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qv^

'hA-t

cS-

Three Months

IN THE United States

AND Canada.

By hthb Gdihtor op hthe "Wbshibi^n GAzmvE."

PRICE: TWO SHILLING

PeINTBD and PUBLISHPD AT THE OPFICE OF " ThK We«TERN GaZETTE "

AND " PtTLMAN's WeRKLY NeW8."

T^7

PREFACE.

The folloinnrj series of papers appeared in " The Western Gazette " und
" Pnhnans Wi-ehhj Ni'ivs" at somewhat irreyuJar intervals, hetiveen November
188:i and September 18S5. They are here reprinted from the newspaper type,
made up in book form. The subject with which they deal has of late years
become such a hackneyed one that the book market has been literally flooded with
works on American travel; and although the author of these sketches claims to
have dealt with his subject in a somewhat novel and unconventional manner, he
does not feel justified in incurring the risk of republishing the work in larger
tyjn- and more convenient form, and thiis adding ond more volume to the rapidly
accumulating mass of similar literature. What he has done has been simply to
j>riiit a few hundreds of eojties from the newspaper type before it was broken up,
.S7/ t/iat am/ of those who read the sketches as they appeared may, if they so
uush, procure a copy of them In a form convenient for preservation.

It IS hardly necessary to add that the articles, as thus reprinted, retain a
good many erroi:^ and faults of arrangement which would have been carefully
rorrerli'd on revision, if the work had been re-si'f in book type and arranged in
book fashion. Among the errors which those who know America are pretty sure
to (It'trcf /« the Hubstitnlion of '^ Mississippi" for "Missouri" in several of the
earlii'r chapters. Tlirsc tiro great riv<'rs, u^hose names are someivhat alike,
which run nearly parallel to each other for hundreds of miles, and finally unite
to form one grand strea)n, are easily confounded even by those who Juive a fair
superficial knoivledge if the geography of the States. It is the Missouri (which
Is really fhi larger stream <f the two), and not the Mississippi, which forms the
most distinetire dividing line between East and West ; and wlienever the latter is
spoken of as the starting- point for the Far West, it is the Missouri which is
meant. Omaha and Kansas City are on the Missouri. St. Louis is on the
Mississippi, ju.^f liehiir the point at which the Missouri joins it. The papers, no
doul)f, confiilii olher errors, but this is the only one of importance which the
irriter lia.v itilerted.

Yeorll. .hi una r If, fSSf}. . ,

THREE MONTHS IN THE UNITED STATES

AND CANADA.

WHY I WENT.

(two

WAS not very well in health. As nearly as I can
calculate, I was about 25 per cent, below
par. With regard to the remaining 75 per
cent, of me— tl)e balance of my personality,
so to speak, — raeiical friends and advisers
three of them) said : " Why don't you take
three or four months' rest, and go to America?"
And I said to myself, "Why not?" I said to myself,
further, "What an extraordinary circumstance, now,
that two or three doctors should agree in saying
precisely the same thing ! We hear a great deal more
about doctors' differences than about their agreements ;
and when several of them do chance to agree, their
unanimity deserves our fullest consideration." So I
fully conside ed the unanimity in this particular case,
and gave it all due weight.

I may add, moreover, that the doctois'advice entirely
"jumped with my humour," as I fancy somebody some-
where says. The prescribed medicine was, indeed, not
at all unpalatable.

A visit to the States had been one of the moat
cherished dreams of my life. From my boyhood up-
ward, I had watched with intensest interest the marvel-
lous growth of that " Greater Britain " which vigorous
swarms from the overcrowded hives of Europe were
building up beyond the Atlantic. In imagination, I
had seen the advancing hosts press steadily forward
towards the setting sun— through primneval ,forests,
across prairies that appeared limitless, over rivers beside
which those of Europe are but brooks, athwart deserts
as dry and as sterile as Sahara, across mountain
ranges as lofty and as rujjged as she Alps.
I had seen the European invaders settle
down in vast swarms— here beside a mighty inland
fresh-water sea, there at the junction of tv.'o vast rivers,
yonder amid the abounding mineral wealth of a great
mountain chain, and, furthest of all, around a sui)erb
land-locked harbour in which all the trade of the greatest
of oceans may find safe and ample accommodation.
And whether these swarms called the spots on which
they alighted by the name of Chicago or Milwaukee,
St. Louis or Cincinnati, Denver or San Francisco, I
saw that they had laid the foundations of
great cities which immediately began to teem with life,
and which in a very brief period became the centres of
enormous trade and of apparently boundless prosperity.
I saw, moreover, that these great cities owed their amaz-
ing prosperity to the fact that one-half of the European
swarm had scattered itself far and wide over the prairies
and among the forests and the mountains, and had set
to work in right good earnest to extract from the fertile
soil and the rich mineral deposits the great harvest of

wealth which Natuio had, through untold ages, been w.vit-
ing to bestow. And I saw, or fancied I saw, in all this a
new hope for the human race. For, after making all due
allowance for the evils attendant on a now civilization
—the lawlessneas, the recklessness of speculation, the
neglect of sanitary laws, the political corruption,
the desperate race after wealth, the general want
of the social ballast which steadies older communities—
I could not fail to see that this growing community wai
one in which the producer of wealth enjoyed unusual
opportunities of retaining for himself a fair share
of the fruits of his labour. I saw that, as a set-off
against the evils inseparable from the pioneer
work of civilization, America enjoyed perfect
immunity from many of the evils that afHict Europe—
from over-population, rival royal dynasties, feudal
institutions, privileged classes, hereditary despotisms,
state-favoured creeds, and the race hatreds and inter-
national jealousies of half-a-dozen great empires,
involving the maintenance of vast standing armies
which drain out the very life-blood of the people. I
saw, too, that the founders of the great Republic had,
with wise prescience, made provision for the education
of the whole people, and in this I discerned a ray of
hope brighter than any which could emanate from mere
material prosperity, however great.

Man and his doings in the States had thu'^ got a firm
hold of my imagination ; but the physical features of
the North American Continent exerted over my mind
an equally powerf'i) influence. Niagara had, from
childhood, been to me the noblest type and fullest ex-
pression of earthly beauty and giandeur. The vast
•hain of lakes wiiioh separate Canada from the States,
and the noble river through which their surplus water
is carried to the sea, were to me an ideal, as they are a
unique, system of natural waterworks. Of late years,
the long-hidden beauties of the Kooky ami Sierra
Nevada Mountains have been brought to light, mainly
through the boldness and enterprise of railway companies
atid engineers, whose works are hardly less wonderful
than the gorges they traverse ami the summits they
scale. Of all this, also, I had duly taken account. I
was, in short, in capital con<lition for the doctors'
prescription — a three months' dose of America.

I took the dose, in the company of a gentleman well-
known in the neighbourhood of Yeovil, who had been
similarly prescribed for ; and I propose to tell, in a
series of articles, what the medicine w.is like and how I
relished it.

Globk-Tbotteiw.

We English areyery apt to poke fun (I have done it
myself before now) at the American globe-trotter. This

personnge Intly or pjcntloman, for ho ; no, it cannot be
'■ 111';" K't in Hiiy " it,"— is of both Huxes. Now, whoro
am I '.' f hive lost tlio " threinl of my dixcourse.''
].vt. iH liirk l)iicl\ iui(l try ngain. 'I'lii-i iJcrsonaijo, then,
(tliu AiiiuiicHii f,'loi((vti()tloi') "does ' I'liirope in about a
fortiii^bf. 'I'liiii is to siiy, ho ruslu'.s nljout to a scoro or
BO of ;?)■' lit cilics, famous ciithmiiMl s nml world ro-
nowneii l)iith pluoo-, allowiii;; hims.lt ior eacli place as
inicli time as t'lap-cs bt't ween tlio airival of one train
and (lie lU'p irimo of tiic next. It was this (lass which
i\lr. I In Maiiriir s itiri/.eil so splendidly in I'mir/i a few
niMiitli^ a.;o. 'I'ho scon(' is a ( ontinenta! t iblo d'hote.
A Ktiitleinan. doins the civil to a stout, over-dtessed,
'' jioiHonally comluctod '' lady .sittin;; besido him, aiiks :
"And where, madam, do you go to to-morrow r " "To
Milan,'' siie roidies. " i'ACiise me, madam," says the
fTentleman ; "Imtyouaio in Milan now." "Oh, are
we'.' ' ;isks tho lady; "in that case, it is N'enicr* to-
morrow." 'i'lii.s coiivi rsation (wld( h I have repeated as
nearly as I can remember it) scarcely exagger.ites the
blindness and the want of appreciation with which
in uiy Americans (yiM, ami identy of English people
tiK)) rush about the (.'ontinoiit ai; tho tail of a "con-
ductor.''

Now, [ am in mortal fear lest any of the^e globe-
trotters should read my little nairative, realise how much
giound 1 managed to cover in tho limited time at my
disposal, and s lOut at the top of their voices, " '^'ou're
anotlior I ' If they are rude etiough to do thi.s, what
am 1 1 1 :-ay ': 1 am afraid [ can only ask, in reply, to
be jud^'ed by resuits. The great traveller Humboldt
once tea 1 some other traveller's book, and, on laying it
down, he remarked of the author that ho never knew a
man who had travelled farther anil seen less. I have cer-
tiinly rus'ed about a good deal, but I .v'C)n also to have
seen a good cleal. 'I'ha', of course, may be a delusion
of mine. If it is, my readers, 'f 1 am fortunate enoimh
to tinil any, will very soon wake up to tho fact.
My real defence for imitating the globe-trotter a little
too eloscly is simply this— that, unless one can be sure
of visiting America a second and a third time, it is, on
the whole, better to get a general, if hasty, view of the
whole counti y, than to gain a minute knowledge of a
single state or district.

SKia.KTON Rdute.

r.bforo proceeding to deal with the
journey —to descrilie what F

details of my
did. and faw, and heard
at each separate st.ige, I will lirst give a briet descrip-
tion of my loute. My readers (always supposing I
have any) will then know in what order to expect the
detail!, as they (the details, not the readers! will after-
wards follow in tho order indicated in the subjoined
itinerary ; —

Kiiglisli .Milca.
July ;>. — Tr I'elled fr.nii Veovil to (Croydon) liomlon liilt

,," 4. —C'loydoii to Liverpool 211

,, 5 to I.I.— liiveijiool t> (j-.i'bec jior All in Line

steanuT I'.trisiiin ... ^,02'.)

,, 1(i-17. "Ni;;ht 1> mtfi-oni Qiieb'v to Moiitre;il IMi)

,, IK. — .Montreal to l)i('kiiis.)n's LiniliUL'. by rail,
and Ir c'J liv lioat down tlie St. J,awrei;co

ISijiiils t ) .\innteil Kin

,, '20.— Montre il to (»tl iwa by rail, and thenco to

llrockville 1>\ r.iil IS).")

,, 21. - I{roc!<ville to Toronto liy boat, ttirough the

'riionsiiid Islands iniil Like Ontario ... 210

,, 21. — Toronto to Ni iji ira, by t)o:it and rail ... 4.5

,, 20.- Niagara (Canadian siile) lo Hidfalo by rail , 20
,, 20— 27. -Buffalo to Cllevelind l)y ni;;ht tiain 17'i

,. 27.— Cleveland to Di'troit, rail 150

2.S.-Detroit to C'aas City, .Michigan IKi

Aug. 4.- Cass City to Detroit 118

,, I ." - Detroit to t'lilcmo, night train ... 285

„ '.t.-Clii.ai;. t.) .Mdwuike,. 85

,, 111. — Mihvaiik.'e to M.'uonionei! on Lake

.Miebiiiin mO

,, 11. — Mrn'MU'iin'c to M iri|iietti' (bake Suporior) l.'J7
,, 12 -l:>. .M.ii'pii'tte to Unlnth (I, ike supcrinr)liy

boit :m

„ 14 Mnlnthtost. I'.ml (Minnesota) 150

,, l."!. — .St. I'.iid to .Minneapiilis mill roturii |(l

,, 10. -St. I'anI to Sionx City ([ow.i) 270

,, 17. -S|oiix<'ity to itni ilia 100

,, 17— l-^. - Omaha to Dciiv.t .509

,, 21.— Denvir to niai'!; ll.iwk and Centr.il City

ami return .. ... SO

„ 22.-l)eiiver to Leadville 171

„ 2:l -1,e;idvill.. to D.'uver 171

,, 2''> "2i!.— Diniverto .Silt Lako Citv (149

,, 2s— 2.I.— S.ilt bake City to San riaiicisco ... 9:^2

Sept. .1—,").— Sin I'riiiiisco to Silt bike City ... 9.'J2

,, .5 -ti. -Silt Like CitV to I'ueldo (!14

,, 7. -I'li'Ido to Cliini.i(New .Mexi'o) ... 22:i

,, 7— S. — (Miatna to Denver ;i4lj

„ !I-PI, — Denver to Kans IS Citv 0119

„ 10 -II. -Kansas City to St. Louis ."323

,, in.— St. Ijonis to Ciiieinnati 340

,, 14. Cliicimi iti t 1 Uielmiond ([ndiana) 70

,, 1."). -Kii'biiioiid to Cincinnati 70

,, l.j— 111. Cineinnati to Washington 5Si

,, 1^. — \VasIiiny;toii to P.iltinioro 40

,, 20. -lliltiinore to I'liiladrlphia m

„ 22.— PhilaO.'Iphiato Now York 90

,, 2><. -New Vork to P,.istou 233

,, 2'.». -l!o.iton to Lewistim (Maine) 140

O.t. I. L'wi-^ton to Boston 140

,, 4. - llnstin to .Ii.jin-town 2.")0

,, ,'). .bihnstown lo .Vlliany iiO

,, 0.— .Mil my to New York bv boat on Hudson

IJivin- IV,

,, 1 1 to 2!!. — New York to Liverpo il by White Star

ste ui'er (/('/•//irroii?

,, 2% I, iverpoiil to Croydon

,, 24. — (.Jroydoii to \eovil

Total 1S,0.-,S

Where I have not otherwise ilescribed the mode ot
travelling it is to be understood that tho journeys
were made by lail.

It will lie seen that T have accounted in this list for
those journoj,^ .,nly which were made by sea, on the
lakes 01' rivers, or by rail between the various cities.
The numerous short journeys within or around the
various cities are not iu'duiled. These, on a moderate
estimate, would bring the total distance travelled up
to l.S,.">OU miles, or about three-fourths oi the circum-
ference of tho Karth.

" And do you call that reiif ':'' somebody asks. '\\'"ell,
honestlv, I do not know that I can. Supposa
we call it chiiivic instead. <!hango i.i good,
even if it is only a change from one form of
effort to another. The hicvi list who has wearied one
set of muscles in a long run finds it a grateful relief to
rest that particular set, and to call another set into
play, by pushing liis machine ii)) a hill. The professional
man whose brain is working incessantly during the
gre itoipa^t of the yc ir renews his tlagging ener?;ies by
substituting a few wee\-s of hard work, in the shape of
" sport" or mountaineerinir, for the monotonous grind
of theoilicQ or the study. Some men even find recrea-
tion and benefit in following their usual occupation
under new conditions. A Lon 'on lawyer in said to have
spent his holidays, to the benefit of his health, by going
down into the country and lending a hand to a legal
friend. At first sight, his idea of a holiday and a
rest appears odd ouough ; but it must be remembered

11«

285

:;nii

If)!!

270
100

r,i;9

171
171
(U»
932
<);{2
r.it

:}2:i
:j4(i

40
OS
«)0

140
140

250

145

. : ,57(5
211
i:t:i

1S,05S

st for
on the

cities.

l the
ilftrate
I up
iircum-

AVell,
l>l)osa

m of
I one
ef to
into
ssional
ng the
e;ies by
ape of
rind
reorea-
pxtion
have
f RoinK
a legal
and a
nbered

ilie

that, tliongli the work he did for hi« friend wa» like his
own in /.//■'/, the ciroumst mces in whicli he did it
weio ditleieiit. He waH, of cuwrsi', in a dilfcront; at-
nio-ipheie, and nmid I'iU'cruiit 8uriouiiilini{g, from thoio
nt humo ; iiini, what was e lually iiniiortant, tlie sense of
rt-Hjionsibility unilor which Ids woik for his own diet '>
would lie done, was no Ioniser felt wiien he was co-
operating with his friend. Kveiyl)ody, 1 supiioso, has
heard of tiie famous inill-horse whii:h, when it wanted
a " eiian:;e,'' simply turned round rvtul walked in the
nppositt) dirention to that in whicli it had hueit (,'oini;.
(N.l!. 'J'his is not a had story, but the lir-'t teller thereof
forgot to explain what kind of mill the philosopliical
beast work'Ml in, that he was able to reverse the motion
of the macliinery without oausinji a general smash-up
of tilings.)

Why I AooPTcn the Above Koi'te.

Most of the visitors to America both go to and return
from New 'N'ork. As no doubt some curious person or
otlier will want to know wliy I was eccentric enough to
lio otherwise, I may perhaps as well explain at the out-
set the considerations which determ'ncd my route. In
the first place, I wanted to avoid cros^in,' the Atlantic
earlier thin May or later than October. In such
stoiimers as aie now running, the passage nia^ bo made
safely enough all the year round ; but tiiough a winter
voyage may be fairly safe, there is no
gieat amount of pleasure to be got out of
it. As I was confined (or rather confined myself i to the
l)eriod between May and Dctolier, it was impossibla to
avoid speiidin.; the hottest ]>art of the summer in
Aineiica, and the worst placesto be in during the exces-
sive heats are the gieat cent''al and eastern cities.
Agi'.n, I wanted to see the app -..ich to Canada by the
Nt. Lawrence Oulf and Hiver. laojonlingly so arranged
my journey as to go out by the '^t. I.awrence route (the
more n.)rtherly) and to return by the New York
rmite. During the hutte.-<t part of the summer (mid-
.luly to mid -Sept.) I was in Canada, on the Nt.
Liwrence and the great lakes, in Michigan,
I^linnesota, and other northern States, among the
Jiocky Mountains, and on the Californian coast. Bj
the time I reached St. Louis and i^incinnati (t(!rrilically
hot places in t'.ie .summer), the great heats had pissed.
Ti.e summer was, on the whole, a veiy favourable one
for stranger tourists. l-lveryWoily agreed in saying that
it was an unusually cool season, and I am bound to
testify that I suffered from heat a great deal less than
I expected. I tiust I have now satisfied all legitimate
curiosity on this point. ■

Gettinc. OKI".

"Why doe<u't she move?'

The " she " in question was the Allan liner Parisian.
Tlie speaker was one of the 124 persons who were sit-
ting in her saloon at dinner at half-past si.x on the even-
ing of Thursday, July 5th. The continued stay of the
b.g ship in the middle of the Mersey, oppodte the Land-
ing Stage, was, indeed, a matter of surprise to all of us.
We had been on board nearly two hours. Tiie tug
wh cli earned us out had long ago returned to
the Landing Stage, taking bac't with it the
friends who ii.ul come so far to see us olf. We hail
dried our eyes— and our pocket-handkerchiefs, and had
almost linished our iirst meal at the well-furnishecl
board of Messrs. Allan IJros. As I sat looking out of
one of the open windows at the Cheshire shore, the
spire of u iJirkenbead church stood up in the centre of

one of the "buU's-eyes, " like a picture in n small cir-
cular frame. It was not until we had about reached
the last course of thi; dinner, tiiat I noticed that this
spire had begun to move very slowly from the ceiitie of
its frame, and in a few minutes it was iinisi'de. A few
minutes more elapsed, and I f >uiiil the church
.\gain in a frame - tias time in a liitferent
one. Kither the church or the ship was
cleai ly on the move ; and as chmviies are not, so far as
my e-xpcrience goes, accustomed to walk about, I pre-
sently arrived at the i '"vitalile conclusion tliat the
I'lU-isian was turning Diinil. i!ut thit turning of a
ship l.'iO yards in length, iu a river like the Mer.sey, is
a tedious process, anil in our case th- turning tide was
left to do the work iu its own leisiirely way. The
motion of the huge ship as she swung round was so
slow as to lie almost imperceptible, and tlie evening
was well advanced before the giant engines weie called
upon to commence their eight days' task.

Trni:.-* .\n;) rosr-OrFicE RF.<;rr..\Tioxs.

It may seem strange to the uninitiated that a great
mail ste liner shoulti set out on an Atl iiitio voyage in
this exceedingly deliiierate fashion, especially in these
days, when the i?reat steamshipcompanies .ire straining
every nerve to reduce the length of the pa-sage to the
shortest possible number of minutes. Hut theie are
many things in heaven and earth (and on the sua) that
are not dreamt of in a Lmilsman's philo-ophy. A mail
steamer has to reckon both with tides and with the
re luireuients of the I'ost Ollice. The sand bar
which lies olFtlie mouth of the .Mersey rati oidy be
crossed by the largest ships within an hour or two of
hixh water (before or after). The tides, therefore,
determine the bonis of siilin;; from Liverpool, On the
otlier h ind, the rostmnster-' ieneinl fixes the hours for
t!ie transfer of the mails t) the steanierr^at (.^ueenstown
and M'jville. The steamers for New York go to the
south of Ireland, calling at (.lucensc >wii for mails ;
those for Nova Scotia and the St. Lawrence keep north
of Ireland and take up the mails at Moville, an insigni-
ficant place in Lough Foyle, a few miles
from Londonderry. The arrangement iietween the
I'ost Office and .Messrs. Allan is that the mails shall be
handled to the latter at .Moville aliout hve or six
o'cloclt on I-'riday evening. The ste.imers, therefore,
have to lea .-e Liverpool at such an hour on Thursday as
to allow of their crossing thebar at ornear high water,
and of their being in Lough Koyle by tlie appointert
hour on Friday afternoon. When, as in the cue of the
I'liri^ian on .July 5th, the sti amer getj o it of the
Mersey early on Thursday evening, slie is .ible to steam
t) .Moville in quite a leisurely way and thou have several
hours to spare.

In Irish W.\ters.

We, of course, passed to the south of thf Tsle of Man
early in the night, and through the North Channel,
between the Irish and Scottisli coasts, a few hours later.
When I carne on deck in the mornin:?, we were passing
Kathlin Island : and the hills of Cmtire -that curious,
long, narrow peninsula, which .Scotlanii throws out like
a huge [lier in the direction of the Irish ciast— were
sinking out of sight over our stern. Very soon after-
wards, we were alneast of the Giant's t,'iiuseway, and
many eyes were strained, and many glasses brought
into re juisition, in the hope that a glimpse might
be obtained of that great natural curiosity. Put the
distance was apparently too great. I could not myself
discover anything like the strange columnar basaltic

rock, and the owner of tie best ulast on bonrd appeared
to boe(|ually at a loss. Having failed to hco the curi-
OHity, w? a^fieoil unitniniously that tlie thin^ was prob-
ably not worth aeeing, and that wu wure nut a bit
<ligap|iointeil. Ity about mii-ilay, we were in Lout{b
Foyle, with uiir nnchor down, opposite t!ie ainall
collection of hoiises which appuars to constitute Muvillo,
and waiting' fur the arrival of the Ktuam tender from
Derry with thu inaiis.

We waited at leant Ave hours, and tho business was a
trifle monotonous. Those of us who hail never been in
Londonderry debated tiie ijuestion wiiether wo iniKbt
not as well improve t'lo time by runniii); up the bay
and gettin); a loik at that very jiati iotiu city. Kut the
first (litHculty was to <lii.:iiver the means of conveyance.
Tins serio'^s <|uestion, moieover, arose : -Suppose wo
oould get anyt)ody to row or drive us up to the city,
bow could wo be absolutely certain ("cock-sure," as
somebody said) of getting back in timo ? We had
visions of capsixed boats, b oken-down vehicles, and
other possible causes of delay ; visions of ourselves
rushing back at breathless speed to find that tho
I'nvi.'iiait had dis ii)po ired ; visions of tlie Pariniaii
ploughini; tiie Atlantic without us, and carrying our
forsaken baggage far away from its natural protectors.
As these visions grew more vivid, and as the time was
already passing rapidly, we one and all decided to stick
to our ship, and ndieve the tedium of the afternoon's
detention as best we could.

Hememberins;, at this opportune moment, that Mr.
Alexander I'oiie had given tho world his word for it
that—

" The proper study of mankind is man,"

and that some other philosopher bad added " and
women," it occurred to us (the |iassen<4ers), or, at least,
to some of us that wo might do worse tlian quiz one
another. So we 4uiz/.ed— ani were quizzed.

TiiE Steeuaoe Passkngerh.

I first turned my attention to the steerage passengers.
These numbered ('i.'>0, and comprised persons of various
nationalities, Hnglish, (German and Scandinavians pre-
dominating, as usual. As the ship lay in the quiet
waters of the Irish lough, these emigrants (for such
nuarly all of them were) were 'ounging or strolling
about those parts of the lower deck sot apart for their
use. These poor people cei tainly constituted a curious
but deeply interesting study. They were of all sorts,
sizes, ages, and degrees of tidiness or seediness. Little
children were tumbling over each other in their boister-
ous mirth, happily unconscious of the miseries which
the coming week miebt possibly have in store for them,
and of the hardships wh;oii they might have to endure
while their parents were making homes for them in a
strange land. There were old people— men and women
whose lives' work was evidently nearly over, and who,
let us hope, were on their w.^y to spend the evening of
their lives in the homes of prosperous sons and
daughters who had preceded them to the Land of
Promise. There were clean, tidy, serious-look-
ing men and women in the prime of life
— the very pick and flower of the working classes
of Europe, the best of all emigrants. This is the class
whose physical strength, remarkable powers of en-
durance, unflagging industry, and indomitable perse-
verance have done more than all other causes to build
up the Great Kepublio, and, I may add, tlie great,
though smaller. Dominion of Canada. But there were
f^ few person! amon^ the emigrants (they were, I am

glad to sfty, a small minority) whose slatternly appear-
ance indicated that they would be as little of an acqui-
sition to tho Now World as they were of a loss to the
Old World on whioh they had tiirneil their backs.

The steerage of an ocean steamer, although a palace
compared with the corresponding places in emigrant
sailing ships a gonoration ago, is hanlly even now the
place which a lady would choose for making an elabor-
ate toilet in. liut tidy people will contrive somehow
or other to be tidy anywhere— always provided that,
if thoy are at sea, the sea behaves itself. For sea-sick-
ness is the one thing which levels all alike— duke and
p.tuper, lew and (lentile, Tory and Uadical ; rendering
menauil women alike utterly o))liviuus tooverythinglike
"appearances'' ami conventionalisms, and to agooddeal
more. ISut when the sea is tolerably calm and the
weather favourable, those steiTage passengers who
happen to have cleanliness and tidiness in their blood
are almost invariably clean and tidy, notwithstanding
t leir limitL-d accommodation. Those who are slatternly
at such times would ]>robably be slatternly all the same
if they had tho run of all the saloon accommodation.

Lookin;^ down upon the great crowd of emigrants as
we layat rest in Lough Foyle, and thinking particularly
of the women and children, whose sutferings are very
great in bad weather, I felt benevolently disposed to
revoke the hope I had half entertained that I might
be fortunate onougli to see a storm— a moderate
one, of course. " For the sake of these poor
people," I said to myself, " I will gladly resign
the pleasure of seein:^ how tho J'ariHian performs
in a gale. I will take all that on trust from some
old salt who has seen her do it.' I did not, it is true,
recite any liturgy, in the hops of somehow helping to
bring my desires to pass ; but my desires were none the
less heartfelt. I certainly felt that, in giving up the
hope (let me say the half-hox>e\ shall I say the half-
hojie, not unmixed with just a little apprehension?) of
seeing a gale, I was acting in a 8]>irit of genuine self-
sacrifice. In short, I "felt good," as tho Americans
say. But then what was I, as against 650 of my kind,
that I should prefer my " pleasure " to theirs ?

At the risk of getting a little ahead of my story, I may
here remark that my self-sacrifice had its reward. We
had a beautiful passage. No cargo of emigrants ever
crossed the Atlantic under pleasanter auspices ; and, of
course, I was done out of my gale. That is still a
" treat " in store, though I have crossed the ocean
again since July.

FCN FOR THE EinORANTS.

While we still lay at Moville, it began to be pretty
evident that the steerage passengers, at any rate, would
not be allowed to suffer much from the tedium of the
voyage. A party of Salvationists, or some similar
body, formed themselves into a group and sang some
of their stirring "hymns." I take the personal respon-
sibility of us.ng the word "stirring," but I quote the
word " hymns " because I do not care for the heavy
responsibility of calling tho words by that name. Any-
how, the singers made things lively for a time.
But there was a rival body of vocalists, con-
sisting of three or four Germans, who sang
Eart songs very nicely, and were attentively listened to
y saloon and steer.ige passengers alike. The "boss"
entertainer, however (as we are on the way to America,
we may as well begin to use the American language),
was a young Englishman brimming over with comicality,
and as lithe and active as a greased monkey. For houri

some

oon-
sang
led to
boss "
erica,
lage),
sality,
bouri

■I

at a ilretoh, this lively yoiin;; gentlemtin kept the whole
ship in a roar. He ooulil deliver a Teinpuriinco leotiiro,
lireiioh a Normon, or H[ieak on any other concoivablo
subject, with nnmovod gravity. Kroni tli«! work
of a lecturer, ho would ])aH4 to tint of an
ftuctioneor. Standing on a nisol i>;iit of tiio
deck, witii hundreds of the omlKrints crowdin;^ ruuml
him, ho ]>ut anytliin;; ami cvurythin^' up to auction,
from the great ship hcrstdf down to the sii diby hat of
a fulIow-passenKcr. If the owulm' of tli(> hat objected,
he " put up ■' the owner himsidf, desci ibod his numerous
defects v'ith the greatest candour, and started the bid-
din){ at aOout '2\i\. Competition w.is soiUL'tiines so slack
th;if lie had to buy in the " lot ' ;it two or three
shillings ; but sometimes the jiassen^or was suld and
hiindad over to the buyer, with no end of curious ad-
vice as to how he was to bo tre tteil. It was useless lor
anybody to protest or to resist. The comic mm wis
master of the situation. It was so cleur that his fun
wai entirely good-humoured, without the smallest trace
ofmalice, thatanyresentmontshownbyhishuman'Mots"
or other victims was instantly laughed away. Those who
had been most successfully held up to ridicule, or made
the objects of the rouc;hest horse-iilay, wore compelled
at last, by the very infection of merriment, to join, more
or less grimly, in the boisterous lauehter which had been
raised at their own expense. My travelling companion
souifhtan opportunity of iiucstioninir this comic man as
to his occjupation and his object in emigrating. lie
said at first that he was a butcher, and was going to
America in the hope of tindinj; s imething to do in his
own line. " Hut," my friend said, " you have
surely dono something in your time beyond butcher-
ing?" and he then admitted that hn had
had an engagement at one of the liirmingham theatres.
His peculiar talent would certainly r m to waste in a
slaughter-house, and I have very little doubt that by
this time he is "corner man" in some trou]ie of
" nigger " melodists or leading comedian at a theatre.

TiiK Mails.

But I must not forget that we are still at Moville. It
was not until after five o'clock that the Londonderry
tug came alongside with tlie Canadian mails. Those
who had never before seen a foreign mail had their e}'es
opened as to the extent of the correspondence between
England and her greatest colony. It seemed
as if the flow of he.avy bags, crammed
with letters and newspapers, from the tug to the
Parisian, would never cease. How many tons the mail
weijjhed I cannot say, but 1 have little doubt that the
baes would have filled two largo vans. The smartness
with which our ship was got under way as soon as the
last bag was on board was in striking contrast to the
leisurely fashion in which we left the Mersey the night
before. The circumstances had, of course, changed.
The Parisian had now Her Majesty's mails
on board, and her captain's business forthwith
was to push on so as to land those mails
at Rimouski, on the St. Lawrence, at the earliest pos-
sible moment. Within, J should say, five minutes of the
delivery of the last bag, the iron giantsdown in the hold
of the ship began to sway their mighty arms up anddown
and to and fro, and from that labour they never once
ceased until, at noon on the following Friday, we
cast anchor opposite Kiraouski.

Phogrkss in Atl.vntic Navigation.

The Parisian is the newest, the largest, and the fast-
est of the famouB Allan line of steamers, and is a fair

example of the flue vessels )>y which communication ii
now 'uiintained bi'twuen this country and Vinerica.
Theso Nhips aro ilosorvedly ronkoniMl anion.; the great-
est triiiiiiplis of scientific skill, liy nioansof tlicm. the
navu itiou of t'le >t'inn;o-t of ovaiis (ino Noiih
Atlantic) has lionn rcdui-el to a m.ittor of almost abso-
lute ceita.iily and safety. And wh la the sitoty of the
navi^'ation has increase I with the lajise oi every suc-
ces<ivo year, thu tiino ocinipied in the pa'<Hiigo lias been
gradually --liorteticd. Tlit'yi'u- IHt2 was not so very
lon^ ago, but at that time Atlantic navniratiijii by gtuam
was in its infancy. It was in that year that Charles
l>ick<-ns made tlio memor ibie voya;{o wliioli he aft'ir-
wards described (as only o oo iM describe iti in his
"American Notes. " His stoamei' (called a " packet "
in those days) was tbo Hr tMinia. She and
her sister ships were regarded as marvels.
The liriiitnniii w.is ri vessel of l,i.'i*0 ton.s, and
it took her 1"^ days to carry Charin DicUcns
to JSo-iton. The second generation of steamships
reduced the passa'^e to New York ( wiiicli is farther than
Jioston) to thirteen or fourteen days ; ami when, some
years later, a line of still finer l)oit8 reduced the time
to ten or eleven days, it was thought that finality had
at last been reached. ISut there is no sndi thing as
finality in the march of science. Ten years ago, the
jia^sage was i'odiiue(l to nine days, and the size of the
ships bioiigli. uj) to l,0()J or l,"iiM» tons. Thy last ten
years have, however, witnessed a further marked
advance in lioth tonna^'e and speed. There .are now on
the New Vork route at least four vessels of from 7.0)')
to S,()i)i» tons, \\f.., the <Uhi <>/ lionv; of tha .Vnohor
' Line ; the Scrria. of the C'unaid Lino : the Al'i^ltii and
'' Orejiin, of the (iuion Line. All tlieso vos els aro
' capable of mikin.; tins run from ],iverpool t i New Vork
in less thm eight days ; two of them ^^mx do it, un ler
I specially fa vouialile conditions, in a little over seven,
Tiio Allan boat-i do nut run t > New Vork. Their
chief route is from Liverpool to (jiuahec. Durin.; the
winter, the .St. Lawrence is fro/.on, and the steamers
then land their mails at Halifax. As f remarked at
the outset, the /'art.t/a't is the latest and finest addition
to the Allan fleet. She is only about three years old,
and emboilies every improvement which had been
effected in marine architecture up to the time she was
designed. She is about 4oO feet (150 yards) in length
and 4(1 feet in breadth, and she is of r),.oOi) tons burden.
Her saloon is a beautiful apartmeni: extending across
the whole width of th^ ship about mid-way between
the bows and the engines. This arrangement, which is
now almost universally adopted by the great steamship
companies, kee|)s the salooi; almost entirely free from
that ugly and stomach disturbing vibration which is
invariably felt in a siloon situated astern of the engines,
and therefore over the scrtw-shaft. The first-class
cabins aro grouped about the neighbourhood of the
saloon — some being forward of it, and others (the l.irger
number) filling tlie space on each side between the
saloon and the engines.

A Hit; Namk for a LiTit.K THi.va.

T>ut why, in the name of outraged Reason, do the
steamship com|>anies conspire to c.ill thnii cabins
" -^tato-rooms '! '' The word " state-room " has a ina;^-
nificent roll about it, and suggests to the mnooents wno
have never been to sea a lofty and spacious iimrtinent,
of a kind which is found only in the palaces of the
wealthy. As regards three-fourths of the " state-
rooms " in all the Atlantic steamers, the reality is a
closet about 6^ feet square, with two berths (one over

tlio other) on ono Hidu, a niirrow flxml nofa on
the ()|i|iositM H(lu, nn I (i ficti Hpaco, from two to
tlirot) ffut wiiht, ill whioli tin; two ocou|iantH havo
to dress, Miiilrt-g', iinil lio tlioir ti){htiiii{ if
they h.ippcn to '|Uiirrul. Talk uhout " room to Hwin.; a
I'at ! " Wliy, tlieru is not room to Hwiiiv; ii lilitid kitten.
'I'iiorit aio, of oiPii.HO, hii({oi' "' Htato-roomt," inti'mleil to
nct'ommoilaie tiirue or four poraoiiM, liut thcsu Ciin oiily
))u Bucuroil for iho uxclusivo us(! of ono or two per^'Oiis
by extra payment. My frioml niul I, for in^tauco,
socurt'il a tlireu-liuriii room in the /'•wi-'i'in. Tlii.s was
over 10 fuut h)iiK, iinil we were alilo to have all our
haKgn^u witii us, instead of senilin;^ the Kruatcr part
down into tiie holil. All the oaliiiiH, whether hir^e or
small, are beautiliilly furnlHliud, iinil tverytliiii'^ aliout
them is as clean as a now pin. 'I'ho ventilation is
luually nood, even when the state of the weather does
not allow the hull's eye windows to ho opened. There
was, moreover, no suspicion on hoard the i'nc/.i/Vj/i that
the cal)in c(ur..ained any other living creatures beyond
those who had piiil their fares. This iniinunitv is not
always to be relied on at sea, as tho following true nar-
rative will show,

A Folli-TOOTKI) liKDKKI.r.OW.

In tho montli of .Fuly, IHSl, I was on a voyag;o to
(iihraltar on liou-d the rt;nii.sular and Oriental steamer
Mirmpnrr — not, iii old ho it, liy any means. My cabin,
which I was sup|ins.>,| to h ivt' to myself, oponed upon
the deck — an arr.ini^oinciit, by the way, wliiuh would
ni'tdoatall in ves.sids if^ulnly Mavi;4atini{ the stormy
North Atlantic. I )uriii',' the li>st or s 'cond ni„'ht after
leivinj; Southaiiipton. mv slei'p was a ({oo 1 deal dis
tuibed— why, I rouhl not toll, alih<ui{h[ was half
conscious in my se niwikelul intervals that I had not
the bed to mys(.lf. At last, just as day was breakiii',',
a movement as of some wt'i,'ht on my feet woke moout-
ri'.,'ht. I raise 1 my lead cautiously and li)oked down
towards the re)j;ion of my toos ; and there, lying on the
coverlet of the bed, I saw one of the finest rats
it was ever my privilege and jileasure to
make the acipiaintance of. After hoMing a brief
council of war with myself, I summoned all my forces -
horso, foot, and artillery (e<pecially foot) —for a supreme
oll'oit, and gave such a vi,'orou8 kick ui)ward through
tho bcil-clothes that his ratship, much astonished no
doubt, went tlyiug in a series of somersaults towards
the ceiling. Falling heavily to tlie floor, ho instantly
scuttled out of sight under my berth. I immediately
dressed and called the steward who had charge of the
cabin, lie was one of those men who never allow any-
thing to surprise them. Speaking as if (his imrticular
rat was an old aenuaintance of his, whom he ha<l been
exjiecting to give him a call, he simply said, " Oh I
/(cVhore, is ho? 77/ have him tonight 1" Ho wouhl
probably have taken the mi'ttor ([uitc as coolly if I had
assured him that the seasorpent had i)ut his heail into
my window anil said, " Come out and have a walk, old
fellow !" Whether my bed-fellow was caught, as per
steward's i)romise, I do not know, for I insisted on
moving to another room in a distant pai of the ship.

rUKOAUriO.NS AiiAINST StOUMS AND MlSlIAPS.

The Parisian, in common with all large steamers
now-a-days, is built of iron or steel— I believe the
latter. And it is not only her double hull which is of
this metal. Her principal decks are of steel (covered
with wood, of course) ; so, also, are all the erections
above deck. Tho great danger in a heavy gale is that

tho deck orectiuni may bo swept away, an 1 that, tho
Ntaircases and other openings into tho liody of tho ship
being thus loft unprotected, the water will fill the hold,
extinguish the boiler fires, and ultimately overwhelm
the ship. This is precisely what liapponel in the case
of tlie ste. unship f.oinl'iK, in the Hay of l!is;ay, fifteen
or twenty years ago, i. r deck erections, being of
wood, wore swept away, a,. 1 the vessel was henceforth
at the mercy of the wavrs. So far as one can see, it
soems imposs hie that the steel ere(;tion< which are
riveted to the steel clocks of the great moilorn gtoainois
could bo washed away by t'lo hea\io'-t seas ever met
with even on tho Atlantic. Ono of tho most serious
dangers besetting ocuin uivigatiou is thus virtually
abolished.

The /'ariaian is, of cour^j, built in seven or eight
water-tight comiiartmonrs, so that, if water should by
any accident get into ono part of her, it could be
excluded from the othei compartments and serious
danger be tlius averted.

So far as tho structure and machinery o' these groat
ships are concerned, tlio two mishaps n. ><'- to be
dreaded are the disabliiig of tho ruilder ancl tho break-
down of tho engines. Tho latter mishap, wli'ch
generally ta'<t's the form of a fracture of the sc.c.v-
shaft, has befallen more than ono of tho favourite
steamers now on the service. VVJionevor it happens, the
steamer is. of couise. immediately leduced to tho con-
dition of n s.^iling nhip ; ami as few stoamors carry
sail I't all in luoportion to their size, the progress
hoiueforth made is very slow. .\ campleti sai'oguar 1
against such disablem 'lit will no doubt bo ultimately
found ill tho adojition of two dist not sots of engines
and two screws, which may be run either sep irately or
togothor. The loss or disablement of a rudder is, in
bad weather, more soriou-i than tho breakdown of the
engines, in tho case of any steamer of fairsailing power.
The suggested plan of duplioate screws would iu-obal)ly
abolish the risk arising from the loss of a rudder, and I
have long thought that there must bo other modes of
providing in a rough way for such a catastrophe —such,
for instance, as the fixing of emoigenoy rudders to the
sides of tho ship, in such positions that they would be
out of the way and not retard the progress of tho
vetisel when not in \ue.

A Floating Citv.

Including her crew, tho Parisian carried nearly a
thousand iiersons to (,>uebec on tho trip on which I went
by her. It was dilHcult to realise that there was such
a host on board. The ship is so large, and contains so
many apartments of one sort and another, that a
thousand persons are stowed away out of sight with the
greatest ease. Jn fact, the vessel can carry several
hundred more than were aboard her on this .luly pas-
sage, for her steerage alone is certified to have accom-
modation for about a thou.sand, If, therefore, slio ever
haiipens to carry out hor full complement, she must at
such times have something liko 1,400 persons on board.
I may add that so little did she appear liko crowded
when I crossed in her, that 1 had no idea, until we
readied (.Quebec, that I had formed one of a company of
about a thousand. Tlie exact numbers were :— Cabin
passengers, 124 ; intermediate, 47 ; steerage, <i:">S :
total passengers. 829. The crew was probably at least
l.')0 more.

Cabin Passknuijks' Accom.modation.

To the cabin (lassenger, life on board agre.it Atlantic
steamer is (weather permitting) very much like life in a

first olaSMliotol. I'liii'li pi'i'-oii Imm a nimI hi (lie riiIooii
itllotte'l t(i III in at tlit< liiHt iiii'nl miil tlint rim I lii> ro'iiiiis
throii«lii)iit till' Miy.iyc. Till- se its ill tlio silouiiof iliu
/'((/•/ji ((/I urn cufliid'HMl chirrs w'ilcli, ;linu.;h li\i'l to
the tioor (a ver.v av emiirv iiru.Miitiiin), revolve on their
centres, HO that nny iliner iiiny tuin round, i-Ih •. mid
loiivo the tillo, without diMtiiil'in;; hii* iu.'i;,hhoiirs,
and as proiii|iily ;is the most iKherseciiciiin^^t.inces may
render necessury. l!roiil<l'ii»t is ^ervcd fioin iilnmt h df-
jiast ciglittill tunur Iialf-i>a8t ton, liinclieDii >t one. and
ilinncr at six. Theioiwin) regular meal after dinner,
but tea, colico, and li^dit iofie»'i merits are nerved to
tlioHo who rC'iiiiro thtin U|> to tho tlnio at which the
inlooii in cloHed.

'I'he nalocni is the chief .sitting-room for cabin jmssen-
gers between mods an ! lUiiin:^ thi ■vonin.; : hut th •
I'lirixKtii hug, in adilition, a hanvlsnmo niiartinunt over
the saloon, eontainiiiL; a ])iano and a nuinhi'r of card
talilos, and surrounded by I'lxiii iously cusliioned Kcats.
This room is lij^hted mainly from a'lo- e by a s!<ydi,'ht,
and immediately under tho ^ky-li^ht is a laino oval
ciiei'.inj; into the Hah'on, jirotected by a handsome rail-
iim. 'I'liis arrnni;emi nt adds Kii'atly to the li;^l;tne s,
ventilation, ami ehrerfulii< ss of the salonii. In addition
to these two ipaiii a|iartinuiit-', there aie a laili's" cibin
close t<> tho Saloon, and a ^cntlcmeir.s sinukiiii,' room in
n distant uart of tl o h

Our voj

■|).

Ouu VovAci;.
was simiily a week'; pleasure

trii>.

The

Kta was al)-olutely calm on every <lay but one. On
that iiaitiuular ilay, we L;ot into a r.itlier liea.y swell ~
tho result, iirotably, of a ^''l*-' whi h had receiitly f^'wcn
that part of the oee.ui a ^tir■ul), or of a st >i in which
was e\en then doiii;,' business siinewhat further south.
A\'o had no win I wli,ite\er, and thou,'li tho water w.'S
not Kiiiooth, tho waves wuie. 'J'li.it, pu hap-, sounds
Iri,sh like ; but what 1 me.in is this that
tho surface was iirokon into Ion;;, regular
waves. There was no foam, and tho surfaco
of each wa\c was as siiooth as if, like Yankee
li;;htnini,', it had bi.'on Kioased. Tliis was the only day
when I noticed more tli in two or three empty chairs at
meals. Thero were a ^ood many I'l.oiit I's on that
occasion, forthe ship rolled from side to siile with a lons{,
regular, majestic movement, which was very jiretty to
sec, but (to some peoiile) eminently unploas.uit to feel.
l''or the first and only timoduring tho voyage, tho guards
{" fiddles" as some call them) had to bo attached to
the tables. For tho bone it of people who stay
at home, 1 may remark that: theso guards
are sim])ly narrow strips of woodli\el to the tables,
to pie\ent tho phites and dishes from coining o!f in a
sort of avalanche into the diners' l.ips when the slii)) is
cxceptionaliy far gone in li<iuor, and is behaving accord-
in;^ly. There are four strips, (wo of whicli ate fixed to
the edges, and two along the centre of the table iu such
a way as to divide its width into throe narrow spaces.
Tho dishes stand in the middle alley and tho
plates in the two side alleys. Th • plates and
dishes aro thus prevented from mixing i)ro-
miscuou-ily, and both aro kopr from slid-
ing off altogether. A certain amount of latitude is
allowed to both plates and dishes, and they slip back-
ward and forward to tho full leiigtii of their tether at
every roll. Sometimes, when tho ship takes an un-
usually deep dip, tho clatter of crockery is rather
alarming to tho novice, and h • (or sho^ may ocoasioually
be heard to mix sudden exclamations of surprise or alarm
with the rattle of glass aud earthenware.

TlIK U •TTOM K.MUKKIi i>l r ti> \ ISir iir roMuT.

"T osiils of I'.ritairi whiten e>ery s. a !' That \% ■*
xery [irei ty and p.ii riotic ,i-.seriioii wlieb one otteii hi irs
after dinner, win n ora'ois aie f>dl of w lie, and of
iiietapbois (iiiJxe 1). Thero is only oue driwb.ok to tho
assurtiiiii, but til at is nuiiouh. It. i-. not tnio -no^
nearly enough, iiideoJ, to justify tho mot poetical of
orator- in makiii.^ it. My oipeiience i^ coiitinod t<> tl;e
Hay of Kiscay and the North Atlantic, but they are tho
most freijuoiitel of ,dl seas. In a vuvage to liiliraltir,
the vessels on pisses aro eoitainlv ve'v iminpnnis ; but
that, of course, is bei'iui^e all the ISritisli tr.ilbc to llio
.Muditerraroan, to Indi.i, t'iiina, .\ustralii, tlieiape -
to all parts, inleod, o\cept .\morica is eoncoii trate 1
on that loii'.e. Tho ci^e is very dilfereiit on
llio routes followed by tho .Vinoricin steain'rs, .Vftur
gettng clear of tho Irish cost, we ^inlited only two
vessels (both l:w,.t( steamers) until we k<>i fairly inti
the St. Law ■ ; o, .My oxperieiue on t t ri tuiii v.i\a'.;o
was very siinil i We |ias-ed only three \e.-els between
tho neiglib.mriK' d of New N'oik .md C.ipe Cleir.
Hundreds of v.-ssals are, ot' course, alwuyn cm .^ ii^ ;
but tho Lteit •' waste of w.it ts " .s o .;ruit th ct thero
isploiit' •■. elbiiv, ioomffiral. Coll si'iis seldom oi'iuir
out on ilio broii'l Atlantic. It i< in tho crowdtel
apiu.Piiches to ti.e j,'ieiit ports, and especially in log,'y
we.itlier, thnt lu.j sorious dangers of siicii a mishaii need
bea|ipreheiKlod,

AOH.VNI) I'Allllii II')\. -ANOTIIKII fl.t.r.slO.N DONi: Idll.

On tho moriiiiig of the day on which wo siKlifrd
land (Wed lie -day, .lillv I Ith) 1 w is ea:l"d aily to s e a
gran I pidc ssioii of iiu'berg , Wo had bfcii bio'.ing
out for tlies" wanderes the whole o! the pievious d.iy,
and hail .it last be .;uii to fear that wi^ weic goiii:,' to
miss tiie si^lit ('.ipt.i'ii Wylio (-.joo.! liipi.tin and
courteous gontlciii 111) re .vssui ed Us, however, bv pio
mising in t luit Wi; sliould |iositive!y lie tri' ih'd to a
display if wo were good. lie had apparently made
arrangomouts witli the iiDitherly winds ;iiid eii'roiiis to
deliver a supply of i -e olf tiio Labrador cua.st on that
parti ulai- Wediii'sd.iy morning. Too dis[d ly was
superb, and did grear credit to all con I'm'-il. Tlieio
were simpler of all sorts of ice'iei^s, frmn the loi.g,
low mass, like a lloitin,' islani, to tlie majestic, moon-
tain-like mass, from LX) to '3)U fiet in lioi.;lit. Tio
fantastic shapes and ox'iuisitidy delicate eo'anus of iho
ice were the wonder and the admiration of all be-
holders. One oiithiisias^tic passenger, who hapjiened
to have a photogiapliio apparatus, took " piurrdts "of
one or two of the line-t masses through his o.iiiin win-
dow. Their nfi/t/^e: he cau,,'it accuritely eiiouijh,
but their oxiiuisite tints of blue and green
were beyond tlie reach of any ph'itograpliic process yet
invented.

Yi't (Uie thing larked those liergs suUliine,
(I beg tho late liOrd liyron's nardon for siying so.)
I examined tho largest of them carefully, from top to
bottom, by means of my glass ; and not finding what I
looked for, I cried (aildrnssing nobody in particular) :
" Wiioro's Mie boar?"' '' \VhMt beat ';"' somebody asked.
" Wliut beat ?" 1 replieil ; " why. th'' bear. Were you
never a boy '.' (and I looked my ipiestioner strai.,'bt in
the eye. ) If you never wore, I beg to remark that I was
— at (alas I) some ancient period of the world's history.
And as a child, my att-ntion was fre piontly drawn to
pictures of ico-borgs. But never an ice berg diil T see
thus re)uesented v'lich had not on soino part of it a
huge polar bear, sitting on its haunches, and looking as

■ad and dinconsolnto m if he hnd just returned from
his mother-in-law's funeral or cremation. I ask,
therefore, ' AV hero's the bear ?' " And then I looked
the hu(;e ice mountain up and down again, but no trace
of living creature could I see. Then I sadly woke up
to the fact that another of my youthful illusions had
vanished ; and I asked myself seriously, in the words of
tViat cheerful author, Mr. Mallock, "is life worth living?"
The artists who draw ice-bergs fancy, I suppose, that
to " throw in " an old bear is to give a reasonable and
appropriate finishing touch to their pictures. But these
gentlemen trifle with truth, and, as we have seen, en-
courage illusions the dissipation of which causes the
keenest pangf). Ladies and gentlrmen, let us, in ait
and in everything else, stnnd by the Fact, even if we
do not, like Chelsea and Boston philosophers, spell it
with a big F.

TiiE Shortest Rcn on Record.

Ours was in more ways than one a memorable voyage.
I have already remarked on the thoughtful considera-
tion of the Atlantic in giving us a rocking (and thrt n
gentle one) on only asingleday. But, besides being a very
calm passage, ours was up to that time the shortest ever
made from land to land, on the Quebec route. I saw
the last of the Irish lights after ten o'clock on the even-
ing of Friday, .July Gth, and at tliree o'clock on the
following Wednesday afternoon we sighted Belle Isle,
at the entrance of the Straits of Belle Isle, between
Labrador and Newfoundland. Accordin?; to the ship's
mode of reckoning, our time from laud to land was
only 4 days 17 hours 2.*) minutes — the shortest time
on record. Belle Isle is 750 miles from Quebec, so
that a steamer •- nearly two and a half days in
the Strait of Belle Isle, the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
and the River !St. Lawrence, after sighting land.
The parts of Labrador and Newfoundland which
skirt the strait arc barren and inhospitable in the
extreme. Although it was the 10th ot July when we
steamed up the strait, a good deal of snow was lying on
the Labrador side, almost down to the water's edge—
and this, be it remembered, in about the same latitude
as London and Bristol. After passing the strait, we
again lost sight of land for some hours, the Oulf of St.
I^wrence being an almost land-locked sea of con-
siderable size. Passing to the south of the dreary-look-
ing island of Anticosti, more than 100 miles in length,
we presently approached the real River St. Lawrence,
which for a long distance is a mere arm of the sea, and
a very wide one. The weather being very thick after
we first sighted Anticosti, we missed all the grand
scenery which skirts the river on both sides, especially
where the Saguinay River joins it. We readied Rimouski
at noon on Friday. There we landed the mails, which
were taken thence to Quebec (150 miles) by rail, arriving
at that city before us. Here, also, we landed a few pas-
sengers, including the Prime Minister of Nova Scotia,
one or two other gentlemen bound for the same colony,
and a few others who wished to catch trains at Quebec
before the steamer could possibly arrive there. It was
nearly 11 o'clock at night before we who remained on
board sighted the lights of the city, rising tier above
tier from the water's edge. Quebec is called the
Gibraltar of America ; and those who have seen the
original Gibraltar from the l)«y on a dark night, or
who have looked up at the Old Town and the Castle
of Edinburgh at night from Princes Street, can form a
Tery good idea of what Quebec looked like when I first
set eycB on it.

The Saloon Passengers.

The Parisian'^ saloon passengers comprised, among
others, the Enrl and Countess of Onslow, Col. Alan
Gardner ; Mr. "W. D. Howells, the popular American
novelist, with his wife and three children ; the Hon.
W. T. Pipes, Prime Minister of Nova Scotia ; Mr.
Dingloy, a prominent newsuaper proprietor in Maine,
and Mrs. Dingley ; three or four Catholic priests, belong-
ing to one of the religious orders which the French
Government has recently suppressed ; one or two
Protestant clergymen ; Mr. Power O'Donoghue, Mus.
Doc, whose aid in getting up concerts was invaluable ;
Dr. Souvielle, a French doctorsettledin Canada, whose
quack-like advertisements are in all the colonial papers ;
Mr. Rose, formerly British chief consul in Sicily, and
brother of the Mr. Rose who was recently carried off by
')ri;^'nds near Palermo and redeemed fora large sum ;
LI. Davies, the proprietor of the largest pork -packing
establishment in Canada ; and a little, good-tempered
cosmopolitan named Husbands, whose address was
Valparaiso " and elsewhere," and who was understood
ins. J me vague way to be largely interested in telephone
patents. This little man was to us what the
comic butcher aforesaid was to the emigrants.
He kept things lively. He got up con-
certs, balls, subscriptions for seamen's hospitals
and the like, and, indeed, made himself generally use-
ful. There was plenty of musical talent on board, and
he knew how to get at it. His concerts were very suc-
cessful ; and on the evening when we were running up
the Straits of Belle Isle he arranged for a ball, some of
the dances bein? dubbed "Iceberg Waltz," "Labra-
dor Lancers," "Newfoundland Polka," &c. Alto-
gether, that five feet of merry humanity named
Husbands was a great acquisition to the ship. Nobody
had the blues while he was " around, " as the
Americans say. I should like to say a good deal more
about my fellow-passengers, but I have already spun too
long a yarn about my voyage. Some of the passengers,
whose acquaintance I made, I afterwards saw in their
own homes, and I|must content myself with a brief refer-
ance to these when I describe the kindness and hos-
pitality with which they received me 4 my travelling
companion.

THE AMERICAN RAILWAYS.

A Stkam-madk Country.

"Made by steam !" Such is the inscription which
many manufucturers attach to their goods. The United
States and Canada might be very appropriately labelled
in the same fashion. But for steam power, those great
countries must have been still in a state of nature to an
infinitely larger extent than they are to-day. It hap-
pened that, within a generation of the revolution which
freed the colonies south of the St. Lawrence from Eng-
lish rule, the genius of Watt, of Fulton, and of
Stephenson revealed to the world the existence
of a force which was capable of doing all
the mere physical work of the human race.
Two of these great inventors showed that the subtle
fluid of water was a power whose sphere was not con-
fined within the narrow bounds of factory walls, but
was perfectly capable of taking the place of horses on
our roads and of the winds on the ocean. The era of
steam locomotion had come. At that time, the United
States were little more than a coast line. All the con-
siderable cities were on or near the Atlantic seaboard ;
and, except in the neighbourhood of the great rivers,

race,
subtle
con-
but
les on
ra of
United
con-
ard ;
ivers,

the whole of the vast Interior was almost entirely un-
explored. The American: hailed the advent of tlie
new power with characteristic enthusiasm, and set
themselves with their traditional energy to the
task of securinK all the advantages it offured. The old
States were soon knit together with a network of railway
lines which placed all the chief cities in communication
with each other. The rivers, too, were soon alive with
steamboats. In or about the year 1S40, steam naviga-
tion hid so far advanced that steamships began to
traverse the Atlantic regularly, liy this meins, the
unappropriated but fertile soil of the West w,is brought
within easy reach of the overflowing poi)ulations of
Europe, and at the same time the markuts of the Old
World were brought nearer to the al)ounding harvests
of the New World. The Eastern States having been sup-
plied with such railwavacccommodationas they required,
the eyes of speculators and engineers began to be
turned westward. In a very short time, the railroad
pioneers were seen to be plunfting into prim Lval forests
and crossing prairies which had hitherto been the home of
the wild beast, and of thealmoatequally savage Indian.
And wherever the railroad went, there jiopulation
immediately followed. Agricultural immigrants settled
down in thousands within easy reach of the new roads,
and set to work to grow crops, whicli were carried otf
over those roads, either to the great cities of the
Eastern States or to the still more dist.int
European consumer. Very soon, th(i Mississippi
was reached at more points tlian one, and here for a
time the railway men drew rein. Tint the halt was
only a brief one— a sort of breathing-time preparatory to
the longer runs which had yet to be accoinjilislieil
beyond the Father of Waters. It was not until the
year 1865 that the first rail was laid on the 1 'nion
Pacific Railway — the great road which, with the Central
Pacific, now covers the 1,1)00 miles between the
Mississippi at Omalia and the Pacilic coast at San
Francisco. Besides these great original trunk linns, the
country west of the Mississippi is now intersected by
thousands of miles of roads constructed 'i>y other com-
panies, and every year adds largely to tlie mileage. It
is perfectly safe to assert that no otlier known power
could have done what steam has done during the last
40 years in enabling the Americans to take possession of
their vast herit:ige of territoi-y, in the names of humanity
and civilization.

I may remark, in this connection, that, apart from
railways and steam-boats, the Americans have mado
steam their servant of all work to even a greater extent
than we have in England — that is to say, wlierever
water power has not been procurable. 1 make this
exception because it is an important one ; for, owing to
the abundance of water-power, especially in the New
England States, mmy manufactures which in this
country are carried o^' entirely by means of steam are
there conducted in the neighbourhood of great water-
falls, which supply all the power needed.

The Extent ov Ameuican Kailwavs.

The best way of forming lomcthing like an intel-
ligible idea of the extent of the American railway
system is to compare, or rather to contrast, its mileage
with that of the railways in this country. The
total length of railwiiys in Great Britain and Ire-
land is about 18,r)00 miles. American railways
represented mileage of 113,.129 miles at the end of
18S2. The lines opened during 1882 alone measured
11,591 miles. The mileage of those opened during 188:i
is muoh less ; but I shall probably be within the mark

if I say that America (exclusive of Canada) has at the
presjnt moment 120,000 miles, or about six and a half
times our own mileage. If the immense area of North
America be taken into account, 12it,000 miles of railway
cannot be regarded as large ; but when we regard the
mileage in proportion to the population, wo koo
tliat it is very great. We have lf<.r)00 miles to
35,000, 0(K) of pojiulation. America has 120,000 miles to
a population of 51,000,000. In other word.", there is
one mile of railway in the British Islands to every
I'.tOO persons, where.as the Cnited States have one mile
to every 425 persons. Their mileage is, therefore, pro-
portionately nearly live times as great as ours.

There are, however, other ways of estimating a rail-
way system besides measuring its mere length ; and when
we do this with reference to the British ar.d the Ameri-
can systems, we Britishers come out with flying colours.
The greater part of the American railways have only a
single line. A double line is as much an exception in
the States and Canada as a single line is in England.
Most of the trunk lines whicli connect the great cities
in the Eastern States are double. The N'ew York
Central and Hudson River Railroad (Vanderbilt's trunk
line) has four tracks over the greater part of its length,
and in this respect resembles tho.se parts of the London
and North Western and tlio Great Western
which are nearo.it to London. But with
tliese ami a few other exceptions, all
the lines are single. As the land required for tho
lines seldom cost the companies a cent, as the lines are
mo.stly single, and as (as wo shall see presently) there is
an almost entire absence of bridges, the cost of con-
struction was, of course, tritling compared with tliat of
our English railways. As a matter of fact, the total
capital of all the American railroad companies at the
end of 1882 was only about seven hundred millions
sterling, which is little if any more than British com-
panies have paid for the construction of one-eighth of
the same mileage.

Land Grant.s.

The construction of railways through the vast
solitudes of the uninhabited West has been greatly
facilitated by tho system of (Jovernment grants of land.
The Union Pacilic, the Central Pacific, the Northern
Pacific, the Canadian Pacific, the Chicago and North
Western, and several other great comiianies have
received free gifts of "millions of acres of land alongside
thelinestheyhaveconstructed— or, as they say, "built."
The Canadian I'acitic is to have twenty-five millions
of dollars and twenty-five millions of acres for render-
ing the Dominion tho vast service of connecting tho
Atlantic with tho Pacific by a line wholly within
Canadian territory. An official in the land ottice of
tho Chicago and North Western told me that ho had
still a trille of some seventeen million acres to dispose
of —that is to say, a territory equal to aliout seventeen
county Somersets. He talked about having half a
kingdom for sale just as coolly as if he had been otter-
ing a cask of sugar or a suit of clothes. The officials of
tho Union Pacific at Omaha told mo pretty much tlie
same, but 1 forget the e.sact acreage in their case.

Tho land grants are arranged in this fashion :— The
map of the district through which tho proposed line is
to jiass is marked out, to a distance of 20, 2.5, or 30
miles on each side of the track, into square blocks,
exactly like a chess-board. These blocks, or sections,
are six miles sciuare, nuil therefore contain .S(> square
miles. Each section is then sub-divided in the same
i way into 36 square and equal parts, each part being, of

courBO, An exact square mile. In some of the Stiitos (I be-
lieve in all), two 8(|uaro miles out of evcrylJOaredGvotoil
to the purpose of foundi ng and maiiitaiiiiiii; puWic schools,
and the remaining 'M s qnare miles are divided eipially
between the ('Ovcrnment and the company. Supposing
(to revert to the chess-board simile) the squares to be
coloured black and white alternately, the (iovernment
retains the black sijuares and the company takes the
white squares. As soon as the railway is made, settlers
begin to arrive. Kvery settler makes business for the
railway, and at the .lamc time adds to the value of the
remaining land. 'l"he result is that, in many cases, the
railway lands come in time to represent an enormous value,
and the principal proprietors of the lines become million-
aires. One-half of the stock of the Central and Southern
Pacific Railroads is said to belong to four persons-
men who live in splendid palaces at San Francisco, and
of course one-half of the unsoM lands of these com-
panies belonu's necessarily to the same four lucky in-
dividuals. The Americans are beginning to use strong
language about these huge land monopolists, and it is
no doubt unfortunate that such vast tracts of the
country should be in the hands of a very few
persons. I'ut a bargiin is a bargain, and it is
hardly fair to forget that the Oovernment granted
the land in return for what, at t'le time, was regarded
as a fair equivalent — the construction of railways which
no capitalists were prepared to m.\ke unless thus aided.
It is now generally admitted that it would have been
better to give the companies a fair amount in "cash
down," rather than to place millions of acres of the
soil at their disposal. It is easy to be wise after the
event, but the monopolists can hardly be expected to
surrender the advantages of the bargain they made at
a time when the public took a different view of the
case. It is, however, pretty certun that no more grants
will he made to railway companies in the shape of land.

The Li.n'ks.

" The line " is an expression almost unknown in
America. What we call the " line" isthere universally
known as the "track.' A double line is, of course, called
a " double track." A level crossing— the crossing of a
line and an ordinary road on the same level — is known
in America as a " crossing at grade."' Such crossings,
instead of being the rare exceptions, as they are in
England, are in America almost universal. Of this I
shall have more to say presently.

In the early days ot railroads (the Americans have no
"railways;'' they are all "railroads"'), tlio lines, especi-
ally in remote districts, were laid in a very rough and
primitive fashion. The rails were often of wood, shod
with iron, which was nailed to the wood jiretty much as a
tire is nailed to the rim of a wheel. Sometimes the iron
would get loose, and ultimately come off ; but as the
speed was not very great and the lines were usually
level with the surrounding country, sorious harm sel-
dom resulted, even if a train ran off, or (same thing)
was "ditched," to use another expressive word of the
American railway vocabulary. Those who fancy that
the bulk of the western lines are still of this primitiv.,
kind are vastly mistaken. 'J'he truth is, all the great
main lines, in the West as well as in the East, are
B))lendidly laid, in many cases with heavy steel railu.
No inspection is needed to satisfy one as to their solidity
of construction. The smoothness with which the cars
run almost everywhere is ample evidence of the fact.
There are exceptions, of course, but they are few, and
are to bo met with only on crossoountry and compara-
tively unimportant roadi.

Wood being more plentiful than iron, the iron rests
into which the rails of an English railway are wedged,
and which we call chairs, are entirely di8i)ensed with on
the other side of the .Vtlantic, and an unusual numl)er
of timber ties (sleepers, as we call them) are used in-
stead. The rails are simply spiked to these ties, just as
the rails wore fastened to the sleepers on the Somerset
k Dorset Railway in the early days of that line.
English railway engineers have never considered this
mere spiking of the rails to the sleepers sufficient,
but it is evident that the experience of the Americans
has satisfied them that the plan, as they practise it, is
a safe as well as a cheaji one.

The gauge of most of the American railways is the
same as the standard gauge in England (4ft. Kjin.), but
there are some notable oxceptions. I travelled nearly
2,000 miles in Color ido and Ttah over narrow-gauge
lines— (.c, over lines only three feet wide. But though
the line is narrow, it does not at all follow that the
cariiages are narrow too. Indeed, the carriages (or
rather the " cars," for the Americans never apply the
word " carriage " to a railway vehicle) overhang the
track on both side^ in a manner which to any English-
man is simply amazing, and to a timid Englishman very
suggestive of danger. Hut the narrow-gauge lines are
apparently safe enough, except in the event of a serious
obstruction being encounterea on the line. In that case,
the risk of the train being upset is manifestly greater
than it would be if the engine rested on a broader base.
I shall have occasion further on to doscrilie a serious
mishap which was due to a train running down a stray
horse, and the results of which I had the good or bail
fortune to witness.

From the Alleghany Mountains in the East to the
Rocky Mountains in the West, America is virtually
one vast pla , intersected in all directions by t'le Mis
sissippi and Missouri Rivers and their numerous tribu-
taries. I do not mean by this that the whole of the
immense area tiius indicated is at about the same level
as comp ired with the level of the sea. This is by no
means the case. The land, of course, rises from tlic
Mississippi both to the l-'ast and to the M'est. The
traveller who leaves Omaha or Kansas City (botli on
the river) for Denver or I'ueblo, at the foot of the Hocky
Mountains, rises more than 4,000 feet before he reaches
the end of his 20 or 24 hours' journoy. But he is
unconscious of being thus raiseil the greater part of a
mile in i)erpendicular height. He is travelling all
tlio time over a gently undulating and apparently
boundless plain, and has no idea that he is going up-
hill continually. Such, however, is the case. But for
all railway construction purjjoses, the country may be
regarded as almost perfectly thit. There are no mountain
ranges (no hills, indeed, wortli the name) to be crossed
between the Alleghanies and the itockies. The result
is that, as regards that vast central district, the railway
angineers had few obstacles to contend with except the
great rivers, which it was necessary to bridge as a
matter of course. For hundreds of miles "end-on,"
the construction of their lines did not involve the mak-
ing of a cutting or embankment ten feet deep or high.
In fact, the track often follows the gentle undulations
of the prairie for scores of miles together, without
rising a foot above or sinking a foot below the level of
the surrounding country.

The European traveller, moreover, notices with
astonishment that, except in the thickly -settled districts,
the lines are entirely unfenced. Out on the prairies
and the deserts of the Far West, fences are clearly un-
nccesiary ; for thu wild r nimals are very few in number,

and those that are to be seen are not large enough to
imperil anything; but their own lives even if tlicv stray
on the rails. JSut in many of the partially-settled dis-
tricts tho absence of fences is a nuisance and a daULrer.
Trains have fre(iuently to pull up to allow tlie eniiineer.
as the driver is called, to drive off cows and horses which
])crBist in remaining on tlie rails in spite of the dismal
shriek of his steam whistle. At nii^ht, the en-jine-; liavo
to carry large and very powerful head lamps in order to
sjare olf the trespassers, or, failing that, to enable tlie
drivers to discover them in tinia. Sometimes the lamps,
powerful as they are, fail to do either the one thins
or tlie other. In such cases, the erring beast is
made mincemeat of in a twinklin:;, and sometimes the
train is thrown olf the railp. In the thickly-settled
iStates, fencing is universal. Beyond ttie Mississipid,
it is as universally neglected. In the intermediite dis-
tricts, the use of fences is extending, hut not fast
enoui^h.

Another remarkable feature of the American railways
is the almost entire absence of bridges over or under
ordinary roads. Except in or ne.ir some of the greit
cities, the crossings are all on the level. It is ijossible to
travel thousands of miles without p.issing under or over
a single road bridge. On the prairies or in the newly-
sottled districts, the level crossini,'s are all that can be
reasonably ex|)ected ; but in and near tho cities they
are ilaii?erous in the cxtieme. It is only in tho very
thickest parts of the cities that the crossings arc pro-
tecteil by means of uates and si;,'nalmen. I'^verywhere
else, they are perfectly open, the following notice being
in every c:iso displayed on a board : — " Itailroad
Crossing. Look out for the Cars." The driver is
supposed to cause his engine bell to be rung when
apinoaching a crossing, but the ride is, I am afraid,
often broken. At any rate, tho pajiers contain every
day accounts of dreadful accidents at such crossings, and
the sacrifice of life thus caused appears to b;
regarded as a sad but unavoidable accompaiument
of railway travelling. One of the most amazing
things, indeed, about tlie American railway system
is tho way in which tho lines nro carried into and
through some of the largest and busiest cities on the
same lev(d as the streets, or even along the streets them-
selves. The approach to a great city, such, for instance,
as Chicago, is tedious in the extreme. While the train
is still eight or ten miles from the terminus, it slackens
speed and begins to make repeated stoppage.?, the engine
bell tolling continuously. The last ten miles of the
journey, through the city suburbs, take as long to cover
as the previous 30 miles.

The rejieated stoppages are at first very jiuzzling to
the stranger, but he soon discovers the cause. Not
only do the lines cross ordinary roails on the level, but
they cross other railways in the same way. Aii<l thenc
( )vw>'(j»'/.v aie nut /irovidei citlfv with a xiijnnl or "
aiiiniiimia / "How horribly dangerous, espoci.dly at
night 1" is the involuntary comment on this statement.
Not at all ! Collisions between trains at level crossings
are very rare, and they are absolutely impossible if the
very simple but peremptory order of the com-
panies is observed. The order is simply this— that
every train shall come to a dead stand a few yards
short of every crossing. The one word "Stop I" in
larj;e letters on a board is displayed in tho driver's face
as he apiiroaches the crossing ; and he invariably stops
in such a position that the engine is within a few yards of
the crossing, where he can eee up and down the cross line.
It IS obvious that, so long as this system is rigidly adhered
^Q no train can ever traver^ie a ciosaing at mure than a

walking pace. If two trains approach the crossing at
the same moment, they come to a stand><till so near to
each other that the drivers are able to arrive at a (dear
understanding as to which shall crawl across first. If
only one train is .ipproaching, the stoiipaire is only for
a moment ; but it i^ a real stoppage. [ do not remem-
ber a single case in which any train I was in failed to
come to a dead stand at a crossing, if only for a second.
A mere slickeniiig of speed at these crossings would be
dmgerous in the extreme. If the drivers were ordered,
for instance, alw.iys to reduce speed at such points to
10 miles an hour, nothing is more certain (that is, if
American and English enginemen are made of the same
sort of stutf) that trains would be constantly crossing
the dangerous points at I'l, 20, or even 30 miles an hour.
The difference between 10 and 20 miles an hour is
merely a ditfercnco in deijvee, and the two rates may
bo easily confounded by an official whose attention can
be only partially devoted to the (juestion of speed.
Coming to an actual standstill is a thing about which
there can be no possiliility of mistake ; and, great as is
the nuisance of repeated stojipages, the American rail-
way companies are i|uite right in insisting on the strict
observance of their rule so long as their lines cross and
recross on the level as they do at present.

But in spite of .ill the crawling, all the caution, and
all the bell-ringing with which the trains enter the cities,
accidents are constantly happening. A IManchester
gentleman, writing recently on this r.ubject, described
the American locomotives as w.ilkin', about the streets
armin-arm with the inhabitants. I'ho metaphor is a
bold one, but it is entirely justified l>y the facts ; for
the railway trallic, the liorse traffic, and the foot traffic
are in some cases mixed up in a manner which is per-
fect' , astounding. Itimning slowly into a busy terminus
like that of IJullalo, you see horses and vehicles moving
along both sides of the train without a ghost of a fence
between them and the cars. iMore than this, you
see lads, and even young children, jumping on the steps
of the cars to steal a ride, just as they run behind
ordinary vehicles in England. I remember seeing a
number of boys jump on the rear i)latform of a Balti-
more and Philadelphia train, ride across a very long
bridge (probably a mile), and jump off at the other end.
(The train slackened to a walking pace, if it did not
actually stop, at both ends. ) The brakesman was in
the rear car, but ho took no notice of tho boys, and it
w.is evident that theirs was a kind of freak which was
regardeil with toleration.

Thk Engink-.

The general appearance of the American locomotive
is familiar to everybody in these days of universal
photography and illustrated newspapers. The staring
head lamps tbe large bell, the huge funnel-shaped chim-
ney, the driver's "cab,' and the curious sprawling con-
cern in front, known as the "cow-catchor," mark it out
as a distinct species of tho genus locomotive. .Stripped of
these few pcculiaridos, tho American engine would not
differ materially from its European cousins. Tho boiler
is usually made of great length and small diameter,
and the weight of tho sti uctiiro is thus spread over a
base of unusual length. The fore part of the enginc
usually rests on a four-wheel or six-wheel bogie car-
riage, the wheels being very small. The larger wheels,
whether there be two pairs or three pairs, are always
all of the same si/.o, and coupled together on both sides.

The whistle is a thing of terror, which nobody who
has heard it can ever get out of his ears. The shrill,
prolonged shriek of an English engine, whose ■team is

blowing off at l.iOlbs., find whose driver is savajTcly
impatient, is not a pleiisant thinp; to hear at close
quarters, ISiit the Atnerican whistle is like the loudost
of Knglish whistles, emitted by an engine suffering
f ri{,'htfully from hroncliitis. The maiters of this instru-
ment of torture appear to pitch the thins (if there is
any "pitch " about it) in a lower icoy than finds favour
nt the Crowe or Swindon works ; and tlio result is a
Hurly growl of a most unearthly kind, which appears to
be more penetrating than even our own shrill wiiistle,
'J'he same «rulf, ill-teinprrod noise is omitted, by way
of si(i;nal, by the American steam-boats ; and between
the boats iind the trains, a sojourner in a busy city
wiiere there are a good many of both, has a lively timo
of it, I hope [ liave said enough to make it clear that,
as regards steam whistles, my patriotism is beyond
question. Tlio British article, in this line at least, for
mo, for mo !

Hut the American engine has two strings to its bow —
it has a large, heavy, sonorous bell, as well as a growl-
ing but penetrating whistle. A stranger to the country,
sleeping near a great railway-station for the first time, is
apt to wonder why all the city church bells begin to toll
so persistently early i.i the morning. Ho presently dis-
covers that the bells which distu' b his slumbers are
those of locomotives, and not of c.iurch steeples. The
bell is the signal by which the stoker gives notice that
the engine is moving, or that it is approaching a level
crossing. Indeed, tho stoker lias time for little
else tlian pulling his bell-cord when his train
is running into or out of a large town. The tolling
sometimes begins a quarter or half-an-hour before the
terminus is rcacheil, and continues with only brief
intermissions until the train finally stops. One can
have too much of this rather monotonous bell-ringing.
I did more than once. But it is decidedly less objec-
tionable than the whistle, and it is quite clear that the
engine must make a good deal of noise of some sort or
other so long as railway and ordinary traffic are so
strangely mixed up as they are at present.

The object of the great funnel-shaped chimney is not
so ajiparent at first sight as that o*' the bell. Tlie
funnel is, as a matter of fact, a receptacle for a great
many of the aslies and small cinders which would other-
wise be driven out of the chimney. The scittering of
hot cinders is an evil against which it is necessary to
provide, in a country where wood is often used as fuel,
and where, in the dry season, serious fires are easily
caused. The wide mouth of the funnel is covered with
wire gauze. The steam and the finer ashes escape
freely, but the larger particles which the blast carries
forward and upward are stopped and f.all back into the
part of the funnel arranged for their reception.

The great head light, with its powerful reflector, is
designed, as before |explained, to frighten animals off
the track, and to enable the driver to see some distance
ahead.

The "cow-catcher" is intended to throw off any
animals which may be foolish enough to defy or to dis-
regard an approaching train. It is a strongly-made
frame of wood, strengthened still further with iron
stays. From the level of tho framework of the engine,
it slopes downward, and outward to right and
left, like a fan. Its outer edge is so near the
rails, that any obstruction rising more than
six inches above them must necessarily be caught
by it. The central point of the cr ./-catcher is the
most forward. From that point it slopes rapidly
backward until it fairly covers both rails. The appara-
tus thus presents two faces to any oow or other animal

that challenges it to do its worst. One face looks
obliquely to the right and the other obliquely to the
left. Unless, therefore, an obstruction is caught in its
very centre by the central point, the tendency of the
collision is to throw it clear of the rails, either to ri^ht
or left, according to the side or face of the apparatus
which catches it. The cow-catcher is a very necessary
appendage to an engine in the districts where tha lines
are only partially fenced or not at all. The " Citcher "
of a large engine of the ordinary gauge is, no dcubt, able
to throw aside either a horse or a bullock, supposing it
catches the animal in the right position. Sometimes
it fails to do this, and then there is danger that the
train may be derailed, I saw a narrow-gauge engine
and tender, belonging to one of the Colorado lines,
lying at the bottom of an embankment after a moment-
ary struggle with a poor horse. In that case, the cow-
catcher was smashed to pieces. So was the horse.

The ordinary American locomotive is probably not
larger or more powerful than the average English
engine ; but American engines are not now all of the
ordinary kind. One of the western railway companies
has just taken a new departure in engine-building which
places it far ahead of any European line. The Southern
Pacific Railway Company, whose Unas run southward
from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and so on till they
join other lines which connect them with the Atlantic
coast and the Gulf of Mexico, are preparing to carry the
wheat of California to New Orleans. The Company
believe that corn for the European market will pre-
sently go that way, instead of making the tremendous
and circuitous voyage round Cape Horn. It happens
tb^.t this railway crosses a mountain chain near Los
Angeles, in Southern California ; and, as there is no
tunnel, the gradients on both slopes are very long and
heavy. Tliey are, indeed, among the most wonderful
examples of railway engineering in the world. The line
is made to circle round and round in the most remark-
able manner, and at one place to tie itself in a sort of
knot by crossing itself at different levels. The
economical working of a great traffic over this
line involves the use of heavy engines of enormous
power, and the Company have i jordingly gone in this
direction beyond all preiicdents. An official of the
Company at San Francisco told me that the Sacramento
engino-shops had recently constructed an engine whose
gross weight was 04 tons, and that Lis directors were
so satisfied with its performances that they had decided
to go a step further, and had ordered plans to be pre-
pared for a giant of lO.'i tons, "But," I said, "how
about your bridges ? Many American bridges are not
too substantial. Were those on your southern line
ever designed to carry such weights as you describe ?"
The official (who was not on tho engineering staff)
shrugged his shoulders and made a very dubious reply,
from which I gathered that he would probably decline
to accompany the lO.'i-tonner on its first trip to the
south. It is clear, from what I have said, that, in the
matter of heavy locomotives, if in nothing else. Uncle
Sam is at present " licking Creation "—always suppos-
ing that " Creation " in this ca.so means our own planet.
What steam locomotives may be like in Venus or
Jupiter is, of course, beside the question.

The Ordinary Cabs.

As I have before remarked, there are no railway
"carriages " in America. All the railroad vehicles, in-
eluding those for goods, are called oars. And, by the
way, there are no "goods." All goods are called
"freight," and the waggons in which they are conveyed

are " freight oars." These are very large, square, box-
like structures, invariably covered, like our " lock-up"
wftggons, and ure almost exnctly alike, except in tlie
colour they are piiinted and the companies' nameH tliuy
bear in larije letters. They are much larger, heavier,
and more capacious than any railway waggons I ever
saw in Europe.

The passenger cars, like the freight cars, are of
immense size and height. The ordinary car consists of
one long apartment, with a .'.oor at each end, a narrow
passage down the middle, and 12, 14, or even 10 seats
on each side. As each seat comfortably accommodates
two persons, the longest cars (those with 1(J scats on
each Hide) contain G4 persons each when tilled. There
is a window to every seat. All the windows are
supposed to open upwards like the bottom sasli of an
ordinary window, but their ability to be thus raised is
often purely imaginary. The sashes are made to fit very
accurately, for the purpose of excluding dust in sum-
mer and cold in winter, and the fit is frequently
80 very good that the strongest passengers have, after
an exhausting struggle, to give up the attempt to open
tliem. I myself often worked at them till I was red in
the face, touched in the wind, and just a little affected
in the region of the temper. Then I would do as I do
when I cannot solve a conundrum— "give it up," and
soothe myself by reflecting on the superiority of the
familiar British institution— the light sash which slides
downwards, the supple strap with the holes in it, and
the convenient button by which to graduate the height
of the concern. But the American window is apt to
try the temper (and the health) as much
when it is up as when it resists all attempts
to put it up. For it cannot by any amount
of force be made to go up more than about half its own
height. The consequence is that the draught, instead
of passing over the head (as it does when an English
carriage window is only partially open), strikes the i)as-
senger in the region of the side and chest, from the
waist up to about the neck. Further, if the passenger
wants to put his head out, he can only do so by means
of a regular gymnastic feat ; and getting it in again
safely is still more difficult. If the somewhat heavy
sash does happen to move easily in its grooves, the pas-
senger who puts his head out has, moreover, to count
on the possibility of its dropping on his neck through
the slipping of the fastening. I was more than once
guillotined in this fashion, and I found that the position
was undignified as well as awkward. I am afraid, in-
deed, that ray fellow-passengers bughed at me, for I
regrettc' ^-^ observe that a disposition to make fun of
other p.opio 9 trials has been duly inherited by cnr
American cousins.

Every American car has a small w.c. in one corner,
and the sleeping and drawing-rooui cars have two such
closets — one for ladies at one end, and one for
gentlemen at the other end. These are conveniences
which are indispensable in a country where the journeys
are often meaeured by days rather than by hours. Thuy
constitute the one important feature of the American
railway system which I would like to see grafted on to our
own system. How to adapt it to our separate compart-
ments is tlie question to bo solved, and I confess 1 do not
see how it is to be done. A closet for each and every
compartment is, of course, out of the question— so, at
least, it appears in the present stage of our railway
development. At the same time, it is obvious that some
such addition is becoming more and more desirable, for
the express trains on our long main lines are year by year
increasing the distances they run without drawing roiu.

Every ordinary American car is furnished with a
stove, and in the sleeping and parlour cars the heat is
equally diffused by means of small iron pipes, which
run along the sides and are coiled under the seats. In
the matter of heating, the American railway companies
(except in the iSouth) have no option. The winters aro
so :^cvero in most of the States, and particularly in
Canaila, that artificial heat is an absolute necessity.
The car stoves do I'leirworkeffectually — tooelJeotually,
indeed, except whei the cold is very intense. For, as
the New York papc s were complaining in Uctjber, the
l)orter who tends tlie stove knows no gradations of heat.
To him, a tire is a fire ; and when, at the first suspicion
of winter, he is tuld to light one, he lights it and keeps
it up just as zealously as if the thermometer were
already 40' below zero. Then, say the New York
pajiers, the passengers curse inwardly, and wish that it
were always either July, when no fire is needed at all,
or January, when the bisjgest tiie that can be made is
tolerable.

The car seats are comfortably cushioned with red or
green velvet. The backs arc padded in the same way,
and are so arranged as to be reversible. Tliis arrange-
ment allows of all the ])assengers facing the engine, in
whatever direction the train may be running. It also
allows a party of two, or three, or four, to sit so as to
face each other, just as passengers do in our compart-
ments. But tlie weak uoint about the seats is the low-
ness of their backs, which do not; reach tlio shoulder of
a man of average height. The head is thus without
that rest which the padded backs of our tirst-ulass and
second-class carriages afford. I do not see how the
backs can be made higher in the ordinary cars,
unless the system of reversible backs were sacrificed.
But there is no reason whatever, so far as I can see,
why the backs of the seats in the I'uUman curs should
not be made a foot higher. For they are not required
to be reversible. They are, in fact, fixtures, and when
bed-time comes they are continue 1 almost to the roof
of the car by a moveable partition which is slid in above
them. A foot of this partition, if not th-e whole of it,
might just as well be added to the permanent backs of
the seats.

Another institution of the American cars, which
might be imported into England with advantage, if it
could anyhow be adapted to our separate-compartment
system, is the iced- water cistern. The American
summers being hotter than ours, a water supply is an
absolute necessity ovev there, and no car is without
one, if I may judge from my own observation. The
cistern, with a suitable drinking glass, or a small metal
bowl hanging from a chain, is at the end of the car ;
and if the car is full of passengers, it has customers
every two or three minutes. (Jn some of the eastern
lines, the accommodation is carried one step further —
the water is carried through the cars, every half-
hour or so, by a lad, who supplies glasses
of it to all who ask as they sit. Drinking
iced water is everywhere a great institution in
America. Indeed, it is greatly overdone, and the
Americans are said to impair their digestion seriously by
it, for the water is taken into the stomach in a state of iey
coldness, and in hot weather the dose is very f reijuently
repeated. I may add that the ice-water cistern is not
confined to the railway cars. It is to be found in wait-
ing-rooms, public institutions, offices, hotels, and every
place of public or semi-public resort, and is, in spite of
its abuse, a source of great comfort and luxury. The
" mashers ' and other systematic London theatre-goers,
who aro accustomed to get their "nips" at the

theatre bar§ between the nets, wouM bp consiJer-
nbly aurpiised, if they went to some of the Amurioan
theatres, to find thnt the only drink availiilile is iced
water, carried roiunl in ghisses on a snrt of lirire cruet-
•tand. It is, however, u fact t*iat this was the state of
ati'airs at more than one of the theatres I attended. I
am, of course, not prepared to a><sirt that nothing
stronger tian water is ever imbibed in the theatres or
the cars, but it is certain that tlie use of any stronger
liquor is exceprionnl. I had, on one occasion, unpleasant
evidence tiiat other liquors are sometimes introduced
into the c;irs. 1 was travelling through (Jalifornia in a
Pullman car on a very hot day, and one of mv folio w-
passengers, who was the happy owner of a bottle of ale
(necessarily lukewarm on such abroiling day), 'dyly slipped
the bottle into the top of the w:\tor cistern, which was
half full of ice and formed a famous refrigerator. For
soms reason or other, the bottle broke, and the con-
sequence was that we had nothing to drink but a very
weak and insipid decoction of ale until we readied San
Francisco. At Sacramento, we took up one of the
■)ud;;es of the California State Courts, and ho duly
went to the common tap for a drink. Seeing tiiat ho
eyed the glass rather curiously after taking the first
mouthfull, I told him of the accident to the bottbi
when he had finished his draught. " Well," he said,
" I thought there was something wrong ; but after all
the stuff was wet and cold, and it was wetness and
coolness that I was after."

There it a railed platform at each end of each oar.
This is reached by means of steps, 'i'he rear platform
of one car is almost in contact with the forward plat-
form of the next car, and it is, tlierefote, easy to walk
through tiie whole length of the train ; and this, as we
shall see i)resently, the passengers and others are
accustomed to do to an extent wliich is worrying in the
extreme to unseasoned strangers. The cars are con-
nected by a patent self-coupling ai)paratus, which is
uncoupled, whisn necessary, from tlio platform by
means of a lever. All danger in couiding is thus
avoided.

The Parlotjr Cars.

INIost of the day trains on the princii)al lines contain
a parlour car, a seat in which can be obtained by a pay-
ment of a very small sum (usually less than a farthing
per mile) beyond the ordinary fare. On a long journey,
this extra accommodation is cheap at the i)rice, for the
seats consist jf sofas .\nd revolving easy clucirs, and
there is ample room to w.ilk up the centre of the car
without interfering with anybody. The car is, more-
over, nicely carpeted, furnished with a hassock for each
passenger, and with spittoons for thosj who must or
will spit. (More of this subject hereafter.) Eich car
is accompanieil by .in attendant, usually a negro
or mulatto, whose services are at all times at
the dis])osal of the passengers. The decorations
are usually very handsome. Tlio forests furnish ample
supplies of various kinds of timber, and the sides and
roofs of these parlour cars are usually lined with maple,
walnut, and other woods, which are elUjorately c irved,
and picked out in gilt and colour in a really artistic
fashion. Wh^re the lining is not of this kind, it con-
sists of mirrors, some of thom of very largo si'.e. 'i'he
interior of some of the newest of these cars is, indeed,
beautiful in the extreme. Wo can show nDthin.; ap-
proaching it in England, except in the few cases in
which Pullman cars have 1 eeu introduced.
These, like all the other cars, are carried on two end
bogie carriages of the most massive and elaborate con-
struction. With these bogies the body of the oar is cou-

nected by means of a pivot, so that, in spite of the Im-
mense length of the cars, they run freely rouml curves
which would make an Knglish railway engineers hair
stand on end. The car, in fact, st,»nds across a sharp
curve like the chord of an arc, while the bogies on
which it is suspended are free to follow the bend with-
out straining or mischief of any kin>l.

The Sleeping C.\h.

The American sleeping car is the natural outcome of
the country's geoj;raphic il bi^'uess. It is only in one
direction that a railway journey from London need
occupy more tl\an a fairly long dav. The one exception
is, of cour e, the extreme N )rth of Scothnd, and the
traffic between that rem ito region and the metropolis
would not of it?elf have been sufficient to justify the
running of sleeping coa -hes. " Sleepers ' (to use the
concise American name) are, as a matter of fact, now
run on the m lin lines to the North of England
and Scotland ; but they have been ])Ut on
solely for the benefit of those who. in order to save time
or for other reasons, prefer to travel by night rather
than by day. It was for a dilferent reason that such
coaches were first put on in America. There the distances
are so great that thousands of people are constantly
setting out on journeys which cannot possibly be accom-
plished in 12 or !•"> hours, and which often extend to
two, four, and even six days and nights. A traveller from
New Yor'f to San Francisco cannot get over his .S.MOO
miles in much less than 140 hours, even by the quickest
trains. He is travelling all that time, with the
exception of the 20 or 30 minutes allowed
three times a day for meals. Indeed, 0:1
far as Chicago or St. Louis, he can now go witiiout leav-
ing the cars at all ; for the comjianies who work the
lines to those cities are now running splendid dining
cars, in which excellent meals are served, as the train
travels, for about Ss (75 cents) per head. Tiieso cars are
picked up at particular stations, and dropped at other
stations an hour or two later.

iiut to return to the '' sleeper." I met with two
kinds — the Pullman and the Wagner. The Pullman is
the commoner of the two ; the great company pr sided
over by Mr. Pullman, the inventor of the car, hiving
obtained the right to run their cars over all the prin-
cipal lines. A stranger entering a " sleeper" in the day-
time notices that the seats, instead of having, like those
of the ordinary car, reversible backs, so that all the
passengers may face the engine, have fined backs, and
are arranged in pairs— on' of the p»ir facing the ot'iei'.
They are, in fact, arranged just as the two seats in our
English compartments are. There are 12 seats (six
I)airs) on each side of the car, with the vsual passage
down the middle. But instead of each seat containing
two persons, it contains only one, although quite large
enough for two. A car which, if seated in the
usual w,iy, would hold 01 persons, is thus devoted
to the accoff'modation of only 2J. ?]veryone, there-
fore, has ample elbow-room. Each passenger has at least
three foet of beautifully cushioned seat, with padded
back, all to himself, and with an electro-plated spittoon
thrown in ; and hisoppodte neighbour enjoys tlie same
acoo;nmodation. The car is elegantly decorateil, and
the floor is covered with a handsome carpet. The win-
dows a '0 double, so that in winter the cold may be the
more effectu .lly excluded. At one end there is a small
retiring-room, with w.c, wash-basin, and other toilet
requisites, for ladies. The gentlemen are similarly
provided for at the opposite eml, and they have a cosy
little smoking-room besides. Handsome mirrors abound

a f
, 1

I'l

ca
m(
Lie,
wa

juf

int|

in all parts of the car. If the bncks of the seats were
a foot higher and the window* opened dilfemiitly, a
"sleeper" would, by day, he all that the most exacting
of piis.sengoiB could ilcmand,

Hut it is ni^ilit -or ratiier ove!iin« ; for sot;iuty in tho
l'iillin:in car retires fjirly, knowing it may possibly bo
called at an " eatinij stution ' for breiikfast by six in tiio
moininf,'. The negro or mulatto attend int, anxious to
begin tlie last and most important of liis day's tasks,
walks through the car and oasts his knowing eye upon
all tho passeniters in turn. If he rinds a pair uuiragud
in cardjilayiiiK or in lively conversation, he passes thoin
by, concluding that they ilo not want to be put to botl
just yet. Jiut it he sees a solit.iry traveller do/ing, or
gazing with a bored and wearied expression out
into the darkness, he asks : " Shall 1 fix you,
cap'n ? " — or "ma'am,'' as tiio c.ise may be. The
passenger answers with a sleepy " Ves I'' and moves
into a neighbouring seat for a few minutes, to give the
ditrkie room to operate. If there is a second pa-^senaer
in the section (the section consists of the pair of seats
facing c;ich other), he or she must clear out too. There
must, indeed, be some sort of agreement between the
pair as to when the bed-making business shall begin,
It does not follow that buth need retire at once ; for,
apart from the smokinj-room, a seat may always be
obtained for an hour on sutForaiice in some other
section. The darkie beijins by lifting oif tho two
cushioned se its ami dragging out of tho ilepths
beneath a couple of uncovered pillows and two short
pii.'oes of wood. The latter he i>laces across the knee-
space between the two seits, and puts the seats on
tliem, drawing the jiadded backs (which are also move-
able) down into tho i)laces which the two seats had
previously occupied. A level, padded couch, about six
feet long, is thus constriictod of the two seats and the
two backs. .Tumping ui) on the edge of this co ich, the
attendant turns a handle in the sloping side of the roof,
and lets down on a pair of hinges a whole panel of the
carved roof, about the size of an ordinary door. This
concern is simply a huge wooden flap, of whose
existence the passenger has not hitherto dreamt,
attiched to the side of the car, just above
the window, by its hinges ; it drops until exactly level,
and is so suspended by two chains att iched to the roof.
A wooden partition, reaching from t.ie back of the seat
to the roof, is slid in at each end of the section, and
tlio section assumes the form of two hertiis, one about
three feet above t le oth'r, exactly like a pair of berths
at sea, Tlie upper bertli, when let down, is seen to
contain all the materials (except the linen) for making
up two beds. There are for each berth a thin mattvess,
a blanket or two, and a thick rug. There are, l)esides,
two heavy and handsome rep oi' <lamask curtains. Tlie-^e
the darkie in a twinkling strings upon a brass rod
Wiiiuh extends the whole lengt'i of the roof of
the oar, and the two berths are thus secluded from tho
World— thit is to say, as secluded as, according to
American opinion, they need be. I'iie hoddinen.
which is never used a .second time even for the same
person, is brought from a closet in another part of the
car. This making up of two beds is done in an in-
credibly short space of time. The attendants have evi-
dently been carefully trained in every part of tho
operation, I watched them many times, and noticed
that every item in the programme, down to the most
insignificant movement, was done in every case in
exactly the same order and exactly the same way.

Having " fixed " the oooupant< of one section, the
attendant looits round to see if any other passengers are

ready for bed. 'When the process of retiring has once
begun, it becomes intectious, and he has usually no
dilhculty in keeping himself occupied until all in the
oir are safely stowed a way. ile then turns tho lights
low, gathers up the boots that re-iuire cleaning, and
retires to his own end of the car. All that is now
visible of the body of tho car is tho narrow central
passage, fenced in on both sides from end to end and
from roof to tloor by tho I'urtains which conceal tho
berths from view.

Tho passenger who ho' is the upper-berth ticket has
to climb to his (or her| roost as best he (or she— these
two Sixes aro a nuisance) can. If lie hai>i)ens to bo a
male (I don't see, by the way. how " he'' can bo any-
thing else), he prob.ibly slijjs olf his boots and kicks
them under tho lower berth, where ho will find them
o'er, u in the morning, divests himself of bis outer
envelopes, and mounts to his berth in his shirt-sleeves.
Ho must finish his undressing as best ho can, sitting on
his bed. If the pis-enger who shares tho section with
him has retired before liim, and drawn the curtains
well together, he cannot very well avoid se|;arat-
ing tiem and stepping on the edge of the
lower berth in mounting to his own. If the
lower-berth passenger is a lady and he is a gentleman,
he will, of course, manage this business properly, though
1 confess candidly I do not know exactly how to define
" l)roperly " in such a connection. He will, at any
rate, not be m ire wanting in propriety than flio guests
of that famous backwoods " hotel '' where there was
only a single room for all-comers. In that case (so, at
least, a veracious Western newspaper says) a rhnlk line
w.is drawn across the middle of the tloor. One side of
the room was for ladies and tlie other side was for
gentlemen ; and it w.is a standing order of the house
and a point of honour with the guests that iiuhodii
looked (I'l'oS'i tlie Inir,

1 confess that, in this part of the subject, I am get-
ting a little out of my depth ; still, as 1 desirj to lie a
full and faithful chronicler, I must i)ersevere. The
truth is, then, the proprieties of life are a good deal
ignored in a sleeping-car, just as they aro on boavd
ship, if you happen to be travelling alone (i mean with-
out a friend to share your section), you can never know
with whom your lot may be cast. If you aro a gentle-
man, you may have a lady either alioveor below you;
and 1 suppose it follows, as a matter of course (or shall
I siy as a corollary 'r), that, if you are a 1 idy, you may
hajipen to share a se ;tion with a gentleman. As there
aro young and old, agreeable and disagree ible iiersons
of both sexes, and as the occupants of the
same section have to face e;ich other all
day as well as sleep one above tho other
all n'lglit, even a saint might be forgiven tor
having .•ionie i)references as to the kind of comiianion ho
is paired with. On one occasion, I was put in with a
very prim, shari)-featured, angular shouldered, stony-
visaged lady of uncertain age -a New England spinster
of the strong-mimled sort, to all appearance. I liail tho
ticket for the lower berth, which is usually preferred to
the upper 1 began to look forward rather sadly to the
prospector a night and a tl ly in siieh compmy ; but,
fortunately, my companion soon discovered that tho
sole occupant of one of tho ( ther sections was a lady
with a baby, and, to my great relief, s'io speedily got
herself and her belongings transferred to the vncant
berth. Perhaps 1 cannot better close my remarks on
this part of mv subject than in tho words <jf tho motto
of the Most Noble Order of the (rarter— ' vil bo to
him that evil think* ! "

Babies ! The mention of one of the blessed cherubs
reminils me of another feature of life in a Pullman oar.
The biibies, like the poor, are ever with you ; at least,
they wore always with mo. I came from San Francisoi)
to St. Louis with babies— not the same innocents nil
the Wivy, of course, but one baby or sot of babies after
another. Twonty-Uvo hundred miles in a car with
babies— one oil and another or more on at each stage of
the journey — is just about enough of that particular
sort of thing. Americans evidently beijin to travel
very early —at the ago of one month, I should say, on an
a\ eriige. And they are very lively fellow passengers,
whether, in the ilaytime, they reach over the back of
the seat and entangle their fat cherub hands (cherubs
are fat, I take it, judging from pictures) in your few
remaining locks, or, in the lonely watches of tlie night,
mingle tiieir voices with the hoarse shriek of the engine
whistle or the tolling of the engine bell.

I love babies, of course— that is, good, moral,
reasonable babies ; but I confess that travelling a thou-
sand miles with one is a severe test of one's affec-
tion. Seeing two or three " sleepers "' on the same
train on more than one occasion, I asked repeat-
edly why, in such a case, one of them was not reserved
exiiressly for ladies and children. The reply was that
the plan had been tried and did not answer ; but what
was the cause of the failure i could never learn. When
children have to be cared for, and unprotected females
provided with sleeping accommodation, the setting
aside of a ladies' car appears to be the most natural
thing in the world.

The charge for a berth in a Pullman sleeping car, in-
cluding the companionship of the babies and of such
adults as may happen to be (juartered with you, aver-
ages about four dollars (say iOs 8d) for a night and a
day. This charge is, of course, an addition to the ordi-
nary train fare, a separate ticket being issued by the
Pullman Uar Company, who run the "sleepers " under
an arrangement with the railtoad companies. As the
trains run SfJO to &)0 milei in the 2i hours, the extra
charge for the berth is a little more than one-third of a
jienny per mile. As this payment secures double
sitting spauo in an elugant car during the day, besides
the bed at night, the use of a lavatory, and freedom
from some of the principal anno.vauce< that have to be
endured in the ordinary cars, the price cannot be re-
garded as excessive. I might have mentioned, too, the
convenience of having a darkie attendant always at
hand to render any little needed service ; but the truth
is, the passenger is " expected " (in the same sense in
wliich tips are "exi)ected " in English hotjls) to give
tills official a sum of not less than a quarter-dollar
(Is) per night. This tip is tlie only one I
gave on any railway. It is a recognised impost ;
indeed, it is said that t' e Pullman (Jar Company pay
the attendants nothing, but leave them to ''take it
out " of the passengers.

My experience of sleeping in a " sleeper " is that it
is a business to which one needs to serve an apprentice-
siiip. At first, I could make nothing of it, but I was
just beginning to know how to do it when it was time
to come home. If I am to reap any advantage from
my apprenticeship, I mu^t go out again. The air space
in the berths (especially the lower ones) is small ; and,
if tho .lights are warm, the want of ventilation is a
good deal felt. American travellers appear to be
proof against this and all other annoyances. They
sleep as well as they do in their own beds— at least, so
they say. My experience was different- very ! As the
cars usually run smoothly, I did not find that the mere

motion kept me awake. It was rather the oocaaional
stopping that woke me. Still, even if one cannot sleep
much, it is a very great relief to undress and get
between the sheets. The monotony of a long journey
is, indeed, jileasantly broken by the night's retirement,
lletween Sept. 3rd and lith (eight days), I spent no
less than seven nights in the cars, travelling during
that time some li,000 miles. In the next five days, I
covered 1,200 or 1,300 miles mora ; but at the end of
that time I felt wonderfully little fatigue or exhaustion
— so little, as to be very much surprised.

I often wondered to see how a|tt tho Americans
are to neglect small matters, deeply affecting their
comfort, while sucnding money most lavishly on mere
appearances. Some of the sleeping cars afford remark-
able illustrations of this habit. In some cases, where
thousands of dollars have been spent on a car, and
spent mainly in supplying elegant mirrors, in carving,
gilding, polishing, and painting, with the object of pro-
duuini; a striking and pleasing effect, the traveller is
astonished to see how many little conveniences are
wanting — conveniences which would cost only
a few cents, and would add immensely to
the comfort of the occupants. Here is a
c ISO in point. Of all the " sleepers " I was
in, there was not one whose lower berths were quite
high enough to allow me to sit upright in tliem. They
were all provokingly near the mark— so near it that, by
drawing the head down between the shoulders, bending
the back in an uncomfortable way, and telescoping the
body together generally, I could just manage to sit and
dress. Jiut if, when so occupied, one happens to forget
for a moment that there are obstructions between hio
head and the vault of heaven, and suddenly straightens
himself up to obtain a little relief from his cramped
position, he is promptly brought to his senses.
For the chances are, that he raises his
head sharply against the keen edge of a
piece of elegant carving, cut out of the hardest wood
that the American Continent produces. Unless his
scalp is protected by a tiiiok growth of hair, he may
well fanc;^ that he has split his skull ; and he is, under
any circumstances, more disposed to bestow left-
handed blessings on the Pullman Car Company than to
appreciate the beauty of their carving. Six inches
more of height would remedy all this, and add unspeak-
ably to the comfort of the occupant of the berth. After
displaying such remarkable ingenuity as they have in
so far perfecting the car, it would be absurd for tho
PuUmm Company to plead that this half-foot cannot
by any possibility be obtained. I think I see my way
to securing it, without making the car higher or reduc-
ing the head-space in the upper berth ; and if the clever
people in that clever city of Chicigo, who build tliese
cars, really cannot see how it is to be done, and are not
above taking a hint from a poor, used-up, old country
like this, let them drop me a line and I will divulge
my secret— for a consideration in dollars and cents, of
course.

The berths in some of the newer "sleepers" have
little shelves, closing with a spring, to take one's
watch, collar, necktie, and other small articles of dress.
They are also furnished with hooks on which the larger
garments may be hung. The whole of these con-
veniences can probably be bought for a dollar. Never-
theless, I slept in two or three cars which were entirely
without them, and in which I had to scatter all my
clothes and other belongings about upon the bed as best
I could. In little details of this kind, the Americans
often fail conspicuously. The Pullman Car Company

lie occasional
cannot sleep
e.4s and get
ong journey
B retirement.
), I spent no
tiling during
b five days, I
it tlie end of
r exltau^tion

B Americans
fjcting tlieir
Illy on mere
ford remark-
oases, where
a car, and
in carving,
(bjeot of pro-
traveller is
eniences are
cost only
mensoly to
lere is a
8 " I was
I were quite
them. They
ir it that, by
lers, bending
escoping the
i;e to sit and
lens tu forget
I between hi.-
y straightens
hu cramped
his senses,
raises bis
dge of a
lardest wood
Unless his
lir, he may
he is, under
lestow left-
pany than to
Six inches
vdd unspeaic-
berth. After
ley have in
iui'd for the
foot cannot
iee my way
lier or roduo-
if the clever
build t'lese
and are not
old country
will divulge
ind cents, of

3pers " have

take one's

cles of dress.

ch the larger

these con-
lar. Never-
vere entirely
atter all my
e bed as best

Americans
%t Company

could not (Id better than study the oonvenionces to be
found in the cabins of the White Star st(.Mniur:t.

The Si'EEi).

The iiver.iRe s;ieol of the Amuric.in ti-iiin-i is far below
t'.ii\t attained in this cmintry. Tiie be-t iivuia^L' attain 'il
went of tlie .Mississippi is about :iO miles an houf, and
tliJ trains wiiiuii lua'rh tiiat spued are callol " lightnin.^'
e\l)res.ses,'' '• tiiundcMbolts," and uthur names su,'^e»-
tivu of a trom ml.iiu riisli. Tlieir avo a;;o would lie
inucli lii^ihor latt for tlio fact that tlioy slop ve.y fro-
(juontly at ways. do .stations pintly lie> au.su there are
only one or twopissenyer trains da ly. aiul[iartlyliet!auso
tliey h;ivo tj piss numerous froij;lit trains. Ka.st of the
Mi-souri, the s])oeil is fjreatei'. -My first c\perionco of
anything like (iO milm an hour was K''i"»-''l 'J" my
return journey, Ixitweun Ivans. is City and St. I.oui.s ;
ami the nearer I ^'ot to tlio gruit cities of the Kast, tiie
oftenor w is t!iis -pLu I attained, li.tween \\'.isliini{ton,
lialtimoro, I'hilailolpliia, and Xew York, the seivice of
trains is a very tine one, and the speed is at many po.nts
e lual to that of oir be^t I'^n^lisli e^iiresses. I went from
U sliin;ton to 15 iltimore ( li) milesi in '>'i minutes, in
spite of three stoppa;;us aiicl the usual tedious slowin;?
over the munoroiis crossiixs in the noisiibourhood of
both cities. A fe»v days earlier, a spuci.il train carried
J'resident Arthur over t.jiat same l) miles in 4 t minutes
— a feat which could not ho ijre itly surpassed even in
this country. Uetw.^un the Atl '.ntic coast and«.'liicago,
als I, the speed is very gre.it. The com|ietition in that
direction i.s ex;eediii:;ly keen, the traveller havinij
choice of three or fo ir routes. J>y at least two of those
routes (the Xew Yor'c (.'ent:al and Lake Shore and the
Pennsylvania), the distance of nearly 1,0)1) ndles is
acaoniplishud m les. than 2i hours. The trains run
over 10) miles at a stretch, the eui^ines taking up
watjr, as tliey run, from slui'low trou;hs, arter the
f tshion of the London an I Xorth Western expresses.

