n from
what he was pleased to call one world to the other. I answered, that
under the surface of the earth there were mines containing minerals,
or metals, essential to our wants and our progress in all arts and
industries; and I then briefly explained the manner in which, while
exploring one of those mines, I and my ill-fated friend had obtained a
glimpse of the regions into which we had descended, and how the descent
had cost him his life; appealing to the rope and grappling-hooks
that the child had brought to the house in which I had been at first
received, as a witness of the truthfulness of my story.

My host then proceeded to question me as to the habits and modes of
life among the races on the upper earth, more especially among those
considered to be the most advanced in that civilisation which he was
pleased to define "the art of diffusing throughout a community the
tranquil happiness which belongs to a virtuous and well-ordered
household." Naturally desiring to represent in the most favourable
colours the world from which I came, I touched but slightly, though
indulgently, on the antiquated and decaying institutions of Europe, in
order to expatiate on the present grandeur and prospective pre-eminence
of that glorious American Republic, in which Europe enviously seeks its
model and tremblingly foresees its doom. Selecting for an example of the
social life of the United States that city in which progress advances
at the fastest rate, I indulged in an animated description of the moral
habits of New York. Mortified to see, by the faces of my listeners, that
I did not make the favourable impression I had anticipated, I elevated
my theme; dwelling on the excellence of democratic institutions, their
promotion of tranquil happiness by the government of party, and the
mode in which they diffused such happiness throughout the community by
preferring, for the exercise of power and the acquisition of honours,
the lowliest citizens in point of property, education, and character.
Fortunately recollecting the peroration of a speech, on the purifying
influences of American democracy and their destined spread over the
world, made by a certain eloquent senator (for whose vote in the Senate
a Railway Company, to which my two brothers belonged, had just paid
20,000 dollars), I wound up by repeating its glowing predictions of the
magnificent future that smiled upon mankind--when the flag of freedom
should float over an entire conti