Introductory—Voyage to Canada viâ New York [excerpt]

     The country from Albany to Buffalo is flat and tame, but it is evidently a rich and highly cultivated pastoral and agricultural district. This valley of the Hudson River is a great source of supply of butter and cheese for the New York markets. I reached Buffalo, after a long journey of 450 miles, about seven o’clock in the evening, and at once proceeded to the Iroquois Hotel, where I had engaged a room for the night, and then, without loss of time, I took a seat in one of the tramcars in which I went on to the Buffalo Exhibition Buildings in order to see them at night, when they are brilliantly illuminated by electricity. They are about four or five miles out of the town. The spectacle was certainly a very striking one. The various [18][19] buildings (several of them having lofty domes) were lighted to the very top, distinctly marking their outlines in the midst of the dark, surrounding atmosphere. The effect was beautiful, and quite fairy-like when seen, as I saw it, on a fine and clear night. This exhibition was not an international one; it was entirely and exclusively American. In the music hall I saw the spot where President M’Kinley was murdered a few weeks ago. The place was fenced round, and there was a brass star marked on the spot where he was standing when he received the fatal shot from his dastardly assassin.