Tn: Nl'.mueu of C'l.vssks.

Xothin?; is more common in this country than the
notion that there i; only one class of railway c.irriages
in America. Many Americans encoura.'e this delusion,
in spite of patent facts ami with the onject, apparently,
of maintaining the character of their countrymen for
consistency with their democratic principles. I have said
enough already about onlinary cars, ])ariour cars, and
sleeping cars to show th it the common helief his no
foundation in fact. ]?ut besi les these three classes of
cars, all the great trunk lines running west war 1
have special cars for emigrants ; some have
reclinin;j;-ehair cars ; and on at least one west-
ern lino I saw ca s mai'krd ditinuly "second
class," It is perfectly a'isurd for any American to
decli.re that there is only one class. The woid "class '
is certainly not in ordinary use to descr be the existiii:^
ditleiencus. I'ut if the Americans have not the word,
they have the tiling itself, and it is a mere (juilible on
the.r part to repies.uit their system of classes as essen-
tially different fioin ours. The truth is, the rich and
well-to do may (as I have already described) i)urchase
e.Ktr.i space, increased comf.>rt, and a certain freedom
from annoyance, which are out of the reach of theii-
poorer fellow-travellers, precisely as they may and do
in England. I do not know why any .Vmcrican should
regard the class system as inconsistent with tlemocratic
institutions. A rich American does not refuse to live
in a grand house and to eat costly foo 1, merely because
such luxuries are beyond the reach of his jioorer
countrymen. On the contrary, he is very lavish in

securing for himself all tlie advantages which hit
money can buy, whether in the matter of increased
comfort in travellin,' or in any other way. In thii
respect, helloes exactly w! at rich peo[)le do (and, up to
a certain point, have a right to do) all the world over.

Tui: TlCKKT Xtl.S.VNCE.

The triin boin-.; open to the conductor (or guard)
from end to end, all that rcl ites to the examination,
marking, and collecting of tickets is done as the train
is running. In m iny respects this is a very convenient
arrangement, but it has its drawbacks. The con-
veniences are these : — Tlieic is no c dlection of tickets at
the station gates, and the iilatforms are therefore
ordinarily open to all. I'uither, a person can jump
" aboard '' at the very last moment witiiout a ticket,
knowing that the conductoi can supply him with one.
There are, indued, many so-called " stations 'out Wesb
without a sin;,'Io ollicial to issue tickets or do anything
else. 1 have seen " stations" which, so far as I could
discover, consisted solely of a post bearing the name of
the place. Any passenger who is taken ui> at one of
these spots must necessarily get his ticket of the con-
ductor. (I ought to have explained before now that
the Americans almost invariably call a station a
" depot," pronouncing the word as if spelled " deepo.")
Xow for the drawbacks of the ticket system. When-
ever a train stops frefpiently in a thickly-jieopled
district, orowils of passeng'jrs are, of course,
constantly getting in and out of the cars. The
new-comers are distrihuteii throughout tho train,
and it is impossible for a conductor, even if the owner
of a patent mennuy of exceptional horsepower, to
distinguish between chem and the pas engers who were
in the cars before. The cmi-e luenco is that, after
every stoppage, he has to walk through the tiain and
examine all the tickets ; and on some of the eastern
lines this incessant tlemand to see tho tickets becomes
jierfectly exasperating. The worst case I met with was
on the hoston ami Albany lino, about '200 miles
in length. In that distance, my ticket was
positively demanded, taken from me, perforated,
and returned nine times. At last, havini?
been awoke out of a pleasant doze two or tlireo
times, my stock of patience ran out to tho last dregs,
and I began to re;ard the conductor as an implacable
personal enemy, as clearly beyoml the palo of the law
as tiie rattlesnake and the '"griz/.ly." What would have
haiipened to that conductor if he had returned the
ticket to me after the tenth examination, J do not care
to say — the truth is, I .jn"t exactly know. Fortunately,
he [lut tie much-perforated thing — the "holy"' thing,
may I say V — into his pouch, and cscajied alive
into tho next car. Out West, the ticket nuisance
is not nearly so bad. The runs are longer,
the conductor has more time to become acquainted
with his through passengers, and the number getting in
an 1 out is small. Having once shortrn your ticket, you
will sometimes not be trouliled again until a fresh con-
ductor takes charge of tho tra'n. If you are in a
"sleeper," the Tullman attendant will hold your
ticket and show it when necessary. On many lines,
moreover, the conductor will supply you with a piece
of coloured card, indicating that you are going the
whole length of his section. This he will stick into
your hat or into the back of your seat, where
he can see it every time he passes through,
and you will hear no more about your ticket while h«
remains in charge. Why the eatern lines do not adopt
this or some such plan I am puzzled to know. I am

■till more puzzled to underitand why the Amerioani
continue to tulernte so nee'llessly worrying a Hytitem as
I hi descrihcil. It h only fair to them to say that
the. "<! a ])aticnt ami lonsz-HUtfcrins ]icoi)lt'. It' tlioy
were ot, the post of coniluctor on some of their r lil-
ways would be as ihingerou.siis the task of a foilurn hope.

The Fabes.

The average fare in tht; States east of the Mississippi
ig about three cents (three halfpence) a mile. This, of
course, is for a seat in an ordinary car. Asalreaijy
explained, extra payments have to bo made for
seats in parlour cars and bertlis in " sleepers."
West of the ]\!is8issi))pi, the fares are hi^lier,
in some cases considerably. For instance, on
the momitaiii lines of Colorado and I'tah, wliich liavo
been constructed nt immense cost throui^h thinly-
peoided districts, the fares between some of tlic inter-
mediate stations are as bitth as 10 cents (Tid) per mile.
In largo cities, railroad tickets are sold at all the i>rin-
cipal liotels, and at numerous othces belon;.{ing to the
companies or to private spesulators called "scalpers."
The approaches to some of the busiest dop^lt^ are beset
with the touts of these speculators, who lie in wait for
persons who look like travellers, and offer through
tickets to various points at reduced rates. An
Ent;lishman is amazed to find that there is
apparently no such thmsj as a fi.xed fart between any
one important point and another. In one sense, there
is a fixed fare in every ca^e — the fare charj^ed when the
ticket is bought at the station, liut the traveller soon
discovers that the station fare is in every case the
maximum, and that, if he is about io take a long jour-
ney extending over several lines, I's policy is to secure
his ticket somewhere else. We will suppose (to take an
extreme case) that he wants to f;o right across the
continent, from New York to San Francisco. If he
takes a through ticket at the station from
which he starts, he will pay IS.') dollars for
it. But if he makes empiiries at the various
ticket offices in New York, he will find the
through ticket olfered at various prices, ranging from
133 down to I2;l dollars. Possibly there may be i)laces
where it can be got at a still cheaper rate, but 123
dollars was the lowest (|uotation I happened to hear of.
I was lonjj; puzzledby tbesedilferences, andatlast I asked
a San Francisco agent to explain how they were brought
about. His explanation was this : — "I am,'' he said,
"the chief agent for California of the Chicago and
Alton Kailway. and I am also interested in sending
traffic eastward over the lines of the Denver and llio
Grande and the Atcheson, Topeka, and Santa
F6. These three lines form parts of one
of the competing routes to New York and the East
generally. The lines of several other companies, with
which I have no direct concern, make uji the remainder
of the route. The full fare to \ew York is 135 dollars.
That is what you jiay if you go to the Central Pacitic
dejjot here, and take your ticket. l!ut I can book you
through, if you go by way of the three lines I am in-
tere.ited in, for VIA dollars. The diltorence of 12
dollars comes entirely out of the pockets of my threj
eompanies. In short, they make that reduction to ensure
that the traffic goes their way, the other companies
receiving their shares of the total 13.5 dollars without
deduction." This explanation made the matter clear
enough. But there are occasionally other and still
wider differences in the fares when two competing com-
panies happen to be more or less at war. While I was
in the West, the lines which connect Chicago with

Kansas City, St. Louis, and Louisville were the scene of
a short but sharp contest, in which three or four com-
panies were involved. Kach company charged the
others with sidling tickets, tbrougli "scalpers," at lose
than the standard faros. There were charges and
denials of d shonourablc conduct all round, and
a good deal of dirty linen was wasi ed m
public. Day by day, the fares wont down,
until at last tickets were issued from Chicago to St.
Louis (a distance of nearly 30) miles) for I dollars
(lia.'td). This mad competition did not last long, but
the public naturally made a rush to take advantage of it
while it ilid last. My readers will gather from all this
that a stranger who is travelling labours under serious
disadvantages. Without muchexpenence and great local
knowledge, it is often impossible to make sure that
one is not piyiun ^ great deal more than the minimum
pi ice for a tiiket. The system of selling tickets in
hotels and other places apart from the line is a con-
venience, no doubt; b-.it the advantages are to a great
extent counterbalanced by the impossibility of knowing
when you have found what the Ameri ans call " bottom
prices. "

Ch.vos AnoLisuF.n.

Great Britain extends over so few degrees of longi-
tude that the difference in the solar or natural time
of her extreme eastern and extieme western points
scarcely exceeds half-an hour, and no real inconvenience
is caused by the observance of London time all over the
country. l>ut the case of the 't nited States is very
different. 'I'he natural time of New York is more than
three hours ahead of that of San Francisco ; that is to
say, the sun rises and sets more than three hours earlier
in the former cilj .han in the latter. It would
obviously be very inconvenient to make so vast
a country kee)> the time of any one place; there
would, of course, be a great and awkward
difference between the natural and the artificial
time. The consequence is that, up to about two months
ago, American " railway time "was chaos— the despair
alike of officials and of travellers. In the same city —
nay, sometimes in the same station — two or three differ-
ent companies, whose lines run out in different directions,
observea as many different times. Thosain« company,
if its line was a long one running east and west, started
its trains by the time of one place, stopped them at
many stations by the time of some other place, and
arranged fortlieir arrival at the distant; terminus by the
natural time of that terminus. At some of the
meeting-places of the trunk lines, the confusion
was simjily maddening to a stranger, the evil
being intensified by the difficulty— I might say the
impossibility— of obtaining information from the station
officials. I am glad to say the r.dlroad companies
have at last, since my return, come to an understand-
ing among them-^elves and adoi)ted something like a
sanesystnm. Seein.; the impossibility of observing one
unifnrm time over so vast an extent, they have adopted
what is known as the hour system. Fifteen degrees
of longitude rejuesent exactly one hour of time. The
country h.is a'jrordingly bi'en divided into three or four
belts, each 1.") degrees wide from east to west. The same
time will be observed at all ])laces within one of these
belts ; and as the time to be observed is the time of the
exact centre of the belt, the natural time and the rail-
way time will nowhere differ from each other more
than half-an-hour. When it is twelve o'clock in No. 1
belt, containing New York and the other eastern cities,
it will be eleven o'clock in all parts of Belt No. 2,
(the belt next further west), ten o'clock in all parts

he scene of
four com-
arged the
^," at lese
larges and
)und, and
rasi ed m
mt down,
•ago to St,
] dollars
I lonK, but
antaijft of i»
om all this
ider serious
1 great local
9 Bure that
3 minimum
I tickets in
no is a con-
e to a great
of knowing
iW "bottom

!es of longi-
natural time
tern points
iconvenier.ee
I nil over the
fttes is very
is more than
3 ; that is to
hours earlier
It would
ike so vast
)lace ; there
I awkward
he artificial
t two months
-the despair
same city —
three differ-
nt directions,
lilt! company,
vest, started
ped them at
er place, and
minus by the
ome of the
confusion
the evil
ght say the
m the station
. companies
understand-
ethinK like a
)bservins one
have adopted
een degrees
f time. The
three or four
St. The Si»me
. one of these
le time of the
and the rail-
other more
lock in No. 1
lastern cities,
Belt No. 2,
in all parts

;

i)f Holt N'o .^, and so on, going Imckward an hour
fur fvery !•"• de^^n-es. Tlii- iidvaiitagi's of tlii-* plan
are obvious. The iliiruieucu >■>' tiiiU! will in nW cases
he an o\acthiiur, or exactly two or tliri'c hums, as tiio
ca^i'mnyl'e; ninl t'vory )ii'r-on \\'.t\\ a fair i\nowlod,'0
of th(! j;('o:,'ra|>liy of tlm country will lie ahlc to iiMor-
tiiin for hiin^L'lf (with a map, if not without; what linio
is observei! in any particular |ilace.

IXt'OHM.XTIOX .SCAIKK.

I spoke just now of tlie ilithciilty of ulit inin,' infoiiiia-
tion at the railway statinns. In many places that
iliiliculty pissoH nil belief. The timu ot dt'|i.irture,
tlio position in the station of tin." re luiind train,
ami many other facts which the stran(,'er wants
to know, are app.irently closr suciets. When I
was at the liulfalo dcp .t, oiui of the mo>t im-
))')rtaiit in the States, 1 unuld not tind a sineili'
time tilile in any part of the buiM:nj;. I asked the
ticket cleik for one. Ho saiil his stock was exiiausted,
ami asked ino wlir.t train I w.iiitud to go by. I tuM him
that was the very (|Ue>tion I wanted to settle
by consulting a table. I wished to select from among
several tiains a gooil and i|uick one which suited my
plans. Thinking there might bo a timetable on the
depirtme platfoim, I walked in tliat direction, but was
st(ippe 1 by an olliii ,1, who told me I must get my t'cket
before passing the spot where he was posted. F
had at la^t to buy my ticket without having obtained
any (letinite information, beyond the bare starting time.
The (pie-itions then arose -first, whether the train
was to leave by New York time, by liutValo time, or by
Cohimbu^ time ; secondly, which of those times the
St ition clocks weie s mposed to he keeiiing. I could not
satisfy myfclf on cither of thc~e ])oints, and so I sim]'ly
sat down and waited for the train. At Council IJlutfs,
a s'lort transfer train carries westw.ird-liouiid passengers
over the .Mississippi bridge to Omaha, where thoy enter
the I'nion I'aiiiio cars When I and my companion
arrived at Council ItlufTs, it cost us an anxious tiampto
and fro over th' whole station, and an ini|uiry extend-
ing over L"i or L'i) minutes, to asceitain With certainty
which was the transfer train and at what time it crosse 1.
There were few olhcials to he seen. .Some of them
returned to oor iniiuiries the stereotyped rciily. 'I
couldn't tell you I '' Others took no notice whatever of
our (piestions, while stil) another set Hung a curt and
unintelligible answer over their shouldeis at us as they
move<l rapidly away. I had o.casion at Cincinnati to
run to one of the de])'its in ha-te to see a baggage agent
who *as leavln;,' by a nine o'clock train. As I huriiod
through the ticket ottice, I noticed that the clock there
Was under the impression that it wanted si.v or seven
minutes to nine, aiul I concluded I was in good time.
Heaching the idatfortn, I asked an ollicial where the
nine o'clock train was standing, and his reply was that
it had gone 10 minute'. He jiointed to a clock in the
baggage-room which said it was several minutes jiast
nine. "But," I said, "your ticketottice clock still
wants five or six minutes to nine." This he
refused at first to believe ; hut even when I
had conviticed liim that such was the fact, he expiessed
no sort of surprise at the way in which things were
managed. The xery next night, I was starting from
the same station for Washington, ami after the
lesson I had learnt, I took good care to be there half-
au hour before the advertised time of departure. I'artly
for amusement and partly to make myself doubly sure,
I asked some porters, who were unloading mail-bags
and baggage for my train, at what time it was due to

leave. One of them did not ov would not know, and
the other said ho "gue«s d " it '' generally" left at such-
and such a time (which was not the time of the timo-
t,.Mi'). I went from ( 'iiicinniti to Itichmond ( Indiana)
to >p"nd a day witliaiiold l!i idpiut friend, i'.eforo leav-
ingthe Itichir.oml (h'pMt on my arrival, I in luiroil for the
clock by which t' e trains were started, so that I might
see how far it dilfered from my watch and arrange to
be back in good time for my return train. I at last
found a single cloc'<, loit an o:h« i d whom I cpieationed
admitteil that th it instriimi'tit bore no particular rela-
tion to the departure of tiie tiains. On being prissed
further, lie "guessed " there ini< a clock upstairs
by which the tiains were dispatche(|, but it
was in a pri\ate room or ollice wheio jias-
sengers couhl n<jt see it. 'I'hese are fair samples
of the ililiiotdties which liesut travellers im many of the
railways, it must not ie supposed that my exporienco
was in any wav sin^'iilar. I met many Kuropean
travellers who h mI gtmo thion^h pncisely the same,
and oniy last week to travelling correspondent of the
Ditilii A'' I'M wrote exactly as 1 am writing now. I
cannot forliear from once inoie expressing my surprise
that the traveling .Vmorican public toleiate such a
state of things. That they do so without serious pro-
test is only one more jiroof that they are a very long-
sutt'eiing people. IJut there may be too much of even
so good a thing as patience, and in some matters the
Americans undoubtedly manifest that virtue in exccsi,

TiiK l>\c.i!.\i;i:-Ciii:(Ki.\(i System.

" f.uggage " is a word entirely unknown in Anierict,
A traveller's belon.dngs aie theie invariably called bag-
gage. The Ami rican mo le of "checking'' baggage is
entirelvdiflcreiitfrom oiii' system of lahelling. Inthetirst
))lace, their plan is a tidier an 1 more cleanly one than
ours. Instead of sticking on three or four s(|uaieincl es
of thin paper with a dab of stale paste or messy gum,
and, by frr'iurnt repetitions of the dose, gradually
ilefacin.' aud dirtying ti e handsomest of trunks and
portmanteaux, the .Vmei ican ba,'gago man attaches a
hrass laliel by moans of " 'vather strap. This label bears
the name or luiobe. f the station to which tho
passenger is going, and the passenger is supplied with
a duplicate label exactly like the first-named. Tho
package is only delivered up on the production of this
du))licate label ; and as long as tho passenger holds that
label, he may rest r.ssured that his baggage will not be
got liold of )y any thieves except those connected
with the railway. Tho advantages of this system,
apart from its tidine-s, are obvious enough. In this
country, every |)assenger must "claim'' hia luggago
when the train reaches its terminus. He has no evi-
dence to offer tint he is the actual owner of what he
claims ; and if he is a nervous Der.son, not much given to
travelling, he may, when he sees tho usual struggle goin^
on round a mountain of baggage, worry himself seri-
ously (:;nd, I may add, unnecessarily) as to the chances
of his property lieing cnaimed by somchody else. No
traveller in Americ I, who once understands the check-
ing syst m, ever feels the s luillest inxiety of this kind.
If you are staying only a few hours in the town to which
your baggage is choiked, and do not want the baggage
carried to your hotel, you have nothing to do but to
walk out of the station the moment the train arrives,
without giving yourself the smallest concern about your
belongings. You may rest assured that, whenever
you choose to resume your journey, you will
find your trunk in the station baggage-room, and be
allowed to take possession of it, or to check it on

;!-

KDother stnge, on producing; the duplicate ht:\n^ label
which was hmdetl to you at startin;;. If you happen
to have tiikoii a tiukot for a lorm journey, with thi- in-
tention of " stopping over '' (that is, hrua'Kiii^i your
journey) lit viiiiouH intcrinoliato i»liicon, you niiiy chrck
your l)ai;i;u.;o on to v.irious jioints. Any trtink w'licli
you lire not likely to wunt till you iciicii your distiiui-
tion o.in ho eliou'.od tlirou;ih at once, and you c;in claim
it on your airival, ();hur pack i^es may lie checked to
and picked up at intermediate points. When a train is
approac dnij a 1 crgu town, the ajjent of an express or
delivery comp my passes tlirou^h tlie train and asks
each passtuiiier if he has any l)i,','a^'o to clieok for any
one ot the hotel* (or, iiiil.o I, any other addre-^s) in that
town. 'I'ho'O who w.sh their hai,'ij;aKe thus (hdivered
give him their a Idresscs or the names of their hote's
and li.ind him their l)a,':;axo checxs, in ifturn for which
he (iivDS tlium his own company's checks. Within an
hour or two of the arrival of t ;() train, the haij^iigo is
duly delivered accoiilini; to the instructions given. Tho
chariiQ for this service is soinctimoH monstrously
higli, as W(! sliull eii presently, but the convenience
of tho arrangement is beyond dispute. Although
the checking sys'em may occasionally fail, a< r.ny
system worked l)y fallible humanity is hound some-
titnes to do, I certainly wonder the English coaipanies
have not long since adopted some such arrangement.
Their reason i)robal)ly is that the existing I'higlish
system is not, in actual inactice, so utterly ai)surd as it
looks ; and that mucli must ho conceded.

It hapijened that, in my case, the chocking system
failed twice in tho very same week. On our approach-
ing ('incinnati, the express man came through tho car
HS usual, and both rny friend and I checked part of our
baggage for tlie Ihirnett llouso Hotel, My friend's
trunk was duly delivered at that hotel within an hour
of our arrival, but my own was missing. After a long
hunt for it at the station and at tho olKco of tho
express company, and after telephoning for it to other
parts of the city, I liad to "give it up " and go to bod.
.Some time in the small hours, a porter woke mo to tell
me that the missing ))ortmanteau had, after all, been
found at the depot. A few days later, I was leaving
"Washington for 15 dtimore, and my bagjta^o was duly
checked in the hall of the Washington hotel. Tho
express van, however, went to tho station witliout it,
and it had to follow me by a later train. Two such
failures of the checking system in a single week, in tho
experience of a single person, are, I think, very uncom-
mon. Indeed, several American gentlemen, to whom I
described my experience, declare 1 that it was unpre-
cedented. This I can readdy believe ; for if tliero is a
hit of bad luck going about the continent I happen to
be in, and looking for asuitabh; resting-idace, it is pretty
sure to take up its quarters with me.

Baggage Smashers.

Nothing less than insjuration can enable me to do
justice to this theme, and I shall infallibly make a mess
of it unless all the deities that pn.side over tho pen-and-
ink business forthwith come to my aid. 'I'liere were
several things wliich tho writer of the latter part
of tho Book of Proveibs said were beyond his com-
prehen<io!), though I have always thought, as regards
some of them, that a man of his large experience was
unnecessarily ditiident. But I am sure tliat, if the
writer had lived in our days, he would have
added " the way of a railway porter with a
trunk " to his list of the things which he could not
understand. There is a good deal more of the incompre-

hensible about that than about some of the things he
piofessi'd ignorance of, I confess that, up to about the
end of last .(uly, I iiail been in the haliit of reganling
tiio I'inglisli porter as incarn ite Mischief, tho chief end
of wiiose existence was to di^troy pas-^engers' luggage
and to provoke its owners to wrath. But I havo
changed my npinion siu' o the period aforcsiid, I now
regard the I'higlish porter as the gentleit, most careful,
and most con^ideritte of mortals, and I shall never
ooinplain of him again, no never -until I change my
mind. Tliis revolution in my views h is been brought
ahcuit by contact with the American porter - tho
■' baggage smasher," as tho newspapers long agodulibed
him. in tho art of destruction, lie has not, never has
iiad, never can havo, a rival. In his vocibulary, the
word " trunk " means "a thing to bei)attered, smashed,
destroyed." Me is jiast master of all tho cunning
devices by which tiie one object of his life may bo
attiincil. Opportunities of brin.;ing down a ponderous
case, containing a hardware drummer's samples, plump
upon a fragile tri\nk, of thrusting tlio iron-clad corner
of one trunk into tho weakest part of the side of
another, and of playing a vast variety of similar
jirank-i, are to le met with every hour of the d.iy, and
the smasher never lose* a chance. His rule is to
shoulder oil' as much of his duty as passible upon tho
over-worked and much to-be pitied law of gravitition.
His motto is : " Never lift down what can be made to
fall." A\'hen a baggage car is being loaded, the
smasliers cannot very well help exerting thetn-
solves a little, for they have not yet discovered
a way of induidng gravitation t) pick trunks
up from thcbirrows and |)latfornis and stow them away
in tie cars. But when tiiey have to unload a car,
they take a sweet revenge for all tho trouble they have
been put to in loading, 'i'ho tloors of tho cars are very
high— almost level with the eye of a man of moderate
lieight. Tho so-called platfoim, on the other hand,
is usually quite level with the rails, and the hugo
baggage barrow or truck is certainly not more than two
feet high. As, moreover, the trunks are often piled to
a cons derablo height inside the car, tho smasher
has usually reaily to his hand the lirst essential
of success — a good deep drop for tho
objects of his ven^'eance. We wdl suppose that a tiain
has just reachcil an important depTit, and that the
baggage cars contain a good deal of baggage for that
l)articular i)laco. The laige sliding doors in one of the
cars are run back, tho station truck is backed up under
the opening, ami the woik of destruction begins.
Possiljly, the toji trunk of the pile is as high as the head
of a man stamling in tiie car. The higher the better,
because the greater the fall, and therefore the moro
absolute the certainty that the trunk will he smashed and
its contents laid open to baggage-room thieves. By dint
of long practice, the smasher has arrived at perfection
in the art of delivering over the various pieces of bag-
gage to the tender mercies of t'le liw of gravitation,
with the smaller possible elt'ort to himself. Seizing
the top trunk by one corner, he tip< it, with one clever
twist of his wrist, towards the precipice at the bottom
of which stands tiie truck. His labour consists (to i)Ut
tho thing into scientific jargon) in .so far turning tho
trunk over, that the jierpon licular from its centre of
gravity is just over the line of its base.

Tliat self-same law wliich ninuMs a tear
Aiiil bids it trickle from its source -
That law preserves the earth a sphere,
Anil guides the planets in their course.

It also brings down that trunk on that station barrow.

bout the
egai<Un.{
ihiof end

t I have
I now

, careful,

nil never

iftiige my
bruu;{lit

ter — the

'odutibeJ

lovor hiH

uliiry, the

sniishod,

) cunnin?

I may be

)on(loio\is

ea, plumi>

ad corner

10 side of

)f similiir

3 day, and

•ule is to
upon the

lavitition.

e made to

aded. the

n? them-

discovered

ck trunks

them away

cad a car,

they have

ta i\ro very

f moderate

ther hand,
the huy;e

■e than two

en piled to

10 smasher
essential
for the

that a train
d that the

ae for that

one of the

id up under

ion bes'.ns.
as the head
tho better,
_ tlie more
iniashed and
e». Uydint
. perfection
'ces of bag-
gravitation,
■If. Seizing
h one clever
the bottom
sists (to put
turning tho
its centre of

ear

se.

Lioa barroWi

if tlio trunk happtfn<i to bu mailu of iialf-inch iioiiur
plato, of a ruilly ^ood brand, thi- ciiauiXM a i^ Ihit if Im >
nut itself serioUMly injuiod ; liut it is |>ri>tt\ certain that {
anything frasilo whicii may I'O in-idi; is lioptdossly |
(lamiined, even if it is roli<>>l u|) in all :iii' owners dirty i
liiiou rtiiil pankod in tho \ery centre of tlio box. J'.iit
the bc-t fun fur thf! Mui l^hels comes in whrn the llr-t
trunk is a li^ht and rather we.ik ouo, ami the second is
a drummer's (commcioial travollei'.-) sample case, duly
prepared, by means of heavy iri«n clamps on all
corners and od^!l■s, to take either tiie ttftn-
sive or the defensive. In this cas>\ tiio smash
is as certain and as complete as wlion an drph mt siin
down on a band-liox. Nobody can stand and watch a
jiarty of ollicials unloading l)ii;;.: igo in tliis fashion with-
out foelins an almost uncontiollalilo desire to i,'i) round
nnd administer a vigorous kick to them all in turn.
Tlifiir misi^iiicvousncss is of so cynicral and gratuitous
a kind that it is ditlicult to beliovo they are not all
in tho secret pay of the trunk-makers ; — spcakinsj of
whom, by the bye, reminds me tint I was aitonished at
their number and the extent of their business, until 1
saw how the porters wore everyw'.icre iloiiig their level
best to send them custon-.ers. If tho porters are not
bribed b> the trunk-mak rs, I sco no way of oxplainini?
their doliberately mischievous doinsfs, e\c pt on a
theory which ovn only bo expressed in /Vmericanese —
viz., that their conduct must lie due to " i)ure cussed-
ness."

A T.MK OF A Til INK.

I have 80 far doalt with tho baa;2nge smasher ami his
diabolical works g irally. L(!t us come to i)articolars.
licfore leavini{ h no, I asked a leadio'.; ironuinm,'i'r
whit he could roc immenl in t'le wiy of trunks forsMoli
a journey as mine. He showoil mo an iron l)ox intciidi'd
specially for Indian tia\ellers, and thoret'ore calloil
the "Suez Trunk.'' It looked all rij;ht, 1 s-at upon it,
jumped tipon it, tried 1 1 twist tho hiu-'os, and in
various other ways subjected it to whit 1 re^'ardcd as
reasonable tests. Hut I had not then been to
the right market for experience. if anybody were to
otl'er me such a trunk now for a similar purpose, I should
ask :—" Has , I umbo ever sat on it, with darlins; Alice
in his lap ? Has it been tested in a hydraulic press
till the cylinder burst? Has it been tired out of an 81-
ton guu against a l(i-inch armour-plate ? AVill you
take back tho pieces, at a small reduction from tho
original price, if, alter all, the smashers break it up '/
If you answer all tlie.se questions in the athrmativo, I may
possibly risk having it." IJut, innocent that I was, I
bought tho trunk without asking all this. Our gentle
English porters, awed ])erhaps by i!i gortjeous appearance
(it was painted a bright yellow), took it up ton.lorly and
laid it down with care. So did the steam boat pyople.
But before I had made more th.in two or three railway
journeys on tlie other side, its splendour was a good
deal dimmed. Tho smashers, perliaps, h.id heaid
Oscar Wilde lecture, and olijected to primitive colours.
Anyhow, they noon began to knock olf the yellow paint ;
but, what was more serious, the trunk was "lefore long
so battered nnd twisted out of shape tl ■• looking
and unlocking became difficult. I!y le ti i e
I reached Denver (I did not carry further

west), it had assumed somewhat tiie appear-
ance of an old tin kettle which has lieen kicked
about the streets for a week. The jointed piece of brass
which goes into the lock (I fo;getthen imo of t'le thing)
had been twisted off ; and a Denver brazier, who no
doubt combines (on his trade card) "careful workman-
ship "with " moderate charges, " was g">od enough to

snider it on fur a doll ir ( is '.'d'. It is only fair to this
obliging tr idt sman to say that a dollar was poxsibly iv
modoratu eliarjjo aceordiiig to tiiu lucil standard,
for a <l dlar does nit go far in an'ithinj
out there -e\nr't in tho ppc'<('t« of tnivillpin.
On inv lutiirn journey eastward, tho poor trunk's
condition grew worso and worse at evory stage, ami I
br',,-an to(|Ui'stioii sniiously whether I should ever get
it back to the coist. I ju<t rriinaged to do so, and that
was all. Whiii it turji' d np at- tho Fift i Avenue
Hotel at New York, it was in a state of liteial and
absolute cidlajisc. Somo smasher had given 't a tiiiish-
ing stroke, apparently by dumping' an iroii'lail inoiisinr
ot ft case down on it. It \Vi\* like a hat tliat has been
sat upon. Tho lock had been destroyed ; and, there
being then nothin.; but a strap between the smashers
and my personal belonging-, sainebody had appropriated
my be^t bl ick full-dress felt hat. I had to give live
dollars (a guinea) for another, before I was in a condition
to wait upon tho Tresidont, Mr. Vanderbilt, Mr.
Jay (iould, .Mrs. I.angtry, Lord (,'hief .lustico Cole-
ridge, O Donovan Kossa, nnd all tho ether celebrities
who might be burni ig to see mo. Hats, like most other
things of Ameiicat manufacture, were, I found, about
double tlio l']ngli->l prices. A leather lan-tmantoau
which I had with mo was in almost i'..( pitiable a condi-
tion a-i tho trunk. Its lock, also, was smashed. I hac'
lost my k s r.f itoth trunk and portmanteau, and as I
neared New '.'ork, I liogan to wonder liow I was ti> get
them open wiihoiit a locksmith's ai I. I'ut tho r.ulway
smashers ha I s,i\ ed me all trouble on that scoi e. Hefoi e
leaving New ^■olk, I lionght a reL."ilition American
trunk, duly armed at all points with iron. I uave tho
nioi tal rem litis of the '" .Sue/. " to tho ue id porter ol the
hotel, siiLigesting with soinu little ilitiilence thit ho
mg'it. iierh ips, tind it useful ; bin his coiintenanco said
mo-t elo pieiitly : " I ought to hiiM; a halt' dollar for the
trouble <if !;iving that tl.ing decent; buri.il ; " nnd ho
ultimately had the money.

Amkuic.vn" rcrsus Kxr.n.sii Tr.wklmxo.— Thk

VlCKDKT.

Tho American railway system is, no doubt, on the
whole, adanted to the peculiarities of tho country and
the habits and temperament of the people ; but Isliould
bf soiry to ^eo it introduced, as a whole, into Kngland.
As I have before said, there are certain of its features
whic'', if they could bo only grafted upon our system,
would add immensely to tho comfort of travelling.
Hut if I had to choose (for a diy journey, of course,)
between the ordinary American car and tho newest
sccond-clas< carriages of our (iroat Western or South
Western lino, I should without hesitation vote for the
latter. The average car is, no doubt, the handsomer,
loftier, and more imposiu'.; vehicle. I'.ut for real comfort,
(juiet, and retirement, it is nowhere in the comparison.
In the first jdace, tho 0])eningandshuttingof the windows
are entirely beyond tho control of any one passenger,
however necessary it may be for him to avoid draughts.
There are thirty or more windows, and each is uniler tho
control of a separate por-on. A ilelicite passenger may
shut his own window, and even induce his next neisrhbour
to shut his; but other win lows, further ahead, are out
of his reach, and he will leid thedrnu;ht from them as
etfectnally as if he sat nearer. In this important resppit,
the balance of advantage is wiih u<. Again, itisno'loubt
very pie ;Sint to feel free to w ilk at will up and down the
car, and to wander from car to car as fancy may dictate.
But this convenience is attended by very serious draw-
backs. There is literally no peace for the passengers

■i'

l^i

■•(

■ i

who sit near the ends of the curs, for the doors are being
opened and shut " all tlie time,'" to use the Americiin
])hrase. The eternal slainmiiiE; of those duors is,
indeed, maddcninj; to any tired stians;ors who have
not yet <;ot hanlencd against the nuisance.
I use the word "slamming ' advisedly, because, so
far as my oxiieriencoijoes, it is a very raie circum-itanco
indeedforanAmeiic.nl railway travtillor or olHcial to
take liold of the handle of a door and sluit it gently.
The rule is to thiow it from the hand with as muchforco
as possible. I was frei|uently aroused with a start from
a quiet snooze by what appeared like a pistol-shot, but
what proved to be " only the door.'' Kven in tlie par-
lour cars, where one is supposoil to obtain a little extra
comfort, this nuisance sometimes readies agiiiavating
proportions. Oik; day, when we were sitting near the
end of a parlour car, my travelling friend amused him-
self by keeiiing account of the number of times the
door was oiiened and shut, and he found it to average
just twice in every three minutes for the first throe-
quarters of an hour. I am reminded at this point that
I have not yet introduced my readers to

Tmk Uook; FiKN'n ;

and as that personage is largely responsible for the
t'lnoyances I have described, I hail better at once trot
Lim out. There is nothing specially d'aholic il about
his look. He certa'nly lias no horns; and if he possesses
any tail, he mmt keep th it ap)iendage carefully
coi'ed up inside iiis clothes, for I failed to discover
any trace of it. And yet the newspapers often re!^er to
him as "The liook Fiend.' "The(Jandy Demon," and
so on. Why is this? Let us see.

The Anicriciin ra'lway companies sell the right to
"peddle" (American word) newspapers, books, fruii-,
sweets, &c. , in their cars, just as our own comjianios sell
to iMessrs. Smith & Son or some other firm the monopoly
of carrying on a similar business at their st itions.
The Americin news companie^ employ lads or young
men as their agents, and one of these is to be found on
almost every train. A jilace fc- his stock-in-trade
is iirovided in the baggage-car, and thence he sets
foith about fifty times a day to walk through
the train in search of cust uners. In moderation, he
would be a very useful institution ; but there is a great
deal too much of him. He deals in, )icrha;is, twenty
different articles, but he has a trick of never offori'ij;
more tlian one thins at a time. First, and as soon as
the train starts, ho carries newsiiapers through thecar^,
asking for these, in very many ca^es. from TjO to 100
per cent, more than the published price. This, by the
way, is a cummon luactico in a'l parts of the States
and. Canada. Having fully sutiated the appetite for
news, he brings a load of other literature - magazines,
pamphlets, and books. Of these he has a largo variety.
Without saying a word, he dunuis down on t!ie seat
beside you a volume of orthodo.\ soruK ns. a collection
of Ingersoll's heretical sayings, a copy of i'cck's " Had
Boy's Diary," and " A Thousand Conundrums." Here
is something for all tastes. As a rule, the books thus
supplied aie badly printeil on coarse thick paper and
are very dear. In a few minutes, the boy returns from
his journey to the tail end of the train, and takes your
money for such book or hooks ;\n you may have selected.
The mind of the train having been thus duly pro-
vided for, he begins to thiiik ef the jiassun iters'
bodies. First hu brings (if the season is right) a
basket of very fine iiears, three of which he hand-
Bomely offers to sell you for a quarter-dollar (Is), Un
hii next journey, he brings oandy, then apples or oranges,

then grapes, then pea-nuts, then a sort of walnut ready
cracked, and s) on a I Iniini'inn. I have seju him pass
through the car eiitht times, with eight different kinds
of w ires, within the >i> ice of a single hour. And each
CO iiplete journey to and fro me:>.'is, of course, four
bangs of the door, or thirty-two langs in the hour. I
once asked a doceiit-lo iking book boy on a Michigan
Central train to lie goo 1 enough to shut the doors
gently if he must c( -le through the car so often. I re-
minded him that there might be sick, or tired, or
nervous people in the train to whom tbo everlasting
alaminin,' m''.;ht l>e torture, i he lad inoked at me as if
a new revelation had burst upon his astonished vision,
and it was perfectly clear to me thai it had never be-
fore entered his, head, or been suggested to iiim, that his
noises might jiossi.jly be disagreeable. He was a well-
disiiosed lad ; and h iving fairly realised that what I had
said might be true, he presently came to me spon-
taneously and promised that he would attend to my
renuest.

The newspaper boy is no doubt the chief disturber of
the peace in the ord nary cars, but he is not the only
one, and perhaps I cannot convey a clearer idea of the
extent and character of the disturbances than by means
of a sample. Here, then, is a sort of time-table of an
American car : —
12.0— Train starts.
1-.-— Several persons, carrying their lighter bangage,

come in from the next car in search of seats.

Some settle down in vacant places ; others try

their luck further on.
1-.4 -Roy V itU newspapers.

12.(5 —C inductor comes through to examine tickets.
12.8— j'li'^scnger A, hungry for a " weed," goes into

smoking c.ir.
12.10 —Xewspajier boy recurns.
12.12 — t'onductor does ditto,
12.14 -Passenger 15 loifs tiirough — in at one door, out

at the other — for no apparent reason.
12.1(i -Ihakesman does the same.
12.18- 15oy with books.
12.2i) -Ihakesinan loafs back again.
12.22— I'assenger 15 follows his example.
12.24— Con luctor opens the door, looks in, and slams it

aL'aiii.
12.2ii — Boy returns with books.
12.28 — I'assenger C walks throug'i,
12..S0— Train stops at a station.
I2.:i2 - Same as 12.2 over again.
12.t'i4--Conductor again punches tickets,
12..'}il — ]joy with cindy.

Every two miautcs i „ ,... - l\ c l\.

f„,. fi,„ ,.„,^ Kepetition of one or other of the

lOi tne le-iD > I !_• t .

of the journey. \ above-mentioned nioveu..rK

I wish to guard myself against being supposed to say
that there is no set-otf to all this incessant movement
and noise. Itiscertain, for instance, that individual
passen-ers are safer from ass.iultin these huge cars than
they can ever be in our sm ill compartments. In some
of the more lawless districts, it would be simply
putting a iiremiiuii on robbery and violence to
run carri:iges constructed on the English system.
The pipsonce of many in the car constitutes
the safefy of each. This is true, at any rate,
as regards such assault i on individual passengers
as sometimes happen in tliiscountry, andas would happen
far oftenerin Americaundersimilar circumstances. Rut I
am not sure that the boot is not on the other leg as
regards those attacks on trains by organized bands of
desperhuoBs which sometimes happen in the Far Weifc,

I-

;

'V-f

tvaliiut ready
Jill him pass
Ferent k'nds
And each
course, four
he hour. I

a Mii^higan
,t the doors
often. I re-

or tired, or
o everlasting
i^ at me as if
lished vision,
ad never be-
i liim, that his
} was a well-
at what I had
to me spon-
\ttend to my

f disturber of
not the only
r idea of the
han by means
e-table of an

liter baijsjase,
arch of seats,
s ; others try

le tickets,
d," goes into

one door, out
Lson.

and slums it

other of the
nioveiiiv-r*'H.

,ipised to say
,ut movement
i;it individual
liuj;e cars than
nts. In some
11 lie simply
violence to
^lish system,
r constitutes
at any rate,
;il passengers
I would happen
(Stances. But I
I other leg as
lized bands of
the Far Weit.

One or two desperate men, with revolvers levelled at
the passengers' heads and witu the cry "Hands up I "
have often overawed a whole c ir-full of persons and
paralyzed all resistance, while an armed confederate
went round and made a "collection '' of the money and
watches of the passengers. If these p.tssongers wore
distributed through a dozen or twenty compartments,
the few rufnans could not thus overawe all at once ;
and the chances are that, if they attempted to
take the compartments in detail, they would find them-
selves taken in flank and rear by those passengers who,
for the moment, were free from their attentions. As
regards the safety of passengers from attack and
robbery, the car system has, however, tlie advantage on
the whole.

It must, moreover, be admitted that the right to pass
from car to car and occasionally to stand on the plat-
form is a valuable one ; and if it were only used care-
fully and in moderation, nobody would complain. I
have myself stood for hours on the car platform when
passing throush grand mountain or river sceneiy, and
have on such occasions been very thankful for the
liberty so to do. On some of the mountain lines of
Colorado and Utah, open " observation cars '" are
attached to the trains at the most romantic points, and
the passengers are able to walk to and fro between these
and the ordinary cars at (deasure as the train is run-
ning. AVithout such open cars, it would be impossible
to obtain any clear conception of the grandeur and
prodigious depth of the numerous gorges or canons
through which i/bese lines have been carried.

The Americnns are very proud of their railway sys-
tem, as they have ample reason to be ; but some of
them iire a little too impatien of criticism. These
(they are fortunately a minority) appear to regard the
national travelling arrangements as " given by inspira-
tion." Nobody may question their absolute perfection.
The railway system is a sort of arl; of the covenant,
which no rude foreign hand may touch. It happens,
moreover, that the people who are thus so over-sensitive
to criticism are the very people who invite it and
insist on having i* Thrt moment they discover tbn^
they are in the company of an Englishmm wh^*
has seen a good deal of tlie country, they begin to
question him about the railways, and are not satisSed
until they have dragged his oirlnion out of liim. They
are sometimes far from satisfied even then— supposing
the Englishman has the audacity to declare that he
prefers the English system to theirs.

I Fight it Out.

I met with a number of Americans of this class, and
I will try to convey some idea of a discussion I had
with one cf them. I arrived at Kansas City from
Denver afttr a journey of 23 hours, and, after less than
half-an-hou .''s stoppage, started by another train for St.
Lou's,anigl:trunof 12hoursmoro. Ihad hadsometrouble
with the conductor and the station officials about a seat
to which I 'vas entitled in a reclining-chair car, and I
was not at the moment in a suitable frame of mind to
J'"' more than the barest justice to any existing Ameri-
can institution. It co happened that, soon after leav-
ing Kansas City, I found that an American gentleman
and myself were the sole occupants of the little smok-
ing saloon at the end of the car, I beg to remark that
I was not put there because I wanted to smoke, smok-
ing being an accomplishment which I have never yet
mastered, but simply in order that I might be at hand
to pop into a reclining - chair that was to be
vaoated within an hour or two, My companion,

having first put an impenetrable cloud betwe. n him
and myself, proceeded to cro8s-(|ue.<tion me. He, of
course, discovered immediately that I hailed from this
little island, and befo'e many minutes hail passed, he
knew exactly where I ha 1 liuen. Then he began to ask
for niv opinion about the country and its institution*.
In spite of the recent wran:,de about my se.it, I felt
sufficiently amiable to remark that the country was a
larj;e one. This gratified him, for every American
appears to regard such an admission as a personal
compliment. Hut when his cross-examinat'.on of me
began to r^ late to tlie railways, and I expressed my
opinion with jierfect frankness, praising where I thought
praise was due, and dealing out censure with regard to
what I considered defects, my comp.mion became
visibly irritated, and his irritation presently be,.<an to
affect his natural courtesy. I spoke just as I have here
written about the want of quiet and seclusion in the
cars, when he interrupted me by saying rather im-
petuously —

" I suppose, then, you like to be boxed up and locked
in, in such a way that you may be assaulted, robbed,
murdered, smashed up, or burnt to death, without a
chance of escape ?"

" If," I replied, " you refer to the English railways,
and suppose that we are redly locked in in the manner
you describe, I beg to assure you that you are mistaken
as to the fai'ts. AVo are not so locked in.''

"Oh I but you are," he exclaimed, somewhat rudely.

" Have you been in England ?" I asked.

"Xo," he Slid; " I have not."

"Why, then," I asked, "aie you so positive in your
state ents ?"

" Because, although I have not been myself, I have
friends who have, and I have read what a good many
other visitors to Europe have written on the .subject.
They all agree in saying that En^li-h railw.iy travellers
are everywhere locked in, in such a way that there is
no escape for them."

" I have lived in England all my life,'' I replied.
" I h.ave been in every English county and on almost
every railway in Great Uritiin ; and I tell you again,
speaking from my own personal observation and know-
ledge, that you have been misinformed. I am aware
that your countrymen always say just what you have
said on this veiy subject, and this is how the gener.al
misapprehension has arisen :— Our raihvays being
almost always do\;oie lines, the carriage doors on the
side of the train most distant from the plntforms are
always locked. This is a most necessary precaution. If
the doors on that aide were left unloci'ed, stupid people
and those with defective sight would beconstintiy step-
ping out upon the other track and getting killed. Here
anil there, mainly at jun-tions, the platforms are on
what I may call the wrong side, and it is in the nei^'h-
bonrhood of these jdaces that bot!i doors are sometimes
locked for a short time. I'ut these occasions are i are. I
may add, moreover, that if a sudd n necessity arose to
clear the train (|uickly, I would rattier take my chance of
clambering out of one of our carriage windows than
of escaping by one of your car doors, which, with the
narrow approaches, would certiiiiily bo blocked by a
struggling crowd in case of a panic. '

Finding that there was nothing more to bo said on
this subject, my companion started on another tack,
and contrasted the American system of warming the
cars by means of stoves or steam pipes with our plan
of using what he called "little hot-water bottles."
That a couple of our foot-'-armers could be of any
lerTio* in a imall, snug compartment, was a thing which

') •'' -

1 I

it'r

he could not bring liimself to admit, although I ex-
plained to him tliat the severity of our winters was not
to be judged by the extreme and protracted cold of an
American wiiiter. I con 'ess I could not sneak very enthu-
siastically of our rather clumsy ;ind unscientific method,
but I felt that I was on my mettle, and bouml to make
as good a fight as I could "for England, home, and
beauty" — that Ik the correct patriotic sentiment, is it not ?

But my companion was determined to carry the war
into the enemy's country (tiiat's our country) as far as
possible and to the best of his ability, and he ac-
cordingly began to ridicule our baggage arrani,'ements.
Here he thought he "had" mo beyond all manner of
doubt. He had lieard of our plan of laticllin^, and of
our system (if such it can be called) of claiming our
luggage at the end of our journeys ; and he had rashly,
though perhaps natur:dly, assumed tliat thieves were
hourly claiminj; packages whicli did not belong to
them, that baggage was constantly being lost,
and that the owners had no remedy whatever against
either the railway co;npany or anybody else. "With this
no-system he contrasted the safety, certainty, and con-
venience of the check system whicli I described last
week, and he evidently thought I was now effectually
shut up. But I wasn't, for I felt that " the eyes of Eng-
land" were on me, that "England expected every man
to do his duty," and all the other fine national senti-
ments. So I made bold to remark that, though our
system might, in theory, a])pear idiotic e-.iough, it,
nevertheless, worked faiily well. It was true that, in
theory, anybody was free to claim anybody else's bag-
gage ;" but, as a matter of fact, this was seldom done,
and still more seldom done with any success. Begging
the gentleman's pardon for taking the liberty, I asked
him to suppose that he was a thief, intent on carrying
off a nice promising tr\mk or portmanteau. "How
would you know," I said, "that the person standing
next to you was not the rightful owner, who would
instantly give you into custody on your attempting to
carry otf his propertv ?" Tliis view of the case had
evidently not occurred to the American, and 1 pro-
ceeded to assure him tliat the circumstances I had de-
scribed, combined with others, tended to render bag-
gage almost perfectly safe even in England. Unfor-
tunately, my ov,'n experience of the occasional failure
of the boasted check system had not then been
acquired. Had the conversation taken place a week
later, I should have been in a position to demolish my
opponent utterly. As it was, I sui prised him farther
by assuring him that, even in the absence of all check-
ing arrangements, the English companies were jus^ as
much responsible as the American companies for the
safe delivery of all baggage which could be proved to
have been delivered to them.

Finally, I let loose my reserve forces and fi;"d my
biggest gun. " How about your baggage-smasheis '.' " I
demanded triumphantly, and my opponent instantly
surrendered unconditionally. On that one point, ho
had not a word to say, except to admit that there was
nothing to be said. This, indeed, is tiic one point on
wMch all Americans, and all Englishmen, and the whole
vorld are agreed. Many Americans strenuously tlefend
every part of their travelling arrangements except the
systematic destruction of their baggage, t'aticnt and
easy-going as they are, they feel impelled to use strong
language about this. Tlie misfortune is that their
expletives appear to be as powerless, either for good or
for harm, as the clerical curses that were bestowed
upon the Jackdaw of Bheimi. Nobody is one penny the
worM— or ths better.

I met with another illustration of the remarkai)le
sensitiveness of certain Americans to all unfavourable
criticism of their travelling system on my voyage home.
I was one day discussinL' tlie matter with an American
gentleman from St. Paul, Minnes-ta, who entirely
agreed with me as to the defects I have described.
Another American— a young man — who was sitting
near us, listened attentively to our conversation, and
presently he said, in t'le hearing of my travelling com-
panion : — "Why doesn't that fellow '' (the Minnesota
gentleman) "stick up for his country ? I guess I'd (iive
it to that Englishman " (myself) " if I had him in hand.
Nervous iieople have no business over here ; tlioy should
stay at home."

It is clear, I thin'c, that the noises and worries of
travelling, which detract so seriously from the comfort
of European-!, are altogether unnoticed by the majority
of seasoned American travellers. Many of them
declared to mo that they never notic /d the annoyances.
Others lau.;hod at my c )mplaints, and some even said
they liked t!ie newsjiaper boys to come in and out,
because they " kept things lively." This last statement
is one whicli it is impossible to controvert ; the boys do
undoubtedly " keep things lively."

SuNDKY Matters.

Tlie trains are usually ma le up with the baggage
car or cars immediately behind tlip engine, tlien tlio
mail car, the smoking car, the ordinary cars, and the
parlour cars or " sleepers,'' or both, at the rear. The
occupants of the parlour cars and " sleepers " have right
of way through the whole of tlie passenger cars. The
occupants uf an ordinary car can walk through all tlie
cars of the same class, but have no right in the jiarlour
and sleeping cars. In case of necessity, a passenger can
gain access to the baggage car, and i presenting his bag-
i;ago check (of which more presenti ; can open Ins truuk
or i)ortmanteau. This is a great convenience.

Thenumberof officialsonalongtrunk-linetrainislarge,
judged by the European standard. Besides the engineer
and fireman, thoie are a " baggage-master," sometimes
with one or two assistants ; the travelling post-oflace
clerks, if there is a mail car, as there usually is; a
conductor, with an assistant known as the porter or the
brakesman ; a Pullman conductor, whenever there are
parlour or slei'jiing cars on; and a black or mulatto
attendant for each of such cars. A train containing
t\.o or three bagga'.,'e-cars, a mail-cir, and three
" sleeiieis " may thus have as many as 12 or 1") olhcials
travelling with it.

Tlie trains are appirently all fitted with continuous
vacuum or atmospheric brakes, and the engineers thus
have them under perfect control, long and heavy as
they usually are.

The American plan of call'ng out the
stations is one which could not bo a'
system. .Tust before the train roaches
l)lace, tiie conductor or brakesman pisses through
all the cars and calls out tlio name of
the jilace. iSonietimos he docs it well, sometimes
badly. Ho is, in this respect, very much like his
English brethren. He is g(Mierally understood by those
who are familiar with the line, but a stranger is sehlom
able to make anything of what he says, This is pretty
much (IS it is in England. I have hearil American
conductors make a really conscientious and not un-
successful elfort to render their call comprehensible
even to strangers ; but I have also seen otiiera walk
quickly through the car, withcit raising the head or
atfording the slightest hint that they were addressing

names of the
laptcd to our
the stopping-

inarkaMc
avourable
k'^'e home.
American
entirely
rlescribcd.
X3 sitting
ition, anil
lling corn-
Minnesota
ss rd ^ive
n ill han<l.
ley should

vNorries of
CO in tort
e majority

of tliem
luoynnces.
even said

and out,
Btatement
lie boys do

18 baggage
then t'lo
3, and the
■ear. The
' have right
cars. The
ugh all the
the ]iarlour
ssenger can
ing liisbag-
n his truuk

rain is large,

he ongineer

sometimes

post-office

ually is; a

ortor or the

tliere are

or mulatto

containing

and three

1") officials

o.intinuous
iuecrs thus
heavy as

mes of the
ted to our
stopping-
es through
name of
sometimes
ch lilic his
od by those
er is seldom
his is pretty
American
nd not un-
prehensible
thers walk
the huad or
addressing

the )iassengers, and T Lave seen their lips move and
heard a faint niutti liii? as if they weie miking some
contideiitial remark to themselves. ' The only safe plan
for a stranncr is to keoj) a sharp look-out for himself.
If he trusts to informal ion wliich ho thinks tiio
oflicials ought to impart at the pioi)cr moment, he is
pretty sure to go wrong. Out in the West, there is
often no pretence at calling out the name-i of the
numerous small waysi.;,: ooarions, iuid it is sometimes
a matter of dillioulty to learn whore one is, unless one
liai'pens to be well supplied with timetables and
maps. JIosc of the passengers are travelling
lon^ distances, if not " through ;" and as few of tnem
want to ali^jht at the wayside .stations, the officials
ahparently thiril; it would bo an absurd waste of good
breath to tell them where they are.

AT QUEl}i:C AND TIIERE.VBOUT.

It was nearly midnight and intensely dark when the
Piiyi.-iian reached t^)uebco. A\'ide a-i the St. Lawrence is,
the niana>uvrcing upon it of so vast a structure as an Allan
liner is a busiiie.-s demaniling gieat caution, even in the
day-time. At night, it is a still more ticklish matter ;
and tlie process of getting alongside Mie quay appeared
tedious in the extreme. At last, however, we were
safelv moored to a tiinber-built wharf at Point Levis,
on the opposite side of the river to (i)uebec. Tiieu we
wont to bed— t'j bed, l)ut not to sleep. "We had
fondly hoped that, as the monst'T engines were at
last at rest, we should have an undisturbed night ; but
this was not to be. As ill luck would have it, some of
the pipes by which the boilers discharged their water
and steam passed immediately under our cabin, and a
discharge of some sort was going on for hours at a
stretch. Those who know the kind of noise which
steam, or hot water under pressure, jn'oduces when
discharged into cold water will readily appreciate the
hideous concert wliich some of those engineer fellows
kept up for our benefit nearly all night. However, we
were impatient to tread the soil of the New World,
and we turned out early.

A WoonEX "WoiiLn.

" What a very wooden world this New World is ! "
Such was my first impression. Wood was the only thing
visilile in the immediate neighbourliood of the wharf.
As lliave already stated, the wharf itself was of timber.
Close alongside it were a woodon custom-hi)Use, a
wooden emigrant dei)"it, and a wooden railway-station.
Running along the river-side, from the station to the
ferry landing-place, was a straggling street of wooden
houses, having wooden sidewalks (tlie Americans never
say " footiiath "'), and here and there wooden crossings
for the beuotit of those who might want to get from
one side to the other of t e track of deep, black mud
which constituted the roadway. I'A-on the mud con-
sisted largely of disintegrated timber, as I found, in
due time, was the case in all cities where wood is largely
used in the streets and footways.

The St. Lawrence.

The St. Lawrence is at least a mile wide at Quebec,
and the view of the city, as we looked at it across that
splendid stream in the early morning, was superb.
" I'-eiutiful for situation ;tlie joy of the whole earth !"
was my verdict as we first set eyC'* on it iu t'le daylight.
The verdict was borrowed from a far-olT land ami time,
but it was to tlio jioint, and saved me the trouble of
" finding " an original one.

And so this vast stream which rushes aloii'j; botwuen
me and the city, glistening in tl e morning sunshine, is
the St. Lawrenco I ilere, tlion, are the surplus walersof
Superior and -Michigan, of Huron, ImIo, and Ontario —
that peerless j;rouj> of fresh waler seas. Ami hcio, too
(tor the prosi' of the artitijial will somehow intrude on
the poetry of the natiir il) ll.ws oueanwards the .sew:ige
of Chiiago. of .Milwaukee, of Detroit, of I'levelaiid, of
r.utfalo, and of many a famous city hesides. It is,
however, satisfactury to know that in such a prodigious
mass of water as this, llowing, as it dojs, many hun-
dreds of miles, the sewage of the largest e.\isting cities
could pruducc no appreciabh' detilement. Some of
this water fell in lain more thin 2.M0i) miles away
to the north-west, amid the uno\plore I forests which
drain into Lake Superior-. I'art of it hails from the
higli'i .lids of Minnesota and Wisconsin ; and if some of
it had only fallen lOD yards further west, it wo.ihl have
tlowed into the Mississippi, and so to the Oull of
INIe.xico, instead of hurrying down here past (.^)iiebec to
the Atlantic. Here, in slioit, is the jainage of
parts of half a-dozen great American States, and of
nearly the whole of the Canadian Dominion westward
to the borders of JIanitoba. This vast volume of water
has, moreover, had a romantic journey. It has leaped
Niagara, and lashed itself into fury in the narrow,
rocky, tortuous gorge which forms tlie e.\it from that
stupendous cataract. It has gliaed noiselessly amid
the thousand cunniiels of the Thousand Islands,
and danceil meriily down the series of famous rapids
which ends at Montreal. Hence to the ocean its course
is ])eaceful and une\ entful. It grailually broadens out,
and l)eoomes more and more distin:;tly briny in flavour,
until it is at last absurd t > regard it any longer as a
river ; but it is as imposs'ble to s-iy exactly where river
ends and sea begins as it is to say when childhood
verges into youth or youth into manhood.

A Nick ',>rK>Ti().\ i-mu tiik t:rsTOMS OFiTfi.vr,.^.

Ihit we must come down for a time from Xahiro to
Man. Nature may make great ri/ers, but she never
levies imjiort duties ; and, lo I here is a custom-house,
and here are the agents of the Dominion of Caiiaila
curious to know what wo have in our trunk-i. I cluly
ojien mine and await the good pleasure of the officials.
Canada, I am sorry to say, has almost as absurd a tarilf
as the I'nited States ; but I have not time at this
moment to demonstrate its absurdity, and wo will, if
you please, t ike that for granted, till we meet with
some rabid Protectionist whom it may lie worth while
to try to convert from the error of his ways. In due
time, an olHcer l)egaii to pay his attentions to me. He
was not very young, and aitpaiently not disjiosed to
take much trouble. Instead of searching the o)ien
trunks, he catechised me. Had I anything to declare ?
he asked.

" Your list of dutiable article.s is so long," I said,
" that I uinnot juetend to reply with certainty ; but
the only article I have any doubt about is an old gold
w.atch which is in that trunk."

" \\ hy didn't you put'n in your pijckot, sir '.'" a.sked a
smart bov who was .staii ling by, in a tone which clearly
evpres^ed pity for my greenness. I answered with a look
of virtuous indignation, as much as ti say : "Do you
think me capable of trying to do your precious (iovern-
ment out of its dues, stupid as I think its policy'.'" This
smart boy spoke, however, for the v/liole Continent —
Can ida and the Stages alike. Almost everybody one
meets in both countries is nn-out and out Protectionist,
strongly advocating heavy import duties on every article
of foreign production ; but, so far as I can learn, not a man

r) V

i.il!

or woman on either side of the St. Lawrence faili to
gmiiKgle in fts large a quantity of foreisin goods as
possible on every return journey from Europe. In this
matter, at least, American " patriotism " is about as hol-
low as the frothy, noisy thing whicli pa.ssos under the
same name among cert:un classes in Kns;land.

The customs othcer called in his wanderins; wits, and
apidied them to the question of the watch. After
some consideration, ho said he thougl: <; it must pay,
but he seemed in no hurry to announce that this was
his decision absolutely. Indeed, he hung about in a
fashion which, in my innocence, rather puzzled nie at
the moment, but which I thought I fully understood
half-an hour later, when a young man of Montreal told
me he had prevented the opening of about halfa-ton of
works of art and other valuables by a judicious tip of
two sovereigns to one of the other officials.
I offered no tip, but patiently awaited develop-
ments. The officer at last went away and
fetched another of his species, and together they
gravely discussed the great watdi question. It pre
sently occurred to me to inform them that the
watch was a deceased lady's bequest to a relative, was
really going through to Michigan, and would be on
Canadian soil only a few days. In this new light, the
question was re-discussed, and the verdict ultimately
was that the watch mi;^ht pass. I then signed a declara-
fcion that my baggage contained nothing <lutiable, and
was forthwith at liberty to carry it and myself across
the river to Quebec.

The Great Canadian Railw.ays.

It may be asked why the steamers from Europe do
not " pull up " at the quays on the city side of the
river, and thus save the passer.gers the trouble of ferry-
ing themselves and their belongings across. But the
fact is, the great majority of the passengers and the
greater part of the cargo have no necessary concern
with the city of Quebsc. They are nearly all going
hundreds or thousands of miles further on with as
little delay as possible. And it so happens that
the two great miin lines of railw.iy skirt the
tlie river, and do not enter Quebjc
Levis is the meeting-place of the
Railroad and the Intercolonial
follows the southern bank of the river
down to a point somewhat below llimouski, and then
strikes away to the south-e ist, across the centre of Xew
Brunswick, '.nd so on through Xova Scotia, terminating
at the fine Atlantic harbour of Halifax. In the winter,
when the St. lawrenceisfrozen, the mail steamers land
the mails at Halifax, and from that place they are
carried by rail to all parts of the Dominion. The
Grand Trunk is an important system of railways
whic'i terminates in the east on the Atlantic
at Portland (Maine) and on the St. Lawrence at
Quebec. It runs westward along the southern
bank of the St. Lawrence to Montreal, wliere it crosses
the riviT by means of the wonderful Victoria Bridge.
From Montreal it follows the north shore of the river
and of Lake Ontario, past Kingston and Toronto, and
so on by two routes through t'le whole district formerly
known as Upper Canada. Crossing into the States at
Detroit and Port Huron, it connects with the Michigan
lines, and so secures direct access to Chicago.

The vast majority of the passengers from Europe are
emigrants, whose destinations are either the United
States or the more western parts of the Dominion. In
either cise, they can step out of the steamer at Point
Levis, eross a wooden platform, and there and then

southern side of
at all. Point
Grand Trunk
line. The latter

boanl the cars whioli are to carry them the " balance "
of their journey— as they learn to call it as soon as they
are fully Americani?:ed.

Having landed all the r passengers at Quebec, together
with as much of their cargo as can be most conveniently
sent to its destination from that point, the Allan
steamers procee 1 at theii- leisure up the river to Mont-
real. The navigation of tiiis section of the St. Lawrence
is at times somewhat diflicult and tedious for such large
ships us the Parisian, an 1 Messrs. Allan therefore carry
no passengers above (Quebec. The steamers go up in a
somewhat leisurely way, lie at the Monti eal wharf
several days to unload and load, and then drop down
stream again to Quebec a few hours before the appointed
time for their dep.irture to Liverpool.

Fkuuiks and Bridgi^.'s.

But we were not emigrants, and were not, therefore,
anxious to push on inland by the Qrst available train.
We had come to interview the country, and our first
appointment was with the city of Quebec itself. So we
checked our heavy baggage to the St. Louis Hotel, and
chartered a conveyance to carry us and our lighter
belongings to the ferry-boat pier. America being a
country of great rivers, steam ferries are very numer-
ous, and this one at <iuebeo was the first of a good
many of its kind which we saw and used. The boats
are little more than huge floating platforms, adapted
to transfer all kinds of road trartic from silo to side.
Tlie centre of the vessel will contain several vehicles,
horses and all, which are driven on at one pier
and off at the other with the greatest facility.
The sides are usually set apart for foot passengers.
Where the lines of important railways are
intersected by wide rivers, there are immense
ferry boats which have five or six lines of
rail laid along their deck, and are capable of convey-
ing across the whole of a heavy train, with its one or
two engines. I shall liave occasion to des:ribe one of
these wonderful railway ferries at some future time.
The Quebec ferry is one of a less remarkable kind,
being designed for the transfer of passengers and ordin-
ary road vehicles only. There are two boats, which
are always running, crossing each other regularly in
mid-stream, and thus keeping up regular communica-
tion in both directions every few minutes. As long as
the river is open, this ferry unites Quebec and Point
Levis as effectually as any bridge. In the winter, the
river is frozen hard to a thickness of several feet, and
all traffiy then crosses on the ice ; but how communica-
tion is kept uj) while the ice is first forming in the early
winter and is breaking up in the spring, I cannot say.
There must, however, be a very awkward interval when
the ice encumbers the river sufficiently to stop naviga-
tion, without being strong eaough to bear wheeled
traffic. There is absolutely no other way of crossing.
The only bridge over the .St. Lawrence, throughout
it-: whole length, is the Victoria Bridge at Montreal,
two miles in length. The five great lakes may,
indeed, be regarded p.s forming, with the St.
Lawrence, one •'mmense, continuous waterway, begin-
ning at the upper ends of Superior and Michigan respec-
tively and emling with the ( Julf of St. Lawrence. In
all that length of over 2,000 miles, there are only five
bridges. Onp is the Victoria Bridge at Montreal,
already referred to. One is a railway bridge at Buffalo,
where the Niagara River flows out of Lake Erie. The
other three are all close together below Niagara Falls,
where t'le mighty stream is compressed into so narrow
a gorge that it is crossed in a siBgle span.

balance "
m as they

, together
,veniently
he AlHn
to Monfc-
Lawrence
such large
ifore carry
o up in a
eal wharf
rop down
appointed

therefore,
ble train.
I our first
If. So we
iotel, and
our lighter
;a being a
iry numer-
t of a good
The laoats
IS, adapted
lo to side,
il vehicles,
it one pier
jst facility,
passengers.
[ways are
B immense
: lines of
of convey-
its one or
•ibe one of
jture time,
kable kind,
i and ordin-
jats, which
egularly in
jommunica-
As long as
and Point
winter, the
1 feet, and
communica-
in the early
cannot say.
terval when
atop naviga-
lai' wheeled
of crossing,
throughout
t iMont.eal,
lakes may,
the St.
way, begin-
igan respec-
wrence. In
■e only five
Montreal,
e at Buffalo,
Erie. The
,agara Falls,
so narrow

DUY HiSTOUV.

The site of Quebec was visited by Cartier in 1334,
and the city was founded by t'hamplain in 1(308. It
was taken by the English in 1112!), and restored to
Kranoo by the Treaty of 1(532. In lO'JO, tlie neiglibour-
ing English colonies made an unsuccessful maritime ex-
pcilition against it ; and in 1711 the attempt was ro-
neweil. with no better success. In 1734, the city had,
including its suburbs, 4,(i03 inhabitants. In 175'.>, dur-
ing the Seven Years' War, the English, under General
AVolfe, attacked the city and bombarded it. On
Sept. 13th tiok place the fi st battle of the Plains of
Abraham, in which both Wolfe.and Montcalm, the French
commander, fell, and England g.iined at one blow an
empire. The French, indeed, recaptured the city the
next spring, but at the treaty of peace in 17tj3 Louis
XV. ceded the whole of New France to the English.
In December, 177i>, a small American force, under
(ieneral Montgomery, attempted its capture, but failed,
after losing 700 men and their commander. The popu-
lation of the city at that time was only 5,000. In 1801
it was 5'.K1(90, and in 1871 it was 59,0'J!), the decrease
being attributed to the withdrawal of the British troops
forming the garrison.

(,)uebeo is, however, still a French city, although
under an English colonial Government. The great
majority of the people are of French descent, and are
Catholics in religion. This is equally true of the whole
of the Province of Quebec. The inhabitants are appar-
ently in comfortable circumstances, but they are much
less enterprising and progressive than the English and
Scotch, who abound in the more western provinces of
the Dominion. They have few manufactures, and their
agriculture is of a very primitive and unscientific typt>.

The city is full of Catholic institutions — churches,
colleges, convents, and the like. Some of these own
large properties in the city, and this fact is said to
account to some extent for the unprogressive and
unimproving character of the plaoe. Canada is not
the only country in which religious corporations are bad
landlords.

A Magnificent Position.

I spoke just now of the magnificence of the position
of Quebec, and must try to convey some idea of what it
is like. The city lies at tlieend of a peninsula formed
by the River St. Lawrence and the River Charles at the
point where they unite. The Charles is to thj north
and the Sc. Lawrence to the south. (I must
heie remark that, for convenience 8>ke, I have hitherto
spoken of the St. Lawrence as if it ran from west to
east. This is not strictly true. The direction is, in-
deed, almost exactly from south-west to north-east.
When I speak of the nortli bank, I, of course, strictly
speaking, mean the north-west bank; and cicn vivxa.)
The peninsula runs out to a point where the two rivers
unite, but is probably two miles wide at the south-
western end of the city. On the St. Lawrence side, clill's
rise almost from the water's edge to a great height. At
the extreme point of the peninsula, the cliffs
are les< abrupt, and there is next the river a belt of
tolerably level gro\md, a few hundred yards in width.
On the side of the Charles River, this belt widens out
to about a mile. The centre of the peninsula thus con-
sists of an elevated tablelaml, with more or less abrupt
descents on three sides out of four. The highest part
of this raised plain is surrounded by a wall of about
three miles in circuit, and the southern corner of this
fortified enclosure is occupied by the Citadel, which
stands at a height of 33i feet above the river. The

town covers the level ground at the foot of the clift's,
and straggles up the clitfs themselves into the fortified
enclosure, which it nearly fills. It is, indeed, gradually
spreading itself over the tableland outside the walls.
It will, I think, be understood from this description
why Quel)ec lias been called the Gibraltar of America,
and why its elevated Citadel has always been re?a.(led
as well-nigh impregnable. 'I'hero is certainly no
stronger place on the whole American Continent.

The pride of Quebec, aid the most attractive point
to strangers, is a pu')lic promenade called Durham
Terrace. This is an area of large extent, on the very
edge of the clilF, abuve tlie St. Lawrence, and is entirely
floo;ed over with pine board. The view from this com-
manding position is superb. Immediately below him,
the observer looks down the chimneys and into the back
windows of the narrow fringe of houses which is inter-
posed between the foot of the clitf and the water's
edge. Immediately beyond this line of houses lies the
shipping of the pjrt, which fringes the shore right
round the end of the peninsula (where there is a pro-
tecting pier) as far as the Charles River. The principal
feature in this splendid scene is, of course, the majestic
St. Lawrence itself, coming down on the right from the
direction of Montreal and disappearing many miles away
to the left on its way to the ocean. Immediately oppo-
site is Point Levis, backed by an abrupt and lofty range
of hills, whose slopes are dotted in a most picturesque
fashion with trim, idoasant, comfortable looking resi-
dences. A few miles down the river lies the large park-
like expanse of the Island of Orleans, a favourite
place of resort for the citizens and visitors. The city
itself, with its quaint houses, numerous churches and
other public buildings, roofed with shining tin, straggles
down the abrupt slopj towards the point of the pro-
montory in most picturesque confusion. The whole place
has a most un-.\merican look. There is nothing pain-
fully new about it. and it is whollv wanting in the
rush and "go" which are so characteristic of most
American cities. One might, indeed, very well imagine
Quebec to have been transported bodily from some
ancient European country and dropped down complete
just where we see it. On fine evenings, especially Sun-
day evenings, Darhim Terrace is crowded with citizens
of all ages and classes, promenading to and fro, con-
versing with all tlie vivacity of the race to which t!iey
belong, seeing and being seen, and enjoying the grand
panorama and whatever air may happen to be stirring.
The icene at such tim,'s is a very pretty and animated
one. There is a lift, or elevator, by wh ch, at the cost
of two or three cents, one may be quickly dropped into
tlie street below, or as quickly raised from the street to
the terrace. I should say that stout and elderly people
are very likely to patronise this convenient apparatus
litierally, especially in hot weather, for the iiscent is n
trying one, as we sh ill see presently. There are several
other points of view in the city from which the look-
out is little if any inferiorto that from Durham Terrace.

l^uoboc does not possess alai'ge number of imposing
pu'ilio buildings. The old Parliament House was des-
troyed by fire only a shore time ago, and its ghastly,
blackened ruins formed one of the most striking objects
in the ne.ir view from the Terrace when I was tbere.
The new Parliament House, which appeared to have
been ready for use before the fire destroyed the old
building, is outside the city, in a suburb con-
taining many new and attractive residences.
Most of the public buildings are connected
more or less dosdy with theOatholicChurch. Such are
the Cathedral, numeroue ohurohes, the great Laval

F*^

i^*<.

rnivGi.sity, hcvi'imI convonts. iiuiiiiurus, and liosjjitvls.
Tliero are, liowo\ur, one or two laijjij hospitals with
which the dominant Ciiurch liaB notliin;; to do,
and (lii've is also a Protestant Cathe'lral. The
PostOtlicois a mo li>ni ;ii,d rathiU' hundsomo biiililins;.
On thu spot w lora W'olfo foil in the moment of victory
stands a plain colnmn, hearing a siiitalile inscription. I
need hardly say that wo did not leave the city nntil wo
had visited a place whore (to use an Fris'i assassin's
euphemism) ^o much history had been made. The
battle which Wolf(! won in his last hours deprived
France of her greato-t colony, and was altoirother one
of the most strikin;{ and momentous events in the (so-
far) brief history of the North American Continent.

The IlrLi-s \su riir, .Stukki's.

The (diiof ascent from the low n- to the upper town
is a tortious thorouslifare called .Mount lin Ilill Street.
Tiie inhabitants apparently named this street on the
same ))rincii)le on which children describe something
exceptionally lari;e as " a great big thing." A single
qualification iloes not convoy their meaning adequately,
and they therefore pile up the adjectives, at the risk of
beinj; guilty of tautoloijy. The people of Quebec appear
to have b;'en in a similar ditKculty with re;,'ard to the
street in question. It is so amazingly and alarmingly
steep that neither simple " Hill Street '" nor simjila
" ]\Iountain Street "conveyed anadoMUate concejition of
the gradient. 'J'lie two names were therefore combined,
and so we get. Mountain Hill Street. That, at least,
is my theoiy of tlie origin of the name : and if it is
not a true one, it ou'j;ht to be. If the theory does not
lit the facts, why —hang the facts! I have as much
right to s,iy that out boldly as certain other theorists
have to whisi)er it to thomselve-i, and to proceed ([u etiy
on the assumption that they ran strangle inconvenient
facta. There are, liy the way, several other appro ichcs
to the upper town which are hardly less steep than
Jlountain Hill Street.

If a street is on an incline of about 4.")', its very steep-
ness is a sufficient reason why it should be kept in the
best ))ossible condition. 'J'hat, at least, is a reasonable
proposition in this country. JUit in Canada, and
esjjecially in (J^uebec, its reasonableness is not admitted.
"The steeper the street, the worse the road 1" That is
the motto on which l,)uebec acts, whether it believes in
it or not. The city streets are abominable everywhere ;
but those which leail up the steep sides of the hill are — .
Ikit language (that is, polite. Parliamentary, ( 'liristian
language) fails me, and 1 do not use .\ny other sort. How
mil 1 convey my meaning when all the choicest adjec-
tives are inadeipiatc, and all the strongest expletives
inadmissible V

I have been over some of the worst roads which the
most iiarsimonions of English highway boards are sup-
]iosed (pure supposition I) to keep in repair, I have
tramped in '^'' weathers along those straight unstoned
thoroughfi of black mud or blaci: dust, acconling to
the seasoi' .lioh aio called "droves," and which in-
tersect the ors of Somersetshire. I have climbed
Swiss mouu. ■: ■■ by tracks which are the lieds of foam-
ing torrents alter rain, and rough mule paths at all
other times. I liave scr.imbled over the smooth,
rounded, an<l greasy cobble .stones which form the "pave-
ments "' of tlio steep and filthy alloys of a North
African city, I have ridden over a good many miles of
the unpaved, unmacadamized tracks which are digni-
fied with the name of roads in a backwoods county in
Michigan. I have, lastly, ridden up and down Moun-
tain Hill Btreet and some Kimilnr thoroughfares at

<j>uebec : and I declare that, for unspeakable vileneis,
the Quebec streets " take the cake," as the Amer'can.s
put it. I'verybody knows that, if a st ep street
is not kept in some sort of order, it soon falls
into a condition of disoiiler such as no level th )rou.5h-
faro can e iual. Tnis is especially true of a
city where the rainfall is o,;casionally heavy, and
the downrush of water, therefore, very great.
(Quebec is just such a iilacc ; and, so far as I could see,
the torrents which rush down from the upper town
after storms are left to work their own sweet will on
the roads. The beds of mountain torrents— tlie hilly
streets aie sim))ly that, and nothing more. This is
amazing enough, iiut theie is something more amazing
to be told. I was informed by persons wliose truthful-
ness could not be questioned (the aged minister of the
old Baptist Church among others) that the
roads had, of late, considerably improved ! I
" Cood heavens !"' 1 exclaimed (I hope that
is not an inadmissil)le oNpletive), " what, then, in the
name of all the gods at once '" (Shii/:epcare) " did the
roads used to be like '.''' My informants could not tell
me — that, I knew, was impossible ; they could only re-
assert : " They're better now I'' Candour, moreover,
compel -1 me to admit that there were, in some parts of
the city, some symptoms that "repairing" was going
on. Opposite our hotel, for instance, several loads
of stones, ranging from the size of my head
downwards, had bten tipped at random into
the street : and over these hu;,'e boulders the
vehicles lurched and bumped until their occupants
had fairly to hold on with a firm grip, just as if they
wore in a gale on boird a " beam-eador." I sought to
find a cause for this disj;raceful state of thing-!, but I
got no satisfactory explanation. The head porter at the
hotel " guessed," indeed, that the city government w.is
corrupt, and that now and then t' e bottom fell out of
the city chest, with t'le unfortunate result that the
funds which ought to be applied to iniprovements some-
how disappeared. That there is coiruption in the
Dominion and the Provincial (Jovernments, I shall
])retty conclusively show next week ; and that the cor-
ruption .should find its way down from
headquarters to the municipalities is not, per-
haps, 8ur|)rising. The marvel is that the
mass of the citizens, who are prenimably decent,
rational people, should stand this sort of thing year
after year. It is perfectly s.ife to assert that the
unnecessary wear-and-tear sustained by hor.ses and
vehicles, to say nothing of human nature itself, through
the infamous condition of the streets of <i)uebec, repre-
sent a sum which would keep the thoroughfares in
decent order. Yet, here are some (iO, 000 people, content
to wade through mud, to climb the beds of mount \in
torrents and cill them streets, to have their bodies
bruised, their tempers soured, their animals worn out,
their "traps" shaken to piece.s, when (for they are
self-governed) the remedy for all these grievances is in
tlieir own hands. They certainly display a very un-
necessary amount of patience.

I GO TO CurRcir.

As we spent a Sunday in Quebec, my companion and
I duly went to two Protestant churches, to learn what
kind of theology imsses for orthoilox among the Cana-
di.'ns. In the morning, wo visited an old an.d plain
Baptist church, where we found a mere handful of
people and a very ancient-looking minister. Baptist
doctrines are apparently at a discount in Quebec. See-
ing 80 venerable a man in the pulpit, I rather ex-

I
4

21 »

i)le vileneis,
< Amei'Ciins
st ep street
it soon falls
1 th )roa;ili-

trne of a

heavy, find
k-ery greiit.
i I coulil see,
) upper town
iweet will on
is— the hilly
310. Thi-" is
nore iima/ing
,080 truthful-
nistor of the
that the

iin pro veil ! I
hope that

then, in the
re) " did the
3uld not toll
ould only re-
ir, moreover,
ome parts of

" was going
sevenil loads
my head
^ndom into
joulders the
lir occupants
ist as if they
I sou;,'ht to
;hinK-!, but I
1 porter at the
■eminent w.is

m fell out of
suit that the

ements some-
iption in the
letits, I shi'l!

that the cor-
down from
not, per-
that the
lably decent,
)f thinx year

Bert that the
horses and

itself, through

^)uebec, repre-

roughfares in

eople, content
of mount lin
their bodies

als worn out,

(for they are
■'ievances is in

ly a very un-

3mpanion ana
;o learn what
ng the Cana-
old and plain
re handful of
ster. Baptist
Quebec. See-
I rather ex-

peoted to hear a sermon in tlie style of fifty
years ago, but in this I was agreeably dis-
appointed. The ))reacher was no fo<siI, much
as lie looked like one. On the contrary, ho
liiwe evidence, in the course of an exceedingly thought-
ful addre-is, that he was fairly well posted up in the
modern way of viewing things. His remarks were,
however, ch.efly wistod on empty ])ows. I am afiaid,
too, that some of the occasional at e.ulants at his
cluiroh were not among the most attentive and ap))ro-
ciativo of hearers. One of them, at anv rate, had
found time to perpetrate the following inside the cover
of the hymn-book that was handed to me :—

" A man he owned a terrier dawg,
An ugly, b 't)t,iilt'(l cuss ;
And whene'er that nun and dp.wg came round,
'J'lieru was sure to lie a muss."

"Call-in."
The writer of this wretched do:;g6rell probably tliought
the best part of his " joke '' con usted in his crediting
the stern theologian of (Jenova with its authorshij).
There is certainly something absurdly in.'ongruoiis in
tlie nssoaiiition of Calvin's name .vith sucii stuff.
Think of that cast-iron " reformer '' diverting his
mind, even for a moment, from the contemplation
of the awful theological system lie hail invented, tc
anticipito in verse the American slang of the future I A
word, by the way, as to this slang. '" .Muss " must
not be coufoumled witli ''mess."' A "muss" is a dis-
pute, a row, or a quarrel, and the word is constantly
usL'd in the American papers.

In the evening, we attended tlie Methodist Episcopal
Ciiurch. The building is a spacious and haudsomu one.
Tlie congre^'ation was large and the music excellent,
but the sermon was a common-place stock discourse of the
regulation Methodist pattern, and presonte I a striking
contrast to the address of the ancient preacher whom
we heard in the morning. 15ut what the Methoiist
K[iiscijpalian wanted in breadth and depth ho m ide up
in strength of lung.

At these two churohoE we first maile the acquaintance
of an institution wiiich is universal throughout (Jaiiada
iin 1 the States— viz,, the sendin.;-round of the hat.
No service is ever held, no Su iday scliool or IJibie class
ever meets, but a collection is made. And it is not at
the doors that this is done. The [ilate, or bo-c, or bag,
as the case may be, is thrust under the nose of every
person, individually, and there is no escape for any-
body who cares what other people think of him. Con-
tiibutions given in thisfashion may be lab died " volun-
tary," but they are not so in reality. In America,
there is probably le^s of that social pressure which in
England tends to S(|uee/.e everybody into the same
groove ; but it is certain, if human nature is the same
on both sides of the Atlantic, that a system of com-
pelling people to make their gifts under the eyes of
tliuir neighbours must, in America as in I'jiglaiid, tend
to induce or compel people to give more than they care
to give, and in some cases more than they can atford.
What a mar ./ill give in ))erfejl seoresy is the measure
of his voluntary oontiihution. All that ho gives be-
yond this sum, f:imi)ly because his neighbours are look-
ing on, is a forced contributio;i ; and no church,
whether in England or America, his, it apiioars to mo,
any right to say it is su;iported by " freewill otferings "
while it raises money in the way I have deioribed. In
tills matter, hoarever, I am afraid the case is one in
which I am on one side and the whole American people
on the other. At any rate, I entereJ no church where
the " hat,'' or a substitute for it, was not sent round.

.Vt one phi'e (Denver, I think) I hoard a minister an-
nounce that, on the following Sunday, a f^ec the usual
collection, the " friends " would be " afforded an oppor-
tunity " of giving towards the erection of a mission
church in a distant city. It struck mo that two collec-
tions in iinme liate succession constitut'd rather strong
measures, but I am bound to say that the congregation
aiipeared to manifest no surprise or resentment. JUit,
then, wo cannot all shovel up dollars in the streets as
the l)cnverites appear to do I

I .\M Koniticii KOii Till-; FiRsr Ti.uf.

The American hotel thieves are numerous, clover, and
daring. They are npiiarently over on the wa^ch, and
the hotels are so la.'ge, and ncces-^arily so public, tli it
it is vorydiiticult to circumvent the scoundiols. I shall
have oc ision to describe more of their feats further on ;
but as my first experience o.' them wis gained in the
very (irst city and the very tir>t hotel we entered, I
may as well let tlietu mike their bow here. I left a
volume of " Appleton's Ouide'' on the desk of tlio
writing-room of the .St. I.ouis Hotel, late on
Siturday evening. Xext morning it had dis-
appeared, and it never came bajk. In my innocence
(the genuine quality of wliic'i my readers inu-t have
discovered by this time) I comidaiiied of my loss to the
elegant gcntlouian who acted as " boss " to the two or
three (leople behind the desk. He looked at me with a
sort of pity, and then proceeded to exjilain to me that if
I " left things lying around," I must expect to lose
them. IJooks, sticks, umbrellas, coats, and the like,
were, ho said, sure to go, if so left. " Then such things
are regarded as common jiroperty here'.'' I suggested.
He gave me to understand that I had about liit the
mark, and that I was only disjilaying my
greenness by aujiposing that a notice pinned
up at his desk would be at all likely to lead to the
recovery of the book. On the whole, I came out of that
interview with the impression that the head clerk
thought that nobody was to blame but my>e!f, that
I had b 'en a bit of a fool to allow myself to be robbed
of my hook, and that the thief who had taken it had
done a lather smart and creditable thing. It this was
)ii)t what the head clerk thought, 1 can only beg his
pardon, and plead that his tone and manner belied him.

TllK F.VI.LS AND THK K0.\1) TO THK>f.

There are two fine waterfiiUs near Quebec. One of
these (the Chaudiere) is on the southern side of the St.
Lawrence, 10 miles from I'oint L"vis. A stream .3."iU
feet wide falls from a height of l.")!) feet. The Falls
of .Montmoronci are on the i >uobec side and only eight
mile-i iilf. A-. we had not time to see botii falls, we
selected the latter, as beinj somewhat nearer and mere
acci ssible.

Wochartere la two- wheeled vehicle peculiar to (^)uebec
and c illod a (•<(/■ i7i(' (French of course, and iironounced
in luiglish "calash '). The body of this machine is
suspended from stout leather straps, somewhat in the
style of the old English post cha se. It cairies two
persons, lie-il'S the driver, wlio sits on an uncomfort-
ablo front sea; by himself. In susiiendiiig the body on
leather springs, tlie inventor of t'le apparatus no (loubt
had in view the execrable roads ever which it was
intended to run. Ilut whether leither has any advantage
over steel in (,>uobec is questionable. All I can say is
that, by tho time wo had got clear of the city and
crossed the bridge over the Charles iUver— a distance of
perhaps two miles — both my companion and

Ir^-lF^

myself were aa sore as if we bad bean bdaten.
The roughness of the streets was of two kinds. In
the upper part ot the city the roads were rocky, in the
lower part bojjgy- Of th« former I have already said
something, but tlie latter have equal claims on my
attention. The streets in the lower and more level
regions, then, were plentifully furnished with un-
fathomed holes full of black mud, precisely like the
bad places in a Somersetshiru " drove." I have said
they were unfathomed, and so they vfeTe—bn me ; for
I certainly did not alight and drop a plumb-line into
their depths ; hut I do not wish it to be sui)posed that I
declare the holes unfathomable— quite another thing.
At every yard or two of distance, one wheel of our
extremely lively vehicle went down into the unfathomed
depths, and I was forthwitli o:\nnoned against my com-
panion, or he against me, with a force which threatened
mutual annihilation. Hefore the rocking of the calash
had had time to subside, the road suddenly dropped
out from under the other wheel, and he who had
just before been the target became the projectile,
and was in his turn hurled against his neigh-
bour. As for our driver, no doubt his joints
had all been dislocated and his muscles ren-
dered insensible to further bruising yeara ago ; and
as he was working " by the piece," he rattled away as
heedlessly as if he were on the smoothest of asphalte.
AVe had at last to insist on his driving more slowly and
keeping a sharp look-out for pitfalls ; and we declared
we must get out if he did not. But there were ups as
well as downs. The streets are so bad that crossings
for foot passengers have to be provided at every corner.
These crossings are of wood, much rounded in the
centre to allow the rain and mud to run off ;
and where the streets are very badly worn,
they stand up above the surface like one-half of
a long barrel. Driving over numerous crossings of this
sort was bad enough ; but the half barrels had this
advantage over the isolated pitfalls, that they jerked
both wheels up and let them down at the same
moment, and thus saved the mutual cannon iding
whicli I have already described. Regarded as a whole,
that ride of two miles or thereabouts was so bad that,
if I were an imaginative writer instead of the most
prosaic and matter of-fact scribe, I should most certainly
declare that our recent luncheons were shaken down
into our boots, our teeth out of our heads (a not
improbable event in the case of what the Americans
call "store teeth"), and ourselves out of our clothes.

But the country highway board, or whoever the ro.id
authorities may be just outside of Quebec, disc' arge
their duties infinitely more efficiently than the city
people. As soon as we crossed the Charles River bridge,
we were on a decent road, and the ride thence to the
falls was a very pleasant one. The trim, comfortable-
looking wooden houses of the Canadian-French agricul-
turists stud both sides of the road all the way. There
are few signs of actual wealth to be seen ; but then the
signs of abject poverty are at least equally few. The
people are apparently a steady-going race, content to
jog on as their fathers jogged, and not caring much for
any new-fangled notions either in the way of scientific
farming or of religion. Those of them who are not
engaged in agriculture are employed in lumbering
operations— that is, in bringing timber down from the
forests, cutting it up into " lumber " (planks), and ship-

Fiing it to distant parts. There are some very extensive
umbering establishments close to the falls.

These Falls of Montmorenoi are wondrously beauti-
ful. The stream is only about 50 feet in width, b«t it

falls from a height of 250 feet, and the dashing of the
water against the rocks gives it the appearance of a
torrent of milk. A few hundred yards from the foot of
the full, the stream is lost in the mighty mass of the
St. Lawrence. A series of fli;.;hts of wootlen steps,
with resting places at each stage, enables tlie visitor
from above to descend to a splendid point of
view near the bottom, and immediately in front of
the fall. Tliis platform is usually drenched with the
mist-like spray from t'e fall, and the visitor who in-
tends to descend would do well to carry a m ickintosh
with him. There is another thing he should remember
if he happen to be a " weight-carrier " or at all short in
the winil— that if he goes down, he has to come up
again. I can )>ersonally vouch for the fact that coming
up those enilles< ladders is no joke on a blazing day. It
is, however, necessary to go down in order to realize
the height of the fall. The guidebook-! .say it is 'J.")0
feet, Tho'-e who do not go down are very likely to
declare that to be a fib. Those who do go down (and
come up again) know and feel it to be the truth, if not
something less. Unfortunately, this beautiful fall lias
fallen into the hands of private "peculators, who levy a
toll on all visitors. I should be dispos-d to spill a little
ink over these people, or rather over the folly which has
allowed them to secure possession, were it not that I
have bigger game of the same species awaiting me at
Niagara. I must reserve myself till I get there, for I
shall then require the a'd of all the strong things in my
limited vocabulary.

The drive back from the falls to Queliec was one of
the most charming of all my American experiences.
The city, clustering around and clambering over its
precipitous central seat, just as Kdinburgh surrounds
and covers its Castle Kock, stood up before us, calm and
queenly, its tin roofs glistening in the sunshine. We
were too far olf to hear the noises of its streets, or to
see the naked rock and the wretched (piagmire of its
thoroughfares. 'Twas distance that lent enchantment
to the view, but the enchantment was very complete
whik it lasteil. The outline of every building within the
range of vision stood out as clear and well-defined
as if we were only a mile off, instead "f six or eight
miles. I felt disposed to ask whether the French who
first settled the district had brought with them that
marvellous transparency of atmosphere for which, at
certain seasons, the neighbourhood of Paris is famed ;
for I have never seen anything so like that clear vision
of Quebec as the views I have sometimes had of the
French capital from the windmill of Montmartre, the
terrace of the ruined chateau of St. Cloud, and the
heights of Menilmontant.

But see, here is the Charles River again, and here,
too, is the end of the decent bit of country road. And
now for the second edition of Purgatory. But I for-
bear — mainly out of consideration for the sharer of my
perils and my sufferings, who may possibly see these
lines, and may not desire the pain of going through his
trying experiences, even in imagination, a second time
within a few minutes. Behold us, then, safe back in
the dining-room of the .St. Louis Hotel, replacing, as
fast as tht. waiters and the flies will let us, the material
which our urive has (figuratively) shaken down into our
boots.

Excursion Parties is thk Way,

Those eminent excursion and tourist agents— Messrs.
Cook, Mr. Gaze, Mr. Caygill, and the rest— have their
counterparts on the other side of the Atlantic, and the
Americans are "Cooked " about their vast continent on
a scale becoming their eminence in all that is big.

■^
^

During the holiday stngon, the trains, the steamers,
i\n(l the hotcU are full of these huRe truvelliiiii \):(rtit'H,
nnil in their presence the individual traveller is some-
times a little lost 8i^;ht of unle s he takes ci\re to as ert
himself. There were two such paitios in Quetiec when
we were there. One of them, l.a lin,', I think, from
I'hiladelphia, were mostly youn;; people of
both sexes, connected witii some religious
body. They had secured a great many of
the best rooms at our hotel ; and when Sun-
day evening came, they filled the lar;,'e driwing-room to
overflowing. There were some guo I sinijers among
them, and the-;e treated all who could get within ear-
shot of the drawing-room doors to an excellent im-
promptu sacred concert. Li^teninij to the charmin.^
voices of some of the lady vocalists, I was disposed to
forgive and foiget my buiishment to a rather po )r bed-
room on the toi>-Hoor. Uiit we found next morning,
on going, in what we thought good time, to secure
"staterooms'" on boanl the evening boat for Mon-
treal, that the conductor of this party had forestalled
ui, and seemed every good roam in the boat ; and I
certainly did then wish the conductor and his wiiole
party in another and a better nlace. (Xo harm, I hope,
in so benevolent a wish as that.) It was, liowever, a
case of Hobson"8 choice. AV'e had to take the excursion
party's leavings, or leave their leavings ; and as it was
necessary we should push on, and it was part of our
plan to stick to the river as long as possible, we accepted
the best berths we could get. When the time came for
embarking, we hired a vehicle to convey our baggage
down to the (juay, but we took very good care not
again to trust ourselves to ride down Mountan Hill
Street.

A steamer runs each way between (Juebec and Mon-
treal every night. These steamers start about five in
the afternoDn, and reach their destinations early in tiie
morning. I shall have a little to say about these splendid
boats further on. I wish first to supply some account
of one of my fellow-passengers. This I will give in the
letter form in which I wrote it for a Michigan news-
paper while the circumstances were fresh in my memory.
Here it is : —

A Prokessok ok thk Akt and Science of

COKIU-'I'TION.

"Sir, — I am an English journalist on my travels; and,
being deeply interested in whatever concerns the public
and national life of Canada and the States, I am doing
my best to keep my eyes and e irsopentoall that appears
to have a bearing on these great s ibjects.

" I landed at (Quebec from the Pari.-!i'U) on the 1 Ith
inst. ; and on my way from Quebec to Montreal by boat,
I met with so remarkable a political phenomenon, that
I am anxious to photograph it while its features are
still fresh in my memory. I call the phenomenon 'it,'
but it was really a ' he,' being no less than a mem-
ber of the Dominion House of Commons. This i)er-
son (I do not care to soil the word ' gentle-
man ' by applying it to him) was a some-
what elderly man, who told me he was a manufacturei
of wood pulp, and represented a county or district
somewhere down by the Saguinay Hiver. He did not
give me his name, but I heard him referred to by a name
whichsounded tome 8omewhatlil<e Seymour. This, prob-
ably, is not the correct spelling of the word, whatever
the pronun::iation may be ; for he wai evidently of
French extraction, like many of his constituents. He
spoke English badly ; and even his efforts to swear in
our noble language (which he made about once n minute

on an average) were such ni would have provoke<l tha
derision of a liritish rough. He could not get beyond
• Ba Gad I ' and ' Dam ! ' but one or other of these
expressions was somehow introduced into every second
senten e.

" Hut it is not to his French origin, or even to his per-
severing attempts to swear in English, that I wish to
call attention. It was neither of these tilings which
constitu'ed him a phenomenon. What struck me wich
amazement was this man's cool, cynical, ostentatious
avowal of belief in the universality and omnipotence of
political corruption. His creed, beautifully short and
simple, was t.iis :— 'Every man has his price ; ' and he
did not hesitate to ailmitthat he himself went into the
market, on behalf of his party, whenever it
appeared to him necessary so to do. His
party was that of the existing Government
— the party of which Sir J. A. Mac Donald is the lio.id,
and which lias given to Canada tlie more than doubtful
blessing of a protective tariff. On the blessings flow-
ing from the new 'national policy,' on the smart
manner in which his party had dished tieir opponents
by adopting that policy, on the stupidity and incapacity
of Blake and the ' Grits ' generally, and o<t his
determination to uphold the existing Admmistration
by all and any means, my fellow-traveller dilated by
the hour, in such English as he could command, and
with the constant aid of such oaths and expletives as
he had m.astered.

" He told me among other things that he was the con-
tractor for the new I'rovincial Parliamentary buildings
at (Quebec, and he hinted pretty plainly that he had
found the contract useful as a means of ' influencing '
his constituents. He assured me, moreover, that his
son was a Government surveyor or engineer ; and that
as he (the son) had, in his otHcial capacity, the power to
cause a good deal of money to be spent among his
father's constituents, he (the father) had a very firm
hold upon them, and was accustomed to secure
his election without the smallest trouble. He
said, indeed, that in the event of his own
retirement from Parliament, the electors would un-
doubtedly manifest their gratitude by electing his son
to the vacant seat. With reference to his large
Government contract at (.Quebec, this exomplary M.l'.
said he had a claim against the Province of GU,OUi) or
70,000 dollars, for 'extras,' and he remarked signifi-
•antly that the Government could not say ' No ' to
him. He assured me, further, that he had been so use-
ful a man to his own party, that he had established his
claim to a Senatorship, and he venture! to assert that
he had only to ask for a seat in the upper House of the
Legislature to get it.

'■ A young man of Montreal, who was evidently a seri-
ous politician belonging to the ' Cirit ' (Heform and Free
Trade) paicy, listened to the greater part of our con-
versation with much interest and, at times, with un-
disguised disgust. At last, when the M. P. was talking
most unblushingly about his .success in buying i)eople,
this young man found it impossible to restrain himself.
Addressing the old m m in a cone of what seemed most
natural indignation, lie said :

" ' You are wrong, sir. Men are not so universally
corrupt as you suppose. They are n t all to be bought.
I am an elector myself, and I defy you to buy me,
even if you were to ofl^er me 10,000 or 100,000 dollars.'

" The cynical laugh with which the hoary old political
adventurer received this outburst was a thing which I
shall remember, and remember with a sensation of dis-
gust, for many a day.

( !

i^-T

;ji

ly I

"'Hal hft!' ho cried : 'Those are (exi)letive) fine
word.1. It is a very cheap virtue to offer your ftooiis
when thoyiue not watited, Hut just wait till wo want
thorn I 1 know (exiilitivo) well tlint fellows who t dk
lii<e you mo nlwuys tho clle:^l)o^t to buy whin the time
coines.'

" The ^Fontical man made no further attemi)t to argue
with HO indecent a professor of the art of conuption ;
but the latter turned to ino and remaiked that wliat ho
liail Slid was true— that politics all round consisted
simply of 'tlio simo (expletive) old ^amo,' and tliat in
playiiif; that jjame, as he confessed he havl always done,
ho was merely doini; what o.erylio ly else did.

"Some time afterwards tho Montreal 'Grit' told
me, in tiie liearini; of the .M.l'., that tho grossest cor-
ruption undoubteilly prevailed in some of the oonstitu-
enuies in tlie nei^^hliourhooil of (,)uel)eL', and ho c.ted a,
particular case in which the dominiut jiirty was un'ler-
stood to have can led an election at a cost of 10,0 M)
dollars. 'I'he old le;;islator listened to this story with

tierfect coolneus and jiatience, and at its close he again
lurst out in one of his cynical fits of nierriuieut, and
said :

" ' Wrong again, young man 1 The cost was only
.'>,000 doUirs, and I drew the clio [ue for tho money.'

"He subse luently assured mo that all was fish that
came to his net, inasmu h as he wa-t accustomed to buy
up opposition journals as well as opposition and neutral
votes. He had, ho said, bou;^ht up two or three news-
papers that were in his way, and he added that he still
had the machinery of one or two of them stowed away
in a safe place, ready for use whenever lie might find it
desirable to set up an organ to expre-is his own lofty
and enlightened views.

" I was so nstoni-hed at this man's shameless confes-
sions and cynical creed, that I could find little to say at
the moment, further than to express a belief that
things were not nearly so black as he had painted them.
His assertions may, of course, be untrue. I, being a
stranger, have no means of testing their truth. If thoy
are false, the author of the falseliood appears t ) me to
be none the loss a phenomenon on that; ac ount ; for
it is to mo almost inconceivable th it a man
should affect a shameless cynicism and an utter
political dishonesty which are, in reality, foreign to his
character, Tlie most reasonable anil charitable con-
clusion api)ears to me to be that this man jjaiuted him-
self with tolerable accuracy, while he grossly maligned
tho m iss of the Canadian people. I'eing himself utterly
destitute of political i)rinciple, he had, to use an I'higlish
metaphor, ' measured other people's corn with his own
bushel,' and attributed to .all his countrjmen the
political vices which he had allowed to master
his own conduct. I am no blind optimist ; but I
utterly refuse to believe, on tho evidence oi^ a man
who himself revels in corr'ui)tion, and then boasts of it,
that the whole Canadian people are politically corrupt.
'J'hey have, I think, allowed themselves to be misled
into the ado|)tion of a protectionist policy, but I have
no doubt whatever that they will in due time wake
up to the gravity of their mistake. ISIeantime, it is
both the duty and the interest of all decent Grits and
National Policy men alike to do all in their power to
rescue their Legislature from the disgr.ice which must
inevit d>ly rest upon it so long as it contains men of
the stamp of my fellow-voyager from Quebec to
Montreal on the night of July Kith. C. C.

"Cass City, July 31."

The M.r.'s Little Mokal stou\.

I omitted to tell in tho foregoing letter a story which
the hoary old sinner told mo in illustration of his
genius for practical joking. Ho was himself nominally
a Catholic, but I suspect that his real creed was not a
very long one. Anyhow, ho regarded Sun lay (as most
French Catliolics do, whether tiiey live in I''rance or in
Canada) as a suitable day foi' anything in tho shape of
sport or amusement. This by way of preface. Now
for his story. He had recently, lie said, a Protestant
gentleman of iMontreal staying at his house
among other visitors. This gentleman arrived on
a Saturday, and was duly informed that ar-
rangements had been made for some grand game (I
forget now exactly what) to bo played next day
(Sunday). He was invited to join, but declined, on tho
ground that ho was nut accustomed to spend his Sun-
days in such a fa-hion. His Sabl.atar anisni was,
however, of a sterner i|Uality tiian his Temperance
principles; for oa the Saturday evening his hospitable
host, who had well plied him with liquor, had to see
him carried to bed, dead drunk and fa^t asleep. He
slept till the middle of Sundiy forenoon, when his
host went to his beilside, woku him, and asked him
hoiv inoi/i more di'js /(■■ intend' d to ftcfji. On demand-
ing an ex[danation of this odd i|Uestion, he was gravely
informed that he had slept about 'M hours, and
that it was already Monday forenoon. He rose
and dressed ; and, being told that the amusements
of the previous day were to l)e continued, he
consented to join in them. It was not until
thj fun and the day were both over that he was duly
informo'l, amid the iioistorous mirth of his host and
the other guests, that ho had devoted the whole of the
Sabbath to amusement. How the I'rotestant
Sabliatarian Ijoked, and what he said, wlien ho learnt
how ho had been befooled, my informant did not say ;
but I shall never forget the keen relish with which my
fellow-passenger told the story, or tlie boisterous
laughter to which his own recital of the circumstances
moved him. Ho evidently regarded tho alfair as the
very perfection of a joke. Cert duly, no moralist can
defend the host's sh ire in the business ; but, on tho
other hand, it is not very easy to pump u)) much
sympathy for his drunken Sabbatarian visitor. I should
say that Catholic host and Protestant visitor were about
eijually worthy of each other.

TiiK QcEBiX' ASM) Montreal Steamboat.^.

The steamer on which I made the acquaintance of
the corrupt and cynical M.V. was a fair specimen of
tho fine vessels which navigate tho rivers and lakes of
America. 1 have never seen anything like them in
Euro[)e. Some of the famous ple.isure boats on the
Clyde will iirobably accommodate more passengers ;
but then they are adapted id day passages only, and
provide no sleeping accommodation whatever. iJut the
American boats, like the American trains, traverse
suih vast distances that they have to provide for both
day and night.

iSlost of the American river boats are still propelled
by means of paddle wheels, although on the ocean the
wheel has been almost universally banished in favour of
tho more compact and economical screw. IJut the
chief peculiarity of the river boats is that they are
driven by a single beam engine, placed in tho very
centre of the vessel. AVhen an Englishman sees for
the first time the huge arms of the beam swaying up
and down at a great height above the deck, he is apt to

•A3

tory which
ion of his
noinini\llv
was not a
ly (as most
lanco or in
10 shapo of
face. Now
I'lotostnnt
his house
nrrivpd on
that 111-
u\ game (I
1 next (lay
inod, on tlio
1(1 his 8un-
Miisni wan,
roinpcranco
8 hospitable
hail to se(3
nsh^c|i. He
I, when his
I asked him
On demand-
was gravely
houi'.s, and
He rose
amusements
lUiimed, he
not until
he was duly
lis host and
whole of the
Trotestant
sn ho learnt
lid not say ;
;h which my
boisteious
rcumstancus
alfaii' as the
moralist can
but, on the
up u]) much
tor. I should
n' were about

HBOATS.

[uaintance of
specimen of
and laltes of
ike them in
boats on the
passengers ;
es only, and
er. liut the
ins, traverse

vide for both

till propelled
he ocean the
I in favour of
but the
hat they are
in tho very
man sees for
swaying up
he is apt to

think the arrangement clumay and not by any means
graceful. Appearances apart, there is no doubt some
practical reason why the American steamboat builders
adhere to this peculiar arrangement, but I have never
heard what that reason is,

One disadvantage attending this arrangement is that
it always spoils tho saloon of the boat. In the case, for
instance, of our Cjuebec and Montreal boat, tho saloon
would have been much finer and more striking than it
was, but for the large space abstracted from its very
centre by the engine. Not that anybody unacituuinted
with tho construction of the boat would have guessed
that the engine was there. All that was visible was a
partitioned space, occupying the whole width of the
saloon except a narrow passage on each side. This par-
tition was rendered as sightly as possible by means of
moulded panels and handsome mirrors ; but the obstruc-
tion was there, and the tine room sutfercd accordingly.

The saloon, thus qut almost into two by the engine
space, was an apartment nearly as long as the boat and
probably nearly 20 feet high. It was lit entirely from
the roof, being lined completely on both sides by two
tiers or storeys of " state rooms." (Grand name for a
little thing again.) Tlie upper tier was reached by
means of wide and handsome staircases adjoining tho
engine space, and by galleries running along both
sides of the saloon. The saloon itself was
handsomely carpeted, and furnished in drawing-
room style with tables, easy chairs, lounges, and
hassocks, in quite a luxurious fashion. At sunset, the
room was beautifully lighted by means of numerous
lamps suspended from the roof. Each end of the
saloon opened upon a small covered deck, amply pro-
vided with chairs ; and it was as we sat on the stern
deck, enjoying the coolness of the evening and the beauty
of the river scenery, that the Canadian JM.l'. unfolded
to me his peculiar code of etliics.

