June 15th, 1872. Fine.

At half past seven in the morning we left our hotel at Niagara and returned by the same route we had taken to come. The shore of Lake Ontario was predominantly flat, broken by an occasional hill.

After passing Syracuse we reached the village of Saratoga and took rooms at the Grand Union House. Saratoga is a summer resort where people go to escape the heat. It became famous because of the number of tourists who visit every summer, but it has no other industry. The size of Saratoga's hotels is quite astonishing. The Union House is the biggest, offering as many as one thousand rooms. The building surrounds a large, tree-filled garden where guests can stroll in the mornings and evenings. The dining-room seats two thousand people, and meeting rooms and the ball-room are all extremely grand. After dinner, guests gather in the ball-room and dance to the accompaniment of a piano. Although the Union House is not particularly elegant in appearance, for sheer size it is unmatched among the hotels which we have seen. The Grand Hotel in Paris is only half the size. The presence of several medicinal springs has attracted numerous visitors to this resort, and the profits of the springs have allowed such enormous hotels to be built.