d, I
continued my stroll and my cigar.

The progress of Rochester has not been so rapid as that of Buffalo; in
1826 they made a pretty fair start, and at present Rochester has only a
little above forty thousand, while, as we said a few pages back, Buffalo
has sixty thousand. Rochester has the disadvantage of not being built
quite on the lake, as Buffalo may be said to be; moreover, the carrying
on Lake Ontario is not so great as on Lake Erie. Both towns enjoy the
rich advantages of the Erie canal, and Rochester is benefited by
water-power in a way Buffalo is not. Genesee river, in a distance of
three miles, falls nearly two hundred and thirty feet, and has three
cascades, the greatest of which is upwards of one hundred feet; this
power has not been overlooked by the Rochesterians, who have established
enormous flour-mills in consequence, using up annually three million
bushels of wheat. As one of the Genesee falls was close to the town, I
bent my steps thither; the roads were more than ankle deep in mud, and I
had some difficulty in getting to the spot; when there, the dreary
nakedness of the banks and the matter-of-factism of a huge mill, chased
even the very thought of beauty from my mind: whether man stripped the
banks, or Nature, I cannot say, but I should rather "guess" it was man.

I was puddling back full of disappointment, and had just got upon the
wooden pavement, which is a trottoir upon the plank-road system, when I
saw a strange sail ahead, with rather a novel rig; could it be?--no!
yes!--no! yes!--yes, by George! a real, living Rochester Bloomer was
steering straight for me. She was walking arm-in-arm with a man who
looked at a distance awfully dirty; upon closer examination, I found the
effect was produced by his wearing all his face-hair close clipped, like
a hunter's coat in the season: but I had but little time to spare upon
_him_--the Bloomer was the star of attraction: on she came with a pretty
face, dark hair, eyes to match, and a good figure; she wore a black
beaver hat, low crown, and broad brim; round the hat was tied, in a
large bow, a bright red ribbon: under a black silk polka, which fitted
to perfection, she had a pair of chocolate-coloured pantaloons, hanging
loosely and gathered in above the ankles, and a neat pair of little feet
were cased in a sensible pair of boots, light, but at the same time
substantial. A gap occurring in the trottoir, and the roads being
shockingly muddy, I was curio