Four years ago—in 1874—two young Englishmen had occasion to go to the United States. They crossed the ocean at midsummer and, arriving in New York on the first day of August, were much struck with the high, the torrid temperature. Disembarking upon the wharf they climbed into one of the huge high-hung coaches that convey passengers to the hotels, and with a great deal of bouncing and bumping they took their course through Broadway. The midsummer aspect of New York is doubtless not the most engaging, though nothing perhaps could well more solicit an alarmed attention. Of quite other sense and sound from those of any typical English street was the endless rude channel, rich in incongruities, through which our two travellers advanced—looking out on either side at the rough animation of the sidewalks, at the high-coloured heterogeneous architecture, at the huge white marble façades that, bedizened with gilded lettering, seemed to glare in the strong crude light, at the multifarious awnings, banners and streamers, at the extraordinary number of omnibuses, horse-cars and other democratic vehicles, at the vendors of cooling fluids, the white trousers and big straw hats of the policemen, the tripping gait of the modish young persons on the pavement, the general brightness, newness, juvenility, both of people and things. The young men had exchanged few observations, but in crossing Union Square, in front of the monument to Washington—in the very shadow indeed projected by the image of the _pater patriae_—one of them remarked to the other: “Awfully rum place.” “Ah, very odd, very odd,” said the other, who was the clever man of the two. “Pity it’s so beastly hot,” resumed the first speaker after a pause. “You know we’re in a low latitude,” said the clever man. “I daresay,” remarked his friend. “I wonder,” said the second speaker presently, “if they can give one a bath.” “I daresay not,” the other returned. “Oh I say!” cried his comrade.