Our sleighs glided smoothly down to the railway station at the Clifton, where the train was waiting to take us over the Suspension Bridge. That structure is, I fear, too beautiful to last. It requires a good deal of coolness and custom to look down from it on the fearful flood of the river rolling below, and mark the vibration as a heavy train passes over it. Then, too, there is the influence of cold on iron to be considered, the effects of tension, and the like: all have been duly provided for; and yet the bridge looks very light and very graceful, and let us hope it may be very strong and very lasting. In five minutes we were in British territory. The first palpable and outward sign of the fact was an examination of our luggage by the customs officers at a station a few miles from the frontier, during which, or by which, one of the party lost a hat and its guardian box. The examination was rendered as little irksome as possible by the civility of the officials; and it made me quite happy to see the crowns on their brass buttons, degraded British subject as I was. One burly fellow congratulated me on “escaping alive out of the hands of the Yankees--he would not have given a cent for my life for the last six months.” Our journey was not so much impeded by snow as we expected. It is forty-three miles from Niagara to the rising city of Hamilton, and we were little more than one hour and a quarter in doing the distance. All I am aware of is that on our way we passed through vast snow-fields, by the mineral waters of St. Catherine’s, the frozen canal, and that we caught glimpses on our right of the blue expanse of Lake Ontario. The first sight of Hamilton caused a rapid change in my mind respecting the condition of Canada, and a most agreeable feeling of surprise. It was evident the Americans were not justified in their affected depreciation of the provinces, if they contained such towns as these. Despite the unfavourable circumstances under which it was visited, the city presented an appearance of comfort and prosperity which even a democratic people might envy, and which scarcely justified the corporation in refusing, as I hear they do, to rely on local sources for liquidation of certain claims against them. Fine-looking streets, a forest of spires, important public buildings, did no discredit to the old standard which floated over the Custom-house near the station. And yet it was not possible to help remarking that the passengers in the train were reading American not Canadian newspapers. They were enjoying the fruits of American piracy in their more serious studies. The literary thefts of the sanctimonious Harpers, who play for ever on the moods and tenses of the verb to steal--were in the hands of all the people who were reading books.