38 SPOET IN NORTH AMEIUCA. 



promenade the streets with slow and indolent steps ; 

 the rich display in the shops, and finally, the 

 equipages standing in front of the doors or rolling 

 along the streets, contrasting with and shaming the 

 equipages of the country folk. 



The traveller who passed through Saratoga with- 

 out looking closely into it, would be apt to imagine 

 that it was a large village, deriving its existence 

 from some neighbouring industry; but to the man 

 who passes even two hours in its streets, Saratoga 

 bears all those signs of ennui, and even of disorder, 

 which infallibly distinguish all places which are 

 condemned to live at the expense of an ephemeral 

 and floating population. It is not a town ; it is 

 an immense hotel. It is in this charming spot, 

 in fact, that the fashionable world, emigrating 

 in the spring, sets up its household gods, — not 

 only in the vast hotels of the place, but in the 

 cottages which abound all about. Saratoga is cele- 

 brated for its mineral waters, and within a circle of 

 about a mile and a-half the tourist will find in the 

 valley which surrounds the town, covered springs, 

 whither, according either to his fancy or the advice 

 of his medical man, he can repair, tumbler in 

 hand, and quaff here a chalybeate beverage, there 

 a solution of manganese, or further on a draught 

 flavoured with sulphuric acid. In a word, the waters 

 of Saratoga are laxative, astringent, curative, or 

 asrreeable. The Congress Well is the most cele- 