The "state-rooms " were the usual diminutive cabins,
containing as a rule two berths each. I strongly
advise any of ray readers who may happen to find them-
selves on board a boat of this kind to take possession
of one of the comfortable lounges in tlie open saloon
and sleep there, rather than turn into a tiny " state-
room " with a stranger. If the boat is not crowded,
and you can secure a cabin to yourself, well and good —
a cabin accommodates one comfortably enough ; but
for my own part I very much jirefer a sofa in the
saloon to one-half of a cupboard, shared with a
passenger whom I never saw before and may never see
again— a man who may be a Garfield, but who may
possibly be a Guiteau, or (worse !) an O'Donovan Kossa ;
who may be a decent person of unobjectionable habits,
but who may, on the other hand, chew continuously and
spit copiously.

The greater part of our run from Quebec to JMontreal
(180 miles) was made during the night, and we there-
fore saw little of the river scenery. The view back-
ward on leaving Quebec, which we did see, is very tine.
The upper city and the Citadel, crowning the highest
point of the rocky promontory, stood up majestically
tlirough the clear evening air, and remained in view an
incredibly long time. The approach to Montreal was
equally interesting. The eyes of all strangers were
first strained to catch a view of that "eighth wonder
of the world," the Victoria Bridge. The busy factories,
the fine public buildings, the graceful spires, the
cr(>wded wharves, and, behind all, the abrupt mountain
height from which the city took its name, caused us at
ta« outset to form a favourable opinioa of the pros-

perity, the beauty, and the ploturesquenesi of the city.
This impression we retained, with few qualifications,
after making the acqnaintan 'e of the place.

We walked from the boat to the Wndsor Hotel— a
longer and hotter journey than we bargained for, and
by the time we reached tiiere, wo were (not to put too
fine a point on it) ready for breakfast. Uavin;; taken
possession of the bed-rooms allotted to us, wo were shown
into a dining-room, which, for si/e, for tho beauty and
costliness of its decorations, and for generally attractive
a|>pearance, surp.issed anything we subse(|ueiitly met
with in any part of the country (either in Canada or the
States). As the Windsor Hotel is admittedly one of
the tinest, if not the tinest, hotel on tlie continent, and
as it is a fair type of tirst-class American hotels, per-
haps I may as well, before proceeding further, endea-
vour to give some idea of this huge and splendid
building.

A GKK.\T AMEKtt'AN HOTKL.

AVhen I say that the Windsor at Montreal is possibly
the finest hotel on tiio American Continent, I am not
thinking of mere si/o, or of any other single qualifica-
tion. 1 speak of it as a whole. There are inucli larger
hotels in the United States, the Talaco at .Saii
Kranci.sco, with its I.IJOO beds, being the largest of all.
There are others which in some special feature jirobably
surpass tho Windsor. But I have been at the Palmer
House, Chicago ; the Palace, San Francisco ; ami the Fifth
Avenue, New York, admittedly three of the grandest
hotels in the States, and l am disposed to think that,
regarded as a whole, the Windsor is at least e(iual to any
one of them. The cost of the building, with its furni-
ture and decorations, amounted to millions of dollars.
'Ihe extent and costliness of tlie decorations of certain
places of public resort in America aro indeed amazing,
regarded from the sober standpoint of an Knglisbman.
One of my fellow-passengers on my return voyage from
New York was a young English artist, in the employ of
a famous lioston firm, who was to be married the day
after his arrival in Liverpool, and to sail with his wife
for Boston next day. He told me that, among other
first-class " jobs " he had in hand, was tho decoration
of a large new dining-room in a famous restaurant at
New York ; and he assured me that his instructions
were to spend 120,000 dollars on that one room. That
may, of course, have been an exaggeration ; but after
having seen tlie (liiiing-rooiii of the Windsor, and some-
what similar places elsewhere, I feel under no actual
necessity to doubt my fellow passenger's fi;,ures.

The Windsor Hotel stands on an elevated site, at the
corner of a large open space called Dominion S(iuare.
It was in this square, by the way, that the people of
Montreal built their grand ice palace and held their
" ice carnival " last winter. Similar high jinks are in
progress there again this year. The ice palace, lit with
the electric light, is said to be indescribably beautiful.
The Governor-General (Lord Lansdowne) and his lady
have come dc "n from the capital exi)ressly to see the
fun and to hjlj) in it. When the time comes to pull
down the "palace," a large part of the material is
stowed away in the ice vaults of the Windsor for sum-
mer use.

The Windsor, like most other American hotels, has
two visitors' entrances, one of which is intended spejially
for parties comprising ladies, who are thus enaliled to
reach the staircase or elevator without coming in con-
tact with the smoking, expectorating groups which aro
generally scattered about the main hall. The elevator,

or, ai we call it, the lift, ii an institution in evflry
American hotel of any ini|)ortance. The holKhts of the
buildinga are often bo great, that it would be impossible
to induce guests to take rooms on the upper tloors if they
were compelled to walk upstairs whenever they wanted
to get to them. In some of the larger hotels, there are
two elevatois, one or other of which is going nit<ht and
day. There is room for ton or a dozen pernons to sit or
■tand in some of them ; and as they are worked by
powerful en;;ines or hydraulic pressure, the number
makes no difference to the speed. An attendant sits or
stands in the corner of the little moveable room, and
from morning to night, or from night to morning,
he is eternally oscillating between earth and heaven,
carrying hundreds up and bringing as many down
hourly. What grievous sin the poor wretch
has committed, that he should be doomed to this
monotonous form of penal servitude, I have never been
able to make out. Yet he is sometimes merry enough,
ohattini; freely with his acquaintances among the
regular patrons of the hotel, and chatting the precocious
resident children who make him carry them up and
down a dozen times a day. For there are children
resilient in the hotels, sometimes for years together.
Many rich people, who are too indolent to contend with
tlje domestic dilhculties of a country where the great ser-
vant question is very much greater than it is in England,
are accustomed to solve the problem by simply shutting
up their houses and betaking themselves, chilitienand all,
to some hotel. There they often remain permanently.
It is not an uncommon thing to see a haudpoms peram-
bulator, containing a baby and attended by a fashion-
able young-lady nurse, pushed into the hall of a great
hotel, through the crowd of loungers which hangs about
the door. The baby is jirobably a native of and resident
in the house ; and when you sit down to dinner, you
may perhaps find its mother, ablaze with jewellery,
■itting at the next table to your own, with a hand-
Bomely-dressed child on each side of her.

The hall of an American hotel is a general lounging
pliice, where the guests of the house, their local friends,
and apparently the well-dressed public at large, are at
liberty to loaf about, to smoke (and spit) to their hearts'
content. In the evening, ttie scene is an animated one,
for outsiders then drop in to have a chat with any
Ruests they may happen to know. The groups
of rocking and other chairs which are ..oattered
round the pillars and elsdwhere are then
full, and scores, sometimes hundreds, of loungers
are standing or sauntering about the spacious
floor. In some of the great hotels in busy cities, a good
deal of business is said to be done in this fashion. The
amount of smoking everlastingly going on is amazing,
but there is, as a rule, wonderfully little drinking.
The bar is certainly a far less important feature of a
hotel than it is in England. Indeed, the bar is
sometimes thrust away into an obscure corner
where it is by no means easy to find it.
A visitor who does not expressly ask for
it might sometimes be in the house for a week without
seeing it. Not unfrequently, it opens into the billiard-
room. This was the case at the Windsor ; and in this
connection I may remp^rk that a single room at that
hotel contained 14 splendid billiard tables. This fact
will give some idea of the scale on which the place is
laid out. But even when many scores of persons were
lounging about in the hall or billiard-room, it was rarely
that more than one or two were to be seen at the bar ;
and those who w«r« there wereioinetimes oastomers for

iced water, which the barman dispense'* gratia to all
comers. Iced water is on draught m the hall also.

The hall of the AVindsor is, I think, the tinest I saw
anywhere. It covers an unusually large area, and its

Caving and pillars are of beautiful marble. It contains,
esides the manager's and clerks' office, a large stall
for the sale of newspapers, books, clears, &o. ; a branch
telegraph othce, from which messages are forwarded to
any part of the world ; a railroad ticket office,
whore an attendant clerk will book you to any
town on the continent ; a telephone ofiBce,
whence a conversation may be held with any person
in the city or neighbourhood who happens to be a sub-
scriber to the local telephone exchange. A whole army
of porters (white and black), under the command of a
"boss " porter of immense importance, is always wait-
ing in a corner of the hall, ready to respond in a
moment to a call from the desk or from a visitor. Just
inside the chief entrance there is a carriage office, where
you may hire any kind of vehicle to which your taste in-
clines. Behind the counter of the manager's office
is an immense safe, in which visitors may deposit their
valuables for safe keeping. There is also a large case of
very narrow pigeon-holes, one for every room in the
house, and bearingnumbers corresponding to those of the
rooms. The numbered key of the room, when not in
use, is placed in its own hole, and any letters received
for the occupant of the room to which the key belongs
are put with it. Every visitor can, therefore, see at a
glance, without troubling anybody, whether the post
has brought him anything. Visitors like to carry their
keys about in their pockets, instead of handing them
in at the office every time they come downstairs. As
they sometimes carry them away altogether, the hotel
proprietors make the keys as awkward to pocket as
possible. The keys at the Windsor, for instance, are
very small in themselves, but they have hanging from
them a long, heavy, fiat piece of metal, through which
the key is fixed, in such a way that the two are bound
to be always at right-angles with each other, and there-
fore to constitute a very awkward thing to put into
one's pocket,

I have already spoken of the dining-room of the
Windsor, and must content myself with saying,
further, that the whole circuit of its pavilion-shaped
ceiling is divided into panels, and each panel contains
a charming painting, by a local artist of note, of some
English building or ffcene, the Queen's palaces at
Windsor, Osbomo, ail Balmoral being among the
most striking subjects. The wide staircase is of white
marble through' it , and the immense corridor or
ante-room on the first floor, leading to the dining-
room, is covered from end to end with the richest
Wilton or Turkey carpet, on which the groups ot
visitors move about noiselessly. A grand pianoforte
of the finest quality and handsomest appearance stands
in the middle of this room ; and couches, settees,
and easy chairs, sumptuously upholstered, are
placed in all convenient spots. All that the decorative
plasterer, painter, and gilder could do, with unlimited
material at the'.r command, has been done to render this
ante-room, the dining-room, and the other public rooms
on the first floor, models of beauty and luxury.

Eating and drinking are going on nearly all day in
large hotels like the Windsor. Arrive when you will,
some meal or other is "on." Breakfast is served till
nearly noon, and by the time the supply of breakfast is
turned off for the day, lunch is turned on. Of dinners there
are often two— an early one and a late one, and the late

a,")

I to all
Iso.
it I law

and iU
ontaina,
rf;e stall
i branch
arded to
t oBioe,

to any
ofiBce,
y peraon
be a Bub<
ole army
land of a
ays wait-
snd in a
tor. Just
ce, where
r taste in-
ar's office
losit their
go oase of
jm in the
lose of the
in not in
I received
ly belongs
, («ee at a

the post
jarry their
ling them
tairs. As

the hotel

pocket as
stance, are

ging from
dgh which

are bound

and there-
put into

om of the
bh saying,
ion-shaped
el contains
te, of some
palaces at
imong the
is of white
orridor or
ho dining-
the richest
groups ot
pianoforte
ance stands
Bs, settees,
tered, are
a decorative
h unlimited
render this
ublio rooms
iry.
all day in
, you will,
served till
breakfast is
iinnert there
and the late

one is nearly ready by the time the early one in over.
After dinner, a lighter repast, which may be called
either tea or nupper, is kept going till a late hour. In
lome hotels, visituri m»y, if they like, put up on the
English plan and be charged h Hxed sum for enoh meal
at which they are present ; but the vast majority pre-
ifer the American plan and pay so much per
day. The charge at the Windior is Ave
dullars per day. This sum covers every tliin;;
except " tips." It is common enough to boar it said
that " tips " are unknown in Anieric.i. This st:ttoment
is utterly unfounded. There is, as I hnve said, no
necessity for tipping on the railways, except in the
single case of the Pullmiin car attendants ; but in
hotels the vicious English syatetn has made very con-
siderable way, although as yet the blackmail is not
levied so systematically and shameles'ily as it is on this
side. It is, however, a very common thing for a person
who is likely to be at a hotel for (several days
to tip one of the waiters well at the start ;
and, American human nature being very much like the
English article, the payer of such a bribe may count
with confidence on being specially well looked after .t
every meal. You are certainly never asked to "remem-
ber the waiter," althoujth I have been asked to "remem-
ber the porter ;" but there is bej^inning to be a t icit
understanding between travellei.f an.l hotel servants,
and I fear that before very long the nuisance will
assume its English phase.

I have said that the inclusive charge at the Windsor is
5 dollars (21s) per day, and I met with no higher charge
in any hotel I entered. My payments ranged, indeed,
from 2^ to 6 dollars, the average being probably 4 dollars.
Judged by the cost of other things, and taking into
account the fine accommodation provided and the
immense capital invested in the hotel buildings, these
charges can hardly be called excessive. I was anxious
to see somj of the most famous hotels, orl mi^ht easily
have reduced my average to about 3 dollars per day by
going to second-class houses.

I Pay Bar.num a Compllment.

" The Greatest Show on Earth " was in Montreal
while I was there, and the names of Barnum anc Jumbo
were staring in enormous letters from every de id wall
and hoarding. It is quite in accordance with B .mum's
proverbial modesty and regard for truth that L' should
contrast his show with similar concerns in </ s world
only. Not knowing what the circuses a'.d mena-
geries in Venus, Jupiter, and the fixed stars may be
like, he cautiously and simply claims to have the largest
" on Earth ;" and we may be certain that he would
not have ventured even so far as this, had he not first
lent asents to the North Pole, the centre of the ''Dark
Continent," and the mysterious interior of China, to
make perfectly sure that none of them possess an estab-
lishment large enough to fill three Ions railway trains.
Having thus raked the whole surface of the planet with
a small-tooth comb and found nothing com-
parable to his own concern, he can talk
about the " greatest show on Earth " with-
out his conscience turning a hair. I met with the
big show further on, where I bad a better opportunity
of judging of its vast proportions, and shall not say
more about it in this connection ; but this is the pro-
per place to tell a little story about Barnum himself,
who, uaknowQ to me, was staying at the Windsor. It
happened that, on the day of our arrival at Montreal,
poor little Tom Thnmb died. Now, as roost people

know, Barnum and tho famous dwarf did a good
deal of "business" together when the latter
first came out. Harnum, indeed, cleared large
sums by exhibiting the little man. The showman no
sojnor heiird of the dvarf's death than he telegraphed
to the tiny widow a message full of sympathy and piety ;
and. mysteriously enough, this tele;;ram appeared in large
type in the Montreal piipers next morning, pust when
Barnum and the show needed a new and telling adver-
tisement there, I was standing in the hall of the
Windsor, with the mornini< paper in my hand,
talking to one of my fellow - passengers from
the Parisian, when my eye lighted on Harnum's tele-
gram. Turning to my compa ion, I saiii, 'Must look
here ! The old humbug is trying tho piuus dodge by
way of advertiiement this time ! " " .Sh-sh shsh I "
whispered rny companion, putting his finger on his lips
and pointing over my shoulder ; " there he stands, c'.o^se
to you ! " I glanced round, and there ho was, sure
enough, within a dozen fuet of mc, standing with his
back iialf turned towards mine. I could see enough of
his profile to be certain that it was that of the worthy
whose portrait, as large as a door, was posted all over
the city. I can hardly doubt that Barnum had hiard
every word I said, but, so far as I could see, tho look
of good humour and self satisfaction which habitually
sits on his countenance was not in the slightest degree
ruffled ; and I remarked to my companion that, as tho
Showman had written of himself as a professor of
humbug, he no doubt felt flattered rather than other-
wise at my having credited him with being smart
enough to make capital out of a pious message to a
bereaved friend. Anyhow, tlie great Barnum did not
" call me out," or manifest any desire to "make n eat "
of me, as the rough western miners are apt to thrtatsn
to do on much smaller provocation.

The City of Monthkal.

The site of Montreal rises gradually from the level
of the St. Lawrence, and the principal street;, which
are of immense length, are parallel with tiie river and
with each other. Towards the western corner of the
city, the rise b'jcomes rapid- -too rapid, ultimately, to
allow the ground to be laid out in regular streets. Tho
streets accordingly give way to handsome villas and
splendid mansions, rising one above another, and each
suriounded by its own lawns and ornamental wood*.
At last, the slope becomes too steep for dwellings
of any sort ; it is, in fact, the side of
a beautifully wooded eminence called Tho
Mountain, or Mount Royal, which rises to a height of
750 feet above the river. It is from this eminence,
whose French name is Mont Real, that ' e city takes
its name. The river frontage of Moui.. I is four miles
long, and at some points the city extends nearly two
miles inland. It is at present the largest, handsomest,
and wealthiest city in the whole of .British North
America ; but its vie;orous western rival, Toronto, bids
fair presently to run it very close in all that goes to
make a great and prosperous city.

The first European visitor to the site of Montreal was
the Frenchman Jacques Cartier, who arriveH there in
1535. In 1642 arrived the first instalment oi European
settlers, and just one century later the original Indian
name (" Hochelaga ") gave place to the French one of
" Ville Marie." This name, in due course of time, waa
replaced by the presant one when the city came into
British possession in 1761. Though Montreal was well
peopled and fortified, it was captured by the Amerioans

■■■^fT-

t'w\-<tmK\im ■ii»i

under General Montgomery, in November, 1775, and
held until tlie foUowinK summer. In 177!>, Montrenl
contained about 7,000 inhabitants. In IWil, the popula-
tion had increased to 00,S2;i. and in 18S0, to 140,747.
The commerce of Montreal is very large, as, though it
is 500 miles from the si-a, its ailvant igeous position at
the head of ship-navigation on tlie St Lawrence, and
at the foot of the great chain of improved inland
waters extending from the Lachine Canal to the western
shores of Lake Superior, has made it the chief shipping-
port of the Dominion of Canada. In 1880 its imi)ort8
were valued at 37,103,869 dols., and its exports at
30,224,904 dols. Montreal is a great manufacturing citv,
and there is scarcely a branch of trade which is not
represented there.

The public buildings and many of the private ones
are very fine, bearing testimony to the wealth as well
as tht taste of the inhabitants. The Roman Catholic
Cathedral of Notre Dame is the largest church on the
North American Continent, although I am disposed to
th'nk its capacity, like that of most public buildings, is
vastly exaggerated. The guides and guide-books aay it
will seat from 10,000 to 12,000 person.^, but 1 sh-^uklnot
care to be in it with 7,000 others. Still, a congregation
of 7,000 is an immense one, and there can be no doubt
that the bi..;ding is exceptionally large. The Cathedral
has a fine peal of bells, one single bell of which weighs
abov , 14 tons. The chief thing I remember about the
interior of the building is that it is over-decorated. The
amount of paiuting and gilding is prodigious. But even
this great church is to be surpassed by a new Catholic
cathedral whioh hasbeen begun on a site near the Windsor
Hotel. This new building is to be on the plan of St,
Peter's at Home, and will cost a vast sum of money.
When I was at iNIoiitreal, the works were suspended
owing to a temporary lack of funds. There can be no
doubt, however, that .li the money reijuired will be
forthcoming in due time ; for though Montreal is not so
exclusively Catholic as Quebec, tl e Jvomanists con-
stitute a large majority even there, and comprise among
them many wealthy people. There are several other
C'atholio churches, one of them (the .Jesuit Church in
Bleury Street) having a very fine interior.

Thr Pr-.Idstant Episcopal Cithedral (Christ Church)
harj a spire 224 feet in height, and is regarded as llie
most perfect specimen of EnL;lish-Gothic architecture in
America. The Presbyterians, Unithrians, Congreg^-
tionalists, and Methodists also have handsome churches ;
and I need hardly add, after what 1 have said about the
larj^eness of the Catholic population, that monasteries,
nunneries, and hospitals more or less associaJ^ed with
those institutions, abound. The Court House, City
Hall, Market, and principal banks are all remarkable
for their handsonu architecture. The McGill College
is a fine educational establishment, occupying a
splendid site on the slope of the Mountain. The
private residences in the same part of the city,
Duilt of a greyish limestone, are beautiful in the
oxtreme. Similar residences are found in large num-
bers on SLerbrooke Street, which is the Belgravia of
Montreal. St. Catherine and Dorchester Streets, whiv".h
are parallel with Sherbroohe, but somewhat nearer the
centre o* tue city, are also more or less fno'don.able.
It was on walking througli these handsome buburbs in
the upper part of Montreal that I was for the first
time impressed with the amazing extent to which
wealth is diffused in the New World ; but at Montreal
X WM 01^7 on th« thre.iiiold of that woild.

" What about the roads of Montreal ?' may be asked
by somebody who remembers the very iiualified praise I
bestowed on those of Quebec. Well, it must be admitted
that Montreal is in this respect a long way ?n advance
of the sister city, and to one who is fresh from Quebec
the roads at first siglit appear excellent. But
when they are compared with the streets of an
English city, they must be pronounced very bad.
They are neither so rocky as some of tuooC
at Quebec, nor so full of deep i^it-falls
as some others ; but in the matter of cleanliness
there is little to choose. Many of the streets of Montreal
are filthy in the extreme. Whether they are ever
cleaned is more thau I can say, but they look as if they
never were. And this look is not ]>eculiar to Montreal.
It is common to the majority of American cities. The
roadways of the busy streets are almost everywhere
covered with a thick coating "f black mud. The city
authorities dare not let this mud dry in the hot weather,
for then it would change to a deep layer of impalpable
dust, which the patient citizens would probably find
utterly intolerable. The authorities, therefore,
industriously water the filth morning, noon, and night,
md it is consequently seldom met with in any drier
form than that of a thick, sticky paste, while it is more
often semi-liquid. Even in the driest weather, it splashes
over the kerb-stones, over the boots of j)edestrians,
over the spider-like wheels of the private vehicles, up
the telegraph poles, and, where the sidewalks are nar-
row, far up the walls of handsome business buildings
ami palatial hotels. The tram-car rails, which are
usually very badly laid and maintained, are very often
completely covered with the black, sticky paste, which
is scjueezcf' s side for a moment as a car ))asses and then
lazily f' .vsback till it finds its former level. Except at the
street co: ners, where paved crossings are maintained in
a more or less decent state, it is often impossible, even
in the liottest weather, to cross the roadway without
gcttir.g ankle-deep in the sooty slime. "But why don't
they take the mud away, instead of everlastingly
watering it ?"' somebody asks. I, also, have often asked
the same question, and I am still wait.iiiBr for .•\n answer.

The foregoing description applies fairly enough to
many of thestree'-s of Montreal, but not to all of them,
for an attempt is certainly made in some of the fashion-
able suburban roads lo keep things a little
more decent. But why all parts of a great
and rich city should not be kept clean is a question
which I cannot answer. There must be municipal cor-
ruption or municipal mism magement on a grand scale,
wherever the first duties of a city government are
neglected in the disgraceful manner I have described,
But, as I remarked with reference to the streets at
Quebec, the patience and forbearance of the citizens are
inexplii able. The fault is clearly the people's own.
Somebody has said that every nation has as good a
government as it deserve.s, and the doctrine has a good
deal to say for itself. Whether it is entirely sound or
not, it cannot be doubted that every self-governed city
has as good streets as it deserves.

The Victoria Buidge.

The grandest and most impressive thing at Montrek^
apart, of course, from the natural features of the dis-
trict, is the great bridge which carries the Grand
Trunk Railway across the St. Lawrence. I remember
what a f usa was made, when I was a boy, over Stephen-
sons (then) greatest fe.'^t— the throwing of the Britannia
Bridge over the Menai JStraita for the Chester ^nd H(dy<

'■■I

■j

r be asked
d praise I
) admitted
1 advance
m Quebec
nt. But
ts of an
very bad.

of ^uuoC

•^jit-falls
jieanliness
E Montreal
r are ever
: as if they
Montreal,
ties. The
verywhere

The city
3t weather,
impalpable
bably find

therefore,
and night,

any drier
B it is more
, it splashes
)edestrians,
vehicles, up
Iks are nar-
is buildings
which are

very often
aste, which
es and then
ixceptatthe
intained in
8t>ible, even
ay without
t why don't
^erlastingly
often asked

an answer.

enough to
ill of them,
;he fashion-
a little
a great

a question
licipal oor-

rand scale,

nment are
described,
streets at

citizens are

ople's own.

as good a

lias a good
sound or

verned city

head Railway. And that was undoubtedly a great
feat in its day, 30 or 40 years ago, for the Britannia
Bridge was the first erection in which the tubular form
was adopted and subjected to a severe test on a large
scale. The test was borne successfully, and from that
time to this the Britannia Bridge has, without a
moment's interruption, formed a link in the great
highway which binds together the capital of the Empire
and the capital of Ireland. The tubular principle has
been since alopted in the construction of bridges all
over the world, but in no case has it been an diel on so
gigantic a scale as at the Victoria Bridge at ]\.i ontreal.

This wonderful erection is simply the Britannia
Bridge enormously lengthened. Instead of consi'iting
of only three spans, as does its humble mother in North
Wales, the Victoria Bridge consists of no less than 24
spans, each span forming a distinct length of tube.
The number of piers is 23, without counting the two
terminal abutments. The total length of the bridge is
!t,l'J4 feet, or more than a mile and three-(iuarters.
Fancy a Britannia Bridge nearly two miles Ion)?, and
you have some conception of what ihe Victoria Bridge
is like. The iron tube through which the trains pass is
22 feet high and 1(5 feet wide. There are three millions
of cubic feet of masonry in the piers and abutments,
and 8,000 tons of iron in the tubes. The central span is
.330 feet and the others are 242 feet each. The heiglit
of the bottom of tie tube above the summer level of the
river is CO feet in mid-stream. The whole of the work
was accomiilished between Midsummer, 18.'')4, and
Christmas, 1859. The engineer was Robert Stei)henson,
the designer of the Britannia Bridge and the son of
Oeorge Stephenson, the inventor and constructor of the
first railway locomotive w);ijh came into actual use.
Tlie fcolal cost of the bridge waii over six and a quarter
millions of dollars. It was for.nally opened w'cli much
pomp and ceremony by the I'rincfa of Wales during his
visit to America m 1800.

It cannot be s:iid that the appearance of the Victoria
Bridge is picturesque. I am afraid, indeed, that, if
Mr. Kuskin were to set eyes on it, he would be moveil
to curse it forthwith in immortal English, as defiling
and uttering spoiling a grand natural prospect. But
we are not all blessed with Mr. Huskin's eves, or with
I\Ir. Kuskin's magic power over words ; and to thnsn of
us who are common place and matter-of-fact, that long
and painfully straighl; hollow iron bcxin. resting on
numerous pillars of masonry which were uil turned out
of the same mould, is a grand triumph of civilization
and human fekiP over dead rratter and blind force.
Possibly it mars the landscape, but then it binds
together great states ; and, if you please, Mr. Kuskin,
the utilitarian view of the matter must not\o' altogether
lost sight of.

The piers of the bridge have a ery lop-sided look
which is at first very puzzlinsr 'j the stranger. This
appearance is due to the precautions which had to ie
a.iopted to protect the bridge from floating ice. The
erection of such a bridge across an ordinary river would
have been a mere matter of money, after the exjierienco
gained by Stephenson in North Wales. B^t the St.
Lawrence is not an ordinary river. It is frozen over
every winter to a depth of several feet, nnd it is, besides,
the one outlet of system of lakes in which, even if they
are never frozen over, vast quantities of ice are
regularly formed. The consequence is (hat, when the
winter first sets in, as well as when the ice breaks up in
the sp. ag, the piers of the bridge are subjected to
tremcE lous strams. I cannot do better than quote

from a work of Mr. Bras-^ey's a description of the forma-
tion and breaking up of the ico. Mr. Brassey says :—

" lee begins to form in tlio St. Lawrence in December.
Thin ice first app^^ars in quiet places, where the current is
least felt. As winter advances, ' anchor," or ground ice,
cornea down the stream in vast qtjantities. This anchor ica
appears in rapid currents, and att,\ches itself to the rocks
in the beil of the river, in llie form of a spongy substance.
Immense quantities accumulate in an inconceivably short
time, increasing until the miss Is several feet thick. A very
slight thaw, even tliat produced iiy a bright simshine at
noon, disengay;es this mass, when, rising to the surface, it
passes down the river with the current. This spec.es of ice
appears to grow only in the vicinity of rapids, or v.here the
water ha*, become aerated by the rapidity of the current.
Anchor ice sometimes accumulates at the foot of tlie rapid-
in such quantities as to form a bar acros.s the river, some
miles in extent, keeping the water several feet above tho
ordinary level. The accumulation of ico continues for
several weeks, until the river is quite full. This causes a
general risinj; of the water, until large masses float, and
moving fartlier down the river, unite with accunnilatinns
pre>'iously ^sounded, and thus form another barrier ; ' pack-
ing ' in places to a hei^'ht of "20 or liO feet. As the winter
advances, tlie lakes bec<ime frozen over. The ice then ceases
to come down, and the water in the river gradually sub-
sides, till it finds its ordinary winter level, which is some 12
feet above its lieiaht in summer. The ' ice-bridge ' or solid
field of ice across the river, becuraes formed for the winter
early in .laiuiai y. J{y the midctle of .March the sun becomes
very powerful at mid-day, and the warm heavv rains rot the
ice. The ice, when it becomes thus weakened, is easily
broken u)) by the winds, particularly at tlioso parts i;i the
lakes where, from tlie j^reat deiitli of water, they are not
completely frozen over. This ice, coining do.vn over tlio
rapids, chok'' . up the channels again, and causeu a rise of
the river, as in early winter."

In order to prevent the rush of ice, which floats down
in hug(i tlelds and piled-up masses, from injuring tho
bridge, each pier is protected by r. lorr; wedge-shapeci
cut-v.ator extendiuL,' rnanv yards up stream. These cut-
waters f,re immense mass -s '<( the most solid masonry,
running out almost to a iioint. The extreme point is
below the water ; and the ui)per ridge, which ifbevjlled
off to a sharp edge, rises gradually from the extreme
point until it merges, at a considerable height ain-ve tho
surface, in the perpendicular part of the pier— that is,
the pier proiier, which sustains the bi idge. I lielieve I
am right in saying that the extreme points of the cut-
waters are shod with iron.

Tliose who have followed thi; description will clearly
see that the i)iers themselves are completely protected
by these outlying cut-waters. If the centre of an ice
floe strikes one of the points, its momentum is not im-
mediately checked, as it would be by a straight, p-^r-
jiendicular wall. It is, on tho contrary, allowed to ex-
pend its energy gradnally in an attemi)t to run up tho
sharp, slojiing ridge of the cut-water. But it seldom or
never mounts to the top of the slope ; for, long before it
reaches that point, it either breaks up with its own
weight and drops into the stream, half on one side
and half on tho other, or it loses its balance and slips
off whole on one side. In either case, it ])asses on
under the brir'^^c, perfectly harmless. If an ico mass
misses the point but strikes the obliipie side of the cut-
water, it is gently elbowed otl' from tho line of tho
pier as the cut-water gradually widens out. In either
case, the pr.itection of tho luer is perfect, 'i'he arrange-
ment is !>. very simide one, but it is most effective.

A gl.ince at a railway !iia|> of America will show the
importance of the connection elfeotcd by this great
bridge. It is, as 1 have before remarked, tho only
bridge of any sort which crosBei the 8tt Lawrence

proper ; and it is, apart from «tcr.Tn'..«iiL», «ne only
connection between Canada and the States below
Niagara — that is, over a distance of nearly 1,000 miles.
It is, moreover, the only mil connection between the
maritime provinces of the Dominion (Nova Scotia,
New Brunswick, and Qutsbeo) on the one hand,
and the western provinces oa tho other. With-
out the Victoria Bridge, the railway system of
Canada would be like a chain with a missinc; link. Vast
as was the cost of the structure, the outlay was fully
jastifled by the importance of the connections it was
designed to supply. To Montreal the bridge has been
of special advantage, for the city has been brought by
it into direct communication with the whole of the
Province of Quebec south of the river, with all six of
the New England States, with the great States of
New York and Pennsylvania, and, indeed, with
all tho Eastern and South-eastern parts of the Union.

Round the Mountain.

The favourite drive at Montreal, t\nd one which no
visitor should miss, even if ho is in the city only a day,
is that known as "round the Mountain." The entire
drive is about ninemiles ia length, and affords oppor-
tunities of seeing Mount Royal Park, Mount Royal
Cemetery, and the superb panorama which the top of
the Mountain commands. We duly took the drivo, in
the company of a gentleman resident in the city ; but
owing to the heavy rain which poured down
pitilessly duiing the greater part of the journey,
we saw nothing of the Park, and very much less
than we wanted to see of the Cemetery. I have sel-
dom seen such tremendous and persistent rain. (Jur
driver shut up the carriage as close as possible, bul:; the
wuter found its way in in spite of all his effortj, and we
were compelled to resort to our wateri>roof3. As foe the
driver himself, he appeared to be in imminent dan:;er of
being washed otf his seat. But we had already dis-
covered that, in the matter of weather, Montreal does
nothing by halves. We had witnessed one of the
heaviest thunder-storms I had over seen in my
life. The extremes of temperature to which tho dis-
trict is subject are notorious. We were told that, on
the Sunday week before we arrived, the heat was so
territio that the inmates (all males) of certain boarding
establishments simply "lay around" the houwe all
day, attired in a sinsjle garment of the flimsiest
material. The effor' :K continuing to exist was thu only
one of which they lels capable. How the members of
mixed households survived we wore not informed. But
the weather goes just as far in the opposite diresfcion in
winter. The cold is then intense. 'I'be thermometer
freiiuently marks 40" below zero, and haa been known to
go much lower. Ears, noses, and toes have to be care-
fully protected, or tiiey are most unoeromonioudy
nipped bv Jack Frost. Winter is, however, less dreaded
than a hot summer ; skating, toboggoning. building ice
palaces, and other seasonable winter amusements being
extremely popular among all cUibses. Toboj;;{oning, I
ought perha|is to explain, is tho game of slid ng down
an ice slope, at railroad speed, seated on a sort of mmia-
ture sledge. It is an exciting amusement, notiiltogether
free from danger.

But I am digressing, and must return to the subject
with which I started, the drive round the Mountain.
It was amid the drenching rain I have very inade-
quately described that our driver, by many devious,
zigzag ways, climbed the back of tho hill and drove us
through th« Cemetery, I bad often beard oi the beauty

of Anerican cemeteries, and the little I saw of this
one f>.i Mon real prepared me somewhat for the much
larger and more beautiful ones which I visited further
on. The cemeteries that fringe our large cities covey
no idea whatever of tho last resting-places of Ameri'^aa
citizens, and those of Paris are equally unlike them. Tea
first thought which strikes one on entering an American
cemetery is that those who laid it out had an unlimited
supply of land at their disposal. This, of course, was
the case, and the matter is one in which the Americans
necessarily have the advantage over us. Instead of
having to buy land at a price which is calculated by the
yard or the foot, as any person or company must do
who desire to establish a cemetery near a great English
town, the American burial authorities have in most
c^.ses been able to acquire as many square miles as they
might requit.v either for nothing or for the merest
tri.le per acre. And they have taken care, while
they were about it, to securo enough, for most
of the cemeteries are of enormous size. Another
thing which strikes the stranger is that the number of
poor, cheap, plain monuments is wonderfully small.
Almost everybody who dies appears to leave relatives
with the means and the will to commemorate his virtues
in marble. The ugly regulation " headstone," which
renders an average English grave-yard so hideous, is
conspicuous by its absence, for those who cannot afford
a really handsome monument to their deported friends
appear to erect nothing at all. The result of the great
abundance of land k that the cemeteries are never
crowded. Instead of the interminable rows of graves,
packed as close together as books in a librarr, which
roiulei many of our large cemeteries so hideously mono-
tonuus, the American graves are scattered about in
groups, with large patches of turf and wood between,
in most picturesque confusion. Elegant and costly
rnonuir.cnts rise in groups, here on the top of a steep
eminence, there beside a natural or artificial lake,
yomlor from the midst of a beautiful grove. As the
paths, the turf, the shrubs, and all the other features
of the cemetery are generally kept in excellent order
by dint of a most profuse expenditure, the effect
is charming in the extreme. Personally, I
think cremation the most rational, the safest,
an I the least repulsive mode of disposing of the
dead ; but if I am to be burled at all, nothing could
possibly be better calculated to reconcile me to my fate
than a sight of one of the great American cemeteries,
coupled with a promise from my executors that that
should be my own resting-place. It will be gathered
from what I have said that the American burial aut'ori-
ties have selected the most picturesque sites available.
This has evidently been the case in most instances. It
would certiiinly have been impossible for the people of
Montreal to find a more beautiful site naturally than
that which they did select on the northern slope of their
Mountain.

Having driven in and out. and round about, and ud
and down the cemetery, amiil the drr"\cbing rain, until
he seemed to have covered many miles, our coachman
at last emerged into the woods which cr>^wn the summit
of the Mount lin, nud pulled up in an open space, where
some thoughtful "authorities " had built a refresliment
house, ami a staging from which to view the panorama.
And what a panorama ! The rain wus obIi;;ing
enough to cease to fall just as we reached
the summit, and the peerless landscape: wa-^ -;.'
the more charming for the million ii(iui i d'.:<.monI»
which hung from the treei aud the moi; tor* whioi'

glistened on ten thousand roofs. Immediately below
UB, on the steep slope of the Mountain, were scattered,
one above another, the fine m» nylons and trim villas
of the aristocracy of Montreal, the fineiit among many
fine houses beini; that of Sir Hugh Allan, one of the
great shipping firm of Allan Bros., who, by the way,
has since died, if be was not then recently dead. Beyond
the region of handsome residences, ^hioh thus girdled
the hill and straggled up its side, lay the great city,
stretcliing out to right and left, its numerous tall
spires pointing skyward on every hand. Further
off again was the mighty St. Lawrence, its widely-
separated banks tied together by something which
appeared at that distance little bct'.r.- than a thick cord,
but Vi^hich we knew to be the gigantic Victoria Bridge,
of which I recently gave some account. From this
distant standpoint, the insignificance of the bridge,
when contrasted with the vast scale on which Nature
had constructed her works, was finely brought out.
And yet I could not forget that, tiny as the bridge was
relatively, it constituted a splendid triumph of science
and skill over blind physical force. Away to the right,
where the river came into sight, we could distinctly see
the ruib, the foam, and the turmoil of the Lachine
A (ills, the last and most remarkable of that series of
,/ id descents in the river of which I shall presently
say more. Altogether, this view from the Mountain
above Montreal was one of the finest and most impres-
sive of the many sights I ^aw in iihe course of my long
journey.

Shooting the Rapids.

They have been " shot " daily, several months in
every year, for at least forty years, and they appear
none the worse for it. Wc " shot " them in our turn,
and left them uninjured. But perhaps I had better
explain at once that the shooting is not done with a
gun, but by means of a steam-boat. " Shooting the
rapids " is, in short, simply going dowu them on board
a large and comfortable vessel.

First let me describe this section of the river. The
St. Lawrence proper, as I need hardly explain, flows
out of the north east corner of Lake Ontario, and
carries oft tae whole of the prodigious mass of water

which hp-
upper '
The ;. '
Or.i 0,

sizes, sha^ .
is known as
hope shortly
beauty. At

ic" rinded by way of Niagara from the four
;8 - '■ inerior, Michigan, Huron, and Erie.

'•! .. immense width on emerging from
-.Tii^ ;n the first 40 miles of its course is

\h ; loss than ],6!)2 ialandii of various
A',\d i ppearances. This part of the river

b ' ce of the Thousand Islands, and I
to say someching about its exquisite

the lower end of t>"> lake, the river
gradually contracts to a width of t ' ;'i; '•.wo miles, and
for the next 50 miles it is comparai.- "ly uninteresting.
There are, indeed, two small raj^ ^ in this sec-
tion, known as the Gallopes and the Rapide
de Flat ; but the descents are so moderate
that the boats go down under full steim,
and the recollection of them i^ entirely effaced by fhe
serif-^ of grander rapids which have to be "she","
low.^r iowp by all who go on to Montreal by boat. It
was Ku • '"7 er series which we descended, and which I
Btroi;y : N ,,-i8v.' dl visitors to Canada by all means
to see

As our general courfio lay up the river, a little
manciuvrin;; wax needed to bring these rapids into our
rout i. We had, in fact, to go a long way up the river
banl: oy rail, and lucr? return to Montreal down the
rapids by boat, Then, in order to " work in " the

Thousand iBlands, which should on no account be
missed, we returned to the river after seeing Ottawa,
and took boat for Toronto at Brockville, which is
situated at the lower end of the Lake of the Thousand
Islands. We thus managed to see the two most in<
teresting parts of the river, and to miss the inter-
mediate and less picturesque section.

We left Montreal in the morning by a train on the
Grand Trunk Railway for a station called Wales, 77
miles distant. Most of the intermediate stations bore
evidence in their names that the neighbouring settle-
ments were French in nationality and Catholic as to
faith. We passed Lachine (pronounced Lasheen, of
course), Valois-ville, St. Anne, St. Dominique, Riviere
Beaudette, and Coteau. But there was a sprinkling of
English names ; for, besides Wales (our terminus for
the day), wo found Beaconsfield, Lancaster, Pummere-
town, and Cornwall. Leaving Montreal at 7.40, we
accomplished the 77 miles run to Wales in about three
hours. This is a fair average speed for a Canadian
;..ll./ay. There are express trains which make some-
what better time, but the best of these do not stop at
the wayside station where we wanted to alight.
Wales, so far as we could see, consisted of the wooden
shed dignified by the name of "station "or "depot "and
one solitary house. There 'ere no Welshmen visible,
and no sign of any such place as Llanfechbwlchlyn-
goedmawr. Two persons, however, alighted besides
ourselves. One was a postman and the other a drummer
(traveller) in the boot and shoe line. It was clear,
therefore, that we had not strayed beyond the bounds
of civilization. There were evidently people not far otf
who were accustomed to receive letters and to wear
boots. This was encouraging, so far. But no St.
Lawrence was visibl <, and the drummer, with whom we
soon fell in, was as '^norant of the locality as we were.
He, however, wanted, like ourselves, to reach Dickin-
son's Landing, a place on the river bank ; and, guided
solely by the light of nature, we walked away along a
stra'-jht, dusty road, which never heard of M'Adam,
and must be a quagmire after heavy rain. The
drummer presently got within hail of the postman, who
was emerging from a side path, and of liitn he inquired
the way to the river. The postman's reply was of that
brief, unsatisfactory character of which we afterwards
had ample experience, but we gathered from it in a
hazy tashion that we were on the right road ; and the
drummer, denouncing the postman as a "surly cuss,"
led on. Wo followed, and very soon the great river
came in sight.

We fo md, on reaching the landing-place, that our
steamer vas not likely to be there tor an hour or two,
and we accordingly improved the time by making a
determii ed, hut 1 fear unsuccessful, attempt to convert
theclrunmer to orthodox free trade doctrines. Like
riost Canadians, he was a Protectionist of the most
stiff-necked kind. The country, he said, was mjst
prosperous under its new fiscal system. No manufac-
tured articles could be imported either froui Eurojie or
the States without paying a very heavy import duty.
The result was that Canada was beginning to make
everything she wanted, and that the working classes in
the towns had constant work and high wages. That
" foreigners," whether Englishmen or Americans,
should be allowed to " flood the Dominion" with cheap
goods was, hu held, an outrage, which ought to be
strenuously resisted. On a man in this benighted state,
depending for his living on one of the protected indus-
tries, my free-trade lessons had, of course, no effect ;

(: i

*-r|ft?*«

And I had to leave him to the teachings of future
experience, which, in due season, will demonstrate the
folly of the policy now so popular among the Canadians
as surely as their great river flows to the sea.

We had also some talk o.-er a fence with a young
farmer who was ploughing with a couple of well-fed
horses l>etween his rows of potatoes. The soil was deep,
rich, and black, and not a stone was visible. The farmer,
who was dressed exactly like a young English
labourer, said that both the land and the house
which stood upon it were his own. He was,
he said, a Dutchman, though he talked excellent
English, and he was taking things in a very leisurely
way. But there was an air of supreme satisfaction
about him, and an appearance of solid comfort about
his surroundings. If he was really content (as he
appeared to be) to be shut out from the world, and to
make the passage of an occasional steamer on the
river serve by way of variety to his somewhat mono-
tonous existence, his lot was clearly not an unhappy
one. It was past mid-day when our steamer hove in
sight. And now for the actual " Shooting of the
Rapids,"

This is a business which, in my candid opinion, has
been over-written. The amount of gush that has been
wantonly wasted over it by an u:itold numlier of writers
is proiligiotis. I am not now referring to what has been
said about the scenery of the rapids, or the pleasant
character of the trip, 'J'hese cannot well be exaggerated.
AVhat I take exception to are those descriptions of the
descent which represent it as a feat demanding almost
as much courage as taking part in a forlorn hope, I
have read accounts which spoke of the excitement
and su pense of the passengers as painful and intense,
and of the tears which flowed freely down the
writers' and their fellow-travellers' cheeks. Judging
from what I myself saw and felt, I take the liberty of
saying that the greater part of this sort of writing is
rubbish pure and undefiled. There is excitement,
of course ; but to all except the most nervous and un-
reasoning of mortals, it is a very pleasant excitement,
which adds vastly to one's enjoyment of the trip.
I use the word "unreasoning " advisedly. These rapids
have been thus navigated daily by steamboats for at
least 40 years, at all times when the river has
been clear of ice, and hitherto the serious accidents
have been very few. Some of the guide-books say there
has never been one, but I have reason to think this is a
mistake. At any rate, dangerous as the " shooting "
process loo' s, experience has proved that the element of
danger is extremely small. The pilots who steer the
boats have by long experience obtained the most
minute knowledge of every yard of the track, and a
skill in guiding the vessels through the tortuous channels
between the abounding rocks which appears almost
superhuman. Every passenger knows all this ; and,
unless his reasoning faculties are completely controlled
by his timidity, he feels that the danger is a great deal
more apparent than real.

The distance from Dickinson's Landing, where we
boarded the boat, to Montreal is between 80 and tlO
miles, and in that distance the river falls about 200 feet.
If this fall were spread evenly over the whole distance,
it would at no point be excessive ; but, as a matter of
fact, there is little or no fall in some 50 miles of the
journey. The descent of the whole 200 feet is accom-
plished within a total distance of 30 miles ; and oven
within those 30 miles there are lengthy stretches in
which the fall is comparatively slight. It will be

seen, therefore, that the descent at certain points
is very great. There are six distinct rapids below
Dickinson's Landing, viz,, the Long Sault (pronounced
" Long Sow "), the Coteau, the Cedars, the Split Hock,
the Cascade, and the Lachine, I say they are "dis-
tinct " because they bear distinctive names, but, in
reality, two or three of them follow so closely upon
each other as to form a connected series.

Ic is easy enough, apart from the dithculty of steer-
ing, to take a vessel down these rapids. You have
simply to get her fairly into the current, and no mortal
power can then stop her until she has either dashed
herself to pieces on a rock or reaciied the bottom of the
descent. But, on the other hand, no mortal power can
take a vessel up these watery hills. The most power-
ful steamer ever built would beat the water in vain if it
made the attempt. Tlie swift current is resistless.
These rapids are, therefore, a complete bar to the naviga-
tion of the St. Lawrence ; and as the St. Lawrence is
the connecting link between the great lakes and the
Vtlnntic, it has been found necessary to circui.i-
/ he river. Splendid canals have, there-

f. ten cut, here along one bank and there

alu.i, le other, so that vessels may be able to
give me go by to the river wheiever its fall is too
rapid to allow of navigation. These canals are fur-
nished with immense locks, by meius of which vessels
of considerable size may be lifted step by step up the
whole 200 feet. The passenger steamers wnich daily
shoot the rapids have, of course, to return this way ;
but the process is a tedious one, and few passengers
care to waste their time over it. The boats, in tact,
go down lull and go up empty. The import-
ance of these canals will be obvious to all
who understand the geography of the northern
part of the Korth American continent. From the most
remote corners of the great lakes— from Chicago on
Michigan and from Duluth on Superior — corn-laden
vessels can sail to Buffalo, at the lower end of Lake
Erie. Near there they enter the Wellind Canal, and by
that means give the go-by to Niagara Falls and get into
Lake Ontari' From Ontario they either go direct
down the S^ Lawrence, through the series of canals
already described, or cross the country by means of the
Kideau Canal to the Ottawa Kiver, and so on to the
St. Lawrence, just above Montreal, By one or other
of these routes— partly lake, partly canal, and partly
river — vessels of several hundred tons burden can now
sail direct from Chicago out into the Atlantic, and so
to Liverpool or any other European port.

The boat enters the Long Sault Rapid a few minutes
after leaving Dickinson's Landing. This rapid is nine
miles in length, and its total fall is nearly 50 feet. Up
to about the year 1840, it was not thought possible to
navigate these rapids ; but tlie direction taken by the
timbei' rafts which constantly float down was then
carefully noticed. A practicable channel wafj thus dis-
covered, ami soon afterwards the passage wasattemptod
by steamboats, under the guidance of Im'iian pilots.
From that time to this, the rapid has been regularly
"shot."

As we approached the head of the Long Sault, there
was consiilerable stir on board— iiot, so far as 1 could
discover, because any considerable number of the pas-
sengers were alarmed, but because all — male and female
alike — were desirous of securing positions from which
to obtain a good view. The bow of the vessel— the
part which would necessarily come to grief
first if the boat ran on a rook — was

there

could
he pas-
1 female

which
sel— the
grief

- was

crowded. Chairs were at a premium, and those
who could not obtain sitcinK accommodation were con-
tent to stand rather than retire to a le.ss advantageous
position. The beginning; of the descent was very
clearly marked. We could feel that the boat had been
seized and was being hurried along by a power which,
so far as those on board and all their machinery were
concerned, was resistless. But I did not notice that the
descent was so sudden and rapid that the river appeared
to drop away from under the bows, while
the stern was lifted out of the water. Judging
from descriptions I have read, and from gorgeously-
coloured pictures of the performance issued by the
steamboat companies, that is what some imaginative
people have seen at some time or other. The descent
is, however, rapid enough for all whose demands for
excitement are moderate, ^t would probably be voted
insufficient by one who huu h'^no through a course of
trapeze performances, of being ilrbJ ou' a cannon, or
of putting an empty head into the mouth of a lion with
an empty stomach. But for my own taste, and ap-
jiarently for the tastes of the majority of the passengers,
the slight spice of risk involved in the trip afforded just
excitement enough. Few things ever proved to me
more trulv enjoyable. In the first place, the sight was
magnificent. The river, which is here of great width,
is studded with islands, varying in size from a few
square yards to manv acres. Most of these are beauti-
fully wooded, and the river ed<lies and boils around
them in such a way as to convey the impression that
they are innccessible. This, however, is clearly not the
case, as I saw, on some of them, solid buildings, arbours,
signs of cultivation, and, if I rememberrightly, parties of
anglers. How communication is kept up with the shore
I do not know. If islands were tn« o;'ly obstructions,
the navigation would be sufHciently tortious and intri-
cate. But where there are no islands, thj whole of the
riverbed is sown thickly with gigantic boulders, against
which the torrent beats in wildest fury. It is the dodg-
ing of these numerous rocks that constitutes the ticklish
part of the steersman's task. They are scattered about
in the wildest confusion, and the boat has to pick her
way among them in a fashion which might well be
declared impossible by those who have never seen it
done. Many of the rocks stand well above the water ;
but the majority of tiieni (and these, of course, are the
most dangerous) are below the surface. Their positions
arc, however, more or less clearly marked by the broken
water above them, which is often lashed into foam
by the obstructions which they offer to its
regular flow. It happened that, when we
went down the rapids, the river was unusually full.
The purser of our boat told me, indeed, tliat he had
never seen the water hig'ier. This was all in our favour,
as the dangerous rocks, of course, were more deeply
submerged than usual. Even then, however, wo fre-
quently passed within a few feet of rocks which had
apparently oidy a foot or two of water upon thorn. It
must be remembered that these American river boats
are constructed so as to '" draw " very little water. They
have no keel and are immensely wide, and the bottom
is .ilmost perfectly flat. AViththeircharacteristichumour,
the Amei'icans say their boats will float vherever t/ie
ground in a /'"''• (lamp. The bed of the St. Lawrence
is something more than " a little ilamp ;" but, as I have
explained, it is at many points perilously shallow. The
volume of water is prodigious. I am probably within
the mark in saying that, if the water of one of the
greatest of our European rivers— say the Khiae— were

poured into the same channel with the" combined
streams of all the rivers in the British Islands, the
mass of water would be less than that which I saw
skipping down the St. Lawrence rapids. But then the
width of the St. Lawrence is proportionately great,
and the water is, therefore, spread out thin wherever
the current is rapid.

It is a fine study to watch the steersman. He stands
at a wheel in a snug little house high up above the
passengers' heads. He has an aa-sistant, wtio also keeps
a firm hold of tiie wheel. The necessity for this pre-
caution is obvious. The steersman's hold might sud-
denly slip at a ticklish point, or a sudden illness might
seize him. I believe there is also a spare wheel,
whit.'i either man could instantly seize in case
of accident to the one in use. Whether there is a
second rudder I do not know. If there is not, there
ought to be ; for it is obvious that the whole living
freight of the boat is absolutely dependent on the rud-
der during every moment of the passage ; and the
failure of tbo steering apparatus, even for a few seconds,
would probably mean death to scores, perhaps to hun-
dreds. But there is not the smallest anxiety visible on
the faces of the officers. The captain, indeed, sits im-
mediately in front of the steersmai;, where lie has a
clear view ahead ; but his responsibility and his power
are virtually non-existent for the time. The steersman
is " boss " of the situation Not for a single moment
does lie allow his fixed, steady gaze to bt) averted from
the point for which he is making. He is well up out of
reach of the crowd of passenger?; and " talking to the
man at the wheel '' would be impossible, even if the
captain were not on guard.

But see where the steersman is making for ! He is
surely mad ! The boat is rushing along at railway
speed, and going straight as an arrow for tiie perpentli-
cular rocks that girdle yonder island !

No, he is not mad, as you will see presently. He has
been the same road, never deviating a yard to right or
left, a t' ousand times before ; and there are marks,
either ni.^ural or artificial, on every visible roik, which
are a« familiar to him as the street corners which we
pass daily are to us. Watjh him now ! He tightens
his grip on the wheel, and visibly prepares ^or a sudden
movement. Exactly at the moment at which he comes
abreast of some well-known landmark (or shall we
say water-mark ? ) the wheel, worked by steers-
man and assistant jointly, whirls round a certain
number of times, and is held firmly in the new pos.
tion. The effect on the direction of the boat is instan-
taneo .IS. Her bows are turned away from the rocks on
which she appeared about to dash herself ; but so close
a shave is it that you might toss a penny (if you were
in a land where there are any pennies) upon the island,
as you gliu'* past it with a smoothness and speed which
must be expeiienccd to bo understood. This sort of
manwuvre is repeated over and over again, and every
time it is seen that the object is to dodge some visible
or hidden danger, in the shape of island, rock, or
shallow.

I should like to be able to give some definite informa-
tion as to the spoeil attained by the boat where the fall
is greatest, but I can offer njthing more than a rough
estimate, fo? 1 utterly disbelieve what the purser told
us on this subject. That worthy otHcer took up a
central position amid the group of passengers as wo ran
down each rapid, and dealt out to us, piecemeal, scraps
of appropriate information in the stylo of the menagerie
man' who makes the round of the cages

■/ i

,-fi*'

at intervals to deioribe the beaiti. Much of
what he told us was, no doubt, accurate enough ;
but I humbly beg to be allowed to doubt his statement
that these rapids run, at certnin points, at the rate of
60 miles an hour. "A mile a minute " is a good round,
easily-understood, and easily-remembered figure, which,
in these railroad days, we are accustomed to quote too
much at random. Jfc is a convenient figure to guess at,
and I am disposed tn think that our purser simply
guessed at it, or repeated the guess of somebody else,
5ly own opinion is that we were at times going at more
than 30 miles an hour. The way in which the rocks
and islands slipped by us— there is no better way of de-
scribing the process— was suggestive of half-a-mile a
minute at least. But the margin between 30 and CO
is considerable.

»* A short distance below the Cascades Rapid, the river
widens out and forms the charming Lake St. Louis,
12 miles long and five wide. At the lower end of this
lake, the Kiver Ottawa adds its vast contribu-
tion to the mighty tide of the >jt. Lawrence.
A remarkable phenomenon is seen at the con-
fluence of the two rivers. The water of the
Ottawa is apparently of a deep violet colour, and
almost opaque, wliereas that of the St, Lawrence ia
clear and transparent. The difference is very re-
markable, and is, I presume, to be accounted for by
some difference in the chemical constituents of the two
waters. What is equally stninse is that for a consider-
able distance the two streams refuse to mix. That of
the Ottawa keeps to the left bank, and that of the main
river to the right, and the line of demarcation is almost
as clear and well-defined as if they were kept distinct
by some solid barrier. They are finally shaken up
together pretty effectually on the Lachine Rapids, the
last of the series.

As we approached the head of these rapids, the boat
stopped opposite a village inhabited mainly by Indians,
and still known by its original Indian name, Caugh-
nawaga. The object of the stoppage was to take up an
old and experienced Indian pilot, who for many years
has steered t''- boats down the Lachine Rapids,
which are i ' .I'ded as the most dangerous
of the wholb series. The mention of an
Indian pilot conjured up images of copper-
coloured men, with painted skins and nodding
Elumes, clad in dirty blankets, and armed with toma-
awks and bows and arrows. The reality proved to be
a totally different article. A boat came alongside with
a somewhat aged but still hale and active man, wearing
a rather shabby suit, a wideawake hat, and a pair of
blue or darkened spectacles. He looked as if he had
seen a good d^al of exposure to weather ; and if I had
not been told he was an Indian, I should nave said he was
a broken-down English farmer. But, whoever or what-
ever he was, he had a keen eye, a steady hand, and a
Eerfect knowledge of every inch of the rapid. He took
is place at the wheel, the boat started, and in five
minutes the mad waters once more had us in their grip.
Once more the wonderful dodging hither and thither
across the stream and back again began, the Indian
pilot, like his predecessors at the wheel, keeping his eye
steadily fixed, without cessation and almost without
winking, now on one mark and now on another. The
Lachine Rapid is not very long, but what it lacks in
quantity it makes up in quality. The descent is very
rapid and the bed very rocky, and the guidance of the
boat demands the sleepless vigilance which it receives.
But we made the passage in perfect safety, as tens of

thousands had done before us ; and, steaming under
the Victoria Bridge, we found ourselves in the early
evening ashore at Alantreal, whence we had started by
rail in the morning.

Robbed fob the Second Time.

Montreal was only the second city I visited, but I
was there robbed for the second time. The hotel
thieves there were more audacious even than those of
Quebec. At the end of the splendid first-floor corridor
of the Windsor Hotel, and close to the entrance to the
grand dining-room already described, there was a set
of long mahogany shelves, on which visitors placed their
hats, &c., while they went in to dinner. A gentleman
official of the superior-waiter tribe stood at the door
constantly to usher people into the dining-room, and
his eye was seldom off the hat shelves many
seconds at a time. On going in to dine one
day, my companion stood my umbrella upright against
the end of the shelves and placed his hat on the top of
the handle. There were few hats on the shelves at the
time, for there were but few diners in the room ; but
when we came out, we found that the umbrella had dis-
appeared, the hat having been taken off it and placed
on one of the shelves. I at once called the attention of
the man tt the door to our loss, and explained that an
engraved plate, bearing my name and full address, was
screwed to the handle of the missing umbrella.
He was certain that, under such ciroum-
stances, the umbrella had been taken away
by mistake, and assured us that within an hour some-
body would bring it back and ask for another. But, as
there was no othsr loft, I felt less sanguine than the
gentlemanly door-keeper. As a matter of fact, the urn.
brella never did come back, and all the officials of the
hotel declared that the robbery was a particularly dar-
ing one, and one of a kind which was extremely rare in
that splendid and "high class " house. The proprietors
were not legally responsible for my loss, seeing that
they provide a " coat-room " where umbrellas and
such like portable property may be deposited in the
care of an attendant ; and it is only fair to the managor
to say that, when I was paying my bill, he threw me
back a five-dollar bill (21s) with which to replace the
lost article. Thinking that, if the thieves kept up the
game during my whole journey as actively as they had
begun it, I should have to buy a good many umbrellas,
I decided to supply them with a somewhat inferior
article. I therefore gave 2i dollars (10s 6d) for one,
and pocketed the balance of the 5-doliar bill. That
half-guinea article, strcinge to say, the thieves let alone
most severely, and I brought it home with me in
triumph.

The Canadian Pacifio Railroad.

On the morning of Friday, July 20th, we left Mon-
treal by the Canadian Pacifio Railway for Ottawa, the
seat of the Government of the Canadian Dominion.
My advice to all who may be going in the same direction,
and are not pressed for time, is to go by boat up
the River Ottawa. A steamer runs daily, both morning
and evening, between the two cities, passing through a
great deal of very fine scenery. The well-known
" Canadian Boat Song " was written with special
reference to the Ottawa. But, as the song indicates,
there are rapids on the river. These are not navig-
able, and the passengers have to be transferred more
than once from boat to rail and back again from rail to
boat. These changes make the voyage rather tedious,

It oooupiei, indeed, all day ; and as we had not a whole
day to ipare, we went, as I have said, by rail, The dis-
tance is about 100 miles.

The railway we traversed is tlie extreme eastern sec-
tion of what will be, when finished, one of the most
wonderful arteries of communication in the world.
Other lines, already completed, traverse the continent
further south ; but in every case they consist of several
parts, owned and worked (or, as the Americans say,
"operated") by different companies. The oldest of the
Pacific lines commences at Omaha, on the Missouri
River, and belongs to two separate companies— the
Union Paoifio, owning about 1,0U0 miles, from Omaha to
Ogden, Hud the Ceniral Pacific, owning the 800 or 900
miles, from Ogden to San Francisco. The Northern
Pacific, only recently finished, does not come further
east than Duluth, at the head of Lake Superior ; while
the Southern I'acific route is in the hands of at least
three companies west of the Missouri. But the Cana-
dian Pacific Company are construotinj; a line, which is
to be owned and worked by themselves, all the way
from Montreal to the Pacific coast of British Columbia.
The Canadians have made great sacrifices to secure the
completion of this splendid highway, which is to bind
the whole Dominion together as it cculd be bound by
no other mcms. The Dominion Parliament first gave
the Company thirty millions of dollars and thirty mil-
lions of acres of tho land lying along the route ; and as
more money was still needed, it has just decided to lend
the '^ompany over twenty millions of dollars more.

Sbtartinic from Montreal, the line runs up the left
bank of the Ottawa Kiver as far as Ottawa. There it
crosses to the ri^ht bank and leaves the river for a
time, but presently returns to it. On leaving it finally,
a long way up the valley, it strikes westward through
the immense and hitherto unexplored forests to the
north of Lakes Huron and Superior. Thus it reaches
Winnipeg, the new and vigorous capit:il of Manitoba.
From Winnipeg it passes through a vast tract of rich
virgin soil, which is being rapidly settled ; and, crossing
the Rocky Mountains at a great height, though by the
lowest available pass, known by the ele!;ant nameof the
Kicking-Horse Pa><8, it descends into British Columbia
and so reaches the Pacific coast. The line is open from
Montreal to some point far above Ottawa, It is also
open from Tliunder Bay (on Lake Superior) to Winni-
peg, and from Winnipeg severalhundred miles to wards the
Rocky Mountains. But two immense stretches are still
unfinished, the longest being the section through the
wood"'' wilderness to the north of the gre;it lakes.
There ^an, however, be no reasonable duubt that this
great undertaking will be brought to a successful issue.
It is a mere matter of money ; and, having spent so
much upon it, the Canadians are hardly likely to aban-
don a work of such vital importance even if a few
millions more are wanted. The probability is that
within two years trains will be running through from
the quays at which thi}£uro))ean steamers lie at Mon-
treitl, to the Pacific coast on the other side of the con-
tinent. The Company will then own the loiigi-st con-
tinuous line in the world. Emigrants will settle down
on both sides of the track throughout its whole length,
and in a very few ye irs the Dominion will be bound to-
gether, from end to end, not bv an iron track merely,
but by iiD unbroken chain of humanity.

Ottawa.
Ottawa is the political capital of the Dominion of
Canada— the great Confederation which comprises the

whole of British North America, except Newfoundland.
That inhospitable, fishy island still holds aloof, and
continues to " paddle its own canoe." I have alreaciy
said enough to indicate that Ottawa is by no means
the largest of Canadian cities. Compared with Toronto
and Montreal, it is still an insignificant place, and it
van probably partly due to its insignificance that it was
selected as the federal capital. It was originally known
as Bytown— a name which was given to it in honour
of Col. By, of the Royal Engineers ; and it was not
until 18.")4 that it was incorporated as a city under the
name of Ottawa. When the various provinces of
British North America (with the one exception already
nained) were confederated in 18.58, there was, naturally
enough, a dispute as to where the federal government
should be located. Montreal thought there could be no
i|uestion that her own claiirs were pai amount. Toronto
thought the same with respect to the claims of Toronto.
Quebec asked to be constituted the cajiital on the
ground of her fine position, conside-able importance,
and (for America) venerable age. Kingston, too,
was a candidate, and I am not sure that I have
exhausted the list. Ottawa, a new, rough, unlicked-
cub of a place, away on the borders of tho primeval
forest, wiis apparently "not in it "—(sporting phrase,
I think). I believe it thought so modestly of itself
as not even to set up a claim. Now, see what blessed
results came of humbly taking a back seat I The claims
of tho larger cities were ur;,'ed so persistently and
clamorously that the task of selecting from among them
became a very invidious one, which .Ministers were
reluctant to tackle. They accordingly had a
happy thought. "Let's ask the Queen to do
it,' they said among themselves. "These clamor-
ous communities will know that she has no
private axe to grind" (Yankee for "personal end to
serve"), "and they will accordingly submit to her
decision with a good grace." And so the thing was
done. The Queen duly considered the claims of ail the
cities. As she (metap'ioric;iliy) reviewed the candidates,
ISIontreal, Quebec, Kingston, Toronto, and the other
ambitious claimants strugL;led to the front. But,
looking over their heads. Her Majesty saw young and
modest Ottawa far off in the background, almost too
dittident to entertain a hope ; and, after the manner of
the host mentioned in a well-known exhortation, s!ie
said, "Friend Ottawa, come up higher." So Ottawa
took the front seat, and each disappointed claimant
swallowed his chagrin in consideration of the fact that
all his rivals were equally disappointed, and that the
l)rize had fallen to a "rank outsider." (I feel I am
getting on in the matter of s|)orting phraseology.)

It may seem strange at first sight that the Queen
should have ignored the undoiibteil claims of the large
cities, situated, as they aie, on the great watery higu-
way which binds the colonies together, and pitched
u|)on a poor, rough, out-of-the-way place like Ottawa,
which was still (so to speak) in its cradle. But the
Queen and her advisers had, no doubt, -aod rensons for
their choice. Kxperionce Ims .shown tliat a large city
is not tho most desirable place for the seat of govern-
ment. The history of France wouM jjrobahiy have
been les^ marke 1 by sudden and violent changes if its
Legislature had alwayssat in some town of mo.leratesize,
instead of amidst tho teeming and turbulent population
of the greatest city on the Continent. Tho founders of
the American Republic very wisely refused to locate the
Federal (jlovernment either in New York or in Boston.
They selected a place which was then of no importance,

I •

:!;

And made it independent of all the Stnte Oovernmenti.
Many of the States have adopted the same plan,
80 fur as the selection of small towns for their
capitals is oonoernod. Albany, and not New
York City, is the capital of the State of New York.
The capital of Illinois is Springfield, nnd not Chicago ;
that of California is Sacramento, and not San Francisco.
The capital of Ohio is Columbus, and not Cmoinnati or
Cleveliind ; while the Legislature of Michigan sits at
Lansing, and not at Detroit. This list might be greatly
extended. In selecting Ottawa as the capital of the
Dominion, the Queen was no doubt influenced by a
desire to choose a comparatively small place, occupying
an eligible site, and at the same time to avert the out-
break of jealousy which the selection of either of the
principal claimants would have provoked.

The site is, indeed, a splendid one— or rather, I should
say, it was, for its picturesque features are rapidly
being spoiled. The city is on the right bank of the
Ottawa River, just at the point where it forms the
Chaudifere Falls, 200 feet wide and 40 feet high. In a
state of nature, these falls must have been very fine,
but they can now be hardly said to exist at a" For
they have been made the centre of lumbering opera-
tions on a vast scale. The fall has, in short, been
turned into "power." Immense saw-mills take the
water in in vast quantities above the cascade, make it
do the work of thousands of horses, and pour
it out into the river channel lower down.
After a period of drought, nearly the whole of the
stream is thus diverted from its course and turned into
the slave of humanity, and only a fraction of it is left
to trickle over the rocky precipice down which the whole
mass used to tumble. In the rainy season, there is,
no doubt, enoush water for both falls and mills. But
I saw the falls in a dry season, and it was clear that
their beauty and impressiveness were then greatly im-
paired by the diminution of their volume. The banks
of the river are, moreover, crowded with saw-mills and
their accessory buildings, and with timber yards
wliere deals, boards, shingles (coverings for roofs in
place of slates) are stacked literally by the acre. The
whirr and buzz of the many revolving saws drown all
otlior sounds, and are heard at long distances. Lumber
is omnipresent— piled in the yards, floating along
miniature canals, stacked in huge loads on trucks,
ground to splinters and mud beneath the feet of men
and horses. The purely " practical " man— the utili-
tarian who sees nothing but his own side of things-
must rejoice to see a great natural force, such as that
generated by a waterfall, turned into a useful servant ;
but, interested as I am in such triumphs of skill, I
confess it is not without a pang that I see a fine natural
scene spoiled for ever.

This is perhaps an appropriate time and place to say
a little about lumbering operations generally. Lum-
bering is, of course, the procuring of timber from the
forests, and the conversion of it into materials for
building and similar purposes. There are in Canada
and the States a set of men who act as viewers or pros-
pectors for lumber merchants. These men are skilled
in the art of estimating the quantities of timber of
various kinds which may be f it on any given area, and
the cost of transporting it i i he banks of the streams.
When a lumber merchant . :shes to purchase the tim-
ber in a particular section of the forest, he sends
one of these skilled viewers to look at it, and on
his report the merchant bases his opinion as to what he
may safely offer. Sometimes he buys many square

milei of forest merely for the sake of the timber.
Having out and carried away all he thinks worth
taking, he sells the land, if he can ; and if he cannot,
he perhaps abandons it, rather than pay the taxes on
it, and the Government presently sells it again. The
value of the timber on any given site depends largely
on the character of the rivers. If the district possesses
streams conveniently placed, which, at some seascu
or other, are large enough to float large logs
down to the place where they are to be cut
up, the timber is far more valuable than that
of a district where there are no streams, or where
they are insignificant in size. Indeed, where there are
no rivers, the forest often remains untouched until the
land is required for agricultural purposes.

The transportation of the timber to the saw-mills is
apparently a very simple process. The trees .are cut
down, marked with a distinctive mark, and thrown into
the nearest stream. The stream carries the logs down
to the river into which its waters are discharged, and
the river bears them onward to their destination. The
particular mark upon them indicates their
rightful owner. The streams of Canada and
of the forest districts in the United States
are largely employed in this carrying business every
season. There are, of course, no roads in these remote
districts ; and if roads had to be constructed specially
for the timber to be carried over, it is clear that the
cost of " lumber " would be enormously increased.
The floating-down of the logs is not, however, quite
such plain sailing as may be supposed. Sometimes,
through want of water, or the presence of obstruc-
tions in the bed of the stream, or it may be its wind-
ing character, the timber gets stopped and forms a
great block known as a "boom." To break up the
" boom " and set the vast mass of timber moving
again is sometimes a work of immense difficulty, and
men have to be constantly on the watch during the
season to prevent such accumulations whenever pos-
sible. Hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of timber
sometimes accumulate before the boom can be induced
to " move on."

The destruction of the forests hasof late years been pro-
ceeding at such a rapid and rapidly-increasing rate that
the Americans are at last getting alarmed. It is seen
that, vast as the forests are, the time is coming when
there will be an absolute scarcity of wood, unless steps
are taken to replace, by judicious planting, the trees
which are being destroyed. Canada has still an im-
mense area of virgin forest ; and some of the States —
notably Texas, Florida, Maine, Michigan, and one
or two others— are almost equally well supplied.
But the consumption of wood for fuel, for building, for
railways, telagrai)hs, sidewalks in towns, and a hundred
other purposes, to say nothing of the export trade, is
so vast, and is so constantly on the increase, that the
word " inexhaustible " can no longer be applied to the
resources even of the most heavily-timbered States.
Many of the States are almost entirely devoid of
forests, and these, of course, have to obtain their
supplies of timber from their neighbours.

Thk Goveknment Buildings at Ottawa.
On nn eminence 150 feet above the river, from which
it rises abruptly, — almost perpendicularly, indeed, —
stands one of the finest and most costly groups of
buildings on the American Continent. These are the
Dominion Government Buildings, which have been
erected at a cost of nearly a million pounds sterling.

are the

tve been

Bterling.

It must be admitted that the Canadians have, in this
instance, something to show for their v-. .r, outlay. The
group is a maKnificent one, ami t';o site is superb. The
situation is apparently the higheit in the city, and tlie
hill (popularly known as Barrack Hill) is appropriately
crowned. Here we see once more the advantages
possessed by architects in a country where land for
public purposes can be had for the asking. When a
great public building is requireil in the midst of an old
European city, where land is doled out for such pur-
poses by the square foot, the designer Imn to crowd the
maximum of accommodation into the viininium of
space. And if, under such untoward circumstancen, he
does contrive toproducean etfectiveand beautiful design,
thechances are that nobody canseehisbuildingtoadvan-
tage when it is up. The citizens may see a gable as they
approach it from one narrow street, or a doorway as
they come upon it from another direction, or,
at the risk of dislocating tlieir necks, may
perchance, be able, from a single point of
view, to take in the full height of a tower.
But of the design of the architect as a whole they can
by no possibility obtain an adequate conception, unless
they consent to clear away acres of the dwellings amid
which the great edifice is buried. The case of the
Government Buildings at Ottawa is the exact reverse of
this. The site is, as I ha-n said, higher than that of
the city itself, and the space at the disposal of the
architects was so vast that the whole group can be seen,
as a whole, from every point of view, and from a con-
siderable distance. European architects and archieolo-
giats would, of course, refuse to allow this brand-new
pile to be mentioned in the same breath with the great
and ancient buildings of the Old World ; but possibly
by the time Ottawa is two or three centuries old, its
Parliament House may have become to the American
archteologist what the cathedral churches of ('ologne, of
Milan, and of Strasbourg are to the cultivated European
of to-day. Even now, whatever the architecturil merits
or demerits of the Ottawa group may be, — and this is a
subject on which my opinion is probably worth very little
— I can safely say that, to all persons constituted in any
way like myself, the buildings in question cannot fail
to appear beautiful and impressive in the extreme.

The group forms three sides of an immense quad-
rangle, of which the south side, facing the city, consists
of the Parliament Houses and their associated offices.
The other two sides of the quadrangle are formed by
the buildings used by the various Government Depart-
ments, the Post-ottice, &c. The Parliament iJouse
block has a frontaire towards the street (but a good long
way from it) of 472 feet, and an extreme depth of 572
feet. The eastern block measures 318ft. by 253ft., and
the western block 211 by 277. The buildings are in
the Italian-Gothic style, of creim-coloured sandstone.
The arches of the doors and windows are of red Pots-
dam sandstone, the external ornamental work of Ohio
sandstone, and the columns and arches of the legisla-
tive chambers of marble. The roofs are covered with
green and purple slates, and the pinnacles are orna-
mented with elaborate iron trellis work. The legislative
chambers are capacious and richly furnished, and have
stained glass windows. The Senate Hall is reached to
the right from the main entrance (which is under the
central tower). The viceregal canopy and throne are at
one end of this ball, and at the other are a marble
statue and a portrait of Queen Victoria, togethT with
f uU-Iength portraits of Oeorse III. and Queen Cnarlotte
by Sir Joihua Beynoldi. The Chamber of Commoni ii

reached to the left from the entrance, and contains some
beautiful marble columns and arches. In these groups of
buildings are concentrated all the legislative and all
the Executive departments of the Dominion Govern-
ment. We should have a similar group, but a still vaster
one, in London, if the Houses of Parliament, the War
Office, the Horse Guards, the Treasury, the Admiralty,
the Home, Colonial, Foreign, and India Offices, and
the various departments domiciled at Whitehall and
Somerset House, were all brought together into one
immense assemblage of palaces. This we shall hardly
see, unless we can make up our minds to "wipe out "
Westminster and Parliament Street and begin again.

One of the most interesting features of the Ottawa
group, whether regarded internally or externally, is
the Parliament Library. This is a handsome octagonal
building, and contains at present about 40,000 volumes.
That is no great thing beside the million and a
quarter volumes of our British Museum Library. But
then London is somewhat older than Ottawa, and
Great Britain more prolific of literature than Canada.
Ottawa has, however, made a very respectable begin-
ning, and may possibly run a future generation of
Englishmen rather close. Indeed, in this stately pile
of buildings, the Canadians have discounted the future

firetty liberally. They have built for posterity. The
egislation and business of the Federal Government of
four millions of people (barely the population of
London) might, no doubt, have been very efficiently
managed in a less imposing and costly group of palaces ;
but the Canadians have faith in their future, and have
wisely provided for it. They have accomplished the
metaphorical feat of taking Time by the forelock ; and
if they hold on hard, they will no doubt get on the
halter or the bridle in due time. (I assume, of course,
that getting hold of Time's forelock is a " hossy " kind
of feat, and is only preliminary to harnessing.)

The immense vacant space round the buildings is laid
out in terraces at various levels, and the total area of
beautiful turf is immense. At one or two points where
the finest views of the river and the vast panorama are
obtained, the thoughtful authorities have provided
covered seats, where the visitor can find shelter from
sun and rain alike while he " views the landscape o'er."
Before the lumbermen appropriated the Chaudit^re Falls,
they (the Falls, not the lumbermen) must have been
seen to great advantage from this commanding spot ;
but what litUe there is left of them now is almost
hidden by their wooden surroundings. The best near
view of the Falls is now obtained from a suspension
bridge which crosses the river immediately below them.

Of the city of Ottawa itself, there is not much to be
said. It contains about 23,000 inhabitants, and, as it
is the political capital of the Dominion and a trading
centre of growing importance, its population is rapidly
increasing. But, like all American towns of the same
kind, it looks rough and unfinished. It will take a great
deal of licking into shape, but it will no doubt be
shapely enough some day. At present, it is certainly
not an attactive place, apart from its natural features
and its magniScent group of Government buildings.
Its position is a commanding one, regarded from a
commercial point of view. It is on the main line of
the Canadian Pacific Railway, and it has the advantage
of two other railway connections with the St.
Lawrence — viz., at Prescott and at Brockville
respectively. It is, moreover, the point at
which the Bideau Canal enters the Ottawa River,
which it th\u oonneoted with Lake Oatario at Kingaton,

..•5

Rideau Hall, the official resiilenco of the Uovetnor-
Oenernl of Canaila, is at New Edinburfrli, on the north
bank of the Ottawa. Juil;2;in(; from wlint I saw of the
building at a distance, I shoulil say it i.s not a very
attractive place. Princess Louise, the wife of the lant
Governor-General (the Murquis of Lome), is said to
have t(ot rather tired both of it and of Ottawa. This
is not very siirprisina;. Kideau flail is a poor substitute
for Windsor, and Ottawa has not yet much in common
with the West-end, or; indeed, any other end, of
London,

Brockville and Barnum.

Havin;; duly "done" the Ottawa Parliament Houses,
under the guidance of the rpoident housekeeper (or
janitor, as the Americans call such an official) ; havinff,
moreover, seen the remnant of the Falls, the lumber-
mills, and the few other objects of interest that were
on view ; and, lastly but not leastly (I have grave doubts
about the accuracy of that last ailverb), having dined at
the principal hotel (the Russell House), where our meal
was shared by (lies innumerable, we returned to tlie
station and took train for Brockville, on the St. Law-
rence, distant about DO miles. For some time after
starting, we were still following the main line of the
Canadian Pacific Railway, which thus leaves the Ottawa
River almost at right angles. On reaching a junction
station called Carleton, the main line and the Brock-
villd branch diverge from e ich other. The former turns
sharply to the right and returns to the valley of the
Ottawa, while the latter takes the opposite direction —
south-east by south. The journey was not productive
of very much in the way of incident. The country we
passed through was generally cleared, but appeared
to be very sparsely populated. The most important
place on the road bore the prosaic and very
English name of f^mith's Falls. The speed was very
slow. The stoppages were numerous, and apparently
much longer than usual, in consequence of our having to
pass, on the single line, several long trains filled with ex-
cursionists. These had been to Brockville to see "The
Greatest Show on Earth," including ''poor old
Jumbo," whose honoured name was on every tongue.
Barnum & Co., who had left ^Montreal on the Wednes-
day night, had exhibited in Ottawa on Thursday, and
had gone thence to Brockville during Thursday night.
When we learnt that they would be giving a second per-
formance at Brockvilleabouttlietime we were due there,
and when we remembered that the place was a small
one, with limited hotel accommodation, and that we
had not written ahead to arrange for beds, we began to
be exercised seriously as to our prospects of finding a
place whereon to lay our heads for the nij>ht. And
this anxiety proved to be fully justified.

It was nine or ten o'clock vhen we reached Brock-
ville, to find the whole population of the place divided
into two parties. One detachment of them wasattend-

g the performance at the big show, and the " balance "

T,3 besieging the railway station, to see the show
btart for Kingston, wliere it was to be exhibited next
day. I am making no mistake in saying that the per-
formance and the despatch of the huge establishment
were proceeding at the same time. Such was the
actual fact. The show consists of three parts— first,
the collection of large uncaged animals, such as elephants,
((iraffes, camels, &o. ; secondly, the caged beasts ; thirdly,
the huge hippodrome or circus. Each of these depart-
ments has an immense oval-shaped tent to itself,
but all three are to built as to oommunioate with each

other. The sight-seers enter by way of the elephant
and camel tent, pass thence to the caged beast
menagerie, and ultimately reach the great circus. The
vast tent contains tour rings, in all of which feats of
horsemanship, tumbl ng, and other parformances of the
UHual circus kind, are going on at one and the same
time. The tiers of seats wliich surround this tent pro-
vide accommodation for no kss than 16,000 per-
sons ! Verily, the " biggest show on earth "
—since the close of the list " season "
at the Coliseum at Rome ! As soon as the evening
performance commences in the circus, workmen begin
to break up the two menagerie departments, and in a
very s'lort time the great caravans containing the
beasts are on their way to the railway station. When
we re.ached the Brockville depot, they were arriving in
rai)id succession, and as fast as they arrived they were
drawn up an inclined plane to the level of the flat rail-
way trucks which were waiting to receive them. Even
these trucks, or "flats," belong to Barnum's firm, and
they are admirably adapted to their pur-
pose. I should be afraid to say how many
of them there are ; but tliis I know,
that they make four long trains, which together are
nearly a mile in length. I remarked to one of the
officials at Brockville Station that he and his staff must-
have their hands full, with such a big job on hand.
" Notat all !" ho reidied. "We have nothing what-
ever to do with the affair but to find engine power. The
trucks, the horses, and the men employed in the trans-
fer, are all Barnum's." The work of loading and
despatch was done with all the precision, noiselessness,
and smoothness of a well made and well oiled machine.
Every van, every horse, and eveiy man ap-
peared to have his or its place, and to
tall into that place with all the certainty
with which the teeth of one cog-wheel fall between
those of its fellow. Lonj, before the evening per-
formance was over, the first of the four long trains was
well on its way to Kingston, if, indeed, the second
had not started also. Soon after midnight, the last
fragments of the circus tent wt re cleared away, and
early next morning the whole establishment was on the
selected ground at Kingston. A certain number of the
workmen travel with each section. They are provided
with cars in which they can take thdrrest on the road.
As the show seldom stays in any but the largest cities
more than a single day, this is almost the only rest
they get between Sunday and Sunday.

This vast establishment is stationed at New York
during the winter, but during the whole of the sum-
mer and autumn season — from May to October — it is
"on the wing,"' visiting during that time about 140 cities
and towns. No important town is omitted from the
list, the show going as far south as Galveston
(Texas), as far west as Omaha (Nebraska), and, as we
have seen, as far nor^^b as Ottawa. At Philadelphiu,
Boston, andafewof theothergreatcities, they stop for a
few days, but one day in each place is the usual length
of the visit. An " advertising car" travels in advance,
carrying agents, the "paste brigade," tons of bills,
programmes, lithographs, and so on. At each town
two performances are given during the day, one in the
afternoon and the second in the evening, which is over
by eleven o'clock. There are 700 people employed,
including all the performers, the E,crobats, riders,
gymnaRCB, giants, dwarfs, the " wild men," and the
monstrosities. The horses number 400, and the elephants
80. Then comes the menagerie of lioni, tigers, leopards

■il

—the oaged beaits, in fact— the camels, dromedariea,
giraffes, zebras, and suoh like. Besirlea all these are
the trappings, the ohariats, the wardrobes, and odds-
nnd-ends innumerable. The receipts of a six di\ys*
itay in Boston in 1882 were nearly £15,000, those in a
single day amounting to £3,143. la ten days the total
sum taken was £21,600. The receipts of the Hrsc week
of the New York establishment were 55,220 dols., of
the second 51,700 dols.— making in 12 days 107,000 dols.
The daily expenses of the travelling show, rain or shine,
during the season of 1882, are estimated at 4,800 dols.,
or 28,800 dols. per week. The receipts for the same
period averaged 9,166 dols. each day, or 55,000 dols,
per week. Mr. Barnum calculates that he bus had the
patronage of over ninety millions of people during his
long career.

A Night at Brookville.

The day before we reached Brockville, the great
rowing match between Hanlon, thg champion, and
some other famous oarsman, took place on the St.
Lawrence close to the town, and the sight-seers and
loafers who had come into the place to witness it had
apparently made a second day of it by staying to see
Barnum's big show. At any rate, between the rowing
match and tlie visit of Jumbo, the place was for tlie
time entirely demoralized. The hotels, which are
neither numerous nor large, were crowded with noisy
visitors, who bad evidently discovered sources of excite-
ment outside the show. The prospect of getting beds
was at first not very encouraging ; but pre-
sently one of the railway porters took pity
on us, and led us off to a distant hotel
called, if my memory serves me faithfully,
the St. Lawrence Hall. There was clearly some private
understanding between the porter and the landlord as to
the division of the spoil. However, we were in no mood
to be over-critical ; so, in spite of the numerous rough-
looking people hanging about the place, we readily
accepted the only room available— a double-bedded one
close to the top of the first flight of stairs. Having duly
deposited our belongings there and carefully locked the
door, we asked for supper. There was none to be
had. Barnum's patrons had cleared out the place,
and the hotel cupboard was as bare as the one
commemorated in the tragical tale of Mother Hub-
bard. But having dined at far-otf Ottawa,
and had a long and tedious journey since, we were
bound to find something to eat, even if we stole it ; so
we sallied out ou a foraging expedition. We drew
nothing but blanks, however, till we reached a distant
part of the town. There, at last, we found a really
handsome restaurant ; but the door was besieged by
such a ravenous crowd of country people fresh from the
big show, that the proprietor bad to admit us by
instalments. Our turn came in due course ; and,
having had a decent supper, we returned to the St.
Lawrence Hall, and retired to bed — to bed, but not
to sleep. Either there is no Early-closing Act
in force in the Province of Ontario, or else our ho^t had
secured a license for a few "extra hours" on the
occasion of Barnum's visit ; or, lastly and most prob-
ably, the law (whatever it was) was simply ignored.
Anyhow, the St. Lawrence Hall did not close early on
that night. The place was full of rough, heavy-booted,
loud-talking men, whose conversation grew louder and
more quarrelsome as the night advanced. They
appeared to be occupying rooms in different parts of the
house, but going to bed was clearly no part of their

night's programme,
uncarpeted stairs
reason which we
or three hours,
them asembled in

They stumped up and down the

continuously, and for some

faileil to guess, for two

Occasionally, a number of

the room immedi.itely over

ours, which appeared to be a favourite rendezvous,
and there they carried on conversations and quarreli
in tones which must have proceeded from throits of
brass. Sometimes their verbal differences ended in a
scuffle, and at last a heavy fall, which threatened to
precipitate the whole party through the shaky tloor
upon our beds, indicated that at least one had been
placed hoys de combat. I listened in instant expe •tution
of hearing pistol shots, but apparently thetiffht did not
go beyond fisticutt's, for nothing more serious
followed. To attempt to sleep beneath suoh a
Pandemonium was like trying to do the same thing
under a room in which a dozen carpenters are
laying a floor. We gave up the attempt, and, having
assured ourselves that our door was as safe as a rather
crazy lock could make it, we quietly awaited develop-
ments. It was with a sense of intense relief that,
between two and three o'clock, we heaid an omnibus or
two back up agninst the door of the hotel. A conductor
ente.ed the hall and shouted : " Omnibus for Grand
Trunk train to Kingston and Toronto. All abwooard I "
—this last expression forming a sort of prolonged and
melancholy closing whoop, as difficult to imitate as the
unearthly shriek of the London milkman. The noisy
guests had evidently been waiting for thisannouncement,
for they at once descended into the hall likeanavalanche.
Judging from the sounds which came up to us, they
took a good deal of stowing away ; but at last they
were all got in, and the 'bus or 'busses drove away
to the dep5t. From that time fortli, the hotel was
tolerably quiet ; but, after so exciting an episode, we
were not in a very sleepy mood. AVe rose early, but
only to gain some further experience of the hotel's
" accommodations"— (the Americans always make this
word plural in sucii a connection). It was, on the whole,
the most disagreeable place we got into during our
whole journey. After a very unsatisfactory breakfast,
which was shared by myriads of flies, we turned out
and impatiently a''^aited the 'bus which was to take us
to the boat.

As I st )od waiting on the steps of the hotel— a house,
I may s ly, in which the bar trade formed a far more
prominent element than it does in most American
hotels— a seedy-looking, blear-eyed man of the tramp
species approached and asked mo for a drink. He
evidently thought I was "loafing around" the bar (to
adopt an American express"- ,, md that fellow-feeling
would prompt me t'' "-.nt his request. I
hinted to him, as gentiy as I knew how,
that I thought he had hid enough drink
within the past twenty-four hours, and suggested
that, perhaps, some food would do him more good at
that moment. With the remark that liquor was to
him " both victuals and drink," he put on an aggrieved
and disappointed look, and went away in search of a
more sympathetic soul. I mention this trifling inci-
dent because, with one exception, this was the only
instance in which I was accosted by a beggar during the
whole of my journey. The other case occurred in New
York, where a man who said hn was a locksmith out of
work, and who was clearly hard-up, managed to get a
small coin out of me. It may be safely asserted that
nobody could spend three months in exploring anjr

;■:!

4»

European country — mainly ita great cities — witliout
meeting with more than two beKgnrH,

It occurs to me, at this point, that I have overlooked
one entire class of oaclgciH. The wrotclied Indians who
hang about the railway stations in tlio Fur West beg of
the passengers on every train ; but I suppose it is
hardly necessary to take into account this miseraide
remnant of a perishing race, when goncridizing on what
Americans and Canadians do or do not do. Nobody
would now think of calling an Indiiin an " American."
" Americans " are people of European descent. The
aborigines have not only been displaced by the superior
race, but they are not even included in the name
applied generally to the inhabitants of the continent
which was theirs but yesterday, Thi^ must appear to
the Indians, if they ever reflect on their lot, to be
rather " hard lines ; " but perhups some day they may
develop an Indian Darwin, to explain to them and
convince them of the beauty of the law of the " sur-
vival of the fittest,"

But I must return for a moment to Brockville.
As I have explained, my recollections of the
place are not by any means of a pleasant
character, and I have sometimes been rather
disposed t > speak of it as a gentleman who had lived
some years at Port Said (the Mediterranean terminus
of the Suez Canal) spoke of that town to me. I asked
him what sort of a place it was, and he said it was " a
nice place — a very nice place— <o get out of.'* But,
after all, Brockville may, for aught I know, be a decent
sort of place. I was assured that it was by a person
who certainly ought to know — viz., a gentleman who
has long resided theie, and who came from New York
to Liverpool with me on board the Germanic, But
the town is of no great importance. It con-
tains perhaps 6,000 to 7,000 inhabitants, and
the most interesting feature which I noticed
about it was a large open square, rin an eminence near
the centre of the town, with a handsome church situated
at each corner. We came across this square in the
moonlight while hunting for a supper, and bestowed as
much admiration upon it as two terribly hungry men
conV' bo expected to give. There must be a consider-
able ^de done, in or near the town, in the manufacture
of agii^altural implements, for I saw immense numbers
of reapers and other farm machines lying at the wharf
for shipment. The agricultural-implement trade is,
I may remark, an immense one in all p;irts
of Canada and the States. The scarcity of hired labour
compels farmers and housewives alike to adopt the most
efficient of labour-saving machinery ; n-.id the breaking-
up of new land for the growth or wheat and corn is
going on so rapidly that the demand for nasv implements
is incessant and enormous. The reader will, no doubt,
regard my use of the words " wheat and corn " as pecu-
liar, and may perhaps ask whether wheat is not corn.
I may, therefore, as well explain here that in American
phraseology wheat is not corn. By "corn " an American
always means Indian corn, or maize, which is grown in
prodigious quantities. "Corn" is never usee , on the
other side of the Atlantic, as a general name fcr cereals.
It is necessary to bear this fact in mind if o le would
rightly understand the market reports of t le news-
papers and the current talk about agricultural produce.

The Thousand Islands.

After a long and tedious "wait" at the Brockville
wharf, we were cheered by the sight of the Montreal
and Toronto boat coming up the river, and in half -an*

hour we were entering the Lake of the Thousand Islands.
This is simply an immensely-widened stretch of the
river, or, to put the matter in another way, the nar-
rowed lower end of Lake Ontaiio. The mime of this
remarkable sheet of water does not, of course, state the
number of i.dands in the lake with arithmetical
accuracy. It is a case of "round numbers ;' but,
unlike most cases of round numbers, there is no exag-
geration of facts. The name, indeed, does less than
justice to the fact, for there are actually l,t;t)2 islands
scattered over the 40 miles of the lake's length. The
exact number was ])robahly not known to the persons
who acted as godfathers and goilmothers to the lake,
and gave it its mime ; for it is pretty certain that when
it Was christened it hiid never been surveyed, and no-
thing but the most careful survey could enable I >ne tosiiy
within a hundred or two how many islands there are.
The boundary line between Canada and the Statee
passes through the centre of the lake, so that some of
the islands are IJritish territory while others form parts
of the State of Now York. The navigation is intricate
in the extreme. It looks easy enough by daylight, for
no great amount of skill is needed to steer clear of the
islands. iiut the dangers do not o insist of visible
islands, but of invisible rocks and shoals. There
are channels innumerable between the islands,
but only a few of them are deep enough
to be safe, and the pilots who navigate
the lake must necessarily possess a most minute
knowledge of all its ins and outs, and of all the marks
and signals by which the regular course of vessels is
indicated. The islands arc of every imaginable size,
shape, and appearance. Some are mere rocks, barely
visible and only a few yards in length ; others cover
many acres, and some are several nnles long. .Some are
simply masses of naked rook, without a trace of vegeta-
tion ; others are thickly wooded to the very water's
edge, displaying the richest of green foliage in the
summer an' I the most gorgeous and varying of tints in
the autumn. As the steamer picks her way through the
tortuous channels, the enchanting scene changes with
everypassing moment, Each tuip. opens up newchannela
and groups the surrounding islands in fresh combina-
tions, until the eye isliterally wearied with the countless
variations and the sustained and peerless beauty of the
score. There is nothing of the grand or the exciting
about the scene — no mountains, or waterfalls, or rapids,
Tlie water flows calmly and noiselessly along its thous-
and cliannels ; and the beauty of the islands consists
in their shapes, their exquisite verdure, their beautiful
and varied grouping, rather than in any of the bolder
features of natural scenery. Nobody can fail
to notice the wonderful cleanness of the rocks.
There is none of the mud and sliminess
which sometimes mar the beauty of rook and strand.
The water is clear as crystal, and tlie islands, where it
laps against their rocky sides, could hardly be cleaner if
they were regularly scrubbed. The navigable channel is
marked by numerous light-houses, which constitute a
picturesque feature of the lake, notwithstanding their
somewhat painful uniformity in the matters of shape and
whitewash. In spite of lighthouses, buoys, and other
fixed marks, it is clear that mishaps sometimes occur,
for at one point, I saw, partly submerged, the bows of
a small vessel which had apparently come to grief in an
attempt to walk over a visible rock. The current is so
gentle, and land of some sort is so easily accessible at
eveiy point, that suob a mishap as befel this vessel prob-
ably invclves very little riak to life. At any rate, it is

■.

a very different thing from running on n rook in tlie
rapids.

Some of the islamlH, especially near the Amerionn
Bliore, liavo been soiuiioil by woiiltliy men, who have
i)iiilt upon tiiom lioaiitifiil villas and nmiisi.nvs. Mr.
I'ullirian, tlio head of the ^,'icat c ir inakiii;; coiniiaiiy
wiiich bears his nnin', is the owner of one of the most
elegant of the.se. Tiio boatiii;; is o\C'illent, the tisliin,;,'
fiist-rate. AltoRether, it i.s ilillieiilt to ima:,'ino
a more deiigiitful rosoit for a weary city
man tlan one of these inland residences, wliere
tlio owner, if not literally monarch of all he surveys
(for his survey comprises, perhaps, a hundred islands
besides bis own), isat least tiiastur of iv very well iloiined
(loiiiinion, is s-.irroundeil by the purest air and the most,
encliaiitin;; saonery, and has w.thiii roach the most
pleasant ami wholesome of recreations. 'I'he New
York millionaire may do, and sometimes does, im-
worse than buy one of the Tliousand Islands to serve
as his summer re-iort. Hut it is not millionaires only
who feast on the beauties of this world-renowned like.
On the American shore, an important ideasuro town
has sprunn; un at Ale.\andria J!ay. Here are two hu;o
hotels (the Thousand islands House and the Cro^smon
Jlou o), which can tike in ami do for nearly l.niH)
visitors between them. IJeside^ these, there are many
smaller and humbler places which tind '" accommoda-
tions" for visitors, and in t!:o summer season they are
all crowded. There are one or two other ideasuro
resorts on both the American and the Canadian
sides, but they are "onodioise alfairs." Alexandria
]5ay " takes the cake." (As lam writin;? about America,
't is (litHcult sometimes to avoid lapsing into Ameri-
vne.se.)

Kingston.

Our boat called for an hour or two at Kinu'ston, an at-
tractive and pro.sperous Canadian town ofabi'ut 14,000
inhabitants, situated on the main lino of the (Jraiid
Trunk Kailway, about half-way between Montreal ami
Toronto, at tlie point where Lake Ontario ends and the
Lake of the Thousand Islands beg ns, and at the .south-
ern entrance to tiie Kideau Canal, which connects it
with the Ottawa Hivcr, Kins;.ston occuiiifS a Vi'iy tine
!ind ootnmandinpri)osition, and it is somewhat surprisna;
that it has not made greater pio;:res3 in population and
importance than it has idiherto done. As far as an out-
sider can judge, tliere is no more reason why the groat
port and mart of l.ake Ontario should not have sprung
up at Kingston t an that they should have come into
existence at Toronto. That there are some very good
reasons why the site of To-onto was preferred, there cin
be no doubt, though perhaps t!iey are not to be dis-
covered except by those who have an intimate know-
ledge of the country.

As I before intimatel, ]?arnum had preceded us to
Kingston, and when we arriveil in the place we found
that the attentions of the Kingstonians were being
keenly comi)eted for by two very different sots of coni-
jietitors. The Salvation Army, being apparently under
the impression that people who go to menageries and
( ircuses stand in special need of their attentions, had
had the audacity to bid against the King of Showmen.
Tliey had set ui> a tent near the steam-boat pier, and
were doing their best, by means of their noisy "exer-
cises," to deprive Barnum of his lawful and natural
prey. lam disjmsed to think that the show had the
beitofit. I did not go out into the distant suburbs
to see it ; but if its patrons were not more numerous
than the inquirers for " blood-and-fire " theology,

Barnunt k Co. were some thousands of dollars out of
pocket on their Kingston porforinanoos.

Kingston is one of t'le very oldest towns in (!!anada.
It was occujiied by tlio IVciich as early as hi"-, hut it
fell into the hands of the iliulish about the same time
as (,>uebec was captured by Wolfe's lorces, after tho
liattle on the I'lains of .\brahain which cost the lives
of tho chief commandor on each side. As I
before rem. irked, KiiiL^Hton was on<' of tho candidates
for tho jpost of federal c-.pital when the rcattored
colonies were combined into the Canailian Oomiiiion,
and I have already des-rilicil the ciniiinatances und"r
which Ottawa w.is solectcil l)y tho (,»uoen.

Kiujfston is, however, of more importance than its
mere population would imTcate. It is the seat of some
])rominent educational institutions, and l)osses^es several
tine churches and other puMie buildings. Tho principal
provincial renitentiary is there, and the Kockwood
Limatic .Vsylum is near. It is apparently a very plea-
sant place of resilience. Tho suliurlis consist of
wide streets, in whi h almost cvoiy house is detached.
The lino avenues of trce-i which line tho roads on both
sides are as grateful to the sight as they are to somo of
the other senses on a broiling day lik" tliat of our visit,
These avenues of shade trees aie, I may remark, oliar-
acteristic of almost all Canadian and Ainericm cities,
and a very beautiful and pleasant feature they are. In
many cases, tliey are pi intcd long before the houses are
built. As ^ on as tlie site of a town is deiuiled
on, tho stieets arc laid out chessboard fashion,
and milos of trees are often i)lanted at once. I'.y tho
time the blocks, or sipiarespaees enclosed by the stieets,
are fairly covered witli t)uildiiij;s —sometimes long be-
fore —the trees liave attained a considerahlo si/e, and
are in a condition to render tlie grateful service for
which they were des'gned. Kin,'ston, moreover, like
almost all other towns aiiproachin^' or exeeeding 10,001)
inhal)itaiits, has its lines of street cars, wliioh, for a few
cents, carry passengers from one end of the city to the
other every few minutes.

Lakk Ontario.

It was late in tho afternoon when our steamer left
Kingstonandfairly entered l.aket )ntario— thelowest and
the smallest of the greatest group of fresh-water seas in
the world. Ontario is, as 1 have said, the smallest of
tho five ; but its smallness is only relative. It is nearly
200 miles in length, :u\d at one point is (i'l miles in
breadth. Its area is 0,000 square miles ; that is to say,
it is about six times as largo as the county of
Dorset. Its average depMi is 000 feet, and its
level is l.'2I feet above that of the Atlantic
Ocean. The greater part of this dill'erence in level
is, of course, accounted for by the series of rapids
already described. Lake Ontario receives some respect-
able contributions of water from the numerous streams
which drain western New York State and a large part
of tho Province of Ontario ; but by far tho greater part
of the vast flood which it passes on to tho St. Lawrence
comes from the four upper and larger lakes, and
flows into it from tho Nia'.;ara River. As evening
was drawing on when we left Kingston, it was but littlo
of the lake that we saw. Tlio last feature* dicerniblo
in the twilight were two groups of small islands,
called respectively the Ducks and tho Diakos, between
which we passed into what appealed like the opon sesv
beyond. When we awoke next morn n,' (Sunday), wo
were steaming into tiie harbour of 'I'oronto, and we
were comfortably (juartered in tlio (.,)ueen's Hotel, in
that city, in time for an early breakfast.

TORONTO.

Toronto is not— that is, nit vet— the largest city in
Canada, Montreal enjoying that distinction for the pre-
sent ; but it struck me as being the most energetic,
piogressi t'e, and English-like plane I entered before cross-
ing into the States. Ic is, indeed, a place of which the
Canadians may well be proud. As a matter of
fao\ it IS the , lost English of the chief Canailian
ci.ies. Q;.cb^c, 'is we have seen, is mainly French, and
MontreaUargely so ; but the inhiibitantsof Toronto are
ftlmost entirely of British extraction. Unlike Quebec
a-ud Montred, Toronto, as a city, ...s never French,
though its site Wiis no doubt inclmled in what was onoe
regarded as French territory. iJut it was not fourled
tiUlun^j after Canada became British. Its founder wa=i
General cjimooe, whi), in 17:14, set it going undor tlia
name of York. Th:it name it cont:nued to lieur until
1S;44, when it was incotporat -d under t le name of To-
ronto—an Iniian word which, beiu,Mlune into Ktiglis i,
means " The I'lace of Meering." The impulatior. in
1817 WAS ha.-diy 1,2J0, and even in lsr)2 it was only
30,000. By 1H()1, it had increased to 15.000, and it is
now about 'JO.OOOand constantly increasing.

The city extend-s for several miles along the shore of
;ae lake. ' Its harbour consists (,f a tine biy, which is
protocted by a Ion,' tongue of land— either island or
peninsula— f.gainst all winds e.Kcepi those fr , n the
west; : and as the lake does not extend much further in
that direction, a gale from the west is not greatly to be
U:k ;, Although the city coverj siv or eight snuare
rriih-s, most of the important (Tovernment an I business
b,-' ''ing:. are concentrated on a central area about one
mile sciuire. In this small area are the Provinciil
Pa'liament House, the priujipil hotels, the pa-^senger
stations of the railways, the rost-otfice, the banks, the
newspaper oiiices, and many of the piincip\l trading
firms. This is the heart of Toronto, and it is to that
place what the City and Westmiuiter combined are to
our own overgrown metropolis.

Elevators.
Here, for the first timj, I saw grain elevators on a
large scale, there being .several of them scattered along
the lake shore. As these erections are constantly re-
ferred to in the American newspape'-s and market re-
ports, and as they form a striking though ugly feature
of all th" gient cities which are engaged in the grain

trade, I y as well, onoe for all, say what they are

like. An elevator, then, is merely a large grain store,
and it owes its name to the fact that it is
usually proviUcl with ingenious machinery for lifting
grain out of railway cats or ships in a marvellously
expeditious manner, and for re shipping it ultli e |ual
dispatch. .Some of these elevators are of vast propor-
tions. In (.'hicago, wiiere they are foun>l on the very
largest scale, there is more then ono wli ise storage
capacity is measured by the ti.-.Uion husl;. Is, and whose
power of taking in and discharging grain rapidly is
equally amazing. The elevators are painfully alike in
their ugliness. They are immense quadrangular
buildings, of great height. Out of the centre of the
roof rises a second buililing, a few feet narrower than tho
main structure, which raises the total height two, or
three, or four storeys more. The main buildinj;, which
isusually of brick or stone, has few, if any, windows ; and
its immense acreage of blank wall, fre(iuently painted
black, is hideous iu tho extreme. The upper and
smaller building is of wood, and, being usually pro-
vided with windows, is a little less unsightly. The
arcbiteots of elevators do not bother their boads about

appearancaa. Utility ia all they care about, and that,
no doubt, they secure. But in this exch ve devo-
tion to the useful, they, unfortunateij, manage
to disfigure n treat many fine views. The shores
of great lakes and rivers are natur.ally the sites most in
favour ; and *ho result is that the waterside views of
such cities as Toronto, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit,
Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis, &c., aretersibly marred
bv these hideous jules. The term "elevator," by theway,
proadses t > lose its original meaning, just as so many
other words have I st theirs. It is now generally applied
to niiy grain stoie, whether it posse -ses mechanical ap-
])liances or n. t. Every dealer who runs up a little
woo.len shed fv,r grain at a wayside radway station now
dignities it wit'i the name of *' elevator."

Thk Plan qv the Citv.
Toronto is laid out with tolerable regularity, but it is
not quite so monotonous and che>s-l)oardy in the
arrangementi of its strtets as many of tho cities which
I afturwaids saw. It-* Ljie.itest length is from east to
west along the shore of the lake. The first street
running parallel with the shore is I'lont Street. This is
a name usually given to the street nearest the water's
edge in those American cities which lie alongside a liver
or lake. Next to Front Stieet, Toronto, come succes-
sively King Stieet and Queen Street, two fine
thoiouahfares which run east and west through the
whole len-th of the city, and merge into one at their
eastern extreii\ity. I need har^'y say that these
names are not often found applied to streets in the
States, where kings and queens are net regarded with
any supertiuous reverence. North of (Jua^n Street, the
arra'igernent of the streats leading east and west is less
regular, none of tlio thoroughfares bearing the same
name for any considerable distance. The streets which
run north and south —that is tosr.y, from the lake shore
inland — are more regular and numerous, and are in all
cases perfectly straight. The mo-t central and imi>ort-
ant of these thoroughfares is Yonge Street, which starts
from the neighbourhood of the steambnat wharves,
crosses Front, King, and Qujeu Streets at some of the
busiest centres in the city, and continues straight
north to the city boundary. "'eyond that point it
assumes the form of ajierfectly straight main roitd, and
as such is continued into the country for (I think I was
told) thirty miles. Most of the streets bear Enslisii
names, 'i'he changes are rung on Wellington, Albert,
Jliohmond, Adelaide, Wilton, Pembroke, Duchess,
Britain, Nelsim, Camden. Grosvenor, Breadalbane,
Oxford, Sohi), St. George, &c., until the strange" can
no longer doubt that he is in a thoroughly British city.
Here and there, purely American namos, such as Niagara
Street, are to be sean ; and opj wide avenue (S[)adina)
beais a name suggestive of one of the mo h>rn repre-
sentatives of the Latin; but English names vastly
predominate. So, imieed, do English (and Scotch)
people.

