I set store by the Japans and am glad to hear how fast they’re pressin’ forwards in every path civilization has opened; science, art and the best education.  And wuz glad to see so many of ’em here.  They could give Uncle Sam a good many lessons if he wuz willin’ to take ’em.  But good as he is he is a heady old creeter, and won’t be driv into anything and has a powerful good opinion of himself.

But to resoom forwards.  After we’d gone the complete ’round of the Intre Moral Railway and ortemobile we got out agin on the Plaza not fur from where we embarked, and at my request we took a boat.  Josiah chose one of the handsomest ones with the front end kinder bowin’ up and a bright-colored awnin’ over it; they called it a gondola.

The gondolier had bold flashin’ black eyes and a gay suit that struck Josiah’s fancy, and I knowed by his looks he wuz meditatin’ on what Might Have Been.  I felt that he wuz in fancy rowin’ a boat up our creek in a red coat and green hat with yeller feathers mebby, carryin’ sister Submit Tewksbury or sister Gowdey, sailin’ towards his own Exposition of St. Josiah.  There wuz a sad pensive look on his liniment that belonged to ruined hopes and blighted emotions.

Blandina whispered to me she thought the gondolier a image of beauty and wondered if he had a companion; she said she believed he would be devoted to a wife if he had one that looked up to him.

I answered her like one talkin’ onbeknown to herself, two of my eyes and my spectacles furtively watchin’ the liniment of my beloved pardner, and my speritual eyes feastin’ on the perfect loveliness of the seen.  Broad smooth waters how beautiful they were, dotted with craft similar to ourn and freighted with happy voyagers dartin’ here and there, and some of the boats wuz the queerest shapes, one on ’em looked jest exactly like a big white swan, and there wuz one, if you’ll believe it, that looked like a sea serpent, I wouldn’t have rid in it for a dollar bill, though Josiah said he’d love to tell Deacon Henzy that he’d straddled the old sea serpent and rid to shore on it.

But I sez, “Good land, Josiah, you don’t ride on the outside on it, there is a place fixed inside somewhere for passengers.”

But most of the boats wuz handsome.  Anon the water lay smooth and fair about us, and fur off we could see immense fountains risin’ right up out of the glassy surface, sprayin’ up and glitterin’ down floods of rainbow glory.

Agin we landed on terry firmy I a feelin’ as if we wuz roamin’ through Fancy’s fields, for it seemed as if cold Reality never could have planned anything approachin’ what wuz all round us.  For as you draw nigh the glittering Cascades you fairly stop bewildered by the beauty, and most want to shet your eyes on it, not knowin’ what path to choose where all are so bagonin’ full of allurements and the hull world seemin’ to be allured there by ’em.  On one side the glory of the waters dashing, sparkling, bounding along down, with fountains sprayin’ up every little while, and white statutes smilin’ down on us nigher by.  On the other side green verdure and beyond and on every side the glory of the water, and above us the most magnificent buildin’ in the world flanked on each side with the long Colonnade of States.