nce, and we are glad to think we are to
return and make a better acquaintance with it later in the month. There
is a delightful "common," as they call it, or park, which is well kept,
and much prized by the inhabitants. Some beautiful elm trees in it are
the largest we have seen in this country. Around one side are the best
dwelling houses, some of which are really magnificent. The hotel, which
is a very large one, has some beautiful public sitting rooms, greatly
larger than those at the Brevoort House at New York, which is much more
quiet in this respect; but these large rooms form an agreeable adjunct
to an hotel, as they are in general well filled by the guests in the
house, and yet sufficiently large to let each party have their own
little coterie.

The character of the inhabitants for honesty seems to be called in
question by the hotel-keepers, for all over these hotels there are
alarming notices to beware of hotel thieves (probably English
pickpockets); and in Boston we were not only told to lock our doors, but
not to leave the key on the outside _at any time_, for fear it should be
stolen.

_Trenton Falls, Sept. 16th._--We left Boston on Tuesday afternoon, and
got as far as Springfield, a town beautifully situated on the river
Connecticut, and celebrated for a government institution of great
importance, where they make and store up fire-arms. It is just 100 miles
from Boston, and the railway runs through a beautifully wooded country
the whole way, which made the journey appear a very short one. The
villages we passed had the same character as those between Providence
and Boston, and were, like them, built altogether of wood, generally
painted white, but occasionally varied by stone-colour, and sometimes by
a warm red or maroon colour picked out with white.

Springfield lay on our way to Albany, and as we had heard much of the
beauty of the place, we were not deterred from sleeping there by being
told that a great annual horse-fair was to be held there, but to secure
rooms we telegraphed for them the day before. At the telegraph station
they took upon themselves to say, there was no room at the established
hotels, but that a new one on the "European plan" had been opened the
day before, where we could be taken in; at this we greatly rejoiced, but
to our dismay on arriving, we found its existence ignored by every one,
and we were almost in despair when we bethought ourselves to go to the
telegraph office, where