ston
harbour is as intricate as shoal, sunken rock, and fort-crowned island
can make it. If ever that much talked-of conflict between the two great
branches of the Anglo-Saxon race is destined to quit the realms of fancy
for those of fact, Boston, at least, will rest as safe from the
destructive engines of British iron-clads as the city of Omaha on the
Missouri River. It was only natural that the Massachusetts man should
have been in a fever of excitement at finding himself once more within
sight of home; and for once human nature exhibited the unusual spectacle
of rejoicing over the falsity of its own predictions. As every revolution
of the screw brought out some new feature into prominence, he skipped
gleefully about; and, recognizing in my person the stranger element in
the assembly, he took particular pains to point out the lions of the
landscape. "There, serais Fort Warren, where we kept our rebel prisoners
during the war. In a few minutes more, sir, we will be in sight of
Bunker's Hill;" and then, in a frenzy of excitement, he skipped away to
some post of vantage upon the forecastle.

Night had come down over the harbour, and Boston had lighted all her
lamps, before the "Samaria," swinging round in the fast-running tide,
lay, with quiet screw and smokeless funnel, alongside the wharf of New
England's oldest city.

"Real mean of that darned Baptist pointing you out Bunker's Hill," said
the sea-captain from Maine; "just like the ill-mannered republican cuss!"
It was useless to tell him that I had felt really obliged for the
information given me by his political opponent. "Never mind," he said,
"to-morrow I'll show you how these moral Bostonians break their darned
liquor law in every hotel in their city."

Boston has a clean, English look about it, peculiar to it alone of all
the cities in the United States. Its streets, running in curious curves,
as though they had not the least idea where they were going, are full of
prettily dressed pretty girls, who look as though they had a very fair
idea of where they were going to. Atlantic fogs and French fashions have
combined to make Boston belles pink, pretty,-and piquante; while the
western states, by drawing fully half their male population from New
England, make the preponderance of the female element apparent at a
glance. The ladies, thus left at home, have not been idle: their
colleges, their clubs, their reading-classes are numerous; like the man
in "Hudibras,"