This reminded me of the many members of the "coloured aristocracy" I had met with as waiters at hotels and in railroad dining-cars. I remember one especially—the head-boss of a small army of black waiters at one of the largest hotels in an Eastern city—a tall portly fellow in evening dress, diamond shirt studs, and white kid gloves. He stands at the entrance of the saloon, and receives the guests with a dignified bend and a patronizing wave of his hand which my Lord Mayor at a grand reception could not surpass. We, unshaven and dust-stained travellers, were quite awed in his presence, as he loftily passed us on to another diamond-studded and gold-chained nigger, who condescended to find us a table. We soon learned that if you expect to get any decent attention from a negro, you had better slip a "quarter" into his ready and expectant palm; then he will wait upon you quickly and well. Pay him beforehand, and he will serve you in anticipation of further tips—a quarter in hand is worth to him a good deal more than a possible dollar in the end, which may never come. These negro waiters generally speak good Yankee English; they don't say "Massa;" and if one may judge by the eagerness with which they will lean over one's shoulder to peruse a letter one may be writing or reading, I suppose they have been tolerably well educated. Here is an account of an aristocratic wedding cut from a Southern paper:— "A wedding took place in South Carolina recently, the bride belonging to one of the oldest families of the coloured aristocracy and the groom being presumably a man of means and evidently of much respectability. When the fateful question was asked by the officiating clergyman (also coloured) it was thus translated by him, possibly with an eye to the intensely respectable nature of the whole affair: 'N., wilt thou have this lady to be thy wedded wife?' &c., and the blushing bride, when her turn came, was asked if she would have 'this young gentleman.'" We returned across the prairie on _Wednesday_ morning, noting as we passed that the whole route was dotted here and there with substantial farmhouses; some of these were large and handsome, surrounded by buildings as good and substantial-looking as any to be seen in the old country. The West Gallatin is all very well if one's only object in fishing is to catch fish, but I would rather have one day on the pleasant "Dove," with only a brace of trout in my creel, or, indeed, without any trout at all, than a hundred days on the brown prairie-bound banks of the Gallatin with creels full of the stupid white fish. I want buttercups and daisies, water-ouzels, king-fishers, green meadows, and the songs of birds when "I go a-fishing." On passing over the new bridge we saw an old Indian canoe rotting and half hidden in the mud. If I were given to moralizing, "the new bridge and the old canoe" should form a melancholy theme; but I will leave my readers to compose it for themselves.