wn the
Genassee Fall, and since that time he has not been seen or heard of.]

There is no part of the world, perhaps, where you have more difficulty
in obtaining permission to be alone, and indulge in a reverie, than in
America. The Americans are as gregarious as school-boys, and think it
an incivility to leave you by yourself. Every thing is done in crowds,
and among a crowd. They even prefer a double bed to a single one, and I
have often had the offer to sleep with me made out of real kindness.
You must go "east of sun-rise" (or west of sun-set) if you would have
solitude.

I never was in a more meditative humour, more anxious to be left to my
own dreamings, than when I ascended the railroad car with my companion
to return to Jersey city; we were the only two in that division of the
car, and my friend, who understood me, had the complaisance to go fast
asleep. I made sure that, for an hour or two, I could indulge in my own
castle-buildings, and allow my fleeting thoughts to pass over my brain,
like the scud over the moon. At our first stoppage a third party
stepped in and seated himself between us. He looked at my companion,
who was fast asleep. He turned to me, and I turned away my head. Once
more was I standing at the Falls of the Passaic; once more were the
waters rolling down before me, the trees gracefully waving their boughs
to the breeze, and the spray cooling my heated brain; my brain was, like
the camera-obscura, filled with the pleasing images, which I watched as
they passed before me so vividly portrayed, all in life and motion, when
I was interrupted by--

"I was born in the very heart of Cheshire, sir."

Confound the fellow! The river, falls, foliage, all vanished at once;
and I found myself sitting in a railroad-car (which I had been
unconscious of), with a heavy lump of humanity by my side. I wished one
of the largest Cheshire cheeses down his throat.

"Indeed!" replied I, not looking at the man.

"Yes, sir--in the very heart of Cheshire."

"Would you had staid there!" thought I, turning away to the window
without replying.

"Will you oblige me with a pinch of your snuff, sir? I left my box at
New York."

I gave him the box, and, when he had helped himself, laid it down on the
vacant seat opposite to him, that he might not have to apply again, and
fell back and shut my eyes, as a hint to him that I did not wish to
enter into conversation. A pause ensued, and I had hopes; but they