in length, ample in breadth,
and, for the most part, shaded with a double line of graceful elms.
Its extremities are adorned with beautiful villas. The Fifth avenue of
the place, where the handsomest residences are located, is Circular
street, east of the Park. Beautiful dwellings may also be found on
Lake avenue and Franklin street. The streets are thronged with a gay
and brilliant multitude, engaged in riding, driving, walking, each
enjoying to the utmost a facinating kind of busy idleness. But by the
time the tourist has glanced at all this he will be thinking of clean
napkins, and will be interested to know what may be afforded in the
way of

Accommodations for Man and Beast.

About 15,000 visitors can at one time be quartered in the gay watering
place, and consequently to pen up all the fashionable flock within the
limits of so small a town, requires no little tact. During August,
Saratoga is always full, crowded, squeezed.

Saratoga has the largest and most extensive hotels in the world. There
are in all from thirty to forty, and in addition to them numerous
public and private boarding-houses accommodate large numbers of
guests.

Among the hotels, the gem of Saratoga, and one of the finest, if not
_the finest_, hotel in this country is

Congress Hall.

[Illustration: CONGRESS HALL.]

Extending from Spring to Congress street, with a front on Broadway of
416 feet, and reaching with its two mammoth wings 300 feet back, it is
architecturally a perfect beauty. The rooms are large and elegant. The
halls are ten feet wide, and broad, commodious stairways, with the
finest elevator in the country, render every portion readily
accessible. A front piazza, 20 feet wide and 240 feet in length, with
numerous others within the grounds, and a promenade on the top of the
hotel affording a charming view, contribute to render the house
attractive. The dining halls, parlors, etc., are superb and ample, and
everything about the house is on a scale of unequaled magnificence and
grandeur.

The proprieters have endeavored to incorporate into this hotel
everything that can afford comfort and pleasure, at whatever expense.

The cut of Congress Hall will give some idea of its _outlines_, but
fails to do it justice. It must be seen to be appreciated, and when
seen commands the unqualified admiration of the beholder. It was
erected in 1868, by H.H. Hathorn, Esq., the proprietor of the old
Congress Hall, and one of