“Who is it who has passed this judgement, sir?”

“The men of taste of America, madam.”

I then asked him, if he thought it was going to rain?

The stages do not appear to have any regular stations at which to stop for breakfast, dinner, and supper.  These necessary interludes, therefore, being generally impromptu, were abominably bad.  We were amused by the patient manner in which our American fellow-travellers ate whatever was set before them, without uttering a word of complaint, or making any effort to improve it, but no sooner reseated in the stage, than they began their complaints—­“twas a shame”—­“twas a robbery”—­“twas poisoning folks”—­and the like.  I, at last, asked the reason of this, and why they did not remonstrate?  “Because, madam, no American gentleman or lady that keeps an inn won’t bear to be found fault with.”

We reached Utica very late and very weary; but the delights of a good hotel and perfect civility sent us in good humour to bed, and we arose sufficiently refreshed to enjoy a day’s journey through some of the loveliest scenery in the world.

Who is it that says America is not picturesque?  I forget; but surely he never travelled from Utica to Albany.  I really cannot conceive that any country can furnish a drive of ninety-six miles more beautiful, or more varied in its beauty.  The road follows the Mohawk River, which flows through scenes changing from fields, waving with plenty, to rocks and woods; gentle slopes, covered with cattle, are divided from each other by precipices 500 feet high.  Around the little falls there is a character of beauty as singular as it is striking.  Here, as I observed of many other American rivers, the stream appears to run in a much narrower channel than it once occupied, and the space which it seems formerly to have filled, is now covered with bright green herbage, save that, at intervals, large masses of rock rise abruptly from the level turf; these are crowned with all such trees as love the scanty diet which a rock affords.  Dwarf oak, cedars, and the mountain ash, are grouped in a hundred different ways among them; each clump you look upon is lovelier than its neighbour; I never saw so sweetly wild a spot.

I was surprised to hear a fellow-traveller say, as we passed a point of peculiar beauty, “all this neighbourhood belongs, or did belong, to Mr. Edward Ellice, an English Member of Parliament, but he has sold a deal of it, and now, madam, you may see as it begins to improve;” and he pointed to a great wooden edifice, where, on the white paint, “Cash for Rags,” in letters three feet high, might be seen.

I then remembered that it was near this spot that my Yankee friend had made his complaint against English indifference to “water privilege.”  He did not name Mr. Edward Ellice, but doubtless he was the “English, as never thought of improvement.”