I have said that a good time is coming, but I would by no means wish to signify that the present times in Portland are bad.  So far from it that I doubt whether I ever saw a town with more evident signs of prosperity.  It has about it every mark of ample means, and no mark of poverty.  It contains about 27,000 people, and for that population covers a very large space of ground.  The streets are broad and well built, the main streets not running in those absolutely straight parallels which are so common in American towns, and are so distressing to English eyes and English feelings.  All these, except the streets devoted exclusively to business, are shaded on both sides by trees, generally, if I remember rightly, by the beautiful American elm, whose drooping boughs have all the grace of the willow without its fantastic melancholy.  What the poorer streets of Portland may be like, I cannot say.  I saw no poor street.  But in no town of 30,000 inhabitants did I ever see so many houses which must require an expenditure of from six to eight hundred a year to maintain them.

The place, too, is beautifully situated.  It is on a long promontory, which takes the shape of a peninsula, for the neck which joins it to the main-land is not above half a mile across.  But though the town thus stands out into the sea, it is not exposed and bleak.  The harbor, again, is surrounded by land, or so guarded and locked by islands as to form a series of salt-water lakes running round the town.  Of those islands there are, of course, three hundred and sixty-five.  Travelers who write their travels are constantly called upon to record that number, so that it may now be considered as a superlative in local phraseology, signifying a very great many indeed.  The town stands between two hills, the suburbs or outskirts running up on to each of them.  The one looking out toward the sea is called Mountjoy, though the obstinate Americans will write it Munjoy on their maps.  From thence the view out to the harbor and beyond the harbor to the islands is, I may not say unequaled, or I shall be guilty of running into superlatives myself, but it is in its way equal to anything I have seen.  Perhaps it is more like Cork harbor, as seen from certain heights over Passage, than anything else I can remember; but Portland harbor, though equally landlocked, is larger; and then from Portland harbor there is, as it were, a river outlet running through delicious islands, most unalluring to the navigator, but delicious to the eyes of an uncommercial traveler.  There are in all four outlets to the sea, one of which appears to have been made expressly for the Great Eastern.  Then there is the hill looking inward.  If it has a name, I forget it.  The view from this hill is also over the water on each side, and, though not so extensive, is perhaps as pleasing as the other.