Year: 1866




BosToN, Mass, June 10th, 1866.
FRIEND RITEZEL This is the fourth
day of my stay in this modern Athens" D."
1t might also appropriately be called the
city of labyrinths. The three thousand
rock-hewn chambers bearing that name
are scarcely better fitted TO bewilder the
stranger than the streets of the old part of
Boston, which, said to have been built
on old COW paths, are winding, tortuous
and intersected by others equally crooked
at every conceivable angle. The build
ings partake of the same variety and
may be seen of the form of the crescent,
the arc of a circle, the rhomboid, the
runcated triangle, and almost all the
protean forms of the prism.


Much, very much may be said in its
praise and | cannot wonder at the ego
tisza of the native Bostonian over a city
~ which every American should feel
YOU'D 1t has glorious past and prom
isiag future. At. no time from the days
or the courteous, stately-minded Gov.
Winthrop to its present deffication of
Longfellow, Phillips and Sumner, has it
lacked illustrious names or noble deeds.
Great in its intelligence, its charities, its
appreciation and reward of art, music
and sculptor, its culture and the triumph
and universally of its once despised anti
slavery principles, it is an enduring mon
ument of the knowledge, strife and sue
cess of the Yankee nation whose humble
beginning at Plymouth was as the plant
of a shrub now expanded into a goodly
cedar with evergreen verdure untouched
by the frosts of time, whose branches ex-
tend to the ends of the earth and whose
leaves are for the healing of the nations.
May it ever prosper till statesmen and
scholars of the "school of Massachusetts,"
shall rule the land, and give instruction
to its people.


As no single letter, however long,
would enable me to particularize, | will
return to incidents following, the date Of
my last letter, as it is my aim to give
running commentary of travel, rather
than detached essays upon places visited.
Should space permit l will again notice
this "hub of the universe, "as it is sarcas-
tically called by the envious and foolish.


About the date of my last, the death
Gen. Scott occurred, and feeling that his
obseq1ies would be the occasion for an
assemblage of dignitaries which might
not occur agnin iaa life time, l gladly de-
layed my departure that might be there
to see, and was well repaid. The trip up
the Hudson was grand, and was like the
revelation of q new world. How must
the heart of its discoverer, the intrepid
Hendrick Hudson, have thrilled with Joy
as he sailed up what he romantically
conceived to be the fioWery decked path
way of the much sought Northwest pas
sage. Not even Columbus, glorying on
the green shores of San Salvador, or Bal
boa looking from the Isthmean noun
tains upon the wide Pacific had greater
visions of glory and fame. But to return.


Unlike all other rivers the Hudson has
one bank, (the western owing to its
broken character is still in the wilderness
of nature, and the other under the high
est cultivation. There is here a good
chance to contrast the two, with an in
variable expressed preference for the
latter, so much so that one is tempted to
coincide with the artistic critic who dis
paragingly said of natural scenery, "there
is too much green, with a bad arrange
ment of light and shade" Among many
points of interest, Riverdale, the former
home of Edwin Forrist, now a Catholic
institution, and Yonkers are especially
beautiful. West Point in natural beauty
surpasses any spot of extent have ever
seen, and is particularly well fitted for
the site of our great Military Academy.
That it was nursery of traitors whose
swords were turned against the Govern
ment to whose bounty they owed their
skill, was due to the teachings of disloy-
al, slavery-tainted Democracy. This
monster being now happily defunct, dy-
ing of modification at Gen. Lees surren-
der, we may hope that West Point will
henceforth send only loyal men to main
tain the power and vindicate the honor
of the country.


The funeral services of the great de-
parted were at once simple, yet impress
sive and imposing. During the forenoon
the body lay in state in the Chapel, which
was draped in black and decorated with
trophies of 1912 and the war with Mex
ico. The General appeared as if in sleep,
and the lineaments of the countenence
where but so late majesty sat enthron-
ed" had the air of calm repose as if his
rest were but a breathing sleep. His
right hand lay upon his bosom, his left
by his side. Clad in citizens dress, with a
flag draped about him exposing its
ground work of stars by the left shoul-
der,