I was looking one evening at a dance, being unable to join in it on account of the accident I had received near Buffalo, when a young American entered the ballroom with such a becoming air and grace that it was impossible not to have been struck with her appearance.
Her bloom was like the springing flower
That sips the silver dew,
The rose was budded in her cheek,
Just opening to the view.
I could not help feeling a wish to know where she had
Into such beauty spread, and blown so fair.
Upon inquiry I found that she was from the city of Albany. The more I looked at the fair Albanese the more I was convinced that in the United States of America may be found grace and beauty and symmetry equal to anything in the Old World.
I now for good and all (and well I might) gave up the idea of finding bugs, bears, brutes and buffaloes in this country, and was thoroughly satisfied that I had laboured under a great mistake in suspecting that I should ever meet with them.
I wished to join in the dance where the fair Albanese was "to brisk notes in cadence beating," but the state of my unlucky foot rendered it impossible; and as I sat with it reclined upon a sofa, full many a passing gentleman stopped to inquire the cause of my misfortune, presuming at the same time that I had got an attack of gout. Now this surmise of theirs always mortified me; for I never had a fit of gout in my life, and, moreover, never expect to have one.
In many of the inns in the United States there is an album on the table in which travellers insert their arrival and departure, and now and then indulge in a little flash or two of wit.
I thought under existing circumstances that there would be no harm in briefly telling my misadventure; and so taking up the pen I wrote what follows, and was never after asked a single question about the gout.
C. Waterton, of Walton Hall, in the county of York, England, arrived at the Falls of Niagara in July 1824, and begs leave to pen down the following dreadful accident: