trees. Round the corner you catch sight of a village festival. The
merry-go-rounds glint and clank under the shadow of a church. The
mountains approach and recede; streams grow into mighty rivers. The grey
sky is dark blue and inlaid with stars. And you sit still, tired and
travel-stained, having shared in a day the life of hundreds.

Such is a journey in Europe. How different the experience in America!
On the road to Chicago you pass through a wilderness. The towns are
infrequent; there are neither roads nor hedges; and the rapidly changing
drama of life escapes you. The many miles of scrub and underwood are
diversified chiefly by crude advertisements. Here you are asked to
purchase Duke's Mixture; there Castoria Toilet Powder is thrust
upon your unwilling notice. In the few cities which you approach the
frame-houses and plank-walks preserve the memory of the backwoods. In
vain you look for the village church, which in Europe is never far away.
In vain you look for the incidents which in our land lighten the tedium
of a day's journey. All is barren and bleak monotony. The thin line of
railway seems a hundred miles from the life of man. At one station I
caught sight of an "Exposition Car," which bore the legend, "Cuba on
Wheels," and I was surprised as at a miracle. Outside Niles, a little
country town, a battered leather-covered shay was waiting to take
wayfarers to the Michigan Inn; and the impression made by so simple a
spectacle is the best proof of the railroad's isolation. There is but
one interlude in the desolate expanse--Niagara.

Before he reaches the station called Niagara Falls, the tourist has a
foretaste of what is in store for him. He is assailed in the train by
touts, who would inveigle him into a hotel or let him a carriage, and
to touts he is an unwilling prey so long as he remains within sight or
hearing of the rapids. The trim little town which has grown up about the
falls, and may be said to hang upon the water, has a holiday aspect. The
sightseers, the little carriages, the summer-hotels, all wear the same
garb of gaiety and leisure. There is a look of contented curiosity on
the faces of all, who are not busy defacing the landscape with mills and
power-stations, as of those about to contemplate a supreme wonder. And
yet the sight of it brings the same sense of disappointment which the
colossal masterpieces of nature always inspire. Not to be amazed at
it would be absurd. To pretend to appreciate i