Let us peep into the Senate chamber and into the hall of the House of Representatives with its historic codfish suspended from the ceiling, a reminder of a most humble source of Massachusetts' wealth. We will then climb to the dome and see Boston before a cold east wind sweeps suddenly in, covering the city with fog and making all misty and uncertain. As we reach the highest point, it really seems as if the fog had rolled in, but it is only a fog of smoke from the many chimneys of the city's countless factories. [Illustration: THE STATE HOUSE] As our eyes get accustomed to the view, the mist seems to roll away, and the city lies before us. That blue line to the east is the harbor, and between us and the harbor is the business section of Boston, the noisy, throbbing heart of a big city. Directly back of us as we stand facing the water is the West End, once a fashionable section where Boston's literary men held court, now a district largely given over to tenements and lodging-houses. To the north and south lie the North and South ends; the former, the oldest of the city and the great foreign district of the present time, where children from many lands have their homes. [Illustration: BUNKER HILL MONUMENT] That broad winding stream of water that we see is the Charles River. Just beyond it to the north is Charlestown, its Bunker Hill Monument towering up for all to see. The city of Cambridge is just across the Charles River to the west, and next to it, skirting the southern bank of the river, is the district of Brighton. South Boston, Roxbury, West Roxbury, Hyde Park, and Dorchester lie toward the south. Among the many islands in the harbor, East Boston is the most crowded and the closest to the city proper. Towards the southwest, between us and the Charles, lies Back Bay, once tidewater but now filled in and made into land. Look around you and notice how the surrounding parts of Boston form a chain about their parent, a chain broken only by Cambridge--the seat of Harvard University--and Brookline,--Massachusetts' wealthiest town,--which refuses to become a city or to join its larger neighbor. [Illustration: WASHINGTON STREET] As we leave the State House, a few minutes' walk brings us to the heart of Boston's great shopping district and to Boston's leading business street. You will be glad to know that this street is called neither Main Street nor Broadway, but Washington Street. Originally, part was known as Orange, part as Marlborough, and part as Newbury. But when, at the close of the Revolution, Washington rode through the city at the head of a triumphal procession, the people renamed the street along which he passed, Washington, and so it is called to-day in all its ten miles of length. Washington Street is very narrow in parts, and as it is lined on both sides with some of Boston's largest and finest department stores, it presents a very animated appearance on a week-day afternoon. [Illustration: THE CITY OF BOSTON]