Some years ago, when it was the fashion in Canada for British officers always to travel in uniform, I went to Buffalo, the great city of Buffalo on lake Erie, in the Thames steamer, commanded by my good friend, Captain Van Allen, and the first British Canadian steamboat that ever entered that harbour. We went in gallantly, with the flag flying that "has braved a thousand years the battle and the breeze." I think the majority of the population must have lined the wharfs to see us come in. They rent the welkin with welcomes, and, among other demonstrations, cast up their caps, and cried with might and main--"Long live George the Third!"--Our gracious monarch had for years before bid this world good night, but that was nothing; the good folks of Buffalo had not perhaps quite forgotten that they were once, long before their city was a city, subjects of King George. I and another officer in uniform were received with all honours, and escorted to the Eagle hotel, where we were treated sumptuously, and had to run the gauntlet of handshaking to great extent. A respectable gentleman, about forty, some seven years older than myself, stuck close to me all the while. I thought he admired the British undress uniform, but he only wanted to ask questions, and, after sundry answers, he inquired my name, which being courteously communicated, he said, "Well, I am glad, that's a fact, that I have seen you, for many is the whipping I have had for your book of Algebra." Now I never was capable of committing such an unheard-of enormity as being the cause of flagellation to any man by simple or quadratic equations; and it must have been the binomial theorem which had tickled his catastrophe, for it was my father's treatise which had penetrated into the new world of Buffalonian education. It is a pity, is it not, gentle reader, that such feelings do not now exist? Nevertheless, even now, the designation of a British officer is a passport in any part of the United States. The custom-house receives it with courtesy and good-will; society is gratified by attentions received from a British officer; and it is coupled with the feelings which the habits and conduct of a gentleman engender throughout Christendom. At New York, I visited every place worth seeing; and, although disliking gambling, races, and debating societies, _a outrance_, I was determined to judge for myself of New York, of life in New York. On one occasion, I was at a meeting of the turf in an hotel after the races, where violent discussions and heavy champagning were going on. I was then (it was in 1837) a major in the army, and was introduced to one or two prominent men in the room as a British officer who had been to see the racecourse; this caused a general stir, and the champagne flew about like----I am at a loss for a simile; and the health of Queen Victoria was drunk with three times three.