nters ever known; and you
will descry a reason or two for my being an indifferent correspondent.
Last Sunday evening I left the Falls of Niagara for this and two
intervening places. As there was a great thaw, and the melted snow was
swelling all the rivers, the whole country for three hundred miles was
flooded. On the Tuesday afternoon (I had read on the Monday) the train
gave in, as under circumstances utterly hopeless, and stopped at a place
called Utica; the greater part of which was under water, while the high
and dry part could produce nothing particular to eat. Here, some of the
wretched passengers passed the night in the train, while others stormed
the hotel. I was fortunate enough to get a bed-room, and garnished it
with an enormous jug of gin-punch; over which I and the manager played a
double-dummy rubber. At six in the morning we were knocked up: 'to come
aboard and try it.' At half-past six we were knocked up again with the
tidings 'that it was of no use coming aboard or trying it.' At eight all
the bells in the town were set agoing, to summon us to 'come aboard'
instantly. And so we started, through the water, at four or five miles
an hour; seeing nothing but drowned farms, barns adrift like Noah's
arks, deserted villages, broken bridges, and all manner of ruin. I was
to read at Albany that night, and all the tickets were sold. A very
active superintendent of works assured me that if I could be 'got along'
he was the man to get me along: and that if I couldn't be got along, I
might conclude that it couldn't possibly be fixed. He then turned on a
hundred men in seven-league boots, who went ahead of the train, each
armed with a long pole and pushing the blocks of ice away. Following
this cavalcade, we got to land at last, and arrived in time for me to
read the _Carol_ and _Trial_ triumphantly. My people (I had five of the
staff with me) turned to at their work with a will, and did a day's
labour in a couple of hours. If we had not come in as we did, I should
have lost L350, and Albany would have gone distracted. You may conceive
what the flood was, when I hint at the two most notable incidents of our
journey:--1, We took the passengers out of two trains, who had been in
the water, immovable all night and all the previous day. 2, We released
a large quantity of sheep and cattle from trucks that had been in the
water I don't know how long, but so long that the creatures in them had
begun to eat each other, and pr