, if, as I did, you go from Buffalo, and as was my lot, in
the most depressing weather.

[Illustration: A BUFFALO GIRL.]

I had to wait for the train to start at Buffalo in a _Dee_po which
eclipsed anything I have seen for gloom. The shoeblack's platform, of
more than ordinary proportions, occupied a good fifth of the
waiting-room. Its dusky proprietor was in possession of the throne, and
was discussing politics with a brother brush whose massive feet were
resting on the structure, an advertisement for the operating shoeblack,
implying that both the quality and quantity of his shine were superior.

The train was also very gloomy. My vis-a-vis was an old Buffalo girl who
must have remembered coming out to "dance by the light of the moon" a
couple of generations ago, when that melody was popular.

[[**Full page here!]

PRESIDENT HARRISON'S REPLY.]

[Illustration: MR. PUNCH AT NIAGARA.]

The exit from the town is made through a hideous quarter--wooden houses
and huts, depressing dirty streets, and the sides of the railway covered
with the refuse of a generation. Then some miles of open country, with a
building here and there which might possibly have added a little
picturesqueness to the dismal scene had not those despoilers of all
picturesqueness, the advertisers--and, above all, the advertisers of
pills--made an eyesore wherever the same was possible. Then through a
mile or two of apple orchards and more country with huts advertising
pills--probably the apples in those orchards are most particularly sour.
The rain came down fast, the train went on slowly; at every station damp
people with wet umbrellas came in and made me shudder. Altogether the
prospect of my getting a favourable impression of Niagara was a black
one. But it so happens the effect was quite the reverse--it was
precisely the same as passing through the gloomy passages leading to the
diorama.

[Illustration: HEBE.]

As I walked to an hotel to have some lunch before seeing the Falls, I
was startled to see in wood (everything is either water or wood at
Niagara) my old friend Mr. Punch standing outside a cigar shop, smiling
as usual; so after I had taken one of his cigars and lighted it, we had
a chat about Fleet Street and all his friends there.

[Illustration: MY DRIVER.]

"Guess, stranger, I'm here to draw the Britishers. 'Amurrcans' don't
understand me. They try to draw me, but they might just as well try to
draw one of these wooden cigars