ars a
day or two ago, and it was very ingeniously arranged and quite complete.

I left Niagara last Sunday, and travelled on to Albany, through three
hundred miles of flood, villages deserted, bridges broken, fences
drifting away, nothing but tearing water, floating ice, and absolute
wreck and ruin. The train gave in altogether at Utica, and the
passengers were let loose there for the night. As I was due at Albany, a
very active superintendent of works did all he could to "get Mr. Dickens
along," and in the morning we resumed our journey through the water,
with a hundred men in seven-league boots pushing the ice from before us
with long poles. How we got to Albany I can't say, but we got there
somehow, just in time for a triumphal "Carol" and "Trial." All the
tickets had been sold, and we found the Albanians in a state of great
excitement. You may imagine what the flood was when I tell you that we
took the passengers out of two trains that had their fires put out by
the water four-and-twenty hours before, and cattle from trucks that had
been in the water I don't know how long, but so long that the sheep had
begun to eat each other! It was a horrible spectacle, and the haggard
human misery of their faces was quite a new study. There was a fine
breath of spring in the air concurrently with the great thaw; but lo and
behold! last night it began to snow again with a strong wind, and to-day
a snowdrift covers this place with all the desolation of winter once
more. I never was so tired of the sight of snow. As to sleighing, I have
been sleighing about to that extent, that I am sick of the sound of a
sleigh-bell.

I have seen all our Boston friends, except Curtis. Ticknor is dead. The
rest are very little changed, except that Longfellow has a perfectly
white flowing beard and long white hair. But he does not otherwise look
old, and is infinitely handsomer than he was. I have been constantly
with them all, and they have always talked much of you. It is the
established joke that Boston is my "native place," and we hold all sorts
of hearty foregatherings. They all come to every reading, and are always
in a most delightful state of enthusiasm. They give me a parting dinner
at the club, on the Thursday before Good Friday. To pass from Boston
personal to New York theatrical, I will mention here that one of the
proprietors of my New York hotel is one of the proprietors of Niblo's,
and the most active. Consequently I have seen the "B