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Chap. XI.
A MIDNIGHT JOURNEY.
237

thunder of Niagara. I slept in the cars for an hour before we started, and never woke till the conductor demanded payment of my fare in no very gentle tones. We reached Hamilton shortly after two in the morning, in the midst of a high wind and pouring rain, and in company with a dozen very dirty emigrants we entered a lumber waggon with a canvas top, drawn by one miserable horse. The curtains very imperfectly kept out the rain, and we were in continual fear of an upset. At last the vehicle went down on one side, and all the Irish emigrants tumbled over each other and us, with a profusion of "Ochs," "murders," and "spalpeens." The driver composedly shouted to us to alight; the hole was only deep enough to sink the vehicle to the axletree. We got out into a very capacious lake of mud, and in again, in very ill humour. At last the horse fell down in a hole, and my Scotch friend and I got out and walked in the rain for some distance to a very comfortable hotel, the City Arms. The sun had scarcely warmed the world into waking life before I was startled from my sleep by the cry, "Six o'clock; all aboard for the 'bus at half-past, them as goes by the Passport and Highlander:" but it was half-past, and I had barely time to dress before the disagreeable shout of "All aboard!" echoed through the house, and I hurried down stairs into an omnibus, which held twenty-two persons inside, commodiously seated in arm-chairs. I went down Lake Ontario in the Highlander; Mr. Forrest met me on the wharf, and in a few hours I was again warmly welcomed at his hospitable house.

My relics of my visit to Niagara consisted of a few