T'lH W0N|-)EI13 OF THE TKLEPHOKE.

Toronto was the cleanest and best-pa^ed Canadian
city I saw. Indeed, in all the appl ances and con-
vi^niences of civilization, it is not surpassed by
many cities on the American Continent. In some
respects, it is far ahead of many larger and older
English towns. Tiie use of the telephone is a ca.se
in point. The telephone wires appear to enter
almost every decent house, whether business or
private. Tho district of the Toronto Telephone Com-
jiany includes, moreover, ft vast deal besides the city.
The convenience, as well as the marvollous character, of

I Canailiiin
mill con-

In some
inJ older
is a case
I to enter
IsincBs or
lione Com-
the city.
Iractur, of

this system of holding a conversation with
a distant person will be well illustrate!' by the follow-
ing story. My travelling companion had relative-i in
Toronto, and toj);ether we visited them at their house —
ft private one in a (|uiet street. J[y friend happened to
express a wish that he ciuld arri\iige for anothor rohi-
tive of his, livin;^ in a town about o") miles from the
city, to come in and see him. 'i'he lady of the iiovso
siiid : "Oh, I'll call him ui) ;" and, uoin:; to hor tele-
phone, she was in a minute or two in direct conveisi-

tion with him. "Mr. !S is here,"' .she ^aid, "and

wants to know if you can come into town and
see liim." In a few seconds, the day and the train
were fi-xed, n-nl at the apiiointed liour the gentleman
duly turned up. AVhun the Uristol pnoplo cm thus
si)eak to their frienJ?! at Bridgwater or Yeuvil, when
Exeter can talk to Axminster, and Scmthampton to
Ijournemoutli, our important towns will be up to the
level of Toronto in this particular matter. At present,
we are all behind, and I am afraid we shall rot lin that
position until the country insists on ii; that the I'ust
Olfice, and the monopoly it diims in the use of
electrical communication, shall no linger bar the path
of progress. It is not the large American towns only
which have the benefit of the telephone. 1 was in
several places i from 5,000 to 15,0iJ0 iniiabitants
in which every respectable house and every
business ostabli.slinient had its tolp;-'}iono. At a third-
rate hotel at I\Ian|uette, an outlandish pI;<co on the
shore of Like Superior, 100 miles iiorth of Cli;ua};0. I
heard the proprietor's wife " call u]) " one of the other
hotels to inciuire about a missing umbrella. I found in
otlier iilacea, not much larger, that the ladies werr
accustomed to (I J t ^ir sho|>ping by telephone. Tliry
" called up,"' in su. . ssion. their " butcher, baker, rnd
candlestick - maker, ' and f;avi> their orders witluut
leaving their sitting-rooms. AVhen arc- we going to do
this in Kngland "^ If Parli luirnt wouM only authorise
Mr. I'awcett to stand asule, even at some little sacri-
fice of Government rights, we naghtdoit very soon, and
at a very moderate cost.

SciEXOE /VNn KicLTiiioN Made ti Sifake TlA.vns.

Seeing an announcement in a Toronto paper that the
Eev. Professor Somebodv (Hicks I believe, but. am not
certain), of C imhridge, I'lngl end. was to preach at .St.
Steplien's Protestant I'hutch, on the .Sunday inoininj:
of our arrival, on " Science and Heligiun,"' I decided
to go and hear him. A " drummer ' for (as he toid
nie) "the largest eleetro-jilate works in tiio Wurld,''
at Meiiden, Uonuectiout, who lia|)p ;ned to be at our
liotel, agreed to go with me, to h e whit li,dit the
professor was able to throw on the old, old prodom ;
and we started o 1' together, in a temp'raturo which
had sent the thermouieC;r up among the 'J )'s. Wo
found iSpauini A\enue, an imineiisely wide one,
to bo a good deal longer than it was wide,
and 1)3' the time wo readied the cliiuch,
we felt, and no doubt looked, as if we had been
in a Turldsh bath. 1 never in my life pitied either a
pieau'aer or a congregation more t lan I did those whom
we found in St. Stepiien's ('hundi that morning. The
rev. professor could ne\er have been told what sort of a
congregation he might evpect, or ho would certainly
have chosen a ditferent subject for Iiis discourse. N'ay,
ii he could have foreseen both the natuieof the congre-
gation and the ho.it of t'lo day, lie would perhaps h.ive
dispensed with a sermon altogether. For a good half
of his hearers weio the children of a Sunday-school,
who oould Dot understand a single seutence from be-

ginning; to end, and whom tho intense heat
rendered irritable and restless in the extreme.
The majority of the adult half wera very common-
place ami unintelligent-looking peoide, who appaared
liorribly bored at having to listen to an addies< which
was utterly incomprehensible to tliem. lUit the sermon
had been duly advertised, and, whether understood or
not, had to be let olT. I listene 1 to it as well as the
rjst'-'ss chiliiren and the great heat would allow. It
was a tluHU'h''iul and sc iolirly adilre.'s the work of a
thinker who belicicd h' had discovered a real /'"dus
rlreiil' between the claims of the (^hiir.di and the
teachings of Science. The preachi;r took a broad
and 'iberal view of the i|Uestion, declaring, with
no circumlocution, but in plain, liold language,
that, without pledging himself to details, he fully
accepted the iloctrine of evolution, ami that he fouml
iiotliing in that doctrine which conflicted in any way
with his view of (Jhristianity. To mo this was a memor-
able discourse. It was the first lime in my life that I
had ever heard a clergyman of the ];4ablislied Church
))ublicly declare his acceptance of I.»arwin's famous
theory, ami his bePef that it touched no vital part of
his leligion. Verily, the world moves I IJi't 1 could
not help regretting that the Professor had been obliged

to cast his iiearls before no, 1 don't mean that, and

had better drop the metaphor. I moan it is a pity he
was not favoured with a more appreciative audience
and a rather cooler morning.

. The Art and Mystery ok PoRK-rACKiNO.

'"'•ne of our feilowpassongers by the Pari, ian was a
Canailian gentleman named J >avis, who, wita his wife
and (laughter, v as returning home after a vi- o to Eng-
land. Ho was about tlie only Fiee-traiier amongst all
the Canadiaii onboard, i'he question of Free-trade
ro-.ius I'rotoctioii was lieing continually fought out
among the various gossiping groups on deck ; and iMr,
Davis, finding that I and my friend had fro piently to
hoMourowii — or. at any rate, to try to hold it - against
overwhelming odds as regards numbers, he gallantly
came to our rescue, and before we r ached (,)uebe3
we were on very friendly terms with himself and his
lady compani Ills. W'e ilis;overed that he was tlio
chief p.oprietor of a large " packing-lioiiso " at 'I'^ir into,
anil before wo parted from him, he made us piomiso
that we would look idm up when we reacii mI that city.
" Packing-house " is an exi)re3siou peiuiliar to tlis
American language. It is a name applie I generally to
the numerous and vast establishments in which ])ork,
beef, and otliL. iieats are [lacked ill boxes or tins for
export.

.Messrs. D ; 'is & Son have a retail establishment for
the >ale of oork at a considerable distance from tlio
packing-houso, and it was to t!'.is st ire, or shop, that
we lirst found our way. The proprietor w.is not there,
but tiie mana.'cr instantly telephoned to the jiacidng-
hoiise to say that wo ha 1 called. " Will he ujiiii a few
minutes" was the reply whicli almost immediately came
back by the wire. So wo waited, improving fdie time
by li.ileniiig to, and occasionally taking a l.i.tlo Dirt in,
a very warm discussion which was going on between the
manager and one of his butciiers on the Sunday-closing
quo tion, whicli appeared, to bo at that moment agitat-
ing the city, The two men were diametiically
opposed to each other, and they debated the
subject with great energy and earnestness,
but with perfectly good temper. Their discus-
sion was interrupted two or three times by tho
entrance of ouatomers— Chinamen in each case; and as

1 ;

these were the first of the thousands of the pig-tailed
Mongoliana whom we saw in the course of our journey,
we took stock of them to the best of our ability. They
all came for pork— a kind of food of which the
"heathen Chinee " are very fond. It is appaiently the
only luxury the^ induli,'e in. In their own country,
the majority of them get only rice, and not
too much of that ; for China is greatly over-
populated, and the struggle for bare existence
is in many districts keen and terriMe. But
when John Chinaman gets to Amei'ic;i, he is in clover —
as long as the Irishmen let him alone. He finds him-
self in u land where the rate of wages is high even when
compared with iiuropean standards, and fabulously ex-
trp.vagant when contrasted with the wretched earnings
of the Chinese at home. He can underbid the Irish and
native Americans in the labour market, and still be
" rich beyond the dreams of avarice " he indulged in in
his native land. He is, moreover, very industrious ; and,
as a matter of fact, he gives more labour for less money
tlian those with whom he competes. It is, therefore, not
surprising tliat the Irish and native American labourers
disai)prove of .John Chinaman, and do all thev can to
keep him at home, or, failing that, to drive him back.
It is in California tliat this labour feud has reached its
most serious ])roportions, and I shall have further
occasion to refer to it when (if ever) I get so far with
this narrative as to deal with that distant State. Few
ot the Chinese (who, of course, all come across the
Pacific and land at S:in Francisco) penetrate so far as
the Eastern States, and still fewer reacii Canada. Still,
as I have said, we found a ftw in Toronto. These weie
all in the laundry line. .John is a cajjital washerwoman
(to indulge in an Irishism) ; and whenever the
Chinese come across the Rocky Mountains, it is almost
always to set up laundries. Go into what city you will,
from Toronto to San Francisco, and you find these
Chinese washing establishments ; sometimes" they are so
numerous as to he apparently monopolising the business.
" Sam Sing's Laundry," " Hung Hen's Laundry,"
" Who Joy's Laundry," and similar inscripcions,
painted on long sign-boards standing out across the foot-
way, constantly stare you in the face.

But in less time than it has taken me to jot down
these few preliminary remarks about the Chinese, Mr.
Davis drove up to the door of his store, and in a few
minutes it was arranged that he should presently send
his carriage to our hotel to take us round the city, and
ultimately to set us down at his packing-house. I pass
over for the present what his courteous son-in-law
showed us in the course of the drive, and come at once
to tlie jiacking business.

Messrs. Davis's establishment, which, I believe, i^
the largest of its kind in Canada, is at the east end of
the city, close to where the Don— not that big river
which drains so large a portion of Southern
Kus-iia, but a small stream bearinj; the same
name — flows into Lake Ontario. '•''he business of
the Don Packinghouse consists —exclusively, I think —
in the killing, curing, and ))ackin< of pork. On the
day of our vi~it, business was soinewliat dull ; still, a
few score of |)ig8— possibly a bundled or twi)— had to be
operated on some time after our arrival, anil we
remained to witness the process. (Correction : I have
used the word " pigs.' This is apjiarently unknown in
America. Tliere pigsarealways " hogs."') This is how
poor Piggy is maile meat of in about eight or ten
minutes : —

in* — a whole crowd of him— is driven up an inclined
path to the level of the third floor of the building. He

hears frightful squeals, gradually subsiding to spasmodio
and feeble sobs, proceeding from those of his brethren
who have preceded him up that fatal road. He may be
a very stupid animal, but he has wit enough to suspect
that it is not for his own comfort and profit that he is
being driven to the top of a high house, amid sights,
smells, and sounds which are all sufficiently ominous.
Ho protests loudly, of course ; but he has to go, and
when he r aches the top. he is not long kept in suspense
as to his fate. I cannot describe the exact mode of
execution. Wholesale butchery, however necessary, has
no charms for me, and I therefore avoided the slaug'ter-
house altogether. All I can say is that the hogs which
walked up one inclined plane slid down another and
shorier inclined plane, with their throats cut and dead,
within five minutes. It was at the bottom of tliis second
inclined plaue that the peculiar treatment of the car-
case began.

Close to the bottom of tlds slide was an opening, as
large as a door, in tlie side of what looked like a small
blast furnace, or aver]? larga chimney on fire. No fire
was actually visible through the door at the bottom,
but the intense glow which proceeded from it showed
that a fierce tire was burning inside and immediately
above. Flames and smoke were, moreover, issuing from
the top of the erection, just as they issue from the
Imndreds of furnaces which one sees at night when pass-
ing through the Black Country in South Statfordsbire.
We approached as near to the bottom of this
diabolical looking ajjparatus as the heat proceed-
ing from it, and the heap of dead pigs lying
at the bottom of t e slide, would allow. We then dis-
ccveied that the furnace was a sort of circular roasting
machine. The centre was clear from to)) to bottom,
and sufficiently large to allow the largest of pigs to
ascend or descend through it, head or tail first. But this
open shaft was completely s\irrounded by a fierce fire,
stimulated by a blast from a fan, so that everything
which passed up or down the shaft went through the fit e
without toucliing the burning coals. An endless chain,
with specially large links or rings at intervals, was con-
stantly travelling up through the centre of the furnace
and down on tlie outside. A man, who was invisible to
the looker-on, was posted in such a position that he
could regulate at will the force of the fire and the speed
with which the chain travelled. It depended mainly
on the judgment of tliis invisible operator whether the
l)rocess of singeing (or, as we used to call it in Hamp-
shire in my boyhood, " s wealing ") was performed pro-
perly or improperly.

The fire having been duly lighted and forced to the
iiroper pitch of intensity, the invisible operator took bis
l)laco— a rather warm ■ ne — in his own watch box, and
another man took up his position — an equally
sultry one — close to the furnace door. Then
the slaughter began, and in a few minutes
the man at tlie furnace door stood like the
sole survivor of a battle. A heap of dead pigs, tum-
bloil pell-mell down the wooden slide, lay around him,
and thix'iitened to overwhelm him unless he took
prompt measures to forward them the next stage on
tiu'ir jiorkward progress. Seizing the pig that lay
nearest and handiest by one end — whether by the snout
or by the heels I forget now— he deftly fastened into it
a hook attached to a short chain. The other end of
this chain was furnished with another hook, and
this was cleverly hitched into one of tho large
rings or links of the endltis chain which
was slowly moving upward through the furnace.
The result, of course, was that the pig, in an

to the
book his
Jox, and
equally
. Then
I minutes
like tho
rs, tum-
lu.d him,
Iho took
1 stage on
that l:«y
Iho snout
\il into it
;r enil of
[ok, and
^10 largo
wliich
furnace,
la aa

upright position, was slowly drawn up through the very
midst of the " burning fiery furnace. " p]very hair on
his body was instantly frizzled u)) by the intense heat,
but he W113 not in the fire Ions? enough t > allow his tlesh
to he in the sli^'htest degree injured. The moment one
j)ig had disapi)eared on his ui)waid journey t rougii this
poiciiie Inferno, the operator at the bottom hitched on
ar.otlier ; and so the emlle-s procession was kept up as
long astlie slaughterers up aloft continued to slay, and
to tumble tiieir victims down t)ie wooden sUde. I did
not time the operators, but, as near as I can judge, two
pigs were passed through the furnace every minute.
The rate could not, indeed, have been much b-low this,
for Mr, Davis, jun., told ir.e tliat in busy sriisons they
somutimes killed and disr)0sed of l.L'OO pigs per day.

As the carcases of the pigs, havi ig thus lad the
cleanest imd quickest of shiivcs, emerged from the
furnaces, they were I'romptly seized and started on
another stage ; and iu less lime than it takes to des-
cribe tiie process, they emergeil T ?!>i the h inds of a
host of operators, their internals removed, their inner
andoutersurfaces well washed by means of a perfect tlood
of water poured upon tlieni from flexible tubes, and
their plump forms ready for the cooling room. At no
one point had they to be lifted. From the level of the
toj) of the furnace, they started on a downward journey,
and travelled on from li;ind to hand by virtue of their
own gravity alone. They were suspended by the hoels
from a strong, deep, continuous bar, phiced edge
upwards, which ran on a gentle decline from near the
top of the furnace to the centre of the immense loft
in which the carcases were hung prior to being taken
into the cooling room. On the top of this bar ran small
iron i)ulleys, like wheels on a rail, and from each of tlie
pulleys hung a pig's carcase on a small cross-bar. As the
carcase left the hands of the operator who gave it its
finishing touch, it received a gentle push, which sent it
on to its destination without further aid. It was
curious to see dead pigs, with their snouts to the floor
and their heels in the air, gliding about silently in this
mysterious fashion, for the eye did not at once deti ct
the slight drop in the level of the bar on which they
travelled. It was, moreover, necessary to bo on the
look-out for the pigs ; for at one point the overhead
rail made a sharp turn through a door-way ; and as
the carcases sailed in round this corner, it needed no
great skill to make sure of being howled over by one
of the advancing members of the never ending proces-
sion. xVs the carcasos reached the end of the rail, they
were transferred, by an ingenious arrangement, but still
without being litted, to a series of parallel l)ars running
off at right angles from the main bar, like the branches
of a railway. Thoy were thus brought close togetlieriu
ranks, as close as troops stand on parade, and presently
by a similar process they were removed into the cooling
room. Tiiis is an immense square apartuK'nt, with
double windows and walls specially adapted to exclude
heat. All the air that goes into it passes first througli
ice, of which hundreds— I believe I may say thousands
— of tons are used during the summer season. On the
intensely hot day on which we visited the place, going
into tliis room was something tike an instautan>'Ous
transfer from Africa to Cireenlan 1, and it was neitlier
pleasant nor safe for us, who were unacclimatized, to
remain in so low a temperature more than a minute or
two.

Mr. Davis and liis son were good enough to .show us
all the processes carried on in the factory, and to e^i-
plain how every particle of the defunct hog is turned
to lome good purpose. It wa« all very interesting, but

truth compels me to say that some of the processes,
such as the boiling down of the lard, and the conver-
sion of the blood, &c., into manure, are by no means
pleasant. Indeed, I should not a-.lvise fastidious per-
sons, or thove possessing a very easily-otfeuiled serise of
smell, to go over a pa';kitighouse. I do not know that
such an cxjierionco need interfere with one's ap))etite
for pork ; but it must be admitted that some of the
sights ard sounds are not such as either the humani-
tarian or the super-refined would be likely to relish. I
inspected the place because I knew pork-packing to be
one of the greatest industries of America, and because I
thought it rry duty to learn what I could about it, even
at some little sidf-sacrifice. I have described the pro-
cesses more fully than I otherwi>i-:- should have done,
because I shall have no occasion to return to the subject.
I afterwards saw the oiitsiMes of Armour's and idbby's
vast establishments at Chicago, and of sii.iilar concerns
at St. Louis, Kansas' City, and Cincinnati ; hut id-
though some of these are much larger than the I 'on
Packinghouse, dispusing, in one instante, of no le.ss
than .'j.OOi) hogs a day, I did not put my head inside
one of them. I had thou^dit it my duty to see one, but
that was enough. At any rate, I was (juite contc t to
regard it as a fair sample of all the rest. 1 was
told, moreovei, by a gentleman resident at
Chicago, that tho inspection of some of the
larger packing-houses is not unattende<l with risk,
unless one happens to know the workmen's ex-
pectations as to " tips ;"for " tips," as I have before
explained, are becoming a recognised American institu-
tion. A friend of the gentleman to whom I have re-
ferred was shown over Armour's place. He happened,
unfortunately, to be a great swell in the matter of dress,
and to be igaoi int of or to ignore the workmen's rules.
Passing along liclow the level at which some men were
engaged in opening and disembowelling the pigs, he
natur ' looked up to waich the operation, and at that
critica .loment a bunch of the internal organs of <>ne of
the aniiii'"' " ar 'ident illy '' alipi)ed out of a wo: .man's
hands ana dropped witfi tho most wcmderful .iccuracy
full on the dandy's v i expanse of spotless shirt-front.
Let us draw a veil over the excriciatingly painful
scene !

MORK AUOfT TOKONTO.

One of the most attractive features of Tc nto is its
noble park of fifty acres, known .-v- ".Uieen's I .irk. Tlu.1
is (dose to the northern boundary o. t le city, and about
half-w.iybetween its eastern and wfstern extremities. The
principal juirk entrance is uppro.iciiedfrom thesouthbya
magnificent avenue, cdled College Avenue. The central
loadwiy of this fine thoroughfare is I'Ji) f'^et wide, and
the shade trees which line botii si. I are excep-
tionally large and handsome. '1'! aue is about
tliree-(|uarters of a mile in li and perfectly
straigiit, and it forms a direct i juimuncation be-
tween the i)ark and the centre of the city.
Tiio park is beautifully laid out, and contains a tine
monument, intheshvpe of a brown-stone shaft, sur-
mounted by a colossal marble statue of IJritannia. The
inscription on the ])edestal explains that this monument
was erecied in memory of the (Janadian Volimtesrs
who lost their lives in repelling the absurd Fenian inva-
sion in 18t)(). Clos! to the (.Queen's P.ark, and ap-
parently forming part of it. are the extensive grounds
of the IJniversity of Toronto, a large building of grey
rubble stone, tr'inined with Ohio and Caen stone. This
handsome pile forms three sides of an immense quad-
rangle, facing south, and is regarded in Canada ai a
peculiarly fine •peoimen of pure Norman architecture.

i
i

What Mr, Freeman thinks of its claims to such a dis-
tinction I cannot Svy, and my own opinion on such a sub-
ject is worth notliin;,'.

Mr. I avis's son in-law, a Kcntlcmau wlio Iii\d taitcn
up his residence in Ohio, li:id been a student at the
University, and knew all the ins and out< of tiio jdace.
Under his guid;\ncc, we ins|ioi;tod tiie Ijuiidin^', lieinp;
accompanied aNo by tlie janitor, wlu) jiroved to bi^ an
old ]5ritish cavuliy pensioner, and one of tlic few sur-
vivors of tiie gall.mt (iitO who took jiart in the mad
chnrae at B daclava. ^\'e wore much struck wit'i the
solidity and excellence of the huildin<4, the comi)leteness
of all the arrangements, and the liber.il and camfoi table
accommodation provided in every department. A grant
of nearly a quarter of a million acres of land was mmle to
the University in the time of William the Fourth ; and
if this land is still held by its representatives, it must
possess a large and rapidly-increasing revenue. Knox
College, a lar^o Presbyterian institution, is within a few
hundred yards of the University.

Among other public buildings worthy of notice are
Osgoode Hall, in (Jueen Street, an imposing building in
the Gre:'.ian-lonic style, containing the iirovincial law
courts and an excellent law lii)rary ; the Post Otfice, at
the head of Toronto iStreit ; the Protectant Cath 'dr.il
of St. .Tames, a siiacious Cot'-ic building surroundoil by
numerous h inds imc trees, in King Street; the U itholic
Cathedral, in (Jhurch Street ; and tiio Mctiiodist
Churcli in M'(;ill S lUire, saiil to lie the finest chuicli of
that denominition in (.'an,id;i. The Provincial Parlia-
ment House is in l''iont Street, and the J'rovincial
Lunatic Asylum near the western extremity of (,»ueen
Btreet.

Having shown us the Park, the Univer.sity, and other
matters of interest, our courteous guide drove us to the
north-e.'istern suhurbs of the city, whicdi we found to bo
rom mtically beaut ful. A suiall stream (possibly the
Don or one of its branches) wiuiul along
through a deep and benUifnlly-woucied valley.
So abrupt, indeed, were the sides of this valley that tlie
roads had to be carried across them on wooilen bridges
of great height. At each end of these bridges was
e.ihibited a notice to the etfect that all jiorsons driving
over at a faster jiace than a walk would bo liable to a
fine of so many dollars. This notice is to be seen on
almost every bridge in America. Tn the case of rather
slight wooden erections like that at Toronto, the
regulation is ro.isonable enougti ; but I was a good deal
surprised to find it in force where the bridges were of
iron, and of the most massive and substantial char.icter.
High above the valley of the stream which meandered
along below were the private residences of some of
the merchant jirinccs of the city. Among others, our
friend l\Ir. Davis, of the Don Packing-house, had
pitched his tent in this romantic suburb, and a very
substantial tent it was, bcin,' no other than a large and
handsome mansion, elegantly decorated (to use the
favourite American phrase), surrounded with beautiful
grounds, and furnished with excellent taste. Here wo
•were kindly greeted and hosi)itably entertained by the
lady members of Mr. Davis's family — our temporary
friends and political allies from the PiiriKian, Taking
leave of these, we were driv 'U to the Dacking-house,
■which establishment I have already describeil.

Toronto looks straight out across the lak" in the
direction of the mouth of the Niagara Kivei'. The dis-
tance is about 45 miles, and steam -boats run to and fro
daily, a day at iho Falls being naturally a favourite
excursion with the citizens. We crossed the lake in the
afternoon of Tuesday, July 24tb. Almost as .soon as

W9 had lost sight of the spires and masts of Toronto,
the opposite shore came in view, and henceforth our
attention was entirely occ ipied in the attempt to make
out, liy the aid of our glasses, the outlet of the short
river whose fame has reached the ends of the earth.
When, at last, wo reached the old village of Niagara,
which lies on the ('anadian side of the river close to the
point at which it joins the lake, we discovered tliat, for
all one could tell from its appe.irance at that point, the
stream might have had as uneventful a journoy as that

of the Trent

the Thames. From the steam-boat

pier wo were conveyed by the Canada Southern Rail-
way to a station on the Canadiiin s. ie of the I alls, and
in a few minutes more v/o were duly quartered in the
Clifton House Hotel.

NIAGARA.

Before I attempt, in my feeble way, to describe the
impressions and emotions iiroduced upon anil ir. mo by
a si4ht of the amazing a<sernblage of natural phenomena
known collectively as " Niagara,"' I will try to convey
some idea of the geography of the locality.

TirK Upper Rapids.

The Niagara is a short river, only ?><> miles in length,
flowing out of Lake I'lrii! and emptying itsdf into Lake
Ontario. The twj feitures ujion which its fame de-
liends are the enormous bulk of its stream, and the fact
that in its short journey its bed falls no le ) than 'A'.H
feet. As I hav e already expl lincd, the whole of the
overllow of the great lakes (Superior, Michigan, Huron,
and ]']rie) jiasses olf by this river. Those lakes alone
cover a larger area than Ore it Ibitain ano Irel ind com-
bined, and the siuface they drain is at least twice ao
large as Franco. Imagine, then, the whole (li.^Jnigo of
France, Germany, and the liritis'i Isles gathered into
a single stream, and you have some faint idea
of the prodigious volume of water which enters the
Niagaia River fro ii Lake Erie, close to the city of
Piuffalo. The stream is at first about two miles wide
and 2) to 40 feet in depth. At Black Rock, a short
distance below ]5u(falo, where it is crossed by a railwa;"
bridge, it is narrowed to about a mile, and the speed of
the current is increased to six or eight miles an hour.
But the fall is still inconsiderable and the surface phieid.
Five or six miles from Lalco Krie, the river is divided
into two streams by < irand Island, which is at one point
nearly eight miles wi lo. When the two
streams re-unite b(low « rand Island, the river
spreads out into a lake lil > expanse two or three
miles in width. Butthe widto soon afterwards begins to
diminish, and before very long the water, which has
hitherto flowed smoothly, if sometimes swiftl}', begins
to finil itself in si'rious trouble. For not only is the
width gradually contracted, but the gradient rapidly
becomes more steeji, the channel more shallow, and the
bed more rugged. And now the water begins to show
its trouble. That which, o mile further back, was a
placid and noiseless stream, is now a boiling and raging
torrent, dashing itself in fury against the huge boulders
and numerous rocky islets which obstrm its i ourse.
It is now in the throes of the Upper uapids, and
in the distance of a mile it falls 'i2 feet.
At the end of that mile are the Falls themsidves, whero
the whole massof water tumbles over a perpendicular
lirecipioe 160 feet in lieight. As one stands on the
bank and watches the furious conflict of forces which
is going on in the U^pper Rapids, giving full )ilay mean-
while to the excited imagination, it is not difticuU to

into
idea
the
ity of
wide
short
ailwa;'
)eed of
hour,
placid,
livided
e point
two
river
three
gins to
ch has
begins
is the
apidly
nil the
show
was a
raginR
cuhlers
rourse.
.s, and
feet.
, where
diciih\r
on the
which
mean-
cult to

see in that mighty torrent a sentient creature which,
suddenly awakened from its plaoif,' sleep, discovers
that it is on the brink of a precipi e or unknown depth,
and iiistintlv puts out all its fji^antic strenjjtii in one
final strugi,'le to avert it-i imiieiidiiis fato. With
despeiate energy, it stretch s its wlr.te arms around
the rocks and islets wlii.h impede its jnojiress to-
wards destruction, and se(MTi3 to say, as it holds them
in its embrace, " If I go, you go also.'" ]>ut the
struggle is all in vain. The islets have their foun-
dations deeply set in '^'". living roc'c, or they
Would have gone long ago, and one after another t'.ey
shako themselves free from tlie water's cold and rude
emb:ace. It is not until the stream is within a few
yards of the very edge of the Fall that this apjiearance
of a lifeand-de ith struggle ceases, and then its cessa-
tion is most remarkable. It looks as if tlie watery
monster had at last discovered tiie uttor futility of its
struggles— had, to put the thing vulgarly, " given it up
as a bad job," an<l resolved to meet its inevit.ible fate
with calmness and dignity.

The Falls.

"'• is, indeed, imjiossible to convey a just conception
of tne combined swiftness, smootliness, external calm-
ness, and inimitable grace with wiiich that torrent of a
million tons a minute sweeps over tlie edge of the jiieci-
pice and takes the t.ital idunge. The curve formed by
the water, as it leajis clear aw.ay from the rock into mid-
air, is unspeakably graceful, especially on the American
side, close to the faviuiite point of view. And, watch
intently as long as you will, that graceful sha))e never
appears to vary by so much as a hairs-breadth. The
BUiriiiy of Water is practically limitless and unvarying ;
and if the Kapids and the Fall were in^^tataneously
frozen in obedience to a mandate of Omnipotence, the
shajie which the water assumes at the edge of the Fall
could hardly appear more fixed tiian it does while the
everlasting torrent pours on and over.

The width of the river at the Falls is about four-
fitths of a mile, but this is divided into two une()ual
spans by Gf.at Islam], which occupies nearly 1,000 feet
of the total width. As ( roat Island extends down to
the very edge of the preoi|iice, there are two distinct
falls. That between Goat Island and the American
shore is known as tlie American Fall, and that between
the Island and the Canadian bank is the Horseshoe
Fall. The American Fall is about 1,100 feet wi,le. The
Horseshoe P'all, measured along the edj;e of the preci|)ice,
is mu h more than 2,000 feet. I need hardly say that
this fall took its name from its shape, liistea I of pre-
senting a fairly si,raii,iit )irecipice for tlie river to tumble
over, as the American F",ill doe-, tlie Cmidiin cataract
forms an irregular semijirdo, with a gash many yards
deep in its centre, rendering it still more irregular in
shape. The water, coining down this immense liorsi-
shoe-shape.l line of clitTs, tumbles into a husre cauldron,
nearly hilt'-a-mile in diameter, which prosiits more
than one of the appeirances of being boiling, as if fo:' a
grand washing day for the wiiole American Continent.
For not only are the w.iters lashed into a white foam
which miiiht very well jiass, at a distance, for soaii suds,
but a mighty cloud of steam-like s)u-ay is always hang-
ing over that gigant'c cauldron ar.d etfectually veiling
from view two thirds of the height of the tali. Pi '
ably no mortal eye has ever seen the centre of th.io
basin, where the troubled waters from above lea i into
the tormented waters below ; for "the smoke of their
torment goetb up for ever." I know no more graphic or
appropriate form of words in which to deaoribe the

dense and ever-present cloud which hans;s over the
seething and mysterious depths.

I'he spray which rises from the bottom of the Ameri-
can Fall is much le s dense and obstructive of the view,
there being no such c ic i!ar basin a; on the other side
to prevent its lieing difipatod by the wind. lleautiful
rainbows are to be seen amid the m'.-t on both siles
when the sun is >bining and the spectator is in the
proper relative [lositio;;.

The Falls are at a point where the river makes a
rather sharp turn. From Lake Erie down to the Falls,
moreover, the banks of the viver are low and gently
slopin,' towards the stream. But as soon as the P'alls
are parsed, the character of tli-» river undergoes a com-
plete change. The banks retain the same actual level
as those further up ; at some [loints, indeed, they are
still higher. It, therefore, comes about tiiat, before
the water lias fairlv recovered from the fit of mailnesa
into which its mighty leap has plunged it, it finds
itself compressed into a gorge 2)0 or oiiO feet in ilepth,
like the Avon at Clifton. Jlut this gorge is narrow as
well as deep, and the gradient once more ^.-cnT.dS very
steep. The rosult of all this is that for six or
seven miles the stream rages and roars along the bottom
of a deep chasm which is nowhere more than 400 yards
wide and in many places only 200 yards. About half-
way down, this chasm suddenly widens out into a sort
of huge basin, and then the gorge takes a sudden ^ura
to the right. At this i)oint, the stream is compr, ssej
into the narrowes: possible limits. It is said tiiat the
width is only 220 feet. This would appear to me
incredible had I not the figures on excellent authority.
Three or four miles below the point at which the course
is thus suddenly turned, the gorge comes to an end. The
river at once widens out, and thence flows calmly on,
between comparatively low banks, until it is lost in the
vast expanse of Ontario. The fall of the river between
the foot of the Falls and the lower end of the gorge is
104 feet.

The Lower Rapids and thb Whirlpool.

The rocky basin last referred to contains the famous
Whirlpool, and the rapids immed'.ately above them are
the Lower or Whirlpool Kapids. No part of the
stupenilous spectacle presented by the Niagara Kiver is
more wonderful or iinpre-sive ban these Lower
Rapid'; and the Whirljiool in which they termin-
ate, To see them to advantage, it is necessary
to d.scend the perpandicular side of the gorge,
which \n be ilone, comfortably if e\|)en-
sively, by means of a lift. The cli.fs are so higa that
a good view could not be obtiiined from the top, even
if private speculators had not done their best to shut
out all access to the verge of the chasm except at those
po'nts at which they can levy a heavy toll. Wo paid
our half-dollar .and were duly " lilted ' by steam power
down to the very edge of the torrent. The scene
beggars all description. Imagine a thousand madmen
8tru,",'ling to escape from a burning building thvou.h a
passage in which only two can walk abreast. Ima^; ne
a hu,'o Hock of sliee[) chased by wolves, with
no way of escape except tlirou.;h a siuiilo nar-
row gatew.iy. Imagine anyt'iin,' and everything you
please which includes a frantic strug^iie on
the part of a vast moving mass to get through a
])assago of utterly inadeipiate width, and you will oidy
have begun to form a faint conception f the awful ■ on-
flict of forces which is for ever going on down i i the
depths of thatglooi"y -■•»«m To bay that the surface
is stirred furiously like the ocean in a gale is to tell but

'!i

■■

a small part of the truth. That it is so stirred goes
without saying, liut the most remarkable and iiniireas-
ive toatuie of tl.u sitieis tlio woii.lcrful lieiivin^ of
tlie waters up and down bodily every few Neeoiiils. To
revert to my former simile, the river lonks ai,'aiii like a
sentient and sulfering creature— a ui^antic serpent, let
us say,— which slowly heaves U]) its hu;,'e, lon;^ back in
its mortal agony, ami as slowly lowers it iiHain. 1 have
never seen or iioard of such a movement as tliis in con-
nection with any oiher mass of w^ater, and I must say
it fairly astounded and fascinated me. The water
literally stooil up in a heap for two or three seconds at
short but irregular intervals, for this remarkable rise
of the water was confined to the centre of the stream
nnd did not extend to the sides. Indeed, if it
had extended to the sides, it would have
made very short work of us, standing as we did
close to its raginj; eds^e, in the com])any of a,
guide whoknewtlictorrent's littloways most thoroughly.
"Where everything is on so vast a scale, it is dillicult to
form a trustworthy estimate as to distances or heights,
and 1 am almost afraid to venture on a guess as to how
Ligii the centre of the river rose in these remarkable up-
heavings. I should say, however, that it was sometimes
heaped u]) to a height of twenty feet, for the water looked
occasionally like a long Atlantic roller lying lengthwise
in the gorge. Immeiliately o)iposite where we stood, and
therefoie at iho foot of the clilf on the Canadian
side, there was a building jf moderate height— at
least two storeys, if not three. It was jjro'.iably
between 200 and SOi) yaid-i from our point of view.
When the swell of the river was at its lowest, I could
see the whole of this house, as well as the rock-strewn
bank at its base. lUi^ when the writhing monster
which filled the ehas ti raised its mighty l)ack to its
full height, the whole housj was completely hidden
from view for a second or two at a time. This
fact gives a better idea of the remarkable heavings of
the river than any estimates of my own in feet or
inches. If any reader marvels at this wonderful
display of eneigy, let him remember chat in this ro;'.ky
gorge is concentrated all the water which has been
drained from a country as large as France, (Tcrmany,
and the Uritish Islands combineil, and, further, that
this prodigious mass is runinng down a slope of 20 or
30 feet to the mile, pressed on from behind by the
resistless force of a fresh million tons of water every
minute. Is it any wonder that tlie torrent tears along
at railroad speerl, raging, and seething, and dashing
itself into spray against every tiny projecting rock ? Is
it any wonder tiiat the furious, foam-crested waves curl
back upon and destroy each otlier m their frantic rage?
Is it any wonder that the torrent heaves as if in mortal
pain, and in eloouent protest against the unchangeable
law of gravitation which drags it down relentlessly and
at headlong speed to its fate? Given the monstrous
body of water, the rajiid fall, and the narrow, rocky
gorge, and this appalling disjday of energy is a matter of
course.

But now let us pass on from the Whirlpool Eapids to
the Whirlpool itself. Try to imagine such a torrent as
1 have been attempting to dosci ihe rushing headlong into
n circular rock basin, from which the only escajio is by
a sharp turn to the right, through a gorge even
narrower, and with a desiieiic even steeper, than those
of the rapids above the I'asin. This is exactly what
happens to the stream, and 1 need hardly say that that
basin is a raging whirlpool, in which the water circles
round and round repeatedly before it escapes into the
lower gorge. It is in this famous Whirlpool, indeed,

that the fury of the torrent reaches its climax. In
the matter of disturbed an<l raging elements, the
imagination can conceive nothing more awe-inspiring
and sublime. It is sa'd that floating objects which
once get int i the NVhirlpool ii imetiines circle round and
round for days, or even weeks, before escaping by the
narrow exit. IJlood - curdling stories are told of
human boilies — the mortal remains of those who
have been dragged into the Upper Rapids
and over the Falls— being thus carried round and round
the Wliirlijool in a ghastly and apparently endless
danoo, sometimes assuming an upriglit attitude and
some. '! :>s the position of a swimmer, as if mockingly
simnh.'.: 'the activities of actual life. There is a legend
current I... the effect that an Indian woman, whose lover
had been drowned here, and who was determined not
to survive iiim, launched her canoe into the river and
was carried down into the Whirli)ool. There, for several
days, she was watched as she floated round and round
the magic circle, until the relenting torrent at last
drew her canoe into the lower gorge and sent her to re-
join her lover.

Captain Webb's Sdicide.

Will it be believed, by any sane person who has
followed me thu-f far, that these Lower Ua|)iiis and the
Whirlpool in widnh they terminate were the very parts
of the river which Captain Webb was mad enough to
tlridc he could swim through ? Such was the fact,
and it hapi)ened that F and my companion were at
Niagara on the very day on which he went down to his
death. We were not aware that the impossible feat
was to bo attempted on that day, and, in fact, knew
nothing about it until wo reached the Clifton House.
We then learnt that Cajitain Webb had left his watch
and other valuables at that very hotel an hour or two
before, and had dived from a boat about a quarter
of a mile above the Lower Rapids. The hotel people
were already beginning to think that it was time he had
been heard of from below ; and, as the evening wore
away without news of him, expectation began to give
way to anxiety, and anxiety to despair. ISutitwas not
until the Rutfalo newspapers arrivtd next mornmgthat
we obtained trustworthy evidence as to his fate. We
then found that he had safely passed through the
Rapids and reached the Whirlpool before he wasfanally
lost sight of. Only I'.i minutes elapsed between his
plunge into the water and his final disappearance. His
wounded and battered l)ody was found four days after-
wards near Lewiston, just below the end of the gorge,
and about four miles from the Whirlpool. In all prob-
ability, he hail been circling round the Whirlpool during
the greater part of those four days.

It was on the day following that of Webb's suicide
that wo descenled to the edge of the rapids, and it was
not until then that we fully realised the man's pre-
sumptuous madness. A photographer who was stationed
down there to "take" people with the torrent for a
background, and who said ho had for years spent the
greater part of everv day there, pointed out to me the
spot at which he finally lost sight of Webb. At that
spot, ho saiil, everything that floated down invariably
dis ippearoJ. ( ireat logs would dive down, end first,
as if sucked under by some irresistible force, and were
never .seen again -that is, in that part of the river
which was within sight. Webl) was certainly seen above
Water again lower down— in the Whirlpool, and logs and
other floating material umloubtedly turn up again and
go througii the usual monotonous mili-horse round for
a shorter or longer period. "If he'd asked me what I

I .

wore
give
If AS not
g that
We
gh the
fanally
eun his
His
s after-
Rorge,
U (irob-
duiing

n 8 pre-

rationed
for a

ent the
me the

\t that

variably
(1 first,

id were
le river

en above
logs and
jain and
und for
) what I

know," continued this photoatrapher, " I guess he'd
never have attempted tVat swim. But I am told he
had never seen the rapi is closer than from tl)e top of
the clilf." This [ was *oh[ hv others was actually true,
and I can well believe it. That :inv in in, nut a ravin;?
lunatic, who had seen the Lower Kapidsand t'lc Whirl-
pool at close ipiarters, should be possessed with tlie
am:izin4 delusion that his breath and uiusclo weie
capable of a struggle with suc'i a chaos of contomling
forces, is to me incredible. As it was, the verdict in
Webb's case ought to have been "Suicide while tem-
porarily insane."

Goat Island.
As I have already explained, the Fall is divided into
two unequal parts by (ioat Island, which, being in the
very midst of the rapids, and close to the precipices of
botli Falls, affords a number of commanding points of
view. The island is not more than a few feet above the
level ri the water at its highest point. It is l)eautifully
wooded, and its woods and ferns and grass are main-
tained in a condition of perpetual verdure by the en-
circling waters and the asctnding spray. At the lower
end, close to the Falls, the island is about 1,(X)0
feet in width. Its length up stream is somewhat
more — perhaps twice as great. (Joat Island is reached
from the American shore by a biidj-'e GOO or 700 foot in
length, resting at several points on rocks rising out of
the bed of the stream. The toll charged at this bridge
is half a dollar ("is). The vi-itor is struck with ainaze-
ment to see a bridge thus spanning the Upper Rapids at
the most dangerous point, within laO yards of the
very verge of the Fall. The work of construction was
certainly a daring one; but the bridge is cleaily vorv
sub.stantial and poifectly safe, and the most timul
would hardly hesitate to cross it.

The centre of the bridge rests ujiona rocV- called Rath
Island, and on this tiny islet, almost overlooking t' e
awful gulf into which the river plunges, is a paper-mill
in full work. I need hardly say that that mill causes
no trouble with its smoke. It pos.sesses neither boiler,
nor engine, nor chimney. The water of the rapids en-
circling the rock works all the machinery without turn-
ing a hair.

We visited Goat Island, of course. Turning to the
right as soon as we were off the bridge, and following a
delightful path shaded by the overhanging trues, wo
found our way first to Luna I.sland. And the mention
of this rock reminds mo that I must make a slight cor-
rection in my statement as to the division of the great
cataract into two distinct falls. As a matter pT fact,
there are three falls — the Horseshoe, the ^iiddle, ar.d
the American. The .Mi<ldle Fall is, however, only a
few yards wide, and is separated from tha American
Fall by so small a space — the mere width of Luna Island,
just referred to— -that for all practical purposes the
two falls are regarded as one. It is only at close
quarters that the distinction between them is notice 1.
We were unaware of it until we came suddetdy to a
bridge, which we found crossed the Middle Fall stream
a short distance above the precipice. Ciossing this
stream, we found ourselves on Luna Island, and were
able to walk to the very eilge of the prejipico, where
we could fairly dip a walking stick into the water of the
American Fall proper at the point where it actually
sweeps over into the abyss. Standing in this position
involves no danger, for the enterprising owners of the
islands have fixed a strong iron railing into the solid
rock, for the protection of those who are anxious to
look over the edq;e. That the position is, neverthe-
less, a trying one to the owners of weak n:rveB,

I can well believe. The spectator stands, indeed, in
the very midst of the raging waters. Uehind him, and
only a ffW yards otf. is the .Middle Fali. Away ui) the
stream to his right, as far as the eve can rea'h, the
rapiils rush and fnam and roar, ns if a very hell of
watery devils had just been let loose, and had sworn to
sweep the tiny islet which clinirs to the edge of the
pri'cipice into the boding depths below. To the specta-
tor's left, and so near to him that he could almost drop
a stone perpendicularly to the bottonri, is the j)recipice
itself. He sees the torrent sweep smoothly and ma-
jestically over the edge, but the jioint where it tumbles
into tlie great basin b dow is hidden from view by the
ever ascending cloud of s iray.

I'rom Luna Island and the American Fall, we made
our way to the jioint where ( Joat Island overlooks tho
luij-rhty Horseshoe, and there the wonders we had
alre.Mly seen were, if possible, surpassed. At least
two-tidrds of the whole mass of water pa.sses over the
Horseslioe, the edge of which is more than two-fifths
of a mile in length. In the centre of the fall, whore
the curre >t is swiftest and the torrent doeiiest, the edge
of the p'ecipice has, of late years, altered a good deal
in shape. The liea\itiful curve which one sees in old
pictures of this fall is now spoilt by a huge gash, form-
ing, as lij v.v're, a little horseshoe at tho
toe of a large one. Into this inner gash the torrent
pours from l)oth hh\lh with a strength and fury which
are perfectly awe-inspiring, even when viewed from a
distance <.f nearly a thousap.d feet. Here is a fact
which will help tho reader to realise the dejith and
volume of the rivor at this point. In 182!), a condemned
lake ship, tl.,? iK:troit, which was of no use e.\oept as
firewood -an article of which the lake district had then
more than enough— was sent over the Horseshoe Fall,
" just for tlie fun of tho hing." The ship ilrew 18
feet, but she swept over the precipice like a bird, with-
out showing the smallest si/n of htiving touched ♦'he
rock, even at the extreme edg3, I have heard tlir.c not
a vestige of the l>etroit was evvr seen afterwanls.

The part of the Hor.seshoe Fall next to (Jnat Island
is a good deal encumbered with rocks down to the very
verge. One of those was sut'iciontly large to sustain a
high tower, of the lighthousa sort, for many years, j nis
erection, which commanded a splendid bird's-eye view
of the wiKJie of the Canadian Fall, and was known as
the Terrapin Tower, was finally blown up, as being
unsafe, in 1873. The rock on which it stood
can still be reached by a series of bridges
leading from rock to rock, and the view, even from tho
level, is surpassingly grand. The visitor can stand as
near to the edge of the Horseshoe here as he api)roached
to the American Full at Lima Island. In those parts
of the fall which are ob'-tructed by rocks, a number of
fioating logs have becoii j entangled on the very verge
of the precipice. There tiiey lie liko artilicial boom.?,
heaving up and down upon the surging w\tc;r'- ; and it
struck me that thoy might possibly serve as the " last
straw," of which the proverb speaks, to any unfortunate
wretch who might happen to have been caught in tho
rapids and carried down to apparently inevitable des-
truction. Whether they have ever thus saved a life, I
do not Know.

Tin; TiiRKK Sistkuh.
Oif the upper end of Goat Island -that is, at the end
furthest fropi the Falls — lie, one beyoiid another, thieo
small, rugged, Sut beautifully-wooded islets, called the
Three Sisters. Although these tiny islands are in the
very midst of the. rapids, means have been found to
oarr/ bridges from one to another, until all three are

iiTfiir

rendered accessible. The half-dollar paid at the long
bridge first described f;ive8 the visitor the right to cros3
nil the other bridges. We visited the Three
Sisters in turn, niul the vicw.s tliey afForiled
us will never fade from my memory. The
most womleifiil sight of all was obtained
from the furthest of the islands, for that lies exposed
to the full fury of tlio sticiim. Wo siit down on the
rocks on the extreme ver^'e of that islet, under the
Bhclter of the drooping trees which kissed the raginij
torrent as it passed, and the fascination of the scene
fairly chained ns to the spot. Looking up the river —
really and visibly up, for tho descent at this
point is very steep, — it was not difficult to
imagine that an endless body of jet-black
horses with snowy manes, riderless but in almost
perfect rank, were sweeping down hill towards
us, and would in a moment pass over us .and the tiny
island on which we lay. On came the charijers in
seiried, never-ending array, rank above rank, squadron
beyond sjuadron, the rattle of their thousand hoofs
combining to form a deep and all-pervading roar ; but
they dashed themselves in v,iin against tliose iron rocks.
Q'he islet sensibly quivered beneatii the shock of the
foam-cresteil masses that were hurled against it
every instant, and a very nervous and imaginative
person might have been e.\cused for thinking the rock
was in some dar.ger of being torn up by its roots and
hurled over the Fall-i. The only danger I f:incied I saw
arose from a tangled mass of tioatinir timber which had
got lodged in some rocks just above the entrance to the
channel between two of the islands. The current which
rushed down that parciculiir channel was furious in the
extreme, and it struck me as extremely likely that, if
the timber should happen to be floated otf suddenly and
altogether, it might sweep away tlie little bridge which
connected the islands. I confess that I should have
been sorry to be either on the bridge or on the outer
island at the moment of the loosening of this "boom'' ;
for I thought in the one case I might possibly be swept
away with the bridge, and in the other I might be
turned into a sort of Kobinson Crusoe until the bridge
could be restored.

The Cave of the Winds.

I have already e.'^plained that the water, in passing
over the Falls, leaps clear away from the edge of the
cliff and falls at a considerable distance from its base.
There is consequently a clear space between tho rock
and the curtain of water which is ever falling in front
of it. This passage, which is naturally rock-strewn
and rugged, is wide enough to allow visitors
to pass under with more or less safety ;
and at two different points there are lifts by which
those who want a dollar's worth of real sensation
may descend and get it by going a few imces behind
the water. One of these points is on the Canadian
side, at the end of the Horseshoe Fall. The other
is on Goat Island, the passage in this case being behind
the little Middle Fall. The enterprising gentleman who
presides over the Coat Islaml lift duly pounced upon
us as we passed his hut, and described to us the rapture
of standing in an oilcloth suit amid a watery hurri-
cane. Seeing that we hesitated, and having discovered
in ft moment that we were Englishmen, he
threw Professor Tyndall at us bodily. That learned
student of Nature had, he said, been there recently, and
vas so delighted with his experience under the Fall,
that he declared it the cheapest thing in that line he
bad ever bought, and made him (the toater) solemnly

declare that he would never allow an Englishman to
pass without getting him down— if he could. In our
case, he couldn't, and I have ever since regretted his
faihire. IJut the trutii is, neither my companion nor I
w:isin very robust health, and we doubted iit the time
if it was wise to ventuie on an enterprise which
appeared certain to involve a smart nervous s'ock, if
notliing else. I have since i)retty well satisfied myself
that we made a mistake, and thut we missed an experi-
ence which was well worth the effort and the infinitesi-
mal risk involved. As, however, I cannot describe
thu Cave of the Winds from my own observiition, I
quote a description from PirtHvcs [ue Am''rica : —
" Tho wooden stairways are nirrovv and steep, but per-
fectly safe ; and a couole of minutes brings us to the
bottom. Here wo are in spray-land indeed ; for we
have hardly be2;un to traverse tiie pathway of broken
bits of shale when, with a mischievous sweep, the wind
.sends ft baby cataract in our direction, and fairly inun-
dates us. The mysterious gloom, with the thi ndering
noises of the falling waters, impresses every ona ; but,
as the pathway is broad, and the walking eas ', new-
comers are apt to think that there is nothing in it. The
tall, stalwait negro, who acts as G;uide, listens with
amusement to such comments, and confidently awaits
a change in the tone of the scoffers. More and more
arched do the rocks become as we proceed. The top
part is of hard limestone, and the lower of shale, which
has been so battered away by the fury of the waters
that there is an arched passage behind the entire Horse-
shoe Fall, which could easily be traversed if the currents
of air would let us pass. But, as we prooeeil, we begin
to notice that it blows a trifle, and from every one of
the 32 points of the compass. At first, however, we
get them separately. A gust at a time inundates us
with spray ; but the farther we march the more unruly
is tho Prince of Air. First, like single 8))ies, come his
winds ; but soon they advance like skirmishers ; and,
at last, where a thin column of water falls acros.i tho
path, fhey o])pose a solid phalanx to our efforts. It
is a point of honour to see who can go farthest
through these corridors of iEolus. It is on
record tliat a man, with a Herculean effort,
once burst through the column of water, but
was immediately thrown to the ground, and
only rejoined his comrades by crawling face downward,
and diggins; his hand into the loose shale of the path-
way. Profe.'isor Tyndall has gone as far as mortal man,
and he describes the buffeting of theairas indescribable,
the effect being like actual blows with the fist."

Other Points of View.

He was a lucky man who, when Niagara began to
attract the world's attention, happened to be the owner
of the land which abuts on the American Fall. He
carefully fenced in his property and began to charge 20
cents admission. As the best of all the near views is
obtained from Prospect Park, as he called his enclosure,
he, of course, gets 20 cents from every visitor. It must,
however, in fairness be said that he offers some return
for his money. At the very point where the edge of tho
precipice join^ the bank, he has erected a massive semi-
circular parapet in aline with the peri)endicularcliff, where
a group of tho most nervous and timid people may stand,
so close to the Fall as to be almost able to dip their hands
into the water as il; glides over into the abyss. Those
who would hesitate about coming to close quarters
with the FttUs by means of the bridges and railings on
Goat Island, need have no apprehension about doing so
at the Prospect Pai-k look-out. Nothing less than the

Budden carrying-away of the rocky angle of the bank it-
gelf could place them in jeopardy.

From Prospect Park, moreover, there is n steep rail-
way lift connuctin;j witii tho bottom of theoliff. Tlio-io
who do not mind a shower l).itii. or who are jiroviiled
with waterproofs, may iles'end this railway, set a lino
view of the Falls from below, be rowed in an oi)en boat
in front of t'e Falls to the Canadian s'.de, and icturn
by the way they went, all for the small sum of a quarter
of a <lollar.

There are three bridges across the gorge below tho
Falls, and witiiin two miles of them. Tiiu first, which
is barely a (uiarter of a mile from the nearest part of
tho American Fall, is a suspension biid^'e for foot and
hor.se tralfic. It was, when built, the lonoiest chain
bridge in the world. The sp.m from tower to tower is
1,2(10 feet, and the height al-ove the ri\er 190 feet. The
Clifton JBrid};e is considerably higher, but little
more than half the lenath. As this bridge
directly faces the Falls at a modcr.^te distinco
from tlijm, the view obtained in i)assiiig over it is
wonderful and impressive in the extreme. Tho faro
for foot passengers is a quarter-dollar (Is.) The
next bridge below the one just described is a remarkable
erccti<jn, which has been finished and o))eiied since I
was there. It is a railway bi idgu on the cantilever
principle, and was built out from both sides simulta-
taneously on what is known as tho "'overhanging"'
plan. It is over the Lower Itapiils, audit was, therefore,
impossible to secure any resting-place between the two
Bteel latticed piers, which stand at the foot of the clitfs
on both sides. The distance between the
piers is 500 feet, and the height above the
water is 21") feet, or about the s>me as
that of the Clifton I'.ridge. Before the bridge la-^t
described w.i.s opened for tratlic, it w.is covered with a
double lineof loaded locomotive-, and under that enor-
mous strain the gigantic steel tiussed girder ot whicli it
consists was deliected only about an inch. The third
bridge (the oldest of all) is close to the one last de-
scribed. It is a suspension bridge for railway, horse,
and foot traffic, Its height is 24.5 feet, and tlie span
from tower to. tower is Hlil feet. This bridge has been
in use nearly 30 years. It wis built by 3Ir. J. A.
Roebling, who has since designed a still more wonder-
ful monument of engineering skill in the gigantic and
costly bridge which was last ye\r opened over the East
I liver, between New York and Brooklyn. Of this great
work I hope some day to give an account.

The Ro.ar of the Falls.

There is one thing about Niagara which, in my
opinion, has been grossly exaggerated — that is, the roar
of tho Falls. It is common to hear it as-:erteil that the
sound can sometimes be heard at Buffalo (18 miles off)
and even at much greater distances. There is, of course,
no knoving to what lengtlis the sound may go iu
.specially favourable conditions of the atmosphere ; but
that it is commonly heard at great distances
I can myself deny on the evidence of my own senses.
On our first airival at Niagara, the noise of the train
completely drowned the roar of the Falls : and at no
time, even when we were closest to them, did we ex-
perience much difficulty in making ourselves heard.
Dickens and other careful observers say that they could
never hear the Falls beyond a distance of two or three
mile?, and Dickens thinks the deep basin which receives
the water as it falls is unfavourable to the spread of the
sound, ^yhatever the explanation may be, tbe fact
remaina.

The sound is sweet, musical, profoundly deep and

solemn, like the deepest tones of some gigantic organ ;

but there is no terror in those ceaselesi thundering?. The

F'rencli window of my room at the Clifton House opened

on a verandali which faced the falls, an I I long lingered

outsi le in t!ie ilarknes<, gazing in tlie direction of the

mi;.dity downiiour, I'ntil n late hour, tlio owners of

' Prosjieot I'ark kept an electric light blazing full upon

the American Fall. The lighting was very imperfect ;

but where tlio li.;ht happened to fall directly, the

water sweeping over the jirecipice looked precisely

like straight, smooth, skc • is of glossy silk hang-

[ ing over the edge. When the light was ultimately

withdrawn, the darkness was intense. Even the

j snowy foam in tho great basin was hardly visible.

; There was, nevertheless, a fascination in tiie subdued

I but eternal rodr, coming up from that sceuo of turmoil,

i which kept me long from my bed ; and when, at last,

! I closed the Venetian doors and the window, and lay

down with my mind and heart full of what they had

drunk in during that eventful day, the soft, deep, but

withal monotonous music of the cataract was barely

sufficient to lull me pleasantly to sleep. A mother's

cradle lullaby could hardly have been more conducive

to repose.

The "Wateus Stopped.

It is natural to think of Niagara as having poured
down its llooil unceasingly through countless ages such
as only the geologist is competent to estimate ; for it
is dilfioult to imagine that flood checked, even for a
moment, by any of tho forces which wo usuidly see at
work around ns. It is, however, a fact that at least
once since Europeans have dwelt on its banks, the
torrent almost entirely oeaserl to flow for many hours
at a stretch. In March. 1810, after a very severe
winter, the ice on Lake Erie was suddenly broken up
by a gale, and driven in immense masses
into the entrance to the Niagara River at Buffalo.
The effect was very remarkable. The river actually
ran almost dry, and tho singular sight was witnessed
of hundreds of people walking about in the bed of the
Upper Rapids close to the Fulls, fishing, securing stray
logs of timber which had grounded, and poking their
noses into odd nooks and corners which, as far as could
be known, had never before been exposed to human
gaze. The sight was a rather melancholy one, and the
Niagara folk were not sorry, when they rose next morn-
ing, to find the whole of their vast system of water-
works going it as usual.

A Voyage Throhoh the Whirlpool.

It must notbe hastily assumed, because Captain Webb
failed to swim the Whirlpool Rapids, that nothing has
ever got thioui^h them alive. Ti'.ere used to be a tiny
steamer, called the Maid of t'tc Mut, which carried
visitors into the cloud of 8))ray under the Horseshoe Fall
where no ordinary boat .lared venture. For some reason
or other, her operations were confined to the Canadian
side. Therefore, shodid not pay, audit wasdecided to take
her down to Lake Ontario. According to some accounts,
her owner sold her, conditionally on her beinj delivered
at Lowiston, three or four miles below tho AVhirlpool.
Another story is to the effect that the boat was in danger
of being seized for debt. Anyhow, it was decided to run
the gauntlet of the Whirlpool Rapids. Mr. Robinson,
her captain, consented to go with her and steer her, and
ho was accompanied by Jones, the engineer, and a
m« chanic named Mclntyre. AVith a shriek Uoi^ her
thistle and a white puff from her escape-pipe, the boat
ran up the eddy a ihort diitanoo, then swtuig round to

! t

I i

tlio right, cleareil tlio smooth water, and shot like nn
arrow into the rapid nruler tho l)rid};o. n()l)iii.son in-
tciide'l to i^iko tiie iiisido cnis'o of tin; rajiid. but aflprco
cross (;urii;iit carried liim to tlioo\itc'i' curve, and wtien
ft third of the way down it, a jet of water ^truci< a;^'ainst
her rudder, a Cilnmn (iashed up iimhir lier starlioard
side, heeh.'il her ovim', carried awiy her smoke staclc,
fitaitcd her '' overhiin',' '' on thi>t side, throw lloliinson
iint on his liack, and thrust Mclulyru a;;ainst her star-
board wlieel house witli siicli torce as to hreakit throUKli.
Every eye was lived, every tont,'uo was silent, and
every looker-on broatlied fner as siie emerf,'ed from tlio
fearful b,i))ti<m, shook her wounded sides, slid into the
AVhirlpool, atid for a moment rode af;aiu on an oven
keel, liobiuson rose at once, seized the helm, and set
her to tlie rif^ht of the larse pot in tlie pool, then
turned her directly through the neck of it. Tliencn,
after receivin;j another drenciiiiip; from its waves, she
dashed on without further accident to tho (juiet bosom
of tlie river bolow Lowiston. 'I'hus was accomplished
one of tho most remarkable and perilous voyages over
mado by men.

The Making or Niaoaua.

No intelligent mind can help raisins; tho question,
with regard to a great natuial phenomenon like Niagara :
" How came this to be where it is and what it is ?' So
far as Niagara is concerned, tho geologists have (irotty
■well answered the ([Ucstion. 'J'hat is to say, they have
traced the history of thy cataract back through at least
one ])eriod of geologic time. Sir ('harles J. yell. Pro-
fessor Tyndall, and other eminent sdontific men, both
European and Amcric ni, agree that there are distinct
evidences on both sides of the great gorge tiiat tliat
gorge itself is a com|)aratively modern work. The
elevated plateau, or tahle-land, through which tlie
river still flows jdacidly for the first U> or IS miles of
its course, clearly extended unbroken to Lewiston,
where the general level of the country falls somewhat
suddenly to within a few feet of tho level cf Lake
Ontario. If we imagine the gorge which now exists to
be filled up level with the tops of its cliffs, and th9
river to flow over the closed gorge instead of through
it, finally descending in a great fall to the lower
level at Lewision, we shall, a3 I understand the
matter, get a mental picture of tho district as
it existoil about 40,01)0 years ago. That is to say, the
Falls wore formerly seven miles nearer L;ike Ontario
than they are now, and have gradually e iten their way
back to their ijresont position. Those who are accus-
tomed to sneer at tho deductions of science will, of
course, laugh at this thoorv. 1 must not hore go at
length into the reasons which the geologists advance for
their belief. I can only say that tliey appear to nie to
be so conclusive that no unprejudiced mind can possibly
deny their force, 'i'he truth is, tho very process which
Sir 0. Lyell tells us has been going on at Niagara for
thousands of years is going on there now before our
very eyes. I have already spoken of tho great falls of
rock which have taken jdace of late years in the
centre of the Horseshoe Fall. These have been on
such a scale as to have appreciably changed the shape
and position of that Fall within the memory of living
men. The bed of the river above tho Falls consists
of a hard liiiiestono, which of itself would resist the
wear and tear of tho water successfully, Hut this
stratum of hard material rests on layers of loose shale,
which are exposed to the violent action of the water
at and near the foot of the Fall. The shale, of course,
is gradually softened, disiategrated, washed away. The

foundation being thus removed for a certain distance,
tilt! limestone above isleftwithoutsupi)ort, ami some fine
day a groat mass of it breaks off and falls into the
abyss, 'J'lie same process is ato ico ro-conimenced, with
similar ultimate results; and so tho Falls are slowly
jiushed liack \ip tlu^ river, in tho d rectioti of Lake i']rio.
'J'Ik^ further tiiey recede, tho thicijor beoimes the lime-
stone and tlu! thinner the sliale. Tho gonlogists believe,
therefoio, that they will some day roach a i)oint whrre
the whole depth of the idiff will bo liiuostone. and '• at
then tho Falls will become comfiaratively stationary. It
is bolieveil that their position is at jiresent receding at
tho average rate of about one foot a year. If they have
moved up from i.ewiston at this rate, they must have
taken something like l>"), 001) years to eat out tho seven
miles of gorge. It is not satisfactory to know that, as
tho l''alls recede, th'sy will jirobaMy lose in height and
in grandeur ; but as tlnro will bo no material change
for some thousands of years, the matter is not one which
much concerns the existing generation.

In connection with this matter, I may as well refer
to the fate of Table Hock. This was a vast over-hang-
ing mass on tho ('anadian side, from which a superb
view of the Horseshoe Fall used to be obtained. Every
visitor mado a ))oint of standing on Table Hock. On
the lidth of June, LS.IO, a stableman was on tho rock,
engaged in cleaning an omnibus, when the whole neigh-
bourhood was shaken as by an earthipiake. Table Hock
had fallen bodily into the racing cauldron at the foot
of the i'all, carrying the omnibus with it. The man
had escaped as by a miracle. The mass of rook which
fell was 200 feet long, tiO feet wide, and 100 feet deep
where it se])arated from the bank. This event supplies
a further illustration of the slow but sure operation of
the forces which are gradually driving the cataract back
towards Lake Frie,

The Volume and Powek op the Falls.

Sir Charles Lyell estimate! that ninety thousand
millions of cubic feet of water passed over the Falls
every hour, while Professor Dwight put the quantity at
a hundred millions of tons per hour. There is a vast
dilference between these estimates, and I cannot help
thinking that either Lyell, or somebody quoting from
him, has added a cipher too much to the stupendous
figures. 'J'hero ought to be no dilBculty in making an
api)roximate estimate. Tho exact width, depth,
and rapidity of the current can be easily
measured above Grand Island, and these are
tlie only elements necessary to the calculation.
Taking, however, Dwight's much smaller figures as some-
where near the mark, we learn that more than one
and a-half millions of tons pass over every minute. It
is easy to write the figures, but it is impossible to grasp
their real meaning. I calculate that the fall of this
quantity of water every minute from a height of 160
feet developes about fifteen millions of horse-power.
My mechanical readers will tell me if I am far wrong.
This power, 1 should say at a rough guess, greatly ex-
ceeds the combined power of all the locomotive engines
in the British Empire. That is to say, if all the loco-
motives in the Empire were turned into pumping
engines, their united effoits would be unequal to the
task of pumping back to its former level the water
which comes down at Niagara.

" Why all tliin waste ? Why is not this prodigious
power utilized ii. turning mills, and doing the hard
work of the world generally ?" Such are the questions
which I hear somebody ask. But where is the waste ?
" Man doth not live by bread alone," and a thing's use-

tance,

lefine

the

, with

(lowly

! I'liio.

lime-

•lieve,

whrre

d '■ lit

ry. It

in'^ nt

y havo

have
sovpn

fll

fulness is not always to be measured by the number of
yards of calico it can be made to weave. Wo do not
seek to enrich the soil with the hones of our mighty
dead, nnither do wo hiiilij our houses and factoiies out
of the ruins of venerable fctructures whoso eveiy stono
is a jioein or a fiagmont of history. In other words wo
do not Huliordinatu rro^nl/iini/ to tho necessity of supply-
ing the more physical wants of tl e human race. As long
as there are men and women capable of beiiiK moved to
the jjrofoundest depths of their niituio by tho most mar-
vellous displays of beauty, grandeur, and power, tliero
will 1)0 no waste at Niagara, even if not a bucketful of
its mighty flood is ever abitracteil for the turnin:< of a
wheel. This reminds mo, however, that a little of tho
water is already al'stracted for some such purposes.
Ajiart from the paper-mill already referro 1 to, which
is really iu the rapids, an<l tlieroforo does nothing to
diminish the bulk of the Falls, there are one or two
manufacturinu concerns which derive their power from
the cataract. Hut thoy are able to utili/.o only a sm dl
part of the total fall of lliO feet, because, as bot'oro
explained, the land on both sides of tho river below
tho Falls retains tlie same level as the banks above tho
Falls. To utilize the fall fully, it, would be necessary to
conduct the water by artificial channels from the Upper
Kapids down to the point where tho gor^je ends and tlu
general level of tho country suddenly falN. As it is,
t'le few factories which use tlie water havo to discharge
it into the gorge, at a depth of oidy "JO or lit) feet,
through channels cut througli the rock. These discharges
are like tiny cascades trickling down thi; cliff. What
they take is like a <lrop abstra(!tu I from the o:'ean, i)ut
it is well to know that there is no like'ihood of any
other such " water rights " being created.

Nuisances.

One's enjoyment of this greit natural show is greatly
interfered with by the crowd of people always lying in
wait to levy blackmail on tho visitor. It is iiiipossit)le,
indeed, to see tho Falls and tho liapids thoroughly
except at an expense of several dollars. The shore on
the L'anadianside is open to t'.iopablic, being a highway ;
but almost every other point of view is private luoperty,
whose owner levies a toll more or less reasonable. Tho
approaches to every point of \ lew are, moreover, beset
by photograjjliers pestering tho visitor to "sit" with
tho Frills for a background, with the owners of museums
full of trumpei y articles which have no necessary con-
nection with Niagara, with tho sellers of dear " Indian
curiosities" made probably in I'aris or New Ycu'k. wi:h
hackinen whose charges range from a dollar a mile
up to anything which can be s piee/ed out of the most
Sfpteezable of mankind. At every step, one has to run
the gauntlet of these importunate harpies, and tho
result often is to rutfle the tomiier and unfit one for tho
full enjoyment of the great sight. Tho extortions of
Niagara dealers and hackmen have become proveibial,
and some curious stories are t dil on the Huljject. It is
said, for instance, that one dodge of the h ickmon is to
bargain to drivo a visiter to a certain point for a
moderate sum, and then chnrL'e him two or chveo times
as much tc bring him lack. Here is how one American
writer descriljcs his adventure with one such driver : —

" When I first got to Niagara, the hack drivers took
a fancy to me, and chased me up. We conversed thusly :
' Take a ride ?' ' No.' ' Goat Island ?' ' Luna Island V
'Suspension Bridge?' ' No.' 'Lundy's T.ane V ' \\'aal,
haan't been to Lundy's Lane. W'ho's Lundy '!' ' W'hy,'
says he, 'theer is where tho American liagle soared aloft
and plucked the tuft from the British Lion. They keep

it there to show strangers.' Says I, ' How much for
Lundy?' 'Waal,' says ho, 'I'll take you there for a
dollar.' I got there. It was two or three pat dies of
grass, and a brindle cow, and a fence, ami a i ountry
lane. Thodri\('rsdd I'd bettci- jiay, so I gave him a
dollar bill. Says he. ' Wo'ie in Canada, aiul I want
gnld.' Says I, ' Hain't got no <,'()ld.' Says he, si|uaring
up, ' You little with(Mod cus-<, if yo\i don't come down
with a (|uarter, I'll ])unch your head.' I'linching don't
agree with my head, so I gave him a i|Uaiter ami told
liim to drive back. He s lid tho jirico for going back
would be five (iidlars. "No," sa\sl. 'Ves,' says ho.
'Then I'll walk,' says 1. ' Wallc, and be darned," says
ho. I walked, and he walked his boss alongside for a
mile. 'Hot'.'' says ho -'shower coming.' On we
walked— down cnnio the rain. ' I think I'll get in,' says
1, handing the five dollars. Hays lie, ' I want another
dollar now.' ' I'.iit, ' says I, ' you told me you'd take mo
back for (i\e dollars.' ' Aye,' says he, ' but yon see it
was pleasant then, but it's raining now.' I gave him
the money, and got back to tho hotel. Lut I don't take
hacks no more."

PHOrOSED IXTERNATIONAL PaUK.

I am glad to say there is some liojie that ere long the
nuisances I hivo desciibed will be ahattul. The (Jovern-
ments of Can.ida and tho State of New Voik have for
some tune (last liceu in negotiati(Ui with eaih other, for
the purpose of devising a schoino for buying out tho
leviers of tolls and all other owners of vested interests,
and throwing the whole of the points of view open to
the world, free of cliai'go. The Marquis of Lome, tho
late (lovernor-CJeneral of Canaila, was a very
zealous advocate of this measure, and tho Legis-
lature of New York has begun to move. A
party of surveyors was occujiied in making a plan
of tho locality when I was there last .luly, and I trust
we shall soon hear that something still more decisive is
being done. The Americans have not neglected tho
lessons of experience. They are determined that no
other collection of grand natural phenomena -the com-
mon heritage of all mankind — within their bordeus shall
become private property. The beautiful 'S'osetnito
Yalley in California, and the wonderful geyser district
which has of late years been lirouglit to light around
the head waters of tho Yellowstone IJiver. hav(^ been
set aside as free national parks for ever. This is as it
should bo; but it is only right that Niagara shonM bo
roileemed and placed on the same footing. A Man-
chester writer, who has recently visited the F'alls,
grows olo (uently indignant over their present condi-
tion, and ex])ressoH a fervent hope that the two
( ioveinmonts concerned will " make a !.oourj:e of cords
and drive the money-cliauger.s out of this great temple."
This wish must he fcvently echoed by everybody who
has been to Niagara.

HOTIXS.

The Niagara hotels a.e numevous, but dear. Those
comin inding the be:,c views of the F'alls are on tho
Canadian sliore. Indeed, t'.io relative iiositiou of the
Falls and the banks is such that it would be ditlicult to
get a complete view of tho whole cataract from any
])oint on the American side. The Clifton House, at
which we put uj), enjoys on the whole tho most com-
manding position. One or two of the Canailian hotels
are nearer the end of tho Horseshoe I'all. Put this prox-
imity is sometimes a groat disadvantage. It was so at
the time of our visit. The great cloud of mist, coming
up from the foot of the F'all, was carried by the wind
over tho nearest of the hotels and precipitated upon it

and all around in the ihape of ft thick periistent drizzle,
which rendered everytliing most uncomfortable, and
necessitated tlio continual use of umbrellas or water-
proofs over nn area of several hundred yards' radius.

NiaOara in WiNTF.a.

T am told that nobody has seen Niagara in its greatest
and most wondrous boiiuty who has not visited it in
the wintev. This I can well believe, judging from somo
photograplis I saw on the spot. Tiio trees and slirubs
are covered with the most brilliantcoruscationsof snow
'ind ice ; the islands and the rocks are robed in the
jamo spotless vpsturo. This, of course, is ma'nlv due to
the fallina; iind froediig of tho everlistinj: cloud of
misty spray. I'ut tho moat imposing of the wintry
features of tho scone is an immense mound of ice
which is Kradually built up in front of tho Falls. Tiiis
is mado up of blocks of ice flo.itcd down from Like
Erie, cemented toi^ether and enlarged by the freezing
spray. Tho mound is sometimes 20 to 40 foet hisher
than the top of tlie Fulls, and forms tho finest possible
standpoint for those who are prepared to run a littlo
risk in order to get a close front view of the catiiract.
An ice brida;e also extends, for two or three months,
from the front of the Horseshoe Fall to near the first
suspension bridge.

iMrRK.SSIONS.

He or she must be more or less than human who can
view Niagara without a moistened eye and a quivering
lip. That some who have taken only a hasty glance
from a single point of view may have gone aw.iy disap-
pointed, is possible. But it is to me inconceivai'le that
any man, possessing ordinary human qualities, who has
looi<ed at the whole stupendous assemblage of
phenomena from various ])oints of view, can re-
main unmoved and unimptessed. Niagara h;\s
suffered much of many writers (and, as i)erha|)s
somebody may remind me, is suffering more at this
moment at my own liands) ; but, howo^'cr much it may
have been prejudiced in other ways, it oin hardly have
suffered from exaggeration. I have s'en mawy thinirs
and many i)lacos which have been over-written, and
I have lieen disappointed accordingly : but when I had
stood rn the verge and in the mi<lst of tho Horseshoe,
had looke 1 over the very edge of the Americ;>n Fall,
had seen both cat iracts face to face from the suspension
bridge, had viewed the Ujiper Raniils from the Three
Sisters and the Whirlpool Rapids from the bottom of
the great gorge, I was fain to confess that I had never
yet read an adeijuate des:;ription of Niagara— nay,
more, th:^t I could never hojie to read one.

The emotions produced in visitors appear to vrary
greatly. Dicltens tells us that the effect in his case was
a great, deep, abiding peace. Strange that such !isi:»hL
of such a conflict of Titanic forces should produce calm-
ness and tranquillity ! Other writers tell us that tliey
burst into a flood of tears at the first full view of the
Falls. In my own case, I confess tlie overwliehivng
sense of Power— of reinors'.>les=<, resi^tle-is, unresting
Energy — was uppermost. I felt small— sm.ailer than I
had ever before felt in my life, and I knew that the
experience was a wholesome one. For it does us good
occasionally to measure ourselves and the boasted fruits
of our science and our engineering against these mighty
exhibitior3 of natural force. If I wanted a description
of Niagara to put in a nutshell, I should call it simply
" Strength married to Beauty." All else that haa been
said, or can be said, is, or would be, but an amplification
of this brief text.

BUFFALO.
On leaving Niagara, on Thursday, July 20, I laid
" frood-bye " to my travelling companion for 10 days,
arranging to meet him at the Palmer House, Chicago,
on the following .Sunday week. During those 10 days,
he visitoil his friends in Canada, and I visited mine in
Michigan.

My most direct way into Michigan, on leaving Niagara,
would have been straight through Canada to Detroit ;
but as I wished to have a look at I'.ulfalo and Cleveland,
I dociiled on going by the Lake Sliore line, which
skirts the sontlicrti bank of Lake Erie throughout
almost its entire Icngtii. From Niagara to liuffalo
by the Canada Southern Railroad is somewhat over 20
miles, ti>.o line crossing the Niagara River in the out-
sl<irts of RntTalo. 'I'he bridge, of course, connects
Canadian territory witli tho State of New York, and as
I iv,-.uoacIieil it I began to have troubled visions of the
American Customs othcials who, I know, kept guard
over tht i>assage. The reility was, however, less for-
midable than the anticipation. As the train entered on
the long bridge, the baggage man came tlirough tlie cars
and told us that those who had baggage in his car must
go tliere and open it. I obeyed, taking care to throw
my trunk and portmanteau wide open, as if to
say : " Do your worst. You'll not find me trying
to chisel Uncle Sam. I have nothing to conceal." Tho
olHcial presently sauntered into tho car, threw a single
glance into eaoli of my packages without touching either,
and told mo I could close them. If this were the sort of
"examination" to which baggage is usually subjected,
it would not be surprising if smuggling were carried
on in a wholesale fasliion. But, if I may judge from
what I have seen, it is the rule for searcli otiicers to do
their work thoroughly just about oft^n enough to main-
tain a wholesome feeling of uncertainty among would-
be smugglers. Now and tiien, for no apparent reason,
they will swoop down u)ion one jiarticular person's pack-
ages and insist on overhauling tiieir contents down to
the very bottom. I have seen tlio largest and most
elihoratnof trunks selected for this process, and have
witnessed the dismay anil anger of the feminine owner
as tray after tray, brimfull of dainty finery, was lifted
out, and tho knowing hand of the officer was ulti-
mately thrust down at each corner of the residuum of
heavier material until the iiard botto'u was fairly
touched. AVhen trunks have been carefully packed
in the first instince, and, as is usually the
case, crammed to their utmost capacity, it is
enough to provoke a siiint to wrath (and
to its forcible expression too) to have to re-pack
the loosened and stirred-up mass, especially when this
has to be done in an open, dirty slied, in the presence of
a curious and unsympathetic crowd, and under the
consciousness that the officer's excessive zeal for his
country has alieady caused you to lose your favourite
train. But I have no doubt that tliis kind of occasional
thorough examination is made on system, and that
the system will continue to be ahsoluttdy neces^arv as
long as customs duties are levied. Everybody sees that
it is all uncertain whether he will be troubled or not.
He may not be— the probability is that way. But then
he may be ; and if he is, he may have to imy dearly for
any attempt he may be tempted to make to defraud
the revenue. The question is, whether the chances are
worth running — whether the game is worth the
candle, and all except the most reckless decide in the
negative.

tfS

I i

ixson,
liack-
wn to
most
hiwe
owner
liftfid
uUi-
um of
fairly
\ckel

the
it is

(nnd
e-pack

tiiis
nee of
er the
or his
ouiite
isional

that
arv as
>s that

not.

then
rly for
efraud
sea are
h the
in the

A SuART YouNo Man.

My flrit basineia on entering Buffalo (ai it it on
entering any strange city) wah to Hecure a map of the
place, and I went into tlie flixt bookstore I saw nnd
asked for one. The olcrk behind the counter (all Rhnp
nssiHtantH are calloil "clerks" in Aenoiical promptly
handed me a folded pocket plan. Knowing how rapil.y
UuIFmIo had liojn Kiowin^ of latuyctrs, I took the
precaution to ask if the map was brought well up to
date.

" Up to last night ! " replied that smart young man,
without winking or a moment's lu'sitation.

My ideas, unfortunatoly, move more slowly than
those of a Yankeo bouk-sturo clerk, or I should have
instiintly responded to that smart young man thtisly : —

" Only up to iiist ni'^ht '.' Wiiiit's tiio use of a map of
that sort in a city whioli gro>'.s visibly before one's eyes,
as Jiutfalo does '^ TaKo your iiuip back. I must have
one win h shows all the sticcts and railways that have
been built and opened Ihix m irnin;/ .' "

]iut ni this did not o.-cur to me nt the time, I did
not s.iy it. On the contrary, I rc;iardod that smart
young man with silent awe, humbly puid my (juaiter-
dolJar, and Oiirried away the map. Hut 1 shall be
re.idy for him ne.xt time.

What Duffalo is Likk.

I had only a few hours in HufTalo, and had, therefore,
no opportunity of inspecting the sights of the city in
detail. Bit, by the aid of the map " complete u)) to
last night," I was able to i-ee enough of tlio place to
obtain a fairly accurate idea of its general appearance,
t!io plan m wliioli it is built, the extent of its pros-
perity, HU'l the character of its surroundings. In all
these ■^'•p' ts, I canieil away a very favourable im-
pression.

The city stands at the point at which the Niagara
River flows out of Lake Erie, and (which is more im-
portant) close to the entrance of the Erie Canal, which
connects the lake with the Hudson at Albany, and
thus witli New York. Buffalo is, after New York and
Brooklyn, the lar„'est city in the State of New York,
It was first settled as recently as 1801, became a military
post in 1812, v/as burned liy a force of Indians and
British in 1814, and was incorporated as a city exactly
50 years ago. Its proi'ress would be regarded as
marvellous, were it not that Chicago, San Francisco,
and other cities, have made still more rapid
strides. The jjopulation in 1S70 was 118,0U0 ;
in 1880, it was ir)."),000 ; and when I was there last
year the city newspajiers were boasting that it hud just
passed '-'00,000. .Situatei' at the point where the lake
naviijation ends and tlie canal navigation beiiiins, and
on the finest harbour to be found on the whole circuit
of Lake Erie, Buffalo enjovs an enormous and ever-
increasing tride. Its manufactures are varieil and ex-
tensive, the chief being iron, copper, tin, and brass goods.
Tile climate is leganled as specially favourable to malt-
ing and brewing, which arc accordingly carried on on a
very largo scale. The water front of the city measures
ne;irly five miles in length, of which half is on the lake
and the othur half on the Niasjara River.

Buffalo is regularly laid out and well-built, and it
abounds in fine public buildings, and in religious, educa-
tional, and benevolent institutions. The principal
thoroughfares run far and straight out into the suburbs,
and are extremely beautiful. They are everywhere
lined with handsome shade trees, and in the outskirts
of the city they are fringed with villas and mansions
innumerable. No European can walk or ride

for th« first time through theie noble arenuei,
remembering the fact that this great city,
now nearly as large as Bristol, hni been
positively created within the last half-century, without
being ama;^ed at the appaicntly endless evidences of
wealth and comfort which crowd upon his vision at
every step. He sees, it is true, no great hall or castle,
embosomed in greenery and isolati;d amid a far stretch-
ing sea of emerald turf the ano stral home
of an aristocratic millionaire. But, charming as
s'l 'h a sight is, he u.'^/.at upon something
iiotter still. He sees the homes in which thou-
s.mds of families are surroun led with all the
comfoit and ro'iiiemont which m>- ierato wodth can
pro Mire. I had heard and road a good deal about t'o
amazing prosperity i>f the American cities, 1 ut I never
fully realised it until I had ridden throu;,'h the suburbs
of lUittdo. I then discovered that, even if America
jiossesses a plutocracy, whoso road to Wralth is not
always the cleanest, and whoso use of wealth, when
they have obtained it, is not always the wisest, there
is, nevertheless, a very wide distrihution of the ;;reater
part of the fruits of labour and enterprise. The Yander-
bilts, tho(ioulds, and the Mackays may amass Uioir
millions by means of their lucky discoveries or their
more or less shady 8i)eculations, but it is perfectly clear
that they and their dasi intercept only a small part of
the vast total of wealth which is annually i)rodu0fid.
'J"he mass of it is divided nmonu' largo and numerous
classes; and the result is a higher avera^^o standard of
comfort than is to be, or perhaps ever has been, found in
any othtr country in tie world. There may possibly
be poverty even in Buffalo ; but if there is. it is of a
more than usually retiring disposition. I saw no trace
of it, either in the form of wretched dwullinss,
shabbily-dresseil peojile, or actual beggars. The wholo
city, from end to end, bears the impress of abounding
prosperity.

I entered one of the many tram-cars on Main Street,
the principal thoroughfare, and told the driver tu take
mo as far as he went. He conuectoil with another line
of cars which ran still further into the subuibs.
Seeing that these cars were filled with wcll-
ilros-ed, happy-looking people, mos'.ly children, wlio
were going in what my map told me was
the direction of the i)rincipal park, I contrived to
.secure standing-room on one of tiie car [ilatfornis, in
Older to go with them. Tiiat was the fullest, car I ever
saw, or expect to see, in this life. The seats, the lloor,
and the pi itforms were so tightlv jiacked with liuman
bodies tint we got almost inextricably entangled, arms
with arms, le,'s with legs, and umbrellas with sun-
shades. A little boy on the front ])latform found it
imi)ossible to keep his head o it of the way of ttio
brake handle, and it presently flew round and struck him
a violent blow on the forehead which in!.iantly caused
a swelling; as laijie as an ei;g. i'liu poor little chap
bore the pain like the hero that be evidently was.
Thinking, just then, of British, resulatio-s of
railw.iy and tramway trafbc, I civilly and innocently
asked tiie diiver how many he was allowed to carry.
From that moment that man was itiy enemy. He
looked hard at me and took in the situation at a glance.
He then assured me, in a surly tone, that that was a
free country, and that tyrannical (British regulations
about the number carried ^''ero unknow.i over there.
The number he carried, be said, was as many
as could hold on — which was obvious enough.
He said no more, but he now and then
oast a somewhat suspicious aiid ill-tempered

i i

■fv^^

ii£iraaT*«ar-, .-ac: is-^^'u.

■'■J

pooplo were
it in jolly
innumerable
extent in
under the

glanoe at me, aa if, after all, he knew that he was
breaking certain regulations, and suspected that I
iright turn informer. By the way, it may iiossibly be
true that the authorities of Buffalo jilaoe no restrictions
on tlie numbers cirrieil in street cars, but it is quite
certain that tlie autliorities of many otlier places do,
this surly driver notwithsianding. The Buffalo iieoi''n
are evidently accustomed to this overciowdiup;, fo' on
this oncasion they .-ubmitted to be packed in wi:h a
patience and good humour which were tridy admh-.ible.
The car finally stopped amid the closely-woodcil out-
skirts of a charming park, and the tangled mass of
humanity which tilleJ, and covere<l the car was gradu-
ally pulled to pieces, and resolved into so many hot,
bruised, and crnini)led, but withal merry people. The
place was a perfect Paradise, amid whicik hundreds— I
might probably say thcusands— of young
preparing to make an afternoon of
style. There were picnic parties
under the trees, boating to any
pretty boats on a eharming lalce,
watchful eye of officers in uniform. The children
played ; their parents and gu'udians lay on the turf and
watched them or read tlioir ne'vvs|>apers ; while those of
an intermediate age engaged in flirtation just for all
the w' '-Id as young people do in Europe, and as if the
paf?3aj.,3 of the broad Atlantic had in this respect failed
to affect human nature to the slightest citor.t. J'he
sight was a pretty one, and I long feasted my eyes upon
it from the vantage ground of a beautiful pavilion at
the head of the lake. When it was time to move on,
I walked through the whole length of the
park by a raisoil path parallel with the lake, atid
a more charming walk (biiring the intense heat) I
have seldom fiiijoyed. Coining out of the I'ark, I made
for the principal gate of the (."eivKtery, which is close
at hand. 1 then found that admissioii was hy ticket,
to beol)tainod at ai olfice in the oity : but the porter
let me in without a tick(!t the moment he discovered I
was an l-'aiijlishrnan ; " foi'," said ho, "I came from
i'ent myself." \Vhy this should justify him in break-
ing his rules I dill not wair to inquire. I thanked liim
and went in. Tiie Cemetery is a fine ono ; hut as
I saw mu3h liner ones later on, I need not attempt to
describe it,

CLEVEL.iND,

From liutTalo to Clo\eland is l"'^ miles by the T ako
fihore Kailvoad, which runs parallel witli the eoas! of
Lake lu-ie all the vvay. .\s I made the journey by night
in a slee|iiiig ear, I can say notliing from actual observa-
tion as to the character of the country. Tiie line is
mainly iu the stales of New Yiuk and Ohio, but be-
tween those Stat.es it also traverses the extreme north-
west oortier of I'enusylvani a, where the otherwise
rectangular form of tliat great State is somewhat de-
parted from, apparently for the express purpose of giv-
inff it a footing on the lake. The cit.y of l^ria is the
prinoi'jiai lake /oit in I'ennsylvania. A few milo'-:
further ".'eat. in the State of Ohio, is .'Vsh*- ibula, a place
whose name has for the .\mericaus the same awful
associations as those of Alergele and the Tay ]5ridgo
liave for us. It wap at Ashtabula that, one wipiter's
nighl; not long ago, >. train cntha Lake Whoie lino fell
through a high trestle bridge. The wrecked cars, hcajied
up ui)on each other and filled with the maimed and
dead, took fire, and thus horror was added to honor.
Many were killed outright by the fall ; many others
were burnt to death ; uuJ, ijtrarge to say, some, wlio

happened to escape the fire, perished of cold in the
frozen creek below. The accident was probably the
most appalling that ever happened on any An.erican
railway. I passed over the restored viaduct while
asleep, or trying to sleep (for this first's night's experi-
encv. of ,1 '' sleeper " was not a hapfiy one), or I should
liave fouiida melancholy interest in looking down upon
the scene of this great calamity,

I reached Cleveland early in the morning, and was
astonished to find that the great Union Depot, which
I had seen jiourtrayed in sundry railway advertise-
ments, was nothing better than a huge, gloomv, dirty
shed. It was broad daylight, but so dark was this shed
that I had some ditHculty in seeing to collect my
belongings before alighting from the car. This place, as
I afteiwards discovered, is a fair sample of a large
number of the prii)cii)al railway stations. No stranger
can fad to iie struck with the contrast between the
darkness and griminoss of these s'/cds, and the
splendour of the I'ullman cars in which ono enters and
loaves them. There are fine railway stations in America,
quite equal, in some instances, to anything wecan show
on this side the water. I may. for instance, mention
the Boston fcerndnus of the I'rovidence B dlroad, which
is a model one. ISut in most cases the great Amorici'.n
st itions aie far inferior to ours, in convenience, cleanli-
ness, lightness, and general attractiveness.

Thi{ Finest Avexuk i>f Amkkica.

As I had to push on to Detroit to sleep, I had not
much time in Cleveland, and I accordingly proceeded
at once to find the two things which I had called there
specially to Si!e, These weie -first, tiio beautiful and
famous I'luclid Avenue, of which [ h id been led to form
very high expectations ; secondly, the temporary tomb
of the murdered Oarfiel.i. As usual, I procured a mai)
o' the city at the outset, but in this instance I luui to
bo content with a general assurance that it was brought
" r.p to date. ' A iiist glance at the map showi'd me
that l']uclid .Avenue lei stiai;;ht out to Lake View Ceme-
tery, the spot where the late I'resiilent was sleeping the
sleep that knows no waking,. The distance was four or
five n\iles. and I entered a street ear bound for tiie
Cemetery gates, Tiie journey lay almostentirelv through
Euclid .Vvenue. the famous thorou ;hfare I h.-vve already
mentioned, and 1 am bound to s,iy it is worthy of its
high reputation. The Clevelajulers "claim' (to us?
an Americanism) that it is the finest avenue in the
States.

Cleveland is a rich and prosperous city. Apart from
its other manufactures, whicli are very extensive, 't is
largely interested in the oil trade, which has of late
years attained gigantic proportions. It is not far
from the rich oil distiicL of I'ennsylvan'a, and some of
its leading citizens have made enormous fo: tunes by
means of their sp cuLitions in petroleu'ri. I shall,
perhaps, hav- occasion further op to refer to the
corruj)* and miscliievous monopoly which some of these
oily million lires hive contrived to establisii ; but my
present object is simply to make the fact clear that a
eonsiiierablo pa -t of the vast proiits derived from the oil
wells has found its way to < loveland. The citi/ens who
have been enriched in this and in ether ways havo
combined to line almost the .uiole of ti'o vast
length of Euclid Avenue with a succession of
mansions which. for variety and beauty of
architecture, for charming surroundings, and luxurious
ayiiioinhments, can have few rivals either in tiio Old
AVorld or in the New. Ami let no reader laugh at this
statement when I add that many, perhaps most, of

(

these Buperb residences are built of wooil. It is, per-
hrtiis, nfttural for an Englishman to sneer at a wooden
house, as an erection necessarily uncouth in ai)pearance,
and incapable either of resisting the extremes of tern-
jieratuie, or of lending itself to the rei|uirements of a
luxurious age. liut such a conce)ition is ut'erly with-
out foundation. No man wlio has once walked or
ridden through Kuclid Avenue, Cle^ eland, or California
Street, San l''rancisco, will ever again speak coiitemii-
tuously either of the beauty, tlio stability, or the
comfort of "frame" houses, as houses of wood are
called in America. "Without m;ildng a very clo.se inspec-
tion, it is sometimes imjiossible to (lis 'ovor wliothur a
mansion is of wood or of stone. So elaborate nnd costly
may a wooden house he uiiide, that the railway and
silver kings of San Francisco are said to know how to
spend a million dollais on a single residence. There are
probably no milliondol'ai pnl-ices at Clevelaml, but
there are hundreds of charming residences whi.h
none but very rich men could either build or in-
lialiit, and many of them are on Euclid Avenue.
They usually stand well buck from the street, in
the niid-.t of a wide giidle of trees, shrubs, and
beautiful turf, whose exquisite verdure is main-
tained by a lavi.sh use of miniature, portable, re-
volving fountains, which scatter water in the form of
spray, now in one place and presently in another. All
private houses in the suliurbs of American cities iiave a
raised platform, or stooji, extending along the front
and approached by a flight of steps ; and I noticed
that some of the finest of tlie Cleveland m;\nsions
had handsome c.irpets laid from their front doors,
down the steps, and alorig the private paths, to the
very edge of the sidewalk. The Clevelanders are
evidently les-i in fear of rain in July than we are in
En,'l:ind. I noticed, further, in Cleveland as well as
in other cities, that the-e beauciful lawiis and shrub-
Ijeries are of^"r. entirclv open to the street, and I
gathered fro;. 1 this that the >treet Arab, and the mis-
chievous rough who works mischief for its own sake,
must be almost or altogether unknown. 1 know no city
in I'mgland wlieie such ex)ios\n'e would be safe.

The platform or stoop of an American house is in
summer the regular evening rendezvous of the family
and its visitors. It is usually well supplied vvilli com-
fortable rocking cliairs of th.e favo>irite pattern, and there,
at the close of the day, the ladies or gentlemen of the
liousehold, or both, miy be seen reatiing their news-
papers, smoking their cigars, doing their neeillcwork or
knitting, or jileas mtly chatting, gently rocking them-
selves a!l the while. This ]>leasnnt custom is not
regarded as " vulgar," or " peculiar," or defiant of the
" l)toi)rioties," evin by the best society, and
in this respect the best society shows its
good sense. The r«ritish ISIrs. Cirundy, of course, objects
to anything so unconventional, and a^k-^, with hands
u)))ifted, " Whoevc.' heard of such a thing as respt'ctable
peo))le sitting ciitside their front doors, •.eading or
smoking?" I'.ut, liappily, .Mrs. Grumly is not of much
account beyond the Atlantic, for Amoiicans are not
Kcnustomod to value a tMng according ta whether
it has or lias notbeiii lie nil of before. In this respect,
wo i-hould do well tolenn of them, though I am bound
to say tint in some other matters we can show them a
wrinkle or tv^o.

G.MIFIKLO'S BORIIOWKD To.MD,
Lake \iew Cemetery is the newest of the four
beautiful burial-grounds in which Cleveland lays its
dead. It is of large area and undulating surface, and

is charmingly wooded. The remains of President
Garfield were, 1 was surprised to find, lying in a
borrowed tomb, t. ere to remain until such time as a
sulhcient sum of money coi.hl be raised to provide him
with a mausoleum of his own, on a scale befitting his
high position anil noiile character, and fully expressiveof
the profound gi icf which his cruel martyrdom excited.
Who the .loseph of Aiimathoa was wlio had thus found
a temjioraiy resting placi,' for fh' slain {'resident, I for-
get ; but the tomb bore !iis honoured surname. It
had a])parently been built for the leceptioii of himself
and his family ; and, like that other borrowed
se])ulchie of which my readers must by this time be
thinking, it was, when Garfield died, one in which no
man bad ever yet laid. The tomb con-iisted of a solid
stone erect on, all above giound. facing one of the main
cemetery avenues Three si 'es of the chimber were of
masonrv. The fourth --the one next the road — con-
sisted simply of a lieavy iron gate. The handsomo
"casket" containing the (ieneral's lemains, and the
heap of once beautiful wreaths which lay upon it,
were, therefore, visible through the bars to every
passer-by. On the other side of the road, immediately
ojiposite the tomb, was a wooden hut, in which soldiers
of the Federal Army or of the .State .Militia were on
guard nignt and day. This precaution was no doubt
suggested by the mysterious disapiieir.in^e of the body
of Mr. Stewart, the New York millionaire, which had
been stolen, in the hojie, no doubt, that his distressed
widow would offer a large reward for its recovery.
The reward was never offered, and the body accordingly
neve: jame back.

A box to receive subscriptions towards the cost of
(iarfield's ])ermanent tomb was affixed to the bars of
the gate of his temporary resting-place, but I fancied
it responded with a rather hollow sound when my own
modest donation touched the bottom. I gathered,
indeed, from the talkative lady jiroprietor of a restaurant
just outside the cemetery gates, that the fund was
making rather slow progress — a fact of which she spoke
with some indignation. I am not aware if any beginning
has yet been made with the permanent erection, but
there can be little doubt that the necessary funds will
ultimately be provided eicher by public subscription or
Government grant.

Leos Down !
As I returned from the cemetery to the city, an inci-
dent occurred which tended to dispel some of the pra-
conceiveil notions of Americm habits wliich we are
accustomed to cher sh in this country. I was hot and
tired ; and remembering, I suppose, tliat Americans are
a free-! deasy people who put their feet anywhere,
even to the extent of hanging them out of their win-
dows or dejiositing them lui the m;\nteli)iece, I took the
liberty (the car lieing ne irly empty) of laying one of my
legs horizontally along the wooden and uncushioned
seat on w'lich 1 was sitting. 'i'ho conductor no
sooner noticed my attitude than lie came
along the car to me and politely requested me to put
my leg down, remarking that I might soil the seat and
that possibly a lady mi'.'iit Want to sit there presently.
I obeyed, of course ; but 1 confers that I was a little
taken aback to find an American car-conductor so
"precious iiarticular " on a subjeot on which, as I
thought, every Yankee " did as lie darned idease."
After tliis, I was somewhat prepared to be told, as I
was some weeks later at Council IMutfs, to put my
handbag on the floor of a railroad car, because, as the
conductor put it, "seats were made to sit on.' On

' )l

these and kindred subjects, we are, perhaps, a little
too prone to take the Americans at their word, without
making fvill allowance for their humorous exaggcrationa.
AVe read, for instance, in one of their papers, that a
Kansas City man, when he wants to consult his lawyer,
looks up at the windows of the learned man's chambers
to see if his boot^ are hanging out ; and if they are not,
ho knows the owner of the boots is not in, We forth-
with rush to the conclusion that, even if tins picturo is
a little over-coloured, the Americans must cerainly bo
in the habit of constantly putting their legs at d feet in
very extraordinary places. Such is not the case, to anything
like the extent we are ajit to supi)ase. In .ho course
of my travels, I certainly saw a few pairs of 'oots on a
level with tlie weavers' heads, or even higher ; but I am
bound to say that the attitude is far less common than
I had thought.

Facts atbovt Cleveland.

Cleveland had only 1,000 inhabitants in ''830. I3y
1870, the population had reached iJ3,000. and in 1S80 it
was 160,000. It is perfectly safe to assert that, by this
time, it is nearly 200,000. It is, next to Buffalo, the
most important jiort on Lake Erie, The Cuyalioga
Kivcr flows in a very circuitous channel through the
city ; and its mouth, which is protected by long jiier^,
forms an admirable harbour. The map, moieover, shows
that an outer harbour has lieen formed by the enclosing
of i»art of the lake Viy means of a breakwater. The valley
of the Cuyahoga is very deep and abrupt, and thus cuts
the city in two. Communication between the two
parts was formerly very difficult, but the severed
halves have of late years been connected by a magniii-
cent high-level bridge, Lhree-tifths of a mile in length,
which spans tlie valley at a great altitude, ami on
which the city has s))ent over two mdlions of dollari^.
The Ohio Canal, wliich connects Lake Erie with
the Ohio Itiver, enters the lake at Cleveland.
The city is also a railw.ay centre of first-
rate importance, and its iron works and oil
refineries are on tii'? largest scale. Like most

cities which have no water
greatly from the smoke
in American locomotives,
is of a very soft kind, and
that of Lancashire to the
extreme blackness. Tlie
foul smoke is, in fact, the greatest drawback to the
pleasure of travelling, and it lias already given some
of the new cities a funereal hue of widch even
Sheffield or iManchester need not be ashamed.
Buffalo, Cleveland, Chicago, St Louis, and Cincinnati
are among the smokiest places I have ever seen. As
for I'ittsburg, the greatest centre of the American iron-
smelting industry, it is said to beat Shelhcld, our
grimiest large town, by very long chalks. 1 did not go
to Pittsburg, being <iuito content to take a descri[)tiou
of the |)laco at second hand. George Francis Train,
the eccentric American who first introduced tramways
into London, but wlio was soon compelhd to pull uj)
the rails he laid in the ]*>ayswater Koad, is sai^l to have
remarked in one of his lucid intervals, and in a
moment of inspiration, that I'ittsburg was simply "Hell
with thelidolf."

Cleveland possesses a hundred churches, a beautiful
Opera House, handsome and commodious buildings for
the transaction of tlie city and the Government busi-
ness, three or four hospitils, and a system of water-
works by which water is pumped out of the lake at a
distance of more than, a mile from the shore and dis-

American manufacturing
power, Cleveland suffers
nuisance. The coal used
B^enmboats, and factories
tho smoke it emits i)uts
blush for density ami

tributed over the city. Owing to the beauty and
abundance of t)ie shade trees which line its principal
streets and avenue.^, it is known as the Forest City,
and with the exception of Cincinnati it ia the largest
and most important place in the famous State of Ohio.

DETROIT.

I have now to deal with tho last of the three groat
cities which hiive sprung up on or near the shores of
Lake Erie, and which owe their wonderful prosperity,
if not their very existence, to that freshwater .sea and
its connection with its sister lakes and the St. Law-
rence. IJuffalo, .^3 I have already explained, is at the
eastern extremity of Lake Erie ; Cleveland is on its
southern shore, while Detroit is near its western end.
Lakes Huron and Erie are about 80 miles apart, and aro
connected by a wide river which, about the centre of
its course, widens out into a considerable lake.
This is Lako St. Clair. The northern half of the
river is cidled the River St. Clair, and the southern
half, whicli is 20 miles long, the Detroit River. On
this river the city of Detroit stands, and it follows, as
a matter of course, that all the navigation between tho
three upper lakes on the one hand, and the two lower
lakes and the St. Lawrence on the other, must pass in
front of the city. The position is, therefore, a splen-
di.l and cominandin:^ one. Detroit is, moreover, the
point at which some of the Canadian railways connect
with the IMichigaii lines, and it is thus on the through
route between the larger pirt of Canada and New
Jhigland on the one hand, and Chicago and the Far
AN'est on the other. There is no bridge across the
Detroit River, but the railroad cars are o.irried across
in large steam ferry-boats, and passengers are thus con-
voyed through without change.

I travelled from Cleveland to Dotroit (1.^0 miles) by
rail. The line skirts— first, the extreme southern
shore of Lako Erie, and then, turning sharidy to the
right, the western end of the lake. Tlie two principal
cities passed on the road are Sandusky and Toledo.
The former is famous for its vineyards. The latter is
a pushing, go-ahead place of the regular American
type, which l)oists that, with a single exception (it
proba'ily r. cans L^hicago), it has more railways running
out of it than any other city in the IStates. It is, I
believe, the meeting-plico of no less than thirteen lines.
Since \i<')0, its population has grown from 4,000 to nearly
00,000. It possesses an immense trade in corn, and
among its many manufacturing concerns are locomotive
and car works, ironworks, furniture factories, flour-
mills, and breweries.

'I'oledo is, however, overshadowed by its big neigh-
bour, J >otroit. This line and pleasant city extends at
least six miles along the western bank of the river
which bears its own name. Its site w.is visited by the
French as early as lOli), but it was not settled until
1701. it was not until 1821 that it was incorporated as
a city. It t!ien contained a jiopulatioii of 2,001) ; to-
day its inhabitants pro'ably number l:!0,000. I might
reiieat and apply to Detroit almost all I have said about
the vast trade, the wonderful i)rosperit}', and the beau-
tiful suburbs of r.utl'alo and Cleveland. The descrip-
tion is almost eipially true of all three cities. In some
resijccts, Detroit has the advantage of tho other two,
It is less dirty and smoky in its busiest parts, and the
l)lau on which its streets mq laid out is a jileasant
variation on that usually adopted. The six prin-
cipal avenues radiate from a common centre,
like the skeleton of a fan : and tho other

!■!

thoroughfares, which nre on the usual chess-board
plan, necessarily intersect these avenues nt hundreds of
[joints and at all shorts of an.'los. The great central
street, known as Wo'jdw.ird Avenue, besin-i at the
water's edge and runs straight up through the city and
it< suburb-;, and out into the oj^en fiiintry beyond,
witliout turning a hair's-breadth ta rigliu or left. The
lower part of this avenue is lined with line business p:e-
uiiaes : Imt, Hko Main street at llulfalo, and Kuolid
Avenue at Cleveland, it presently mer;;es into a purely
residentiary suburban ro:'d, with its rows of sliade
trees ami its numerous elegant and costly mansions.
Woodward Avenue is in many reaiiects exactly liifelialf-
a-duzen other streets and avenues, and 1 mention it
merely as reT)resentative of its class.

The imiiression which a casual visitor can hardly fail
to carry away from Detroit is that it is an eminently
]di'as-int city to live in. Tlie noble river, Pt ^;ast a
mile wide, on who.se 1) ink it stands, the numerous wide
and handsome streets crossing or uniting with each
other on a somewhat picturesque plan, the solid and
substantial apiiearance of the buildings, both publicanil
private, the largo number of public institutions, all
combine to cieate this imiiression. The city has grown
raiiidly, no doubt, but not so rapidly as to have out-
run the appliances of civilization. The City Hall,
the churches, the Opera Houses, the hospitals, the
cemeteries, the grain elevators, the great lailroad
freight deiiJts, the (Uistom House, tho I'ost OUice, are
all worthy of note, but I cannot go into details he^e.

Detroit was the tirst city in wdiioh I found the electric
light largely used for business i)ur[)oses. A number of
tlie larger stores on Woodward Avenue use very power-
ful arc lights to illuminate their fronts, and the elfect
on the whole thoroughfare is brilliant in tho extVeme.
1 had ojiportunities of seeing the interiors of sume of
the largest stores. I went with some relatives to a large
dry-goiid8(drapery)establ;shment on Woodward Avenue.
Tlieilepartment thev wanted was a consiilerable dis-
tance skywi'.rd, and we weie at once shown into a lift
and carried uj) to the proper tloor. The extent of the
concern, the splendour and solidity of the baildiivg. the
perfection of the appliances and the system, and ihc enor-
iiious extent and variety of t'o stock, appeared far mare
approi)riate to London or I'aris than to a city in what
was not long since regarded as a backwoods State,
Later in tlie da^- w; went into a large music ware-
house in another .street. ye\eral persons were there
trying pianos, with a view t.) purchasing. One of tho
' clerks '' toll me that the firm had recently bought
a thousand instruments of a single New York
jiianoforte manufacturer, that they were all to bo
delivered, and would jirobably all bo sold, by the
end of the year. (It was alreaily the first week
in August.) J have no reason to sui'pose that tho
"clerk" was romarcing. Tiie growth of population
is so r.ipid, the standard of education so high, and the
purchasing power of the jieoijle so groat, that a
thousand pi mos are no doubt easily absor'ied by th ;
extensive and populous district of which Detroit is tie
centre. 1 may say, m ueover. that the piano trade is a
grt:at one everywhere, and it is not every iMrt of the
States tliat deiiends on New '^'nrk for its instruments.
Nothing more astonished mo than to see lar«e
piano factories in full work in new and remote
cities, where I should have supjiosed tiie popula-
tion ban not yet bad time to oigani/,e ar.y
trades cxneiit those which were cuncerned in suii[)lying
tiie bare nec:essariesof life. Ami this remark does not
apply to tho pianoforte manufactuie uloue. Almost

every trade and profession which ministers to the com-
for!, and luxury of the people obtains a footing in tho
new cities in an incrcilibly short space of time. It
does not at all follow that, because a place is
oidy ten years old and is one or two thou-
sand miles from Xew York, it is therefore rude
and UU' ivilised, without any of the refinements,
luxuries, and amusements o:' cultivated society. The
fact is generally the reverse. Kvcry b ancii of trade is
re)irescnted, an 1 tlie mm with plenty of money in his
pocket can liuy almost anything which his fancy or his
tastes may suggest.

