In a very careful _Tour in Ireland_, published at Dublin in 1780, the author says of Belfast, "I could not help remarking the great number of Scots who reside in this place, and who carry on a good trade with Scotland." It seems then to have had a population of less than 20,000 souls, as it only touched that number at the beginning of this century.

It has since then advanced by "leaps and bounds," after an almost American fashion, till it has now become the second, and bids fair at no distant day to become the first, city in Ireland.

Few of the American cities which are its true contemporaries can be compared with Belfast in beauty.

The quarter in which my host lives was reclaimed from the sea marshes not quite so long ago, I believe, as was the Commonwealth Avenue quarter of Boston, and though it does not show so many costly private houses perhaps as that quarter of the New England capital, its "roads" and "avenues" are on the whole better built, and there is no public building in Boston so imposing as the Queen's College, with its Tudor front six hundred feet in length, and its graceful central tower.

The Botanic Gardens near by are much prettier and much better equipped for the pleasure and instruction of the people than any public gardens in either Boston or New York.