And here just a word or two to those American gentlemen to whom it falls to amuse or edify the sight-seeing foreigner. Do not be disappointed if he shows little enthusiasm for your factories, and mills, and populous streets. Remember that these are just what he is trying to escape from. The chances are, that he would much rather see a prairie-dog city, than the Omaha smelting-works; an Indian lodge than Pittsburg; one wild bison than all the cattle of Chicago; a rattlesnake at home than all the legislature of New York in Albany assembled. He prefers canyons to streets, mountain streams to canals; and when he crosses the river, it is the river more than the bridge that interests him. Of course it is well for him to stay in your gigantic hotels, go down into your gigantic silver-mines, travel on your gigantic river-steamers, and be introduced to your gigantic millionaires. These are all American, and it is good for him, and seemly, that he should add them to his personal experiences. So too, he should eat terrapin and planked shad, clam-chowder, canvas-back ducks, and soft-shelled crabs. For these are also American. But the odds are he may go mad and bite thee fatally, if thou wakest him up at un-Christian hours to go and see a woollen factory, simply because thou art proud of it--or settest him down to breakfast before perpetual beefsteak, merely because he is familiar with that food. The intelligent traveller, being at Rome, wishes to be as much a Roman as possible. He would be as aboriginal as the aborigines. And it is a mistake to go on thrusting things upon him solely on the ground that he is already weary of them. As I write, I remember many hours of bitter anguish which I have endured--I who am familiar with Swansea, who have stayed in Liverpool, who live in London--in loitering round smelting works and factories, and places of business, trying to seem interested, and pretending to store my memory with statistics. Sometimes it would be almost on my tongue to say, "And now, sir, having shown off your possessions in order to gratify your own pride in them, suppose you show me something for my gratification." I never did, of course, but I groaned in the spirit, at my precious hours being wasted, and at the hospitality which so easily forgot itself in ostentatious display. I have perhaps said more than I meant to have done. But all I mean is this, that when a sojourner is at your mercy, throw him unreservedly upon his own resources for such time as you are busy, and deny yourself unreservedly for his amusement when you are at leisure. But do not spoil all his day, and half your own, by trying to work your usual business habits into his holiday, and take advantage of his foreign helplessness to show him what an important person (when at home) you are yourself. Do not, for instance, take him after breakfast to your office, and there settling to your work with your clerks, ask him to "amuse himself"