the controlling of waters, and constant use of minute patches of broken land.  In another hundred years or so, Rhode Island may be, perhaps, as pretty as the Isle of Wight.  The horses which we got were not good.  They were unhandy and badly mouthed, and that which my wife rode was altogether ignorant of the art of walking.  We hired them from an Englishman who had established himself at New York as a riding-master for ladies, and who had come to Newport for the season on the same business.  He complained to me with much bitterness of the saddle-horses which came in his way—­of course thinking that it was the special business of a country to produce saddle-horses, as I think it the special business of a country to produce pens, ink, and paper of good quality.  According to him, riding has not yet become an American art, and hence the awkwardness of American horses.  “Lord bless you, sir! they don’t give an animal a chance of a mouth.”  In this he alluded only, I presume, to saddle-horses.  I know nothing of the trotting horses, but I should imagine that a fine mouth must be an essential requisite for a trotting match in harness.  As regards riding at Newport, we were not tempted to repeat the experiment.  The number of carriages which we saw there—­ remembering as I did that the place was comparatively empty—­and their general smartness, surprised me very much.  It seemed that every lady, with a house of her own, had also her own carriage.  These carriages were always open, and the law of the land imperatively demands that the occupants shall cover their knees with a worked worsted apron of brilliant colors.  These aprons at first I confess seemed tawdry; but the eye soon becomes used to bright colors, in carriage aprons as well as in architecture, and I soon learned to like them.

Rhode Island, as the State is usually called, is the smallest State in the Union.  I may perhaps best show its disparity to other States by saying that New York extends about two hundred and fifty miles from north to south, and the same distance from east to west; whereas the State called Rhode Island is about forty miles long by twenty broad, independently of certain small islands.  It would, in fact, not form a considerable addition if added on to many of the other States.  Nevertheless, it has all the same powers of self-government as are possessed by such nationalities as the States of New York and Pennsylvania, and sends two Senators to the Senate at Washington, as do those enormous States.  Small as the State is, Rhode Island itself forms but a small portion of it.  The authorized and proper name of the State is Providence Plantation and Rhode Island.  Roger Williams was the first founder of the colony, and he established himself on the mainland at a spot which he called Providence.  Here now stands the City of Providence, the chief town of the State; and a thriving, comfortable town it seems to be, full of banks, fed by railways and steamers, and going ahead quite as quickly as Roger Williams could in his fondest hopes have desired.