s to notice, as we touch
the frontier, that the American female beauty dies out; and a woman's
face clumsily compounded of German, Irish, Western America, and
Canadian, not yet fused together, and not yet moulded, obtains instead.
Our show of Beauty at night is, generally, remarkable; but we had not a
dozen pretty women in the whole throng last night, and the faces were
all blunt. I have just been walking about, and observing the same thing
in the streets. . . . The winter has been so severe, that the hotel on the
English side at Niagara (which has the best view of the Falls, and is
for that reason very preferable) is not yet open. So we go, perforce, to
the American: which telegraphs back to our telegram: 'all Mr. Dickens's
requirements perfectly understood.' I have not yet been in more than two
_very bad_ inns. I have been in some, where a good deal of what is
popularly called 'slopping round' has prevailed; but have been able to
get on very well. 'Slopping round,' so used, means untidyness and
disorder. It is a comically expressive phrase, and has many meanings.
Fields was asking the price of a quarter-cask of sherry the other day.
'Wa'al Mussr Fields,' the merchant replies, 'that varies according to
quality, as is but nay'tral. If yer wa'ant a sherry just to slop round
with it, I can fix you some at a very low figger.'"

His letter was resumed at Rochester on the 18th. "After two most
brilliant days at the Falls of Niagara, we got back here last night.
To-morrow morning we turn out at 6 for a long railway journey back to
Albany. But it is nearly all 'back' now, thank God! I don't know how
long, though, before turning, we might have gone on at Buffalo. . . . We
went everywhere at the Falls, and saw them in every aspect. There is a
suspension bridge across, now, some two miles or more from the Horse
Shoe; and another, half a mile nearer, is to be opened in July. They are
very fine but very ticklish, hanging aloft there, in the continual
vibration of the thundering water: nor is one greatly reassured by the
printed notice that troops must not cross them at step, that bands of
music must not play in crossing, and the like. I shall never forget the
last aspect in which we saw Niagara yesterday. We had been everywhere,
when I thought of struggling (in an open carriage) up some very
difficult ground for a good distance, and getting where we could stand
above the river, and see it, as it rushes forward to its tremendous
lea