22 TORONTO HAMILTON. 



sown wheat fields were all carefully water-furrowed. In some 

 places the land was a stiff red clay, but most of it a heavy 

 brown clay loam. There seemed to be very little Indian corn, 

 and the grass on the pastures was either bad, or quite eaten 

 off, or scorched up. 



As the line nears Hamilton we pass by a wooden bridge 

 over a chasm, which by the breaking of the bridge was the scene 

 of a frightful railway accident some time ago. This town is 

 placed on a bay at the head of Lake Ontario, from the waves 

 of which the harbour is protected, like Toronto, by a natural 

 breakwater. There are several handsome streets and houses 

 in the town, and the villas in the neighbourhood are as substan- 

 tial and elegant as those in the vicinity of our best towns in 

 this country, with shrubberies, lawns, and greenhouses kept in 

 the nicest order. From Hamilton to Niagara the railway runs 

 along a broad tract of low country, stretching from a range of 

 high tableland on the right to the shores of the Lake. At all 

 points where we stopped for an excursion into the country, 

 there was a uniform complaint among the Irish labourers of low 

 wages and want of employment, and the wheat crop in this 

 part of the country had proved a very short one. 



