry them on my knee, as the American cars are usually so
full that there is seldom a vacant place on which to lay them.

Our route lay partly along the line of the Mohawk, on the banks of which
is situated the lovely village of Rockton, or Little Falls, where the
gushing stream is compressed between two beautifully wooded cliffs,
affording a water-power which has been turned to good account by the
establishment of mills. At this point the Erie canal is cut for two
miles through the solid rock, and its unruffled waters, contrasting
with the boiling river struggling through the narrow gorge, look like
streams of Peace and Passion flowing and struggling side by side. As the
"iron horse" hurries us onward, the ears are assailed, amid the wild
majesty of Nature, with the puny cockneyisms of "Rome," "Syracuse," &c.
Such absurdities are ridiculous enough in our suburban villas; but to
find them substituted for the glorious old Indian names, is positively
painful.

Among other passengers in the train, was a man conspicuous among his
fellows for clean hide and clean dimity; on inquiry, I was told he was a
Professor. He looked rather young for a professorial chair, and further
investigation confused me still more, for I found he was a _Professor of
Soap_. At last, I ascertained that he had earned his title by going
about the country lecturing upon, and exhibiting in his person, the
valuable qualities of his detergent treasures, through which peripatetic
advertisement he had succeeded in realizing dollars and honours. The
oratory of some of these Professors i