ms was very
great. Visitors to Danvers to-day are often shown by local guides where
some of the tragedies of the persecution were committed. The
superstition was finally driven away by educational enlightenment, and
it seems astounding that it lasted as long as it did. Two hundred years
have nearly elapsed since the craze died out, and it is but charitable
to admit, that although many of the witnesses must have been corrupt and
perjured, the majority of those connected with the cases were thoroughly
in earnest, and that although they rejoiced at the undoing of the
ungodly, they regretted very much being made the instruments of that
undoing.

CHAPTER III.

IN PICTURESQUE NEW YORK.

Some Local Errors Corrected--A Trip Down the Hudson River--The Last of
the Mohicans--The Home of Rip Van Winkle--The Ladies of Vassar and their
Home--West Point and its History--Sing Sing Prison--The Falls of
Niagara--Indians in New York State.

Residents in the older States of the East are frequently twitted with
their ignorance concerning the newer States of the West, and of the
habits and customs of those who, having taken Horace Greeley's advice at
various times, turned their faces toward the setting sun, determined to
take advantage of the fertility of the soil, and grow up with the
country of which they knew but little.

It needs but a few days' sojourn in an Eastern city by a Western man to
realize how sublimely ignorant the New Englander is concerning at least
three-fourths of his native land. The writer was, on a recent occasion,
asked, in an Eastern city, how he managed to get along without any of
the comforts of civilization, and whether he did not find it necessary
to order all of his clothing and comforts by mail from the East. When he
replied that in the larger cities, at any rate, of the West, there were
retail emporiums fully up to date in all matters of fashion and
improvement, and caterers who could supply the latest delicacies in
season at reasonable prices, an incredulous smile was the result, and
regret was expressed that local prejudice and pride should so blind a
man to the actual truth.

Yet there was no exaggeration whatever in the reply, as the experienced
traveler knows well. Neither Chicago nor St. Louis are really in the
West, so far as points of the compass are concerned, both of these
cities being hundreds of miles east of the geographical center of the
United States. But they are both spoken