re "Charles's Wain was over the new
chimney," I sallied forth, with a very obliging guide, who acted as
representative of the commissariat department, to examine the town.

The streets are at present straggling, but, as in most Canadian new
towns, laid out wide and at right angles. The main street is so wide
that it would be quite impracticable to do as they do in Holland,
namely, sit at the door and converse, not _sotto voce_, with your
opposite neighbour. It is in fact more like a Mall than a street, and
should be planted with a double row of trees, for it requires a
telescope to discover the numbers and signs from one row of houses and
shops to the other.

Here the American custom of selling after dark by lamplight was
everywhere visible, and everywhere new stone houses were building. I
went into Peest's Hotel, now Weeks's, the American Tavern, and there
saw indubitable signs that the men of yore had a pretty sprinkling of
Yankees among them.

Hamilton has 4500 inhabitants, and is a surprising place, which will
reach 10,000 people before two or three years more pass. It has
already broad plank-walks, but they are not kept in very good repair;
in fact, it cannot escape the notice of a traveller from the Old World
that there is too magnificent a spirit at work in the commencement of
this place, and that utility is sacrificed to enlargement.

Hamilton is beautifully situated on a sloping plane, at the foot of a
wooded range of hills, called mountains, whence fine stone of very
white colour in immense blocks is easily procured and brought; and it
is very surprising that more of this stone has not been used in
Toronto, instead of wood. Brick-clay is also plentiful, and excellent
white and red bricks are made; but, such is the rage for building,
that the largest portion of this embryo city is of combustible
pine-wood.

I left Hamilton in a light waggon on the 9th of July, at half-past
five o'clock, a.m., having been detained for horses, and rolled
along very much at my ease, compared to what the travelling on this
route was seven years ago--I was going to say, on this road, but it
would have been a misnomer, for there was nothing but a miry, muddy,
track then: now, there is a fine, but too narrow, macadamized highway,
turnpiked--that is to say, having real turnpike gates.

The view from "the mountain" is exceedingly fine, almost as fine as
that from Queenston heights, embracing a richly-cultivated fruit and
grain c