"Don't be afraid of laughing," said Benson, who guessed what he was smiling at. "Whenever I am detained at a country tavern, if there duly happens to be a good-sized map of the United States there, I have enough to amuse me in studying the different styles of names in the different sections of the Union--different in style, but alike in impropriety. In our State, as you know, the fashion is for classical and oriental names. In New England there is a goodly amount of old English appellations, but often sadly misapplied; for instance, an inland town will be called Falmouth, or Oldport, like the place we are going to. The aboriginal names, often very harmonious, had been generally displaced, except in Maine, where they are particularly long, and jaw-breaking, such as _Winnipiscoggir_ and _Chargogagog_. Still we have some very pretty Indian names left in New York; _Ontario_, for instance, and _Oneida_, and _Niagara_, which you who have been there know is Pronounced Niágara, To rhyme with _staggerer_, And not Niagára, To rhyme with _starer_." "What does _Niagara_ mean?" "_Broken water_, I believe; but one gets so many different meanings for these names, from those who profess to know more or less about the native dialects, that you can never be certain. For instance, a great many will tell you, on Chateaubriand's authority, that _Mississippi_ means _Father of the waters_. Some years ago one of our Indian scholars stated that this was an error; that the literal meaning of Mississippi was _old-big-strong_--not quite so poetic an appellation. I asked Albert Gallatin about it at the time--he was considered our best man on such subjects--and he told me that the word, or words, for the name is made up of two, signified _the entire river_. This is a fair specimen of the answers you get. I never had the same explanation of an Indian name given me by two men who pretended to understand the Indian languages." "What rule does a gentleman adopt in naming his country-seat when he acquires a new one, or is there any rule?"