At ten one morning, when the first pilot boat loomed into sight and I leaned over the rail and saw these men in oilskins busying themselves about the craft, my calm, joyous attitude suddenly deserted me. The thought had burst into my mind that this boat must have put out from New York and these men were Americans. My heart came up in my throat and I had to go below. At four o’clock that afternoon we docked, and as I walked away from the ship, all the familiar sights and sounds coming upon me with a rush; I stopped and, utterly unmindful that I might be run in for a lunatic, kissed the post of the Ninth Avenue Elevated. Homesickness and love of my native land, qualities I did not realize that I possessed, had taken hold of me. New York had never been my home before, so I did not know it well enough to recognize much change; but from ’91 until the present day the city has altered beyond recognition. A Dutch banker once told me that if the money that his countrymen paid the Indians for the island of Manhattan had been put out to interest, it would be sufficient to purchase the land to-day. I wonder if that be true? Most of the life of those days centered about Union Square, with tentacles reaching down to Washington and up to Madison Squares. On the Seventeenth Street side of Fourth Avenue was the Clarendon, and, opposite, the Everett House, that famous rendezvous for politicians. On Twenty-third Street was the Academy of Art, which housed itself in a building evidently copied from the Doge’s palace in Venice, while next to it was the Lyceum Theater, upon the stage of which most of the famous actors of the day played at one time or another. Niblo’s Garden, in what would be downtown Broadway to-day, was another famous amusement place, but of a different character. The owner had a large private box which was always filled with parties of friends. It was practically on the stage, and one could reach down and touch the shoulders or heads of the chorus girls. Behind it was a reception room, and a bathroom with a stairway which led to the green room, and here many gay suppers took place after the show. A little beyond Seventy-second Street near where the Natural History Museum was being built, I picked mushrooms on the hills occupied by squatters and goats. Up at Nineteenth Street and Fourth Avenue, near where the Unitarian Church now stands, was an open lot which was used for a circus, and I remember at one time it was occupied by a panorama of the Siege of Paris. On the corner of Nineteenth Street and Broadway, in the midst of one of the busiest parts of the town, was a quiet dwelling, occupying almost a whole block of land. Here were green trees and shrubbery with grass, and in the “back yard” they still kept chickens and a cow! This was the home of the Misses Goelet, who had lived here all their lives, and even the influx of business, theaters, etc., could not make them sell and give up the home they cared for.