The inn at which we alighted was large and comfortable: in the drawing-room I found a very tolerable piano-forte, to which I instantly betook myself. By the time we had seen our bed-rooms, and ordered dinner, we found we should have leisure, before it was ready, to walk to the falls of the Genesee (the river on which Rochester stands), which have some celebrity for their beauty. A man from the hotel volunteered to be our guide, and joined our party. We walked up the main street, which was crowded and full of business. From this, presently turning off, we followed a wider road, with houses and pretty flower gardens on each side, and reached, after half a mile's walk, a meadow skirted by a deep ravine, through which the river ran; from whence we looked immediately upon the falls. They would be, and were, I doubt not, once beautiful; for the barrier of rock, over which the river throws itself into the valley below, is of considerable breadth and height; but, alas! the waters have been turned off to turn mills, and a thin curtain, which falls over the rocks like a vapoury sheet of blue smoke, is all that remains of the Genesee falls; whilst, from a thousand dingy-looking mills and manufactories, the poor little rivulets of labouring water come rushing through narrow dirty channels, all stained and foaming and hot from their work, to throw themselves into the thin bosom of their parent stream. Truly, mills and steam-engines are wonderful things, and I know that men must live; but I wish it were not expedient to destroy what God has made so very beautiful, in order to make it useful. Our guide perceiving our admiration was a good deal excited by the picturesque beauty of the scene, fell into a species of rhapsody, which terminated thus: "Yes, sir, when I see the waters thus falling _from the bottom to the top_; I say, sir, when I look at the water falling from _the bottom to the top_, I can compare it to nothing--but--but--but--wool out of a cotton-mill!" This was an unlooked-for climax, and gave us all a violent inclination to laugh in the face of the orator; which, however, would have been exceedingly wrong; for so sincere was the good man in his enthusiasm, that he was not in the least aware of the miraculous proceeding which he twice, with much emphasis, ascribed to the _upward falling_ water.[107] * * * * * * * * * *