to avail ourselves by
taking a peep at the town, all agreeing to continue our voyage with the
obliging Captain and steward. Accordingly, we stepped on shore, and took
a bird's eye view of the attractions of the place. As I never had heard
much said respecting this same town of Utica, I was truly astonished,
and not a little pleased with it. Setting aside delightful Philadelphia,
New York, and Baltimore, (I always place _Philadelphia_ first on my list
of pleasant cities,) I never saw so many fine buildings in any other
town. It is really a beautiful place, and to my apprehension is not much
smaller than Albany; I doubt whether the famed Rochester will equal it.
The streets are many of them very wide, being at right angles, nearly in
a direction North, South, East and West, with the exception of State
street, which runs in an oblique direction, and appears to be the
Broadway of Utica, and truly for two or three squares it is in no
respect inferior to that celebrated avenue of New York. There is an
elegant church in the place, with a handsome steeple of great altitude,
observable from a great distance. The Mohawk runs immediately on the
north side of the place, and the canal directly through the centre.
Nothing can exceed the facility with which boats are loaded and
discharged. There is a walk on each side of the canal about 10 feet
wide: a boat stops opposite a store, a tackle descends from an upper
story, which by means of a rope and windlass within the building,
managed by one man, can raise and lower heavy weights with wonderful
despatch. I should have wished to have remained in this charming place
for a longer period, but was propelled forward by persuasion. We left
Utica at 10 P. M. and the ear was saluted from a great distance up and
down the canal by the music of bugles, horns and trumpets, some of the
boatmen sounding their instruments most sweetly. After enjoying these
sounds for some time, I tumbled into my birth to partake of the
necessary blessing of a nap.

_9th_--I awoke about sunrise and ascended our deck; there had been
another heavy frost. We were just passing Bull fort, and had entered the
_Black Snake_, so called from the serpentine course of the canal. We
have passed, during the night, Whitesborough, Oriskany, and Rome, three
mushroom villages, which, with many others, have sprung up as with the
magic of Aladdin's lamp. We had now before us, with a few exceptions,
one uninterrupted white pine and hemlo