taining the passengers with her melodious singing. She had been placed in safety upon a shutter, which, instead of floating to the shore, had been seized by the rapid current and carried for miles down the river where at last it settled "where the reeds and rushes quiver ;" and there she was found a couple of days afterwards frozen to death; but looking as pure and white as a marble statue. The intense coldness of the night, and the paralysis of fear, had been as inexorable as the flames and the water to many other of her fellow victims. Every effort was made from the shore, but the floating plots of burning oil bade defiance to human help. One heart-rending case was of an old man with white flowing hair, who seeing a boat put off from shore, flung himself from the burning deck to meet it: ere he rose to the surface a pool of oil came floating down and he came up in the midst of it: Nemesis herself would have been moved to pity at the sight of the agony of that poor old man, his white locks and arms enframed in lambent fire.-Only for a few moments though-then something else occurred. In half an hour both vessels were in full flame burning to the water's edge. For days nothing but bandages and impromptu clothing was thought of-Americans show great im pulsive kindness to sudden misfortune, and a great misfortune calls out all their best feelings. One hour before, I had embarked on that vessel, but owing to some information given me by a passenger, relative to a person I was going to see, being from home at the time, I had gone on shore again. What trifles turn the scale of our existence. Something under three hundred persons perished on the two vessels. CHAPTER XX. CINCINNATI.-THE DESTINY OF PIGS. CINCINNATI, renamed Porkapolis, is one of the largest towns of the West, harbouring two hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants. It is beautifully situated on the Ohio river, and is surrounded on either side by picturesque hills and all those natural advantages which should make it one of the most charming cities in the world. But its climate is as disagreeable as it can well be, and the coal burnt there is of the dirtiest description -so that like Sheffield in England, the natural beauties of Cincinnati are wrapped in a pall of dark smoke, which, mingling with a good proportion of greasy fog, produces the most murky of atmospheres, and the dullest looking of places. As long as Cincinnati continues to burn that sooty dirty coal, she must give up all her pretensions to beauty. Mountains viewed through that yellow, grey mist look like blotches in the distance-obstructing the vision rather than delighting the eye. Young girls seen through this saffron-tinted haze have the appearance of having been disinterred, so cadaverous is their aspect. While the inevitable smut on their delicate nostrils, lips or forehead, makes cleanliness, which is said to be akin to godliness, impossible. It is not of much consequence as regards the men of Porkapolis, for they are rough, awkward, rude, ungainly creatures, at best; still the sooty cloud in which they live and move and have their being, gives them a muddy greasy look, and destroys the last vestige of comeliness or attractiveness. . Porkapolis, so called from its large pork manufactories, is one of the best built cities in America, and indeed it is the handsomest with the exception of Philadelphia. The houses of business are substantial and have considerable pretensions to architectural beauty—most of them having stone or iron fronts, or handsome stone copings. The Post Office is a fine stone building, and several of the banking houses may well compete with any of the smaller fraternity in Europe. The streets are wide and well paved, though fearfully dirty. There is no want of commodious carriages for hire, but there is no fixed fare, and the drivers ask unreasonable prices-as is mostly the case throughout the United States. For instance, a drive of something less than a quarter of a mile, is nine shillings! The street cars—a sort of long omnibus drawn by horses and running on rails laid along the streets are, except in cases of emergency, the most available means of transit, cheap enough-the fare being only five to ten cents for any distance. Cincinnati is the great centre between the north-east and south-west, being situated, midriver, between Pittsburg, Baltimore, Memphis, and New Orleans. It is the oldest large city of the West, but now rivalled by Chicago and St. Louis. It has all the characteristics of Western America in its rough-and-readiness and complete indifference to the convenances I have observed in other parts of the world. If a man steps on your dress, no doubt he feels as sorry your rent garment as another, but he does. not think it worth while to say, "Pardon me!" but stalks on, kicking the torn morsel from under his feet. for Nothing in this over-rated America is more over-rated than the West. Looked at in the right light, it is a fine thing in its way. It is the great and grand spectacle of man subduing nature of felling the trees of the forest, and subduing the wild beast of the prairie. The |