TiiK IJonr.vu.ED C.\R.

It was in Detroit that I first made the acquaintance
of tiie hobtailed car. I afterwards found it in use in
many other cities, but may as will say here what there
is to l)e said about it. A holitailetl ear, tlien, is a street
tiamcar without a conductor, in which the pas.sengers
pay their fares by dropping them into a box. At first
sight, this arrangement may appear to be particularly
favourable to poor or shabby people who may wish to
do their riding "on the cheap." IJut a little experi-
ence of the system is enough to convince one tliat
cheating is dilhcult and rare. The driver stands on a
platform at the fore end of the car, the upper
part of wliich. being of glass, allows him to
commaiul a full view of the interior. On some c.ira,
indeed, a small mirror, fixed in a slanting position over
his head, enables liim to kee)) his eye constancy on
what is goin^ on inside without turning. Close besile
him, a locked money box is lixe i into tho framework
of the car. This liox is in two parts. The upper half
is of glass, botii front and back, and it has besides c*
sloi>ing bottom of glass. Into this box each pas-cnger
drops his fare through a slit ; and the coin, falling on
the glass bottom, is fully exposed to the view ot the
driver as well as of the passem^'er. The driver, hear-
ing the .loin drop, satisfies iiimself iiy a glance that it
is tlio right amount, and tKen, by touching a spring,
allows ii to drop out of sight into the lower lialf of the
box, which is locked, the key being kejit at the car
company's otlice. This le.ives the sloping glass bottom
of tlie uiqier box clear for the disjilay of tho next coin,
wliich is treated in the same fashion.

The driver is not allov.-ed to take money under any
circumstances, Itut lie gives change to all who require it.
I'his he docs with the sm diest po>8ii)le trouble to him-
self. He has in front of liim a box, full ei little pack-
ages of small change. Tlie packages are of varying
value, fro.n a (juarter-doUar upw.ird ; but every one
of them contains at least one a cent jiicce, that
being the uniform fare on the street cars
in almost every city I visited. 1'lie charge at JJoston is
(') cents (3d), but that is tho only case 1 remember in
which it exceeded .') tents. 'I'jio person who needs
change walks to tho driver's end of the ear, jiuslies open
a tiny door in the jianel of the car door, and iilacos his
coin, without saying a word, on a little siicdf made to
receive it. This movement rings a small bill and thus
attracts t'le drivers attention, and the driver im-
meii ately takes up the coin and puts the proper packet
of change in its place. 'liie jMssenger opens ids
jiacka^e, picks out a .~)-cent. piece (this is the
coin commonly called a '' nickel,") drojis it
into the box, and resumes his seat. Very often,
the car is so crowded that it is impossible for a new
comer (gettini; in behind, as all passengers do) to reach
tho otlier end, and in such cases tho fare is passed on
fiom Land to hand, and finally dropped into the box,

I ' t i

in the presence of the assembled passengers. Some-
times a passenger who cannot reach the driver wants
change, but he passes on his coin, whatever it may be,
in the same way, trusting the person sitting at the end
to get the change of the driver, to open the package,
drop in the fare, and return the balance through tlie
hands of the intermediate passengers. The duty of
rendering such helj) is universally recognised and cheer-
fully performed, nobody apparently considering that
any obligation is incurred or conferred.

That no-one ever gets a free ride is, of course, more
than I can assert. l^Ieannossor poverty may be at times
ingenious enough to eludt tlie vigilance of the driver.
But it is morally certain that the car companies save
more by dispensing with f conductor than they are at
all likely to lose by ti'e dis'ionesty of the public. It is
the rule for each pans,>nger to drop his fare into the box
soon after he enters the car , and if the payment is long
delayed, the driver, who keeps his eye on each new
comer, is pretty sure to noticithe fact and to watch the
defaulter witli redoubled keeni:e83. Sometimes, indeed,
he will indicate, bj a sharp tap on the box, that some
passenger has forgotten his liabi'i^y, and this induces
the others to look round the car inqui'-ingly, as much
as to say, " Who's that meant for ?" I, is evident, too,
that a person who resolves deliberatply to have a free
ride must be guilty of the mean a/'i in tha presence of
a number of witnesses, perhaj)? a whole car-full, who
would certainly notice if a new-comer showed no dis-
position to pay his faie. Between the vigilance of the
driver and the pressure of public opinion and sentiment,
the number of stolen rides is, therefore, I should say,
exceedingly small.

As there is no conductor in these cars to signal the
driver to stop when a passenger wishes to alight, the
l>as8engers are enal)led to do their own signalling. A
leather strap extends along the centre of the car near
the roof, and within the reach of all, A sharp pull at
any part of this strap rings a believer the driver's head,
and he stops either at once or as soon as his car is clear
of the next crossing. Sometimes there is such a strap
on each side of the car, with branch straps depend-
ent from them, so that passengers may signal to the
driver without rising from their seats. All this is A'cry
convenient, and renders locomotion extremely easy and
pleasant. The street cars are, indeed, among the most
admirable of American institutions. The fares are,
as I have said, only five cents (2^d). Dis-
tance is not reckoned. Whether the passenger goes
a (|uarter of a mile or several miles, the charge is the
same, and in some of the large cities the traveller may have
live or six miles of travelling for his five-halfpence. As
the charges of the haoUmon (drivers of cabs, kc) are, on
the other hand, incredibly exorbitant, almost everybody
uses the street cars, and the business they do is conse-
(luently on the same scale as everything else American.
The inhabitants of the cities appear to very seldom walk
at all whtn they can ride, however short the distance
they want to go. On inquiring the direction of places
1 wished to find, I was more than once told to
take a particular horse car " for two or three blocks,"
and then to take another for about as far, the whole
distance being, perhaps, half a mile.

I must adil, in conclusion, that the popularity of the
bob-tailed car sustained a severe blow a few days before
I left New York on my return voyage. One of these
cars was passing over the level crossing of a railway in
a street at I'hiladelphia, when a train dashed into it,
smashed it to splinters, and killed the greater number
of the pasiteugers (eight or ten, I think), It came out

in evidence that the driver was at that particular
moment in the car, holding a dispute with
a passenger about his fare, having left the "lines " (the
reins) in the hands of a boy. The story of this terrible
accident, told in the usual s .nsational fashion, evoked
greatsympathy and indignation throughout the country ;
and the newspapers, having first surpassed even them-
selves in piling up the agony, "went for" the bob-
tailed car companies in fine style. These companies were
denounced as gieedy monopolists, who were sacrificing
the lives of their customers for the sake of saving the ex-
jiense of conductors and keeping up their dividends. The
companies were told that the bobtailed car " must go " —
"/to"' being American for " abolished," " got rid of,"
"destroyed." Whether that conveyance has "gone"
yet 1 cimnot say, but I have discovered no evidence of
its disaiipoaranee in any of the American newspapers
which have reached me since my return.

I need hardly say that street cars ought to be driven
over level railway crossings with the greatest possible
care — that is to say, if they are driven over them at all.
]5ut the moral of the Philadeli)hia accident appeared to
ine from the first to be this— tli'\t the time has come for
the abolition of all the level crossings which now render
many of the leading thoroughfares in the great cities so
exceedingly dangerous.

The bobtailed cars, however, are not the only ones
that have no conductors. I rode through .Salt Lake
City in a car which had neither conductor nor money-
box, and the driver coolly left his two fine mules to
trot on uncontrolled, while he struggled through the
crowded vehicle to collect the fares. Nobody appeared
surprised, so I presumed the driver was only following
a pr.actice which was common in the City of the Saints,
Fortunately, we crossed no r !'-oud or. the level ; and,
the mules being serious and well-conducted beasts,
which knew what was expected of them, we got through
in safety.

A BACKWOODS CITY.

The scene now changes. I have hitherto dealt (so far
as I have dealt with cities at all) with great, busy,
populous, and prosi>erous places, of world-wide fame. I
have now to speak of a city of a different type— a small,
new city in the backwoods, where everything is still in
the rough, and where the sturdy pioneers of civilization
are still waging war with Nature. In referring to Cass
(Jity, the place in question, as a city, I am probably
wrong ; for, paradoxical as the statement may appear,
Cass (.'ity is, I believe, not properly a city. The word
"city,"' it is true, forms part of its name, but that
argues nothing. There are in England plenty of handets
and vilhiges called Newtown, but it does not by any
means follow that they are toirns in any one of the
senses in wliii'h we imderstand that word. As I under-
stand the matter, Cass City is technically a village ;
that is to say, it is organized as such under the State
or Federal laws. That it'will be incorporated as a city
in due time is pretty certain, and then its name will
harmonize with the facts.

I spent a week at Cass City with some relatives who
have long been resident in the State of Michigan, and
my visit alforded me opjiortunities which I should not
otherwise have enjoyed of seeing for myself what the
pioneer work in a forest State is like. What I say
about this little remote community, therefore, is not
said because of the intrinsic importance of the place,
but because Cass City is n, typo of thousands of other
places which are struggling into existence on th«
borders, or in the midst, of the primeval forest.

who
11 nd
I not
tho
say
a not
)laoe,
other
th*

The State of Michigan conssts mainly of a Inrpo
peninsulii, in sliape not unlike one of those thick
leather Rloves in which the four fingers iire not sepa-
rated. On the west of this peninsula is the v.ist area
of Lake Michigan. On the east, the boundary also
cmsists entirely of water— vi?., Lake Huron, the Lake
and River St. Clair, and the Detroit Uiver. On the
south, the State of Michigan boiilers on Indiana and
Ohio. A large tract of territory lying between Lakes
Superior and Michigan, and entirely detached from the
principal piirt of the .State, also belongs to Michigan,
but of this I need not speak at present. The part I
have to deal with now is (to return to my comparison)
near the top of the thumb of tho hedging glove. Be-
tween the thumb and the rest of tho glove is Saginaw
Bay, a part of Lake Huron, and near the head of this
bay are the flourishing cities of Saginaw and I'ay City,
which are connected with Detroit by the Michigan
Central Kailroad. On leaving Detroit, I followed the
main line towards Bay City for about 100 mile-), to a
place called Vassar, and then proceeded by a short
branch to the right to the little town of Caro, the ter-
minus in that direotion at present

The FoREttTS.

This; railway journey was an exceedingly interesting
one, for I found myself for the first time passing through
long stretches of tho virgin forest. The settlements
along the line are numerous, and in a few cases present
an appearance of importance and jjrosperity, but they
are separated by tracts of dense wood in which the
agriculturist has not yet set his foot. Many of the
forest trees are, of course, very beautiful ; but it must
be admitted that the primeval forest is, on the whole,
somewhat disappointing, as Oscar Wilde declared the
Atlantic to be.

The Michigan forests appear to bo greatly disfigured
by swamps, and a swamp is ''aver a clieerful spectacle.
Good honest terra, tirma is a thing to be respected ; so
is a genuine lake or sea. But a compound of land and
water, possessing none of the advantages of eitlier and
many of the drawbacks of both, is never likely to be a
popular or much admired mixture. Ami wlien the
swamp is also a forest, it possesses some specially
melanclioly features, such, for instance, as noble trees
lying around in all directions, rotting in the shallow,
stagnant pools. Michigan, moreover, has suffered
much from forest fires, and it is impossible to
exaggerate the gloom and desolation which one of
these terrible cintlagratioua leaves behind it. If the fire
only made a clean sweep of everything, the disfigure-
ment of the country would be far less. But this it does
not do, It is, in fact, very capricious, its course and
intensity being largely infiuenced by the nature of the
wood it finds in its path and the varying force and
direction of the wind Now and then, it sweeps a small
area tolerably bare ; but, as a rule, it leaves bo
hind it the trunks of all the larger trees,
stripped as hare as scatl'old - poles, perfectly
black, and gaunt and hideous in the extreme.
These blackened trunks are, of course, all dead, and in
course of time they rot off and fall. In Miis state, they
furnish excellent fuel for another conflagration, which
sometimes happens. Even where neither swamps nor
fires disfigure the forest, other causes are often at
work to mar its beauty. In more than one place, I saw
the track of one of those terrible cyclones to which
some of the States are liable. A narrow lane had been
cut through the forest, the clearance being as
complete and well-defined ai if a party of wood<

cutters had been .sent to clear fhe track for
a railroad. The trees all lay with their heads
pointinj; in tho sine direction, and all were in various
stai;c8 of decay. But even in the absence of hurricanes,
natuial decay is, of course, ever doing its work on
individual trees. In dae time, they fall, or rather try
to fall ; for the forest is generally too dense to allow
them to lie down at full length to die, and they
accordingly lean against each other at all sorts of angles
until they fall to pieces or pull each other down. But,
in spite of all these drawbacks and disfigurements, it is
imiiossible to travel a hundred miles through such a
Str.te as Michigan without passing through stretches
of woodland whose dense foliage, rich colouring, and
unbroken solitude constitute charms for all for whom
Nature has any charms at all. No visitor to America
should fail to see some real virgin forest, even if ho
has to go a good way from the beaten track to find it.

CaUO and IT.S NEWSP.M'KnH.

I left the railway at Caro, a thriving town of some
2,000 people, consisting mainly of one wide street, the
roadway of which appeare<l to be "repaired" with loose
sand, A Cass City friend met me at Caro Station, and
drove mo in his busigy to his home, 10 miles distant.
Before we left Caro, he took me to two newspaper
offices in the town and introduced me to the editors of
both. My visit was duly chroiiiciBi'i in the next issue
of each paper. If such trifling events were not thus re-
corded, it is difficult to see what two newspapers in a
town of 2,000 people would find to say. For papers of that
class are seldom seen outside the immediate neighbour-
hood of the place of issue. As a matter of fact, they
chronicle much " smaller boer " than we local journal-
ists in En,ulind do ; and that, in view of our cricket
matches, " tea-fights," and club dinners, is saying a
good deal. In many small local papers, the arrival and
departure of almost every person who enters or leaves
the town are reported.

" Esau .Tones returned home from Chicago Friday."
" Miss Smith is on a visit to friends in Ohio."
This is the .sort of thing which the American papers
supply by the Co.umn. In one paper, indeed, I saw it
reported that Mrs. Soand-so had engaged a new "help "
(.servant girl). It is only necessary that tho editors
should announce when the cats produce kittens to ren-
der their journals complete records of local events.

Backwoods Roads.

The road from Caro to Cass City (10 miles) is simply
abroadstri]) fenced off from the adjacent fields, and
consisting of precisely the same sort of material as they.
The soil is certainly thrown up slightly in the middle
of the track, and it has in some parts a rudimentary
ditch on each side. But, so far as I could discover, not
a particle of stone had ever been laid on it. There are
certain regulations for keeping the roads in repair, but
the repairing appe.'^.rs to consist simjily in filling up tho
holes with black surface soil and restoring more or less
Vierfectly the shape of the track. The road in rpiestion
had not even been repaired to this extent. It aboumled
in tioggy places, deej) dry holes, and other pitfalls,
which to a novice in backwoods travelling were some-
what alarming. When I remarked on the state of the
road, the reply was, "You should see it in the
winter !"froin which I inferreil that it was regarded as
in a decent state of repair. As a matter of fact, few
accidents appear to happen. Both the drivers and the
horses know by instinct how to "take" the specially
bud places, and the four high wheels of the buggy, the

) i:

i. .

1 I

i '^■

most popular Ameiirau vdiicln (of wliioh more aoino
d;iy), sue spociiilly adiiplcil to uctting over deop lidlcs.
Tlieso wliCL'ls are veiy Uy.ht imil Hiii'ler-likc ; hut, bciri','
of liickovy, t' oy : le Ncry toii^li, niul will .stiiml
a vast (leal of slialviiij; aivl twistinc;. Iacu if
a spill occins, the spilled are certain to
be alilo to .select a soft ])lace to f;dl
upon ;. possibly, indeed, no hard place may 1)0 witliin
sijjlit. A person wiio had l)e(!n accustomed to our lino
Engli.sh roads would, no doiibc, find it hard to s;et used
to these unstoneil tia> ks ; but tl.ose who have never
seen better thorouslifares appe.ai- to be tolerably con-
tent with them. Stoned roads in the newly-settled and
thiidy-jjcopled districts are, of course, out of the ques-
tion. Stone is sometimes not to be had within any
reasonable distance ; and even where it is to be had, tlio
scattered iio))ulatioii would find the cost of constructing
stoned roads wellnit^h luinous. As the country
fills up, and a demand for better 'ocomotion
arises, tho roads are sure to be gradually
improved. They are, however, of leiis imiiort-
nnce than they otherwi-e woidd bo owing to i'.'e fact
that almost every tow!i and village is on or near a rail-
way, t'ass City, with its (iOO or 7*)0 ])eople, had no
station within lii miles when I was there ; but since my
visit a railroad lias been opened which pas,-es tluousii
it, connecting it on one l.an 1 with the coast of Lake
Huron, and on tlio other with I'ontiac, Detroit, Toledo,
and tho rest of tho civilized woild. The road to Caro i«
consequently of little importance now.

IIow A City ks Laid Oct.

Cass is a name which turns up in many of the .States,
Cass County, Cass jjiver, ('ass Citv, or Cass Avenue is
with the traveller e\erywho'e. Ca s w;is an American
General whom his coimtiymen thus delight to honour.
Cass City, Alicliij;an, is so called from (he IJiver Cass, a
small stream, ma<lo >ip of two sm dler (jnes whic'i unite
near the '"city."' 'I his place is in euiliryo as yet, but its
inhabitants believe that it has a great future before it.
Ko doubt it has. It is, at any rate, safer to bet that
way than the other.

A descrii)tiun of tho way in which one city is laid o\tt
will apply to almost every new Ameiican town. Tho
plan of the streets is apparently decided on when thert^
are very few, if any, buildings in the place. I need
hardly say that that plan is usually of the chess-boaid
kind. So many wide, iiarallel, ami e [ui-distant roads
are marked out in one direction, and an equal number,
exactly similar, are marked out across them ;it right
angles. The site is thus divided into square or oblong
blocks, each block abutting on four separate roads. Tho
roads are forthwit'i dedicated to the public use, and
are very often planted at ome with shade trees on both
sides, 'i'he beginning is thus very regular and system-
atic, but tho next stage of tlie city's growth
is most irregular and unsystematic. For tho
place does not begin with a solid nucleus
and grow outward, filling \\p as it goes. It
may, periiajis, have been laid out on a ma.niificent
scale, like Salt Lake City, with streets enough, for a
population of 100,000 ; and for many years the vast
site may bo occupied by only a few hundreds. The
result is a scattered, scraggy, unlinisliod loolc. Mr, A.,
a new-C'iner, fancies the corner of a block which is, so
far, entirely unoccupied. He buys it and runs ui) h's
frame house ; and possildy, if tin; [irogress of the town
is slow, he may bo the only settler on the whole of that
block for the next 10 years. All the land in the
block except his own may be a wilderness all that time,

serving no puriiosobnt to provide a little coarse herbage
for the townspeople's cows, whic!i are regulaily turned
into the streets after tho morning milking to i>i ovule
for tlicmsfdves. 'J'lin next settler prefeis a position in
another ))art of tho town, ;nd he, perhaps, is equally
isolated for yens. So the houses are one by one dotted
about the vast site of the in ant city — one here, tho
next there, and the third over yonder — without the
slightest order or system ; the only thing fi.xed and
settled being the width, the direction, and the position
of the streets.

This irregular growth ha., ome ad vantages, of course.
There are ample elbow-room and plenty of fre.sh air.
]!ut, on the other hand, no r ganised system of water
supply, gas-lighting, iiaviiig, or drainage can he adopted,
e.Ncei.it at a cost altogether out of proportion to the
numher of the inhabitants. The result is that many
of these very scattered communities have to do without
the commonest conveniences of civilized city life, even
when th> r populations have attained consulerablo pro-
portions. I was told, for instance, that Salt Lake City,
with its L'."),000 people, does not yet possess a single
sewer. The mileage of its streets is so great in
proportion to its po[mlat::'n that the proper sewering
of tho whole would cost a prodigious sum.

Jiut let me descend from the general to the particular.
The description I have tried to give of the usual mode
of development in American towns applies with suffi-
cient accuracy to Cass City. The area laid out there is
not very large, but only a small part of it is as yet
occupied. In only one of the streets is theie anything
like continuous building on both sides. On the other
streets (.Vmericans always say " on " in this
connection) the houses and other buildings have
been drojqied ilown at random here and there. Most
of tho buildings, even in the main street, are of wood ;
but tlie excoptioiu!, thou-,li few, are increasing. Tho^e
who regard the utmost extreme of irregularity as the
cli ef^ element of the picturesque would be bound to
admit that Cass City possesses that element at least ;
for tho buildings abutting on the main street range
from the modern and substantial brick store, bank, or
pul)lic assembly room, down through all gradations to
the flimsiest and most dingy of one-storey shanties,
wliioh a respectable gale would blow away bodily. And
it must not be supiiosed that the character of the erec-
tion always indicates the nature of the busi-
ness attached to it, for I discovered that one
of the most rickettylooking of all the wooden sheds
was tho office of a respect. ible and flourishing firm of
lawyers —the only one, I believe, in the place. By the
way, I had a long chat with the two gentlemen con-
stituting this firm, and it may interest English capital-
ists who are tired of three or tour per cent, to hear
wh it they told me— viz., that eight per cent, may bo
made in that part of Jlichi^an on the security of real
estate of the best class, with ample margin. A great
deal is lent at ten jser cent., where the security is not
quite so complete.

The main street also contains "stores'' (.shops) re-
presenting almost every lirauch of retail trade. Some
of them are very large, and their contents as miscel-
laneous as those of a "general shop'' in an English
village. The |)roprietors of the principal stores are
known as " merchants," and in some instmces they
carry on a large busine.ss, p.irtaking of the nature of
barter, with the neighbourin;; farmers, taking from tho
latter their corn, wool, and other produce, and supply-
ing them in return with almost all the necessaries of
life which are nob actually produced on the farms.

■I'

Tiic prinoipal merchant in C'a^.s City ha- a steam flour
mill in tlio main street, the hoiler beins; aila))teJ to tlio
biuninK of wood, as most boilers are in the forest tlis-
tricts.

I need hardly say that Cass City has its weekly news-
paper, aiipropriately called the Knio'pvisr. Ho must
indeed have been an enterprising man who started a
weekly in such a place two or three years ago. Jiut, as
the present jiroprietor explained to me, those who thus
establish journals in outlandish villages aro simjily dis-
counting the future, .luilging from the progress of
almost every place around them, they are satisfied that
the village of their choice will one day be a town of
some imp-^rtance, and that it is sure, sooner or later, to
be able to support a newspaper. Their aim is to be the
first in the field, to secure a footing and to establish
a claim on public support while the place is as yet in
its infancy. It must not be forgotten, moreover, that
even small places like Cass City are centres of agricul-
tural districts comprising many farms, whoso occupants
take the local paper and occasionally advertise in its
columns. It is a fact, too, that, as readers, a thousand
persons in Michigan count for more than a thousand in
the rural parts of .Somerset or Dorset. They count for
more, also, as general purchasers, for on the average
they are far better off than the country iicople of tlie
West of England. The establishment of a newspaper
in a village of 500 or GOO people is not, therefore, quite
so mad a " spec."' as an English journalist may supijose.

The Right Soht oi'' Settlkhsi.

Many of the best and most successful settlers in and
around Cass City are men who had first emigrated to
Canada, and had presently crossed the boundary line
into the territory of Uncle Sam. Some of these men
are from Ulster, and are, therefore, Scotch by descent ;
and a race better fitted for the hard pioneer work of the
backwoods it would be difficult to conceive. They are
the very embodiment of physical endurance, unflagging
industry, and dogged perseverance ; and if, at imy
time of their lives, they needed the operation of steady-
ing and sobering influences, they have most certainly
discovered what they wanted in their daily warfare
with the obstacles which Nature had placed in their
chosen path. If any young man feels that he wants
sobering down, wants to be made to take a more serious
view of life than he has yet taken— wants (to borrow a
good strong metaphor) " the Devil taken out of him "
— I recommend him to go and build himself a log hut
in the backwoods and begin a single-handed struggle
with the forest.

I had always been told that the pioneers of agricul-
ture in the forest States were remarkable n.en ; but
since my visit to tht Michigan backwooils has enabled
me fully to realise the nature of their work, I have
conceived for them a respect such as I pay to few other
classes. There must be "raalgrif (as an American
would himself say) in men and women who can stand
to theii posts in the van of progress as t' ese early
backwoodb farmers have done. The privations they
endure in the early days of their settlement are painful
to reflect on. And this is particularly the case when
they are people of some little education and refinemc.t.
The absence of comforts and conveniences which nen
and women of a coarser order would ha dly
notice must constitute a terrible trial to such.
I visited one farm in the neighbourhood of
Cass City, which a family of this superior
class bad literally created amid the "forest primeval."
But from tba atrauge zigzag timber fences which aepar*

ated the fields -a kind of fencing which is universal in
all tlie wooded States— it would have boon |ioHsil)lo, in
walking ovoi this farm, to imagine oiie's-self as being in
one of our best cultivated English counties. T itches of
wood had been judiciously piesorvcd here and there,
possibly for the supply of fuel ; but they were as orna-
mental as they were useful. They formed suitable
backgrounds to the gently-.sloping and carefully-tillod
fields, just as the copses do in Hampshire and other
parts of England. The farmer's wife, a lady of
considerable education and taste, described to me tho
battle which she and her husband had fought before
attaining their present position of comparative afliuonoo.
She .showed me their three successive residences— first,
the rude log cabin, of a single room, which they at first
built in the midst of the forest ; secondly, an enlarged
and improved edition of tho same sort of dwelling ;
and, lastly, No. 3, the handsome, comfortable, and
well-furnished house in which they now live. I a-ked
the lady what No. l would be like, but she assured mo
that she and her husband had now reached tho height
of their ambition as far as their residence was concerned,
and that they should probably stick to No. 3 to
the end of the chapter. This sturdy and in-
domitable pair h.ad had a number of children —
all, or nearly all, boys— and I believe I understood her
to say that, during the whole of the timo of their
growing-up, she did all the household work her-
self, without any regular help. Bnt the boys, when
old enough to assist on the farm, were invaluable, and
much of their father's later success was duo to their
steady aid. Their education was not, however, for-
gotten, and some of them were, at a recent date, still
studying at the State University during the winter,
when their help w.is not required at home. I suppose
I need hardly say that this farmer had no landlord
but himself. He bought the land at a nominal price
when it formed part of the forest, and the l.irgc adili-
tion which has been made to its value has been entirely
due to the industry and perseverance of himself and
family, who, properly enough, reap the whole of the
fruits of their labour. A farm improved to the pitch
to which ho has brought his is a very valuable property,
even in a State where land can still be bought for a
few shillings an acre .

Getting llin op tiic "Weeds."

It is difficult for an Englishman >.o realise a state of
things in which fine growing timber is regarded as a
nuisance, to be got rid of by any means. Such, how-
ever, is the case in those parts of Michigan which
have no suitable rivers to convey the timber to
the coast. The first business of the settler is to uproot
and destroy the gigantic '' weeds "' which encumber his
newly-acquired estate. The most obvious method
is to set tho forest on fire at a dry season of the year ;
but afire, when once set going, hasanu.;ly knack of
refusing to stop, and of i)urning tliings wliich nobody
wishes to destroy, 'inhere are, I believe. State law.s
against firing the forests ; but it is generally impossiblo
to say whether a fire has been started by accident or by
design, and there is reason to believe that it is often
«loue intentionally. As we shall see presently, these
fires sometimes attain most alarming projiortions, and
assume the character of great and awe-inspiring
calamities. Supposing the settler decides to get rid of
his "weeds" without tiring them, he has first
to fell the timber, and ckar away all that he
does not immediately require for his buildings and
fences. The etumps are, of course, still left and

,-t!'P"

tlioso form a very curious feuturo in the lundHcnpo in
mHiiy imits of tlio loimtry, Somutimes tlio farmers
miiniiiie to carry on oiiomtioiis nini I the stumps for
years ; but it is otivions timt tills is w very diiliculr,
filovi'nly, anil waKtuful ^ol t of huslmndry, anil no {{ooil
farmer will coiitinii'j it an I oin' Ioml'oi' than iNalisoliitely
nrices-nry. 'J'lieiu are various nioiles of getting rid or
the sturnps and roots. ])ip;ijinj; tlicin out is ne. essiuily
a slow and ex|)eiisive process. Allowini; tliein to rot
is a still hlower liusines-i, and even moio costly, if the
loss sustained through impeilect liusbandry and dimin-
ished area be taken into a ount. Attempts to burn
the stumps out are freiiuently made, as the appearance
of many fields testifies. Hut the best way to
get rid of them is, as in the case of
decayed teeth, to pull thein out bodily. And
American ingenuity has placed the means of doing
even this within the reach of the farmer. The " root-
extraotor " is a powerful machine which, by means of
a combination of lovers, tears up tlie largest stumps,
roots and all. A field which has just been operated on
by one of these machines presents a remarkable sight.
It looks as if an earthiiuako li.id recently paid it a
visit, or as if Chaos had come again. The roots, of
all shapes and sizes, are scattered about in wild con-
fusion. In many cases, they refused to yield to the
persuasions of the "extractor" without bringing up
in their embraces great masses of their mother earth,
and the field is thus converted into a series of rugged
pits. The work of removing the routs and levelling tlie
soil is no small matter ; but, that once done, the farmer
has for the first time a oleir field for the ojieration of
his numerous Inbour-saviuir implements, and he soon
recoups himself the cost of the o[ieratioii.

FoiiKST Finns.
I have already referred to the subject of forest fires,
which has a painful interest for Cass City. In the
autumn of 18S1, the Michigan woods took fire, or were
purposely ignited, in several different places ; and, the
season being a dry one, the fires assumed gigintic pro-
portions. Cass City, among other places, was threatened
witli complete destruction. The fire did, indeed, reach
some of the straggling houses in the outskirts of the
town, and nothing but a change of wind at the most
critical moment saved the place. The inhabitants ))re-
pared for the worst. They conveyed their valuables
and every other moveable article of property to the
largest oi)en space they could find, and there awaited
the result with fear and trembling. The danger did
not arise from actual contact between the forests and
the houses. As a matter of fact, the belt of cleared
land round the town was of considerable width. But
everything was infiammable, and the fire crept up
from the burning woods, through the grass and stubble
and along the fences, to the very doors of the iniiabit-
ants. The air was laden with suHFocating smoke ; the
roar of the tiames and the crash of falling trees
drowned all other sounds. Terrible stories are told of
the bodily and mental sutfering to which many of the
inhabitants of scattered houses were subjected forhours.
riome saved themselves and their children by descend-
ing into wells and remaining there till the tornado
of fire had swejjt past. A poor woman whose house was
near the River Cass, unable longer to find a safe stand-
ing-place on land, walked into the stream with her child
in her arms, and waded up or do wn the river towards a place
of safety. She was in tiie water several hours. The
heat from the blazing timber on the banki was so
inteuge that she was obliged occasioaally to cool her

head by plunging it below the surface, and at Inst the
water l)ei;ame so warm that she begin to fear she had
only escape 1 roasting to be grinlually scalded to death.
Sill' Was, happ'ly, saved, but in a state of temporary
b.inilne>s from the effects of the heat and smoke. It is
curious to notice how great natural catastrophes of
this kind apiiear to unhinge tho minds of all but the
strongest. I was told at Cass City that many who
are certainly not onlinarily superstitious were disposed
to regard these great (ires as in some undefined sense
su|)ernatural both in origin and character. 'I'he whole
thing was so awful and awe-inspiring, so vastly trans-
cending all [)revious experiences, that men and women
(women especially, I imagine) found it impossible to re-
gard it as jiart of the natural order of things. 1 have
heard that the great fire at Chicago produced somewhat
similar effects on a certain class of minds, I was at Col-
chester early iu jMay, afew days after tlie neighbourhood
of the town had sustained the severest earthquake shock
felt in England for three centuries, and I found that
that terrible phenomenon had had a similar unhinging
and demoralising effect on the minds of the people
there. Their mental constitutions, as well as their
houses, had apparently sustained a rude shock, and
seemed incapable of readily recovering their equilibrium,

Chukchks and Ministers,

America has as many religious sects oa Encrland, and
even a small community like that of Cass City cannot
get on without three or four separate churches. The
various bodies ajipear to be on very friendly terms with
each other -a circumstance which is, perhaps, partly
due to the absence of a state church ; and they 8upi>ort
among them a number of organizations of a philan-
thropic kind. Ministers in tho backwoods appear to
keej) their pride in their pocket, if they have any pride.
I was entertained at (Jass City in a family which com-
prised a cow. A young minister who was supplying
the ))ulpit at the Presbyterian Churoii was lodging in
tho same house ; and on one occasion, when -.y respected
relative, the head of the family, happene to be going
out about milking time, he a^ked the r( „rend gentle-
man to oblige him by doing the needfu . for the cow.
The young man cheerfully assented, as if as a matter of
course, and on another occasion he " hitched up " the
horse when the buggy happened to be wanted during my
host's absence.

Cows IN THE StUEET.S.

Talking of the cow reminds me of what I recently
said about tho turning of the cows into the streets.
This, as a matter of fact, appears to be the rule
in most unfinished towns like Cass City. The
cows are milked in the early morning, and then
turned loose to take care of themselves during
the day. Apparently, they seldom stray far, and are
found without much ditficulty when the evening milk-
iiig-time arrives. The unoccupied ground and the sides
of tlie wide roads iirodiice so much grass that the
animals appear to find ail the food they re([uire. But
they do not confine their operations to the open parts
of the town. On more than one occasion, I sawa num-
ber of them, collected, I presume, for social inter-
course, coolly dawdling about in the main street.

Americ.xn "Stages,"

Cass City has, since I was there, been brought into
direct railway and telegraphic communication with the
rest of the world. A year ago, it had no telegraph, and
the mails were carried to and fro between it and Oaro

on a vehicle called a " Btagc. " It must not bo siipposeil
that an American " 8ta;^e " is nece-saiilj' any relation
to the Rwifr and \vell-a|>poiiited vehicles which in this
country were ilbowedout of the way by the railways.
'J'lie Cass City stage, whic'i conveyed mails, passengers,
and baggage alike, was a roufjh sort of wa^rgon, with a
very shallow body, not unlike what an Kufjlish " trolly ''
would be if it had a raised rim all round, (.onvorting it
into a sort of huge tray. Across this tray were two or
throe wooden seats : and on the-e ijcrches, un|)rotected
from the weather, the i.assengers were jolted over the
10 miles of road 1 etween Caro ;ind Cass City. I saw
vehislea of this kind standing at many of the
country railroad stations, and I couhl not help being
struck with their unnecessarily comfortless appearance.
The Americans have some mysterious objection to make
the bodies of their vehicles dnp, so as to afford pro-
tection to goods and p issenc;ers' lees. A shallow tray
is the universd type of carriage, and comfort and safety
are everywhere sacrificed to it. It is a rare thing to
see a carriage of any sort with sides more than a few
inches deep.

School?-.

The national system of education, which is the pride
and the tiue glory of America, appears to be extended
tc new communities as fast as they come into existence.
iJass City already lias its jiublic schools, to which all
classes of children have the right of access, free of
charge. The principal scbools are in the town, where
tliP superintentlent teacher lives and works ; but
smaller buihlings are provided in the outlying districts
for those wliose residences are more than a certain
distance from the town schools. I visited one of these
outlying schools, and fouml the children playing out-
side during a short recess. They did not own a boot or
a stocking among them ; and, had I not been cautioneil
in advance, I mi:<ht have been dis])osed to rej;ard
them as pauper children. That, however, would
have been a great mistake. The scholars were in
re:dity almost all the sons and daughters of farmers,
and in leaving their foot gear at home they were merely
complying with a custom which is well-nigh universal
among children, during the summer, in many rural
districts where the roads are innocent of stone.

Stoves.

The use of the stove for heating purposes is universal
in the northern .States ; and wood is, of course, the
only fuel in the forest districts, where it is a drug in
the market, if not a nuisance to be got rid of. The
stove has been lirought to a high state of perfection. In
its most highly-developed form, it is a lofty and imposing
structure, elaborately ornamented and proportionately
costly. Those whose ideas of the American stove are
founded entirely on what they see in the shops of I'lng-
lish ironmongers, liave no conception of the fine speci-
mens which are to be found in the best rooms of the
louses of well to-do Americans. These, including their
elaborate top ornaments, are often nearly as tall as an
average man, and are resplendent with polished metal,
handsome castings, and little windows of some senii-
transparent, indestructible mineral substance. Through
these windows the light of tlie enclosed fire is visible,
and the want of "cheerfulness" for which closed
stoves are disliked in this country is thus partially obvi-
ated. It is customary in very severe winters to keep
the fires going night and day, and in many houses the
heat is admitted into the bedrooms through grated
openings in the ceilings of the lower rooms, These grat-

ings are covered when not needed for the purfoso for
which they were designed.

I AM Cuoss-Ex.vMiNEn.

I sliall not soon forget the kindness and courtesy of
the i)eoi)le of Cass City, a good many of whom I came
in contact with. I partook of the aliounding hosiiitality
of several of them, and learnt from them a great ileal
tliat was very interesting as to thoprogre-s of the place,
and the kind of life which the pioneers of all such com-
munities have to live. l>ut my curiosity on these
subjects was at least equalled by that of
the Casj City people with rcjard to this
country and my impressions of Anierica. Their
interest in Miigh'nd was intense. < 'n one occasion, tiio
principal public school teacher and one or two others
cross-examined me for about two hours straight ahead,
the subjects of examination comjirising our form of
tiovernment. the relations between (^tueen, Lords, and
Commons, the position of political parties, the size and
apiiearance of London and our other great cities, the
English railways, our education system, the British
press, and (profoundest mystery ol ail to my inquisitors)
our various ordeis of nobility. I tiied hard to make
it clear to them in what respect an earl
stands higher than a baron and a duke
or a marquis above both ; why " honourable " means
one thing and "right honourable" another thing, ami
why a person may possibly have a claim to both titles ;
why a peer is always a lord while a lord is not always a
peer ; and so on through all the refinements of the
upper strata of our social system. Some things I
flatter myself I made tolerably plain to them, but I
fear I left them hopelessly bemuddled over these
questions of rank and title. The American mind is
not adapted, either naturally or by training, to
comprehend these profound and awful mysteries,
and I sometimes doubt my own power to under-
stand either them or the deep interest with
which they are regarded. My cross-examiners
at last aiiologizcd for having so far " triea my patience,"
as they jiut it ; but the truth is, it was impossible to
be annoyed at their inquisitiveness, for it was evidently
the outcome of a very profound interest in the affairs
of a country which they are proud to be associated with
by race, descent, and history, even while they pride
themselves (very properly) on being independent of it
and of all other European States. If the people of Cass
City fairly re))resent American sentiment towards this
country, as, judging from my after experience, I
believe they do, there is small fear of any serious or
permanent estrangement between the two great branches
of the English-speaking race.

In tiie course of the long conversation which I have
tried to describe, the ([Uestion of American pronuncia-
tion turned u]), and a lady of the party embarrassed
me a good deal for a moment by s.aying :

" You must have discovered, sir, that we talk very
bad English I"

Now, what coidd one say to this, the speaker being a
lady? There was a rather awkward pause, but it at last
Occurred to me to remark, I am afraid with some
little economy of truth :—

" Not at all, madam ! What I do remark is that I
talk very bad American ! "

Uow Cities are CHRistENEn.
But I must bid farewell to Cass City, for other (and
larger) fish are waiting to be fried, A city of another
sort— the mighty and wonderful Chicago— demands my

■y^sf^

Rttention, and I will acconlingly wind up thin chapter
with a curious cxnmijlo of American notncnclaturo.
C-ftSH City is in I'uscohi County. 'I ho next county
northward is Huron, and tlio county seat or county
town of Huron l)ears tho rrmai kahlu name of WxA Axe.
The Americans say that, when tiiey want a naino for a
new place, they do not sit up all night and eudfjel their
brains to invent one. They seize on tho first homely word
that occurs to them, ami tho christening' is forthwith
done. This was no doubt tho case at Ijad Axe. Some
early settlor had probably reason to complain of tho
quality of the tool with which he was en(,'aned in felliuR
his timber. Perhaps he bestowed a little superfluous
strong language on the axo and threw it away, and
when a log hut or two wore tiuilt on that spot, 15ad Axe
Buggested it>elf as an apjtropriate name. Anyhow, there
stands the town, and my explanation of its name is tho
best that occurs to me. I may add, in conclusion, that
an antidote to I5ad Axo h.as been thoughtfully provided
by another party of settlers ; for a short distance off, on
tho shore of Lake Huron, stands Griudstono City— if
my map of Michigan tells the truth.

CHICAGO THE WONDERFUL.

If one is asked whero tho characteristic energy and
enterprise of the American people have found their
fullest exi)ression and their greatest material rewards,
where the growth of population and of wealth, groat
evorywlicre, has attained its most amazing proportions,
the reply is ready. Only one answer is possible, and
that is " Chicago ! " Other American cities -many of
them — have grown in population and wealth at a pro-
digious rate ; but this monster community which has
sprung irto existence at the head of Lake ]\Iichigan,
and bectii. ''at it is within tho recollection of men
now living, ^robihly outstripped, in its fabulously

rapid progress, all other cities, wliether of ancient or of
modern times, wliether of tho Old World or of tho
New.

While I was in America, some eminent iiolitician was
reported to have said, in the course of a public address :
"We are going to have three Londons on this continent
— one on the Atlantic seaboard, a second on the great
lakes, and a third on the Pacific coast." This prediction
is in a bettor way of being fulfilled than a great many
prophecies that arc uttered. 'l"he speaker, of course,
referred to New York, Chicago, and San Francisco ; and
it really looks as if these three cities were not unlikely
to rank with our own metropolis before the ne.\t cen-
tury has reached middle aije.

A Fine Site.

The site of Chicago is clearly indicated by Xatui , as
that of a great commercial city. Water carriage is tho
cheapest of all forms of locomotion. The staple pro-
ducts of the Western States are food, in the shape of
meat and grain. These articles are bulky and heavy in
proportion to their money value, and it is, therefore,
necessary to convey them to the coast, for shipment to
hungry Europe, at the smallest possible cost. Now, as
I have more than once explained, tho Great Lakes, the
River St. Lawrence, and tho artificial canals connected
with them, constitute a splendid system of internal navi-
gation, extending up from the ocean into the very heart of
the corn-growing and meat-producing States. The heads
of this system of navigation (for there are two) are at
the western extremity of Lake Superior and at the
southern end of Lake Michigan. From these two
points, produce can be shipped to the Atlantic sea-

board, or, if placed in sea-going vessels adapted to tho
canals, to Europe direct. Those two jioints, tliereforo,
are naturally indicatcil as the sites (or, oh an Americin
wouM say, the '" locations '') of ports for collecting tho
produce from the neighbuurinir States, and starting it
on its jouiney by water towards our stomachs. At tho
head of Lake Sujierior, which h;ia only recently secured
communication with the West iiy means of tho
Northern Pacific Railroad, two rival towns are growing
up — I )uluth and Superior (.'ity. Of these I shall have
occasion to say sometiiing presently. My business at
present is with Chicago, which has already grown up
near the head of Lake Michigan — that is to say, near
its southern extremity.

A (,'lanco at a recent railway map of the States will
make tho position clear. In front of the city lies tho
vast expanse of the lake, forming tho first link in tho
great watery chain wliich connects Chicago with New
York and the I'anadian ))orts. This is, to
use a homely figure, thf city's front door.
Rut behold its many back doors ! Like tho
spokes of a wheel, the great trunk railroads radiate
from tho mighty centre towards every point of the
compass, excei)t in the direction of the lake. No
less than fourteen of these trunk lines contro in
Chicago. These railroads, with their numberless off-
shoots, constituting a perfect net-work, tip every part
of the immense distritt of whii-h Chicago is the com-
mercial metropolis. Not only are tho older and more
settled States of Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiii
Jlissouri, and Jlichigan thus bound to the city by iion
ties ; but the enterprising citizens have stretched
out their long arms so as to embrace the more
distant and more partially-settled States and
Territoriss of Minnesota, Dakota, and Nebraska.
Towards the great centre of attraction on the shores of
Lake Michigan the produce of those vast regions— their
horned cattle and liogs, their timber, their wheat ond
maize is ever moving, in numbers and (juantities well-
nigh inconceivable. Coming in by rail from the west,
the north, and the south, this produce is either
temporarily stored in Chicago or at once pushed on
eastward, according to the state of the markfits. It
does not follow, however, because there is a watery
highway to the coast, that all these millions of tons
are necessarily sent eastward by that route. As a
matter of fact, immense quantities of it complete their
journey to the coast by rail ; but I need hardly inform
those who know the efl'ect of sea and canal
competition upon railway charges that the eastern rail-
road companies are compelled to accept the same r.ates
as the shipowners on the lakes. Sometimes, indeed,
when tho different railroads are engaged in one of their
insane fights for traffic, the charges go down to a point
which is unremunerative, whether on land or on water.
It is, however, obvious that the Chicago merchants
reap the full benefit of cheap water carriage eastwards,
whether they forward their goods by ship or by rail.
Except when the canals are obstructed by frosts, tho
rates can never rise above tlie point at which the ship-
owners are preparetl to carry freight.

The same causes that conspired to make Chicago a
great collecting centre have tended to make it a great
distributing centre also. The splendid system of rail-
roads which is so perfectly adapted to the bringing-in
of agricultural produce is equally well-fitted for the
carrying-out of the thousand and one necessaries and
luxuries of life to the prosperous and growing popula-
tion of the vast contributory district. Chicago is not,
therefore, a mere collection of cattle pens and grain

oluviitois, tliongh it posgcssos tlio c tliiiigs on the larfjost
scale. It is, besiilus. a liui^jo inartof niiseolhuiooiiH tviulon
uiiil niiiuiirncturcH ni vmioil na t'uin • of l.omlon.
A\'liilc it i( lievea tho Illinois or Wisconsin fiirnior of his
suiii'i'lhions hoKs iinil "corn," it .stands i)rci'arc(l to
supply liim, in rotiun, witli tho newest thinu' iiiihillH,
reaper.^, or wire fencini;, to clot ho his wife in fiiia oi'
silk, ami to iniiku jowellory (ahain or lo.il) oi- builil a
piano for his (laU!,'hter. jJoston men ai' .said to boaat
that " what Hoston don't know ain't wuith knowing;'"
and < hicai;;() men misht, with at least e(iMal truth, declare
that" what Chicago can'tsupply ain't woi thhavinsj." It
would, at any rate, be difHcultto mention a branch of
trade which is not represented in tiiis great emporium
of the West.

A rEM.OW-TOWNSMAN TCHN'S UP AT THE NiCK OF
TiMK.

T travelled from Detroit to Chicago (US.") miles) in a
gleejjinj; car during Saturday ninht, reaching tho
I'almer House, in the latter city, early on Sunday morn-
ing. There I found my travelling companion awaiting
me, as ]ior agreement made when wo parted at Niagara
111 days liefoie. I had been o))ligcd to leave my trunk—
the memorable trunk which the bag;zago-am isher.s after-
wards served .so bully — behind at Ciss City, and it
followed mo on to Chicago, nl Detroit, in a rather ir-
regular fasiiion and without being checked. I had,
therefore, n j check to show at the Chicago deput,
wherewith to establish my claim. The man in
charge of the bagg.ige room (very propeily, no doubt)
refused to let me have (lie trunk. I must, he said, be
properly identified as tho real owner, and he referred mo
to his su|)erior,tho chiof baggage agent, whose ollico w.is
ill a distant part of tlie station. To thisollicial I explained
the situation and handed my card. He looked at the
jiasteboard rather curiously and then at me, and said
in an a-^toni-ilcd tone,

"What, are you from Yeovil?"'

"(,'ertaiiily 1" I re))lie(l.

"So am I," he said. "Don't you know Mr. ,

the bootmaker?''

" Of course I do.''

"Well, he's my uncle; and Henry C , who

ha.s a shop at M , is my brother."

" Then you are the very man I want," said I ; " for
I was told I jnust be identified, and you are evidently
stationed here for the very purjiose. I presume I can
now have my trunk."

"Why, certainly," he replied. Ho then proceeded
to remark on the curious coincidence that had brouglit us
together just when hi.s personal knowledge was needed.
He said he had been at that station for some years, and,
although he had met with many Englishmen, he had
nevt-r before seen a person from Somersetshire, much
less from Yeovil. It was, we agreed, very remark-
able that the first person he ever met there from his
own neighbourhood should have to appeal to him in his
official capacity for the release of baggage, jind in bis
liersonal capacity for that identification without which
tlie release could not be granted. I only hope that
the next man to whom I have to appeal, in a similar
fi\ and in another hemisphere, will also prove to be a
Yeovilian. There is no law .against hofi'nvi this, but I
suppose I can hardly expert such a coincidence to occur
again, even if I live another century and have to
establish my claim to baggage every day.
History in BuiEF.

The first white visitors to the site of Chicago were
Joliet and Marquette, who arrived in August, 1673.

demolished in l.'s.")(i.
containeil 12 houses
in Madison Street,

The first pormanont aettloment was made in l^<iU,
during whidi year I'ort Dearborn was built by the
r. S. (iovciiinieiit. The fort stood near the head of
Michigan Ave., below its intersection witii Lake St.
It was abandoned in ISTJ, re-built in isii'., and finally
.Vt the close of ls;{o, Chicago
and tlireo "country " residences
with a population (comjiosed of
whites, h.ilf breeds, .ind blacks) of about 100. Tho
town was organised in 1X3'.^, and incorporated as a city
in IS;57. Tho first fr.amo building was erected in N;?2,
and tlio first brick house in IS3.?. Tho first vessel
entered tho harbour .lunc 11, lH3t ; and at tho first
official census, taken July 1, 18:!7, tho entire poi)ulation
was found to bo 4,170. In 1S.")0, the poimlation had
increased to L".l,l)();5 ; in ISiiO, to 112,172: and in
1S7(), to 2ilS,!)77. According to the United States
Census of 1S80, the population was then .")0;<,;<01.
"It is claimed" (to use an Aiucricaniam) that the
population is now over ("100,000. (Jhicago ia, therefore,
more pojiulous than any city in tho United Kingdom
except London ; for (ilasgow, Liverpool, and Manches-
ter (witii Salford) are all stdl under (100,000. As the
l)opuliiti:)n was barely ;W,()00 in IS.'jO, it has multiplied
twenty-fold in the . o period of 'M years. If IJiooklyn
bo regarded as a part of New York (and it is really as
much that as Southwark is a part of London), Chicago
is now, in population, the third city in tho States.
Tho first is, of cour.se. New York ; the second
is Philadelphia, which contains nearly a million,
'i'hese figures and comparisons will enable tho reader to
realise the marvellous late at which people have, during
the last generation, been fiocking from every pait of
ti e civilized world t" tho grand centre of attraction
where the Illinois pr.i:ri'.! slopes down to the shore of
Lake Jlichigan. And it must be borne in mind that tho
increase of over 200,000 attained between 1870 and
ISSO was achieved in spite of the greatect calamity
which has befallen any large city in niodern times, tho
Lisbon earthquake alone excepted. I refer, of course,
to the great fire which, in October, 1S71, burnt out tho
heart of tho city, and of which I shall give a few
particulars presently.

1 hajipened to be in Chicago during the very week
when the citizens were celebrating the fiftieth anni-
versary of tho organization of the place as a town.
This took place, as I have said, in lS;iH, and tho news-
papers of last August stated that at the first election of
town ofiicerfl the number of voters was under a
hundred. It is difficult for a middle-aged man who
has seen the city to realise the fact that it is no older
than himself. The accumulation of people, of buildings,
and of wealth is so vast, theorganization of society and
of commerce so complete, that the place ajipears more
like the growth of a century or two than of a single
generation. And let no-oiio suppose that this growth is
necessarily of tho mushroom kind— too rapid to be solid
and permanent. It wouM be absurd to assert that
there is no unhealthy business, no unsound specula-
tion, in a huge city which has thus sprung up, as it
were, in a night. There is plenty of both, as there is
sure to be anywhere under similar circumstances. IJut
it ia certain that the mass of the business of Chicago is
sound, legitimate, and hiiihlyjirofitable, and that the
prosperity of the city is likely tobepermanent — as long,
at any rate, as the fertility of the western and north-
western States is maintained. The city is no Jonah's
gourd. It has, no doubt, sprung up as if by magic, but
it does not by any means follow that it is going to
wither in a single morning.

; I

I !

roSITION AND DnATVAOl!.

Chicago i^, as) I Imve said, on tho wnstcrn shoro of
LbI<o MiciiiKan, near its HouHicrii extremity. It tiioic-
foie looks eautwiinl ivcroHH tiiolakc!, whicli in iiiiiieiiiuiico
is iirocisoly like tiio ho,i, tho ojiposito shoio hoini; always
out of sinht. Tlio CliiciiKO shore, of course, runs north
and south, or theroiil)out. Tho like froiitauo of tho
city is ten miles in length, hut this is not, as yet, nil
compactly built up. Three of tho iiarks occupy a con-
siderable part of the frontage, and at the northern and
southern extremities the buildings are still somewhat
scattered, although the streets arc all laid out. Inland
(that IS, in a westerly direction) tho city extends four
or five miles. The prairie on which Chicago stands was
formerly almost on a level with tho lake, but the site
ami the buildings have been gradually raised, nt im-
mense cost, to the extent of trom three to nine iVoi.
The average height above the water is now 14 feet, tho
liigliost part being as much as I'H feet. A sufficient fall
has thus been obtained for drainage purposes.

Sjxaking of drainage remim's mo of a remarkable
discovery I have just made with respect to tlie disposal
of the aowage of Chicago. When writing some months
ago about tho .St. Lawrence at Quebec, 1 indulged in a
little soliloijuy (nice subject for a soliloipiy ! ) about
the mass of sewage which I supposed the river was
bringing down from tho great cities on the lakes,
Chicago being, of course, among the number. Now,
mark how dangerous a thing it is to take things for
granted, iiowever obvious they may apjiear to bo ! I
assumed, because (Chicago was on the shore of a great
lake, that all its sewage naturally flowed into
that lake. Nothing could, apparently, be more
reasonable ; but, as a matter of fact, nothing could bo
more erroneous. The greater part of the sewage of
Chicago does not flow into Lake Michigan, but ivto the
Missis.niipi River, and so iiitD the (rult of Mexico.
Those who have a map of the States before them or in
their mind's eye will probably refuse to believe this.
They will say, very truthfully, " You may as well tell
us that the sewage of London does not run into the
Thames, but into tho Mersey or the Bristol Channel !"
The comparison is a fair one, but what I have said
about the drainage of Chicago is, nevertheless, correct.
The facts are these : —

Chicago takes its name from a small creek called tho
Chicago River, which used to flow into Lake Michigan,
but now Hows out of it. " Anotlier geographical
paradox ! " somebody saya. Just so ! Rut hear me out.
About a mile from the point where the creek joins the
lake, it divides into two branche.s, one running north-
west, and the other south for two miles and then south-
west. This creek and its branches, together with
numerous artificial canals connected with them,
aflfotd a water frontage of 38 miles. The river
has been dredged and otherwise improved until
deep enough to admit vessels of considerable tonnage,
and by means of it and its branches such vessels, or
large barges, are brought along.side the factories,
elevators, stock-yards, and timber wharves where the
staple trades of the city are mostly carried on. From
the southern branch of the creek, a canal for the pur-
poses of navigation was made many years ago to the
Illinois River at La Salle ; and as the Illinois is a
branch of the Mississippi, Chicago was thus placed in
communication by water with all parts of that great
river and its tributaries. At first, this canal was cut
off from the lake by a lock, and the water both
of the oanal aad of the Chicago River be-

came stagnant and offensive. At last, it occurred
to the cit/ons of this smart city that it would be a good
i'lea to make the current in both flow towards tho
Iliitioia Uiver, Tlio engineers discmcred that theiohemo
was possible ; for, thnn.,'li tlio ground rises gently from
tho lake-side for a few ir.iles, it soon begins to descend
gradually towards tho valley of the Mississippi, 'i'ho
work of widening and lowering tho bed of the canal was
accordingly undertaken, and a wonderful and costly
work it was, occupying fully three years. I!ut the results
justified the outlay. A current from tho lake into tho
canal was established, and has continued to flow ever
since. It is a sluggish stream at best, but its murky
Jippearance is sutlicient to show that it is carrying a large
part of the sewage and refuse of tho city away to the
distant riulf of Mexico, via the Rivers Illinois and
IMississippi.

TnK Cabi.k Cau.

It was in Chicago that I first met with street cars
worked on tho cable system. So far as the rails are
concerned, a cable road is just like any otlier tramway ;
but miilway between the rails there lies (level with the
ground) what at first sight appears to be one of those
old-fashioned iron gutters, with a narrow slit at top, by
which, in some towns, the rain water from the roofs is
carried across the pavement to the surface gutter out-
side the kerbstone. The narrow slit, apparently not
more than half an inch wide, and lunnmg the whole
length of the tramway, is the only thing visible. But
on approaching tho slit, you hear a slight hum and
rattle, as of something moving underneath ; and if the
light happens to fall directly into the slit, you may per-
haps see below a bright wire cable running rapidly upon
grooved wheels fixed at regular intervals. If you then
examine the other line (for the lino must be a double
one), you will find that the cable is continually running
in the opposite direction. The two cables are, in fact,
parts of an endless loop of rope, which may be several
miles in length, and which is kept constantly moving at
a uniform speed of eight or ten miles an hour, by means
of engines of several hundred horse-power, "located"
(as the Americans say) at some convenient point on the
route. The narrow slit, with its iron lips, is, of course,
only a part of a continuous trough or channel in which
the supports of the cable are fixed.

It is obvious that any vehicle on the rails, which can
reach down through the groove and take hold firmly of
the ever-moving cable, is bound to run along as fast as
the cable itself is moving, and to continue to run until
its grip of the cable is relaxed. This, indeed, is the
whole art and mystery of the "cable car."

A wide, flat bar extends from the car down into the
groove, and this bar has at its lower extremity an
apparatus by which the cable can be tightly gripped.
The gripping, or the loosening of the grip, is effected in
a moment by means of a lever which stands up in the
middle of the car, and upon which the " driver "
constantly keeps his hand. Another lever, close by,
works a powerful brake. When the " driver " wishes
to stop, he loosens the gi ip with one hand and puts on
the brake with the other, and the car is almost instantly
brought to a standstill. When he wishes to start, he
does just the opposite — loosens the brake and grips tho
cable, and the car is in a moment moving at full speed.
Several cars, which are continually starting and stop-
ping, are running in each direction at the same time.
The engines, moreover, are of very great power. The
sudden gripping of the cable, even on a steep hill,
appears, therefore, to produce ao appreciable effect oa

its

Chi
int
re

iti ipeed. There are no hilli, steep or otherwise, at
C'hicn){o, and it was not until 1 saw the ^yntein at work
in tlieprecipitouH gtrt-etg of San Franiiisco that I fully
ri' ilinud tlio value of the Hystuni.

All who are in any way conversint with mechanics
and engineering will infer, from what I h.'ivo naid, that
all the power Kencrateil by the earn when ruiiniiiii down
hill is fully utilised. This is die case. The cats kt'Cji
hold of the cablo when descending hil's, and in d<<ini;
this it is obvious that they arc putting into the ciblo
almost as much power as they take out of it when
ascending. In short, they turn to good account the
whole of the power which, in Uristol and other hilly
cities possessing tram lines of the ordinary kind, is
simply wasted in grinding away the brakes.

Tliecar containing the grip and brake levers is known
ns the "dummy" car. Uesides accommodating the
driver and conductor, it provides seats for a number of
));isRenger8, who sit sideways, as on an Irish car, with
their feet within a foot of the ground. The car hau a
roof, but is op.'n at the sides, and passengers jump on
and off without troubling the driver to stop. iJehind
the "dummy '" are one or two larger closed cars of tho
ordinary kind, which are entered at cither end. In
State .Street, Chicago, the " dummy" and its cars form
quite a train, and these trains, usuilly full of
passengers, succeed each other in quick succession —
certainly as often as every two minutes. Tho street
tralKc is, indeed, immense.

Some of the ascents on California Street, San Fran-
ciscoe, are as steep ns Lodge Street, Bristol, if not
steeper. Hut to the cable cars ups and downs are all
the same ; the speed never varies, Tho sensation is a
litth) alarming when one finds oneself for the first
time going down such tremendous inclines at the rate
of ten miles an hour; but a little experience of such
travelling soon dispels all uneoiness, especially if one
has made himself acuuaintcd with tho details of the
system.

The first cablo road ever constructed in England has
just been laid and opened on Ilighgato Hill, in tho
noith of London. Icannot doubt that the system will
ultimately become univers;il wherever tramways on a
large scale are needed ; for it is, beyond ([uestion, the
most perfect motle of street locomotion yet invented.

BltlDGES AND TLNNI.I.S.

The two arms of the Chicago River, of course, cut
the city up into three paits, and tho principal streets
cross the rivers by means of thirty or forty great swing
bridges. These bridges are being constantly opened to
allow of the passing of vessels, and the inteiruptions
of the street tratlic arc consequently very fro [uent. So
seiious were the delays found to be, especially in the
case of persons hurrying to catch trains at the various
railway stations, that it was at last found neeessary to
construct two tunnels under the rivers. These suljw.iys,
which were made at an immense cost, maintain an
open communication between the tliree parts of tlio
city at all hours of the night and day; and as it is
never cert.ain whether any jiarticular bridge will be
found open or shut, everyone to whom time or punc-
tuality is an object uses a tunnel instead of a bridge
whenever he is within reasonable distance of the former.
The tunnels are something like our ThamesTunnel on a
.smaller scale, and they liave proved so exceedingly con-
venient that the ('hicago people are already looking for
ward to the time when the bridges will be abolished al-
together and a tunnel substituted for each of them.

The Pl.\n* jf thk Cixr.

Tho plan of tiie streets is rectangular to a degree
which is painful to most l')uropeans, and must bo |icr-
footly maddening to those who worship tho Irregular
and tho IMcturosque. The eye looks for a curve in vaii .
Tho " crescent " and tho "circus " of our Knglish cities
are unknown ; and, except where some natural
obstacle, such as the river or the lake shore, tlctorminos
tho direction of the streets, it is jrarely that one
sees any departure from tlio rectangular airangement.
'J'he plan, however, is not preoi-ely " chcss-boanly ;"
for, although tho coi ners of tho blocks are aluiost always
right angl s, theblocksthomselvo<ari' of varying sizes in
dilferent quarters of tho city. The longest thoroughfares
run north and south — that is, parallel with tho shoro
of tho lake. Some of these streets are represented on
the inai) as being already laid out for a distance of ten
or twelve miles. I'ossibly they may be so lui'l out, but
it doe< not follow that they aro, as yet, "streets" in
any senso in whic'.i we understand the term. Tho
truth is, American town plans are too often like those
attractive niajjs of new seaside and hoiiday resorts
which one sometimes sees hung up at I']ngli>h railway
stations. The villas and mansioin standing (according
to these maps) in their own grounds, the con-
venient beach and railway, tho handy church
and club-liouso, the picturesque arrangement of
terraces, squares, and crescents, and tho lovely
greens and blues with wiiieh tho architect's
draughtsman has touched up his work, pio<ent such
an attractive picture, that one is induced to decide there
and then to reti'o at once to tho newly-discovered
Paradise, or at least to take one's family thero for a
month during the commg holidays. Having arrived
at one or other of these decisions, one dis overs at the
la>t moment that this charming plan represents only
the " proposed " laying-out of such-and-s ich an " es-
tate," who^eowner, being desperately in want of money,
hasemployedclevcr an 1 imaginative architects and land-
scape gardeners to uxp'ain to the world that his hungry
acios were expressly designed by Nature to be an I'Men
- in every tiling but the matter of clothes. Similarly,
the maps of many Ameri :aii cities represent— not what
actually h, but what a sanguine, go ahead people, with
no end of faith in thj fut ire, believe is imiwi Ui dc.
'J'his isiiarticularly true of the maps of (Jhicago. On
these maps (to choose an illustration from my own ex-
perience) a great, wide thoroughfare called Ashland
Avenue is represented as running through the city from
north to south, foi- a distance of ten miles. A 8tianL,'er
wiio follows this avenue through its whole length will
have his faith in Chicago maps considerably shaken.
]'"or several miles, all will be plain sailing. The
avenue, straight as a lino, will be found to bo
tolcral)ly complete and fairly well lined
with buildings. Lut |)reseiitly tho stranger
finds both the avenue and himself lost amid a maze
of canals and mountains of timber. He is, in fact, in
the midst of the v ist lum'ier region which is one of tho
marvels of the jdace. Stumbling onward through a
thick layer of dust and rubbish, such as one Hces no-
where but in a great limber yard, and maintaining a
straight line as nearly as tho numerous obstacles in his
way will alio >v, the stranger finds himself before long
on the bank of a river or canal. Here, he thinks, Asli-
lanil Avenue must ce.tainly enil, for there is not <t>

> I

h = '

ghost of

;''ge ; but his map tells a different tale.

and, on looking across the canal, he sees that the straight
running appears to be taken up on i.. . other si^Ie by a

warn

lii|.

• "i

wide, roush, Rnndy belc of unoccuiJJed ground, having
a forlorn-lookiii;? shanty lioio cud there on. ouc!i side.
1'liif), in fact, in tlie continuation of tlio " itvenuo '';
nnd !ili;hou7li tiiore is a: present no direct Inid^o tj
link it up into one continuous lliorou,y;hfiue, this
southern extension may he read) -d by a ratlier cir-
cuitoua routo over a brid;>;e bolon-itn,' to another line ot
street. If the stranger crosses by tliis route and ])ushos
his e.\]ilorrttior.M furtlior, he will find the genera! line of
the avenue continued several miles ; but the :;5reater
part of tliis southern continuation vt simply a sandy
belt of waste ;j;round, bordered hero and there by ,i
few buildings, nnd atone or two ['oaits passin-- throui^h
now and un!o\ely sett'ements of .slianties.

But it must not be supposed thatt'iis description of
the way in which a great avenue strag^'les out into the
Huburba gives any idea ol' the central parts of the city.
Chicago is no city of scattered shanties. A glance at
some of its streets conveys the impross'on tiiat it is
rather a coniiiact city of palace.^. ISlany of its liotels,
banks, puijlie buildings, and private liusincss establish-
ments are not surpassed in magnificence and costliness
in any city in the world. The principal business streets
are those which lie within a radius of about a
nii!e-anil-a-half of the mouth of the Chicnco Kiver,
Within this area are situated the Tost Office, the
Custom IJouso, the City (^'ourt House, the Mer-
chants' Exchange, the principal hotels, and all the
f;reat passenger depots of the many trunk lines
of railway radiating from Cliicago, Tliero are
not as many stations as "chore are companies, as, in
some instances, two, three, or even four comiianies run
into the same terminus. There are, indeed, only .ibout
)''" a-do/en great, central stations. Tlie various liaei
are, however, by ineans of cross lines in tlie suburbs,
all connected with eac)i other, W'th the lumlier dis-
trict, with tliG 'stock Yards, and with tiie river and
canals, so that the enormous tiafho in live and dead
agricultural produce and in goods generally is tians-
ferred from linj to line or from point to point with tlie
geatcst facility. The many connecting links and junc-
tions betwi en the various lines, to nay nutiiing of the
almost nunderless level orosfjings of line over iinc, ren-
der the railway system of Cliioago as pux/.ling to a
stranger as Clajiham >Iunction is to a countryman.

P.ilUvS ANI> IJOUI.HVAHDH.

Chicago has not been so citirely absorbed in money-
making as to have r.o time to s|iaro to think of its hetdth
and recreation. Its sysi/cm of public parks and boule-
vards is a marvel, considering tiie youtli of the
place. These beautiful bi?athing-pla,?e5i well-ni,:;li
girdio the city on the three land ..ides ; and even on the
Jake shore, i"teri)osed between the water and the busiest
busmcss streets, there is a long enclosure known as the
Lake Park. On the south side of the city are t!ie two
S'outh I'arks. These abound in artilkial likes, are
beautifully laid out, and aie connected with eaci: other
and niiiioached from the city by w! Ic boulevards. These
bdulevardf have been laid out soitiew'iat on the pdan of
the A\enne of the ' hanip.? I']lysi es s'nd the Avi.mue de
l.'lnijieratrice in i'aris. Droxel ]*>ou)ovard, for in-tuncc,
is 20') feet wide and a mile and a-ha!f iong. J'hrougn its
whole length arc two sidewalks, tv/o wide roadways, and
a central eyiclotni.o ful! of tlowcr-ocds and shrubs.
There jirc also avenues of .sliide trees, trellis-work with
cre^iiCf, rustia seats and bowers, fountains, and variouw
ether chiMfiin;'. features. 'J'hose boulevards are reserved
enti.xly for wnlking, liding, driving, and other forniu
of reflation i\ad (Amazement. Ou tlie west aid© of the

city arc- Douglas Park, Central Park, and Humboldt
Park, containing, probably, a s juare mile between
them. These, ag.ain, are linked together by another
system of splendid boulevards somewhat .similar to
those already di-seriiied, To the north, stretching a
i. 'It; nnd ahalf along the lake siioro, is J.,incoln
Park, and from this stretches out a wide avenue
called the I.:d<e Shore Diive, whicli extends another
mile in the direction of the centre of the city. Add to
all the'o a long boulevard which almost connects the
South I'ark.s with those on the western side, and, further,
four or five smaller, scattered parks, somewhat of the
character of our city S'|uare gardens, audit will be seen
that the citizen of Chicago, turn which way he may,
can soon tind his way to a place of recreation, where
flowers and turf and quiet take the place of the dust
and bustle of the city,

SlIADV QUAHTEUS.

But it must be admitted that Chicago is as much a
city of contiasts as liondon itself. I do not mean that
it contains a vast mass of hopLdoss, sifualid poverty, as
our metropolis does. The contrasts are ratlier in the
ainiearance of the city than in tlie condition of
its iidiabitants. The parks and boulevards, and the
fine houses thao are r.tpidly springing up round them,
ar.: not unworthy to be compared with the West-end of
London. Further, the architecture and general apjiear-
ance of the great business streets are not surpassed in
the ('ity of London or in a.iy other of our large towns.
But between tiie central parts of Chicago and its charm-
ing ring of jiarks and boulevards, there lies a wide and
]io),u]ou8 region wliich in many parts is unlovely to the
sight and not very pleasant to the smell. The inhabitants
are apparently prosperous enough, but they and their
siirroundings are decidedly "grubby." Thousands of
their houses are of wood, and the majority of t'i.ese are
terribly dingy for want of paint. Whole streets of
them look so ricketty, so far gone in decay, and withal
so unwholesome, that one is half disposed to think
another great lire would, on f' e whole, be a blessing
rather than a c.damity, 'i'hc streets themselves, more-
over, in these second or third-rate districts, are badly
made and imperfectly cleaned, if cleaned at all ; so that
there is the usual .sui>ply of black mud in wri, weather,
and the usual deep hiyer of sooty, imiidp.ible dust
in the absence of both water-cart and rail., 'J'ens of
tliousands of the inhabitants of these vast regions are

Cevmans, and the name of
national beverege, lager beer

the retailers of their
is Legion. Irishmen,
too, abound, a largo number of them being kceper.t of
" .saloons " (whisky shops). I lerrn on good authority
that ( I'icago possesses normous length of splendid
sewers, built on the n.ost approved principles, w.thoiit
logard to cost (" Hang the coat :'' ap]>ears to lie the
Cliicag'i motto) : but I have veiy grave loubts whether
there is any sr.rt of connection between the.se sewers and
some of the dismal stre- cs I jiassed through on my w.iy
to the .stock ^ artls .ind tin' lumber district. Judging
from a)ipearances, 1 .should have said that a larsre part
of Chicago is unlicaltliy ; but I ant assured that the
city, as a whole, fslunvs a very moilerate rate of
mortality for so youn^; and rapidly -growing a x'li'O'-'-

Tin: GiiKVT FiuK OK 1871.

L'p to the autumn of 1871, Cidcago consisted much
more largely of frame buildings than it does now. A
frisky cow lovolutionii'.od the place. That " gay and
festive cuss" {America'. "so) was -so the ptory goes-
being milked by the light of an oil lamp, in a

much a
an that
eity, as
r in the
ition of
and the
d them,
it-end of
i appeai-
assed in
; towns,
s charm-
i-ide and
y to the
labitanta
nd tlieir
sands of
[l.ese are
;reeN of
withal
o think'

badly

,>d much
low. A
ly ami
y Rocu—
in a

little stable near the crossing of Twelfth Street and
defferson Stieet, at nine o'clock on tlie evening of
Sunday, Oct, 8th. The cow kicl<ed out and uiisot the
lamp, and in a few seciin Is the .-.table and irs store of
hay were in tiames. What became of t' at cow History
has forgotten to s,iy. Tlie wind was l)liiwin,:,' 'vith the
atrengtii of a gale from the sonth-west, and within an
hour the whole neighbourhuod was ablaze. 'J"hu sur-
rounding blocks were sliantios of the most intlamm.ible
kind, dry as tinder, and t'lo fiio made short work of
tlicm IIS it swept on towards more sul)stautial piey in
the business jiaits of the city, hy midnight, three
hours after the outbreak, the Ihimes had leapeil the
southern arm of the t'hicAgo River, liaving already
progressed half-a-milo. The most imiiortant part of the
.Southern Division of tlio city was now clearly
doomed. In a \cry shoit time, the splendid stone
buildings of the leiding bus'ness streets wore
attacked, and block after block went down with
the most amazing rajjidity. Iron, stone, brick,
marble were e jually incai>able of n^sisting the march of
the destroyer. " Kire-proof '' buildings by the score
succumbed as readily as if th(!y had been built
of dry deal. T.Ue distinction bet\veon combustible
and incombustiblt; substances n)ii)e:rel to dis ijqiear ;
all were found to be alike comb\istible when subjected
to the unprecedented and h;tbertonndre.\nit-of intensity
of heiit. From the iSoutliern division the tiames
B lei.ped on Monday across tiie main stream of

the river to the Xorthern I )ivision. The
AVaterworks were destroyed immediately, and by
Tuesday morning the tiro had reached the noitlioni
limits of the city, nearly four and a-half miles from tlie
stable where it originated. It ceased to siiroail at last
because there was nothing more to l)e destroyed in tlie
direction towards wiiich the wind was blowing it. Kven
Lincoln Park was not spared. Its scattered oaks were
reduced to dismal pollirds and its grassy surface to a
blackened wilderness.

l!y this stupendous calamity, over 2,000 acres of the
very heart of the city were cleared of everything cvcoiit
two isolated buildings. The numb rof houses, factories,
warehmses, and other buddings destroyed was 17,4.'.0.
It 13 lielieved that 200 lives were lost, and almost exactly
lOiXOOO persons wore rendered liomeless. The money
less, not including loss of business antl depreciation of
the value of property, was al)out forty millions of iOng-
lisli pounds. Not one-fourth of this was ever recoveieil
from the insurance oHices, for many of the insurance
companies were ruined by the fire.

l.'.ut the Chicago peo[ile did not sit down among the
'uiiis of tbeir city and wring theirh.inds in despair— not
much (as they would put it). Wit'i eharacteristio
enterprise and energy, they began to rebuild their
dwellings and business premises before the fire v,'as
fairly out, and within a year or two almost every trace
of the gre it calamity had disappf>;ir'vl. And the new
city is far statelier, more enduring, better adai)ted to
the purposes of its inliabltants, than that whieli wont
down amid the tempest of lire. 'J'he authoiities tonk
care tliat no fresh fuel shouhl Ije heaped together. The
erection of frame lioaea within the city limits was
forbidden, and the di triet swe[pt by the liaines is now
covered with buildings of the most substantial, and in
many cases of the most S|ilendid,doscrii)tiun. Idiscovered
traces of the lire in only two places. One of these w is
i'^ the railway station at which I arrived, on the lake
shore. That gieat depot, tlie terminus of three or four
important lines, has not yet been rebuilt. It is said
that the companies concerned are unable to agree about

the rebuilding, and so for 13 years they have conducted
their passenger business in a collection of dismal, dirty
sheds, which were hastily run up amid the ruins as
sjon as they were cold. I'arts of the walls of the old
station are still standing, and their appearance liears
olo luent testimony to the awful in'endty of the heat
to which they were subjcjte 1. They look precisely
like heaps of round but slightly tlattened tlour liags,
neatly jiileil on each other, as one sometimes sees such
bags idled in a shop window. The aiigle< ami corners
of every stone lia\e been burnt off, and the whole mass
has been so comnletely calcined as to bo apparently
ready to be blown away in the form of dust.

The Chicago fire was jirobably the most awfully
grand spectacle of its kind ever witnessoil in modern
times. It was necessarily accompanied by many stir-
ring and dramatic scenes, which will dulv t ike their
pr^ in the history of the city. 'When the Court
II;.'' >e was attacked by the tiames, tlioro were ]."(i)
prisoners in the cells of the bisemont. These the city
officials released in order to save their lives, and they
immediately displiyed their gratitude by sacking a
neiglibourinij jewellery store. While this was going
on, the telegr iph onerat irs in the Merchants'
In-iiranco l)uilding, opposite the Court House,
arrived at the conclusion that it was about time to
move ; but they clearly stuck to their i)0sts till tho
latest possible moment, for the clerk who was telo-
grajdiing off an account of tho fire to the A.i^ociate I
I'ress left oft' at last in the middle of a word. This
elerk deserves to be immortalised in the company of
that very cool iMiglishman who was awoke at midnight
in a N'ienna hotel by the porter knocking at his door
and tolling him the jilace was in tiames. " How far
has the fire got along this corridor '' ' askel the Kng-
lishman, without nuving. " As far as Xo. 20, sir,"'
was tho reply. " And wliat number is my room '' " in-
iiu red the Hnglishman. " Xo. lOD, sir," answered the
])ortor. " T/ic)i wake (/f a lain w/ica the Jirc readici
'>i','' cried the voice from the bed.

The inhabitants of the Xorthern Division were almost
caught in a trap. It was early on Monday morning
that the tiames leaped the main river and attacked their
ipiarter, and by some mysterious means the ^\'aterwol'ks
buildings, a mlio north of the liver, were among tho
first to be ignited. The people were standing at their
doors, ga/.ing at the sea of fire which w,\s raging over
the Southern Division, when they suddenly discovered
that tho dreaded enemy had obtained a lodgment in
t leir rear, ainl there was instantly a wild stamiiedo of
thousands to the prairie and the lake shore. An eye-
witness says that bla/iug brands and scorching he it
were carried far ahead liy the gale. These set up
numerous scattered fires in advance, and presently the
groat, general conllagration itself came up, absorbing
and overwlielm;ng all. This no doubt accounts for the
pooido of tho Xorthern Division being taken in tip' rear.
'J'he same writer, s)ieaking of the tiregennrally, says :
"As a spectacle, it was, beyond doubt, tho grainiest
as well as most appalling ever o I'erod to mortal eyes.
From any elevated stand[ioint, ihe a))peir,ince wa-; tiiat
of a vast ocean of llatne, sweeping in mile long l)illows
and breakers over the doomed city. A sr|inro of sub-
.staiitial buildings would be submerged by it like a
child's tiny iieap of sand on the lieach of a lake ; and
when the flood receded, tl^ re was no more left of the
stately block than of the tiny sand-he ip. Anon tho
devouring element would piesent itself a* if in a per-
sonal form, anil seize upon a masterpiece of architecture
us if it would say to the pda faces around and below :

:- ^1

mmmmm

' See, now ! Here is a pile of massive marble. You
built it with great pains, and tbought you had some-
thing substantial. Mark, now, what a bul)ble it is.
J'iff ! ' And the proud dome collapsed, and stately
wall, and ornate capital,

' till, rninglinL', fell I '

nor left a vestijic of their former splendour. Added to
the spectacular elements of the contlaj^ration — the
intense and lurid lii;ht, the sea of red and black, and the
spires and pyramids of flunio shooting into the heavens —
was its constiint and terrible roai , drowning even the
voices of tho shrieking multitude. And ever and anon
— for a while as often as every half minute— resounded
far and wiile the rapid detonations of explosions, or of
fallina; walls. The infirm crust of earth on which the
city stands wn.s shaken by each shock. At three o'clock
in the morning, the threat gasometer exploded with a
thundering; sound. About the same hour, the great
bell of the Court House fell. In short, all sights and
sounds which terrify the weak and unnerve the strong
abounded. But they were only the accumpaniment
which the orchestra of Nature was furnishing to the
terrible tragedy then being enacted, in which the fate of
every person of that surging throng was vitally involved. "
Chicago has (and had in 1871) a sjjlendid Fire Brigade.
What that Brigade did during the days and nisjhts of
the great fire, nobody seems to know. A writer who
described the scene says he concluded the firemen were
somihow engaged — not because he saw them or heard
of them, but bee luse it is their custom to attend fires,
and because the remains of two of their engines were
subsequently found in the ruins. "Whether they were
present or not was, however, of no consequence, be-
cause, after the first half-hour, they were as
liowerless to resist the progress of the fire
as a child is to stop the tide by means
of his bucket and spade. 'J'he Brigade, I may add,
numbers 400 men. It has some forty steam engines
and about six miles of hose. Tliere are 400 signal
boxes from which an alarm of fire can be telegrajihed to
the variou- stations, and the total cost of the establish-
ment is a million dollars a year. The liitter experience
of the inhabitants has, of course, stimulated them to
make their Brigade as efllitient as possible, and it is
certainly a marvel of organization. Whether, with all
its efficiency and promptitude, it will be able to save
the city from a rejietition of the calamity of 1871 is more
than anyone can say. As T have already remarked,
vast districts are btill covered thickly with frame build-
inizs. Tens of thousands— I might probably say with
truth hundreds of tliousands— of the inhabitants still
live in wooden houses. Fires are of daily occurrence.
As a rule, they are crushed instantly, so perfectly is the
F'ire Den:.rtinent orjianised. But it is impossible to
think without ap))rehension of what mi'iht happen if
another cow, or some other imp of mischief, wore again
to choose the moment when a gale is blowing as a con-
venient time for starting a bla/.e, ami if, through
some blunder or misunderstanding, the firemen failed
to arrive for twenty minutes. The result might very
l)OHsildy be the burning-out of another hundred
thousand people. The new buildings erected on the
sites of those destroyed in 1^171 wouM prol)ably escape,
but nobody who realises what the last (ire was like can
ftel at all sure about it. The new 1 uildings are all of
stone, iron, or brick, and are largely " lire-proof. ' lut
80 were many of those which succumbed so piornji'ly
in 1S71. The truth as to these "fire-proof "building,.- I
take to be this, Tlioy are probably inci>t>abie

of burning alone; and if a f\re breaks out among
the furniture or other contents of one of them,
it is not likely to involve the destruction of the
structure itself. But when they are attacked from
without, and on all sides at once, wiien they
suddenly find tiiemselves in the midst of a raging
furnace, hundreds of acres in extent, and are complet«ly
overwhelmed with an atmosphere of fiame of mcalcu-
lablo intensity, then it is that their claims to resist tho
action of fiie are fully tested ; and as a rule they do not
survive the test.

A Great Port 2,000 Miles from the Sea.
When 1 say that Chicago (and it is to Chicago I refer)
is 2,000 miles from the sea, I do not mean that
that is the distance by the direct land route. As tho
crow tlies — or, as the Americans say, by a " bee line"
— (,'hicago is considerably less than 1,000 miles frnni
the Atlantic seaboanl. Whxt I mean is, that the dis-
tance by water, th't the lakes, the canals, and the St,
Lawrence, approaches 2,000 miles. It is, how-
ever, a i)ort of the first order, notwithstaiuling
its position in the very centre of the conti-
nent. I have not the latest statistics of its 8hip[)ing
trade before me, but I may say that four years ago —
which may be regarded as ancient times in the history
of such a place — (.'hicago stood a good second among
American ports 'i the tonnage of ship[)ing arriving and
departing. New York alone exceeded it in tonnage,
wliile in the number of vessels arriving and departing
Chicago heat New York by more than two to one. This,
of course, is due to the fact that the lake ships are at
])resent much smaller than the ocean-going steamers
whicli represent the bulk of the New York tonnage.
In 1871>, over 12,000 vessels arrived at and dei)arted
from Chicago between May 1 and Nov. 80— that is,
during the periodof lake navigation. (The lake canals are
frozen in winter and navigation is suspended. ) During the
same jieriod, only ,"),.">50 vessels entered and cleared at
New Yoik, 2,ti00 at Boston, 2.400 at Baltimore, and
about l,!)(j0at Bhiladelphia. In [loint of tonnage. New
York stood first with ."),0i!0,000 tons, and Cliicago
second with nearly 4,000.000. At present, tiie Welland
Canal (cutting off Niagara) and the St. Lawrence canals
(giving the goby to the rapids) can take vessels of only
.'"lOO or IJOO tons ; but they are being deepened and
imi)roved, and are designed ultimately to admit ocean-
going vessels of 2,000 tons. When this great work is
accomplished, the imi)ortance of Chicago as a i)ort will
lie enormously enhanced ; for there can be no doubt
that a direct shipjiing trade on a large scale will sprin'C
u]) between it and Euroi)e as soon as it gets direct access
to the sea by means of large vessels.

Live Stock by the Mu.i.ion.
Chicago has long been the greatest cattle market in
the world. The I'nion Stock Yards, in which its enor-
mous business in hogs and horned cattle i^ conducted,
are one of the groat sights of the place. Tliey are just
outsiile the city limits, on tiio south side, and are snr-
lounded by a perfect netwoik of railway lines which
connect thoid with eveiy railroad entering tiiooity. At
a rough guess, I should say the yai^ls .'over l.^iO
acres. Tliey will accommodate ir)0,(K)0 hogs, 2.">,000
cattle, 22,(XJ0 iiheep, and 500 horses ; and every
day appears to he more or Jo-ss o*' a market-day.
'J'lieyards cntain 8 inilwi (/ e^cifiia and alleys, 2, IJOO
open and covered pens, 'A veHjnM; of wi<ter-trou<hs in
the pfins, and '2 miles of sewer .< 2.1,000,000 feet of
lanibor a&d 6W),000 lbs. wf sp'l" - ''d nails were used

in their construction. The "' streets," or passages, are
paved or gravellei], and the pens are Moored with ;>-iiich
deals, the drainage and wat'^r supply bt'in:; excellent.
There are 25 miles of railroad in the yards. Trade was
slack on the day of our visit, but the newspapers
stated that on the previous day 14.0U0 head of horni.d
cattle changed hands. Wc siw one " deal '
for a lot of cattle effected. The owner and
the would-bo purchaser came trotting up through
the yard on a counlo of rougli wiry ponies (the
lilace is too large to allow of the 'lealers going about on
foot), and an attendnnt ojiencil the pen containing tiie
cattle and allowed both men to ride in. 'J'he high
partitions between the pens are made very wide at top,
so as to form apat'i, and from this vaiitage ground we
obtained a bird's-eye view of the transaction. The
dealers' woids were few. I did not notice that thoy
separated several times as if unable to agree, and lien
came together again and again to make fresh attempts.
iS'either did I notice that at last they gave ui)
the job as hopeless, and that, when alui' st
out of earshot of each other, the seller turned and
bawled : " Here, thee gie I another .'^hitliu" for luck,
and theecanaa' m." \hnri heard business done in this
way nearer !mme, but that does not appear to he the
Chicago fashion. Thedealiu thecase in question wa- soon
effected, the price being ."i dollars 40 cents i)er ID' 'Us.,
live weight, or not i|uite "Ji'd per lb. The gate of tho
pen was instantly opened, and the herd of cattle driven
towi'rd ■ one of the " Fairbanks ' weighing houses.
(Fi»i '. I.'; ! is the famous American maki'i of weighing
maoai'i-" . The cattle tntered the weighingdiouse on
one side, were weighed all together, and driven out and
awav on the opi)osite side, thi whole l)usiness being
effected in ai\ incredibly short time. I'ossibly those
cattle were spiced beef before night.

To i|Uote all the statistics I have before me of the
business done at the Stock Yards would be simply to
weary the reader with lolumns "f figures, and I will
merely quote a few of tiie gigantic tot ds. dudging Irom
the latest returns in my jiossession, J estimate the
numbers of the live .^tocv now annually received at t' e
ys>rds to be about as follow :- one a halt millions of
horned cittle. seven or eight million* >f hogs, and from a
iiuurtermillioii to half a million shtep ; tlie total value
far exceeding vne hun>lred millionH ot ucdl.u.s.

Thk Mi:\T Tu.vuK.

The cattle and hoga which enter Chicago in utich vast
numbers leave the place mainly in the shape of beef
and pork. Wlier they reacli tlie Stork ^■ards, they
are '^ry near the end of their earthlv jo'irney. • lo e I
to t'M' y.ards are se\eial vast xroupM of huildinis of the
kiu'l wtdch figure on tiic highly foloui ad hibeln of pie-
•servedmeat tins. They are, indeed, the \uy same [
bwildiiiigs. I must, hoW' cr, < ition my readers
ug*!** accepting those handsome pictures as in .dl
cases faithful portrait. They, i.ti « rule, gre.itly |
flatter the suljject Accordinx to (lie la'/el, » >
]inckmj)[ house is a bindsumc and aitractivc build-
ing, trulv palatial in size and apptar rice In
reality, it is geiur.iUy otherwise. lA^i/ji it u,
beyond all puasibility of dispute : i)Ut architecturally it i«
often on c Ifivol with the "elo\ator.s" alieady descnbed,
and its ,i^<vearauce and 8urroun<ling.s .le ui s:«vourv.
The bu8in*'.«» of wliolesale slaughier in short, rs iiot a |
clean or plt»»mpt one. and any ic'*enip( *o nr.i'- itotln r !
than what »t i (/lust necessarily . sol

There are a" least thirty inckins < ints in

Chioai^v. and ifae busiaoi«)i dwnu in suuic oi tiieu) i» y»t \

fectly astounding. Armour k. Co., the largest concern,
kill nearly tliree-i|uarters of a million hogs per annum,
and some otlier houses are not far behind. Tiie total
weight of p.)rk turned out by ( 'hicaso exceeds half a
million tons i)er annum. The quantity of beef is also
prodigious, but I have not the latest returns before mo.

It is curious to letlect that the mainsprine of all this
vast tiade is the hunger of Kurope, c'nirtly of (ireat
]'>ritain. It is mainly to fei d the overllowing po|uila-
tions of our great cities, which h ive far outrun the
resources of ourovvn agriculture, that Chicago sweeps
into her stujiendous granaries and sliiughterdiouses
the surplus live and dead produce of halt a-dozeu
great States. It is for us that the forests of
iMiehi^an and Wisconsin have i)een cleared, that
the prairies of Illinois and Iowa, of Kansas and Mis-ouri,
of i >akota and Nebraska, have lieen or art- being Ijiouizht
under the plough. I'or us. chiolly, has that wonderful
spider's well of railroads been constructed whose centre
is in Chicago ; and it is with a view to us and our needs
that vast sums are even now being spent in bringing that
centre into direct water communication with our own
ports. In short, it is tlie hunger of i;uropo which has
been the chief cause of the peopling of the \\'e8C and of
the creation of its wonderful prosperity.

liut though I'lurope in general, and (Ireat llritain in
particular, are tlie largest customers for western meat
and grain, they are not the only ones. ( )f late years,
Chicago has become a great meat n arket for the whole
continent. I'oik and beef, in the fresh state, arc dis-
jiatolied in immense quantities, in refrigerating cars, to
the remotest corners of the States. I ate beef which
had been killed at Cliica.;o when I was in Maine, tie
easternmost of all the .states. \ery likely I did the
same, without being aware of the fact, when in Cali-
fornia ; and if I had gone to Floiida, I should undoulit-
edly I ave I'ouml Chicago meat there also.

I stated, when I de-cribcd the 1 >on I'acking house at
Toronto, that 1 should not think it necessary to ins]i(et
a second establishment of tlie same kind. That
intention I adhered to, contenting myself with a look
at the outsides of tlie huge concerns at Chicago.
I'erhaps, however, I may be allowed to conclude niy
remarks on this subjei-t by i|uoting the following
account of " How a I'ig Sudileuly ISecame Fork," from
the lively pen of i\Ir. Fhil Kobin-ou. Tlie geneial
description of the business is. no doubt, as nearly
accuiato as could be expected of a lively writer, but I
am bound to express my seeiiticism on oie point— vi/.,
tie time occupied in the process. I am ilisposed to
think ;4."i seconils — well, lOil an exaggeration, liut the
other thing. 5Ir. Itolunson says : —

" A lively pieliald porkei was one of a nu;nbor grunt-
ing and quai lelling in apen, and I was aski-l to keep
my eye on him. What haiipened to th;it porker was
tins : He Wi.s suddenly seized by a hind le.; :ind jerked
up to a snuill criue. Ihis swung him safely to the fatal
door thiough whicli no ])ig ever iitarus. i »n the other
side stood a man. Tiiat two handed engine at the door
♦tan Is ready to >iuite once, and smite tm more, and the
de.id jiig slio > ross a trough and throiuh anotlierdoor-
way, and tiieii there was a splash. He liad f dlen head
first into a vat of boiling water. "'ome unseen
m lehmerv passed him along swiftly to the other end of
the terrific b lib, and there a water wheel picked him
up and fiuni; him on toa sloping countei llerennother
machin.) seized him, imd wUh one revo'utiou scraped
him «s b.dd as M mil. And down Ihecounlei In; went,
loMing hi8 iietd as lio slid |iast a man with i hatchot,
ubvl th«ti, piusto ! hu was up aj^ liu by the hucls, In

j=^5B»^"

one dreadful handful a man cmjitied liirn, and while
another (Hiirtcil liiiii with fre^h witer. the i)ip;, registor-
ini his own weiudit iis ho piiss-'od th'3 toller's i)os'. shot
ilowii the steel liiir fiom which ho hunit, and wliiski il
r^'ind till' ooiiier intntlio ico liou-e. One Ion;,' cut with
a knif(' loaile two '' s dm of jjo.k '' otit ot tluit pioniid
pi;j;. 'Two hick.s of ;i, iiatcliet hrouglit away hi.-( back-
bone. And tiicre in thirty live .seconds from h s hvsfc
grunt— dirtv, i:ot headed, noisy - the jii^' wan hiuigiug
up in two ])iecus, clean, trau'iuil, iced ! Tlie very
r;iiii(lit> of tiie whole ])rijoc.ss roblied it of its honors.
Here one moment was an ojiinionativi' ])ieb dd pig,
making a prodigic :s fuss about having his hind leg taken
hold of, and, lo 1 before ho had made up his mind to
si|ueid or only s(|ucak, hewas hanging up inan ice house
split in two. ile had resented the first trifling liberty
tliat was taken with liirn, and in thirty-live seconds he
was ready for the cook."

GliAlX AM) LUMIiF.R.

I liave already referted more than once to the grain
trade of ( hicago. Its extent maybe iudged of fiom
the following iijures. The elevators in the city can
store nearly twenty millions of bushels, and in the
course of every year at least four times tliat immense
quantity passes through thorn. IMorc than lialf of the
grain received is maive, or, as (he Americans call it,
" corn ;" Imt the wli^at amounts to neaily two million
cpiarters. Oats, baib'y, and rye covistitute the bal :ncc.
(Several years ago, the tzrain received filled nearly a
thousarid lake sl;i)is and a'uiut Hitl,()i)(.i railroad cars,
and the traile has vas'ly increased sinne then.

'I'hc rapid growth O:' ( 'hicago can es, of course, an
immense demand for timber, even though tlu' criction
of frame b\ii!(l:n::s is now forbidden witliin the city
limits. The lumber tiado i ' oonsL'(|ucntly enormous,
and probably raidss next in importance to the tneat anil
grain trades. I have already lei'erred to what is known
as the " lumber region." This is in the Southern Divi-
sion of the city, alongside the southern arm of the
river. Here about a dozen short, straight canals,
parallel with each other, and oidy one or two hundied
yards apart, branch from the river ; and alonar each
jetty-like tongue of land ;hus formed run lines
of rail which are connected with all the lailroads
cent] eing in ('hicago. 'i'ii:iso who have t'ollowcd this
description will see that an iiurn. use area has thusl>een
turned into a combined cantd and railv.ay wharf, pre-
senting miles of water front ige for vessels, and as many
miles of space for the loading or ludoading of railroad
cars. Thi> i> the geography of the " lumber region ; '
and when one has looked over \his region from a com-
manding point, and faiily icalised the immense 1 ulk of
the moMuinins of lumlier always lying there, he ceases
to wonder that the American.s are already beginninj, to
feel anxious about the rapid destruction ot their forest -.
It looks as if the lumber n.prebants were always holding
stock against the next great fire.

Tiif', Watkiiwouks.
One of the mo.st wonderful and unique of the insti-
tutions of Chicago is its waterworks. The lake, of
course, contains an unlimited supply of water, and
nothing would appear easier than to pump out just as
much as may be wanted. Hut. oven thouih the
gre 'tcr pait oi' the sewa-o and c^tTal of the city may be
sent oil to the ]\lississip])i by way of the Illinois Canal,
as alioady described, a good numy imjuiiities ptill find
their way into the lake. Water taken out
close to the shoie is accordingly unfit for

domesti;; purposes ; and, as soon as the growth
of the city rendered this fact obvious, the question
arose how wat r was to be got from ii iioint so far
lemoved from the shore as to be beyond the reach of
contamination. The same question had no doubt arisen
before then in otiicr jjlaces, but the (hicago ]]eoplo
S(dved the ;)rob!em in a perfectly novel way. i'liey con-
structed a small tunnel, two miles long, under the bed
of the lake, and then (to put the thing familiarly)
knocked a hole in the bottom of the lake and let tlio
water into the tunnel. The watei' is pumped out of the
shore end of the tunnel. As it comes from the bottom
of the lake two miles from shore, it is pure and whole-
some. The knocking the hole in the bottom of
the lake was not so simple a matter as may
be supposed. It had to be done liy means of an im-
mense cofferdam, which was constructed on shore,
floated o\it to a point exactly over the end ot the tun-
nel, and there secured to the bottom. 'The water was
jiumped out of the centre of this structure, and i)i the
dry space thus secured a. well was dug downwards till
the tunned was reac'ied. So greatly has the demand
for water increased that a second tunnel, alongside the
first, has been constructed since the lire. 'J'lie quantity
which can be luimped through these two tunnels is
l")0,()iiU,0'tO gallons iier day. The jirincipal pump-
ing station is in the Northern Divis on of the
city, close to the shore end of the tunnel. The
water is there pumped to the top of a high tower,
and suflicient pressure is thus sceuied to carry it to the
highest loints where it is reqtiired. 'J here are three or
four wonderful enirines at this pumping station. They
are of the old-fashioned, slow, beam luittern, and of
enormous jiower. With the exception of one other i)air
of engines of the same class, of whi( h I sh;dl have to
speak shortly, they are the most iionderous 1 ever saw.
There is anotiier pumjiing stution, with two similar
engines, in the southern jiart of the city. The public
are allowed free acce-s to the engine-rooms, as well as
to the top of the water tower.

A Babel of "Uui.ls" and "Bk.vus."

One of the sights of the city is the Merchants' Ex-
change or Chamber of Commerce. Here, day by day,
wheat, maize, pork, and beef, in incredible quantities,
change hands ami<l a scene of noise and excitement such
as would drive any Knglish mercliant mad. Only mem-
bers of the Chamlier (who number nearly ;i,OUO) are
admitted to the floor of the great hall, but strangers are
allowed to look down ujiou the gesticulating and howd
ing crowd from the v lleries whicli surround it. W'v
duly found our way to the gallery. I should
like to convey an ado luate impression of the
s cue we witnessed, baj I feel as incaipable of
doing justice to it as to Niagara. In the matter
of noise, the two scenes are pretty mMoli alike.
'J ho ch.imber is 140 feet long, and nearly !)'» oroad. 'fe*.
each corner is a tele, *_ Jk oHice, wirdi conneo;ions «<ttk
all parts of the couutrx and the woikl. At two pii*«ps
in the room there re s:.allow jiits, su'Tounded Wy !«>«
circular standini-p'aces^ rising step by step to h b«<.::ht
of three oi' four feet, "-o far as ic was po<sit»k t.o«»k«
out anything amid the 15 bei, i g.ithered tslmi a »leuier
who h id i;rain to sell took his st uid joi «ne ^f these
l>its, and was at once surrounded by an ' B w gor crowd of
buyers, who. standing tier above bke iiroutid him,
were all within full view of hii*. The dealiug
consisted apj)arently in all the buyers howling
at tho seliei at the toj) of their voices and violently
sliaking their fiats at him, all ai the same time and foi

g
a

t;
ti
]'
1'

s;}

saw.

(lay,

viitities,

nt such

nivin-

10) arc

gevs are

liowl-

. N\'«

shouKl

f the

nM,' of

mat tor

alike.

tL'a.i-i

theeo

ruwil of

him,

(k-ahu.',

howl;n«

iolently

and foi

tlirou or four minutes at a strutch. (')co isioually, I
heard the word "cents" above the din from some
cxtia case-hardened throat, and I gathircd from this
tluit the grouii was doing l)iisiness insteail of htiiig
engaged in a violent quarrel. I'rcsently, there wa-i a
i-li.nht lull in tlie uproar, and I saw the man in the pit
and one of those on the raised gallery make notes in
their pocket-books. I concluded from this that a
deal had been effected. Then the uproar broke
out again. Tiic bidders gesticulated more wihlly
and howled more loudly, and in duo time
entries were made in otiier pocket-books.
]!ut the noise at this pit was only one element in tlie
IJabnl. A similar scene was lieing enacted at the otlier
pit. In addition to all this, scores; of groups, from two
upward!, were sc.ittered over the immense lloor, doing
business in the siine excited and noisy fas'iion. Men
were rushing to the telegraph otiicos in the c irneis of
llie room to wire otf messages, while celegrai)h
messengers were every moment issuing from those
oliices to deliver telegiams to different inenil)ers. So
far as sjieaking went, it was one universal competition
in howling all round. 'I'he din was so grc it that even
two persons in conversation had to bawl into each
other's ears. The ultimate victory was to the strong-
lunged and the i)ra/en-tlir latcd. 'I'lie weakling was
nowliere. Shrewdness and expurienco arc no doubt
essential.s in this kiiul of iiusiness ; but it is at leist
diually necessary to be sound in tlic client and the
larynx. A man who thinks of going on the tloor of the
Chicago I'^xchange ought to be first medically examined
in both regions.

How completely the telegraph has convertcl all
markets into one ! Kvcu as we watched the lu'occed-
iiigs in this Chicago llabel, the i|Uotati<ins in New
York, St. l.ouis, and other great centres of trad:: were
constantly arriving for the guidance of buNcrs and
sellers. Sometimes the messages were private ; but in
otlier eases they ajipeared to lie ijublic, the figures
being at once conspicuously chalked on a black hoard.
Chicago time being nearly six hours later than I'higlish
time, our iiome markets were, of coiirso, over before the
Chicago l'>xcliange 0])ened ; and the de ders in the latter,
therefore, started with a fuil knowledge of what had
been done, not in Creat liritain oniy, but in all tlie
juincipal centres of the grain trade in Europe. In the
presence of such universal knowledge, brought up to
the latest moment, there would not seem to bo much
room for speculation, I'.ut Chicigo men often /'/"/
room for it. Grain, pork, and lard are in turn made
the subjects of speculation on the most prodigious
scale. The "rings" ai:d "corners" nf the "bulls"
and "bear.s " of the Chicago Jvxchango are a l^yword
throughout the tr.ading world. As they ^eliously in-
tcrfe.e with the course of legitimate trade, it is satis-
factory to know that the siieculators very often over-
reach themselves and fall into the jiit which they have
dug for others.

A fiiiK.vr HoTi:r.

Kverything in Chicago i^ liig, as my re iders will have
gathered from what 1 have already said. The hotels
are, of course, on the largest sjalo. The I'almer Hau>e,
the Crand I'acillo, and the Tremont House are among
the finest and most sumptuous in the country. 'I'he
I'idmor House is the finest of the t!uee, and my com-
panion and I selected it as our temporary home for the
purpose of seeing the best thing that (^liicago had to
show in th" hotel line. 'J'he first Palmer House perished
lu the gi'oat tire, buii from it.s imlma a hirgcr, more

stately, and more gorgeous building soonaios. 'I'l.e
cost of the structure and the furnishing was nearly three
millions of dollars. It accommodates 700 guests. 'J'he
proprietors say it is the only really firejiroof hotel in the
States. After what I have already s dd about so-
called ''fireproof buildings, it is scarcely necessary for
mo to remark that I do not attach much iinportanco to
this claim. That the hotel would not burn (tlnnc is
possible ; but that it would be destroyed if surrounded
by a thousand acres of fire, as its predecessor was, is at
least e.|Ually certain.

The i'almer House, like most great American hotels,
has numerous stores (shojis) on the ground fioer. The
frontage ill the main streets of the gieat cities is so
valuable if devoted to stores, that hotel ]>roiirietors ob-
tain a considerable return on their enormous outlay by
reserving only entrance space for their hotels, and con-
verting all the rest of their frontage into shops. These
sho)is arc frequently made to communicate with the
lob'oies and halls of the hotels, as well as with the
street ; and as they are u>ually let to barbers, jierf timers,
tailors, liatters, makers of trunks and travelling gear,
railroad ticket agents, keepers of " gentlemen's furnish-
ing ' stores, and the like, the hotel gue>ts are able to
do most of their shopping without leaving the bui'ding.

Tin: ]!.\nni:i!s.

The barber's shop of a great hotel is, to a stranger, a
curious sight. The daily shave- isatprcsent much more
of an institution in AniJric i thin it is in this country.
In the I'ar West, moreover, many men are not content
to have merely tlieir chins ke|it clea; of hair. 'I'heir
he, ids are al-nost equally bare, the cuttng being fre-
quently diine by means of an api) iratus hke a horse-
clipper. 'J'he Califoiniaii is thiisoften nearly hire heade<l
as well as bare-fa ed. Cnder these circumstances, the
baibers are nuint lous and llouiisliing. 'J'hi ir trade em-
blem isi)rominent in every street. This i-; not tiielong
slender pole, with the spiral bands of jiaint,
which are stiil mounted diagonally aero s the
paxemciit by some of our Knglish barbers. Tue
Americans ha\e "improved '' upon this ; at least they
have altered it. 'I'he spiial maikiii^s are still retained,
but the ))ole usually assume- t'e form of a s(|uare, hol-
low, wooden ereetion, tapering towards the toi\ which
will stand alone on the pavement. Sometimes the thing
is a fixtnrc, but very oft' n it is moveable ami is taken in
at night. In many instau es, it stands on the very edge
of the footway, in this re-p(!et, the barber only takes
the same liberties with the thoioujlifai) which every-
body else takes. In many cities, the edge of the pave-
ment is so encumbered witli tele-raidi posts as large as
the main mast of a ship, with bitehin.; jio ts for horses,
with raised stejis for the benefit of th -se mounting
hor>es an I eiuriages, and with trade t''nh!v>ms of all
kinds, that the pedestrian has to look weil (o his ways,
especially after sunset.

J'lUt to return to the l>arbers. The shops of those
artists are furnished willi luxurious and iiige'uioiisly-
cotistructed lounges, in which the persons operate I
on lie at full length and in an almost perfectly
horizontal jiosition. The man who is 1 e iig s'laved thus
presents his throat to the operator without bending ids
head back in the awkward and tiresome fas! ion so com-
mon in t-;ngland. There is a comfortable rest for the
feet, almost on a level with the (latient s heail ; and if
ho (the [latieiit) happens to want his bootsi leaned, hecan
be operaletl on at both ends at once, as a " boots ' is
often attached to the establish meitt. In thu baibers'
shops attached to some of the great hotels, it is not hu

): H

1 ;

' ff

!lf^

1 ' ''■'

\incommon thing to soo Imlf n dozen or more gentlemen
under the oijerators' hands all at one time ; and the low
of patients lyiii;; la/ily OH tliuir hacU-n, Honietiines with
one set of ai lists enjju^i'd on their heads ;inil another set
on their boots, presents ;i ciiiiDUs and (to a strin;,'er) a
rather ludicrous specliiclc. Ilair-cuttinj, when it does
not amount to close elipp n:,', is ipiite a loni,' and elaborate
business, and the charge-; arc; in proporlion. A San
Francisco artist, at the I'alaee Hotel in tliat city,
(il)eiated upon me, and his coloured tjcntleman ''sliineil"
my boots ^aa tlie Amciiratis say in ilelianeo of tjrammar)

as 1 lay. His

was as follows ; — ('uttin„' hair,

cents ; trinimin;; lieard, 1 > cents ; clean iii; boots, 10
cents ; total, TiU cents, or lialf a dollar ('.is). Those are
Ion;,' liKures, no doubt : but tiien the operator was a
long time over the business, and he took oil so much
for tlie money that I Ijave only recently lecjvcred from
the ell'ects of his liandlin^'. .Morcovei', tlio work was
done in a city and in a .-^tate wliere the smallest coin in
use is the nicl^el (2',d,), and where, therefore, you ca!i-
iiot buy so little as a ptiinyuorth or even twopenny-
worth of (Ui'ithi n',1, 1 have, moreover, heard of a dollar
being char^'ed for a hair-dresser'.s services.

