Finding it rather cold up there—for there were several good sized windows open for the wind to blow in at, and visitors to look out of—I soon made up my mind to descend; in fact the cold was so severe that it had a rather benumbing effect on me; and as my thigh and the calf of my leg fairly ached from my recent exertions, I fully realized the danger of descending, and fancied I would have made a considerable pecuniary sacrifice to be safely at the base of the tall structure. There was no way to get there, however, but to _walk_ down, if it might be so called, and I began the perilous descent. I was not half way down when my crutch and cane both slipped from an icy step, and I fell. O, what a fall there would have been, my countrymen, if I hadn’t caught the iron railing! I gripped the cold iron with my right hand, and arrested my crutch with my left; but my cane escaped me, and away it went, tumbling knocking, cracking rattling and clattering, till it reached the bottom. I fancied it took it something like a minute to make the descent, but the probability is that the time it occupied in the journey was not more than ten seconds. Its last echo had just died away, when I heard the voice of the superintendent calling to me from below; and his voice had a kind of twisty sound by the time it wound its way up to me. “Did you fall?” he asked. “No,” I replied, telling a white one, “I merely threw my cane down because I can get down better without it.” I did, however, get along better without it, for I could now grasp the railing all the time with one hand while the other held the crutch. * * * * * Well, it is not my intention to write an ordinary book of travels. That has been done too often. All the places I have visited have been described time and again; and I will only entertain the reader with my (John Smith’s) odd adventures therein. While in Boston I had the pleasure of an introduction to Mrs. Partington. That amiable old lady is a jovial, round-faced old _gentleman_ of fifty-five or sixty. His name is B. P. Shillaber, and he is connected with the Boston _Gazette_. He is a noble-hearted, excellent gentleman; and the people of this country owe him their thanks for the many happy smiles his eccentric and inimitable pen has called out upon their faces. Long life and many happy years to Mrs. Partington! I remained in New England during the rest of the winter, and had a pleasant time and many sleigh-rides. I visited Lexington, Lowell, Lawrence and most of the large towns of Massachusetts; Manchester, Concord and Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Bellows Falls, Rutland and Burlington, Vermont; and Portland and some smaller towns and cities in Maine.