B'K/r-fl.llANlNC.

]Jut let mc hark baek twenty-lhree hundred ndles to
the Talmcr House, ('hi(.a!;o. In this and in almost all
the laiii;er hotels, tiio only w.iy in wiiiiih you can ^'et
your boots cleaned is to lia\e it done while tlu'y are on
your feet, it is not safe to put Ijoots outside yoni bed-
room door tiiat is, unless they are very sliabby and
not wortli stealiui,'. Tlie hotels aio so vast, the corii-
dors so Ions, i^'"^ the number of stiaii^'e visitors con-
stantly nioviuLT about so lar;,'e, that it is well nijli im-
possible for the hotid servants to maintain efficient
supervision and to keep the ha ldinL;s (dear of profes-
sional thieves, (juests are often cautioned by iueans
of print (1 nolicr^ U't to leave anything in the curii-
dors. The wari.'oi,' :- not always acted on, for I heard
of inissiuL' loots in one or two ])laces. W'hih' I was
staying at th:: l''iftii Aseinu- Hotel at New York, an
innocent I'hii.UshuiMM nut out his trousers to bo brushed,
just as ho won! 1 h.ive (lone at the Ited l.ion or the lvin'.;'s
Arms in a eounliy town at homo. He never saw that
garment aiiuin. Let us hope lie had another '

Shoeblrtc',n abound in tlie street, but ii is not neces-
sary for a hotel guest to leave the house to get his boots
cleared, i'lvery hotel lias its boor -cleaning room and
its stair of '■ boots.'' This branch of the J'almer
House establishment is on the same scale iis all the
rest of it. The room eontiins three or four luxurious
easy chairs, raised a foot or two from the lloor on a
huge Idouk of white luaible. In front of t;ach chaii' is
a raised iron rest, the shape of the S(de of a boot.
You mount into one of these chairs, phice your foot
on the rest, and smoke your einar or rcml your paper.
One of the stall of shoeblacks (wlio are also jiorters)
turns up your trousers and sets to work, and in two
iidnutes asks you to ciian.'o feet. In two minutes more,
the buHiuess is " througli " (again to use an Ameri-
canism), and you hand over 10 cents (-'hI). Here, again,
the jirice is far above the Ijiglisli standard. I'.ut, tlien,
you cannot reasonably exjiCDt to be allowed to sit for
five minutes on a inarbli! throne without ]iayiug for
the privilege. The cliarge is, no doubt, so calculated
as to include 5 minutes'interest on the coat of the throne,

A DisAcini:i;.\i!Lr. Si'ii.)Ei|-.
The great hall of the Palnier Hou.so is a splendid
ruorn, with a ^inatblo iluor, and a roof supiiorted by

many marble columns. It presents a lively spectacle
at all times ; but in tiio evening it is not unlike the
(,'haiulier of Commerce on a small scale. It is then
filled with groups of men, some standing and some
sitting, but all talking "sho)) '' loudly and excitedly,
and all, with very few exceptions, smoking incessantly
and spitting co))iouHly. And now that I have had
occasion to refer to a very disagreeable subject, I may
as well once for all say wliat 1 have to say about it.
Smoking, chewing, and spitting are undoubtedly tho
thr'e chief nuisances to which travellers aie subjected
in -Vnieriea. Smoking is almost universal, and it is in
the form of cigars that the tobacco is usually consumed.
Seeing that tin; prii'c of cigars is, like that of most
other things, \ery high, the amount annually spent on
smoke must be something fabulous.

It is very dillicult to ;;et beyond the reacli of the
fumes of tobacco, go where you may. There are smok-
ing cars (>n the railways, it is true ; hut the smokers
have a right of way through all the ordinary cars, and
if they do not actually smoke' in those cars, they stand
about in the passages and at the doors as long as they
j)lease, their cigars .smouldering and contami-
nating the air all the time. liut the habit
of incessant s])itting is far more objectionable
than the univeis;il smokinrr. es[)ecially when tho ex-
]U;c!o;ation is due to the chewing of tol).icco. It is
di.Tccult to convoy to a .stranger any adequate idea of
the extent to which tliis I easily hai)it prevails in cer-
tain parts of tlie country. At tho Palmer House, for
instance, the beautiful marble lloor of the hall is
j sjiotted all over with huge blotches of brown tobacco
I juice. Spirtoons are scattereii about in j)rofusion, but
I many chewers take no notice of thein and exi)ectorate
at largo. "Nothing luit fre pient moiiping jirevents the
lloor from getting into a iierfectly intolerable state.

Ill the Pullman cars, which are handsomely carjieted,
there is a spittoon to every section, and as a rule the
passengers use it. P.ut even here, the nui.iance some-
times reaches a very aggravating intoli. I have seen a
gentlemen and lady eating their dinner in one section
of a car. on the little table which the attendant can
"fix"' for a passenger at a minute's notice. In the
opposite section, barely a vard olF, h.is sat anothei'
gentleman, expectorating every half-minute into a spit-
toon on the lloor of the narrow passage which divided
him from the dinner jiarty. Fvery discharge was )u'e-
ceded by a violent drawing in of the breath and a sjias-
ir.odic movement of tiu> throat, accompanied by a horrible
soiitid like tliat of lath-rending combine I with that of
saw-sliar|>cning. 'I'his lueliminary iierformar.ce —
thioat clearing, as the performer would ]n-obalily have
called it— Was, if jiossiblo, more disgusting than the
ultimate delivery. ]!ut I could see that it hud
never oc -urred to this well-dressed man that lie was
doing a'lytiung unmannerly, and I am bound to admit
that tlie diners showed no annoyance. Habit had
evidently lemlercd all the iiarties concerneil insensible
to a jierforman e which would have turned a stranger
sick.

Among the passengers on board the (hriiianir, the
steamer by which I ri^turned home, was an expectorating
young man from Texas. On one or two occasions. I sat
near him on deck for an hour at a stretch, and I once took
the liberty of timing him. He let lly at a point on
tlie lloor, about si.x inches in front of try toes, once
every half-minute, and his ujcuracy of aim was as
wonderful as his supply of saliva. Uo did not appear
to lie a chewcr, ainj I was entirely at a loss to know
what pleasure or pirolit he found in robbing his system

of one of its most impoitant secrotion=i in this whole-
sale fashion.

1 have remarked that men sometimes refuse to use
sjiittDDnseven wlun tliey aiu iirovided, but it is said
that there are certain oiulaiulisli districts where the
very use of tliat utensil is not understood. A ^ood stury
is tuhl ol' a rouj{h Texan who went U)) to Was dnijton to
have an interview witli a hi_di (!i)ver.;.nent otiicial. Ho
was duly ushered into a liandsoincdy-carpetod room,
wliere the great man was sitting at a dusk. The 'I'txan
took no notice of tlie carpet, but tired away to
rigiit and left as usual. A negro attendant, who
was in the ruom, was mnch disturbed at tiiis ;
and, taking up a spittoon, he moved it hither
and thither, according to the direction in which the
'J'exandischari^'ed, in tlic hope of presently catching his
eye and inducing liiin to sp ire the oarpuf. His eye was
caught at last, and for some time the Texan watch d
the (lodgings of the attendant with puz/.led amMs.>mcnt.
At last, lie opened out. " !^ay, ni','gfr,"' he saiil,' if
ynu don't take that sasscr out of my way, dartud if I
(/iiii't xpit infi) it .' "

Neaily all great hottls, s.ich as t'.ie i'almor Houe,
1 ave a seiiarate side door by which ladies may enter
and obtain access to the upi)er floors witiiout coming in
cunttct with the oxpectoraiing ciowd in the hall. J!ut
iit the railway stations ;ind in the ordinary cars, ladies
are constantly subjected tn the nuisance, and it is
perhaps well that habit has hardened them against it.
Xotices re juesting "gentlemen"' nut to spit on the
floors are fieely displayed, but they are by no means
universally obeyed. Tlie neatest thing of this kirul that
1 saw was hung up in tlie ticket olHce of one of the
^linneapulis dep 'ts. it read thus : — " (ieiitleinen will
not, and others aie reijuested not to spit on the lloor."

The dining-room of the I'almer House is a superb
apartment of vast dimensions on the first floor. It
contains a wh ile army of waiters, mostly coloured,
commanded l>y a fuU-lduoded negro, of gigantic si/e and
e'[ually enoiinous importance, with a "d amond" stud
of corresponding pi oportions in his oxten-ive and fault-
I'ss shirt front. He is a i)otentate ot the first water,
and his will is law throughout his kingdom (t'le dining-
room). The loom contains probably fifty small t diles,
each laid for six guests. The dark soveieign
alw.iys keeps one eye on th ■ entrance, and
with a majestic sweep of his arm directs
every gue-t, the moment he sees him enter, to
the --e.it he dosiies him to occupy. The autocratic and
]iereiiiptory way in which he orders the w.iiters about,
and makes them "hurry up " by loud sn ipi)ings of his
lingers, is a sight to see. 1 was told that such ii " boss ''
waiter as this is very often as great a tyrant to his
employer as to las subordinates. He draws the p;iy of
an I'lnglish admiral, ei. gages and dismi>se3his men as it
pleases him so to do, aiul allows no interference, even
on the part of his masters, with the management of his
room.

JIkn with iMi;Mor;iKs.

]!ut there is another otficial connonted with tliis
dining room who is as i emurliable in ids way as the
potentate himscdf. This is a man who stands at the
door and takes charge of the hats of the guests as they
pass in. He has a number of shelves on whirh ho
arrauLjeH these hats, on some system known only to
himself ; but whatever the number of persons in the
room may be at one time -ami it is often between one
and two hundred -ho never fails to hand back to eacli
guest his right hat. I was a good deal iiitcresteil ih

these remarkable feats of memory. On more than one

occasion, I made a pretence of appropriating another )ier-
son's head-gear, iiutiii each case he checked me and picked
out my own. It aiiiieared to 1)0 a point of professional
honour with him to sjiot the light hat without aid. If
he seemed to hesitate for a moment as if in uncertainty,
and 1 made a movement as if to assist I'm, he instantly
objected to be thus aided, and in a very few seconds
handed me the right article. .Some one who knew the
man pretended to explain his secret to me. It was his
habit, I was tohl, to form and retain a mental picture
of ea h gU'st's face in association with his jiai ticular
hat. J !y long schooling himself in this habit, he had
gradu dly lenleiel himself the adeiit that he was.
U'hether this is t!io true explanation I am unable to say,
but the faculty which the man has somehow contrived
to devclope is certainly a very remarkable one,

I mav as well remark in this connection that I found
a man with a similar faculty, similarly engaged, at tho
door of the rlining-iuom at the fifth Avenue Hotel in
New Yolk, I'liis one assured me, with tho most
charmingly Uiicoiiscioiis egotism, that he w,is at tho
head of the profession. 1 told him that 1 had seen tho
I'almer Hou-e hat man. and was greatly astonishoil at
his teats. ".\hl'"he said, with childlike innocence,
"but he is not like me. Several gentlemen
who know him have told me so. There i^ nobody
like me in the country. I've been written aliout in your
I'higlish papers 1'' In having been made tlie subject of
remark in our news|iapers, ho appaiently believed ho
had achieved imiuirtality, and perhaps I might as well
have told him bat I iiitenued to immortalize him a littlo
further, suppus.ng -ucli a feat |)ossildo. It must bo
admitted that he and his Chicago brother are a pair of
very curious phenoiiRna.

U{}\\ SoMi: Ami:i!I('.\N's Dinf:.

The American system of serving dinner in the great
hotels is a very agreeable and convenient one, but it is
shamefully abusCil. The bill of faro, which is handed
to every guest, is usually so long and varied as to bo
lierfectly embarrassing to a stranger. An l^nglishmau
is pretty sure lirst to order his soup or his fish, or bcjtli,
and to take lime to e.jnsider the subsequent order of
his eating. This is the wise-t plan, and is adopter! by
all who study decency and depiecate waste. IJut thero
are many freuueniers of American hotels — possibly
not all Americans— whose rul»: it is to order all
they want at one and the itame time. In doing
this, they sometimes appear :o e.xti ust the whole li--t.
How thewaiters manag to cany their orders outof tho
room without dro]iping some of the items out of their
memories is more than I can umiei'stand. I'erhaps tho
hat man at the door utili.'.es his sp.ire time in giving
them lessons in remembering, or, as a London "pro-
fessor " oddly puts it, in "the art of not forgetting.'

While the waiter is gone for his miscellaneous collec-
tion of eatables, the guest leads his ])aper oi scoops out
a melon, if he is imi'atient, he bids the head waiter
"hurry u|) "' thing's, and in due time his dinner comes.
It IS coni.ii!'"d in about a dozen small ovai dishes,
which the waiter proceeds to arrange round his plate in
the form of a semicircle. The )jlaie is there as a matter
of form, but I have often s en a diner get through his
dinner without putting a morstd on it. The truth is,
the m:m wdio orders in this leckless and wliolesalo
fashion regards the Uishcs as so many sani|iles, ami
dei'iileH widcli ho v.'ill take when he has seen or tasted
them. Looking cr.tically round the semicircular array
of dishes, he plunges either knife or fork into one of

ftrt

them ;\ntl Ciinies n snmplc to his mouth. With n
alight smackiii<{ of the lipa, ho thus " tastes "' dish
after dish ; iiiul as his Hiini]>les 1110 hxrge, ho lias made
some progress in tho business of allayiii;^ liis hunger
before he lias completed the circuit. As a rule, he does
not complete tho circuit at all. Having taken his sani-
l)leH of most of the sort-i, ho speedily clears two or
thren of the dislies whoso contents most commend
themselves to his taste, eats perliaps halt of the con-
tents of one or two others, and leaves the greater part
either entirely untouched or only diminished to tiie
extent of a good mouthfuU. In an incredibly short
space of time, he is "throuLjh " and hurrying tow.ird.s
the door, three-fourths of the food he ordere.l being
left. What is done witii the enormous quantities of
good food thus thrown on the hotel-keeiiers' hands I do
not know, I onco ventured to suggest to an American
that I 8upi)osed the negro waiters ate it. He regarded
the suggestion as wildly improbable. " Thc/i eat it 1"
ho said. " No hotel proprietor would dare olfer it to
them.'' I'ndor these circumstance-i, the loss inust be
immense ; and a.s tlie hotel people have to reckon on
the wastei'ul propensities of mmy of their guests,
their charges are nocesa irily higher than they
need be. Tiius a person who orders only wliat
be wants, and oats what he orders, has the satisfacti'in
of knowing that he is helping to pay for the good food
wasted by others. This reckless waste WiS more
miirked at the I'almer House than at any other hotel
1 visited, and that is why I deal with tho abuse under
this heading.

" HoGGisriN'iuSS " .\T Taiu.k.

The men who display this recklessness are mostly
vulgar people with i)lenty of money, and th'/'y mani-
fest their vulgarity as much by the style in which they
eat as in their ostentatious disregard of economy. Tho
way in which some of them manage their "eating tools '
is simply ama/.ing, and nohoily can diiio near them in
any comfort without trying hard to forget all the con-
ventionalisms of decent society. I thought for some
weeks that nothing could surpass the " hoggish " style
(as t!ie Americans themselves call it) of some of the men
I saw at table at Chicago, but I was rudely awakened
from this illusion the first time I sat down to a meal on
board tho (krinanic. An unkind Fate, in the purson of
the purser, there }ilaced me opjiosite a man dressed like
a gentleiTian, who was clearly a German by birth, and
wlio afterwards told me he was a New York lawyer.
For sheer " hoggishness " — no other word is expressive
enough -he was an easy first, as far as my experience
has yet gone. He was left handed, to begin with. He
therefore held his fork in his riglit hand, and this he
did by taking it in the full grasp of his closed fist, just
as one clutches a dagger. It was thus perpendicular with
liis plate With a stabbing motion he pinned his meat
to the plate, clumsily tore olf a piece as large as the
blade of the knife, and with the knife shovelled it into
his mouth. A slice which nearly covered his plate,
together with a proportionate (juantity of vegetables,
thus disappeareil in about lialf a dozen great gulps.
Nothing that could possibly be balanced on the
blade of his knife ever went to his mouth by any other
means, lieing naturally through each course before
anybody else, lie filled up the time by picking his teeth
and combing his moustaihe with liis fork, and doing
his best to clear the table of all the cakes, grai^es, nuts,
and other elements of the dessert that happened to be
within reach. He ordered almost everything men-
tioned in the bill of fare, and course after courso was

disposed of in tlio barl)arou8 but expeditious manner
alreidy described. Kvery time his plate wascmpty, he
looked round for other worlds to coni|Ucr— /.r., for
other dislies to dear ; and if there liap[iened for tho
moment to be nothing witliin reach, he anvased himself
by calling his neighbours' attention to his fine set of
teeth, by noisily rattling them toiietherand turning his
head from side to side in a jieculiiirly knowing manner. I
and my friend watched this man's first performance with
speechless amazement ; and when it was over, we com-
forted ourselves with the lellection that, after such a
huge and miscellaneous stulling, he could not possibly
turn ui) again for several days. Asa matter of fact, he
did n(jt reappear for '1\ hours, and on some suliseijueiit
occasions ho manageil to stow away enough to last him
(or to sicken him) for still longer periods. 1 noticed, on
the second day of the voyage, that a young man who
had been at firs^ placed alongside this champion glutton
had managed to secure a seat at another table, and that
liis own ciiair was unoccupied. Next time I met him
on deck, I hinted to him that possibly 1 could guess
why he had moveil.

" Well," ho sail, "who could sit alongside that hog ?
I told tho purser at onco that I could not, and asked
him to find me another scat. He declared thoio was no
other available. I then told liim he would have to
send all my m> als to my room, for I should bo sure to
be sick, and he driven to my berth, if I attempted to
sit where he had jdaced me. Hearing this, the purser
soon f.)imd me another pl,\ce."

I suppds a mm who outrages all tho proprieties in
the way I lia\e tried to describe either fails to cbservo
how oilier peo]ile condust themselves, or considers his
fashion superior to their-;. In the case in (luestion,
the harhariaa had literally nobody to keep him in
conntenancu. A bion/.ed and rugged Oregon farmer,
who sat near him, came to table regularly in a very
touzled condition and without either collar or neck-tie ;
but. clumsy as he was, his mode of eating was eleganco
itself beside that of tho (ierman New Yorker,

liut mark how inconsistent a thing human nature
is ! When this man had recovered from the effects of
his heavy feeds, he was trotting about the ship wearing
tightly-iitting kid gloves, and looking otherwise like a
gentleman ; or he was sitt'ng in some i|uif-t corner
diligently reading a book. I believe he neither drank,
sinokeil, nor gambled, and he ceriainly talked like an
educated person. I had several chats with him
after my first sensation of disgust had worn oif,
and I was immensely puzzled at the contrast which I
discovered between his ordinary manner and his nn-
speiikable " hoggishness "' at table.

Co.\cr,uni.\(i nK.\rAiiKs Anorr Chicago.

Kut onco more my subject has carried me far away
from the rainier House, Chicago, and I must needs
return and co ii))lete what I have to say about that
s])lendid caravanserai. I have before remarked on tho
small amount of drinking which ajjpe irs to be going on
at the great hotels. This is very marked at the I'almer
House. Consi<lering the amount of excitement always
]irevailiiig, and the extent to which smoking and ex-
pectoration are always going on, the consumption of
strong liiiuors is wonderf ullj- small. 1"he bar does not
intrude itself on public notice. It is invisible from tho
great h.dl, ami I never saw more than two or three
persons " licpioring u)) '' at it at one time.

The best bed-rooms at the I'almer House were the
hirgest and most complete I met with anywhere. Each
room was beautifully carpeted and furnished, and was

pioviJetl, in ailJition, with a bath-room ami w. c. to
wliich tho occupant alone had arcosa. Like the ma' lilo
thione in tlio hoot room, .11 tliis coiivouicnco and
};ri\n'lcur liail, of conrso, to Ke \<;\\d for.

It i,'"cs without .sajiii;^ tii;it lui en irmo\iH, goalicad
ji!acc like ('Iiic,i;,'.j p.jis.'s- s a prospcioin and cntcriiri.s-
ins ntw^jiaiKT p;o-s3. Two oi three of its iliiiliis arc
anion,' tho mo.it v.duable ni'W.spapur iJiojieitits in the
country, and tl.e smartne-s witli which they are con-
ducted is unsurpassed. I must content myself with a
sin,de illu-itr.ition of their enterprise. When tho
revised ver-ion of tho Xe'v Testament reached New
Voik, every word of it w;is instantly telejiiaphed on to
one of the Chicago papers, which next morning issue<l
it CMmpkte in the form of a supplement, thus stealing;
a nnirchof '2i or IS hours on its rivals. I have seen a
co;iy or' this remarkable supplement, and I am bcjun I to
say that it wa^ a matvcd of accuracy and clearnes^.
Th s feiit must have cose .n im:nense .sum of money,
hut it produced in the jiuhlic mind [ireci-sely the etl'ect
which the conductors cf t' e liewsiiaper aimed at, and
tliey have no doubt reaped their reward Ion;; ere this.

J have already referre 1 incidentally to the raising of
the level of part of the city, but tiiefeat was soreniiirk-
iil>ie that I must add a few details Tiie s to on which
the older iiortions of the city were built w.is barely
above the level of the lake, and the iuhubitants wore
null h troubled at tirne-i by the irruption of water into
their lower floors. Two remedies fur this state of
thins-'s suggested themselves. Jhther the level of i.aka
I\Iichi,;an must be lowered, or tho buildings
must be raised. As no mode of lowering tho
Like occurred even to the mind of t'hicago, it was
deoi led to raise the buildings. And tins was
s'owly but -ucoes- fully accomiilialied. Numei ous screw
jacks were placed under e.\ch house in turn, ^'iid it was
gradually lifted to a height of -"i, 10, or even 14 feet
above its former level : lUit so slow and legul ir was the
movement that the structure sustained no shock. Tho
operation wis imiierceptible to the inmates, and every-
thing went on indoois iirecisely as if nothing particular
w.is happening. Chic igo people are fed so regularly on
the marvellous that they probably would have said no-
th ng particular ('.((S going iii.

'J'iie origin of the word '"('hicago" is a matter of
dispute. .Some say it was derived from the Indian
word for "skunk," the stinking polecat like beast -o
often met with in the Srates. Others say it means
'' wild onion,"' wiiile otheis, again, contend that it was
derived fioin "che ague,' the Indian woid for thunder,
or the voice of the Great .Spirit. Whic ever inteipi ota-
tion is the correct one, the name clearly indicates
something .s^)'o;i,(/. The western Americans give a very
broad pronunciation to the word. In the mouths of
many, it sounds almost as if it were spoiled "Shecaw-
go.'' The broad a sound is heard similaiiy in many
other name.s. "Omaha" is, for inatanco, ])ionounced
"Omaliaw," while " L'tah " is often turned into
Utaw.'

I went loth to church and to the theatre at Chicago
— I do not mean on the same day, though I mig' t ha\e
done that ; for some of the theatres are regularly
opened on Sundays, as they are in San Fr incisLio and
other western cities.

The church was a l.irge and handsome one, tho wholo
of the seats gradu illy rising froin front to back, tier
above ter. like tiioe of a theatre, livery inch of t'no
flocr — aisles, pews, and -t irs alike— was beautifidly car-
peted, and not a footfall was heard as the worshippers
made their way to their seats. Tho church was

evidently patronised by many wealthy people, who con-
tributed largely towards its mainti nance. The preacher
didivered a very aMc and thmi-htful address from tho
words : -"' If any man wdl do his wdl, I e sh dl
know of the doctrir.e, wlu'ther it be of ( lod.'' I mu^t r^ot
begin to report siu'ir.nns at leiutli, but I may say this —
that I i^atlieied from that p.u;icular -ermonth itrehgious
ortiiO(lo\y is very much a matter of longitude W . ati.4
orthodox in Ihigland is not niccs^ai.lv souiul doctrine in
America. This Chicago preacher, for instance, suggested,
as hi.s text mj doulit comiielled him to do, that there
must be ethical obedience -a deau life, in fact, — befoio
tliere can be a clear disi;ernmont of spiritual truth.
Judging from whit 1 .-ometiinc' hear in IJnKl.nul, this
is rather a turning upside down of things.

I went to the theatre mainly because I found that a
drama was '" on " there which had long been running in
liOr.don, and which I had jiarti. ularly wislieil to
see. That piecu was "The Silver King;'' and as
I'aid lienver, its hero, is reprc-eutod as going to tho
^Vest and n;aking a fortune out of siher mines, it was,
so to speak, at home on the boar.ls of an Ami ric lU
theatre. 1 must no more atten.pt to report; stage plays
than sermons, but I cannot refrain from advising any-
! ody who ever has tho opportunity of seeing ''The
Silver King '' on no account to lose tho chance. Tho
drama is a charming and a'/ecting one, cont. lining not
a woid or a hint to whiidi the most si[ueamish can
possibly object. The m ral, moreover, is excellent.
The teriiblo consejuences of drunkenness, gambling,
aiul vicious habits generally, aie pourtrayed with a
vividness and power surh as no mortal preac' er ever
approached by me .ns of unvidi'd S[ieecb.

1 have s.iid cnoirgh, I tliink-, to indicate that tho
peoido of Chicago fully appreciate their imiiortanco in
the world. .- oino good sto:ies are current in illustra-
tion of this, and Mr. M .riiall, the author of 'I'lirmt'ih
Amcricit, has collected a number of them. He says
that on one occasion a certain Chicago man vi-ited the
Ivistern States for the tirst time. On his return, ho was
asked what he thought of New Y.Jik. '" Waal,'' he
said, " I guess the place is too far away from Chicago to
do any jiartic'lar amonnt of business."

The Kev. Samuel Manning says aChicago man remarked
to hiin : — " Our city is the biggest thing on the ))1 met.
'We've had the big;;(st 111 o. W'e liflcd the city live (?)
feet out of the mud. "We made a river run up hill ; it
wouldn't go wheie wo wanted it. so wo turned it end
and endibout. And it's the onlv city on earth every
inch of wliich is covered three inc'ies deep in mort-

It is. I believe, <iuite true that Chicago was largely
built, and, after the lire, rcbadt, by means of money
from Xew York, I'.oston, and other eastern cities. Hut
the Hast evidently had unlimited faith in the city and
its future, or it would never have advanced such ]iro-
digioussums.

I!ut while Chicago pokes fun at the East and its old-
fashioned ways, the llast returns the comidiment by
cha ling Chij.igo. Here, for instance, is what tho
lii)<liiiil!inOd,a\y\ not many yeais ago: — " Cliicago
is a large citv, a smai t city, and a city with
a fair degree of conliilence in itscdf, but ifs total
\aluatiou, which is l'j:>,Oli •,0 >IJ dollais for al. Cook
Coitniy, is equalled by some waids in I!oston. In
fact. Uosion could buy all Chicago v/ith its loose change,
and have enough money left over to take every man,
woman, and child to the circus. We do not say this in
abo.istful spirit, for I'.oston people care little about
material things ; but simply to make our own people

content with what littlo dross hns stuck to tliem while
studyiiiK thcolo;^y, i)hilosopli,v, ami ethics."

In tliisiiariigriiph the //<;«/'/ Mdministora a sly poko
to its own citizens, wiio profess vo ro'^uKl intellectual
and moriil culture with much more favour than itilto
money-cettin;,', hut who, neverthelesH, manage somehow
to HWcci> in the dollars at a rate which ought to satisfy
Mammon himself.

A MODKL CITY.
.Tust beyond the outskirts of Chica<;o on its southern
side stands the new and wonderful little city of I'tdliuan.
I beg to remark at the outset that, so far as I know,
there is no connection between that place and /'iihitxti's
Wvckhi iVi'ii:^ ; althoiif^h, by the way, it is (juite
posHible that the famous railroad-car builder after
whom tho city is named is a descendant of some branch
of the I'uhnan family of Devon and Somerset. lie
certainly puts a second / into his name, but that counts
for nothiuK.

I need iianlly exiilain, after what I have said on the
subject, that Air. I'ulluvin was llie founder, and is stdl
the riiovin;; siiirir, of tlie great Company which builds
the I'ullman sleeping and parlour cars, and runs them,
under anangiments With the various railroad com-
])anies, over almost every important line in the country.
'J'lio building ami repaiiing of the vast '[Uantity of
rolling stock liulonging to the Pullman Car Company
Would, of itself, constitute a gigantic business ; but
tiiu (.'ompany's operations extend even beyond this. It
carrii's on tho business of general car bviilders for tho
whole American continent, and has even exported
a gooil many of its wheeled palace> to tliis country and
tiio eountiics of Continental i.'urope.

The Company has for many years had more than ono
great factory at work. There is one at Detroit ; there
is (or was) one in Chicago itself ; and 1 ))ulie\e tlieie arc
smaller establisiiments, ehietly for repairs, in other
cities. IJut, some years a„o, Mr. i'uiiinau conceived tlie
idea of removing the greater piirt of his army of work-
men out of the great cities, ancl locating them in a
town built entiruly on plans of his own. He was
anxious to begin at the veiy l)eginning, and to shuw the
world what a factory and a factory town ought to he like'.
And the scheme tiius ccjuceived was carried out with a
promptitude, a completeness, and a success which
appear little short of miraculous, A clear site was
secured on the shoie of a tiny lake (Laiic Calumet),
about ten or twelve miles from the centre of Chicago.
Tlie site was flat piairie land, and tlie Illinois Central
Itailroad ran close alongside it. At a certain date in
LSSO, this site was in the state in which Nature left it.
Within two years — I think I might say within eighteen
months, but 1 prefer to err on the right side— a model
city of 8,0011 inhabitants had sprung up- a city
which is to-day without a rival among indus-
trial towns, in the comfort, not to say the
elegance, of its homes, in the perfection of its sanitary
applian es, anil in all the institutions that tend to
create and perpetuate a healthy, indu>trious, cdurated,
and moral community. Alongside the town stands a
huge assemblage of buildings which ranks among
fa.tories as I'ullman itself ranks among cities ; and in
this factory almost every able-bodied man in the city
finds profitable employment.

Alighting at Pullman .station, the traveller from
Chicago finds himself in a new world. l''lio station
itself is but the beginning of novelties. It is no mere
ugly wooden shed, with unlovely surroundings, like

too many of the wayside depots. It is a solid, hnnd-
Home building of brick, with real claims to architectural
beauty. It is clearly a part of the town, designed to
harmordse with tho perfect whole. Its beautiful
setting of turf, (lower beds, and shade trees prepares
one for what follows.

heaving the station behind, the traveller finds him-
self advancing eastward along a fine, wide boulevard,
on which the roadway and the sidewalk are separ.ited
from each other by strips of turf, ilower-beds, and
trees which are young at present, but which will con-
stitute a grand avenue at some future time. Tho
bedded out plants in tho borders ajiijcar t(^ bo quite
safe under tho guardianship of the inhabitiUts. On
the traveller's left are the factory buihlings, uVul a more
striking contrast cannot i)e conceived than tliift between
this huge but beautiful block and the typical ractory of
\'oik~liire or Lancashire. Even Mr. I!uskii\ himself
would admit, if ho could anyhow be drag^^cd into
rullinan, that U'.;Iine<s is not necessarily allied
with modern utilitaiianisin, Tho suchitectuirc of the
great car factory might possibly fail to
commend itself entirely to his critical, taste ;
hut he would bo iit least compelled to
confess that the builders had done their liest to
avoid the hideous ugliness which a)>pears to be tho
s])ecial study of most of the designers of large manufac-
turing p: emises. But were he to look from the factory to
its surroundings — to the stretches of emerald turf, the
tlO'Vei-lieds thedense groups of shrubs, the trim and well-
kept walks,which engirdle the buildings, and then were
to tiiinkof .Manchester, .Shelfield, and Leeds, iindof tho
cinder heaps and general unloveliness which grimly sur-
round their hives of industry, he would, I am sure, be
impelled to declare that, even though America con-
tains no \'enice and has never given birth to a Turner,
it is not so far gone in the worship of INlainmon as to
care nothing for the beauty of the temples in which it
piacti'-es its rites.

The great car factory is not surrounded with jealously-
guarded walls. Its gardens and other free spaces are
open to th'^ pihlic, and the public apparently walk in
and out without let or hindrance, and without asking
anyone's ]ierinission. 'I'o secure access to the whole of
the workshops a permit of some kind is necess.ary, but
the most interesting feature of the whole establishment
iso:'ento allcomers. Those who remember the pub-
lish 1 accounts of tho great Centennial Exhibition at
riiiladelphia can hardly have foi gotten how -.nuch was
said about the pair of wonderful engines which drove
all the moving machinoiy of that gigantic show. They
weie called "Corliss " engines from the fact that they
were built by the celebrated engineering firm of that
name. \Vl'.en tho I'ullman factory was built, the I'ull-
man Company liou^iit these engines and erected them
there, to drive their vast collection of machines and
tools. And there the giants toil away day by day, in a
))alace wort'iv of them, of their beauty, and their fame;
and this palace is ojjen to all the world, treats rre
piovjded on which visitors may sit at their ease and
watcli the stately movements of the engines as long as
they iilease. The doors stand wide o])en, and ])eople
wilk in and out at their pleasure. 'J'hcse engines are
said to bo the largest ever built on the beam principle,
and their exijuisite finish is as remarkable as their size.
If they were of burnished silver throughout, they could
hardly make a more brilliant show. It is, indeed,
dilHcult to believe that they are not at least electro-
jdateiL The engine-house is, as I have said, worthy
of them. The engines might, I should say, receive a

thouHand visitors at once, so immense Is th(> plnco. It
is, moreover, the jierfection of neatness ami cleanli-
ness. The Chicacjo man who si(uirts his tDlmoco juice
freely about tiie mm ble floors of the Calmer House is
iippiireiitly sliameil into decenuy Uy tiie very si^^ht of
tills ensine-rooin. There are pliity of sjiittooiis ;ibout,
anil eacli one stands exactly in tiio centre of a S'luaro
of lioorcloth, so that the exquisito cleanness of tlio
floor shall not suiter at the hands of had marl<sinen.
1 never before saw any human contrivance wliich re-
minded mo so t'orciltly as these majestic engines tlid of
till' slow, noisole-s, resi>tless operations of .Nature.

Tlie city of Pullman is a worthy companion to tlic
great factory to which it owes its existence. It draws
from the I'ullrnan Company's works its una, its wat- r,
and (as _ regards )iart of the town) its hoat,
steam being distributed from the factory througii
some of the streets, and " laid on ' to tlio
houses exactly as water is. The drainage is as
perfect as scion e and money can mai^o it. The streets
lire of immense width, an<l have wide strips of turf and
avenues of trcos between the footways and roadways.
The hous(!s are not crowded togetlier in eiidles-s terraces,
but are, where not actually dotaidied, (li\ided into
small groups. Sunlight and air, therefore, penetrate
fieely everywhere. Anything more unlike tlio
crowded, grimy streets in which the artisans
of our great towns mostly live it would be
(litiicult to conceivo. The sliops and the ))ri-
vate houses are kept carefully ajiart. Indeecl,
all the siiops 1 saw were grouped together under cover,
in one idace in a kind of market and in unutlur place
in the form of an arcade. Tiie inlialiitants are thus
able to do all their slioi)[iing uiiler cover and at one
spot, without running al)out from one part of the town
to another.

The recreations of the people have been fully i)ro-
vided for. 'J'here is a kind of jiark, where the national
game of baseball can be played. Close to this is a
lacing track for athletic sports, overlooked by an
immense covered stand capable of a "commodating two
or three thousand people, i'urther on again is the
shore of Lake Calumet, and here a boat-racing course
has been cleared, having another huge stand for
spectators. A public batliing-place on tlie lake shore
provides for all wlio wisli it the opportunity of learning
to swim. In the aicade already ret'erred to is a
beautiful little opera house, wiiero the I'ullmanites can
witness theatrical performances without the tioulile of
goinginto Chicago for the jnirpose. The iiublic s liools
and otlier educational establishments are models of their
kind.

Wood is but little used in the construction of
liouses in I'ullman : and, as 1 have said, the streets are
wiile and the buihlings a gooil deal deiached from each
other. All serious dan.;er from tire would, therefore,
appear to be ol)viated. I'liere is, nevertlieless, a fire
brigade, possessing a sta.-jii vvliich, like everything else
in the city, is as perfect as '> iney and ingenuity can
make it. We visited t'ls "t-i.trn and had an interest-
ing chat with the liremar- on lUity. As this station
was, in all its main fe.itiK' :-, su: ilar to those which I
saw in other cities, I will giv- a orief description of it.

The station was open t J the street, and a steam fire
engine stood inside, re;, iy to .^t art at a few seconds'
notice. < 'n each >ide of the engine was a stall or loose
box for a horse. The stall on one Hide was labelled
" Jim,'' that on the other side "Jan," and the four-
footed bearers of those names stood with their heads
towards the door ready for instant action. A touch of

a lover threw open tho Joors of both stalls, and, with-
out a word of command or guidance, tiio horses leaped
forward into their plaes, one on each side of tlie |)olo
of the engine. Tlio very simple harness belonging to
each horse was hanging above it, and a pull at a cord
lowered it into its jilaco on the ai.imal's bacK. Two or
three liuckles were fastened, and the engine was ready
to start. The time occupied in these pieiiarations was
counted by seconds. It was customary, at a tire station
I which 1 afterwards visited at llichnioiul, Indiana, to go
through these performances once every day, exactly as
the clock struck twelve, and a record was kept
of tlio time occupied. In that case, after
the horses had stood in harness a few minutes, they
were liberated and sent olF to the back of tho jironiiscs
to feed. They were no sooner free than they turned
and skippijil otf dinner-wards as merrily a> children
just released from school. This association of onta
; with duty is no doubt a wise one. The horses have got
I to know by long experience that the daily call to duty
is, in nineteen cases out of twenty, followed by a feed,
and self-intere>t induces them to lea|) forward promptly
' intotlieir placestiie moment thcirstillsare tlirowno|ien.
Tho man in charge of the I'ullman station begged us
to note that, whenever he and his comrades were called
to a fire at night, tliey always stai te I off to it irilhiiut
1 /'■(litiir/ til rniiK! '/iiirnKlair.i. This statement a|)pe,ued
rather paradoxical until he explainetl himself. Ho
pointed out a polished luass pol(! running up from tlie
giound floor through a hole in the ceiling. Tl.e firemen
' slept uiistaiis (witli some of their clothes on, Isu|)po^e),
and the moment they were called they slid down tho
pole. Tho fireman explained that tiiis was a much
more e\peditijus pr(jco-s than coming downstairs, and
in tho ca.se of a building two or three storeys high I
suiipose there can bo no doubt of it.
i We cross-examined this fireman on another subject
' not necessaiily eoniiccted with his occupation. AVe had
discovered that the I'ullman Company had done tl.eir
best to juevent the sale of intoxicating li'|uors in any
part of tlieir model town. 'I he tenant of every house
in the place holds his iiremises on the express condi-
tion that he will not sell liijuor on his premi.-es,
; or allow it to be sold ; and we were assured by some of
' the inha'oitants that any breaeli of this agreement was
followed by immeiliate expulsion from tho town.
IJeing cuiious to know to what extent the ('om[iany
had actually succeeded in their object, wo <iuestioned
the fireman closely as to whetlier liquor fould be got
: in the place. At first, he was extremely reserved and
would know nothing ; but he ultimately thaweil so fpr
I as to inform us, partly in words and partly by winks and
I gestures, that, as a matter of fact, those who knew how
to go abouttho business conhlgut what they wantedatthe
i beautiful " teiiiiieranco " hotel, the only one in the
city. We diil not test the accuracy of his information ;
• liut I am disposed to think, from all I heard else-
' where, that the regulations are rarely violated, and
' that the liijuor trallie is virtually excluded from tho
i town. IJut, unfortunately for the good intentions ot
the Comjianv, another township, which knows neicher
<i. .M. TuUinan nor his temperance zeal, has siirung up
within a few hundred yards of the great factory.
Saloons abound there, and those i'ullmanites who arc
determined to h ive their liuuor can get it by taking a
short walk across the imaginary line which separates
the two towns. The Comiiany, however, no doubt
think they have done a good work in preventing tlie
throwing of temptation in the way of their work-
men as thny walk about their own city.

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33 WEST MAIN STRHT

WEBSTER, N.Y, 14580

(716) 873-4503

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Some weeks after my visit to Pullman, I fell in with
n Kontlcman wlio Icnow tlie place well, nnd wlio
explniiieil to mo thnt Mr. I'ullmnn's otherwise wise ind
buiicflucnt sclicnic liiid been marred by two Morions
inistitkes. In the first placo, no working; man in tlic
town can fvur liopo to bo tlio owner of liis own Iiduso.
So detormiiicd is Air. i'uilninn to retain entire control
over tlic pl:icc, ami tiiiis toonaiiro tliecarryin^-uut of \\Vi
regulations, tliat ho will not, under any circumstances,
cun.sent to the sale of a single Itousc. But the very
flower of the working n en in AmericM, like tlioir
bretliren in ICngland, havo a lankering for a liome
which they can call their own ; and the result is that
many of them refuse to live in TuUman, where they are
necessarily tennnts-at-will. 'rhisiHadrawl)ack,nodoubt,
but I presume that Mr. I'ullman's Company, seeing
they cannot liavc all they want, have deliberately made
some sacrifice in the (juality of their staff for the s.iko
of continuing masters in their own city.

A second mistake, as my informant put it, related to
religion. Mr. I'ullman is, it seems, a somewhat iKtero-
do\ person, who has not much faith in eitiier the
churo'.cs or tlieelergy. He, nevertheless, built a beauti-
ful church in a central position, and, being very impartial
and latitiidinarian, heotforcil to "rent" it— to use tl>o
American phrase in that case ma.'o and i)rovided -
to any denomination which choso to pay him a moiicr-
atc return on the cost of the building. If t\.G full-
maiiites were all nf one way of tliinking, they would
ts'sily raise the rent ; but, as a matter of fact, thoy are
jiretty much like the people of an I'higlish town of the
same si/.e— that is to say, they are sjilit up into a do, en
or a score of sects, ditfeiin^ from each other on the
most vital anil trcmenduus ijuo^tions, from the
length of the Devil's tail upwards. The re-
sult is that no (mo f<ec< is strong enough
to rent the lio.mtiful church, and it is conse-
• luently generally closed, while the various congregn-
fions are woisliipping in all sorts id odd holes and
corners. One would s.ippose that three or four of the
larger con:;regations miglit veiy well rent the ehurch
between them, and hold their services at dillerent
l)eriods of the day, just as the Catholics and I'rotci-
tants do in a few extra tolerant and lil)eral places in
Switzerland. I'.ut this jilan has not been thought of cr
has Iteen found im])ra ticable, an<l s) .Mr. Pullman's
outlay on his church brings nu dividend.

I hope I lia\e now said enough about Tullman to
induce any of my readers, who may happen to bo going
within a (lay's journey of it, to make a jioint of spend-
ing a few hours in examining it for themselves. it i.s,
in its way, tho most remarkable place in the world.

A GREAT UAILWAY.

My travelling comiianion and I left Chicago by the
Ch cago aiiil North Western K.iilway ; and as that line
is one of the most iiuport;uit, most, enterprising, and
most pro8peri)Us of all tlie great railroads whieh centre
in Chieago, I will give a brief description of it, in tho
hope of eouvoying some idea of what a great American
railway is like.

The Chii'ago and N'orth Western bcar^ tho same rela-
tion to Chicago as the London and N irth Western
nnd the Croat Western together liear to London.
That is to xay, it stretches its long arms away
to tho North, tho North west, and the West.
Of course, I do n(jt mean that, as a trading
concern, it is eiiual in importance to our own two
greatest companies combined, That is far froLn being

the ease : but it is n fact that it works a greater mileage
of lines than our North Western and '^reat Western
together. Its mileage now considerably exceeds .5,000
milss, and is constantly increasing as the vast prairie
districts wliich it traverses become settled. A mile of
single line across a newly settled district in the West is,
of course, a very different thing from a mile of
double or quadruple tra(;k through the suburbs
of London or the busy manufacturing districts
uf central or northern Britain. The two things are not
very much alike eitiier in the amount of capital repre-
sented or in the value of tho business done. But
after all, when one remembers that tho great city from
which tho Chicago and North Western radiates is itself
the creation of a single generation, and that many of
the pros])erous towns which are linked to it by that
line are but of yesterday, the existence of such a rail-
way system, owned orcontroUod by a single corporation,
must be regarded as an amazing fact. And
one's wonder is enhmccd wlien one remembers
that the North AN'estern is only one of some
doz(;n or more great railway systems which own
Chicago as their centre, head-quarters, and mainstay.
For, great as the North Western is, it has no monopoly
of the traffic to or from any important centre of trade.
It was the first company to reaeh the Missouri Jliver,
and thus to complete the second link in tho chain which
now binds the Atlantic and tho Pacific together. liut
two other companies have since constructed parallel
lines from Chicago to the Jlissouri, and the competition
for the western trufhc is fiercj and incRs.saut. Tho North
Western has to contend with a similar competition for the
traffic to Milwaukee, .St. I'nul, .MinneajJolis.andM-.nitoba.
To the east, south, and south-west of Chicago, a dozen
other companies fight iiard for the busin(!.ss ; but with
their competition the North Western is in no way con-
cernoil. Its lines are all to the north or tho west of
Chicago, asitsiiameimlicatcs. The States and Territories
it servos arc Wisconsin, lowi, Minnesota, D.d«ota, and
Northern Illinois, To the westward, as I havo a'roady
said, tho North Western runs to the Missouri, a
distance of 4110 miles, terminating at Council
Bluffs, opiiosite Omaha. The two towns uro
connected by a fine bridge over the river, which
is used l>y the passengers of all tho companies
which meet at this important point. Towards tlie
north, the North Western throws out another long arm,
nearly (iOO miles in length, which skirts the shores of
Lake Michigan and Creen Bay (part of Michigan), and
terminates at two or three points on Lake Superior. A
mor3 important section is tliat which gives direct ac3es<
tr the prosperous and rapidly growing twin cities of St.
Paul and Alinneapolis. This, also, is over 4U0 miles in
length. At a placo called Klroy, on this section of tho
railway, a line of immense length diverge'j to the lelt
an(i strikes due west across the prairi^M of southern
Minnesota r.nd Dakota. Its tortninationis (or was a few
months ago) on tho Missouri Kivor, at a place called
Pierre, It^l miles from Chicago. Fron; this point, stage)
coaches run en to the I'dack Hills, on the frontier of
Wyoming ; and the railway itself will certainly be con-
tinued to that point before long, if, indeed, tho work
has not already been accomplished. Another important
section of tho North Western is a line which connects
St. Paul and Omaha, by wiy of Sioux City (pionounced
as if spelled Soo City). This section is, 1 believe, owned
by a different company (the Chicago, St. Paul, Minne-
apolis, and Omaha), but thiscon.pmy is in close alliance
with the North Western, and tho lines of the two con-
stitute virtually one system.

The five trunk lines I have dosoiibcd conntitute the
nmin arteries of the North Western system ; but, liito
miin lines in Kn^land, thuy are hound together at
numerous points by a l:ir;;o number of cross anil bianoli
lines, wliich accommodate every city and town of any
imiiortance in tlio vast district ocuupieii. A laihvay
map of Wisconsin. low.i, and Illinois is, indeed, not un-
Ike a siinil.ir map of Lanaishircand York.shire, so com-
plete, aj)parently, is the network of lines. As a matter
of fact, the lines are, of con se, less numerou', in pro-
|iort:on toarea, in those NVustern fStaton than in our
own manufacturing; districts. In comparing' maps, it is
necessary tocomp;>re tlieir respeslivo scales als >. '["hero
are not in exi'^tence such detadeil maps of the States
as wo have of our Isnglish counties. Our maps aro on
a large scile, theiis on a small one.

The financial position of too many of the Rreat
American railways is unsatisfactory in the extreme. In
numerous instances, irregularities on an enormous scale
have reduced the value of the ori;,'ir.al stock to nil.
Clever but unsciupulous adventurers have ob-
iaiuud tlie suiiremo control, and have deliber-
ately sacrificetl the interests of the proprietors
to the one object of featlioriuit tlieir own
dirty nesta. Capital has been '' wito-eil," by the
nuire or less dislio:iost issuo of now stcol., until it has
been too diluted to be worth ounin,-. In not a few
cases, the original shares liavo ceased to have any real
exisience, liut have been carefully kept in a statj of
artificial vitality, to serve as counters in stockexclianijo
Rambling, and in o:her sliady operations by wirch the
smart ones aro accustomed to swindle the giccnhorns.
'I'lio result is that the Amoricnn share list now contains
the names of ou'v three or four great railroad com-
)ian:es whose ordinary shares are above (lar. 'i'he
Chxago and North Western is one of tids very
small number. Althou.;h at the present time
all American railroad securities are suffering from the
elfeets of one of the severest financial crises ever
experienced in the Stites, the Xortli Western oidinasy
sli ires stand atlori. an 1 its lu-eference shares at moio
than i:<0. These tiguies represent, in the piosent state
cf tiie market, a remark dily strong' i^osition. 'I'i o
Northwestern is, indeed, like its Uritish namesake, »
great, successful, and well-managed line, boili finan-
ciallv and mech.iuiially. As a sound concern, it appears
to have few eiiuals in the States

A COUNTiJY FOi; AGIlICrLTUHAL
K.MlCItANT.S.
•Tudging from what I siw ami heard, I am iiisi)oscd to
jiid\ that the Xorih Western ami its allied Hins pass
through some of the most eli.;ible districts in which
agricultural emigrants coidd [mss bly .settle. IJoth the
North Western and the St. I'aul, JIinnoai)()lis, and
Omaha Comi)nnies ha\e still immense areas of fertile
lauds on sale, at prices wliich to an Kiiglishmaii ai)pear
riiliculously small— tliat is to say, from ai)out a guinea
ill! acre upwi.rds. Most of these lands are jii lirie.
This means, of course, that they are almost entirely
de tituteof timber. They aio covered, for the mo>t
jiarl, with grass, much of which is good fo:' feo(i. The
land can be broken mi and sown as soon as the settler
gets upon it. In this respect, .'ctklers on the prairie
have ail advantage over those wb'> go into the forest,
where the land has to oe cleared of its
huge " weeds " by laborious processes of
which I have already tried to convey some
idea in my account of a backwoods city in Michigan.

But it IS only fail' to point out that all tho advantageB
arc not on tho side of tho prairie settler. The settler
in tho forest may have to remove tho trees, but then
that \ cry process sup))lies him with materials for his
house and other buddings, his fences, and his fuel.
Moreover, if he is a wise man, he allows pans of the
forest to remain, ratches of woodlaml here and there
are useful, not only as permanent sources of fuel, but
as necessary elements in the laiulscape, as shelters from
the wind, and, generally, as wholesome modifying in-
lluences with regard to climate and health. The prairie
Settler, on the other hand, has no trees or tree stumps
to reckon with ; he c in nut in his plough at once. Ihit
for that very reason ho must buy the materials of his
frame house at a distance, must either do without
fences (as nodoulit he very well can in many instances)
or bu^ wire, and must purchase eoal or wood fuel at a
high price, I believe tho railway companies render
all the .lid they can to settlers hy conveying the
materials for their frame hous-s and barnsata very low
rate.

I do not know enough of agriculture to ofTer a
positive opinion as to whether I would myself rather
begin life again in a forest or ou a prairie. I have no
settled "))iiiic)n on the sul>ject, but I have, to the best
of my at)ility, pointed out tho chef advantajies and
disadvantages oi both. Oiv \)iece of advice 1 can oiler
to emigrants with H■<\{^i^.y - Xcicr Imii hinil irlt/ioiit lirKt
,s'(</)(;/ it, 'I'liis may seem sujiertluous advice, but
it is not. Millions of acre; have been bought " off tho
map." That is to say. the settler lias been shown a
nicely-coloured ma]), with tlie counties, the sections
and tho sipiaie miles all marked out with themathenu-
tical i)recisiun of a idiess board, and be has simply bar-
ga'ned for such-nid such s piare blocks as there set out.
Itcadcrs of Dickons will remember that this was how
Martin ( hu :/.lewit I oui^ht the dismal swamji which tho
astute laiul agent had c'iristeiied Kden. l!ut a sale of
this sort is not necessarily due to conscious dishonesty.
Tho land <ommissioncr of one of tho companies
told mo that vast anas of tho railway lands
had .levcr been accurately surveyeil. All he knew was
that his Comiiany was entitleil to a certain belt of
tcriitory :;8 represented by the numbered sjuares <m tiio
map; but whether any particular sijuaie consisted of
iiuftking bog, of lake, or of good soliil soil, w.is in many
cases more tli.iu he could answer for, lie said he always
advised setilers to see tin; land they might have a fancy
for before they completed their purchase.

It is, I think, certain tliat the great majority of agri-
cultural emigrants prefer to settle in the prairie States.
The rate, for instance, at which. Dakota is
filling up is luarv ellous. This is the Territory of tho

va-t wheat farms
much. I was told
of course) who has

of whiih we have heard so
of one farmer (a .Scotchm in,
L'ii,00O or ;W,UOO acres under the
plough, idl in one compact block. It is said that on
such a farm as his a dozen or a score of reiiiing
111. chines may lie seen uoing all at once in what is
viriually one immcn e fiidd. -And this mention of
rcaiiing inachiucrv reminds mo of a fact whicii illus-
trates very forcibly the rapid settlement of Dakota.
(•n my return from tho West, I wasintroducedtu tlieheail
of a great implement niaiuifactuiing firm at llichmond,
Indiana. This gentleman a <,Hiaker from Yorkshire)
told me that his lirmhad just extended their operations
to Dakota, and that their agent there had cleared
ir>,OiMj dollars (over t';<,0(.iO) commission on his first
year's sales. I am afraid this statement will excito
envy among implement agents at home, and result in

< !

i i

Ey -^

i^sa

I*.

4--

n rufih nf that clnss of pooplo to Dakota. In that cnso,
I am afraid ,l"<,0(K)a year will never again be mude.

Dakota is still only half -developed poetically. It is,
as yet, only a Territory. I'ut tlio inhabitants say it
ought to be a State, and glial/ bo a State ; and wlien I
was in the neighbourhood last jear, they were tiireaten-
int{ that, if ("onuiess continued much longer to refuiso
to advance them to the coveteil rank, they would secede
from th' I'nion and set up in the governing bu>inc-^s on
their own ace junt. This of course, was all buncombe.
A few thousands of farnieis, scattered over a Territory
as largo as (Jreit Uritain, are hardly likely to
attempt a movement similar to that in which a
dozen gre:it States failed so ruinously less than
2) yens ago. The I ).;kota people are, however, out at
elbows witli the Fedeial (iovermnent over more than
one i|Uestion, and the dispute last autumn asumuil
somewhat the character of a farce. When the Territory
was first settled, and for some time after, the |)opuhi-
tion wasconfined almost entirely to its south east coiner,
and a ])lace on the Missouri, c died Vankton, in that
corner, was selected as tlie capital. ]>ut the recent
opening of tlio N'orthern Pacific liailroud and of the
western extensioi:s of the North Western and other
lines has led to a very rapid development of
the central and northern parts of the Territory.
It soon became obvious tiiat some more central city
than Yankton would liave to be adopto I as the capitd,
and last autumn the order wont fortii that Yankton
should transfer its honours to IJismarck, a new i.nd
thriving place in a commanding i)ositiun viz., at the
l)oint where the Northern J'acilic Railway cros es the
Missouri River. The State ollicials. who had no doubt
shaken down into comfortable quarters at Y'ankton, did
not relish the order to tran-fer themselves and
their .ed tape to n newer, colder, and altogether
less pleasant jdace, sjveral hundiods of miles further
up tlie ri\er. They, or most of thorn, accordingly
ignored tho order, and went about their business as if
nothing had liaiipened When I lo:t tho country in
October, tliedisijute was still unsettled. Jlismarck was
tho legal capital, atul some of the te.ritorial liusiness
was being transacted there ; but the majority of the
officials stuck tirmly to ^'ankton. Jor aught I know,
they may be there still.

Another district which is i)eing ra[)idly settled is
north-east Nebraska, the region lying between the
Missouri and Tlatto Rivers, The increase of ))opulation
and the growth of towns in this locality are ama/.ing.
Tiie district hasoidy lately been connected with Onuiha
and Sioux City, the principal i it es in the neig ibour-
hood, by the oiiening of the Ne'iraska section of tho
Chicago. St. Raul, Minneapolis, and Omr.ha iJailroad.
I cannot ijotter giv(; an idea of the rate at which towns
grow, and the promptitude with which enterprising
journalists su))ply them with newspapers, than by
quoting tho following from tho Hnrtii\<iton J/rnili,
a brand-new paper published at the brand-new city of
llartington, Cedar County, Nebraska. Tho Ihrahl
says : —

" This paper, commenced at HartinKton a few weeks ago
anil l>efore llu- tirst biiililing in the town \\i\a couiiileteil,
has since eiuloavoureil to ki" p step with the reiiiarkalilo
growth, eiieriiv, and iinproveii.ent of its liiitli-plare. The
llcKilit is a large, S pane, 4S oubnnu paper ; it is ualilislied
weekly; it is the oltijial or;;ati of the town and county,
ami enjoys a patronage from suliscriliors and adverliseis
which is tiallering and eucHiiragiu^. It is duvoleil,
generally, to news, literatuie, and good nior.ils, and must
especially to promoting the best interests of llartingtou and
Cedar County. With its magniticent inducements of fertile

lands, nnfniling streams, nnd hpaltby climate, Cedar County's
present popiiliition of 4,UUII will lie doubled within a year. Its
principal town, Hartingtoii, now ten weeks old, has alreaily
• lOtI citizens. S.ieli raj<id growth, though unpreceilented
outside of western mining regions, is wjinanted liy its being
the business centre and stock uiid grain market of a wide
extoiu of cotuitry. Already its business is uredtor than in
niiny towns three times its size and at least 5U times Its iiye.
To the task of assisting to bring into notice this livi',
growing, ;ind energetic town, nnil its unrivalled, but at this
time partiaily-develoned county, t\\e Henild takes pleasure
in devoting itseli."

MILWAUKHK.

ToRN.\noi;.s and HoxKr. Firks.

Milwaukee is tho largest city in tho State of Wis-
consin, but it is not the state capital. The honour of fill-
ing that post liclongs to Madison, a smaller but moie
centrally-situated place. Milwaukee is ir^ many res-
pects similar to Chicago. Like its great neighbour, it
lies on tho western shore of Lake Michi^'an, at the
mouth of a small creek called tho Milwaukee River.
This creek, like the Chicago River, is made uii of two
smaller streams, which unite only a short distance
from the mouth. The trade of Milwaukee is, more-
over, very similar to that of ( hicago. The same causes
which created the larger city gave birth to the lesser
also.

The distance from Chicago to Milwaukee by tho
North Westein Railway is S.') miles. The line skirts
tho coast of the lake the greater part of the distance,
passing first through the beautiful northern suburbs of
Chicago, which strangle away many miles along the
shore towards the north, and then several independent
towns, of which Racine appears to be the principal.
The mention of Racine, by the way, supjjlies me with
a te.xt for a few remarks on tornadoes. A month or two
■efore 1 passed that city, it had been visited by one of
thcsj terrible calamities. Tho track of the hurricane
through the outskirts of the town could still be traced
by means of a belt of new or newly-repaired frame
houses. The tornado apjiearcd to have swept straight
down from the centre of the State towards tho lake,
and I could not help thinking what the conso'iuences
would have been if it had passed over the centre of
Chicago or Milwaukee, instead of through tho suburbs
of a comparatively small place like Racine.

Those terrible natural phenomena are, it must bo ad-
mittc'l, a serious drawback to the jdcasuro of life in
tho Western States. It is not that they actually atfect
any con ddoi able i att of the total area of tho country ;
for though their course may bo many miles in length, it
is usually very narrow— sometime-, indeed, less than a
(luarler of a mi!e. The sulfeiing they cause is mainly
due to the dread they ins|iire and keep alive in the
breasts of thousands w'o never see the reality. It is
the fear and expectation that tho thing m i)i happjii
which perpetually torment the nervous and timid in
habitants of the districts most frequently ravaged. This
attitude of constant expectancy is torture to a certain
' lass of minds.

A r.,ondoner once appealed to tho law to compel a
neighbour to get rid of a cock whose crowing was
declared to be a nuisance. I'ressed by the owner of the
bird, he was obliged to admit tliat it did not crow, on
an average, more than three or four times in an hour.
The defendant triumphantly asked if one crow every
quarter hour, on an average, could bo regarded as an
intolerable nuisance. Tho complainant replied that the
crowing itself was not so much a cause of suffering as
his suspense while waHiivj for the next crow. In the

! '

Hfttno Wiiy, the lives of tliousamla of peoMlo in tho
Western States are embittered at certain seasons by
the tlioULjht that at any moment a torna lo mny
buiKt upon them. They are, indeeil, " waitins f"r if-
Not one in a thousand of tliosu who tiius live in dre;td
ever experience the object of thoir apprehension, t>ut
tlic'ir mental satFurins is none tho less real. Tlie trutii,
of course, is that a tornado is m calamity of a kind
whicli deeply impro-isea the imagination, like an earth-
iiuake, or a forest tiri-, or any other phenomenjn in
wliich supernatural forces, or wiiat the unsciontiiio
mind mistakes fur such, aru called into action. Nothin;^
IS. to tho ij;iior;mt, m )re sugijejtivo of the supernatural
th'in a Kroat tornailo. Jf anyone supposes that
till' American pipers systom iticdly exaggerate
tho extraordinary doini^s of these loc il hurricanes,
lii^ is mistaken. I'LxaKseration is often impossible.
Tiiosc who have never seen any more violent disturbance
of the atmosphere than a winter or e luinootial galo in
I'jitflamlcan form no concejitio i of an .Vmerican tor-
undo. I'hc two thinca are, indeed, totally distinct. 'The
toinado partakes somewhat of th character of a water-
spout. It possesses tho same spiral inotion the same
ail lazing power of suckin;; u|) whatever comes within itsin-
tluence. It exerts not only nnenorinou!? hoiizontnl force,
l)Ut also a lifting power of an almost inci edible char-
a( ter. Hay-stacks, farm iinplcmonts, household furni
tiu-e, cattle, an^l human bein.;s are picked
up, carried a ctutain distance tiirough the air,
and then diopp;'d in a nmro or less damaged condition.
I\Ir. Howells, the well-known novelist, with whom 1
had some talk about these teirible visit itions, told mc
in all seriousness that a friend of his once saw a shower
of farming utensils, parts of ,vag:;ons, and articles of
furniture fall apparently out of a clear sky. They had
been picked up by a toinado u short distance olF, and
liad iieen dropp.d as soon as tho suckin,' power had
exhausted itself. A day or two after we left
Minni'sota, a section of that State was \isitud by
Olio of the most terrible and fatal tornadoes on record.
In this case, tlie air fiend, as the American iiapurs
call jd the invisible agency, lifte<l a movin/ p.i8seni,'er
ti'.iin from tho rails, and made a perfect wreck of it.
Tlh' loss of life was terrible, and the scene one of the
most extraordinary ever w.tncssed. A neighbouring
city (Itoohetter, I think), consisting mainly of frame
buildings, was almost entirely ra/.ed to the ground. As
may lie readily supposed, i read the di'tails of this
awful catastrophe next day with alisorbing interest,
but 1 omitted to note the number of lives lost and
the amount of miterial damage done, and 1 am afraid
to sujiply the figures from memory lest 1 should be
accused of exaggeration.

A man or woman who is callable of calculating
])robabilities will not be deteiieil from settling in tho
West sokdy tlu'oui;h dread of the toinado. .Vftur all.
tlie chances are a thousmd to one th it any particular
settler Will live ami die without siiU'ering in the
smallest degree from such a calamity ; and tliat is an
amount of assurance with which, in many other i.ainan
aUaira, we have to rest content. In certain districts,
moreover, the inhabitants are beginning to take what
ajipears to be the only possible precaution. No erec-
tion above the ground seems to bo able to resist the
force of a first class tornado ; but there ia no evidence
that any subteiranban structure, such as a tunnel, can
bo in any way affected. (In saying this, I am perhaps
a little hard on tho Western editor who declared that
hill mil had been blown awai/.) Anyhow, it ia beooming
fa^hiouuble in soins parts to construct a vaulted celUr

or grotto near a houso, so that tho residents may have
a safe retreat to which to report iluring the abort time
(sehlom more than a few minutes) that a tornado lasta.
Tho-e refuges may be seldom used, but they cannot
fail to bo real comforts to tiiniil people.

'I' eso descriijtiona of tho doings of tlie American
tornado may appear perfectly incredildo to many of my
readers, and some of them may po.ssibly think I have
been victimised by reckless or imaginative Yankee
oditoi'K. Let me remind such sceptics that even in this
country such )ihenoineiia occasionally occur on a liithor
alarming scale. In the year ls."i.'» or 1S.">(1, a large
orchiril lying alongside the Old Wells Koad, on
the hill above (Uastonbury, was struck by auoh
a storm, and a narrow strip was completely
cleared of trees. Tlio~e which refused to bo turn up
by the roota were simidy sn^ipped off close to the
ground. All, of course, fell in one direction, and tho
branches were then violently crushed up together,
just as an umbrella is clo-ed. A man who witnessed
tho scene at close quarters was temporarily paralysed,
and w IS unalile for many hours to describe what he
saw. 'J'he devastate I orchard was inspected during
the next few days by thousands of jicoplc, myself
nmon; the numbei'. l''our or five ye.irs ago, as
near as I can remember, a similar liuiri-
cane visited tho neighbourhood of liournemouth
and the .Solent. In one place, a donkey cart wns fairly
lifted olF the ground and droiiped a few yards otf. IJut
it was olf ( 'owes that the visitation assumed its moat
characteristic form. A largo number of bricks were
picked up from a liargo which was lying there, and
Were presently rained down— most of them into tho
sea, but some of them upon the decks of certain yachts
which were lying at anchor m ar. If a tornado is capable
of playing such" incredible'" pranks us these in a country
where natural forces are seen in thoir mildest forms, it
oui^ht not to bo altogether impossible to believe the
accounts we hear only too often of the doings of
similar plienomena in parts of the world where natural
operations are on a far grander scale.
.Viul now for .Milwaukee.

The city, as I have .-aid, is on tho shore of I.akt!

Michigan. The site was first settled in ISlCi, a year or

two after the incorporation of Uhicago, but it was not

until 184i> that tho jdace became a city. In 1S4<», it

contained only 1, 700 [leople, but hy ISiiO the populition

had reached I."),0il0, and it is now between 1. 'SO, 000 and

110,000. Nearly one half of tho inhabitants are (ier-

mans, or, as the .Vmericans call them, Dutch, and one

hears as much (ierman as l-lnglish spoken in tho

I streets and tram cars. Th.^ (iermana constitute

■ a very solid and valuable element in tho

I strange (imnium fial/icni'ii which constitutes tho

i -Vmerican people. ."Milwaukee is a place where their

j inllucnce is of necessity overwholmir.g • and, if wo

'■ may jmlge of tiiem from the progress .i.r ,iresent con-

1 dition of the city, it is impossible to doulit that their

intluence is, on tho whole, a wholesome and steadying

; one. 'I In; prosperity of iMilwaukee is everywhere s|)oken

: of with respect. It is admitted to bo a solid thing, and

: not a mere tiash in the pan. The citizens find

: a legitimate source of pride in the fact that,

t " unlike some cities wo could mention,'' IVIilwaukee

ia mil three inches deep in mortgages. In fact, it owns

, itself, and is not in |iawn to Kaatern capitaliata. The

I remark about " other cities " is, of course, a aly poke

I at .Milwaukee's mighty neighbour, Chicago; but it is

' only fair to remember that Milwaukee has grown at a

I rate which is moderate compared with that of Chicago.

♦ «

n»

nml, further, that Milw.uikec has nrvcr seen fifty
niillioriH' worth of its Mcnnniiiliitcil wealth ih'stioycd in
a few hours hy a Hinj^lo calamity. If .'Milwaukee
really owns itself, the fact \* vei v ciclitalilo to it. On
the other haiiil, it is no iiiscreilit to (.'hi(;a'.;o that it
heloM;ig liu\'cly to non resiilents, A ni.in who can do a
Hafc ami hi;;lily ))rolit.ible busitief'H on hor^'owed cnpital
is not thought unwiHobrcause "'.e borrows.

I'lio Hito of Milwaukee is more diver ifiod and
I>icturcsi|Uo than that of (.'hicago. 'i'lio ground rises
pontly from the lake shore. <lescci>ds a.'ain to the river,
and again ascends immediately bojond to a jiliiteau
which is more than HW feet above the Like level. 'I'lio
north end of the city covers some rather Idgh bluffs
overlianging the lake, and it is here that the rank and
fashion anil wealth of iMilwaukec have taken up ti.eir
abode. And a very charming abode it is. The rpsid-
cnces are of the usual costly and pli'asant character.
Standing high above the lake, they enjoy what is to all
intents and imriioscs a fine sea view, for looking out
m)on such ft sheet of water as Luke Michigan is precisely
like looking out on the ocean.

Alilwaukee is one of the most regularly-built even of
American cities. The main thoroughfures are veiy
wide, an<l many of them possess fine avenues of shulc
trees. 'I'ii:' Milwaukee brick is of a pleasant cream colour,
and to this circumstance is due the fact that the pl.ice is
l)0))ularly known ivs the Cream (.'itynf the Lakes. 'I'hc
])riucipal tramcar line, of which there are suveial, is
known as the Treim City Itailroad. I'nlikc most
American cities, Milwaukee is, no far. without any
large ))ublic park. It is also destitute of jublic build-
ings of the first-class, though it ))(>ssesscs many stru.--
tures of model ate pietcnsions, which are no doubt well
adapted to the purimses for which they were designed.
The churches are numerous, and coiisiilerably more than
half of them belong to the Germans and Noiwegians.
The jirincipal business erections arc grain elevators,
flour mills, iron-rolling mills, pork-jiacking houses, and
lager-beer breweries, which last are on a gigantic scale.
Agricultural implements, )nachintry, leather, tubacco,
and cigars arc among the principal manufactures.

The most sensational event in the recent history of
Milwaukee was. like that of Chicago, a fire. lUit
whereas the great fire of Chicago destioyed jiroperty to
an almo.^t incalculable amount, while it caused the
deaths of comparatively few per.sons, the Milwaukee
fire burnt only a single building, but proved fatal to
nearly a hundred ))ersons. The firo to whicli I refer
was that whi-di, two or three years ago, destroyed the
largest of the Milwaukee hotels, the Xewall House.
This calamity created almost as great a sensation
throughout tlie States as the incalculably greater tire
at Chicago. This was due to the fact of its having been
attended by exceiitionally horrible and distressing
scenes. So far as I could gather from an inspection of
the still vacant site, the hotel occupied a whole block,
])resenting a separate face to each of the four
streets. The building was a lofty one, after the
manner of American hotels ; and, as usual,
the servants of the establishment occupied the
upper fioors. The fire broke out below at night, the
staircases were quickly destroyed, and the wretched
peo|de near the x'oof had no way of escape left. Many
threw themselves from the windows and were killed by
the fall, but many more were burnt to cinders (or,
as the Americans say, "to a crisp '). How many
perished was never exactly known, so complete was
the destruction of some of the bodies ; but the most
moderate estimato placed the number at over 70,

This dreadful calamity atfeoted the i'nagin ttion and
upset the e(iuanimity of .Vmerirans as few events ev( i
have or could. Hotel life in the States is a thir.g in
which everybo'ly i-i <lirectly i>i- indirectly interested to {i
t'reater extent than in any other country in the wmld :
for the Americans are, lUove 11 others, a tra\elling and
hotel-freiiuontiii.; puopl •. The .Milwa'ikoo fire caused
a real sc ire throuudiout the count -y ; and the news-
papers, striking while the iron was liot, unanimously
demanded that hotol-kce)iers should ilcvote more stuily
to the security of their guests. The alirni was not with
out its good results, '("lie j)ro)iriet:irs of hotels really
do apjicar to have taken the terrible lesson seriously
to heart. I do not remember entering a single
hotel which did not possess firee>ca,'es of some sort.
\\'hether they were always effective is more tlian I am
prepared to say. At the Fvirl)y Hou o, the Milwaukee
hotel at which land my friend sleiit. there were out-
side iron ladrlcrs, rising from balcony to balcony. In-
side I noticed a very simple ;tnd incxiiensive contrivance
which, in case of a fire, could not fail to be of .service
to all i)ersons capable of kef|iinc cool, 'i'his was si i ply
a coil of strong rope, attached to a ring in the floor im-
mediately belowcvory passage window. In ca e of fire, a
personhad only to open the window, thiow out one end
of the lopo, and slide down it. 'I his probably is what no
nervous person would succeed in diing. In many other
hotels wo were in, there were inside iron staircases pro-
vided e.vclusively as fire escapes, and notices posted in
the corridors familiarised the gue-ts with the |)roper
direcf ion to take in case sudden e-^capo became necessar.N',
At a I'altimore hotel I saw another ingpnious ariange
ment. A round hole, abo\it a yard in diameter, had
been cut in every floor, and throui^h the centre of this
hole passed a smooth iiole, somewhat similar to that l.iy
which (as recently described) the firemen avoid coming
downstairs. A sort of circular mntticss, with a hole in
the middle for the pole, exactly fdls the opetdng in the
floor, and upon this Ho two ; emicircular iron flajis.
which safely cover uj) the mattress and the hole on all
ordinary occasions. Supposing a cucst on the top floor
to bo aroused hy an alarm of fire, he rushes to the pole,
throws back the hinged iron flaps, one to the left and
one to the right, grasps the pule, and jumps upon
the mattress. He thi.s slides smoothly down
to the next floor, where the mattress stops and breaks
Ins fall. AVithin a yard or two of the spot where he
alights, he finds a similar ]mle arrangement leading
down to the next floor - and so on, floor by floor, until
he reaches the ground. It is ob-.ious that scores of
people might follow each other down these poles at
intervals of only a second or two. The apparatus,
moreover, is so simple tliat it cannot well get out of
working order.

I cannot recommend travellers to put up at the Kirby
House. It is a third-rate hotel, and not to be mentioned
in the same ilay with most of the houses at which wc
were entertained. It happened, moreover, that when
we were at Milwaukee the photographers of the I'nited
States were holding a great trade (perhaps I ought to
say professional) conference or congress in the city.
Ajiparently every American trade and profession holds
its periodical conference. Even the barbers anil the
waiteis have theirs, at which they concert
common action for the benetit of their
rcsi)eclivo " professions." The Milwaukee hotels
were crowded with men wearing ribbons, badges,
and other marks which distinguished them from non-
photngraphing humanity, and the presence of n great
swarm of them at the Kirby House did not add to the

comfort nnd (ittinctioiiH of tlia' liostoliy. So full was
the I'lnco that thn corri'lor^ tind every otl>or Available
nook anil corner wltc toinponirily fillud with beils, in
wiiirh iihotoyraphcrs Moii^lit rt-posc, ami (as a stranjrer
niiKlit think) sought it in vain, lor thoiu'h my com-
(lanion and 1 cri-pt stciithily to our roDtn en tip toe, ho
iiH nut to diHtuibtho poor fellows wiioxo boln tilled
the i)a-<sa^;eH till they looked like Winl-i in a
workhnnscor a hospital, nobody else appeared to make
the sliiihtest uttenii't to be (|uiet. iHirint; the fjruator
)nrt of the ni:;lit, the photographers were stumpinff
heavily backwiirdg and forwards thiouj^h the corridors,
IIS if bent on making; as much noise as po8sil)io. For
tho>e of their brethren who were sleeping, or attumpt-
ins; to sleep, " out in the cold,'' not tlio smallest con-
sideration appeared to be shown, it wa-i the incessant
noise of the railroad car over again, and 1 can only hope
that the men in the iiassaaes had become so far
" acclimatized '' to eveilastin.; clattir as to bo able
to fleep in spito of it. I fancy this must have beci
the case, for I heard no word ot complaint orexpostida-
tion. I confess that my own patience was entirely o.x-
hausted before ilayliKlit. The incessint tramping of
men in heavy boots close to our chiimbor door was bad
c)ioni;h : but to make matters wor.«e, a number of thfi
lihoto;,'ra]ihors xot together about midnight in the room
immediately over ours, and lie^an an animateil dis-
cussion, apparently on the results of that day's trade
''session, " which lasted well into the small hourc.
Oocasionally, and at no distant intervals, one or more
of the party beat a sort of tattoo on the bare lloor
With their licavy boots, apparently for the exilusivo
I, 'nelit of the i'.ritishors below. It w.is not until day
liLi4an to ihiwn that ther,' was any chmco of sound
hli'ep ; and as some of the photo;;raidieis were eaily
r sei.s, the interval of compilative nuict was very
short. The late birds had not retired to their nests
more than an hour or two before the early birds bovaii
to move, and the heavy march along the passages was
rcsumeil.

'J'ho .Vinerican^ have many virtues —thousands of
them, I dare say— and nobody pays a more ungrudging
tribute to them than I do. But there is at lea^t one
speck on the sun, and 1 trust 1 shall not be crucified for
liointing it out. The majority of the Americans do ;i»<
realise the beauty and advantage of lest and quiet.
Whatever they may I e in their own homes, they are
nervously restless and inconsiderately noisy when
al>roa<l ; and these photographers at Milwaukee were
fairly typical of the great mass of their countrymen.

The city newspapers were an amusing study during
the sitting of this trade conference. Its daily debates
were, of course, fully reported, under half-a-dozen of
th ' usual " horse headings,'' the reports being inter-
spersed at intervals of an inch or two by some striking
statement or sentiment set out in a line in small
capitals, (ireat ingenuity was displayed in the at-
tempts to vary the chief heading day by day. An Kng-
li h editor would h...e had some such mitterof-fact
heading as " I'hotographers' Conference '" standing all
the time. I?ut the American editor scorns the comnion-
jdace. He looks for a new, striking, and comical head-
ing every day. One day, the leading Milwaukee paper
headed its report of the conference with the words
" Face Flatterers " in type an inch high. Next day, the
heading, in equally large letters, was " Photo
I 'bellows." And so the variation was kept up day by
day.

Thib reference to the press of Milwaukee reminds me
that one of the city newspapers ia Peck't Sun, and that

from the oftice of that journal was issueil a book which
has been sold by hund''eds of thousands on both sides of
the ocean I mem " I'eik's l'>iid I'.oy. ' I do not think
this Work ou;ht to be accepted as a fair specimen of
American humour. It has proved, it is true, an enor-
mous success, as well in I'ln^land as in \merica, but its
success is not entirely creditable to the people of either
countiy. There is much in the book which is irri'sist-
ably laughable, and it must be admitted that the w ter
has a keen eye for comic and grotegi|uo situations ; but
the fun is a little too broad, coarse, and rollicking', and
the humour somi times sailly needs refinement and
tinis I The whole thing is, no doubt, a faithful ox-
pro sion of the rough humour which passes current in
the West, but it would hardly bo accepted as true coin
by the mure refined society of the older ^States.

ON TO LAKE SUPKKir 1{.

l''or the second time, mv travelling 'ricnd and I
parted company at Milwaukee for two or throe days.
Ho made straight for St. i'aul, Minnesota, by way of
Madison ; while I started on a long journey northward
to Lake .Superior, promising to join him at St. Paul
later on.

(Jn leaving Milwaukee, the northoni arm of the
North Western IJailway, by which 1 tr.ivelled. diverges
from the shore of Lake Michigan, and jiasses through
a beautifully undulating and well cultivated irnrt
of Wisconsin, in which clumps of tiio original
foro-t, judiciously preserved, give a very sylvan
and llnglish li e appearance to the landscape.
I'a-ising to the we-t of the ])rotty Lake Wiuiiehago,
which would bethought i|uitj a fine sheet of water if
the mighty .Michigan were not so near, t';o train stops at
I'ond du l.ic, O hkosh, and some othor eonsideralilo
))laces, and t en strikes the shore of Lake Mich gan
a,'ain, at the head of au immense inlet CHlled
(ireen P>ay, wh'ch mu^t be nearly 100 miles in length.
My train stoppeil for the night at a place called
Menominee, a port on (ireen Uav largely engaged
in lumbering operations. The place is very new,
but I found there one of the most comfort-
able little hotels I liave ever seen. Happily, no
bootblacks' or chimney-sweepM' "conference" was
going on. anil the house was on:y moderately full. I
was awoke a little too early in the morning by the bu/.z
and whirr of nany saw mills ; but as my rest had not
been dist.irbed half the night by a noisy discussion of
"photo pbellows'"' processes and prolits, varied occasion-
ally by the devil's tattoo on the floor above me, I was
r(! ady to get up ; and, as an Amerieau would say, I got.
Having disposed of an earlv breakfast, I at once made
for the railway station along the wi.'.e sandy trick
called a road, nnd in a few minutes I was on my way
still further into the wilds, in search of the southern
shore of the .■:;reatost of all fre h-water lakes. Karly
ill the aftoruf/on, I reached a junction in the woods
called Xegaunee, and here I changed into a branch train
which carried me down a steep decline to the city and
port of M iniuette.

The neighbourhood of INIarquette is very rich in iron
ore, and mining operations are carried on on a very large
scale. The ore is carried down to Marquette in vast
quantities, and is there shipped by means of a long
pier specially adapted to the speedy tipping of heavy
minerals into the holds of vessels. The business is so
large, and the arrival of trains of ore sofrequent, that I
was reminded of the work of Bome of our own great
ooal ports. Marquette lives, apparently, on the smelt-

V«

. )•

ing and ahipping of ore. H is a ploanant little town,
plcnHnntly Bituntcfl on nn irroarularsitf^ backed by denso
foreHtN, and it. IooUh Htrnight out acrogs Siijierior at tho
point where tho lake iH widest. Its healthy, invigorut-
ing atmosphero, beantiful walks and drives, tine
■cenery, bonting, and fisJiinK rendor it a very attractive
resort for invalids and tourists.

I w.»R beguiled by a whitoy-brown gentleman of the
genus tout, and apparently of very mixed ijarentago,
who was awaiting my train with a hand -truck, to go to
the Tremont House 'Die choice was not altogt thor a
hai)py one. I had had nothing to eat since leaving
Menominee, and as it was 4 p.m., I w,ns naturally
ready to face a "square meal." liut nothing entable was
to be had at the Tremont before the six o'clock dinner.
Tho place was comfortable and convenient otherwise.
The landlady was civil and good looking, and I was at
liberty to talk with all tho city through her telephone.
15ut even a woman's good looks are thrown away on a
hungry man, and I had nothing particular to telejihone
to the citizens except the fact that 1 was starving. I
asked the whitey-brown man if there was no restaurant
near, where I might get a mouthfull on wliioh to tide
over tho next hour or two. Ho "guessed" there was
a place of that sort round tho corner, but lie was
evidently much less solicito\iB about my welfare than
he was before he bad hooked mo and my baggage at the
railroad depot. I went round tho comer ; I went, in-
deed, all over the town ; but I discovered no single
place where I could do anything less in tho eating way
than order a regular meal. Although tho town is one
of 7,000 inhabitants, and of some importance, it con-
tained, so far lis I could discover, notliingcorresjionding
to our confectioners' shops, whero light refreshments
could bo obtained. It was a case of a regular squaro
meal or nothing. As I knew I should have to jiay for
my dinner at the hotel whether I ate it or not. — the
ch;irge there being, as usual, so muc'i jier day for entire
board and lodging — I re.'<olved to starve on till six
o'clock ; and this I did.

I mot for the second time at the dinner t iblo with a
junior partner in a great fur establishment at Chicago.
He was French by extraction, and the one desire of his
life was, he told me, to see i'aris, his father's native
city. I was much interested in the information this
young man gave me as to the American fur trade. He
was himself always on the look-out for skins. He
travelled to Marquette by the same train as that by
which I went. During the stoiipage at one of the
stations in the woods some distance back, he saw a fine
black bear tied up close to the line, and at once jum])od
out, discovered the owner, and inquired the price of
the animal. Before the train started, he had agreed
to buy the beast, on the understanding that the vendor
would deliver it, alive and uninjured, at his Chicago
address. As I supposed it was merely the skin of the
bear ihat he wanted, I asked him why he had
arranged for the delivery of tlie live animal. He
replied that it had struck him that this large bear
would make a very good trade sign ; and his intention
was to have a handsome cage made for it, and to keep
it constantly displayed above the front of his store.

The growth of the firm to which this young man
belonged had apparently been as rapid and wonderful
as that of tho city in which their operations were carried
on. They had, my informant told me, 8uccee<Ied in
placing themselves in the very front rank ; indeed, they
no longer regarded themselves as second to any firm of
furriers in the country. Their fame had gone out even
to the old and distant oitiei of the East, and the

wives of Boston and New York millionaires
were now among their many ]iatrons. Only
a few days previously, a grand lioston Udy — tho
wife of a railway king -had tologra|diod to the firm to
know if they cotdd send their "chief artist" to take
instru 'tions for a complete suit of the most costly furs.
The reply of the firm was that he could not be spared
to take so long a journey, an<l tho lady a^ once wired
to say that she was coming to Chicago to be measured
and to give the necessary instructions. The cost of
her outfit would, mv informant said, amount to thou-
sands of dollars, and there was, therefore, nothing so
outrageous in her undertaking a double journey of
more than a thousand miles each way to give the order.
Naturally enough, this young gentle;nan expressed a
liking for doing business with Kastern millionaires.
There was, he said, nothing they would not pay for
luxuries to a firm which, like bis, hail obtained a first-
class national reputation. Some of his stories were, it
mu'it be admitted, rather " tall" ; but there is nothing
entirely improbable in them if one remembers how
much furs are worn by Americans in the winter, and
how profusely tliey are accustomed to spend money on
the fashionable luxuries of themselves and their woman-
kind.

I learnt a good deal from this Chicago furrier about
that interesting but disgusting little beast, the skunk.
The furrier was, of course, pecuniarily interested in the
animal's skin, its fur be:ng very fine and hii;hly prized ;
but in his earlier years he had once come in contact
with the creature itself, and that one occasion was
likely to satisfy him for a lifetime. A recent writer
has put a description of the skunk into a nut-shell. It
is somewhat as follows : —

"The skunk is an animal ofthi' polecat '.'ilic. The skunk
stinks. H(> does notliiiig else. It is ciiouii''."

That brief description speaks volumes, for in presence
of tho horrible, all-pcivading, inextinguishable stink
of the creature, all h's other ([ualities, whn'hor virtues
or vices, are lost sight of. The truth is, tht ^kunk has
been armed by Nature with a perfectly unique mode of
self-defence. That moile is not a pretty one, regarded
from the point of view of the larger animal which wants
the skunk for breakfast, or of the hunter who hankers
after his skin : bat it is very effective, and in this case
Nature has evidently studied effectiveness without
much regard to the likes and dislikes of the skunk's
enemies. If they don't like his system of self-defence,
they have only to keep at a respectful di-tance. The
fact is, the skunk, when pursued, projects a filthy dis-
charge at his pursuer, with an accuracy of aim which is
described as marvellous. This remarkable missile effec-
tually stops every living creature it hits, for its odour
is intolerable, and all the water in Lake Superior will
not wash it out. A garment which has been " struck "
is usually burnt, although it is said it may be disinfected
and deodorized by being buried in the ground for a
certain number of weeks. The Chicago furrier to whom
1 have referred told me that once, when be was young
and green, he pursued a skunk with a favourite dog.
ISoth lad and dog were badly hit. The former burnt
his clothes, but the poor dog sickened and died. On
two separate occasions, I was in a train which ran over
and killed a skunk. The odour which immediately
filled the cars w: , a thing beside which the scent of a
fox, even when lying " brtasthigh," is as a whitf from
the shore? of " Araby the Blest."

It was Saturdp.y afternoon when I arrived at Mar-
quette, and the boat by whi<)h I had arranged to go
OL to Duluth, at the head of the lake, was duo

■ '■ t

1
^. t

t Mai-

1 to go

wai duo

enrly on Sunday morning. Tlio whitey-brown porter
calleil mo boforo it wns lic;ht, nnd oai ried niy ha^'KHiJo
down to tlio jiipr. 'J'his voutliiT w;i!» wii;tciied. Tlio
ruin wan ho;ivy and inccssint, itnd tlu; win 1 mounnd us
dismally as 1 ever iioard it in KM!,'Iand. 'I'lio prospoit
of going " to se.i " on tlio Lir;;c»t iako in tit tvorld on
8iich a day was not an oxhiiaratiiii,' one, :.nd my Npirits
wero as ilamj) ns my clothes by the timo I got aboard
tiio boat. JUit I was fairly romiiiittcd to the voyage, and
thero was nothing to be done but to yo on.

LAKK srrEuioii.

No sooner was tho boat fairly outside the haibonr of
Marquette than she be^'an to stiii^scr and pi mgo in a
fasldon for which my Atlantic experiences had by no
means prepared me. Lake Superior wa^, in fact, in
that "nasty "' state of commotion which tlioso who liavo
been accustomed to the I'hi^'lish (.'hannel would liavo
fully appreciatt.'d. The ainount of " sim on " would have
astounded those who iire accustomed to tc;ard all lakes
as comparatively smooth. To the west of iM;u'|uett ■,
tho waves wore dashing heavily a^'ain^ tiie clilfs which
there skirt tho coast, and sending clouds of sfnay lii^h
in tlio air in the most approved Atlantic stylo.
The lake boats are not built to contend with very
heavy wcatlier, and this paiticid!\r vessel laboure ' a
good deil, pitching about in a lively but disa-recable
f;isliion. Within an hour, ni-:irly all tho pussenijcrs
were sick. A moie handful, myself amom? tho happy
number, contrived to hold out to the end. The weather
was clearly exceptional for tho lakes, for even tiio
numcroUH coloured stewards went down one by one.
One of them, a merry fellow with a wicko 1 twinkle in
bis eye, came every U w minutes round to tlie stern of
the vessel, where I an(. about h'llf-a-dozen other passen-
gers were holding out, ;ind lioMing on to our soatH, anil
informed us with achuckle that another of his mates was
"down." It was tho story of the ten little ni;;gersover
again, only in tliis case the niggers were big. ( )nc by one,
the number (it for service went down - from ten to nine,
from nine to eight, from eijjlit to sovon, and so on, untd
at last the merry messenger of ill, f-lightly i):>'a|)lirasiiie
the words of .lob's messengers, as8>ir(id us that ho only
was left alone to wait u]ton us. We laughed at him,
and told iiim that his turn bad eviijently come at last ;
but our prediction iiroved to be wrong, for he con-
tinued to keep on bis leas to tho last.

If my readers will look at a ma)i of Luke .Sujierior,
they will see that along, curved, horn shaped iieninsola
runs out from the southern shore into tlio very centio
of the la!- e, terminating in a slurp cajie cilled ivewce-
naw Point. Apparently, a vessel bound from .Mari|uette
to Duluth is boun<l to doulde this capo, and make a
very circuitous voyage. Mut it happens that there is a
small s'leet of water, called I'ortage Lake, in the
middle of the peninsuli, and this little like discharges
its waters into the great lake i)y means of a short river.
A short canal has been cut from the lake to the coa^t
on the oi)posite side, and a channel navigatde for small
vessels baa thus been completed right across th.' penin-
sula. Our boat, therefore, initead of making for
Keweenaw Point, steered straight for this channel, and
in a few hours we iifii-'an to got under the lee of the
long peninsula. The ".sea" then grailually went
down, and by the time we reached tho mouth
of the little river leading up to Portage Lake,
the water was smooth, the sun shining, the
stewards had returned to their duties, basins were
at a discount, and victuals and drink at a premium.
By three or four o'clook, the boat was lying at a
7

wharf at tho end of the little lake, betw en the two
prosperous towns of JIanco. k nnd Moiightou. Those
towns are in tho centre of a district which is enor-
mously rich in copjter. Some of tho ore consists almost
entirely uf tiiu |iiiru metal, and mining operations aru
carried on on a lar-O sca'e nnd at a handsome profit.
AN'e lay nt tho wharf two or three hour*, and, by the
time our boat had steamed slowly along the straight
artiticial canal vvhiolt connect < Portage Lake with tiio
Western jiart of Lake .Superior, tho sun was netting in
the mighty wi, no of waters which we had yet to
traverse.

This vast lako is 3'JO miles long, and at one jioint 1 10
miles in width. Its area is ;iL',0'.'0 miles, and it is,
therefore, larger than Irelind. It is the largest body
of fresh water in tho world. It is exceeded in size by
at least one other hike, viz., tho <'aspian .Sea; but the
I'aspian, like some other Asiatic lakes, con.sists of salt
water.

Lake Suj'orior partakes somewhat of the crescent
shape of tho I.ako of llenova. Its outiet is at its
cistern end, where. I 'y means of tho sjuu t St. .Mary Piver,
its w.iters li Ttv into Like Hun n. Tlioriveiis obstruotecl
liy the rapids known as tho Sault St. -Maiio, and a
short canal has been constructed to enable vessels to
circumvent this rat'ier serious obstacle. A large number
of small streams run into Lako Superior, but it receives
no considerable r.ver. It is, indeed, itsidf almost on
tho watershed wliich separates tho basin of the St.
Lawrence from that of tho Mississippi on tho west, and
from the bisins of tho rivers which How northwards
into Hudson's Hay. At one jioint, a stream which
ultimately tlows into Hudson's Pay rises almost within
sight of the shore of the lake.

At its extreme western end, Lako Superior gradually
narrows down to tho width of a river. Tho mouth of
tho Kiver .st. Louis may, indeed, be said to form its
upper end, though tho St. Louis itself is an inconsider-
able .stream, .lust at the point where tlie river merges
into the lake, two rival towns have recently sprung
into existence— one on the iiortii shore, cilled Duluth,
and one on the opposite sido bearing tho nimo of
Superior L'ity. These towns are, in this direction, at
the e.xtiemi; limit uf inland fresh-water navi);ation,
just as Oliicago is at its headou Lake .Michigan. J>ulutli
and (Jhica.;() are about e |ui-distant fiorn the sea. If
a stiainer left each port for the ocean at about
tho same time, tho tvo vessels, after traversing about
4(10 miles— one of Lake .Superior and the other of Lake
JMichigan— would come together on entering Lake
Huron, :ind froi'; tha^ point tc thj ocean their road
would he the .".amo —viz., down Lake H'.iron, through
th(! Kiver an 1 l.!ike S . (..'lair, the l)ctroit Itiver, Lake
iCrie, the Welhind Canal Ithus giving tho go-by to
Niagara), down l.akeOnta in, thu Lake of the Thousand
Islands, and tho lliver St. Lawrence. Tiie tot.d dis-
tance fiom Dolutli or Chicago to Quebec by this route
cannot be less than 1,S()() miles.

It was to |)uliith that tin; steamer I boarded at Mar-
quette w.is bound. Soon after we emertred from the cana
( iescrilied in a previous chapter). 1 letire 1 to one of the
cuiilioaids known in the elegant language of tho steain-
bo.it advertisements as " sLate rooms ;'' aod as I had
no compinion to phare that spinous and sumptuous
apartment with mo (lift. (Jin. by 1ft (iin.). I got on with
the sleeiiing business tolerably well. \V'hen I looked
out i)f my hutch window in t'le early morning, I found
that we were ste. lining out of a dee[i bay in the south
shore of the lake, where we had been to call at two
favourite little watering-places, called Aihland and

<JH

i ,'

1 ,.

BaTfield. At tlio entrnnco to thin bay liest a romarkitlilu
and beautiful group of inlands called the Twelve
Apostlet, at whooe obiiMtcnin^', by the way,
an Irishman surely (JresideJ, for there are 27
of them. Their name is even a groator misnomer than
the Lake of the Thousand Islands, The run through
the twenty-Hoven Twelve Apostles (that Houmls odd,
but I can't help it), and on up the wcHtern end of the
lake, was an excoLMlingly pleasant and inturostinf; one.
The weather was fine iind the water smooth, and there
were a good many jdeasant and amusing people on
board— mainly tourists from the great cities, tal<ing a
pleasant holiday in the bracin;^ air of the hikes during
the hottest part of the summer. I made some acquaint-
ances among these people w'lom I shall not readily fur-
get. Two of theHo— a «pntlemaii and his wife from
Philadelphia — 1 afterwards viiiited at their home, and I
have been in correspondence with tbem ever since, I
am greatly indebted to tliem for their kindness and
oourtesy.

I Am AaAiN Cnosa-K.XAMiNED.

But one of the most amusing of my American ex-
periences happened on board this ho:it. I had been
duly cautioned in advance by Mr. W D. Ifowells, with
whom I crossed from Knglaml in the /'uriKi'iii, that I
should be pretty sure some day to bo put through my
facings by a lioston bluestocking', and tint I liad better
stand prepared to be examined o'i-hand on the ditleren-
tial calculus, the binomial theorem, the origin of life, the
Bi|uaringof the circle, the sacred books of India, and ii
few other similar ((ucstionR. I met the predicted lidy
ini|uisitor on board the Dulutli boat; but she did not
hail from liuston, and her acijuiremcnts and
curiosity were almost entirely literary in their
ohnractcr. Hhc was, when I first saw her, sitting
in the bow cf the boat, with s. blue veil drawn
over the upper part of ler face, listening to a con-
versation I was holding with some of the other passen-
Kors, Presently, she came forward and took ine in
hand on her own account. Without moving a muscle of
herfaco, orin any other way oxpresHingcitheramusement,
surprise, pleasure, ^r dissatisfaction, she cross-examined
me straight ahead for about an hour. Her questions
were put in a tone as monotonous as that of a High
Church curate, which never varied from first to
last. .She might have been a patent cast-iron
questioning machine, m utterly impassive was she,
so formal and monotonous were her accents, and so

frompt, precise, and regular were her many inquiries,
felt as if I was once more a little boy at school, under-
going examination at the hands of a strong-minded
lady visitor. It was difficult to resist the impulse to
stand up and put my hands behind me,
and I should hardly have been surprised if she had
put me " in the corner "' or called a coloured steward
to birch me. But the business was, on the whole, so
amusing that I felt no desire to escape from her strong
grasp, and I held on, answering her questions as best 1
could, until she was tired. She was not an old lady,
nor yet a very young one. 8he was not particularly
attractive, and her soul was clearly above the follies
and foibles of her sex. She was, in short, a literary
woman.

She opened the ball by first catechising me about my
journey. " What vessel did you come over in ?" " And
what one do you return in V" " And how far West are
you going ?" " And are you travelling alone ?" " And
what do you think of this country ?" These and scores
of timilar queriea auoceeded each other in just such a

mcoh inical, impassive tone as a teacher might adopt in
a.sking the printed (|uestions of an arithmetical treatise
for tlie ten-thousandth time. My inquisitor heard my
replies in silence, unmoved, and, so far as on'j could
gather from any outward aixii, uninterested, bhe mirdo
few, if any, remarks in reply ; but the mo aent I l.ad
finished one anewer, the next question wiisl'ii; '^tf at me
as if by some automatic clockwork arrangement.

I wish I had a shorthand note of this con ersatiun ;
but, unfortunately, I have no note at all, and it is now
too late to attempt to reiiroduco manv of the details.
What I do remeintier is that many of the nuestion^ on
literary topics referred to our oldest poets. Having
exh lUsted her inquiries about my journey, the lady in
the blue veil suildeiily sprung U|iun mo the question,
"Is Chaucer muuh read in Kn^flanil ?" When I had
recovered my breath after this sudden and unexpected
transfer to u new Held of inquiry, I said 1 did not
think he was. I was, indeed, bound to admit that,
owing to the necessity of referring to a glossary to
learn the meaning of about every second word, I had
never been able to read much of him myself. I knew,
of course, that Chaucer was the l-'ather of English
Poetry, and that it was our bounden duty to admire
him ; but I feared that most Hnglishmen did as I did —
took Chaucer pretty much on trust, and worshipped
at his shrine because it was the orthodox literary thing
to do. In all this, I trust I did not seriously libel my
countrymen.

The last syllable of my remark about Ohaucer was
hardly out of my mouth when from behind the veil I
heard the further question : "And do your people
read Spenser much ? " I now began to see I was in for
it. I felt sure that Piers the rioughnian, and all the
(|ueer old writers of (luaiiit English verse immortalised
ill " I'ercy's Keliques," were behind that blue veil,
ready to leap fort!i and put to shame
my Ignorance of the beginnings of English
lioetry. But, recovering from my embarrassment, I
made bold to say that the case of .Spenser was like that
of Chaucer, only, perhaps, less so. So many of his
words were obsolete that reading him was really very
tedious work. " Then, think, " I said, " of the awful
length of his immortal poem. Why, ihe Fairie Queene
makes five volumes in my library edition, and I confess
I have never done more than dip slightly into eacli."
As I found I was not to be whipped or sent into the
corner for this confession, I grew bolder and added :
"The fact is, I never yet met the man or woman who
claimed to have conscientiously read the Faerie Queene
through from end to end." Without departing one
hair's-hreadth from her usual manner, my in(iuisitor
demolished me with this cold, quiet, impassive remark :

"IH.UK !"

" Crushed again !'" I thought and felt, as Lady .Tane
s.iys in Patitnce. Here was a prodigy of a woman !
She had read S]ienser'.s great work from end to end !
Prodigious ! I began to feel that I was in the presence
of a being of a superior order, and some time elapsed
before I could sufHciently collect my thoughts to assure
the owner of the blue veil that she occupied the proud
pro-eminence of being the only mortal I ever met who
had accomplished the Herculean task in question. But
nothing moved that woman. She received my compli-
ments as impassively as if she had been a statue.

From Chaucer and Spenser, my inquisitor presently
got on to some of the later poets. About some of these
I could speak with a little confidence ; but I was hence-
forth oppressed and overwhelmed by the one thought :
" This woman has read the Faifne Queene through— all

•Ml

THROUGH ! " And the thoUKht awed ino and made mo
afraid.

" A woman of stono ! " says Homebody ; "an
embodied literary fad in i)ettiooati, utterly heart-
less I " I was Horoly tempted to think the same for six
weeks. But pray suspend judgment a moment,
and hear tho sequel of my story ; and let us all learn
from that sequel the lesson which has, perhaps, been
taught UH inetfectually a thousand times before -that
appearances too often lead us to form a very unjust
estimate of tho characters of others.

AVhen I was in Philadelphia in the following month,
I learnt p.coidentally that my questioner was a la<lyfrom
Cleveland, and thatshewaswidely known and estoomod,
both as a literary celebrity and as a self -hacrificing philan ■
thropist. Hha was in tho habit of publishing her writ-
ings (mainly poetry), and of dovotina: the whole of the
proceeds to benevolent purposes. Further, she was
irrevocably doomed to blindness. Her sight was already
seriously imnaired, and the doctors declared that
nothing could save it. The stony gH/.c, the blue veil,
tho impassive manner wero all explained, and tho
revelation saddened mo not a little. It wax, indeed,
inexpressibly ])aintul to think that this cultured and
estimable lady was, when she catechize 1 me, taking a
last, imperfect look at her country's natural beauties,
conscious that her eyes were gradually but surely
closing upon them and all the world for u\ or.

A City which ii.\s to "(Jit up and Gn."

As our steamer approached the western end of tho
lake, tho northern shore caino gradually into view, ami
the expanse of water began to narrow by im|)erceptible
degrees. AVe now began to look out for Diduth. A
group of passengers (including myself) gathered in tho
bows of the boat, and discussed the probable etl'cct of
the impending completion of the Northern i'acitic Hail-
road, which, for the time, has its eastern terminus at
the head of the Like. I ventured to suggest that the
future of Duluth was assured by the construction of this
line, seeing that that place was virtually its Atlantic
terminus and ])ort. A tall Amerioan who was standing
beside me briefly endorsed my view of the case in these
choice and expressive words : —

" Yaas, I guoss that city's got to git up and Rit."

Presently, both Duluth and Superior City came into
view, and on comparing the two as they appeared from
the lake, some of us could not resist tho temptation to
remark that .Superior City was a very inferior-looking
place. The joke was no doubt a very obvious and com-
mon-place one ; but then what else can be reasonably
expected of persons who have been demoralized by
such "puns "as respectable comic papers and eminent
writers of burlesque are now-a-day accustomed to per-
petrate ?

While talking about the city which has ' ' got to git
up and git,' I must on no account forget the highly
poetical language which a member of Congress bad
recently applied to Dulutli, during a debate on a pro-
posed vote of money for the construction of a harbour
at the upper end of the lake. This orator, rising to the
full height of his mighty theme, spoke of Duluth as
" the zenith city of the unsalted seas ; " and the speech
containing this beautiful passage was on sale at the
city hotels and book stores. There is to nie
something inexpressibly comic about this poetical
Uight. " The unsalted seas ! " Only think of
that 1 Does it not appear to suggest that
all the other oceans and seas were subjected to
some sort of piokliag process, from which the great

American lakes were, for some reason, exempted ?
Done into plain Knglish prose, the whole pussag*', of
course, simply moans — " The city at tho head of the
freshwater navigation." itut such languairo would
have been too common-place for an American orator
pleading for liberty to put a hand into Umle Sam's
pocket ; and the ears of Congress were accordingly
tickled and its enthusiasm appealed to bv the oomical
poetical paraphrase I have quoted. Whether the orator
secured the grant I cannot say. No doubt he did ; for
Uncle Sam is a very good-natured relative. Besides, owing
to the necessity (from his point of view) of levying heavy
import duties, for the purpose of protecting his manu-
facturing industries against the determined and dis-
creditable attacks of British Free-traders, the old boy is
so (lush of money that he takes it as a positive kindness
on the part of anyone to suggest a decent excuse for
spending it.

DULUTH.

I am bound to say there is nothing very poetical about
Duluth. it is at present a city " in tho rough." The
opening of the Northern I'acifio Kailroad has naturally
woke the place up. This expression, perhaps, implies
that it was once asleep, and such an implication would
probablv bo a libel on any Western city. Duluth is,
at any rate, wide enough awake now. And this atti-
tude of sleepless vigilance is not confined to its inhabit-
ants proper. Capitalists and speculators in all parts of
the country have lung been discounting tho capabilities
and probable future of the place, and when I was there,
it was enjoying a " big boom.'' Hneculation in real
estate was raging ; new buildings wore ris-
ing on every hand as if by magic ; and
three daily newspapers (three for a popula-
tion of ].\000 1), mad or drunk with the excite-
ment by which they were surroumied, were shaking
their fists at St. Paul (the city, I mean, not the Apostle
of the (ientiles), at Minneapolis, and especially at tiiat
mean, dirty little "cuss "over theway (Superior City), all
of which Duluth is pleased to regard as commercial rivals,
defying them to " come on " and do their worst. Tho
rivalry between Duluth and Minneapolis is specially
amusing. Minneapolis is, speakingcomparatively, an old-
establ shed city, and its vast flour-mills, driven by a fall
on the Mississip])i, have long rendered it a convenient and
attractive market for the cereal produce of the whole
of the district which the Northern Pacific Railroad has
for many years been opening up bit by bit. The object
of Duluth is to convince the farmers df Minnesota and
Dakota that it is to their advantage to send their grain
on to the bead of Lake Superior ami there ship it to
Europe, instead of takin;{ just such prices as the wealthy
ring of Minneapolis millers choose to give them. The
contest is at present rather one-siileil. like a quarrel
between a noisy, snapping terrier and a great
mnatiff or St. Bernard, conscious of his strength.
Duluth is noisy, defiant, self assertive, cheeky ;
Minneajiolis is half-amusod, sliglitly satirical, hut on
the whole disposed, in the consciousness of its strong,
established position, to ignore its upstart rival. The
rapid development of the country westward will
probably provide full employment for both cities. Min-
neapolis and St. Paul certainly have nothing to fear ;
but, on the other hand, I sincerely regret that I do not
happen to possess a few eligible "corner lots" at
Duluth, to " hold on to " till the right moment ; for I
hold it as an undoubted and indisputable fact that
Duluth M going to "git up and git."

100

•ti

Tliero ianot mnch to be snid nhout Duluth as a town.
It hai a great future before it, beyond a doubt ; but it
has had no pnat, and its prcfient is a mere laying ot
foundations for the grcatnoHS which has yut to cumc.
Its public buildinK!* are, as yet, neither important nor
imposing. Tho finest I saw was anew Opera House, on
a rathorhirgo scale, which was risinglmuiediately in front
of my hotelon Superior Street. This street, by tho way,
is tho leading thorouKhf.tio. It runx parallel to the
lake shore, and poHseNses tiio inevitalile linn of tram-cars
without which no American town would bo complete.
When I was there, the Ntroet was " up " for tho layins;
of water pipcH, and the tratlic was carried on under
serious difficulties. Tho civilization of Duluth had, at
any rate, got as far us waterworks.

The BurroundingH of Duluth on tho land side arc stern
and somewhat forbidding. The laud rises rapidly from
the shore of the lake and forms a rugged Imckground to
the town. The heights ore thinly covered with hardy
pines, but the naked rock is almost everywhere con-
spicuous. I saw little trace of soil such as an agricul-
turist could turn to account. Duluth may e.xport
wheat, but I imagine it will never grow an^.
The climate is apparently bleak and chilly, oven m
summer. I was there on tho IHth August, and even
then the wind was no strong and cold that, in npito of
the brilliant sunshine, I had to ])ut on my overcoat iind
b\ittonit up to tho chin whenever I went out of doors.
The change from the intense heat I had cxpcriencud a
few days previously in some of the great cities was, on
the whole, a very giateful one: but it wns a case of
having "a little too much of a good thing." Those who
remember tiiat Duluth is furtlier south than any part
of England may, perhaps, bo surprised to hoar of thi ;
low summer temperature, which may possibly havo
been exceptional ; but it must not bo forgotten that
temperature is not simply a matter of latitude. This is
particularly true of North America, where the same
places (Montreal, for instance) often exnerience
the greatest extremes of heat and cold, the
thermometer ranging from over 100 degrees in the
shade in summer down to 40, 50, or even 00 degrees
below zero in the winter.

The Northern Pacikic Kailroad.

I have made several references to the Northern Pacific
Kailroad, of which Duluth is at present tho eastern
terminus and port. This line must not bn confounded
with the Union Pacific and tlie Central Pacific, which
together form a continuous route from the Missouri to
the Pacific coast further south, and by which (as I shull
in due time explain) I travelled to California. Tho
Union and Central Pacific route has been open ever
since 186'J. The Northern Pacific, which has been
many years in course of construction, and had been
opened piecemeal, was finished only about the time
when I was on its eastern end. Starting from Duluth,
and by a branch line from St. Paul and Minneapolis,
the Northern Pacific runs nearly due west across Min-
nesota, Dakota, and thr greater part of Mon-
tana. Passing within 50 miles of the famous
Yellowstone National Park, to which it sends
out a branch, the main line then makes an enormous
detour towards the north in order to cross the Rocky
Mountains, and ultimately finds its western terminus
at Portland, Oregon, on the Columbia River, nearly
800 miles north of Ban Francisco. Except near its
eastern and western extremities, the district through
which the Northern Paoifio runs is very sparsely

settled AS yet ; but, as usual, population is following
the locomotive, and there can bo little doubt that some
day the whole belt of country served by the line will
be thickly peopled.

The Northern Pacific Kailroail hopes, it is said, to ap-
proach nearer the Atlantic seaboard at no distant date.
The scheme is to continue tho road along the southern
slioro of Lake Superior (which is already traversed by
two or three isolated lines that miglit easily be joined
up into one great system), to bridge tlie Sault St. Mario
— a work wliich will tax the resources of engineers and
financiers alike, and thus to unite with the Canadian
Pacific Hailway which passes withir. 70 miles of tho pro-
posed bridge. Thus direct access will be obtained to
Alontreal, (Quebec, ami, of course, tho lower st. Law-
rence. This extension is certainly not proposed in tlio
interests of Duluth ; but when the enlargemont of the
Canadian cani.ls is complete, there can he no doubt that
sliippers will send mucn grain from Duluth to Europo
direct in order to avoid tho railway charge to Montreal.

It was to the opening of tho Northern Pacific
last August that representatives of all the coun-
tries of Europe weie invited by Mr. Villard, the
president of tho line, and Mr. Kufus Hatch, a New
York banker who had obtained a concession for tho
erection of hotels in tho Yellowstone Park. These
visitors were carrie I across tho continent ami back in
stately style. They ate, drank, slept, and enjoyed
>';hemselvcs genernlly, on the trains, at the sole exi)en80
of their hosts. In short, they had what the An orioans
call a " higli old time." lUit some of the Knglisli
guests got into sad disgrace. They looked their
gift horses in the mouth. That is to say, they
criticised tho accommodation provided for tliem,
and generally mado nuisances of themselves. So,
at least, tiio American papers bluntly declared,
with that anti-beating-about-the-bush spirit which
is so characteristic of them. An English peer and
peeress, who crossed with mo in the J'arisian,
were declared to be among tho chief offenders. They,
it was .said, wanted a Pullman " sleeper," with its 24
berths, all to themselves, and, in asserting their claim,
cut tho train in two by locking,' both the end doors of
the car. Other sprigs of tlie I'ritish nobility (so it was
said) quartered themselves at the New York hotels
pending their departure west, and had the hotel bills,
and even their tailors' bills, sent to Messrs. Villard &
Hatch. How much of these stories, as told by the
newspapers, was true, I cannot pretend to say ; but
that there was some sub-stratum of truth beneath them
I have reason to believe. Tiie American newspapers
published the names of the offenders in full,
and minutely described their connection with the
Pritish aristocracy. If one (luarter of what was
printed was true, the Pritish deputation must havo
contained some of the meanest and most exacting of
mortals.

The rejoicings over the opening of the Northern Pacific
were thus disagreeably marred, but something worse
soon after followed. Mr. Villard, having just con-
trived to carry his great work through to Cv^mple-
tion, "bust up," as the Americans say. The stock he
held in the line dropped in value until the millions he
supposed himself to possess disappeared utterly. Mr.
Hatch went down with him, and thus disappeared the
two men whose names had so long been associated
with one of the most gigantic of modern enterprises.
But the Northern Pacific Kailroad remains, to become
one of the most powerful agencies in the peopling and
enriching of half-a-dozen great States.

101

New Yeovil Not to be Founp.

Tboie of my readers who know the neiKhbourhooil of
Yeovil will rotnembor thnt, ■oine 12 or li years iiko, a
Dittsoiiting minittterniimnj Uodgers, who hud resided
for some time at Htulbridge, iuiluced two or three scorn
of people to accompany him to Minnesota, for tho
purposo of estublishinx a colony, to bo called Yoovil.
Mr. HodKOiB had been titli<eil into tho ontorprise by a
clever and astute aKcni of tho Northern Pucilio Kail-
road. Having a lar^o family and a small income, ho
jumped at the opporlunity which apjiearod to oiler of
transferring himself and children to a new Land of
Goshen. That ho was honest and in sorious earnest I
never had any doubt. Indeed, hu did his bo.st to per-
suade mo to abandon this journal, in order to acooni])any
him across, there to estnldish the Ncvt Ycuvil O'autle,
which, as a matter of course, tho proposed colony was
bound to have by the time its first liouse was roofed
in. I said " No " flimly, but gently, so a< not to hurt
the rev. gentleman's feelings. Thoroughly convinced
himself, Mr. liodgers managed, however, to convince a
number of others, and tho parky duly stai ted. They
also duly arrived and founded the new city of Yeovil.
But, for some reasons which I have never fully under-
stood, tlie colony proved to be a dead failure. Some
of tho colonists soon returned to P'ngland, and tho le
were soattrred. All trace of the founder of the colony
was k c t t years ; but at last, some two or thieo years
ago, I received a long letter from him. He was then in
Virginia, where he had found another Goshen, and his
object in writing was to induce me to allow him to ])uff
that part of the States. He made not tho smallest
reference to the Minnesota colony, or to his reasons for
leaving it. I, therefore, wrote and told him that his
letter should have my consideration on his explaining to
me why he had abandoned New Yeovil. Ho never
troubled me further, and, I need hardly add, his pulFof
Virginia did not appear. The probability is, thnt he
was being made use of by the persons chiefly interested
in some new land or railway scheme. Anyhow, I felt
under no obligation to asnist him.

This settlement of New Yeovil was at a point on the
Northern Pacific Railroad, somewhere between Duluth
and Glyndon (now the junction of one of tho Manitoba
lines), and before leaving Duluth I made particular
inquiries about it. The long and short of the matter
is, there is now no such place. If the settlement sur-
vives at all, it passes under some other name. As
Yeovil, it i.s absolutely unknown, and I believe a plase
which has since sprung up on or near its site is called
Hawley. This I learnt from a Minneapolis map pub-
lisher's agent, who knew every settlement on the
Northern Pacific line west to the Missouri. He
showed me a perfectly now map of Minnesota on
a large scale, " and we searched for the name of
Yeovil in vain. It is clear, therefore, that the place is
dead. But suppose it died for lack of a newspaper !
In that case, is the blood of the defunct settlement on
mi/ head ? Agonizing thought 1

DuLDTH Journals.

As I said, Duluth had three daily nuwspapers in
August of last year. There are probably four or five by
this time, all discounting the mighty future in store
for the city, in which future those of them which can
manage to pull through may possibly be lucrative con-
cerns. At present, they have little to do but to
chronicle the smallest of " small beer" in the largest
of leader type. The movements of every citizen appear

to be duly noted. Here, for instance, are two " perscBkl
pan" from one of tho papers :—

" .Mrs. .1. K. WiMMlliiidgu ami Dwluht K. Woodbridge
leave this evt'iiing by the Si/aclc fur l>(>troit, .Mich."

".Miss KnHJgn stiirti this I'Tuiiiiig by tho Xyack for the
Kast, ptid will meet hur sJHter in Ohio. After a short visit
there, both will return to Duluth."

Those Western papers are by no means mealy-mouthed
ur mock modest. They call a spade a spado with a
vengeance, and their candour would be chirming if it
were not i|uite so biunt. Here, for instance, is what
one of tho Duluth papers says about tho claims of iti
own town to tho rank of a city :—

" Duluth liii|ies to ht> a city Nhortlv. ^SIle has now eighty
siiloons and about thirty piostituti's."

Saloins, of cour-e, are drinking shops.

Here is what is intended for a humorous description
of a sudiiun visit of an excise ollicer to those (Superior
City pooplo who wore cheating the revenue :—
" A 1)1^ cyclone struck Superior one day last week, and

I. .N>il Kroat coiiiniotion aniouK not a few here. It came
fri tu tho southeast in the shape of a dt'puty revenue
colli, or, ami hu ilhl a mighty ilvi'Iy collecting hiMlnuss
t'lo, among our numerous whisky and tobacco dealers. It
doii't pay to have a license in your son's iianit! ; it don't i)ay
to wl 'U'sale lifpi'ii on a retail liceiiie ; it ihrn't jxiy to bo
oven a boeriran's anoiit wHhouta llceiiso ; it don't pay to
hucli the tiner (L'ncle H lui) and sell without any license ;
and It iloTi't j.ay to keep a lot of empty cigar boxes stuck

An;, 111 tlie Comer, with tlio stamps uncanielleil, us a doxen
or more of our dealers cm n* idily sub.H'ribe to. It is said
tl'f collector took aliout .-(!(ii» out of town with him.
Don't try to buck against I'ncle ,Sam ; he will get you where
tho hair is short, sooner or lati r."

On to St. Paul.

Tho railway iourney from Duluth to St. Paul w.is,
on the whole, the most tedious and dreary in the wliola
of my American experience. The dist mce is 150 miles.
The time-tubles allow 10 hours for the journey ; but
even this liberal allowance was insullicient for my train,
for it was an hour or two late in reaching St. Paul. Tliat
is to say, I was between 11 and 12 hours in traversing
tho 1.5ti miles, the average speed being therefore little
above that of the best of our old stage coaches. But,
in spite of the general dreariness and tediousness of
the journey, it was one that I should have been sorry to
miss.

Prom the level of Lake Superior, the line is carried
up to the high ground which separates it from the
valley of tlie Mississippi by way of the rugged and
romantic gorge through which the St. Louis River flows
into the lake. For wild grandeur on a moderately
large scale this gorge is justly famous. The narrowest
and steepest part'' of it are known as the Dalles of the
St. Louis, and tho scenery at these points is grand and
rugged in the extreme. Tho river, which was much
shrunken when I saw it, i.s in the wetter seasons of the
year a raging and foaming torrent. Its rugged bod it
interrupted by numerous cascades and rapids. The
fall at ono point is as much as 400 feet in four miles ;
and the torrent leaps from fall to fall and rushes from
rapid to rapid in the form of an almost unbroken masa
of foam. The steep sides of the gorge are clothed
from top to bottom, whero tlie rock is not perfectly
naked or quite perpendicular, with sombre forests of
pines, whose dark foliage contrasts strikingly with the
snowy whiteness of the torrent as it boils and rages at
the bottom of the chasm.

The railway threads the whole length of this gorpt*.
Where the gorge winds (as its does very often), tne hn*

102

winds too. The engineering is of a particularly bold
character. The ascent from the lake is very et < p, and
in many places the line is liid on a mere artificial shelf
of roolc, at a Riddy height a'M)ve the torrent. Hero and
there, cross chasms, through which tributary torrents
poar down into the Bt, Louis, are cro»8ed at light ano^les
on trestle bridges, whose apparent flimsiness is tryin<< to
weak nerves. As our train slowly worked its way up
the gorge, crawling laboriously round tlie innumerable
curves like a huge snake, the pnssengers crowded to the
oar platforms to secure a good view of the wonderful
scenery. All admired ; but some were alarmed, and
visibly breathed more freely when we emerged from the
gorge into the almost unbroken forests of tho great
watershed.

VIGOROUS TWIN CITIES.

St. Paul and Minneapolis, the only two large and
important cities in Minnesota, are situated within ten
miles of each other, and both are on the Mississippi
River, at a distance of 2,200 miles from its mouth. The
census of 1880 showed a population of about 50,000 in
each city, or a total of 100,000, but it is growing so rapidly
that tlie two cities are now declared to contain nearly
l.W.OOO people. They are, moreover, fast appro iching
each other, as if with the object of indulging in a mutual
embrace. The suburbs of St. Paul struggle far out on
tlie road towards Minneapolis ; and long before the
traveller from the former to the latter reaches
the Minneapolis station, he finds himself jkis-
aing through a vast region thickly dotted over
with p'-fectly new frame house.". Local enthusiasts
declare that the two places will one day be absorbed in
each other, and ronstitute a single vast city ; and more
unlikely things than that have certainly happened in
America. The rapid settlement of Manitoba, whi'h pro-
vince is immediately north of Minnesota, and the open-
ing up of the country westward to the Pacific by means
of the Northern Pacific Railroad, have immensely stimu-
lated the trade and giowth of both cities, and it is im-
possible to set limits to the piospority of either. They
ftie supplied with s])lendid railway accommodation in
all directions, and by means of the mighty river which
they bestride, St. J'aul has access by water, not only
str.iight south to the distant (Udf of Mexico, but also
to all places situated on the many navi^al)le branches
of the P'ather of ^V■ater8.

I cannot say that a first sight of tiie Mississippi at St.
Paul impressed me as the St. Lawrence did. The latter
is clear, deep, rapid, with well-defined banks, and its
level apparently varies but little. The Mississippi, on the
other hand, is turbid — tlie colour of chicken IJroth, as
somebody has remarked. The quantity of water, more-
over, varies so much with the varying seasons that the
stream might easily be mistaken for a tidal river. After
a dry season, the shrunken stream is confined to a com-
paratively narrow space in the centre of its wide bed,
and a vast acreage of more or less unpleasant-looking
foreshore is exposed on either side. At such times, the
Mississippi does not present an attractive spectacle.
But presently the rains descend, or the snow melts, and
the Hoods come, and then the river is brim-full from
bank to bank. T! e banks, indeed, are not always
capable of keeping the v.tst stream within bounds, and
then, especially on the lower reaches, there are dis-
astrous floods, resulting in a vast destruction of property,
if not of life. Some of the tributaries of the gre it
river are in thL.> respect like the main stream.
For two years in sucoeasion, the Ohio valley has been

devastated by floods on a gigantic scale, and the distress
and loss resulting therefrom, especially in the neigh-
bourhood of Cincinnati, have been almost beyond cal-
culation.

The site of St. Paul is said to have been visited as
long ago as in 1680 by a .Tesuit missionary. Eighty-six
years later one .Jonathan Carver came there ani made
a treaty with the Dakota Indians in whatisstdl known
as Carver's Cave. The first treaty of the United States
with the Indians, throwing their lands open to settle-
ment, was concluded in 1837, and the first plot of land
bougtii: was secured by a Canadian named Parent, who
sold it u./o years loter for 30 dollars. That plot is now
in the centre of the city, and has increased in value
many thousand-fold, the first building was erected in
18;)8. pnd the streets were laid out in 1847. It was
not till ; •■)1 that the place became a city. It had
then 3,()('0 inhabitants. The name was derived from a
log chapel dedicated to St. Paul, which was built in
1841.

St. Paul stands mainly on the left or west bank of
the river, which bank rises rather rapidly from the
water in tho form of four distinct terraces, one above
.nnother. The Americans call such moderate elevations
" blutts," The situation is a very picturesque one.
The city stands at a considerable huight above the
river, which here makes a wide, semi-circular sweep,
and the bluffs on the opposite bank are prettily wooded.
'I'he site must have been a very beautiful one when it
was in a state of nature and the river was full.
Indeed, at various points, both above and
below St. Paul, the scenery of both banks
is romantic in the extreme. A few miles below,
for instance, the river expands into a charming lake
(Lake Pejnn) 2.') miles long, and in some places five
miles wide. This is naturally a favourite place of
resort for those f>f the citizens who have a taste for boat-
ing amid exquisite scenery.

The river at St. Paul is spanned by two bridges. One
of these— a girder bridge— is a very curious piece of
engineeiing. It starts from tho level of a high bluflt
on the city side, and ends i ''evel with tho low bank
opposite, where the bluffs lij some distance back. The
bridge, therefore, forms a regular inclined plane. The
roadway is on the toil of one of the deep latticed girders,
while in the next and subsequent sjians it is level with
the bottom of the girders. The arrangement is more
convenient than elej;ant.

it is hardly necessary to remark, with regard to "o
new and rai)idly-growing a city as St. Paul, that it has
an eminently unfinished look. A^ery few of the streets
are, as yet, built up regularly. The vacant ydots are
still numerous ; but the activity displayed in the erec-
tion of new and substantial buildings, and in the sub-
stitution of brick and stone structures for the originr.l
fiame buildings, is wonderful. And let no one suppose
that these new erections of brick or stone are, in the
main, "jerry-built" places, v/hich will lie but little
more durable than the wooden shanties they replace.
Such is not the case. I have seldom seen
more substantial buildings than some of those
which were recently finished or in coiir.se of com-
pletion last year. Many of the bricks used in them are
a remarkably hard, smooth, close-grained sort. They
are apparently of the best and finest clay, closely
pressed and beautifully moulded ; and in many oases
the hard black cement in which they arc laid stands
out at the joints with that perfect squareness which is
always suggestive of careful masonry and almost endless
endurance. I had occasion to call at the offices of the

103

Chicaf^o, St. Pa.il, Minneapolis, and Omaha Railroad,
and I could not help noticini; that all the internal fit-
tings and furniture were of the same solid and substan-
tial character as the outer walla. The otiicials of a
^reat, old-established European company couM not be
more conveniently or comfortably housed than are the
managers of this youthful concern iu that very youth-
ful city of St. Paul.

There are forty or fifty churches in the citv, an
Opera House as a matter of course, a Custom House,
and a State Capitol, but none of the buildings arc of
.sufficient importance to call for detailed notice. The
architects will appear upon the scene in due oourse.
The newspapers, indeed, were boasting last year that
St. Paul was about to have a " million-dollar hotel,"
and a fair proportion of the million will no doubt be
spent upon a " palatial '' front. At present, the hotels
are hardly up to the standard reached in other cities.

Minnesota abounds in lakes, and there are several m
the neighbourhood of St. I'aul to which visitors are
accustomed to drive. The Minnehaha Falls, immortal-
ized by Longfellow, are also near at hand, but these,
though ))retty, are generally admitted to t)e hardly
worthy of the fame which the poet has secured for them.
The Minnehaha Falls are on the Minnehaha Itivcr, which
falls into the Alinnesota River, an important atfiuent of
the Mississippi, and the stream which gives its name to
tlie State. The recuirence of the syllable " Minne "
in the words Minnehahr., Minnesota, and Minneitpolis
will hardly liave escaped notice. "Minno"' is the local
Indian word for " water,'' and it is only natur.-vl that it
.should turn up frequently in u district full of streams
.Tnd lakes— the great gathering-ground of the I pper
]Miss!>sippi, Minnehaha means " Laughing Water" —
i.e., the water saying " ha, ha I" and a very pretty deri-
vation that is. Minneaiiolis is a euphonious but
mongrel word — partly Indian and partly (ireek.
It means " the city on or near the watei," the second
half of the name signifying "city," and being, in fiiot,
the same termination that we find in " Constantinople,"
" Persepolis," " Neapolis," &c. The marrying of I'ndian
with Greek to make the name of a city is, perhaps,
hardly a proj)er proceeding ; but the Americans have so
many new names to invent that it would be unkind
to be hard on them. I am not sure, moreover, that a
nation which has invented such a tautological bar-
barism as "Cliftonville " would have any right to
criticise the people of tho great city of flour-mills even
if they were to change its name to Minneapolisville.

I h;ive already e.xplamed how the city of >t. Paul ob-
tained its name, but I ought, jjerhapa, to remark that
the Americans have a curious knack, when speaking of
the place, oi' throwing a strong emphasis on the first
word. Wo talk about Saint Paul, emphasizing the
second word ; but the Americans say Saint Paulina
way which at first strikes a stranger as extremely odd.

Dr. Talmaa;e, the famous Brooklyn pi eacher, lectured
in St. Paul on the evening on which I wa.s in the city,
and I and my friend (whom I had rejoined at the Con-
tinental Hotel after my Lake Superior trip) went
to hear him. I cannot honestly say I liad
my dollar's worth. It is, perhaps, only fair to remark
that what I had heard of Talmage had prejudiced me
against him. I had long known him as dogmatic and
intolerant, as combining in his own person the most
rigid orthodoxy in theology with (to put the thing
mildly) the most remarkable smartness in business. I
had yet to learn that he was a buffoon. Moreover, he
lodged at our hotel, and I sat at dinner with him before
starting for the lecture ; and his hard, cold, self-import-

ant demeanour did not tend to ra'se him in mv eitima*
tion. There was nothing genial about him. His leotara
was on "Big Blunders," and Wiia very char-
acteristic of tho man. It was, however, an addresa
of which one could carry away but little, save in a
note-book. I can now remember only two parts of it,
but they are fair specimens of the "funny " portion. Ho
begun thus, with a rush, and a tremendous emphasis oa
the word " born " :— " The man who never made a
mistake has not yet been dokn. If he had been, he
would have died right away. ' This is a sample of the
"humour " of the uddress. Towards the close, he
preached a little sermon on tho duty incumbent on
every man to stick to his own particular kind
of work, and not to meddle with the work
of others. It was, in short, a sermon oa
the text " Let every shoemaker stick to his
last." In enforcing this lesson, he add essed him-
self first to one profession and then to another, advis-
ing them each, in turn, not to meddle with this or that
thing which lay outside their proper sphere ; and he
wound u)) with this remarkable exliortation : "And
you preachers, stick to your pulpits, and don't go rush-
ing about the country lecturing." Tho "joke," of
course, was that Tidmage was himself at that moment
lunning about making hundreds of dollars nightly by
his lectures. Sucli " liumour " might, possibly, be
in its iilaco in the mouth of a ci;<.>as clown ; but I failed
to see anything but grotcs'iue impudence in it when it
camo from a famous preacher who w.ss supposed to be
giving serious advi.e about serious m:itters. I could not
help asking myself tho <|uestion : " How far is this maa
iu earne-t about (ni////i//i7 ''' I breakfasted with him
next morning, but made no further progress towards
admit ing him.

]\Iy time in jMinneapolis was very :<hort— a circum-
stance which I have ever since regretted, for there is a
great deal that is both interesting and beautiful in and
around the city. The place probably owes its exis*^ence
— it certainly owes its prosperity— to the fact that the
water of the Mississipi)i there tumbles over a ledge about
18 feet high. This fall is called St. Anthony's. It is just
high enough to be useful ; the body of water, t le river
being over 2i)0 yards wide, is prodigious ; and the forma-
tion of the lianks below the fall is such as to facilitate
the turning of the vast power to good account. The
Jlinneapolitans have, indeed, made the Mississippi
their slave, and the amount of work they get out of
it is almost incalculable. The Father of Waters had,
for untold ages, indulged in a joyous and graceful
leap at this particular point ; but the citizens have
now put him into harness, and given him to understand
that, if ho iril/ leap, h',' shall perforce leap to some
jiurposp. But let us como to sober prose. What has
hapiiened to the Falls of St. Antiiony is just this :— A
score or more of immense flour mills (or, to use the
American words, " flouring mills ") have been built on
the river bank, abreast of the falls, and through each
of these mills an appreciable part of the water of the
^Mississippi Is made to flow. It emerges from the mills
18 feet l)elow the level at which it enters tliem, and
in its descent through those 18 feet it puts forth the
power of many thousands of horses. There is no other
such collection of Hour-mills in the world. They are
not all of the same size and capacity, but I was
informed on good authority that one of the largest
of them in capable of turning out C,000 barrels
of flour every day. The grinding is not
effected by means of circular stones, as in this
oountry, but by iron rollers, the Americana having in

! 1

104

thia, as in so many other matters, made a notable ile-
parture from tho old lines. It will now be readily
understood why Miniieaixilis is the gruiitcst ^niin inir-
ket north of ('liicigo. Wheat I'ours into the city from
all part!) of Minnesota, from Manitoba, from Dakota,
and from portions of several otlier Stuti's, and hiivinj?
been turned into Hour by the jiower derived from tlio
great river, it i^^ sent out in birrols to all parts of
the country nnd to Europe. As there is no water-
power in the neif;libuui ho id which is iit all comparable
to that supplicil by St. Anthony's I'alls. Minneapolis
has little to fear from any possible local rival, so lon^ as
the !\Iississip])i cnntiiiucs to tlow.

Uiviil cities, like iMdutli, c()in|)1ain th it Minncaiiolis
exerts a great ileal more intluence in the fjraiii market
tii:in is good for eitlier tl e fanners or tho public. It is
alleged that the owners of the mills have formed
tliemselves into a "ring," which is able, within
certain limits, to fix tho price both of wheat
and of Hour over a vast aiea. I do not
pretend to I e al)le to say how mui^h tvulli there is in
these ch irgi's. Knowing soinctliiTig of huiiiiin nature
generally, and a little of tiie \'ankeo vaiii'ty of tlu
article in ));uticu'ar, [ am (|uito prepared to helieve
that, if tie Minni'iipolis millers leally i.iissess anything
like a monopoly, they are very likely to use it witli a
single eye to their own p o!it. I'ut; tiu! opening of the
Northern Pacilic liailroad tlinmgliout must certainly
hi.vo impdreil whatever n\onopoly they once possessed.
They are no longer the only av.iil.ible customeis for the
wlieat grown in th' rlistricts traversed ly tliit lino. If
the prices they offer ilo not please tho farmeis, the
latter can now send their grain to Diduth, and theie
ship it to the Kastern States or to Kurojie.

The Falls of St. Anthony have been pretty completely
spoiled by tho mills. Not only do the huge buildings
disligure the Ijank, but in dry seasons they abstrai't
nearly the whole of the water, and leave a mere dribljle
to go over the fall. The very fall has been protected by
a sort of apron or curtain of wood, and that cei tainly
does not add a i)ieture»que feature to the scene, Tho
finest thing left is the rapids above the fall. These.
when the river is full, are very beautiful, as the bed of
the river slopes down no less than 8li feet in the last
two miles. A tine suspension bridge crosses tho river
a few hundred yards above the falls, and from that
bridge a commanding view of the rapids is obtained.
Tho small city on tiie opposite side of the river is
called St. Anthony.

There never was such a case of "bringing grist to tho
mill" in wholesale fa hiou as at j\linne ipolis. The
nulling industry, with its wonderfully cheap power, is
evidently one of the most lucrative things in the country,
as a glance at the city shows. There is every evidence
of widespread and abounding prosperity. Tho busi-
ness streets are handsome, and already tho roadways
are being paved, London f.ishion, with blocks of wood
•" end on,'' laid on a substantial jtlaiik flooring. 'J'lio
only respects in which tlie paving dilfeis fro'ii ours aie
these — the wooden blocks aio of cedar, and they are
round instead of 8i|uare, the interstices 'eing tilled
with ru'"blo or concrete. Some of the streets of jirivate
residences have a particidarh' nleasmt, comlorial)lo
look, and their avenues of sha<le trees were among the
finest I saw. Minno.ipolis was, moreover, the liist city
I visited in which attempts were being made to
illuminate the streets by means of powerful electric
lights on the tops of tall masts. But as I found this
system in full use in a still newer, still more vestorn,
and still moro temarkable place than the Oity of

P'lour Mills, I will postpone a description of it for the
present.

ST. PAUL TO OMAHA.

To tho West, to the West ; to tlic laritl of the free ;
Wliere the mighty Missouri rolls down to tlie sea.

So sang Charles Mackay. And so .should I have sung,
if singing wer.j one of my accomplishments, when
we stepped aboard tho train at St. i'aul, for the long
run across the pr.iiries to the city of Omaha the ]ioint
at which the chief railroads froTU tho lla-t connect
with tho^e running on towards the Far West. but
Mackay's stirring fall. id nniy, like the J'salms at
church, bo " said oy sung " ; and, as I i.ould not sing
it, I " sai<l " it, in the hojio of arousing my compan-
ion's enthusiasm and my own.

I l!y the way, the " mighty .^lissouri " does not " roll
down to the s a," stiictly speaking. It lolls into the
Mississ'ppi. Jjut some allowance must be made for
l)oijts when tlicy have nnnianageahle indiai, words to
Miaishil. It is the mi^hty .Missis-ippi whiih really
" rolls tlown to the sea," and Mackay no douht mailo
desper.i'.e attempts to lit tlie name of the i'ather of
^Vaters into ii:.-: verse. Failing in that, ho did
the next best thn.;', remembering perha]is that it
was just as ri'astnible to call the Miss ssipjii a tribu-
t ry of the Missouri as to regard tho former as the main
stream. |

^t. i'aul seemed t) us faiily far wos^ a^ve looked
over the maii and back ujion the lung journeys of
the previous five weeks ; liut as yet we were
not nearly half-way acros< the continent, and we
were now fairly starting for Denver, with the inten-
tii of making the whole run of U'sarly a thousand
nules without any othei halt than that imposed ujion
us by the lailway comjiauies. The first stage of this
journey was from St. J'aul to Sinux City, a distance of
1170 miles, by the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis, and
Omaha liailroad. The line traversesthesoiitli've^corner
of ^Minnesota and the north-wtstcornerof Iowa. l''orsome
distance after leavin; St. I'aul, the railway follows the
valley of the Jlinnesota Kiver, which is v.'eU wooded ;
but presently the river diverges to tlu right, the wood
becomes giadually less and Vs^ a'lundant. and the lino
at last emerges ujion the open, trceles< prairie. This
was the first time I had passed through a jirairie country,
and the experience was an interesting one. The general
notion that a prairie is a boundless, treeless plain is not
strictly correct. Treele s it is, no doubt ; for one may
travel for liouis, and see not a tiee as tall as one's self,
except here and there where a f'arnior has planted arow
in a painfull}' straight line as ashelter for his homestead.
I\Iost farmers do ,.,lant in t lis way, and it is a pity they
do not do so on a much lar;-'er scale ; for wood is
required, not only to su|>ply fuel and timber, but also
to break the monotony of the landscape and to modify
the climate. Kut the prairie is seldom a plain, in the
strict sense of the word. It is, indeed, no more a i)lain
than Salisbury I lain is. Like Salisbury Plain, it usually
consists of gentle, regular, rolling undulations, like a
long uubroiitui swell on tho ocean. The undulations
are usually nmro gentle than tho<o of Salisbury I'lain,
but they are epially well delined. So slight is tho
gradient that the railways often follow the ups and
downs for scores of miles at a stretch, without either
embankment or cutting. 'I' lie line has aj^parently been
laid on the hard surface of tho prairie, and a little bal-
last hua completed the business of construction. The

traveller discerns clearly eaough, without looking out
of the ciir, where the inclines bdgin and wliere they
eml. Tho viiryin:^ speed of the tniin Iceeps liiin accur-
ately informed. For liiilf tlio tlay, tlio triiiii is altci'-
nately climhing and luiininj; down theso .sli.;lit undida-
tions, and the down-lull runnin;,' is natuidly faster
thin the uphill,

The railroads which cross the iirairies have to be care-
fully i)rotected aj^ainst snow-drifts. On those viist
treeless tr.icts, the wind sweeps along unoiiposed l)y a
single natural ohstaclo which coull 1)1 oak iis foice. If
snow is tallinj;or lias recently f.\llen, it is carried along
by tiie blast until it reiiuhes some «lij;lit ImUow
or some solitary group of buildir.i^s. It tills
up the one, ;ind is jiiled in nii^rlify diilts a;,'ainst the
otrier. As long as the railway is on the s mio level as
the prairie, or is riiised sl'.;litlj ah jve tii.it level, it lias
nothing to feir from drifting snow. In the latter
case, indeed, the wind, when thoie is any, kecin
tliu lino clcir, and the snow is iiiled up on
tlie leeward siile of the cnriaiikiiieiit. l!ut; when the
line is in a cutting, however slight, the case is dilferont.
'I'lie drifting snow will very so )u till the cutting
to the very top, and all traiiic will be su--
jiended unt 1 it thaws or is cleared away, livery
cutting, therefore, has to bo i)rote..-te I on
the sitlo from which the winter winds generally blow,
and sometimes on both sides. 'J'lio protect! <n usually
Consists of a strong wooilen harrier, not entirely chised,
but with the longitudinal strips somewhat nea'.cr toge-
ther than tho°.o of an oruinaiy fence. As the pressuio
of the drifted snow is sometimes groat, these fences are
seldom left to maintain the perueniical ir l)y their own
strength. Either they are supiiorted by stout proi)s on
the side nearest the cutting, or the diiiereiit sec-
tions of the fence are made to support eaeli other
in a rather ingenious way. This end 'n at-
tained by making one section incline towards
the railway and the next in the opjiosite ilirection. anil
so on, every section being tirmly connecte 1 it its top
corners with its next nei^hliours. Ivich section inclining
towards the line is thus tirudy held up at both ends by
sections which incline the other way, and a stron.;ur
liarrior for tie purpose iu vi 'W ciuild not he desire 1,
Sumetimes, when the d;r(>ttion of the pieviih nt wind
i-^ diagouil to t!ie eour e of the railway, each .ieetion of
the fence stands by itself, duly ])rop))ed up, with Oiio

end half turn d awav from the cuttiu'.

Iiese iire-

cautions against snow drifts in ly a])pear very ob\ ious
and simple, but they are evidently the outcome of
long and costly exper.ences ; and where a line is i goid
deal h low the level of the surrounding country, the
construction and mainteuanco of the barriers must
prove a considerable bur<li'n.

The priurie country traversed by the line by which we
travelled to Sionx ( ity and Omaha is a very ic:rtilc dis-
trict, which is being rapidly Settled, I he harvest was
in progress when wo passed through it, and wr saw some
very fine erojis of wheat, maize, and other g.ain. Where
the prairie was not yet broken up, the natural gra-s
had been largely cut for hay. 'i'his lool<ed in some jiLiecs
as line as the best I'higlish mnidow hay. and I was toll
itcould bo h.id, ready cut and <lried, for ."'S pur ton by
those who chose tc co!l''ct it at their own expense,

A gi'iitleman who travelled with us from St. I'anl,
and who alighted at a small i)Iace in low.i, wh''re ho
said ho had a largo farm, gave mo some information
about some of the settlements in his own neighbour-
hood. One of these, ho told mo, belonged to a sharper
who lived and grew fat on English llats, Jlis plan

was to advertise in this country for the sons of
gentlemen and, well-to-do farmers, undertaking, in re-
turn for a good round sum as premium, to iidtiate them
into tlio mysteries of jirairie farming, and, when de-
sired, to lind eligible farms for them. Tho usual glow-
ing representations were made, and tho young fellows
who were thus caught went out in tho belief that thoy
had discovered a very pleasant and easy way of making
fortunes. The reality jiroved dilferont from the antici-
pation, and only a few of the hardiest and most deter-
mined of them stuck to the woik more than a few
weeks. The smart advertiser, in short, seldom had to
give much iu return for tho handsome
l)remiuin : and in those ca-es in which he supplied his
pupils with larms, the young fellows usually threw
them Uj) in disgust, and he secured them on his own
terms to Sell to the next set of Hats. ]\[en who are able
and wi ling to worl;, and who do not object to deprive
themselves for a few years of all the luxuriei and some
of the comforts of life, can and do luosper in tho dis-
trict f am writing about ; but the class of young men
for whom this Iowa shariicr baited his hook are, as a
rule, \\ ele;;s out there, and nothing but disappointment
can residt irom their going out. 'i'liero should be no illu-
sions on this suhjoct, 'I'he yotmg man who has hithert >
only played at farming in Jurgland, and the greater
jiait of whose time has been spent in lidin,', coursing,
shoot'Ug, llirting, hanging about tiio hotels of tho
nearest town, and otherWise taking things easily and
jiliaantly, must have an ama/.ing amount of the right
sort of stulf m him if ho i . capable of turning his back
upon his past, and facing in „rim earnest the c ireer of a
western farmer, 'i'here are such young fellows, no
dou't, and I would take olf my hat to them as an
expression of profound lesi'oct if 1 only knew then>
when I met them ; but I am afraid their name is not
" i.egion.'"

One remarkable feature about these western sett'e-
men;s is the way in which settlers of the same nation-
ality very often clustiu' together. In one place, you
fiiui that nearly all the people aro(iermans, while in
another [dace Norwegians luedoiiiiiiato. The Iowa

,'entleiiian to wdioiii I hav(

■rred told mo that in his

nei,;hbourhoo I there was a set! lenient consisting entirely
oi Itussims, and in another part of the countiy I was
told that ti cro was r. colony of Uighhuidcrs. (Low-
land Soo'ch and I'lstermen are common jniuigh, but
Kighliiid .ettlers are rare, ) Oo where they may, tho
men of the Highlands, of course, eairy with them their
lia;pipe.", their stern tiieology, including the ".^aw-
iiatli," and Iheir " wliud«y." 1 heard some droll but
cliaracterisiio stories ahoit one of iheir settlements.

The . ettlers wan'.ed a church, but a dispute arose as
to the site. Ivich m m wanted the building erected on
or near hi; own (iroperty, an I for a long time no settle-
menl of to dispute ainioared possible. At last, a
meeting was called to decide the (|Uestion, and when
the people eaiiie together, it was found that ono of tho
f u meis, who wasp uticularly anxious to have tho kirk on
his Ian I, had hrou-;ht with liim a suiall cask of whisky
with which to "intluence" tho voles. There was a
regular shindy, and it w.is at last decided to call in
several ininisiers from the iieighbonrhood t assist in
solvin,' tho (|uestion in dispute. The ministers duly
put in an appearan e at tlio next meeting, but even
then the dispute ran ho high that ono or two of tho
dis|)i;tants Hung olf their coats, stripped u|) their shirt-
sleeves, and |>repaied to decide the position of the
church by an irregular iMl. performance. The ministers
had, iu fact, same dithculty in preventing a froo tight.

' r^

100

To fight (on Any " lawful dny ") over the site of a
church in, it seems, allowable ; but to do any kind of
domestic work on the " Sawbath " is as wicked in the
American backwoods as it is to despatch herrings from a
Highland railway sti\tion to Glasgow on that day— a
sin which the pious people of Strome Ferry recently pre-
vented by storming the station and knocking a number
of porters and policemen on tlic hoad. In the Highland
settlement where the site of the church caused so fierce a
contest, a man once lay ill in bed. Alady belonging to his
own religious body visited liim one Sunday, and she very
soon discovered that the poor fellow was really in want
of nourishment. The only thing in the way of food in
the house was some ei^gs, and with some difficulty she
obtained his consent to boil him one or two. Hlie pro-
ceeded to " build " a fire, and had mile some progress
with her task, when the sufferer suddenly remembered
that it was Sunday. He instantly stopped her, and, in
spite of all her entreaties, he refused to allow her to do
anything further towards relieving Iiis necessities, and
grimly resigned himself to starve on till Monday
dawned.

Siorx City.

" Sioux " looks like au ugly word to pronounce, but
it is not. The Americans simply shorten it to " Soo,"'
The city, of course, owes its name to the famous tribe
of Inilians which was once u onaich of all it surveyed
in that region.

Sioux City is on the Iowa bank of the Missouri
Kiver. The opposite shore is the eastern extremity of
the great State of Nebraska, So far as I could judge,
tlie place had a population of about 12,000 or l."'),000,
but this is evidently growing at a very raiiid rate. The
numerous fine blocks of business premises in course of
erectionborenloi|uent witness to the increasing prosjierity
of the place. Sioux City is, I should say, another place
with a great future before it. It is alre.idy an import-
ant railway centre, and the rapidly-developing districts
of Western Iowa and North-east Nebraska look to it
as their commercial metroju/lis. It is, as I have said,
on the banks of the Missouri, and tlms possesses all
the advantages of a river navigation which extends over
thousands of miles. At present, the Missouri is not
bridged at Sioux City, and passengers for the Nebraska
lines have to cross in ferry steamers.

Our train did not proceed beyond Sioux City, and we
were, therefore, compelled to spend a night there. As
we were to start for Omaha by another train
in the small hours of the morning, we
accepted the invitation of the proprietor of a so-called
" hotel " at the station to put up at his house. I can-
not conscientiously recommend anybody else to do the
same. The "accommodations" were very poor ; and
as the "hotel " (a wooden one) formed part of the
station buildings and looked out upon the platform,
there was not much sleej) to be had, especially as the
heat and the stuffiness of*the small room-i compelled us
to throw our windows wide open.

Hy five o'clock in the morning, we were agaia on the
move towards Omaha. A Sioux City daily paper was
on sale on the platform when we left, ami from that
we learned that, shortly before midnight, Wah Lee had
murdered Ah Sam in the horrible but approved fashion
in which Chinese officials are graciously permitted to
depart this life when they have rendered themselves
amenable to censure. Hoth the murderer and tho
murdered were in the laundry line in the city, an<1 it
was believed that Lee'thad favoured Sam with the
" happy dispatch " — that is to
bim up— for the sake of some

had about him. It ii only fair to say that
horrible crimes of this sort are comparatively rare
among the Chinese. As a rule, they are a quiet, law-
abiding people, who patiently suffer a vasv amount of
ill-usage at the hands of native American and Irish
ruffians.

say, had ripped
moaey the latter

OMAHA.

We arrived at Council Bluffs early in the forenoon,
and, after a half-hour's stoppage, crossed the great
Missouri bridge in a short connecting train to Omaha.
Having a couple of hours to spare before the departure
of the Denver train, we mounted a street car and went
into the city. Here, again, wo found all the usual
evidences of rapid growth in population, trade, and
general prosjierity. Nobody who has ever noticed tlie
position of Omaha on the railway map of the States
will be surprised at this. It was at Council Bluffs, on
the opposite bank of the Missouri, that the first rail-
way from the eastward reached the river, and it was,
therefore, perfectly natural that tho first railway west-
ward should make Omaha its starting-point. The
Chicago and North Western was the first Company to
connect Chicago with the Missouri ; but the Kock
Island, the Burlington and (,>uincj', the Chicago and
Alton, and other Companies have since constructed com-
peting lines either to Omaha or Kansas City — the two
chief crosdng-places on the Missouri. The distance
from ChicafTo to Omaha is about HOG miles, and tho
time occupied in the journey is just about a day and a
ni.,'ht. Once across the Missouri at Omaha, the traveller
m ly fairly regard himself as on the threshold of the
Far West ; aud if he happens to pick up one of the
city newspapers, he at once finds reason to believe that
the peculiarities which more or less mark all American
journals aie heightened and exaggerated west of the
great river. Omaha, for instance, has a newspaper
called the Daily Bee, and a very busy, outspoken
insect it is. It is, moreover, scrupulously virtuous and
utterly beyond the rf ch of corruption. So, at least,
it says, and who can .peak as to its own secret motives
with greater authority ? If it does not know what its
virtues are, who should ?

I have before me the Dailii Bee of August 17, 1883,
the day on which I was in Omaha, ami I cannot resist
the temptation to cull from it a few specimens of its
remarkably candid remarks on city affairs. The
following it says under the heading (in capitals) "The
Rogues' Council :" —

" This paper is in the habit of calling a spade a spade
and a roj;ue a rogue. And when it calls a man a rogue, it
means just what it says, notliing more and notliing less.
When Ur. Cushing dined the city council on their way to
Burlington three years ago, and the council, on tlieir re-
turn, undertook to perpetuate a bare-faced swhidle upon
our tax-payers, tills paper did not inineo matters. It de-
nounced llascall as a rascal, and Kaufman as no better
than Hascall. It went further than that. At tlie risk of
losing the city printing, which hail been virtually awarde<l
to it at that time, it boldly took the jobbers by the throat,
and never let go its hold until they were routed, horse,
foot, and dragoons. It was au eight months' tight, begin-
ning in the council, continuing through the courts, and
finally ending in the complete overthrow of tho rogues at
the polls. Of course. The Ike lost the printinf,. but it re-
tained the public confidence, and saved the city severtil
hundred thousand dollarb. Tho council three years ago
was a disgrace to thH city, but it only undertook one big
job in defiance of decency and public protest. The present
council started out with very fair promise, and turns out a
good deal worse than the council of three years ago, that
was kicked out for its rascality. It isn't content with one

bif: job, but it begeta little and bi(( steals at every meetinir.
When The Bee, in the interest of the property-owners anil
tax-pavers, deiiounceil the Baiulstonu contract as a fraud,
and expressly charged (what it can establish to-diiv) tliat u
thousand dollars had been offered to at least one touncil-
nian to support that job, we knew well enouiih
that the rogues, witli Hascali at their head and
Kaufman at their tail, would swindle the tax-
payers by refusing to award us the printing.
We knew that no matter how low our bid would be, they
would vent their personal spito by refusing to award it. To
.show ♦.hem up in their true linht, we made a bid of 50 per
cent, below The liepublicaii, and considerably lower than
the little dish-rag that is being circultUed in our streets as
a newspaper. It turned out as we expected. Tl'6 council
rejected the bid of The Bee without giving any reason,
and awarded the registration lists to an irresponsible and
readerloss concern that hail run barely six weeks, at tlireo
cents per line, for which The Bee, under its bid, could
only charge ly cents per line. This is not only petit larceny
asainst the taxpayers, but it sliows wliat small-patter pick-
pockets we have in tlie council. It is not a very surprising
fact that the satne fellows wlio voted for sandstone voted
for this little printing fraud."

In another column the Bee says :—

"The council is going through tlie farce of inviting pro-
posals for tlie legal advertising of tlie city. The Dee vill be
again a biilder, just to make tlie rogues show their band
once more. Possibly we may ask the courts to say whether
the taxpayers have any rights, even in such a little matter."

This Bee can evidently sting ; indeed, what would bo
the use of its being a Bre, if it couldn't ? Still, I
fancy this brutally frank sort of journalism would
rather startle English readers. We journalists on this
side no doubt have our little differences at times, and
occasionally do a little at calling each other names ; but
I trust we never so far forget ourselves as to refer to a
contemporary (whether small or largo, respected or
otherwise) as " the little dish-rag which is being cir-
culated in our streets as a newspaper." But then, of
course, a writer who always "calls a spade a spade " is
equally bound to call a dish-rag by its right name.

Omaha is the largest city in Nebraska, but it is not
the capital of the State. The population in 18(].'> was
about 15,000. In 1880. it was over 30,000, and it is
now probably 3.5,000. Its prosperity is, as I have al-
ready remarked, mainly due to its position as a great
meeting-pl.ice of great railways ; but it has, besides
the vast machine shops, car works, and foundry of the
Fnion Pacific Railway, large breweries, distilleries,
linseed - oil works, smelting works, stock yards,
and pork - packing establisliments. Omaha is,
in fact, "gitting up ai.J gitting '' in a fashion which
'ht to be satisfactory to the most go-ahead Yanlcee.
It is difficult to suggest any combination of circum-
stances which would be likely to chock its progress
seriously. The principal railways have made it tiie
chief crossing-place of the Missouri ; and as they have
spent £000,000 on their bridge, they are hardly likely to
abandon the place in favour of some other. The point
where all the principal land routes cross the great
watery highway of the continent cannot fail to lie one of
vast and increasing importance, especially as it is in the
centre of an immense prairie district wliich is being
rapidly brought into cultivation. The importance of
the navigation of the Missouri may bo gathered from
these few facts and figures : — Above Omaha, the river
is navigable for considerably over 2,000 miles— right
away, in fact, to the centre of Montana. Downwards
to the sea, the distance is at least 1,000 miles, hut
this is only the main stream of the Missouri and Missis-
sippi. Their tributaries also are navigable for
thousands of miles. The longest tributary of the

TTpper Miisouri ii the Yellowstone, whoie head-waters
are in and around the wonderful Yellowstone National
Park. From the source of this river to the Gulf of
Mexico, by way of the Missouri and the Mississippi,
the distance is somewhere about 5,800 miles. This
vast river system is navigated by a fleet of more than a
thousand steamers of all sorts and sizes. A grander or
more valuable natural highway does not exist in any
part of the world.

Omaha possesses nearly a score of hotels and con-
siderably more than a score of churches, and it sup-
ports three daily newspapers, of which tLo busy and
virtuous Bee aforesaid is one, an<l the " dish-rag " to
which the Bee referred so contemptuously in the
article I quoted, is another. The city contains, more-
over, several important public buildings, including the
chief oHioes of the I'nion Pacific Railroad and some
very costly and handsome educational establishments.

The circus is a great and popular institution in
America, and peojilo of all ages and classes run to see
it with all the enthusiasm and artlessness of children.
" As good as a circus ! ' is a common saying, which is
understood to express the highest appreciation of
something striking and amusing. It is equivalent
to our " As gooil as a fair I " A circus
(not Barnum's gigantic concern) was in Omaha
on the day of my visit, and the iiaudy procession hap-
pened to pass the office of the Union Pacific Railway
while I was in the building, conversing with some of
the otfioials. The eagerness and agility with which the
said ollicials jumped from their seats and rushed to the
doors and windows at the first sound of the band were
as surprising as they were amusing. I was about the
only person left in the place ; and, as far as I could
see, there was nobody to prevent my walking off with
any odd millions' worth of scrip or tickets that hap-
pened to be " lying around."

THE PACIFIC RAILWAY.

As Omaha is the starting point of the 1,916 miles of
railway which, under the names of the Union Pacific
and the Central Pacific, connect the Missouri River
with the I'acific coast at San Franci.sco, this io an
appropriate time to give a brief history of that gigantic
undertaking. The spanning of the continent with
railway lines has now become rather a common-place
piece of business, for there are now no less than four
seiiarate routes open, or about to be opened, between
the two oceans. P.ut no multiplication of parallel lines
can ever rob the pioneers of trans-continental railway-
making of their hard earned honours ; nor, I may add,
can any other line over surpass in interest the one
which renders the womlerful mountain scenery of
Colorado accessible, which carries the traveller to
Denver and the City of the Saints, which scales the
Sierra Nevada amid the most ravishing scenery and by
means of the boldest of engineering, and which finds its
western terminus in the great and wealthy city which
haj sprung into existence beside the (iolden (Jato.
The promoters and engineers of the pioneer route showed
the world liow mountains and deserts could bo traversed,
and other promoters and other engineers have "entered
into their labours." The difficulty lay in doing the
thing the first time— in satisfying capitalists and Govern-
ments that the "impossible" could be accomplished, and,
having secured their aid, in carrying the work through.
The thing, once done, became easy, just as any appar-
ently impossible trick becomes easy as soon as the per-
former shows how it is acoomplished.

' 1

i M.

'^ i

108

The gold discoveries in California, and the con-
sequent nnd rapid growth of population and wealth on
tlie Piioifio coast, loJ aocn after the year IH.^O to the
serious discussion of the question of railway communica-
tion across tlie continent. In l.sr)3. Congress maile a
grant of money for tho i)urposes of surveys, and no loss
than nine dilftirent routes wore duly surveyed and re-
ported upon. It was not, however, till 18(i2 that any
decisive step wms taken. Congress in that year grantod
a charter to the IJi.ion I'aciiic liailroad Company,
fixing the capital at a hundred million dollars,
and givini; tho (Jompany fourteen yours in which to
comi>leto tho work. Aliout the same time, tho Central
I'acific liailroad Comjjany was organised in California.
This Company made a be,'iniiing by buying up the
AVestern i'acific, a line which had already l)een opened
from San Francisco to .Sacramento, and which made a
start in tho right direction— viz., towards tho (Sierra
Neviula range of mountains.

It was not until ISdo that the Uidon Pacific Company
got fairly to work with tho construction of their line ;
but operations, once begun, were continued at an ever-
acceleratiii;^ speed. Tho fact is, tho construction soon
became a race between the Central Pacific, working
from tho CJaliforniim end, and tho Union Pacific;, start-
in? from tho Missouri. And the race was one which
involved something more solid tljan tho honour of rival
engineers. Congress had made grants of vast tracts of
land to the Companies alongside tho projiosed route.
These grants amounted to something like twenty
millions of acres, or considerably more than half the
area of England and Wales, and whichever Company
completed the larajer number of miles would be entitled
to the larger share of tho acres. .Stimulated by their
knowledge of this fact, tho two Companies worked with
almost superhuman energy, until the rate of pro.ij;ress
attained at both ends was such as would have been
declared impossible only a few months befoie. Speak-
ing of thij remarkable race, the Puciiic '/'ourlst says : -

" Day after (lay, tlie avoiuKO rate of buiMln.; loso from
one to two, tlueo, and live miles. Many will r. nienihcr
tlio daily tlirill of exeiteniont as the inoinin^' jounials in
the Ivist made tlni annoiinc'iiKints of so many nxne miles
nearer the end ; and as tlio number of coinpli'tid niilivs,
jiriiit'din the widoly-circulateil advertisements of the I'nion
("oni|iany, reaehed 1,001', the exeitenieiit became intense,
as ihe rival roads were now fairly aj;low with tho lieat of
competition, and so near each other. In previous uioiiths
there had existo 1 alittlo ensineeriuK rivalry, sood-natured,
but keen, as to the lars<'st nnnilier of miles each could lay
ill one day. The I'nion I'acific men laid one day sir miles ;
soon after the (Central followed suit by layinp; sercn. Tlie
Union Pacific retaliated by layiiif; seven and adialf ; to thi.'S
tlie Central stMit the announrement that they ronid lay ten
niil(!s in one day. Mr. Durant, the viio-presideiit, sent
back a wauer of 810.000 that it could not be done. The
pride and spirit of the Central Pacitlc had now been clial-
leiified, and they prepared for the enormous contest, one
of extraordinary niiifiiiitude and rapidity. The 211th day of
April, ISIill, was selecteil for the (lecisic.n of the C(nitest,
as there then remaineil but II miles of track to briii;? a
meeting of tlio roads nt Promontory Point. Wm-k be»an ;
the ground had already been fjraded and ties placed in
nositioii, and at the slttnal the cars loaded with rails
moved forward. l''our men, two on each .side, seize with
their nippers i\w ends of the rails, lift from the car and
carry them to their )ilace ; the car moves steadily along
over th) rails as fast as they are I;>id. Immediately after
follows a band of men wdio attach the plate and put the
spikes in position ; next a force of Chinamen who drive
down the spikes solid to their homes, and last another
gans of (Ihinanien with .shovels, picks, &c., who ballast
the track. Thu rapidity of all these motions, which
required the most active of exercise and alert movements,

was at the rate of 144 feet of track to every minute. By
1.30 p.m., the layers had placed eight miles oj track in just
six hourj. Resuming work apain, after "the afternoon
rest, the track laying progressed, and at 7 p.m. exactly,
the Central men finisheil their task of 10 inile.s, with 200
fuet over. Mr. .lames Campbell, the superintendent of the
division, then seizins a locomotive ran It over the 10 miles
of new track in 40 iidnutes, ami the Union men were satis-
fied. This was tho greatest feat of railroad building ever
known in the world, nnd when it is known how vast were the
materials required to sujiply this little stretch of 10 miles,
tho reader is fairly astoiiisheil at the endurance of tlie
labourers. To put this material in place, over 4,000 men
!iad been constantly employed. The labourers on that day
handled 2.">,S00 cross-ties, \\Jyl[) iron rails, 5,^5,000 spikes,
7,040 H.-,li-plates, and 14,0S0 bolts, the weight of the whole
beinn 4,:!()2,000 pounds. Upon both roads, for a year pre-
vious, there had been remarkable activity. A total force
of 211,000 to 2.'),000 workmen all along the lines, and "),tMtO
to (!,000 teams, had been engaged in grading nnd laying the
track or getting out stone and timber. From GOO to tJOO
tons of mati'rials were forwarded daily from either end of
the lines. The Sierra Nevadas suddenly became alivo with
wood-idioppers, and at (Uio jilaco on tho Trnckee Uiver 25
saw-mills went into operation in a single week. Upon one
railroad 70 to 100 locomotives were in use at one time, con-
stantly bringing materials and supplies. At one time there
weie ;iO vessels en ronltiir<.i\\\ New York, rii? Cape Horn,
with iron, locomotives, rails, and rolling stock, destine(l
for the Central I'acific Railroad, and it is a curious fact that
oil several consecutive day^ mine miles of track were ironed
by the railroad companies than it was possible for an ox-
team to draw a, load over. And when, at last, the great
road was completed, tho fact suddenly flashed upon the
nation that a road once so distrusted, and considered too
gigantic to bo possible, was constructed an actual distance
of 2,221 miles in /c.s than five i/far.v, of which all but 100
miles was done between January 1, ISfJt!, and May 10, ISfj!)
—three years, four moHthn, and ten days."

The ultimate meeting or "marri.age" of the two
lines is thus described by the same writer : —

" Upon tl-.e lOth of .May, 1800, tho lival roads approached
each other, and two lengths of rails were left for the day's
work. At eight a.m. spectators began to arrive ; at quarter
to nine a.m. the whistle of the Central Pacific Hailroad is
heard, and the first train arrives, bringing a large number
of passengers. Then two additional trains arrive on the
Union Pacific Hailroad from the Kast. At a quarter to 11
a.m., the Chinese workmen commenced levelling the bed of
tho road with picks and shovels, preparatory to placing the
ties. At a quarter past 11 the Governor's train (Ciovernor
Stanford) arrived. The engine was gaily decorated with
little flags and ribbons— the red, white, and blue. The last
tie is put in place— eight feet long, eight inches wide, and
six inches thick. It was made of Californian laurel, finely
jiolished, and ornaniented with a silver escutcheon, bearing
the following inscription ;—

' The last tie laid on the Pacifle Pai'.road, May 10, 1869.'

" Then follow the names of the directors and officers of
the Central Pacific Company, and of the presenter of the
tie.

" The exact point of contact of the road was 1,085J miles
west from Omaha, which allowed (iOO miles to the Central
Pacific Railroad, for Sacramerto, for their portion of the
work. The engine Jupiter, of tho Central Pacific Hailroad.
and the engine ll'.t, of the Union Pacific Railroad, moved
up to within 30 feet of each other.

" Just bi!fore noon, the announcement was sent to Wash-
ington that the driving of the last spike of tho railroad
which connected the Atlantic and Pacific would be commu-
nicated to all tho telegraph offices in the country the
instant the work was done, and instantly a large crowd
gathered round tho offices of the Western Union Telegraph
Company to receive the welcome news.

" The manager of the Company placed a magnetic ball
in a conspicuous position, whore all present could witness
the performance, and connected the same with the main
lines, notifying the various offices of the country that ha

11 ■'«

was lenily. New Orleans, New York, and Roston in-
Htantly annwereil ' Heady.' In San Francisco the wires
weie eoniiecteil with tlio tire-alarm in the tower, where the
heavy ring of tiie bell niiKht npreail the news iinineiliatcly
over the city as quick as t'le event was completeil. Wait-
ing fur some time in iu'patience, at last came this message
from Promontory Point," at Z'27 p.m. :—

' Almost ready. Hats niT ; prai/tr is being nffercd.'

" A silence for the prayer ensued ; at 2.40 p.in , the bell
tapped a^ain, and the oHicer at the Promontory said :

• We Imlc got done prai/inj ; tlic Sjii/ce in abmU to bo pre-
sented.'

"Chicago replied: ' We understand ; all are ready in
the East:

"From Promontory Point : ' All ready now; the Kpihe
will soon be driven Th<; siyn<'. will be three dotn for the
commcnceine)it of the bloirs.'

" For a moment, the instrument was silent, and then the
hammer of the magnet tai)ped the bell, oue, two, thr^ e, tli •
signal. Another jiause of a few seconds, and the li^dit-
ninji came Hashing ea.stwiird, 2,400 miles to WasUingtcm ;
and the blow.s of the hammer on the spike were repealed
instantly in telegraphic accents upon the bell of the
Cipitol. At 2.47 p.m., Promontory Point jiave tlie signal,
' Done f and the {ireat American Continent wns success-
fullvspanned. Immediately thereafter, Bashed over the lino
tlie following official announcementto the Associated Press:

" Promontory Sunniit, Utah, .May 10.— Tin-. i.Asi ii.vii. is
LAID ! Thk last si'iki; is duiven ! Tin; Paiific Rail-
UOAI) IS COMPLKTKD ! The point of junct'on /s l.lfSi; ))ii7t'«
ice.st of the Missouri River, and OHO mites eaiit of Sacra-
mento City.'

" After the rival engines had moved up toward each
other, a call was made for the peoplo to stand back, in
order that all mi^ht have a chance to see. Prayer was
offered by Rev. Dr Todd, of Massachusetts. J5rief remarks
were then made by General Dodge and (iovernor Stanfont.
Four spikes were then furnisheil— (io» t/old and two silcev, —
liy Montano, Idaho, California, and Nevada. They were
each about seven inches long, ami a little larger th m the
iron siiike. Dr. Durant stood on tlie north side of the tie,
and (lOvernor Stanford on the south side. At ;i given
signal, these gentlemen struck the siiikes, and at the same
instant the electric spark was sent through tlio wires, east
and west. The two locomotives moved up until they
touched each other, and a bottle of wine was poured, as
a libation, on the last rail.

" Immediately after the ceremonies, the laurel tie was
removed for preservation, and in its place an ordinary one
substituted. Scarcely hail it been put in its jdace, before a
grand advance was made npon it by the curiosity st'ekers
and relic hunters, and divided into numberless mementoes,
and as fast as each tie was demolished and a now one
substituted, this, too, share<l the same fate, and, probably,
within the Hrst six months, tliere were used as many new
ties. It is said that even one of the rails did not escape
the grand battery of knifi" and hack, and the first one had
soon to be removed to give place to another."

The scene thus described must have been extremely
striking and dramatic, especially as the place where it
was enacted was a dreary, inho9|)itablo waste, near the
northern shore of the Great Salt Lake, The Americans
were fully alive to the vast importance of the transac-
tion, and, as we have seen, they celebrated it in a
thoroughly characteristic fashion. The real nature
and significance of the work they thus completed will
not be fully realised by the reader until I have described
the marvels of the railway somewhat in detail, as I
shall ilo as I go along, and until I have endeavoured to
convey some adequate conception of the wealth and
importance of the magnificent State, which— hitherto
reached from Nrw York by a voyage of 12,000 or 14,000
miles, or a toilsome march of more than 3,000 miles over
prairie, desert, and mountain— was thus linked by the
iron road to the great group of oommoQwealtbs with
which it was politically associated.

ACROSS THE PRAIRIES TO DKNVElt.

We left Omaha at noon on August 17th, for the long
run across the prairies to Denver. The distance ia otSD
miles, and the time occupieii 1'.* hours. The speed,
therefore, averages almost exactly 30 miles an hour— t*
fact which will, perhaps, surpriso many of my readers ;
for it is, I find, the general impression in this country
tliat travellin;^ in the Western States is invariably a
very slow business,

IJeforo startinj,', we looked after the inner man. In
connection with tliis important mattera rather amusing
episode occurred, illustrating once more the persistency
with whicii i']nglishmen clin;^ tj their homo habits and
institutions, however far they may roam. My com-
panion asked the man at the station refreshment counter
whether he could not let iiiin have some bread and
cheese, remarking that he would rather have that than
any of the eatables displayed on the counter. The
attendant said : " No, wo don't keep it." A moment
afterwards, however, an iilea struck liiin. " Aro you
an Englishman''" ho asked of my friend. "I am,'
was the ready reply. " Then you sh.all have what you
want,'' said the attendant ; " for I am an Englishman
too, and I have hero under the counter some bread and
cheese and beer for my own luncheon. Vou sh ill sharo
it with mo." And s'.iare it that pair of Englishmen did ;
and so pleased was t le attendant at having a fellow
Britisher to partake with him of tlie n.itional faro that
he firmly declined to accept a cent by way of payment.

And now for the prairie — nearly (JOO miles of it with-
out a break. The traiu no sooner starts from the Omaha
dep 'it than it enters on a r ither steep incline, and in
the first three miles rises 17») fjot. It then descends
gently, and at the end of another 15 or 20 miles again
reaches tho same level as Onialia, which, by tlio way,
is about 1,000 feet above the sea. About 3.j miles from
Omaha, tho line fairly .'■ettles down into tho valley of
the Platte, and from thence all the Wiiy to Denver it is
hardly out of sizht of that river. The Platte is one of
the tributaries of tho Slissouri. It is made up of two
streiims, one of whicli drains the Rocky Mountains of
northern Colorado, while the other renders a similar
service to the Wyoming; S'ction of the same great chain.
The sourc a of the northern arm of the Platte must be
more than a thousand miles from the jioint where tho
stream enters tho Missouri, near Oinalia. The Platte
is wide as well as long, but it is very shallow, and
almost useless foi' purposes of navigation. In dry
seasons, indeed, it shrinks enormously in bulk, anil
the greater part of its wide, flat bed is then waterless.
It is a "shifty" river, difficult to deal with, and,
although shallow, dangerous to ford except at the
established crossing places.

The Cnion Pacific Railway Company's land grant in-
cluded nearly half the valley of this river, from
Omaha right back to tho Rocky Mountains ; for, as I
have alrea<ly stated, the railway runs pardlel with and
nearly close to the river nearly all the way, and the
(Jovernment grant consisted of every alternate square
rile in a belt of prairie tO miles broad— /.e., 20
miles on each side of the line. At tho eastern
end, the wholo belt is pretty generally settled,
and settlements of i lore or less importance are scat-
tered at inter' als all along the line. Hut there are
millions of acres of splendid land still undisposed of,
and the railway belt alone has still ample room for
hundreds of thousands of settlers. The soil is extremely
fertile, and the price of farms ran^, .a as low as three
dollars (12: 6d) per acre. The time is undoubtedly com-

IM:'!

i. *■'

■

110

ing when the valley of the I'lntte will be one of the mo^t
thickly-peopled and pruauerous of the iip;riciiltnral
regions of the HtateH. The lower part of tho vnllcy in a
great grain I loducin^ district, while the upper ( )r west-
ern) part is one of the tinest and most extensive gra/.-
ing regions in the world.

When the Union Pacific line once gets fairly a'ons-
■ide the Platte, at a point 'M or 40 miles from ( >mahii,
it begins to rise. The ascent is gradual, but continuous
and unbroken, and by tho tiiuo iJenver is reached, the
rails are more tiian 4,000 feut above Omalia. Wnerens
the latter place is only about 1,000 feet above sea level,
Denver is 5,203 feet above it, or almost exactly n
mile. The ascent is so gentle, and so evenly spread
over tho whole l;^ hours of tho joiiiuey,
that the traveller is entirely unconscious that he is
ever going up— up— up, unless ho happens to bo caru-
fuUy studying the Oom|)any'8 time-table as he Hies.
This time-table is a model of what such a table should
be. It is a sheet nearly four feet long, the whole of
one side of which is occui)ied by a handsome coloured
railway map of the northern half of the States, repre-
senting the whole width of tho country from ocean to
ocean, and showing most clearly the connectiju of the
Union I'acilic with all its allies and neighbours. The
time-tables till the other side of the sheet, which folds up
into something like book size. This is the regulation
shape for American tjine-tables, which, indeed, are
technically known as "follers." But the Union Paoifio
tables contain something more than the figures repre-
senting the stoppages of the trains and tho distances
between stations. They indicate which are "eating sta-
tions" — that is, the places where ti : trains stop for
meals. They show the population of every city, town,
and village on tho line i>08sessing a station— unless,
indeed, tho place has less than 50 people.
Further, these time-tables state the exact eleva-
tion of every station above sea level. The passenijer
who possesses one is, therefore, kept posted up
as to tho progress which he is comfortably making sky-
ward. The regularity of the ascent is very remarkable.
Here, for instance, is a specimen of how the figures
read :— North Platte, 2,787 feet ; O'Fallon's 2,871 ;
Alkali, 3,042; Ogallala, 3,10.5; Big Spring, 3,3.i0 ;
Denver Junction, 3,442. In scarcely a single
instance is a station lower than the next sta-
tion westward. The averaga rise is only 8 feet
per mile, or 1 in 660— a gradient which is imper-
ceptible. But a 19 hours' run, even on this gentle slope,
lands the traveller in a city which stands at a level of
nearly 1,000 feet above the top of the highest mountain
in Great Britian.

I had already seen something of a prairie country
between St. Paul and Omaha ; but these vast Nebraska
plams, stretching away from the Platte towards a distant
range of blutfson tue north, have a character of their
own. They are less undulating than those of western
Iowa. The eye, therefore, commands a wider range of
view, and the vaatness is more impressive. Study as
often as one may the amazing figures winch represent
the length and breadth and area of these plains, the
reality is never fully realised until they are crossed.
The traversing of them, even at railway speed, gives
one new conceptions of immensity. What, then, must
have been the impressions of those who, in ])re-railway
days, plodded along, in the company of thuir slow but
patient i.x teams, through wliole weeks aud months of
weariness, towards some distant goal in the Far West —
the mines of Nevada or California, or the Mormon
Fftradise on the ahoreof the Great Halt Lake ?

The ride over the plains was, in the early days of tho
railway, more lively and interesting in some re8i>ects
than it is now. Indians and wild beasts (the Americans
would say " and Dther wild beasts ") were then more
numerous, and the chances of being robbed by a board-
ing p irty of desperadoes w.as considerably greater
thiin it is at present. The increase of white settleri, the
operations of sportsmen whom the railway carries out
into these hunting-grounds, and possibly the mere pre-
sence of tho railway itself, have driven the butfalo, the
elk, and the other large " j,ame" back into the wilds,
where, for a short time longer, they may rest undis-
turlie I. The tourist who expects to see from the rail-
way vast nutnbers of butFaloes grazing on the prairie, or
iierds of silly deer racing along the line in front of the
approaching train (as re|)rescnted in certain pictures I
h ivo seen), will probably be doomed to disappointment.
Ml'. Sala, in his last book on America, describes
the unuiitigatcd disgust with which an American
fellow-traveller of his discovered that there was " nary
Injun,' " nary butfalo, " not even a solitary " grizzly,'
to be seen, and how the disappointeil one vented his
indignation on thinsjs and persons generally. I cannot
say that I expected to see either wild Indians, buffaloes,
or bears ; but I was hopeful of seeing a few prairie-dogs'
"towns," as I had been told that these are still to be
found alon,'side the railways.

The so-c. tiled prairie dog is a comical little creature
of tho marmot kind, which lives in large numbers in
labyrinths of burrows called " towns." The Indians
call the prairie doj Wish-ton-wish, a name which is
supposed to represent the sound made by the animal.
His body is about a foot long, and his tail about a couple
of inches. He has long whiskers, but his ears are l'*;tle
more than a coui)le of holes. He is generally 'leqn
stauiling over the entrancti to his burrow on his hind
legs, with his fore legs hanging down like those of a
dog in the act of begi^ing. Hundreds of these
"dogs" may be seen thus standing over their holes;
and at the slightest suspicious noise or movement, they
disappear into their burrows, head-first, with
the speed of lightning. One, it is said, sometimes
remains above ground as a sort of sentinel. Some
curious superstitions are rife as to the household com-
panions of Wish-ton-wish. I was told repeatedly and
seriously that every prairie-dog's hole contains both an
owl and a rattle-snake, in addition to its lawful tenant.
I took the liberty of laughing at this story, ami was
declared to be unnecessarily sceptical. Well, my
credulity goes as far as the owl, whose solemnity of
charactnr is perhaps a set-olf to the liveliness of
the " dog ;" but I must draw the line at the
rattle-snake. The whole story is probably founded on
a few isolated case^ in which owls and snakes have
been found in the "dogs'" holes, but it is unsafe to
generalize on the strength of individual instances. The
"dog "and he owl might possibly arrange a modus
virendi, but as a permanent lodger the rattle-snake is
surely out of tiie question. If, indeed, that awful
creature is often an uninvited member of Wish-ton-
wish's family circle, all I can say is that the merry,
harmless little "dog "labours under a serious grievance.

I kept a sharp look-out for prairie dogs, but, though
I passed over thousands of miles of prairie, I was fortu-
nate enough to see only one solitary member of the
family. He was sitting up close to his hole, as already
described, but he took a header into his burrow at the
moment I came abreast of him. Possibly, he was the
"town" sentinel, which had been left above ground
with orders to retire at that particular moment.

Iff I

Ill

The little prairie towni and cities are as like lach
other as two peas, and very dreary and unlovely the
majority of them arc, in appearance at least. They
are for all the world like a box of toy houses placed
pretty much at random on a table by a child. The prairie
is as level, and trodden until it is apparently as liard, as
the table. There are no trees, and seldom any enclo-
sures in the shape of gardens, The f'-ame houses, pain-
fully alike and alarmingly fragile in appearance,
stand out stark and naked on the plain. The
prairie is around them ; the prairie is between them ;
the prairie separates them from their own small out-
buildings, whioli stand olf at a respocttul distance like
sentry-boxes. Kvery s'lu ire foot of the town site, of
course, belongs to somebody ; but as the greater part of
it is often unenclosed, it is, like an English common,
traversed freely in all directions by anybody and every-
body. Where there is a station, some sort of an
attempt is usually made to form a kind of one-
sided street facing towards the railway, and
the fronts of the buildings on such a
street form ii line as straight as tho railway itself.
B it, except on this one street, no sort of order is
visible in the arrangement of the buildings. The plan
of the town may be, and generally is, as regulnr and
rectangular as a chess-board ; and as the town site tills
Dp, its irregular aiipearance will gradually disappear.
The raggedness and irregularity are due, as I have
before explained, to tho fact tliat new-comers select
" building lots " at random— one at thu corner of one
block, the next in some other block, and so on. The
principal buildings are usually on the straight street
parallel with the railway. The hotel is generally the most
imposing edifice. It may possil)ly be of brick, and two
or three stores and warehouse? in the same lin£ may be
equally substantial. But such buildings (usually excep-
tions) are separated from each other by frame-houses
and shanties of all sorts and sizes, and in all stages
of ugliness and deoiiy. Some are as gorgeous and
dazzling as a new coat of white paint can make them.
Others have never been tre.ited to a particle of colour
through all their brief Iiistory. These are weather-
stained, fulling into premature decay, and dismal to con-
template. How they manage to hold together and resist
the winds which sweep unchecked across the vast
plains is a mystery. That would be a very " one-
horse " tornado which failed to scatter a whole city-
full of such buildings as straw is scattered by an ordi-
nary breeze. Viewed from a distance and from a
point immediately in front of it, a prairie-city frame
store or house has often a rather pretentious look,
especially when it is new or newly-painted. But the
spectator must not view it in profile, much less
walk round it. If he does, he must blame no-
body but himself if he is painfully disillusioned.
His verdict will probably be : " Whited sepulchre ! "
I'or the building which he perhaps took for a lofty,
parapeted house is found to owe three-fourths of its
apparent importance to the wide, lofty, wooden screen
behind which the real house —an insignificaut, gabled,
flimsy concern — is cunningly concealed. The building
bears, in fact, about the same relation to the front that
the flimsy canvas " show " of an English fair bears to
the great expanse of gorgeous painting behind which it
hides. The square wooden screen, however, serves
one useful purpose. It is a famous sign-
board, and tht owner usually paints " Grocery,"
or "Meat Market," or "Dry Goods," accord-
ing to the nature of his trade, in black letters, three
or four feet high, along oloRe to the very top of what

looks like the parapet. The country being almost per-
fectly level, tho town or oity is visible from a distance
of many miles, and the tradesman thus advertises bis
business without expense over an immense area. His
"sign " may possibly be read by meapi of a held-glass
ten or twenty miles off.

rRAiuiE Churches,

" There is no God west of the Missouri ! " This
saying used to be very common throughout the
States. The proverb was due to the notorious
lawlessness, seltish greed, and unrestrained violence
of thousands of those who were attracted to the
Ear West by the wonderful discoveries of gold and
silver, tliiity or forty years ago. Such a population
h.ul neither time nor inclination to think about
anything but their mad race after wealth. But
tliis saying now demands reconsideration— that is, if
the recognition of a Deity is held to bo proved by the
existence of churches. There are few communities,
however small, without at least one church ; and by the
time a town has secured 1,000 iiih,'' itants, ic often
possesses two or three places of worship, connected
with as many different denominations. The church
usually stands back at some distance from the main
street. It is very often the solo occupant of a whole
" block ' of Imd, and very solitary and forlorn it looks.
It is generally of wood, tiny spire and all, and the simi-
larity which exists between these earliest efforts at
chuich-building is very remarkable. There must be
thousands of such buildings in the rural districts, which
are as much alike as if they had all been turned
out of the same mould. The toy church which
usually ac ompanies tlie houses of a child's toy town
appears tu have supplied inspiration to the architect
who designed the first of them. Dingy and de-
caying as many of the stores and houses may be, the
church, it must be admitted, is usually as " spick and
span " as incessant painting can make it. It is usually
]iainted a staring white from weathercock to basement,
and the effect on a bright day is perfectly dazzling.
Sometimes, I noticed, the white is relieved or " picked
out " with blue or green lines at all tlie angles. This is
certainly an imi)rovement, though the effect is some-
times startlingly showy. Altogether, a country church
in the West is about as unlike an English parish church
as the prairie on which it stands is unlike Devonshire or
Cumberland.

llAiLuoAD Engine Shops.

The longest of our English railways are able to con-
centrate ttie" locomotive works in one or two places,
but this cauiiot he conveniently done in the case of such
a concern as the Union I'aciSc, whose main line alone is
1,001) miles long. If an engine breaks down or is
wrecked in a collision, it does not do to send it 500 or
000 miks for repairs. The Union Pacific Company
accordingly had to provide engine sheds and repairing
shops at several points on their line. This means that
they had to create new towns in the wilderness, and
to induce hundreds of skilled mechanics to go out
and inhabit them. At tw > or three pt its
between Omaha and Denver, I passed establishments of
this kind. They wero hardly up to the level of Crewo
and Swindon ; but, considering the circumstances under
which they had sprung up, they were equally remark-
able m their way. There is at each such place a large
engine stable, in the shape either of a "round-house"
or of a building in the form of a segment of a
circle, with numerous lines running into it, like

: -) .- i

I I 3

112

:^ ^

■\ ,;■

tlio ribs of nn open fnn, from a largo contial

turn-table. Sjicakini,' of turiitablrs remimls inn

of a vory Himplc sul)Ktitiito foitlmt iiondcKiusau'l costly

ftpparatviK, wliicli I >a\v at many of tlio prairlo stat'on-".

This Kiibstitutc (onHist' (1 siinply of an al•l•aM^'l'Inent of

\ilH liki' tlio letter Y iitiitoil liy " imints ' to tin- main

ino at cacli L'n<l of tho foi k ol tiio Ittin-, tliiisr-

A 'I'lific is, of coiir p, a switoli at eacli itiii^li; of

tlio triaii;;lo. An cii^ino which it in nc'cusary to turn

round riiDH fr )m thu main line ui> one foik of iho

Y a'nl l);icks down tho otiior. When it reaches thu

main lino again, it Ih olivious that its head is facinp;

in tho opposite direction to thai in which it faced

before.

'I'heHO miniature Swindons arc not mcrcdy reiiairinc;
Bt itions. 'I'lioy ai-e the points at which tho enjjincs,
ent;ineci8 (drivers), tireiniii, and conductors rclivocich
other— a process which, on a straiijht run of i.OoOmiles,
is of course reicatcd several tin es. Tho necessity of
creatinf} numerous estahlidimints of tliis kind in the
willirncss was not tin; le ist of the many ohstades
which lay in tho way of the iirojecturs of tlii' I'acilic
IJailroads, IJiit this diliicult.y, in conunoii with e\ery
other, has been triumphantly sunnonnted. and there
is now no jiart of the line so far from a lejiairin;; shop
ns some parts of our own (Ircat W'esteiu Itailway arc
from Swindon.

TlIK "WlCKEDKST ri.ACi: IN AMF.IUi'A.

Tho branch for I'envcr loaves tlio mainline of tho
Union I'acilic at a p'ace which is now called I lenver
Junction, Imt which wa ■ formetly known as .luh sburj,'.
I'ho Company probably had moru than one riason foi-
chanpjint: the name of tlris station. It was only natii al
that, when thelirr.nch to ])en\';r was o]'fned, tho jilaco
should 1)0 called l)enver .Imiotion ; but tlicro was
nnothor very Kood reason for 'he change. Tho name
of .lulesbnrg stank in thenost-il of all timid travellers.
In its early days, it was a iieifect .^inlc of ini'|uity. and
tbo violence an I ijeneial hvwKssne^s of its inh iliitant.s
earned for it tho title of "Tlie Wiekeile-t l'i;y in
America.'' Murders were so fro'|iient that it was a
subject of remark when a mornin,' d iwnod on which
theic was not "a man for breakfast "-that leinp; tho

Eleasant and delicate way of statin;; that somebody bad
otn done to death durinj; the nii^ht. Neveitheless, it
was, perhajis, a little invidious and unfaii- to call
Julesburg " Tho Wickedest ( 'ity in America;'' for, if
tho truth must be told, almost every wcsicrn city
lias been tho " wickedest place " in its turn.
It has been tlio rule, rather than the excep-
tion, for sncli cities to pass throu:,di a period of lawless-
ness. 'J'ho places often owed theii' existcnco to dis-
coveries of gold or silver, or to some other circumst inco
which attracted reckless, lowdy, avaricious men of the
gambler type from all parts of tlie world, 'the popula-
tion, made up mainly of thesi, elements, grew with e;rear.
rapidity ; it outsrew, in fact, the inade.iuate }>rovision
made by the State or I'ederal (iovernment for the
execution of the law. For a time, society was in a state
of chaos. The period was one

" When those niislit take who hail the power,
Anil, those loi.iilit keep who could."

Every man was a law unto himself, enforcins his own
rights, and acting, when neces.sity arose, as juilge, jury,
and executioner in his own cause. <,)uariols were fought out
with pistols and knives ; insults, real or imaginary,
were avenged in blood ; and in some cases it was an
exceptional phenomenon for a man to die otherwise
than " in his boots." Such was often the first stage of

a city's o\isteneo ; nn>\ to this sta 'C of utter lawlesnes-i
sm 'Ceded, with the most uneiriu'.; lertainiy, the per Od
of Lynch Law. I he decent and peacealdo citizens,
driv»'ii ut last to take action, met in secret and or^'an-
i-ed t'le siiiipression of tl'.o rowdies. ]\Inriler was
immediately avenged l»y thu strirging-up of the mur-
derer at midnight by a band of inaked men. The worst
oftheruiians received i few ; (jurs" notice to " clear out,'
with an intimation that they wouhl be liaiigod if
they tailed to go. .And hanged they were, if they
disobeyed tha summons. '1 his dratio t eatmciit was
generally sue isst'iil. lly tho tin.,, half-adozen
cr in Hals had lieen hanged an. 1 a score or two banished,
the stat ■ of things hacl ulteily changed. A jdaco
which had been reg rded and slniniied as a hell ujton
earth was thus convorteil within a few short months,
and i)y the action of .\ few determined men, into a
decent, law-abiding tnwn, whcie life and property
were ns safe a-, in any llasti rn city.

The rowdy, Lawless stage at .Llesburg was, I fancy,
more protracted than usjud. At :,iiy rate, the ]dace
bore its evil reputation for a numln'r of ye rs after tho
oi'iMiii:g of the I'acilic llailvvay. It was near here that
tho I'ai.'ilic tr.iins were repeatedly boarded and robbed.
'I'his hapiieiU'd 'Mice as late as l">i'.l. and J am not sure
that that was the last time. I m ly add that such
attacks on triinsaie not entirely unknown even now.
A des]ierate attempt was made on a train on tho
Atchison, To; eka. and ^'anta l''o lino while I was in the
coun'ry, and such attacks will be cert lin to occur at
intervals on all line< passing through unsettled dis-
trict;, where tin; "powers that bo"' have as yet
organised no ell'ecti'. c means of enforcing the law. The
roi)bery of traii:s has, in fact, been reduced to a fine art.
The tiling is done somewhat in this f a hion: —

A gang of di.,.iised i ulllans, each carrying a little
arsenal of con ealed weapons, lioaid tho train at niiiht
by two-i and threes (\t ditferent stations, distributing
themselves on a jirc-arrange 1 plan among the ditferent
cars, 'J'he train having reached some wild spot in the
middle of a long run, a couple of tho ruffians saunter
forward to the baggage cars, shoot or overcome the
baggairc man. and then go on to the engine, compelling
the (lri\er an^l stoker, on jiaiu of instant death, to
stop t'ic train. Tho moment tho train slackens,
operations aio commenced in the cars. A fellow takes
his stand at each c ir door, iioints two revolvers along
the Car so as to cover every poison in it, and cries
•■ Hands up,'" INfany of the passengers may be armed,
but at this sudden challenge they are jierfectly helpless,
whether armed or not. They know that the slightest
movement of their hands towards their weapons would
be rewarded with a bullet, and rll \ccordingly
bold up tlieir hands. And there they have to
kee]) them, on jiain of instant death, while the
cor.federates of tho ruliians at the doors go
leisuiely through tho car and "take up a collection"' —
i.r., take all the money, watches, and other valuables
which the passengers hajipen to have about them, Tlie
work being elfectually done, tho scoundrels jump off
the train (now at a standstill) :»nd disajipear in tho
darkness. Sometimes, when the bagga.;o cars are known
to co'.ita'U CJoverntnent or other treasure, the attack is
confined to them, and desperate encounters have before
now taken place between tho thieves and the baggage
agents, who are always armed. Sometimes the
desperadoes are badly handled, and not only fail in
their object, but incur a rather heavy " butcher's bill."
At least two attempts of this kind were repelled last
year,

■ .'!

113

Tlie orv of " Hands up ! " !■ not »n exoluHivoly rail-
way ohaflenge. It ii the univeroal cry of highwnymon
in the Htntei. The habit of carrying; concealed weapons
is 80 common out West that the attacking jmrty knows
he dare not let his victim make the slightest movement
in the direction of bis pocket, lie is perfectly aware
that, if he does allow this, his antagonist will be on
e(|ual terms witlt him in iibout a second, and may
pussibly fire first. lie, therefore, insists on the arms
being held up at full length while his mate secures the
"swag." This cry of "Hands up" has added a no* verb
to the American language. To " hold up " a co icli is
to rob the passengers in the approved fashion already
described. A stage coach-full of " Knights Templars "
were thus robbed on their way to the Yosemite \'alley
while I was in the neighbourhood, and the ncwspajiers
reported the outrage under the beading, " Anothir
Stage Held Up ! "

We passed Julesburg some time during the night,
while we were asleep, or trying to sleep, in the Pull-
man car. We were not *' held up," and I am, there-
fore, unable to r'escribe how a man feels when be is
undergoing that process.

Buffalo Ghass.
When day dawned, we were approaching Denver, and
the mighty barrier of the Hocky iMountain^, extending
north and south as far as the eye could reach, lay on
our right. The brown, bare, arid plain was all round
us, stretching away illimitably in every direction except
that of the mountains. To the sti anger these western
prairies look, in the autumn, like deserts, utterly value-
less for agricultural jmrposes. But their appearance
is misleading. Tlie short, brown, dried up, buncliy
herbage which carpets the country for hun-
dreds of miles is the famous buffalo gras'i.
It is only two or three inches in height, and its
seed is produced from flowers almost covered by leaves
and close to the ground. It grows in small, dense tufts,
and is exceedingly rich and sweet. In the spring, it is
green ; but as the season advances it dries on its stem,
retaining all its swectnea? and looking precisely like
hay. Without any exception, horses, mules, and stock
of nil descriptions refuse all other kinds of fodder while
buffalo grass is within their reach. This grass was the
natural food of the buffalo when he had these vast plains
to himself ; but now that he has retired to more se-
cludeil districts, the grass shows some signs of giving
place to other kinds of herbage.

COLORADO AND DENVER.

Denver, the political and commercial capital of the
State of Colorado, is tlie largest and most i)rosperou8
city in the long stretch of 1,900 miles between the
Missouri River and San Francisco. I have already
toM so often the story of the fabulous growth in popu-
lation and wealth which constitutes the history of so
many Western cities, that the task is becoming a little
monotonous. It is, however, necessary to tell it over
again in connection with Denver, unless I am content
to convey a very imperfect impression of that remark
able city. And that I do not want to do.

Denver stands about fifteen miles from the foot-
hills of the Rooky Mountains, at the junction of a
stream called Cherry Creek with the southern arm of
the Platte. It is, in fact, on the extreme western edge
of the great plains. With the mighty barrier of the
Rookies at its back, it looks eastward across a thousand
milM of prairie. The situation U in all respects a
8

grand one. It Is Just far enough from the mountains
to allow the main chain— the great Continental Divido
— to be ston to advantage above the smaller
ridges or foot-hills which form, as it were,
tlie outer ripples of the central sea of
solid billuws. All who are familiar with moun-
tain scenery will understand my meaning. The highest
mountains are not always, or indeed frequently, best
seen at close quarters ; for they seldom rise sheer out
of the plain. Between them and the plain are usually
interposed several inferior ranges, by which the
central and superior chain is graduall) approached, as by
a series of steps. In order to obtain a view of the cen-
tral mass, it is necessary either to ascend the outlying
heights, or to retire backward into the plain until the
former can be seen towering above the latter. Denver,
accordingly, is just far enough from the mountains to
gt-t a good view of them, and those who have seen the
main chain of tlie Bernese Alps from the heights above
Berne are in a position to understand what that view is
like.

Whether the Denver landscape is as fine as that at
Berne dejiends a good deal upon the conditions under
which it is seen. There is not much dilference between
the heights uf the principal peaks of the Colorado
Rockies and those of the Bernese Alps. In each case,
11,000 feet is about the extreme limit. But whereas
Burne is only l,7iiO feet above sea-level, the spec-
tator at Denver stands at an elevation of
more than 5,200 feet, and the mountains are, of course,
dwarfed in proportion. I think, too, that the Alps have
tlio advantage both in ruggedness of outline and in
their laigcr supplies of snow. The sum:iier snuw-line
in .Switzerland is only 8,000 or !>,000 feet above sea-level,
but ill the Kocky Mountains the snow often disappears
entirely, except from the very highest peaks, towards
the end of the summer. There was very little snow to
be seen when I was among them. I crossed the main
ridge in a railway train at the amazing
height of nearly 11,000 feet ; and even at
the summit of that remarkable pass there was plenty of
rather stunted timber, but not a particle of snow.
The truth is, the atmosphere of Colorado, and of the
whole western region of America almost down to the
Pacific sea- .d, is wonderfully dry. Of the practical
advantages and disadvantages of this aridity I shall
have occasion to speak presently. Its effects on the
mountains are obvious. The fall of moistnre, whether
in the form of rain or of snow, is a mere fraction of
what it is in the Alps ; and, further, the little that does
faP. is quickly caught up again by evaporation. Miss Bird
tells us in her famous book on "A Lady's Life in the
Rocky Mountains " that the snow does not wait to melt
before disappearing. It is, she .says, re-absorbed as it
lies into the atmosphere by some invisible process
which has not yet been fully explained. The conse-
quence is that the Rockies of Colorado are not a
snowy range to anything like the extent that their
height and latitude would lead one to expect. Tastes,
no doubt, differ in this respect ; but I am free to
confess that I like m.v mountains white — as
regards the last two or three thousand feet
of them, at any. rate. The glistening snow-fields and
glaciers of the Alps constitute the finest possible con-
trast to the successive belts of pasture and forest which
engirdle the lower zones of the mountains. This con-
trast is almost entirely wanting in the Rocky Moun-
tains in the early autumn, if I am right in generalizing
from what I saw and what I failed to see while among
them.

«■■ ti

114

''i

^1' ;

It mutt, novertlielcis, be mltnitteii thnt the view of
tliu inoutituim ftum tliu ncix'tbuuihood of Uonvcr on a
iine (lity ib a nnvor to bo-forKuttnii experience, The
wonilerful clenincs< of tlio atmospliero of Colori\do
ennbleH tlio H|»'ctiitor to tsiko'iu hucIi ii Htrotch of the
chain at n .sihkIo ;{litnce iis, bo far as 1 i<iiow, can
nowliero lio eijuallcd in thu Alp.t. No Icbs tlian IMi
niiiea of the r<n((u can Homotiincs bo seen at once,
liOnfc'B i'eak Ijeinn visililo on the ri^iit ami the SSpaniah
I'eaitH on tlio loft. There in, moreover, ono other
feature of tlio ilucky Afountains which in not to be
found in tho Al|)>t. 1 refer to thoHO narrow, profound,
and awful KOiKOBcdleilcanonK(pronouncud " canyonB")
whicli have bo often been described by travellers, and
of widoh, as the en^meers Imvo h:id thu audacity to
push railways throu;{h BOino of tho most famoUB of
tliem, 1 shall he able to i;ivti a little information in due
courHe.

Ah i before remnrkod, IJenvor is about 15 milo.^ from
tho foot hills. The intervenin;; country is almost per-
fectly level ; and so duoeivin;; are the distances in that
clear atmo»iiherc ami in tho preHcnco of the giant range,
that it is not c iBv' to m:iko a Htrnnger believa that ho
could not crosB thu plain nn fool in about an hour. It is
Bail), indeed, thatperBuns have heiui known, oa their tirst
visit to the city, Co sot out on an ante-breakfast walk to
the hills and back.

Tho dryness of the atmosphere of Colorado renders
tho State a most eli(?ible resiilenco for all persons sulfor-
ing from diseases of the lungs. It has, indeed, come to
be regai-ded as a gr(!at sanitaraim, to which medical
men send consumptive patients fiom all parts of the
country. 'J'he Siato contain* numerous healtii resorts,
where, in addition to the fine, dry air, patients can
ol)tnin ndneral waters of a'l degrees of nastiness, and,
I dare say, of medicinal value, its atmosi)lie:e is, how-
ever, Colorado's most tamo. is and most genuine physic.
I'oople who can breathe no other air breathe that and
thrive on it, 1 met, oii my return voyage, with a
gentleman who told me ho had a consumptive brother
near Denver who positively could not live anywhere else
but in Colorado; and, it I am rightly informed, his
case is only one of hundreds, if not of thousands,

Denver owes its existence to the enormous mineral
wealth which has of late yo.irs been brought to light in
the neighbouring mountains. Its exact ]iosition w:i8
determined by the discovery of gold in the Binds of
Cherry Creek. It was founded as long ago as IS.''',;, but
its growth and development have reully occupied only a
small part of tiie i|uartei'-century wiii:h has since
elapsed, it grew fast for tiie first two or three years,
but it then suffered a long ami serious check through
the breaking out of the great civil war, anil afterwards
through the dis.overy of .still richer mineral deposits
further West. In ISiO, the city was connected with
tiie Eastern .States by the o|iening of two railways —
first, a branch to the main line uf tlie I'nion Pacific at
Cheyenne, 100 miles dist.mt; secondly, the ivan-ias I'acilic
Railroad, running direct from Denver to Kansis City, a
distance of 031) miles. The opening of these two
lines caused a kind of "spurt," or, as the Americ:ins
call it, a "boom," and for another two or three
years tho city appeared to bo on the high road to
greatness, Jiut in 1873 a series of disasters set
in, which again clie^'ked its progress. First, came a
great commercial and financial ])anic ; and this was
followed by two seasons in which the whole State was
ravaged by grasshoppers. It was, therefore, not until
about 1878 that the wonderful tide of prosperity which
U now flowing fairly set in. That year was

I marked by the diioovery, nt Leadville and
other placet in the State, of mineral deposits
I on a scale hitherto undreamt of. A groat ruth wat at
I once made for these rich districts, and Denver, as the
commercial and tinanc'al centre of the Htate, began to
profit enormously. The mining "camps" were mostly
mere coUeotiona of rude, hattily-built shanties, in well-
nigh inaceisible spots among the mountains, and their
lociety wat of the uiual rough and lawleti type,
Denver, therefore, became the head-quarters of many of
the mining Rpeoulators. From it they drew their tup-
plies of noccssarieH, and there they placed their families
oven when they were not free to reside there perman-
ently themselves. To Denver, moreover, much of the
ore fiom the mines is sent to be smelted. But the city
is rapidly becoming something more than the mere
capital of the Colorado mining district. Agriculture is
e.xtending, and cattle-rearing is being carried on in
Colorado and the neighbouring Territory of Wyoming
on an enormous and over-increasing scale. Denver is
tho chosen residence and head-i|uarter8 of many of the
owners of cattle ranches, and these add very appreciably
to its population and prosperity. Almost every trade
has now obtained a footing in the city, and it is he-
ooiiiing a centre of distribution over a very large
area. It is ton much to expect that it will ever
become a second Chicago ; but that it is destined to be
tiie commercial capital of a district comprising many
thousands of 8(]uare miles is a foregone conclusion
among all who understand the geograi)hy, the circum-
stances, and the history of Colorado and the neighbour-
ing States and Territories,

1 have no information as to the population of Denver
prior to the census of 1880. It was in that year barely
3(5,000 ; but the annual report of the Denver Chamber
of Commerce, norv before me, claims (to adopt an
American expression) that the population had increased
to 7'), 000 by the beginning of 1884, If these figures are
correct, it has more than doubled itself in less than
four years. Supposing this wonderful growth to be
maintained, six figures will be required to express the
facts in about a couple of years,

Denver is already a railroad centre of the first class.
It has connection with the main line of the Union
Pacific by three routes— viz., two by Cheyenne (pro-
nounced "Shienne ") and one, as already explained, by
Denver Junction (Julesburg), The Kansas section of
the Union Pacific rune direct from Denver to Kansas
City, at an average distance of about 200 miles south
of the main line to Omaha, Hut between the two
parallel lines of the Union Pacific runs the independent
line of the Burlington and Missouri Kiver Uailroad,
Still further south is another great East-and-West
route — the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa F'e.
This line does not actually touch Denver, but
its cr.iins run into the city from . Pueblo
over the rails of the Denver and Rio '.Jrande. A
passenger from Denver to the Eastern States has,
therefore, a choice of no less than four routes. The
Denver and New Orleans Railroad is another great
undertaking. It is, I believe, still unfinished, but its
object is to connect Denver by a direct route, vid
Pueblo, with the (iulf of Mexico, The four long
Eastern lines are apparently the most important of the
roads which centre in Denver ; but they are certainly
not more essential to the prosperity of the place than
the shorter narrow-gauge lines which connect the capital
with all the great mining centres up among the moun-
tains. To the tourist, the lover of nature, and the
student of engineering, these mountaia lines constitute,

11.1

beyond all queation, the moit interettlng and wonderful
group of railwajri in the world. Tlioy are so wonderful,
and HO utterly unlike anytliin;; to be lucn in Kuiopc,
that I ibull m.ike no apolo){y fur K>vinKi >n a future
chapter, n lomowhat detailed account of wliat J saw of
then) in a lorios of juurnevft extendiiiij over nearly
1,800 miles.

Considering the very rapid growth of Denvnr,
the city is wonderfully complete in nil that con-
■titutf ) an at{reeablo place of resideme. That it hiis
gai-worka, tramwiys, aixi watci-worki goes without
■ayinx ; but in so new and busy k place it is siirpriiinK
to diaouvor that the inhabitants have alrondy found
time to supply themselves with the electric li^ht, with
a syxtem of steaiiiheutinK, with a splendid systotn of
public schools, with a univcraity, churchi-s, h'jtuls, an
opora-hou'ie, and other public buildinf^s, all on a sciile
of splendour which is soirccly surpassed l>y tlio oldest
and largest of Eastern cities, Tlio eiier;;y, faith, and
enthusia-m of the inhaliitunts are such as a stolid
liriton finds it hard to umlerstitnd. The invigorating;
atmosphere of a site which is elevated a full mile above
seadevel, the mn^niticont and ever-present pro<pect of
the great mountain chain, the skill and enterprise with
which engineers and capitalists have succeeded in link-
ing together with iron bands the capital and tlio ap-
parently inaccessible mining to vvns, the aluost miraculous
growth of population and w^ ilth due to the womleiful
discoveries of the precious met da— these and Himilur
causes appear to have fairly intoxic.itcd the IJenvorites.
They are drunk with mountain air and phonomenul pros-
perity. Tliuir enthusiasm for their city and their State
knows ,0 bounds. Wliiit the I'romiseil i.and wiis to the
wanduiinR Hcbiewa, what Walt Lake City is today to
the ima;;inations of thousands of Kuro|jean Mormons,
that Colorado and its prosperous capital are to the in
habitants thereof. It is |)at't of their creed that the
beauty of Denver is matciiless, and that the develop-
ment and prosperity of the State can know no limits.
If unbounded entliusiusm, and an unshakeable faith in
themselves and the grand country which they have
made their own, are of any avail, the peo)do of < ulorado
are doin;; much to brinj; about the fuliiluient of their
own glowing iiiophecies.

There is, however, an amusing side to this rampant
enthusiasm. It is, in fact, apt to run into bathos. I met,
for instance, with a copy of one of t lie Denver news-
papers, which contained an article on the oompletinn
of the Kio Grar.de iiailroail extension to Salt Lake
City. That article was simply an hysterical screech
from beginning to en '. The poor man who had written
it had been carriei' away by his inspiring theme.
He was fairly intoxicated with the splendid prospects
which the opening; up c' this new rout.j appeare<l to
promise. I showed this screech to a sober and matter-
of-fact Eastern journalist. He read it throu;;h, and
h:inded back the newspaper to me with this quiet but
significant remark : " NVhisky !" I am more charitable
myself, however, with regard to the source of the
Denver editor's inspiration. His somewhat incoherent
rhapsody was, after all, only ^e expresision, in an
exaggerated falsstto, of the aspii ions, the enthusiasm,
and the unbounded faith of his f low-citizens.

The Board of- Trade report t'. which I have already
referred thus sums up the present commercial position
of Denver : —

" Denver bas grown to a point wliere she is beyond com-
petition within the field of her aspirations. Her supremacy
i 8 assured. She has risen in the past few years to the
position of the undisputed metropolis, not of Colorado

{ alune, but of the entire arid rvglon. Pioin the .Mloaouil

Itivur to the I'aoillu Uccaii, and (kiIh t'.iu liritiMh tu the

Mfxicaii line, hIic is without a peer. Sim is not iiieiely tlie

cr>iiiiiitii'rial colli ru of this vast and riih loiiiitry. H'.\e i.4

' aNii its till uii'ini and sucial cai itil. 'I'Ik' rnppur.iiiine

owiit'r '"f Ari/.iitia, the hirue ranchman of Nov .Mexico, the

poMsi'Msor of till' yri'it herd of cattU' in WestiTU Kiiiisas,

I the man with tlit- Kold-smtdter in .Montana, the larKeNheep-

: owiii-r of Malio, as well as the invustur in silver iuIiihs in

I'tah, all exlill)it Ik tendency to make tlic city a dttelling-

plni^tt fur tliuir familli's and the tinnnct it Iiu,i«li|unrti>rs for

their vast Hiitvrpii.st'S. When the ralhoads ho adjust thtdr

rati's as to ri'Co;:nlzi' tlm importance tu wtilch wt* have

crown, we shall bo thn disti iliiitiiiK pidiit for all tlio

; int>-it»<ts owned hi>r)'. No industry lui.t immi'diattdy feeds

Denver is in a l>ad way. Silver and unld mining! India-

iiiiiatdy employ more men in actual production than ever

iiL'fore. A;;riciilture Is exiiandinj; all over t o* .state, and is

.issiimiiiK innneiise proportions. Slieep-era/.in^' is Krowing

f'ister than nio-t people are aware. Cattle raising is enjoy-

I ill:; i veritalile lioimi. .M innfactiirin)' is attracting universal

, attentiiMi. Capital is flowinir in and seekint! meritorious

: investments, riie tide of iininiurntion keeps up. Land in

advaneiiiL' ra-ddly in value, and city pronerty reninins

w<MidHrfullv tiim. The h.inks are strong, ninl our leading

coinnierc' d houses ore reniarkalily solid "

Denver, us I have before siid, stands on the plain ;
but the plain at this point is slightly undulating. The
site of tiio ci'y is on a gentle slo])e, just sullicient for
drainage and irrij:ation purposes, as well as to break
riii> rriouotnny inseparable from a do id level. The
streets are laid out in tho usual rectauHulir fashion,
an. I in one ilirection pre numbered from Mrst Street
upwards. Tonso which run at riitht an:.des to tho num-
bered streets are named on no apparent system ; that
is, on t'lo Knulish plan, or absence of plan. The busi-
ness parts of the city are still disfigured hero and there
by a few dilapiilate I shanties, of tho kind of which the
place no iloulit exclusively coiisist:od in tho earlier sta ;e8
of its history ; but by far the larger proportion of the
warehouses, stores, and othcos in the jirinc pal streets
are solid erections of tho most substantial kinds. Some
of the " bloc's "' of business buildings may be fairly
described as gigantic as to size, and splendid and costly
as to architecture.

'I ho residential streets, stretching far out in almost
every directi n into tho suburbs, are particularly attrac-
tive. The roads are wide, and the avenues of shade
trees ate very beautiful. Many of tho residences hear
eloquent testimony to tho wealth and taste of their
ORdupants. As to their wealth, there can bo no ques-
tion whatever. They already constitute one of the
richest communities in the States. Tie residential
suburbs will bo still more attractive when they are
finished. Their chief dstigurement at present consists
of numerous vacant scrubby " building lots " which
.ire probably heincr held by their owners until pur-
chasers can be found for them at fancy prices. Mean-
time, they constitute a sort of Xo-man'sland, or, pe.'-
hn 8 it would be more corie;;t to say, Kverybi dy's-
land ; for everybody traverses them freely without let
or hindrance whenever a corner can thus be cut off,
an<l tho children, of course, find them particularly use-
ful as playgrounds.

Almost every street has a stream of clear water run-
ning along the gutter on each side, just as the streets of
Wells, Chard, Tiverton, and some other towns in the
West of England have. In addition to the other
advantages of such a system of iriigntion, t'lere can be
little doubt that, in the cn^e of Denver, where
there is little or no rain for several months at a
stretch, the water is absolutely essential to the main-
tenance of the fine avenuei of trees beneath which

U-...- ._!!ll.-W^^^

w mmmm

I r ^

1^.

.; .

.1 *■

ii«

it tlowi. The exceptional luxurinnoe and verdure of
these trees are, no doubt, largely due to this perennial
watering.

Denver i> remarkably fortunate in the character of
the soil on which it is built. This is a sandy loam
which, once put into shape as a road, becomes almost as
firm and hard as a maoadamized road. I am not quite
sure whether the principal thoroughfares arc* ever re-
paired with stone, but it is a fsict that the suburban
roads require simply to be kept in shape. They are
soon dry after rain, and there is little dust on them
after a drought. They are firm enough to resist the
pressure of both hoof and wheel, and yet so elastic as to
be well-nigh perfection tor riding and driving. It is, I
know, at the risk of exciting envy in the breasts of
English Highway Boards and ratepayers tlint I s:iy all
this ; but it is all true, and the risk must be run. After
all, we must resign ourselves to the undoubted fact
that the human race cannot all live where the hills are
full of gold and silver, and where Nature has even
made arrangements for keeping the roads in repair at
her own expense.

The public buildings of Denver are on a scale com-
mensurate with the wealth and public spirit of the in-
habitants. Being both the county seat of Arapahoe
County and the capital of the State of Colorado, it
necessarily contains the buildings devoted to the State
and county business. The permanent Hcate Capitol
has not yet been built, but it is intended to
place it on a commanding site already Ci'iled
Capitol Hill, and it is certain to be worthy
of both the city and t)ie State. The County
Court House and the City Hall are fine buildings, but
the pride and boast of tlie city now is the newly-erected
Opera House. I suppose, however, I must give this
place its full name. It is called the Tabor Opera
House, having been built at the sole cost of a Mr.
Tabor, who is a very wealthy citizen, and of whom I
do not care to say much more, although I heard a good
deal a'lout liim. He is said to have spent 800,000
dollars on the entire block of building, which contains
the Post Office as well as the Opera House. The latter
is declared by actors who have appeared in all the
principal theatres in the world to be second in splen-
dour to the Grand Opera at Paris alone. A twenty-five-
year-old city may well pride itself upon such a verdict
as that. Large as the cost was, Mr. Tabor is under-
stood to receive a satisfactory return on his out!..j. The
Americans are a theatre loving people, and in rich cities
like Denver they willingly pay extravagant prices for
the privilege of seeing and hearing the most famous
artists. There are few places, however small, without
their " opera houses. " Even the little prairie cities
which I recently described often have such a building,
though it is seldom anything more than a flimsy shanty,
with the usual square, showy front. I may,
perhaps, as well remark here that the general attitude
of the religious bodies of America towards the theatre
is very different from that maintained by most of the
English churches. It is an exceptional thing to bear
the theatre commended, or even spoken of in a tone of
toleration, by religious people on this side the ocean ;
but in the States the exceptions (and, of course, there
are numerous exceptions) are on the other side. The
preacher who filled Mr. Beecher's pulpit at Brooklyn on
the Sunday I was there expressly mentioned refined
stage plays as among the legitimate agencies for develop-
ing the intellectual and moral nature. In Utah,
the theatre may be almost regarded as a brench of the
Mormon ChuroL Brigham Young was largely "in-

terested *' in the Opera House in Salt Lake City. It
was a common thing in his time (and I am not aware
that the plan has been abandoned) for one of his
officials to announce the theatrical performances for the
coming week after the Sunday service at the Taber-
nacle. And the love of th. ...tricals is not confined to
the capital of thn Territory. I saw " opera houses "
of the shanty genus standing alongside the temples in
more than one little Mormon city that I passed through.
Opponents of the theatre will probably say that the
opinion of " those wicked polygamists does not count.
There is some force in that, no doubt, and I am bound
to say the drama would be in a bad way if it depended
solely on Mormon recommendation. But I am not
now argu'ug the matter. I have my own decided
opinion, of r turse, but my object at present is simply
to state facts.

Denver already possesses a number of very fine
hotels. They are not yet up to the level of those of
New York, Chicago, and San Francisco as regards size
and splendour ; but, considering the youth of the city,
they are not the least remarkable of its institutiona.
They are largely patronised, too, for no less than five
hundred strangers enter the city daily. I had no op-
portunity of making myseli" personally acquainted with
either of the hotels, for I and u:y friend were, on our
arrival, taken captive with the bow and the spear
(" figger of speech," as Artemus Ward might siy), and
carried off into the suburbs, to the residence of an old
Yeovilian, once a member of the staff of the Western
Gazette, and now the proprietor of a prosperous printing
establishment in Denver. He would not hear of our
going to a hotel ; and, being helpless in the matter, we
resigned ourselves to our not unpleasant fate, and spent
the greater part of a week under hi« hospitable roof. We
are deeply indebted to him and his family, not only for
the pains they took to entertain us, but for the aid they
afforded us in making the most of the few days we were
able to devote to Colorado.

The new Union Depot (railway station) is one of the
finest and most convenient I saw in Amerca. It is used
by all the companies whose lines run into Denver— an
arrangement whose convenience will be understood by
all who have ever lost time, temper, and trains in
running or driving from one terminus to another in any
of our large towns. There are so few wet days in
Denver that it was not thought necessary to cover the
railway platform with a roof. I am afrhid the word
"platform," by the way, is misleading to a stranger
when used in connection with an Ameiican railway
dep6t. There is seldom any platform in our sense of
tha term. At Denver, for instance, you step out of
the waitmg-room upon a perfectly level wooden floor,
an acre or two in extent, cut up in all Jlrontioiis by
lines of rails, which are sunk, like tramways ia towns,
to the general level. To reach the train you are in
search of, you may have to cross half-a-dozen of these
lines, lugging along with you all your hand baggage,
for it i& seldom a porter's services are available.
Trains are moving about at a crawling pace, and everyone
has to look out for himself. The engine bells toll con-
tinuously during these movements, and I suppose no-
body who is not stone deaf has any right to be surprised
to find himself taken off his feet by the cow-catcher of
a locomotive. To an Englishman, accustomed to foot-
bridges over and subways under the lines, the whole
thing looks dangerous enough ; but no doubt American
travelling humanity adapts itself to the circumntancns,
and keeps a specially sharp look-out for the erravio
movamenti of thetraini.

■^1 4

'xW^ # '

117

I City. It
not awara
one of his
Qoes for the
the Tabor-
confined to
a houses "
templei in
ed through,
y that th«
I not count,
am bound
depended
I am not
tin decided
t is simply

f very fine
of those of
regards size
of the city,
nstitutionii.

than iive
had no op-
ainted with
ere, on our

the spear
it say), and

of an old
he Western
}U8 printing
hear of our
matter, we
i, and spent
le roof. We
not only for
the aid they
ays we were

I one of the
,. It is used
Denver— an
derbtood by
d trains in
other in any
vet days in
;o cover the
,id the word

a stranger
can railway
Dur sense of

step out of
ooden floor,
Iroitioiis by
ys in towns,

1 you are in
ten of these
lid bagKane,
e available,
ind everyone
ills toll con-
suppose no-
be surprised
w-catoher of
med to foot-
is, the whole
bt American
'cumntanoAS,

the erratiio

The public schools of Denver are maintained on a
truly splendid scale. There are at least nineteen of
them devoted to elementary education, besides one or
two higher-grade schools. There is also a University,
and it is worthy of note that the movement which
resulted in the foundation of thishi^h-clttss educational
establishment was started in the year 1803, when the
city was barely four years old.. These new communities
in the Far West have their faults— some very serious
ones, no doubt ; but, so far as Denver is concerned,
it cannot be said that it has displayed, at any
time, a want of zeal in the cause of education.
In this respect, it has well maintained its character
througliout. It would probably be safe to say that no
community in the whole world possesses, at this
moment, a more efficient and liberally-endowed system
of elementary education than does this new city at the
foot of the Kocky Mountains. The school buildings are
on a scale of ma&:nitude and grandeur which amazed
me. I inspected one of them pretty tlioroughly, and a
greater contrast than it presented to the bare-looking,
whitewashed structures in which many of our
own children are taught, can hardly be imagined.
In the solidity and elegance of the fit-
tings of the various rooms, that structure (tlie Gilpin
School, as it is called) would compare very fy 'ourably
with the dining-room of the average English gentle-
mau. In many parts of the States, the abundance and
variety of the native timber give the builders an im-
mense advantage over us, and the result is that massive
waiii°ooting8, mouldings, andotherfittingsahound where
we should have to rest content with bare walls. But the
neighbourhood of Denver is entirely bare of wood, . 'd
such forests as the more distant parts of the States
possess, produce little besides pine and spruce timber.
All kinds of fine and hard wood have, tlierefore, to be
brought from other States at a heavy cost. This fact,
however, has not prevented the school authorities from
employing such woods in the finishing and furnishing
of their schools as freely as if it grew close at hand ;
and nothing struck me with more surprise th^in the
lavish^iess with which they had expended money in
this direction, pjverything, in short, that money could
do has been done to render the schools comfortable and
cheerful ; and the abundance and perfection of the
educational appliances — the teachers' tools, so to speak
—are such as would excite the envy of the master of
the best-appointed board schools in England. The
Denver schools are famous even in a country
whose system of public education generally is a
legitimate object of pride. It is said, indeed, that
the city has hrgely profited by the fame attained by its
schools. Traders and others on the look-out for a
suitable, home for themselves and families have been
known to decide finally in favour of Denver because of
its superior educational advantages.

The world is a small place, after all. Here is one
more proof of the fact. It turned out that the care-
taker, or resident housekeeper (or " janitor," as the
Americans call such an officer) at (iil|iin School was a
native of the English town I hailed from (Yeovil), and
that his wife was a Yeovilian too. Both had, in
fact, lived within one or two hundred yards of
the office of the Western Gazette. I have oome to the
conclusion that there is no place in the whole world in
which it is perfectly safe for a man to do a thing be has
reason to be ashamed of. Whether you are at
Timbuctoo or at the North Pole, there is always the
risk that your next-door neighbour may turn up at the
T«r J momeat when yoa leaet derire hit oompany.

The Denver Churches.

The churches of Denver number nearly sixty, and
many of them are costly and handsome buildings. The
Catholics aie the most numerous body. After them
come the Presbyterians, the Methodists, tlie Baptists,
the Congregationalists, and the Protestant Kpiscop.ilians,
in the order in whii;h I have named them. No less
than seventeen churches were either built or materially
enlarged dining the year 1883, and at the pre-
sent moment the value of church property in the
city exceeds a million dollars. The finest church in the
city, and, I may add, in the State of Colorado, was
opened by the Baptists a few weeks before my visit.
Its cost, exclusive of internal fittings and furnishing,
was 85,000 dollars. The liistory of the congregation
worshipping in this church is highly characteristic of the
railroad speud at whicli things and people go ahead in the
West. About nine years ago, the congregation was meet-
ing in an apartment in some secular building which they
hired for the purpose. In due time, they built them-
selves a church, which, though of modest pretensions,
was opened with rejoicings and congratulations. But
the congregation and its demands grew so rapi<ily that
it had very soon to set about enlarging its borders, and
the result was the erection in 1883 or the splen iid
building to which I before referred. This is actually
the tiiird place of worship occupied by it succeasively
within a period of little over eight years. Its church
No. 3 is, as I have said, a costly and beautiful place.
What its No. 4 will be, who shill say ? We may yet
see a Baptist St. Peter's or St. Paul's at the foot of the
Rookies.

Between 11,000 and 12,000 persons attend the various
cliurches on Sunday evening, and the morning attend-
ance is somewhat larger. If wholesale church-going
does imply a recognition of the existence of a Deity,
Denver alone appears to supply evidence that it is no
longer fair to say: "There is no God west of the
Missouri." On the other hand, the cynic may, perhaps,
discover new justification for his cynicism when he finds
that church-going is so exceedmgly fashionable in a
community which, in the most literal sense, is '' making
haste to be rich." And it must be admitted that, if
all this church-going implies godliness, the Denverites
have at last solved the problem how to make godliness
profitable for "the life that now is;" for a more
prosperous community is not to be found on the face of
the earcta,

I am disposed to think, however, that a steady-going
theologian of the old orthodox English school would
open his eyes somewhat w;der than usual if he attended
tiie service at one of these ^ijrand churches, for he wouhl
see and hear a good deal that would probably shock his
most cherished conventional notions. I attended the
evening service at the Baptist church already referred
to, and I confess that my previous experiences, even in
America, hardly jirepared me for whp.*-. I heard. Accord-
ing to our orthodox notions, the sermon is the most
important part of the business at church — the piece de
rnistance, as the French say. This was certainly not
the case p.t that Denver church, I trust I do not libel
that great congregation in recording my profound con-
viction that it went to church that evening, as Cowper
said some repaired to church in his day, even in Eng-
land —

" More for the music, than the doctrine th«re."

And I cannot find it in my heart to be very hard on the
congregation, for the music certainly beat the sermon by
very long chalks, I have been nnable to bring away with

riHi

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■'. ■

i| i

me any eascntial part ^f tho sermon acroaa the fifteen
months and the five tlous inJ miles that now separate me
from the time and the place. All I can icmcmber of
it is that tho jireiicher made a i)athotic reference to the
very recent death, under somewhiit melancholy circum-
stances, of one of the IJaptist ministers of Denver. IJut
the tones of the lady soloist who sang a buautiful anthem
settini; of Mrs. Adams's f <imous words, ' • Nearer, my ( iod,
to thee 1" have not yet ceased to echo in my ears. The
Bolo itself would, I imagine, be regarded us a <|uestion-
able innovation ))y an English Jiaptist of the o'd school ;
but what lie would be likely to say if he were told that
the soloist WHS a professional from the o^iera, who re-
ceived quite a litile i)i!o of dollars for
her services, my ima}{ination fails to su;Tgcst.
Tliat, however, was the fact. The congregation,
wanting good music, had gone to tho best available
market and secured a splendid article. In that they
did well. I .vould gladly put myself to considerable
expense and trouble to hear that solo again from the
§ame lips. It was an exquisite and touching perform-
ance, and the congregation was visibly affected.
Those who take exception to it will perhaps ask them-
selves why they object toallow thoiraspirationsto besung
for them by a trained and paid vocalist, while they
employ a paid minister to utter their iirayersfor them.
Ah, me! Wliat mere bundles of conventionalisms and
inconsistencies we are, after all !

Er.KCTUIC! LlGHriNG.

Speaking in a previous chapter of Minneapolis, I
referred to the system, partially a(lo))ted in that city, of
lighting the streets by means of electric lights mounted
on the tops of very high masts. I saw this systeu; in
use in one or two other places, notably in some of tie
open spaces in Now York. But nowhere, I believe, has
it been adopted on the Hame scale as at Denver. .Six
slender iron towers, l."iO feet higii, have been erected at
as many diti'erent points in the suburbs, where there is
no gas, and on each tower has be .n placed a group tf
electric lights, of several thousand candle-power. As
the suburban roads are wide and by no means closely
built up, this system of lighting proves very effective,
each tower iilu-.ninat'Hg a very considerable area. ]5ut
it is obvious that the system, however effective in an
open suburban district, would l)e of little use in the
midst of a crowded city of narrow streets and tall
houses.

Strekt Cars.

Denver, in common with all othrv American cities,
has a system of tramways, extending through all the
principal streets, and running far out into the suburbs.
Tho cars are of tht '" bobtailed " kind already de-
scribed, and the uniform fare is, as usual, five cents.
Travelling in the street cars is about the only cheap
thing to be had in tl e |)iace. With the price of that
nobody can complain. It was what the St' eet Hail-
way Company taileil to do that there w.'.s serious
reason to grumble about a yeav ago. You could travel to
or from almost every jiart of the city by street car excei)t
the one place where you were most likely to want its
services— viz., the Railroad Depot. The cars would
carry you to within two or three hundred yards of the
ticket-office door and there set you down. They could
take you no further, for the rails extended no further.
The consequence was that, if you happened to have any
hand baggage with you, you had eitner to lug it to
the station yourstdf, or hire a cab at a preposterous
charge to finish the journey. Coming from the trains,
the same ditSculty presented itaelf, and passengers were

constantly compelled to hire specially, when, if the
tram-cars had run to the station door, the heavy ex-
pense of so doing might have been avoided. The truth
is, the same set of people were interested both in the
tram-cars and in the cabs, and the whole object of this
absurd arrangement was to compel travellers to hire
the latter. The citizens were apparently powerless in
tho matter, and had no alternative but to submit to
the exactions of the monopolists with such grace as
they could commaml. I speak of this grievance in the
l)ast tense, because I believe it has come to an end
since I was there. I was told, when returning through
Denver from California in tho following month, that
the street railways had been bought by a party of
Eastern ca))italists, who had no interest in the cabs or
" hacks " that ply for hire in the streets, and that the
rails wore at once to be extended to the doors of the
Railway Depot.

The " Express " Extortioners.

I have, perhaps, dealt with this matter at greater
length than its imi)ortance demands ; but I have done
so because it suppliei an apt illustration of the extent
to which the American pul)lic allow themselves
to be victimized by monopolists. Those who fancy
that this country possesses a monopoly in
monopolies aiT very wide of the mark. The particular
kinds of monopolies which are most decried in Eng-
land have, it is true, no counterparts in the States ;
but if Giant Monoply cannot entrench himself in one
stronghold, ho Hies to another. One of his favourite
fortresses in America is tlie business of transportation.
And it is not always in the case of the railways that
the traveller finds liis exactions the heaviest and most
shameless. The telegraph monopoly is far more gal-
lini than any radway monopoly ; for, as
a matter of fact, there are competing
railway lines— sometimes iree or four — between
all the great centres o. trade and population,
i'.ut the most annoying of all the monopolies to which
the traveller is compelled to pay blackmail are the ex-
press companies. These are simply great carrying con-
cerns, which have somehow or otiier managed to secure
the exclusive right to fleece travellers in their particular
localities. I have already described the convenient
arrangement by which the traveller's baggage is
" checked " for any hotel as the train approaches a
large town, but I do not think I have mentioned the
heavy cost at which this service is secured. The pro-
cess is somewhat as follows : —

As the train nears a city, an agent of the particular
express company which possesses the monopoly there-
about passes through the train with a bundle of num-
bered brass checks strung upon leather straps hanging
from his arm.

" Any baggage to check ?'' he asks in turn of each
passenger. Having decided on your hotel beforehand,
you reply—

" Yes. I haveatrunkandavalisefor(say) the Windsor
Hotel." At the sime time, you hand him the two rail-
road checks which represent those pieces of baggage,
and he gives you in return two of his own checks. He
may possibly ask next —

" Is it a portmanteau or a valise you have ?"

" Why do you ask that ?" you inquire.

" Oh !" he says, " because, if it is a portmanteau,
tlie charge is half-a-dollar ; if a valise, the charge is only
a quarter-dollar."

i'erhaos the distinction is one which has never before
occurred to you, and you reply that you know no

119

ditTerence. The exprebs man eulij{hi;en!i you, A port-
manteau is a large leather case vvitli handles at both
ends ; ti valise is a smaller species of leather case, with
one handle so placed as to necessitate its beinp;
lifted by one hand. The number and position of the
handles decide the question of species. You joyfully
remember that your piece of baggage has only one
handle, and the agent courteously classifies it as a valise
and holds out his hand for a dollar ; viz., trunk, half-
dollar ; valise, quarter-dollar— self (fare to hotel in
'bus), quarter-dollar. (I put the faro at the lowest
point. It may be a half-dollar, or even three-quaitcrs
of a dollar, for I met with both.) But perhaps you
have looked out the position of the Wii-dsor Hotel on a
map, and discovered that it is only a short walk from
the depot. In that case, you innocently offer three-
quarters of a dollar, remarking —

" I don't want the 'bus. I shall walk to the hotel "

But you are very likely to be told (as I was more than
once) that, whether you walk or ride, the charge will be
the same. That is to say, the express company will
take you and your belongings to the hotel for a dollar ;
but it will charge precisely the same for your belong-
ings whether you ride or not— which, being interpreted
into English, means that the express company, having
a monopoly, first of all charge outrageously for a
needed service, and then make you take liJ cents' worth
of what you do not want.

Is there no remedy '! Oh, certainly ! There are hacks
at the station door, and you can hire one of them to
drive you and your baggage to the hotel, But this is,
in the most emphatic sense, jumping out of the frying-
pan into the lire ; for the hack-man will very likely
charge you two or three dollars. The probability is
that he is a mere agent of the express com-
pany, wLich is, t.herefore, bound to fleece you
in one way or anothet', unless you abandon all idea of
taking your baggage to the hotel. And the mention of
this alternative suggests to my mind the only mode of
balking the monopolists of their prey. Every tnneller,
who is moving about i-apidly, should have with him a
valise or bag which, when filled, ho is just capable of
carrying a distance of two or three hundred yards. Into
this he should put all the clothing and other necessaries
he is likely to want for a day or two ; and if this is
the only part of his baggage he wishes to
carry to his hotel, he is not at the
mercy of the express people. He may decline their
offers of aid, and leave his heavy baggage in the bagga;,'e
room at the depot. It will be quite safe there, and he
can reclaim it at any time on i)resenting his nheck. A
small charge for storage is levied on it after the first
day ; but unless it lies there several days, it is better to
pay this than to have it delivered. In nearly every
town, street cars which pass the principal hotels
are to be found near each station ; and the
traveller who has nothing but hand baggage can walk
to one of these, and to reach his hotel for five cents.

The difference between the tram-car fares ami the
fares charged by the express companies und hackmen is
absurdly great almost everywhere. In one instance 'at
New York) I walked across a sipiare and entereil a car
to go to a station. My travelling companion, having a
vather heavy bag to carry, had to no in the hotel
vehicle from the hotel door. We arrived at the station
at the same moment. I hadglided smoothly along rails ;
be had been rattled over the stones in a lumbering and
antiquated machine like an old English stage coach. I

faid 5 cents for my journey ; he paid 75 cents for his.
t is simply amazing that lo practical a people as the

Americans tolerate anomalies of this kind for a single
day.

As my Rubjcct has led me far away from Ponver, I
may as well tinish wi:h it for the present with another
illustration of the cost of looomotiun in New York.
We put up there at the I'.Mth .\venue Hotel, and
sliortly after our arrival my friend asked a hackman
at the door of the hotel what he would drive him to
I'nion .Square for. I'nion Squar.; is about eight or
nine blocks, to adopt the Anieri-an mode of measure-
ment — that is, less than half-a-mile — straigiit down
Broadway. i\Iy friend know the distance ; but the
hackman apjiarently took him for a green stranger, for
ho hesitated a moment and looked skyward, as if en-
gaged in an elaborate calculation as to the distance to
some remote part of the city.

" Oh, never mind. I see you don't know," remarked
my friend ; but Jehu tbereupon instantly doisiended
from tlie clouds with the result of his calculations,
which was this : —

•' A dollar and a-half '.''

" Then I'll walk ' was the equally luompt reply ; for
my friend, though certainly noi .iliberal, felt boun<l to
draw the line at ri.ling at a cost of lis od per half-mile.

I was told thaj tlu.i was a fair specimen of the
charges of New York hacktnon. They are apparently
under no control, and the stian.;;eri wh ) hapi)en to fall
into theirhanils on the arrival of the Liverpool boats
are constantly being ile-'ced most unmercifully.

In vpjious cities, it co;it me three-' [Uarter^ of a dollar
01 a dollar to get myself and my bagga-e to or from my
hotel. iLt Denver, a jiarticularly expensive place, it
cost me a dollar and a-half (us 3 ') to get to the station.
But this is no; regarded as an exorbitant tigure in the
capital of a State the very dirt of whose roads is some-
times discovered to be rich in the [irecious metal.s.
Altogether, American methods of " expressing "
baggage and convoying pa^a ngers through the
towns may be contidently recommended as
full of more or less pleasing surprises to the
Englishman who has all his lit'e been accustomed to
pay sixpence or a shilling for the conveyance of himself
and his luggage from the railway station to his hotel or
his residence. The Americans have consiilerably " ini
proved " on the sweet simplicity of our old-world
arrangement-^. For my own part, t have a long score
of personal grievances against their '' express " extor-
tioners ; and 1 feel that I must some day go out again,
with all my b iggago arrangements madu so as to enable
me to get evun with them, liy showing them how entirely
I can dispense with their aid. Meantime, I must con-
tent myself with showing them up, and advising travel-
lers how to circumvent them.

Tm-; Indians.
Denver possesses a iiermanent Exhibition building on
a large scale, in which the industrial products of
Colorado and tho neighbouring states are exhibited dur-
ing a portion of each year. The display last year was a
lari;e and most interesting one, comprising not a few
departments of industry which the stranger would
hardly expect to find represented in tl o perfectly new
and, as yet, sparsely-i)eopled States and Territories of
the Ear West. I am bound to say that the extent and
variety of the exhibition fairly surprised mo. As a
matter ofcourse, the staple industry of (.'olorado— mining
— contributed the chief element to tho disjday. The col-
lections of ores were amazing both in number and in
richness, and could not fail to impress the beholder
with the prodigious extent of the mineral wealth of the

120

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flfii

Kooky Mountains. There were masser. of lead ore
wliioh contained something like 90 iier cent, of pure
metal, and were almost indistinguishoWp from it both
in appearance and in weight. It is ditticult to think of
a metal which was not similarly represented in the form
of ore of proportionate richness. For obvious reasons,
gold was not thus exhibited by the ton ; but a capital
idea of the yield of Colorado gold was conveyed by
means of a gilded obelisk, whirb was said to rejiresent in
bulk the actual annual produce of the gold-mines within
the State.

One of the most interesting features of the exhibi-
tion was a group of Indians in European costume. They
had been brought in by a Clovernment agent from one
of the neighbouring Indian reservations, and he was
responsible for their safe return to their own quarters
when they had bfien exhibited long enough. An
Indian in leather boots, a dress ooat, and a stove-
pipe hat is an irresistibly comic sight. Two or three of
the male members (the "bucks") of this party were so
attiied, and they appeared to be supremely proud of
their attire. But a savage is still a savage though
dressed in broad-cloth ; and in spite of the civilized cos-
tume of these men, I fancied I discovered in their
countenances an expression of cruelty and treachery
which would have etfectually pievented me from invit-
ing them to "meet me by moonligiit alone.'
How far this impression of mine was well-
founded, or how far it was due to
wiiat 1 had b ;ard of Indian tierc'iery and
rruelty, I cannot pretend to say ; for, to tell the truth,
it is almost impossible to mix for a few hours with
"Western Americans without becoming infected with
their deep-rooted dislike and mistrust oi tlie red men.
It is ditlicult, at this di.itance, to nalise the inten-
sity of these sentimei.ts. Tiie short and easy cieed of
the AVe>tern siittler is tliat "the Injun is \)is()n, wus'n
snakes," and entitled to no more consideration than
tlie rattle-sn:ike or the grizzly bear. A resident in Denver
told me tliathe liad removed from I'hil idel|iliia to that
C'.ty. Aslong as he remained in the City of Jirotlierlyl.ove,
whei e t hi' India n ir lis natural state is no longer to be seen ,
he was disponed to take the sentimental, humanitarian
view of tlie great Indian (juestion ; but his opinions and
feelings underwent a complete cliange as soon as he
took up his al)ode in a State wlure the " noble savage "
was still to be seen in abundance in all his original
savagery. lUood-curdling stories are told out West of
tiie massacres, by Indians, of unoffending men,
wom'Mi, and children, accompanied by refine-
ments of cruelty i)ert'ectty diabolical. The>e stories,
wiiich ore usually only too true, beget in the American
breast ii hatred of the whole Indian race wliich is
indi-criminating and inextinguishable. The Western
settler does not greatly trouble himself about nice dis-
tinctions. Some Indian tribes are far more savage and
cruel than other tril)es ; but they are all Indians, and
as such are regarded as alike on the level with the wdd
beasts.

I his want of discrimination where cruelty has gener-
ated a sort of blood feud is unfortunately not peculiar
to Western Americans. Some years ago, I got into
conversation at I'ortland with u soldier— apparently a
quiet.deoentsortof fellow— in one of our Foot Uegiments,
who hatl served in Ind:-.,andwhotold me with the utmost
coolness that he had, at some remote station, quietly
'• picked olf" an inotfensive native with his ritle. On
my exDostulating with him, be disjdayed considerable
surprise at my indignation, and made this crushing
reply : "But see what they did to our poor fellows in

the Mutiny ! " Who " they " were was a question he
hfid not asked himself. It was onough for him that
certain Sepoys had been guilty of fiendish cruelty to
English men and women ; and that fact fully justified
him in " taking it out " of any one of the two or three
hundred millions of dwellers in India whenever the
opportunity served.

A feeling akin to this prevails, I am sorry to say,
with reference to the Indians in the Western States ;
and terrible as the Indian massacres have at times been,
the retaliation of the settlers has sometimes taken still
more horrible shapes. Among the blessings of civiliza-
tion which Europeans have introduced among the
Indians are small-pox and " firewater " (rum). The un-
sophisticated savage was in his native state a stranger
to both, but both have long been among the most
active of the various influences which are
destroying the last remnants of his race.
The story I am about to tell relates to both small-pox
and rum, and nobody will think it necessary to doubt it
who fully realises the recklessness, the lawlessness, and
the unsorupulousness of the early settlers in the mining
regions. Some of these settlers steeped in 8pirii;s the
body of an Indian who had died of small-pox, and then
distributed the liquor among the people of his tribe.
The result was that they died by scores and hundreds,
and the settlers congratulated themselves on having
done a good stroke ot business, in the way of clearing
off the human vermin, without trouble to themselves.

It is easy, aa it is proper, to condemn indignantly
such hideous atrocities as this. It must, however, be
admitted that the Indian difficulty is a very real one,
and that it is easier to recognise it than to sug.
gest a solution. The Indians lived by the chase, and
the existence of vast forests and prairies was essential
to them in their natural condition. But the spread of
population westward rendered it necessary, from the
settler's point of view, to destroy the forests and to
break up the prairies. Here was a clear issue. As the
white man advanced, the red man retired fighting, nowand
then administering a parting blow which thrilled the
whole country with horror. But presently he found
himself at bay, with the advancing enemy in front, and
the Kocky RIountains behind, and it is, therefore, not
surprising that the States bordering on the mountains
witnessed some of the most desperate of his
efforts to maintain his foothold and to turn back
the tide of inv.ision. The American Govern-
ment dill its best to mitigate the effects of the collision
between the two races, but human nature was often too
strong even for the (jtovernment, If a "reservation"
was marked off for the Indians, some stray
desjierado with a white skin soon discovered that it was
rich in minerals or some other form of wealth. The
" reservation " was forthwith stormed by hosts of des-
perate men who were a law unto themselves ; and if the
Indians resisted the invasion, they were i)romptly shot
down. They, in their turn, then crossed their own
frontier in the opposite direction, and took their
revenge, in theit savage way, on an" outlying settlers
and their families whom they could get at. Tho whole
country was at once on fire, and a state of border warfare
was set up which nothing less than a strong
force of United States troops could put an end to.
Even the little army employed on such a service some-
times fell victims to the cunning and cruelty of the
enemy, and race hatred and a desire for revenge were
thus stimulated to a most deplorable pitch. " Civiliza-
tion," of course, prevailed in the long run ; the reduced
remnant of the tribe was driven together into a smaller

121

some-
of the
e were
iviliza-
educed
mallar

corner, and the boundaries of yet another "reservation"
were laid down — to bo crossed in due time, whenever it
is discovered that the enclosed territory contains any-
thing; worth stealing.

The Americans, knowing as accurately as some theolo-
gians do the mind of the Deity, lay it down as an
axiom that the Author of all things never intended a
handfull of dirty savages to monopolize any consider-
able part of a continent, while their whiter "betters"
are in want of elbow-room. Without pledging ones-self
fully to the accommodating theology involved in this
view of the case, one may, perhaps, admit that there is
some force in it. But then there are two ways (per-
haps more) of dealing with a feeble and decaying race,
which, under any circumstances, seems doomed to die
out under the operation of the law which pro-
vides for the "survival of the fittest." And
after making every allowance for the resentment
naturally excited by Indian cruelties, it is, I fear, im-
possible to contend seriously that Uncle Sam has always
handled the difficulty in the wisest and most humane
manner. That the Government and the mass of the peo-
ple have been aotuatedby good intentions is no doubt true
enough ; but the daring and lawless pioneers who have
marched westward in the van of progress have been too
little under control — possibly because, under the cir-
cumstances, tliey were uncontrollable.

The Indians whom I saw at the Denver Exhibition
had a tent erected in the grounds attached to the
building, so that we had an opportunity of seeing them
"at home." The head of the family, having wandered
about the building in an aimless fashion for some time,
made for his tent and entered. It then became obvious
that the chimney-pot hat of civilization did not har-
monize with the shape of a tent, and he at once took
his lie ul-gear off and placed it carefully out of the way
under the lowest part of the canvas. Then he
and his womankind simply sat and did nothing.
It was not a cheerful family party. Possibly they felt
uneasy under the fire of glances which stragglers from
the Exhibition building kept up upon them. Whether
that was so or not, it is a fact that they sat
speechless and motionless. Neither the " buck " nor
the " squaws " had anything to do or to say ; at any
rate, if they had, they neither said the one nor did the
other as long as we were within sight and hearing.
They looked cowed, dispirited, and listless. They were
not badly off, for they were in receipt of a regular
pension from the American Government. They had
not even to hunt t'oir own food, as they had to do
when in a state of nature. Nevertheless, it was clear
that they were not hapi)y. I could not help thiiikinu;
that they were, perliaps, realising, in that great
Exhibition, and in the neighbouring city, so full of
strange life and restless energy, the sure signs of tlie
fate of their tribe. The masterful palefaces had not
only crushed out their independence and ap|iropriated
their hunting grounds, but had even converted them
into dependents and pensioners. Well might the
proud savage sit sullen, sad, and silent in his tent— a
tent which was pitched, not amid the boumlless forest,
where he was monarch of all he surveyed, but
in the suburbs of a bustling city, alongside a mammoth
show, of which the children of the forest themselves
formed an attractive feature. Wonder has sometimes
been expressed that some tribes of Indians, even when
kindly treated and well provided for, still diminish in
numbers and show a tendency to die out utterly. The
reason is obvious. As a race, tliey cannot live in th«
presence of civilization. Like oertain beaiti and birdv,

they do not multiply, even if they continue to exist,
when the freedom of their savage life is restrained.
Some of the tribes are rather more amenable than others
to civilizing influences, and in a few cases they
have been induced to engage in agriculture ; but
for others there is apparently no ho\>e. They simply
wither up in the presence of the strong ami aggressive
civilization of the European races. Their fate seems a
hard one, and it is undoubtedly the duty of the Ameri*
cans to let them down gently — to see that, as far as
possible, their inevitable disappearance is accompanied
by as little individual liardship and suffering as may
be. More than this is hardly possible, or even desirable.
Ti e Indian is disappearing in accordance with what is
clearly an inevitable law of nature ; and as his disap-
pearance clears the stage for the entrance of a higher
type of humanity, his exit is not to be regretted, so long
as it is not hastened by injustice and cruelty.

It is usual to speak of the Indian as " the red
man," but this description is scarcely accurate.
What his colour would be after a good course of
" Pears " and a scrubbing-brush, nobody probably
knows ; but a very dull dirty brown is the nearest de-
scription I can offer of the colour of most of the Indians
I saw. Their hair is usually jet black (I do not know
that I saw a sint^le exception), and it is coarse, straight,
and long as that of a horse's undipped mane. The
older women are often blear-eyed and hideously
ugly. They would make their fortunes as "witches"
if they lived in certain Somersetshire villages which I
could mention — but won't. At various stations on the
Pacific Railroad I saw considerable groups of these
wretched creatures, standing or squi:.ttlng on the plat-
forms. Their busine-ss there was to beg of the passen-
gers, and, so far as I could see, the railway officials
allowed them free trade in this respect. The older and
Uglier women were most importunate, and in some
places the passengers gladly gave them small coins to
get rid of the stony gaz3 of their bleared eyes.
Most of these beggars were dre8.sed in the
ragged remnants of civilized clothing, and
in no respect differed from the poorest class of
English cadgers except in tlieir dingy skins and their
long black hair. It would be difficult to imagine two
things more unlike each other than these wretched sur-
vivors of the aborigines, and the " noble savage " of
Fenimore Cooper's novels. Wimtever poetry and
romance there may have been about the Indian when
the first Europe in settlers broke in upon his hunting-
grounds, it has all departed long since. All that
is left of his race (except in a few isolated spots) is a
broi<en .spirited remnant, which is slowly melting away
as tiie sun of European civilization rolls towards the
West.

The " Shootists."

Denver, like almost every other Western city, had
its period of violence, succeeded by its period of Lynch
law. The friend who entertained me while I was in
the city was not by any means a bloodthirsty person.
He was, indeed, more of a turn-the-other-cheek sort of
man, and altogether about the last person in the world
to convert himself into a walking ursenal except for
very sufficient reasons. Nevertheless, he told me that,
for a long time after he took up his residence in Denver,
he never ventured out of his house without a loaded
revolver in his pocket. Being at one time connected
with an establishment at which most of the workpeople
were on strike, he had reason to believe that he was in
imminent danger, and for some weeks he never tamed

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a street corner without putting his hand on the trigger
of his concealed weapon. This was, so far ixa I can
remember, less than 10 years ago, but that lawless
3tate of affairs is entirely a thing of tlie past. Life is
probably as safe in Denver to-day as in any Eastern
city, for the law lias finally and deuisively asserted its
authority.

It is just possible that exaggerated ideas may still
prevail in some quarters as to the risks run by travellers
in some of the newer places in the Far West. My
own belief is th:tt judicious travellers run no risk at all.
Now and then, it is true, a coach or a train 'n " held
up " and robbed, but it is not in such attacks as these
that murderous lawlessness is most manifest. The
eternal shootings of which certain Western papers are
full take place, for the most part, between drunken
gamblers in out-of-the-way mining camps. A traveller
who avoids liquor saloons, forswoiirs gambling, care-
fully keeps out of quarrels, and goes about unarmed,
runs but small risk in any part of the country.

" Goes about unarmed '! " you s;\y.

Yes, I do ; and I say it advisedly. Rluch of the
shooting tliat takes place is, in a sense, defensive. A
and 13, half drunk with vile whisky, quarrel over their
cards. They are both armed to the teeth, as both are
fully aware, and the (|uestion is which shall " draw "
first. l<]ach watches the other's motions intently, and
the slightest movement of A's h:ind in the direction
of the knife or the revolver is interpreted by B to mean
mischief. B instantly draws, and stabs or fires, and
the newspapers announce next morning that another
citizen has " died with his boots on." Perhaps, after
all, A had no intention to draw his weapon. His
movement may have been misinterpreted. But B,
knowing A was armed, could not afford to run any
risks, and he "defended" himself accordingly. If A
had been known to be unarmed, the quarrel would prob-
ably have stopped short of a tragedy.

Camping Out.
•' Camping out " is among the summer luxuries of
the Denverites. They are already a mile above sea-
level, but that elevation is not enougli for them.
When the hot season comes, all who can afford it go to
the mountains, and there, at a height of 7,000, 8,000,
or 10,000 feet, enjoy a protracted picnic under canvas,
amid magnificent scenery, and in an atmosphere of the
most exhilarating character, to breathe which is, as
somebody says, " like inhaling champagne." (I can-
not myself pretend to say what kind of sensation
would be produced by taking clianipagtie into the lungs.)
The mountains being now pierced at many
points by the wonderful railways which
are waiting to be described, business men can leave
their families in their tents and go down into the city
for a few hours, or for a day or two at a time, returning
to their temporary homes wlien their business is done.
Altogether, camiing-out is an exceedingly popular
instif I'ion, and I am sure it must be a very delightful
one, Iven when the night temperature is rather low,
tha ^IvruUers in tents appear to make light of the risk
of , . ' "agoold. The atmosphere, even when cold, is
osuaii.? jry dry, and in this respect Colorado has a
decided advantage over our foggy islands.

Floods.

The rainfall of Colorado is small compared with the

British average, but occasionally the mountains are

visited by heavy storma, and on such occasions the

Platte and iti tributary streams are suddenly swollen to

abnormal dimensions without much warning. The
beds uf some of these rivers are ordinarily much too
large for the streams which flow along them ; indeed,
in some cases it is not easy to say where the banks
really are. The proprietors of the first newspaper
publishe.l in Denver (the Rockij Mountain Daily N'ews,
I tliink) at first pitched their tent— in the shape,
probably, of a frame house — alongside the
creek already referred to. There was nothing
to indicate that the spot they hiid chosen was other
than a piece of honest terra ,*inna. So it was tem-
porarily ; but one night, in the early days of the city,
there was a great storm up among the mountains, and
'vhen the citizens rose in the morning, there was no
Daily News estai)lishment to be seen. The building had,
in fact, been built in what was virtually a part of the
river's bed ; and of course, when the river — just for one
night— wanted to stretch himself across the whole
width of his bed, why he simply kicked the intruder out.
The Daily News people found a loftier site for their
next office.

Smelting Works.

One of the principal industries of Denver is the
smelting of the ore wiiich is produced in such enormous
quantities in the mining districts of Colorado. There
are two of these esiiablishmonts in the city, and two
otliers a few miles off, at Golden. The two city
smelting works deal with over ten million dollars'
worth of gold, silver, and lead ore per annum. This is
more than one-third of the total produce of the Colorado
mines. The principal smelting establishment, which
is known as tlie Argo Works, is just outside the city ;
and both there and at Golden clouds of smoke are
continually ascending into the otherwise wonderfully
clear atmosphere.

The Beetle Fot at Home.

Whenever I happen to intimate that I have been to
Colorado, I am invariably asked if I saw the Beetle.
The majority of Englishmen have, apparently, never
heard of Colorado except in connection with the insect
pest which, a few years ago, threatened -so we were
told— our potato crop with destruction. I never know
exactly whether wo were in any real danger, but, as a
matter of fact, the dreaded insect never came, except in
letters to a few curious and reckless people — the sort of
folk who would have over asnecimen of cholera by post
if the thing could only be caught in a tangible form, and
got into an envelope. I may as well say at once that I
neither saw nor heard of the Cobrado Beetle in the State
which is regarded as the insect's home, ami I am
strongly disposed to think that our beetle scare was
just a little silly. The only place in America in which
I did hear of the beetle was, singularly enough, at the
furthest possible point froia Colorado — viz., at Quebec.
As I approached the Heights of Abraham, I asked the
way to Wolfe's Monument of a man who was hoeing
potatoes, and it occurred to me to ask him about the
dreaded beetle. He at once turned up a potato leaf
and showed me one, but he manifested no anxiety on
the subject, and his crop, so far, was in splendid condi-
tion. That was the only occasion, in the whole course
of my journey, on which I either saw or heard of the
pest. As I have already intimated, I think the beetle
scare was greatly overdone.

AORIOULTURB.

Colorado, like California, owes its settlement to its
vast stores of the precious metals. It was about the

year 185!) that the adventurous pioneers of mininj;
enterpri^se discovered Kold dust in the streams which
flow down from the Rocky Mountains. When there is
gold dust in a river, it follows as a matter of course
that there is gold in other forms in the region from
which the river tlows. It needs no expert to predicate
that. The discovery of the dust accordingly caus^u
just such a rush to the mountains of Colorado as, ten
years befoie, had been directed, under similar circum-
stances, to the Golden Gate. In due time, the wonder-
ful discoveries of California were equalled, if not sur-
passed, in Colorado, ami a now San Francisco sprang
into existen '6 under the name of Denver.

But the riches with which California was presently
found to abound did not consist exclusively of the pre-
cious metals. Men went to dig, and remained to plough.
It was found that the riches which were buriedbeneath
the soil of the Golden State were rivalled by those
which lay on the surface. The discovery, in short, was
made that the country possessed a soil and a climate
which adapted it to the production of corn and fruit of
the finest cjuality and in the greatest abundance ; and
from the position of a purely mining State, California
has now advanced and taken her place in tiie front rank
of agricultural States. In this respect, Colorado
aspires to follow her lead. The State is no longer
exclusively minms. Cattle-raising has " ady deve-
loped into a vast industry, and other fori..- of agricul-
ture are assumine; greit importance. The whole truth
about Colorado, from an ajricultural point of view, is
simply this : — The soil of the plains is, generally speak-
ing, extremely rich, and capiible of growing anything- -
on one condition, viz., t)iat it be artificially watered.

Watku Wanted.

And this brings me to the one great 'drawback of
Western agriculture— Drouf'ht. So far as I could
gather, the Eastern and MidJle States seldom suffer
from a scarcity of water ; but soon after the Missouri
River is passed, a region is entered in which scarcity of
moisture is more or less chronic. Speaking generally, the
further NVest you go, the greater the drought becomes.
In Western Kansas, for instance, you pass for hundreds
of miles across prairies covered with a thick layer of
rich black soil, capable of producing anything. Where
the railways happen to pass thro"gh shallow cuttings,
you can form an estimate of the depth of this surface
soil, and can marvel at its absolute freedom from
stones. It lies like a layer of sooo— it is almost as
black, and too often almost as dry. The one thing it
needs is water. It is not too much to say that there
are in these Western States areas as large as several
Great Britains whose value for agricultural purposes
depends absolutely on their being supplied with water
by artificial means. The prodigious extent of this arid
region is one of those features which nothing but a
journey across th j continent enables one to realise.

What hope is there, then, that such immense tracts
will ever be brought under cultivation ?

Very ureat hope, I reply, and I will give my reasons
'or thinking so. Irrigation has made great progress
already in those parts of Colorado which lie nearest to
the mountains. Numerous irrigation companies are
actively at work. Tiiey go up into the foot-hills, seize
hold of the mountp.in streams while they are still at a
considerable level above the plains, and divert them
into artificial canals, in which they are made to flow
at the required height above the level, throughout the
district which it is proposed to irrigate. Something
like a dozen of these canals are already in use in

ditfeient parts of the State, watering probably a million
acres. Four of the principal canals are in the neigh-
bourhood of Denver, and these four alone are nearly
200 miles in length.

The calculation of the irrigation companies is that for
every cubic foot of water passing along their canals in
each second, they can irrigate fifty acres of land. The
work is only in its infancy as yet. The area which
re(iuires artificial watering is immense, and there is
proliably water eniugh flowing from the mountains to
irrigate it all. Many of the streams are still untouched,
and it may be possible toadd totheelTioiencyof theworka
already in ojieration by providing for the storage of the
surplus water in the mountains during the wet season
and the melting of the snow. Irrigation is undoubtedly
destined to work wonders in these Western States. So
far as Colorailo is concerned, its plains are only await-
ing the fertilizing streams from the hills to become one
of the richest agricultural regions in the States.

Irrigation, moreover, is not entirely dependent on
the canals which bring the water from the hills. There
is a vast subterranean sujjply of water— in the neigh-
bourhood of Denver, at any rate— which is only waiting
to be tapped. A few weeks before I visited the city,
this fact liad been discovered by accident. The presi-
dent of the Denver Water Company had a notion that
tliere was a bed cf coal under an estate of his close to
the city, and he proceeded to bore for it. He found no
coal, but he found soinetliing else. At a depth of 300
feet, his boring apparatus pierced a subterranean
reservoir, and a splen'lid stream of water suddenly rose
far above the level of the ground like a grand fountain.
His neighbour, a brewer, immediately " went for " the
water, and found it at the same depth. When I was
there, tlie city was all excitement over this great dis-
covery, and the newspapers were daily announcing what
new wells were being sunk and how the older wells
maintained their suiiply. By the end of the year,
sixty wells were in full operation, producing some three
millions of gallons daily, and the Denverites were
settling down to the pleasant belief that they had be-
neath their feet a i)raotically inexhaustible supply.

The immediate object of these artesian wells was to
supply water for domestic and manufacturing pur-
poses, and the idea of sinking such wells in order to
obtain water for irrigation has not yet made uch way
in C'olorado. This, however, will surely come in due
time. I shall have something to say presently of the
marvellous effects which artesian wells are producing in
connection with agriculture in some parts of California,
and it may be safely assumed that what the older State
has already done in this direction will presently be
accomplished also by its younger rival.

The Rocky Mountains.
The Rocky Mountains extend north and south through
the whole length of the North American Continent. At
the Isthmus of Panama, the range sinks down to the
dimensions of a mere rising ground, through which M.
de [.icsseps, the famous Frenchman who constructed the
Suez Canal, is now engaged in cutting a navigable
channel which will turn South America into an island,
and shorten the route to the western coasts of both
North and South America by many thousands of miles.
South of the isthmus, the low range again swells rapidly
to the dimensions of mountains, and under the name of
the Andes the chain extends all along the Pacific coast
right down to Cape Horn. With the slight exception of
the break at the isthmus, the Rookies and the Andes
thus constitute one magnificent and continuous chain,

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between 8,000 and 9,000 miles long, extending from the
ice-bound shores of the Arctic Ocean on the North to
within a very few degrees of the corresponding frozen
ocean on the South.

The Andes are much the higher of the two parts of
the range, some of their pealcs considerably exceeding
20,000 feet. The Rockies culminate in Colorado,
through the centre of which State they pass from north
to south. But none of the Coloradopealcg attain quite
as great an altitude as Mont Blanc and two or three of
her sister Alpine heights. Mont Blanc is over 15,700
feet. The highest of the Colorado mountains. Sierra
Blanca (which, by the way, means precisely the same
as Mont Blanc— viz., " White Mountain ") is 14,464
feet. Among other peaks (all in Colorado) above 14,000
feet, are Gray's Peak, Pike's Peak, Long's Peak, and
the Mountain of the Holy Cross. I may here remark
that in the Sierra Nevada, a shorter range furtlier west,
on the boundary between Nevada and California, there
is one mountain which exceeds in height all these
Rocky Mountain peaks. That is Mount Whitney,
15,088 feet, the highest peak in North America.

I have already explained in what respects the Rocky
Mountains of Colorado are, in my opinion, less im-
posing and picturesque than the Alps. Briefly, they
hiive no glaciers and little summer snow. (These
remarl<8, it must be understood, refer exclusively to
the mountains of Colorado and the States south of it.
Thev would not be true if applied to the more northern
parts of the range, for there are, I am told, some very
fine glaciers in Oregon, Washington Territory, and
British Columbia.) But the Colorado Rockies have
characteristics of their own which are not to be found
in the Alps, and which, when you come in close con-
tact with them, cannot fail to excite your admiration
and wonder, if there is any impressible material at all
in your composition.

Parks and Canons.
The two grandest and most unique features of the
Rocky Mountains are their natural parks and their
wonderful canons. The so-called parks are vast plateaus
which are secluded from the plains by the foot-hills, and
sometimes by a second and higher range, and are backed
by the loftiest peaks of the central chain itself. These
parks cover many thousands of square miles, and are
at a height of from 7,500 to 10,000 feet above sea -level.
The principal are North, Middle, and South Parks,
Estes Park, and San Luis Park. I crossed the South
Park by rail, at an elevation of nearly 10,000 feet, and
I no longer wondered why it wns called a park. Any-
thing more park-like it is difficult to conceive. The
grassy expanse, more or less undulating, has scattered
over its surface masses of wood so arranged as to pro-
duce the most beautiful and picturesque effects. As
one rides across, one is tempted to say : " This must
have been laid out by a landscape gardener," and to
ask : '* Where's the squire's house ? " Quite an effort is
needed to rid ones self of the notion that one is cros-
sing a gentleman's park in England. There are modes
of dispelling the illusion, no doubt. It is only neces-
sary to raise the eyes from the grassy plain and the
clumps of timber to the great barrier of lofty peaks
which shuts in the park, and one wakes up instantly to
the naked facts. Some of these parks contain beautiful
little lakes, in whose calm surface the great mountains
mirror their majestic forms with a distinctness of out-
line and a perfection of detail which are enchanting.
When winter oomes down from the lofty barrier of
p««ki, thsM parks uwum* new bMutiei, in which

the strong and courageous lovers of Nature find
an unspeakable delight. Miss Bird, in her " Lady's
Life in the Kooky Mountains," has given us word-
pictures of these regions such as nothing but genuine
enthusiasm and real literary genius could have inspired.
I am " not in it " with Miss Bird. I feel that it would be
presumption and something like sacrilege on my part to
attempt a description of what she has already described.
I can only advise my readers to read her book. They
will rise from its perusal with the impression
that the writer is almost as great a pheno-
menon as her much - loved mountain re-
treats. The story of her lonely rides through snow
and darkness reads like a romance, and some there may
be who doubt whether an unprotected lady ever passed
through such a series of adventures. Of course, I am
unable to vouch for the accuracy of all the details of
her story ; but I am able to say this— that her know-
ledge of the Colorado mountains is very minute and
correct, and that her adventures attracted a good deal
of attention at the time both at Denver and in other
parts of the State.

A canon (the word is pronounced " canyon ") is a
deep gorge by which a stream from the central range
finds its way through the lower ranges and the foot-
hills down to the plains. The word is a Spanish
one, and signifies a pipe or tunnel. Tlie canons are not
literally tunnels, but they are sometimes not greatly
unlike subterranean channels, so perpendicular are their
sides and so narrow the openings at their tops. Tlie
geologist sees reason to believe that the canons and the
parks were in their origin associated with each other.
Parks are believed to be the beds of what were once moun-
tain lakes. The surplus water of these lakes at first
found its way down into the lowlands by flowing over
the lowest points in the inferior ranges, the said ranges
being the dams which maintained the lakes at their
ordinary level. But the depressions through which the
streams escaped began immediately to grow deeper
beneath the incalculably slow but irresistible action
of the water ; and the deeper they became, the
lower, as a matter of course, sank the level of the lake.
In the course of untold ages, the channels assumed the
form of chasms, of moie or less stupendous
depth, and the lakes were at last effectually
drained, except where deep depressions happened to
exist in their own beds. In these cases, small portions
of the water were retained, in the form of little lakes
which still exist. The process was precisely similar to
that which children are very fond of amusing them-
selves with on the sea-shore. As the tide recedes, they
keep back a miniature lake by means of an artificial
embankment of sand, and presently they open a chasm
through the bank and allow the imprisoned water
to escape with a rush. The main difference between
their operations and the natural process is that,
whereas they produce their channel in a moment by
means of a toy spade, the natural chasm is only hol-
lowed out by the ceaseless flow of the patient, sand-
laden stream through periods so vast that no geologist
cares to attempt to express them in figures.

Such, as I understand it, was the probable origin of
b. ^h the parks and the chasms, the latter being, as I
need hardly explain, the canons which have rendered
Kocky Mountain scenery so famous all the world over.
I passed through four of the most famous of
these canons, and shall presently have occasion
to refer to them in detail ; but a few facts
about some which I did not see will not bo out of
place here. Oolorado, Utah, and New Mezioo, all of

125

which are traversed by the Rooky Mountains or their
Ruociated ranKea, abound in these wonderful gorges,
the magnitude of some of which is simply stupendous.
Trofes^or Ueilcie recently contributed an article on
" Rivers and River Gorges " to the English Illuttrated
Magazine, in which he furnished some most interesting
particulars ah to the extent and history of the canons
in thn district in question. The most wonderful
ot all the gorges at present known is that of
the Ojlorado itself, a river which drains th >
western slope of the Rockies for some hundreds of
miles and flows into the Pacific. No railway has yet
penetrated into the gloomy recoHses of this mixhty
chasm, and its finest parts are rather difficult of access ;
but nobody who has seen what the engineers have
already done among these very mountains can for a
moment doubt that the Canon of the Colorado will be
reached and opened up in due course. Professor Geikie
tells us that the stream of the Colorado is for a con-
siderable distance 6,000 feet below the general level of
the surrounding country— that is to say, the canon
is considerably more than a mile in depth. The
sides of the gorge are not perpendicular in this case, as
they are in some others. The gorge is, in a sense, a
double one. At the bottom of a wide gulf, 3,000 feet deep,
there is a narrower chasm of about the same depth ;
and at the bottom of this inner gorge, in a channel to
which the direct rays of the sun seldom or never pene-
trate, the waters of the Colorado River flow swiftly
along towards the distant ocean. Professor Geikie and
his brother geologists assure us that every foot of this
prodigious chasm has been excavated by the action of
the stream itself, and they point to the clear traces of
water action on every one of the strata through which
the river has eaten its way. As the stream carries
along large quantities of sand with it, there is reason
to believe that the grinding process was comparatively
rapid when the softer strata were being operated on ;
but, under any ciroumstances, the period occupied in
the excavation of the 0,000-feet gorge must have been
one beside which all human chronology is a fool.

Tiie most marvellous of Professor Geikie's revelations
about this rao^t interesting region remains to be told.
He has assured himself, by a careful examination of the
geological features of the region, that in course of time
(may we not almost say of eternity /) the soil of an im-
mense tract of country has been carried away to a depth
of 25,000 feet, or nearly jive miles. The imagination
fairly staggers under the weight of such a fact, or such
a tlieory— call it which you like. And yet there is no
particular reason for calling the professor's statements
in question. Only grant time enough, and the incredi-
bility of the thing vanishes. Time is all the geologists
demand, and a very superficial knowledge of their
science is sufficient to prove that of this the past history
of the world allows them an ample supply.

The erosion which has swept otf a hve-mile-tbick slico
of parts of Colorado and Utah, and has excavated a
6,0<)0-feet channel for the Colorado River, is, as a matter
of fact, busy before our eyes at this moment. And,
I may add, water is not the only agent at work. The
sand blast is equally active in many districts. Some of
my readers are no doubt aware that the hardest sub-
stances—even glass itself —can be ground down or cut
by having thrown upon it a strong jet of air filled with
fine, sharp sand. Nature works in the same
way. Utah and parts of the neighbouring
States and Territories abound in high cliffs,
standing up gaunt and bare above the sandy plains.
The regioa u a very dry oae, and the loose sand on (he

surface is frequently blown about by furious blasts. The
sandstorms which are thus hurled against thebasesof the
soft cliffs undermine them in time as surely as the
waves undermine asimilar oliflontheseaconst, and with
a similar result— a slice of the clitf comes down. The
wind which brought it down at once begins to break it
up and blow it away, and in due time the ground is
clear for another assault on the base of the clitf, and
the process is begun over again. The sand thus blown
away naturally drifts into the canons which score the
country so deeply in various directions. Falling at last
into toe torrents which rush through the gorges, it
assists the water to grind the gulfs still deeper, and in
due time it goes to assist in building up a sandbank in
the ocean, off the mouth of the river with which it has
cast in its lot.

So much for river gorges in general. I will now give
some account of one which I traversed, and of the min-
ing district of which it forms the only gate.

Clear Cheek Canon.

" Of course, you'll go up the Clear Creek Canon,"
said my Denver friend to my companion and me, as
soon as we began to discuss how much of Colorado we
could " do " in a week. We " guessed " we would, if
he. who knew all about the district, thouj^ht it tho
proper thing to do. We accordingly went, our Denver
friend accompanying us.

The railway which threads the whole length of Clear
Creek Canon is one of a network of mountain lines
belonging to the Union Pacific Company. This Com-
pany's main lines across the plains are tine roadi on the
English gauge (4ft. 8,Jin.) I have already described one
of them — the line by which we travelled from Omaha to
Denver. But the rails of the mountain lines are only
three feet apart, and the rolling stock is light in pro-
portion. Possibly it is not quite so light as a stranger
would expect to find it. As a matter of fact, tho width
of the cars on these narrow-gauge lines is the xar sur*
prising feature about them. They are narrov/er than
the stpndard-gauge cars, of course, but they overhang
the wheels so much on each side that the difference
does not seriously interfere with their carrying capacity.
The seats on each side of the central passage accommo-
date two persons, as in the wider cars, and the sleeping
cars are arranged in precisely the same way as on lines
of the standard gauge. The central passage is, however,
somewhat inconveniently narrow, especially in the case
of " sleepers."

It is probably in the engines that the greatest gain is
made in the direction of lightness. These are certainly
miniature concerns compared with the massive locomo-
tives of the main lines, but they are wonderfully well
adapted to the kind of work they have to do. That
work consists mainly in turning sharp corners and
mounting tremendous inclines, and nobody fully under-
stands what can be got out of a locomotive who has
not seen one of these little engines at its work on a
road like a corkscrew, with a rise of 200 feet to the
mile. The wheels of these narrow-gauge locomotives
are small even in proportion to the size of tho engines
themselves. Three pairs of stout wheels, but little
more than a yard in diameter, are coupled together on
both sides. Nearly the whole weight of the engine is
upon these six driving wheels, and if one pair slips, all
slip.

There is nothing remarkable about the first 15 miles of
the run towards Clear Creek Canon. The route lies
straight across the plain to the city of Golden, and as
the (oot-bilU are approached, the view of (he great

lL>tt

y I

!•

ill ,

eantrftl chain is Kr&duaUy lost. Hut as soon as GoMen
and the ever-present oloud of smolce asoendint; from its
smeItini;-worl<s are left behind, tho interest of the jour-
ney suddenly begins. The train mnke.s straight for tlie
hills, which here riso abruptly out of the plain. It is
difficult at first to see where it is going, unless there is
a tunnel whose entrance is as yet hidden. But in a few
leoonds the mystery is cleared up. The entrance to a
narrow, tortuous gorge comes into view, and out of that
gorKe rushes a brawling stream, which at the time of
our visit was so shrunken as to occupy but a small part
of its bed.

But why, oh ! why, do they call ihU stream Clear
Creek ? In the English sense, it is not a oieek, and in
no sense at all is it clear. But the Americans apply
the word " creek " to any kind of small stream, and
it is useless to dispute that point with them. And as
to the supposed clearness of the creek, why it was clear
once, before two cities had turned it into a common
scavenger, and thrown upon it the task of carrying all
their mining refuse and still more objectionable matters
down towards the plains. The " clearness " of the
creek now consists of an appearance like that of very
dirty whitewash.

But there is no time to waste in shedding useless
tears over a spoiled mountain stream. In iront, bo-
hind, around, the marvels thicken fast. The train
is fairly in the gorj;e. Now on a narrow L dge
blasted out of the solid rock, now on made ground
cribbed from the bed of the torrent itself, the gallant
little engine toils up the winding steep, followed by a
train of cars which, as it winds in and out, following
the endless sinuosities of the chasm, looks like a gigantic
serpent on the move. On both sides, the canon is
walled in by almost perpendicular cliffs, rising often to
a height of many hundreds of feet. These cliffs, wliere
not too perpendicular to sustain timber, were foruierly
well wooded ; but they have been almost entirely
cleared of their trees, which were in demand for
mining purposes, and the cliffs have thus been robbed
of one of their most beautiful features. As for the
windings of the gorge, I despair of being able to convey
any adequate idea of them. Take the most tortuous
stream that meanders through the meadows of a level
English county, and imagine that, without having its
shape altered, it is sunk 500, 1,000. or 2,000 feet deep
into the soil, so that you may look down upon it from
the verge of a tremendous chasm. Give it a fall of 150
or 200 feet to the mile, so that, instead of flowing along
placidly and gently, its waters may rush impetuously,
dashing themselves into foam against great bouhlers
strewn in the river bed. If you can imagine all this,
you may begin to obtain a dim conception of Clear
Creek Canon. But if the canon is a natural marvel of
the first class, the railway which threads it is certainly
as great a wonder mechanically. Those who have seen
only English railways would probably declare it impos-
sible to work such a line, and their .scepticism would be
excusable.

There is not a single moment of the hour and three-
quarters occupied by the train in threading the 20
miles of this canon, when there is not something inter-
esting or wonderful to see out uf cither one side of the
car or the other. You look out of the window to your
left, and are st.irtled to see a locomotive, followed by a
train, rushing away in a direction at right angles to the
line you are following. Foi a single moment, you are
tempted to think that another railway must cross
your own line on the level just ahead ; that, through
■ome careleMness, » traia has been allowed to pass the

crossing at full speed, and that you are running full tilt
into the side of that other train. Before you have
time to get these ideas fairly through your br.iin, you
find the Iciiding wheels of your owrt oar sweep quickly
round towards the left. nn<l >ou at once wake up to the
fact that the engine which was running away from you
at right angles is the locomotive of your own train,
and that both it and you have simply swept
round a rather sharp curve. If you look for the
locomotive again a few seconds later, you will
find that it has taken an equally sudden turn to the
right, and has entirely disappeared, with the leading
car, behind a jutting headland of rook. And so the
wonderful game of hide-and-seek, of popi)ing behind
rocks and popping out again, of rushing round the
sharpest of curves alternately to the right and to the
left— tho endless game of "Here wegoup— up— ui), and
here we go round — round — round "' — goes on until tho
whole twenty miles have been traversed. To one thing
the line remains constant throu.;hout, endless as its
wanderings seem to be. It never leaves the river side
for a moment. It is not very easy to see how it could,
for there is no escape from the tortuous chasm ex-
cept up the almost ) erpendicular cliffs which wall
it in. At no point is tho line ten yards
from the brawling torrent. In a few places, where
the turns were too sharp even fur American engineers,
the curves are slightly e ised by means of short cuttings
through rocky promontories ; but, with these few and
insignificant exceptions, the rails are close to the wati^r,
and not far above it, all the way. They are not always
on the same bank. The stream is, indeed, crossed from
side to side repeatedly. The narrow gorge gave so little
latitude for the mameuvres of the engineers, that they
were sometimes compelled to cross the stream merely
to obtain room for the wonderfully sharp curves which
they think it safe to work. The stream and the railway
monopolize the gorge. There is no carriage road
through it, and it is difficult to see how room could be
found for one, even of ihe narrowest kind. As I before
intimated, the bed of the river has been narrowed in
many places to make room even for the railway. The
stream was too feeble and shrunken when I saw it to
re.sent this inroad on its legitimate territory ;
but I should not be surprised |to hear that it some-
times asserts its ancient rights in a somewhat trouble-
some fashion when swollen by heavy rain or melting
snow.

The scenery of the gorge changes every moment.
Sometin;es, the cliffs are so perpendicular that not a
scrap of sky can be seen except by thrusting the liead
out of the car window. Presently thev become less ])re-
cipitous, and are broken up into groups of spires and
castellated masses, of tho most fantastic shapes and
gigantic dimensions. Sometimes, tremendous rocks,
whose foothold apjiear- terribly precarious, fairly over-
hang the line, in such a way ns to suggest to the timid
traveller that the mere vibration causeil by the passinj?
train may be enough to bring them down upon
the fragile cars, with such results as may be ex-
pected when an elephant steps on a match-box.
Whether accidents have ever arisen in this way I do
not know ; but it is certain that falls of rock must
occur occasionally, and great vigilance must be
needed to prevent the trains from running into the
debris.

The whole of the sand in the bed of Clear Creek has
been washed and examined over and over again fur
gold-dust. Those who were lucky enough to have the
first turn at it reaped a splendid harvest ; but in their

n upon

be ex-

teh-box.

my I do

ck must

ust be
into the

haite they left behind enough of the precious metal to
make it worth while for a less fortunate let of aenrch-
crs to examine it all over again. And now the patient,
frugal, and easilysiitiBfied Chinaman ii washinK out
what little the second set left, togetlier with Nuch few
grainii as may escape from the works at the head of
the canon, Hcores of tliose Celestials may bo seen from
the train, standing up ti the hips in the shallow parts
of the stream, manipulating the simple apparatus
by which the precious grains are separated from
the masses of sand which in these parts form the bed
of tiie creek. The native American laughs at John
Chinaman for engaging in an occupation which pro-
duces such modest and uncertain results ; but in doin^
tliis John affords an apt illustration of his jtatience and
frugality. He is said to have a good many faults,
but it is only fair to recognise such virtues as he dis-
plays.

A passenger of a mechanical turn of (mind, having
once passed through tlie canon, will be very likely to
examine the train, to ascert;iin, if ho o in, how cars of
such enormous length can possibly be made to run
round curves with a radius little greater than that of
a circus ring. He will tind that, althou:j;h the bodies of
the cars are long and rigid, they are suspended at
e:)ch end upon a bogie truck consisting of four very
small wheels, close together. The car is attached t o
each bogie by a central swivel, so that the relative
positions of the car ami its boges are frej to change to
almost any extent. The result is that tlie body of the
oar stands across a sharp curve very much like the chord
of an arc. Its leading bojio is moving in one
direction, while its hind bo;,'ie, being on a dis-
tant part of the curve, is moving in a direc-
tion appreciably ditferent. Thus is rendered
possible the apparently impossible task of runnin.;
the longest of cars over the crookedest of lines. The
speed is, of course, very moderate, but it varies every
minute, according to the sharpness of the curves. The
driving is, indeed, marvellous in its skilfulncss. The
trains are fitted with Westinghouse brakes, and are
under the most perfect control. As the engine ap-
proaches a particularly sharp curve, the brake is applied
for a few seconds, and the speed thereby reduced to
(say) 12 or lo miles an hour; but before the la^t car is
fairly round the point, the brake is again off anu the
speed nearly pulled up to its former rate. In going up
the canon, the train r ses over 2,300 feet in 20 miles,
and the journey is one long pull against collar. It is
when coming down without steam tiiat the skill of the
driver is best seen. He simply keeps his hand on his
brake, and either " lets her go " or checks " her " accord-
ing to the sharpness of the curves.

The end of the canon is at the mining city of Black
Hawk, 8,057 feet above sea level and nearly 3,000 above
Denver. The line is, however, continued four miles
further, in order to reach Central City, distant one mile
in a straight line. The truth is, (Jeutral is nearly
500 feet above Black Hawk, and the ascent could
only be climbed by means of a gigantic zigzag on the
bare mountain-side. The line doubles back at Black
Hawk and gradually climbs the side of the canon,
which has here broadened out into a valley of respect-
able dimensions. Having gone back to the left about
two miles, it turns suddenly tn the right, and, rising
rapidly all the time, reaches Central in about two miles
more. Central is more than 8,500 feet above sea level
— quite high enough, as I found, to test those whose
physical eaergies are affected by a highly rarefied atmos-
pberv.

Black Hawk and Ckntral Citt.

These are two mining cities, remarkable for situation,
but unlovely in appearance. They are built on the steep
sides of narrow, abrupt valleys— the upward continua>
tions of Clear Creek Canon. Nobody lives in them
except the people connected with the mines and ore*
crushing works, and the traders who supply their wantk
As the combined populations amount to several thou-
sands, the importance of the mining operations may be
imagined.

As Central is .500 feet above its sister city, we
naturally remained in the train until it had climbed tha
remarkable zigzag already described ; for where was
the use of compelling our limbs, in that rarefied atmos*
phcre, to do what the locomotive was able and willing
to do for us?

In the autumn of 18H0, I spent several days at the
hotel on the Kggischorn, ,'{,000 or 4,000 feet above tha
valley of the Upper Rhone, and about 7,300 feet above
sea-level. I there discovereil that rarefied mountain air
produces very carious effects on some people, myself
among the number. The effect in my case was to render
me intolerably sleepy, and to rob me of all power of
serious exertion. I could walk gently about on
the level by the hour, but any attempt to
ascend higher up tho mountain was at once
checked by a i>hysical exhaustion which was as
surprising as it w is inconvenient. I was compelled to
rest at intervals of a hundred yards or so, and every
foot I ascended aggravated the symptoms. By dint of
great perseverance, I did at last contrive to reach the
shoulder of the mountain, and to look down upon the
Groat Aletsch Glacier (the largest in the Alps), and to
gazcinto what may be called thebackdoor of the Bernese
Oberland— the southern side of that mighty collection
of snowclad peaks which clusters round the Junsifrau
and the Finsteraar Horn. But the bare summit of the
Kggischorn, crowned with its great wooden cross, still
rose high above me on the left. Men and women, appar-
ently no sounder in either wind or limb than I was,
wen.' as ending and descending it witli ease. But that
height was not for mo. I had to content myself with
the lower point of view, and the more restricted, though
still glorious, sigiit.

These strange experiences prepared me somewhat for
those which awaited mc in tho iiocky Mountains ; and
I was therefore not greatly surprised when I found that
I was positively incapable of walking many yards at a
time in tho chief street of Central City, espt'cially
where it happened to be uphill (and I need hardly re-
mark that every yard in that city is either upliill or
downhill— very much so). RIy chief recollections of
Central City are that a friend of my Denver fiend met
us at th3 deput and did the courteous and handsome by
us— found us a good dinner, introduced us to the post-
master, who had most kindly prepared for me before-
hand a valuable collection of specimens of the numer-
ous minerals with which the region :ibound.s, and finally
chartered a hack to drive us down to one of tho Black
Hawk mines, and finally to deposit us at the lower
station for the return train.

The mine we visit;;d wis simply a long tunnel, large
enough for a railway, driven horizontally into the heart of
the mountain. A narrow-gauge line of rails for the
little mine waggons extended the whole length. With
the aid of candles, we penetrated to the end of one of
the branch workings, where a number of mine s were
excavating ore of remarkable richness. The roof of the
tunnel was seamed with rich veins of metal which, in
the light of candles and lamps, shone oat with great

ir^

128

''
m

brilliancy in oontrait with the dnrker mid itulhir material
in which thfty were embedded. From the mine we
drove down the valley to a oruHhingmill, where the gold-
bearing quartz in liroken up i>y means of " stamping "
machinery. The oruslied muterial— mere coarse sand,
apparently— is washed down an inclined plane by an
endlesa flow of water, and tlie gr.iins of the precious
metal which tlie crushing has liberated are collected by
means of mercury, for which gold has a reniarl<able
aiflnity. The (lisintegrated quartz pours out with the
waste water into the stream, and does its best towards
malcing the name of Clear Creulc the misnomer which I
have already declared it to be. From the mine, we
drove to Blaclc Hawk Station and there waited fur the
train.

I have said that both Central and Black Hawk are
unlovely, and as towns they are certainly all
that — and more. But their surroundings are
by no means common-place. The valleys in
which they stand rise rapidly towards still higher
valleys, and these are backed and hemmed-in by the
giants of the central range itself. To that range the
Americans have given the appropriate name of the
Great Divide— the ridge which divides the waters. On
one side of that ridge, the streams flow down into the
Platte, the Arkansas, and other tributaries of the
Mississippi, and thus find their way to the Gulf of
Mexico. On tlie other slope, the water flows down
into the valley of the Colorado, and, traversing its
wondrous canons, emerges into the PaciQo Ocean.
There is, of course, a I'ne on this ridge
from which the ground slopes away in both
directions, and whethei a drop of rain turns towards
the Pacific or towards the Atlantic depends upon the
exact locality of the spot on which it falls. If it falls
here, it goes to the Atlantic ; if there, a yard further
west, it goes to the Pacific. An American writer has
expressed this fact in real American fashion. Referring
to the moisture which drops from the roof of Alpine
Tunnel, which passes through the highest ridge of the
Kookies, ho says : —

" Two drops of water, such as continually fall from
the roof, alight but half-an-inch apart. Trembling a
second in the balance, each starts with his fellows, and
whon, finally, they join the ocean, there]is the span of
a continent between them."

This sounds very wonderful, and so, indeed, it is ;
but the wonder varies only in degree, and not
in kind, from the phenomena which are before our eyes
on the ridge of every English range. Whether a drop
of rain which falls on one of our hill ranges in Somer<
set, Dorset, Wilts, or Devon, shall flow into the Eng-
lish Channel or into the Bristol Channel, depends upon
the exact spot on which it alights— whether a foot
on the one side or the other of the actual
summit. The illustration drawn from the Kocky
Mountains strikes the imagination more forcibly, simply
because of the immense journeys which the stre.ams
make in opposite directions, and the vastness of the
space which divides them when they finally reach the
bosom of their Mother Ocean.

At a point about seven miles below Black Hawk,
called Forks of the Creek (shortened to Forks Creek),
the canon divides, or forks, as the name just quoted
indicates. The branch chasm — containing, of course,
a branch torrent — has its branch railway also, which
was at first constructed to serve Idaho Springs (a
famous health resort), and Georgetown, a mining city
as high up as Central, and in a still more extraordinary,
and apparently imposaible, situation. But the Union

Paoiflo Railway CoiB)>Any, with its ustml enteiprl^e
and daring, has recently pushed the line eight
miles further up the gorge, to thn very foot of
(iray's Peak, and this short extension com-
prises one of the 'greatest engineering triumphs on
the continent. The rise of the valley at one point was
so rapid that even a Colorado locomotive couM not fairly
be asked to scale it. Tho engineers were accordingly
compelled, in the narrow limits of that gorge, to double
back twice — that is, to parallel their line four times,
and, in one part of this remarkable tangled loop, to
carry the line over itself on a hii^li girder bridge. In
ascending this valley, therefore, the train passes the
same point five times— three going forward and
twice doubling back, the level being higher, of course, at
each succeeding passage. By the time Graymount is
reached, so high a level is attained by the line that
Gray's Peak is brought within easy reach of all exo:<pt
those who, like myself, are robbed of physical energy
by the mountain air. I have recently met, in a Denver
publication, with the following amusing and character-
istic remarks about the famous " loop 'just described : —
" It is amusing to hear comments upon the Loop.
This is what is formed by the Colorado Central road
crossing itself. People enciuire why it crosses itself.
They wonder why a straight line is not preferable to
so much crookedness. They make me some weary. It
is no*-, to be presumed that building track at .50,000 dels,
per mile is wildly hilarious i astime. My idea is that
it was built that way because it is impossible to ascend
more than a given n imber of feet in a given distance.
It would not be righc to nsk an engine to climb a stone
wall, so they went around it. That is all that the Loop
is for, and that it has a picturesque effect is merely a
pleasant incident. When railroad iron is tied into a
double bow knot, it is not for the fun of the thing."

On to Leadville.

WoNDEUB^cL Mountain Railways.

The morning after our visit to Black Hawk and
Central, my companion and I started from Denver on a
somewhat similar but still more memorable journey.
At 8.20 a.m. we entered a Union Pacific train for Lead-
ville, 171 miles distant, up among the mountains, and
about seven o'clock in the evening we reached our
destination. The railway to Leadville, like all the lines
to the mountain towns and raining camps, is on the
narrow 'im three-feet) gauge, and penetrates the foot-
hills tbrouixl DUB of tho many canons already described.
For seme ~*; miles, the liue at first traverses the
plain. I^ then plunges into the Platte Canon
just as abruptly as the Central City and
Geoigei;own branch enters the gorge of Clear Creek.
A description of one of these two canons applies equally
well to the other. Both have their champions. 8on:e
say that the Clear Creek gorge is the finer, while others
stand up bravely for the Platte Canon. I c innot pre-
tend to decide a question which is still in dispute
between those who know both intimately. All I can
say is, that both are very wonderful both in their
beauty and their awe-inspiring grandeur. So much as
regards quality. In the matter of quantity, there is a
difference. There is two or three times as much of the
Platte Canon as of the other. The Clear Creek Canon
is barely 20 miles long, while the Platte Canon is about
50. And the whole of this 50 miles of line, be it re-
membered, is just as winding as the 20 miles in the
other gorge, though not quite so steep. At the entrance
to Platte Canon, the rails are about 5,500 feet above

■•A-level. At
is about 9,000
feet in .'>U mile

Having roac
that lit Black
and begins to (
gradient avora
tween Webste
seven miles-
ing. Ivcnosha
10,000 feet ah
level of Denv
country at thi
of things to in
sonally, I shou
I alighted troi
yards, or to ex
would have
collapsed into i
But, sitting
and, judging
within a fev
matter of fai
On both sides
described strei
reality, immen
ate by the won
and by the sr
which formed i
too grand a sen
near distance.

From Kenos
for nearly 40
about 8,960 fe
few miles, but ]
of 7,588 feet a
Here it unites
road, and the t
rails from thii
"climb" with
and Leadville,
from 7,588 feel
and there, at
old city of 25,0

I shall have i
and my advei
subject of the
adding a few w
achievements
most difficult r
Buena Vista, i
native route
circuitous to
visit they ha
off many mc
much farther
line. I cannot
observation ; 1
read, it is assoi
engineering ai
world. Betwe
older line, and
crosses the m
Boreas, betwe(
is effected witl
This is as h
the Alps— pa
by experienc
and direction
but one attai

129

■•ft-Ierel. At the uppnr en<l of th^onnon, the eleTaHon
is nbout 9,000 feet. That in to saj , the line riics 3,500
feet in '>0 miles.

Having roaohod the end of the K'^fRe, the lino, like
that lit IMack Hawk, doublus li.ick towanls t'ue left,
and boj^ins to climb the mountain side by a /i){/.ug on a
gradient averaging} nearly I.IO fut't to tlio mile. 15e-
tween Webster ami Kenoshii Stations— a distance of
seven miles— the train rises just 1,000 feet without halt-
ing. Kenosha Hummit once attained, the train is juHt
10,000 feet above the sea, and nearly a milo above the
level of Denver. IJiit onoo on the comparatively level
country at the top, there is nothing in the ai-jiearance
of things to indicate that one is two mi'.os high. I'er-
sonally, I should soon have discovered where I was, had
I alighted from the train and attempted to run 100
yards, or to exert myself in any similar way. My limbs
would have given way under me, and I should have
collapsed into a little helpless heapof drowsy humanity.
But, sitting quietly in the car, I felt no ill etfects ;
and, judging from what I saw, I n'/ght have been
within a few feet of sealevel. '.Vo were, as a
matter of fact, skirting the beautiful South Park.
Oa both sides of us, the park-like landscape already
described stretched away to distances tliat were, in
reality, immense, but were rendered aiiparcntly moder-
ate by the wonderful transparency of the atmosphere,
and by the snow-s > jked peaks of the Great I'ivido
which formed the background to the park, and atforded
too grand a scale to apply to lengths and heights in the
near distance.

From Kenosha summit, the line gradually descends
for nearly 40 miles, getting down in that distance to
about 8,960 feet. Then it turns upward again for a
few miles, but presently descends to the rather low level
of 7,r)88 feet at Buena Vista, 136 miles from Denver.
Here it unites with the Denver and Kio Grande Kail-
road, and the trains of both companies climb the same
rails from this point to Lcadville. I use the word
*' climb " with good reason ; for between Buena Vista
and Le&dville, a distance of 3.5 miles, the level rises
from 7,588 feet to the amazing height of 10,200 feet,
and there, at that giddy altitude, it finds a si^-year-
old city of 25,000 inhabitants.

I shall have something to say presently about the city
and my adventures therein, but I must not leave the
subject of the railway by which I reached it without
adding a few words as to the latest and most wonderful
achievements of the Union Paoiflc Company in that
most difficult region. The line to Leadville, by way of
Buena Vista, although vastly shorter than the alter-
native route round by Pueblo, was still too
circuitous to please the Company, and since my
visit they have opened a new link, which cuts
off many more miles, and carries the traveller
much farther skyward than any part of the older
line. I cannot speak of this new link from personal
observation ; but, judging from descriptions I have
read, it is associated with some of the most remarkable
engineering and some of the finest scenery in the
world. Between Como, the point of junction with the
older line, and its terminus at Leadville, this new link
crosses the main ridge of the Kookies twice. At
Boreas, between Como and Breckenridge, the crossing
is effected without a tunnel at a height of 11,498 feet.
This is as high as the highest foot passes of
the Alps— passes which can only be traversed
by experienced mountaineers, under the care
and direction of guides. Boreas is the highest point
but one attained by any railway in North America.

The one exception is between Buena Vista and
Gunnison. Here, at Alpine Tunnel, the Gunnison
trains of tlio I'nion Pucillo Company roll throu^li tho
ridge of the (Jrcat Divide at a hoiyht of 11,623 fei't
above tii!o»lovcl. Those of .ny readers who happen to
remember that tho .Mondips in Somorsot and the
highest hills in Dorset are about 1,000 feet hl;ih may
form some idea of tho elevations attained by
tho Colorailo railway engineers. With tho ex-
ception of one pass over tiio Andes in .South
America, .Mpiiie Tunnel is tho hij,'he»t point re.ichod
by any riilwiy in tho world. The famous St. (JotliarJ
Itailway through tlio Alps, whose oi)ening two or three
ye::rs ago excited, and justly excited, groat interest
throughout Eurojie, does not reach an elevation of 4,000
feet at any point. The ditfetence between the
European mountain lines and those of America consists
mainly in th s -that tho engineers of the former go
through tho mountains, and the latter usually go
over their tops, whatever their height. Alpine
Tunnel, on tho Union Pacific line to Gunnison,
is <iuito an exceiitional phenomenon in Colorado,
and oven that tunnel is only a third of a
mile in length— cutting, in fact, through tho mere
crest of tho range. Hut of tho two greatest tunnels in
tho Al|is, tho Alont Cenis is six miles long, and the St.
Gothaid over eight miles. The lines, indeed, ascend in
each case to only a very moderate height, and then
make a straight cut through the very heart of the
mountains. Even if both the Mont Cenis and the St.
Gothard went clean over tlio top, tliey would not
attain such heights as tho two Colorado passes I have
described. It would, under any circumstances, be
impossible t.'i carry railways to heights of 11,000
or 12,000 feet in the Alps. Tlioso mountains,
at such heights, are simply masses of ice and snow,
wiiich never melt. But the snowfall in the Uocky
Mountains is comparatively small, and the climate al-
together more genial, and what is impossible in
Switzerland is accordingly possible in Colorado. The
American mountain lines are, of course, sometimes
blocked with snow in tho winter, even though they are
for many miles protected by snow-sheds ; but, on the
whole, tlie companies prefer to risk such occasional in-
conveniences rather than incur the vast cost of piercing
the ranges at lower levels by means of tunnels.

A CITY TWO MILES ABOVE THE SEA.
With the exception of two or three places in South
Amerrca, Leadville is the highest town of any size In tho
world. Iti8l0,200feet, oralmostexactlytwomiles, above
sea-level. It is a very wonderful place, but a very unlovely
one. I cannot imagine a person taking up his residence
there, unless he is largely interested in the mining busi-
ness which has created the city in the short space of five
01 six years. Tor it is a city of shanties. Only one of its
streets (Harrison Avenue) contains any considerable pro-
portion of stone or brick buildings ; almost all the others
consist mainly of wooden dwellings, many of which are
rough, weather-stained, and ugly. Jloreover, tho imme-
diate surroundings of the city are far less picturesque
than the great height of the place would lead one to
suppose. The truth is, the pla^c is too high to afford an
imposing view of the mountains. The highest peaks in
its neighbournood are dwarfed to very moderate eleva-
tions when looked at from so high a standpoint, and, aa
I have already intimated, the Kooky Mountains are
wanting in some of the features which constitate the
greatest charm of the Alps, One needs to stand off at

130

if,
J.

^ -^

ft ilistiince to sccuro the most impreisive view of a gieat
range. To look nt it from one of its loftiest summits is
like vic\vinn;a ftiiind civthedrnl from th(j top of one of
its ])inimclcs. Ouu sees the roof to advantage in such
ii cft'^e, no (louht, but no concei)tion of the .'Ic arioii is
olitaincfl.

In spite of all this, I strongly advise everybody who
visits thcWostcrn States, andwhocanstandan elevation
of 10,000 feet, to go up ^o Leadville by all means. The
wonderful scenery, and almoat equally wonderful
cngineeiing, to be seen on the road thither are ample
compensation for the expenditure in time and money.

('alifornia Culoh, in which Leadville partly stands,
was a rich gold-producing district more than twenty
years ago. The produce at one time reachid
ilUOO.OOOin ayear, but it gradually fell Mf until ISC.O,
when the place was abam^^neil— but only for a time.
The miners left behind the rude huts in which they
had li"0(l. The chinks in the wooden walls of these
huts had been stopped witli mud, and one day a pair
of sharp eyes discovered that this mud hud enough
silver in it to ma' e it worth H^O a ton.
The tide of population, wlich had ebbed down
to low-water mark, began to flow again as
soon A'i this discovery became known, and within
live years it had risen to something like 20,000 or 2r),000.
With the silver, its usual concomitant, lead, was soon
found in immense quantities, and this metal has given
its name to the town. Oscar Wilde was so shocked at
the marriage of Anglo-Saxon and French in » he name
of a plane oalleil Criggsville, that lie declaies he refused
to lecture in the place unless tho inhabitants would con-
sent to rechristen it. They thought the matter over, and
decided that they would suffer greater inconvenience
from changing the niune of the city than from missing
ths resthetic poet s lecture. So Oscar passed Origg^
ville bv. Hut he was inconsistent enough to g^ to
Leadville, although its name displays the same b-.r-
barous co: ibination of English and French which iiid
proved too much for hin> in the other case. However,
the name of Leadville expresses a great fact very
clearly, much as it may grate on the suiiorsensitive ear
of the prophet of tho "utterly-utter" s hool. The
name, of course, simply means tho City cf I.iad, and
the place is true to its name. It is the viche t 'ilver and
lead producing region in the world. The small county
in which Leadville stands produced last year over
fifteen million ilollars' worth of Oic, or consideraldy
more than half of the whole mineral producj of
Colorado for that period.

Tho miners are a race of stalwart g'ants, and the
wonder is how they contrive to insert themselves into
some of the tiny shanties in which they live. They
have some very good qualities. They work hard, and
are generous, aiul frank in their bearing. I>ut tl ey
drin'. and gamble a good deal, and are too much given
to settling their drunken disputes with revolvers. On jar
Wilde says that, when he lectured to "a (juiet, well-
armed mob " at Leadville, he road to tliom many
passages of the biography of Lenvenuto Cellini, and
they were so amused by the account that they came
round afterwards anil asked why he had not brought
Cellini to Leadville. He explained that Cellini was
dead, and they at once said, "Dear me ! who shot him ?''
They were unable (ha said) to conceive any method
of quitting life other than the le usual in Leadville.
This is no doubt a little romance of Oscar's, but it is
not a bad one. for it only llluBtrates in a rather ex-
aggerated fashion the e-itent to which " shooting at
sight '" ^t{s before now prevailed in some of the out-of-

the-way mining cemps. In one place, it is said, the
traveller is shown a cemetery where not a single man
has been buried who has not "died in his boots."
Oscar Wilde says that, after he had lectured, some of
the miners took him to a dancing saloon, at thu end of
which was a piano and the typical pianist playing.
On the wall, riglit over the piano, was printed a notice
— " Please don't shoot the pianist. He is doing his
best." Some one (Oscar said) had once published, in a
book, statistics of the mortality amongst pianists in
Leadville, and these statistics were ..o niu.^h beyond the
ordinary average that tho city u^ed to find a difficulty
in getting musicians.

This is all very excellent fooling, but it must nol l)e
talren too literally. The naked truth has, however,
often been sufficiently startling in the early history of
Western mining camps.

But Leadville is not utterly given over to gambling,
drinking, and shooting. It has a mayor and coipora-
tion, a recordei, three daily papcr.s, three banks, two
theatres, seven schools, and an undefined r-umber of
churches. Mr. Lucy, of the Dailii iVp/w.v, who was
in the city shortly after ray visit, had some difficulty
in obtaining information about churches. Some of the
citizens of whom he inquired did not believe there
were any; but at last he found one man who said he
felt sure there Was one church "around somewhere,"
but he could not for the life of him indicate its exact
locality.

The men ox Leadville make money fast, and in tho
case of too many of them the motto is : " Ea.sy come,
easy go." In the early days of the place, fortunes
were amassed oven faster than they are now. Al-
though frame liousesare built so rapidly in such a place
that they are sometimes begun in the morning and slept
in next night, house-building did not at first keep
pace with the enormously rapid growth of population.
Those were tho days when men gladly paid t. dollar a
night for the privilege of lying on the bare floor of a
flimsy shed, and being strictly restricted to a space
•Kieasuring about six feet by two feet. Tho owner of
such a shed was almost as much in luck as the man who
had struck a rich vein of silver. Eut " lodging " of this
kind was not proiiortionately dear. Every other neces-
sary of life fet'hed fabulous prices. The connection uf
Leadville wi^-h tho outer world hy rail has, of course,
done something to reduce charges; but even now
they are probably higher than at any other city of
the same si/.e in the States ; for the cost of
constructing, maintaining, and working the railways is
immense, and the fares and rates for goods aro neces-
sarily very high. But then if people will spend their lives
in burrowing ir the earth for silver at a height of two
miles, they can hardly expect to be fed and clothed and
housed as cheaply as the ploughmen in tho plains.

Mr. Lucy (already referred to) gives tho following
account of the visits he paid to tho miners' places of
amusement. The miners appear, by his account, to
take their pleasure rather sadly : —

" Leadvilieliasa contiiient.il rojiutatiou for being a wicked
place, and it is understood that the orgies of the miner aro
too awful to lie contemplated. I had thu opportmiity of
going to see the miner at his worst, and found it run largely
toiluluess. The iirst place visited is k.own as the Car-
bonate Beer Hall. This is in Stade Street, i.Jmittod to bo
tlie bad street of Leadville. On enteriner tin- lieer Hall,
the visitor is faced by a placard entreating him to ' patronise
the bar.' An admission fee of )s to thu body .,■£ the hall
and 25 to the boxes is nominiilly fixed, but latt strictly
enforced. It is from the profits m the sale of
liquor that tlie establishment is maintained, and

131

said, the
lingle mnn
lis boots."
1(1. some of
thu end of
t playim,'.
eJ a notice

doing his
iished, in a
pianists in
beyond the
It difficulty

ust not he

, however,

history of

gamblinc;,
d coipora-
banks, two
number of
who WHS
! difficulty
iome of the
lieve there
dio said he
)me where,"
its exact

and in tho
Easy come,
oe, fortunes
now. Al-
mch a jdaco
ig and slept
first keep
[population.
[. dollar a
floor of a
to a space
owner of
le man who
ing" of this
ther neccs-
iinection of
of course,
even now
her city of
cost of
railways is
aro necea-
tlieir lives
t;ht of two
lothed and
dains.
followius;
places of
ccount, to

inna witki'il
mint'r aro
|iiirtuiiity of
t run largely
as the Car-
littoil to bo
Ueer Hall,
'patronise
...f the hill
lot strictly
u' sale of
ained, ami

when It la mentioned that a bottle of beer
is charged at the rate of 43 2d. and a thimbleful of bad
whisky a shilling, It will be understood that this source of
revenue does not fail. Inside were gathered about 40 men
taking their pleasure with infinite sadness. One or two
had abandoned the struggle against the weariness of it,
and, layin<: iheir beads on the table, soundly slept. Tho
ball was furnished with beer-stained tables and dirty chairs.
A gallery ran round the upper part, empty, save so far as
the Bides of a pair of boots seen over the front of one of
the boxes indicated the presence of a gentleman. On
tbe stage were two men in tight.s. forlornly danc-
ing to funereal music provided by an orchestra
consisting of a violin md a piano. When the
dance had drooped to i conclusion, the dancers
ducked their heads i nd retired, immediately
coming forward again, bo^ ing as if they had been
recalled by an enthusiastic audience, and recommei.cing
in obedience to an imaginary encore. As a matter of fact,
there had not been a sound or gesture of applause. Tlie
profound sorrow that brooded over the audience was too
heavy to be thus uplifted. The only busy people in the
place were the wife of the pianist, who sat bv him
industriously sewine, and the women- who sold drink.
Tliese latter are called beer-juggers, and fill a large place
in the evening life of the miner. They work on commissi^.),
receiving Sd for every jug of beer sold at a dollar. Tliey
hav3 tiekets, which the bar-tender punches upon each tr.\ns-
Kction, and at the close of the evening a cash settlement
is made. It is obviously to their interest to make the
miners drink, and to that end they indulge in blandish-
ments which relieve by a single touch of vice the level dtd-
ness of the night's entertair.uient. One of the beer-juggers,
taking note of the pair of soles displayed from the box,
went upstairs, and confirmed the suspicion that there wns
more in tliem than met the eye by rousing up a gigantesque
miner and inducing him to purchase a bottle of beer.
The Zoo, a somewhat similar establishment, of higher
prete'iaions, placards i^s portico with the injiinctio:.
' For Wine, Women, and Fun, walk straight aheivU. '
Admission hers is 2s, and is more strictly enf-jrcju.
Perceiving opiicrtunities for business, a beerjugger
showed us into a privatt box. We ordered a
bottle of beer, wi\ic!i she brought with three glasses, and,
uninvited, as a matter of course, poured a glass out
for herself and drank it whilst lamenting the slackness of
the times One substantial reason why the fun here and
el8e\v!iere so grievously flagged was that pay-day was ap-
proaching. The miners are paid only once a month, and at
this epoch a dollar for a bottle of beer, though served with
a leer from a repulsive creature in woman's dress, was a
little dear. At the end of a month, a miner finds himself
in possession of from £25 i > ilHO, and, as a corollary, has
what he calls a blow-out. These are the halcyon days of
the beer-jugger. There are not infrequent occasions when
a miner I.t f-leared o".t in a f'.ngle night, and starts on the
morning after pay-day with only a single dollar out of the
hnndred he had earned. The boxes at the Zoo were fairly
♦llled, a moiety of the occupants being harlots, painted,
noisy, and inall ways loveless. These women have their claim
upon tlie consideration of the citizens, since they contribute
largely to the relief of the ra* ..i. They are required to pay a
pound a month for their ''.onse, and for the in-gathering of
thisrevenuethereisai'^unieipally-appointed collector. Should
the five dollars in .iny case be lacking, the Corporation
sternly awake t>- mo sin of the thing, and the woman is cast
into prison, if the five dollars be fort hcoming, all is well.
Over the stage-box at the Zoo is printed an injunction to
' Step in and see Pap Wynianon your way home.' We did
so, and found Pap beaming over much business. He is one
of the oldest resiclents in Leadville, and started the first
regular gambling-house. He is now getting up in years,
and has developed .some eccentricities. At the little counter
where he dispenses drinl: is a box in which is ;daced a Bible,
b that a gentleman in the interval of playing euchre, or
whilst refreshing himself with a cocktail, may read a verse
or two. Over the clock fare is written ' Please don't
swear,' and under strong provocation Pap has been known
to enforce this request with a round oath, I visited several

gambling den.i, and found preyailing everywhere the samt
quiet, bordering upon dull niel.ancholy. 'fhe proprietors of
the gambling dens, like the lessees of the drinking and
dunoiiif; salnons, are pining for payday."

INTOXIC.^TrvQ EFFECTS OF MOUNTAIN
AIR, ET CETERA.

I knew, of course, that at a height of over 10,000
feet any considerable exertion was, in my case, out of
the question. It was already evening when my com-
panion and I reached Leadville, and we contentr.d our-
selves for that night with strolling very leisurely
tlirough two or three of tbe principal streets, and look-
ing into the saloons and pUices of entertainraent so
graphically described by BIr. Lucy. 'Wo had
gone to Leadville for the sake of the
journey, more than for thi, purpose of
closely inspecting the place ; and as we had to rise
early ne.\t morning to catch the only day train back to
Denver, we retired to rest at an unusu.ally " proper "
hour. Our rooms were next door to each other on the
first floor of the hotel. Mine had two windows, looking
out into a sort of narrow side court, the appearance of
which was not attractive or reassuring, and which was
at no great depth below me. I, therefore, took the
(perhaps) excessive precaution of shutting both win-
dows close and fastening them— a kind of thing I had
not done at any American hotel I had previously slept
in. The air at a place so near heaven— physically near,
I mean, according to the traditional notion — is thin
enough at all times. For some kinds of lungs, there
appears to be too little of it in (luantity, and fresh
suirjlies of what little thero was I suppose I shut out
when I closed my windows. Anyhow, the morning
showed that tliere was something seriously wrang in
fbe relations between myself aud the Leaciville atmos-
phere.

My friend rose hptimei, knocked at my door and got
a very sleepy " All righi ! " for answer, and then went
down to ireakfast. Finding that I did not put in an
nppearan.e, he hurried through his meal and came up
to my door again. Again he knocked and called, but
all in vain. A drowsy and almost inarticulate response
was all he could get out of me. My door was locked on
the iuiiide, and he could do npc.iing but keep up hia
shouting and his knocking. This he did most vigorously
and perseveringly for nearly half an hour. So, at
least, he tells me. I have no recollection whatever on
the subject of the lapse of time. At last, finding it
impossible to induce me to get out of bed, or to return
any coherent reply to his repeated calls, my friend
grew seriously alarmed and went downstairs for assist-
ance. Ho soon returned with a por*^^er or waiter, and
the two made a final and united effort in the way ot
noise, before resorting to the extreme measure of break-
ing open the door. I suppose the two-manpower row
partially brought me to my senses, for I at last fell
out of bed (I was powerless to stand), and, under
the guidance of my two besiegers, crawled
slowly to the door. After repeated efforts,
I managed to turn the key, and at once fell back help-
less. There I lay, obstructing tho opening of the door,
and it was only by ])ushing me away by means of tho
door that my friend and his aide-de-camp were enabled
to enter the room. They placed me on my bed and one
of them went down for the landlord. Of tho opening
of the door and all that followed I have an exceedingly
misty recollection. The tumble out of bed apparently
aroused me a little, although the moment I was again
between the sheets a sensation of iuexpresiiMe drowsi-

132

ness again oamo over me. I felt »° '* I ..liup'iy wanted
to be let nlone tn "1-,^^, for a month. So overpowering
was this sensation that I doubt if even an alarm oi firo
in the hotel would have roused me.

In due time, the landlord appeared and looked at
me, " Oh 1" (ho said in effect) " I guess it's the usual
thing. We get plenty like that up here. Whisky's
the thing for him."' (That, was the species of physic
he dealt in.) So they gave mo a certain number of
8))0i)nfu]s of whisky, and awaited the results. As far
as I know, that was the fir.st drop of whisky that had
ever invaded the sanctity of my stomach. Rooky
Mountain whisky, moreover, unless greatly belied, i.s
a liiiuor which is " fearfully and wonderfully made.'
It is said to consist mainly of benzolino and cayenne
pepper. The throats of the miners have become so
hardened by the constant passage of all .sorts of fiery
liquors that any ordinary drink produces ro sensation
in going down. Hence, as they say, or as somebody
say.s for thom, nothing is any good to them which does
not convey the impre.ssion that they are swallowing a
circ'iliir saw, or pulling a wild cat up the throat
by his tail.

It was not long before the whisky began to produce
an effect. i\Iy few remaining wits began to forsake me.
At last, only one clear conception was left to me, and I
had :eason to regret that that did not go too. The one
thing 1 knew was that my senses had fled, and I had
not wit enough left to reflect thiit they had only been
driven away temporarily by the action of t':e whisky.
My Imagination, strangely enough, was active. "Here
1 am," I thought— if I could be said to think at all —
" in the heart of the Kocky Mountains, .5,000 miles from
home and 10,000 feet above the soa, and my senses are
gradually leaving me I '" This r.ort of purgatory— I
fervently hope there is no wor.se sort— laste 1 nearly two
hours. I tried to talk, but the words would not stand
in line ; and if my friend had happened to take a short-
hand note of my remarks, I might have been able to
illustrate t'lis narrative with some amazing, and possibly
amusing, specimens of incoherency.

iuit the effects even of Rocky Mountain whisky pass
oil iat.me, and in the course of about two hours, which
haJ been an eternity to me, my ideas began gradually
to clear. The very first thought that jiassed through
my brain was this : — " How foolish 1 have been to put
myself in such a stew ! It was all the effect of
the whislt;, of course"! And that thought trans-
portet) :.io instantly from purgatory to paradise.
I reooveiod rapidly, and it soon became clear
tliat the whidlty had, in its rough, merci-
less way, done something to rouse me. I thought
it advisable, however, to see a doctor, and my friend
fetched one. Ho repeated pretty much what the land-
lord had said, barring the prescription of whisky, wrote
out a prescription of his own, assured us there was no
danger, held out his hand for 8i.\ dollars, and walked
away. My friend carried the proscription to a chem'st,
paid more dollars, ami returned with the "stuff."
(Leiidvil'e is as e.xpensive a place to be ill in as to do
anything olise in.) liy tbc evening, I had surliciontly
recovered to walk, with my friend's aid, to the hotel
omnibus, and thus to reach the 7,30 train for Denver,
I got the sleeping-car porter to " fix me up " soon after
the train started ; and so, half sleeping and half waking,
but resting all the time, I rode all night long up and
down the tremendous inclines already described— down
to Buena Vista, and up to Hill Top, and down to
Platte River, and across the South Park, and over
Kenosha Summit, and down the Platte Canon, to

Denver. Thero I landed about 8 a,m., 5,000 feet below
Leadville, still somewhat shaky, but capable of walk-
ing up from the depot into the city and eating a
breakfast.

My illness had appeared very alarming to my friend
and me, who were strangers to that kin;' of thing ; but
the Leadville and Denver people made I'ght of it, and
I suppose I was in no real danger. I am told that the
dangerous cases are those in which the ears and nose
bleed persistently, and there was no sign of hemorrhage
in my case. Still, it is well for all those who know
they are in any way atiected by rarefied air to take all
necessary precautions when ascending to great heights,
and especially to secure the presence of a companion in
all such excursions. Ugly as my experiences at Lead-
ville were, they would have been vastly more painful
and alarming, but for the fact that I had a faithful and
devoted friend at my side.

Knowing that I had numerous high passes to cross
westward of Denver, I called on a homcKopathic
physician before leaving the city and asked his advice
as to the wisdom of going to great heights again. He
heard my story, examined me, and assured me thei<-
was nothing to fear if I avoided exertion at great alt •
tudes. He gave me a powerful tincture oi srun- c' .:vr:
or other, telling me to take a few drops when,) ■ ■
was at a great height and felt anything like drowsinuis.
I acted on his advice, and suffered no further incon-
venience, even though I reached on one occasion a
greater hoight even than Leadville.

I have often wondereil whether every person who gets
— well, gets inebriated, let us say — passes through what
I passed through at Leadville. If so, I pity that class of
people more deefdy than I ever could have done but for
that experience ; and why a man who has been in pur-
gatory once should voluntarily get himself in again,
passes my comprehension. But perhaps my experience
was exceptional, I have done my best to satisfy myself
on this point ; but singularly enough, I cannot find a
single one of my whisky - drinkmg friends who can
throw any light on the subject. None of them seem
to have the slightest idea how a man feels when he is —
well, let us again say, inebriated. This is a curious
fact.

THE DENVER AND RIO GRANDE RAILWAY.

No notice ofiColorndo could be regarded as even
approximately comjdete which failed to give some
account of the remarkable system of mountain railways
known by the above name. The narrow-gauge moun-
tain lines already described form part of the Union
Pacific Company's system ; but, wonderful as they are,
they constitute only a small portion of a great whole,
just as a "light" line among the Welsh hills migh.t be
attached to the North Western or the Great Western
system. The main lines of the Union Pacific are on
the standard English gauge (4ft. S.Sin,). But its
mountain lines are, as already described, on the 3ft,
gauge. The latter, therefore, necessarily constitute
a complete system in themselves, with their own
rolling stock, although tiiey belong to and are worked
by the great Company already mentioned.

But the Denver and Rio Grande is a narrow-gauge
mountain line, and nothing else. Its rails, liice those of
the other mountain lines, are only three fee"; apart, and
its experience has proved that that very o.nrow gauge
is well adapted to the difficult c i ;)iry whici it serves,

Ihe history of the Denver an'' RioGraud . perfect
romance of enterprise and genii a. It is tt.6 story of one

rf.

as even

fci"

perpetual war with gigantic natural obstacles, qualified
occasionally by severe contesta with powerful competi-
tors and serious struggles against financial diflSculties.
It is impossible to traverse these wonderful Colorado
railways, and to realise at what prodigious cost the
mountains have been pierced and scaled at a score of
different points, without almost involuntarily asking
the question : " Where docs all the money come from ?"
Scores of mill'jns of dollars have been spent on these
lines, and it dppears impossible that a scattered mining
population, ^reat as its prosperity may be, can ever
provide traflFc enough to give any adequate return on
the outlay.

I was told that a large part of the capital in the
Denver and Itio Grande came from Boston and from
this country. As for Boston, itii accumulated wealth
must be well-nigh beyond calculation if one is to believe
all one hears in moving about the States. Ask where
you v/ill whence comes the money for any great public
work you see in course of execution, and the answer
usually is : " From Boston capitalist" " Whenever
Boston is not specially mentioned, " the East " is re-
ferred to in general terms as the source of the golden
stream ; and " the East " always includes the great
New England capital. The investors in the Denver and
Rio Grande have hitherto had to content themselves
with a poorer return than their enterprise and the
great service they have rendered to Colorado
entitle them to. They have suffered immensely of late
from the great depreciation whicli has taken place in the
value of ail American securities— a calamity which im-
mediately succeeded the completion on the part of the
Company of a great and exhausting effort. That effort
was the e.>- tension of the line to Halt Lake City and
Ogden— an addition of nearly 500 miles to its length at
a single stroke. But, like most other American lines,
the Rio Grande is providing for the future ; and no-
body who is familiar with its gallant efforts to strike
the word " Impossible " out of the dictionary can help
cherishing the hope that the future will provide an
ample reward for all its enterprise, outlay, and skill.

The original plan of this railway consisted of a main
line running straight south fi-om Denver, and therefore
parallel witL the main range ot the Kocky Mountains,
as far as the 'rentier of N^t/ Mexico, with a series of
branches running off to the west penetrating the
mountains, and veaching all the principal mining camps
yc. *-he State. The main line was begun in 1870, as soon
a.: l^enver wis connected with the Missouri and the
F sfc by th'; first of the great railways across the
the main line north and south is ba ely
length, and now forms a small part
sy"' .i' Its engineering features ire,
no 'lOJti.s remarkable, for this rei son
(already mentioned, lat it runs t,.Tallel with the
mountains, and does not 'lenetrate the^r The -.iew
which a ride on the main line affords is, nowever,
superb throughout its whole length. The train is just
far enough from the mountains to allow of the main
range being seen, and the result is that the traveller
has°presented to him for hours a panorama similar to
that which is seen from Denver. To the east stretches
ihe interminable plain— a vast, brown ocean of short
prairie grass. To the west, at distances over varying,
the might> barrier of the Rockies shuts in the view.
You look ahead for a hundred miles and backward an
equal distance, but in neither direction is there any
brti.!' in that noble sky-line. In the course of the
journey down to Pueblo, a dozen famous neaks pass
in BUOoesBion before the eye, each with Bome peculiarity

iiLiins, But
200 miles in
of the whole
moreover, by

of outline and colour which marks it off from its .sister
heights.

It was wlien the Rio Grande began to push its
branches up into the mountains tli.;t its real strngglon
be^jan. The tirst branch after leaving Denver is one
of onlj- five mile-i, from Colorado Springs to Manitou.
Beth these places are great health resorts, at which in-
valids congregate from ail parts of the States. They
possess some famous mineral springs, and the invalids,
while drinking the waters, have the benefit of an at-
mosiihere wliich is declared to be unsurpassed in the
world in its special adaptation to lung diseases. .Alanitou,
moreover, is close to the foot of Pike's Peak, one of the
highest, but at the same time one of the
most easily accessible, of all the Colorado
mountains. There is a mule path all the way to
the top, and anybody whj can navigate a mule
and breathe a very rarefied atmosphere may
reach a height of 11,117 feet without any serious effort.
At the foot of Pike's I'eak and close to Blanitou there is
a remarkable place called tiie Garden of the Gods.
There is not much of the garden about it ; and if the
gods actually frequent tiie place, their tastes must
certainly be rather odd. The Geologists' Paradise
would be a more appropriate name ; for the principal
features of the "Garden" are a large number of
wonderfully fantastic, monument-like masses of rock, of
a kind which is very characteristic of the liocky Moun-
tain regions. Most of these masses are usially tall pillars
of rather soft material, crowned with a mass of iiiucii
harder rock. The history of these weird objects is obvious
enough. The whole surface of the " Garden " has been
griduaily lowered, by atmospheric and aqueous erosion,
except at certain points where boulders of a harder
natiire than the actual soil of the place happened to
lie These boulders protected from the rava;,'es of rain
and frost the small surfaces they iiappened to cover ;
and as the general level of the country was gradually
lowered, the i)illars, with their harder ca|)itals, were
left standing up, gaunt and naked, 'i'he pillars
did not spring out of the plain ; the plain dropped
away from the pillars, In many cases, the
rocky capitals overhang the pillars they protect in such
a way as to make them look like gigantic mushrooms.
The lateral erosion, though le-;s de-^tructive thati the
vertical, ultimately eats through the pillars, and then
down come the rocky capitals— only to take fiesii
patches of the softer soil imder their patrona,'" and
protection. The scenery of tliese so called "monu-
ment " parks and gardens (of which there are two or
three others in the neighbourhood) is, it must bo ad-
mitted, very remarkable. The bright hues, moreover,
of the various strata exposed in the pillars sometimes
add a rather startling feature to the scone. But the
sin'ht is weird and erotcsque rather tlian beautiful.

At Pueblo, 120 miles soutli of Denver, the principal
branch diverges from tlie main line— if, indeed, th it can
be called a branch which is nOtV three or four times as
long as the trunk. For it is this iiraucli which has
recently been extended right away through ( 'olorado
and Utah to Ogden. 'M\ miles l)eyond Salt f.ake Cvy,
and 0">0 miles from Pueblo. But from this branch
numerous otlier brandies diverge, the most important
being one to I.eadville. Thii was, by tlio way, thy first.
railway which reached that exalted region.

At Cucliara, ,"»0 miles south of Pueblo, another long
branch diverges to the west. This line, by means of
windiP!!;s innumerable and engineering of the most
extraordinary kiiid, roaches Silverton, tho centre of
the rich San Juan mining district, 495 miles from Den>

134

' !

i : t

! j f

fi'

ver. This branch, also, has secondary branches. One
of these taps a Kfent coalueld at £1 Moro ; another
reaches southward to within a short drive of Santa F6,
the capital of New Mexico ; while a third runs up the
valley of the Rio Grande to a point called Wagon
"Wheel Gap.

I travelled over more than three-fourths of the
whole of the llio Grande system, and I will endeavour
to supply from actual observation some account of its
moat striking features. These journoys, I may add,
were taken on my return from California ; but as they
are naturally connected with the subject of Colorado
railways, they can be most conveniently dealt with
here.

We went to California by the Union Pacific and the
Central Pacific Railways. These constitute one con-
tinuous line of 1,900 miles, extending from Omaha
to San Francisco. Their point of junction is at
Ogden, 1,034 miles from Omaha. Ogden '^ for other
reasons an important railway centre. It i ! " iu'-.c-
tion at which passengers change for the Uta. .1,

which connects Ogden with Halt Lake City, J. s

to the south. An important line also diverges n le
north, through Idaho and Montana, finiilly joining the
Northern Pacific Itnilroail. Besides these four lines,
diverging north, south, east, and west respectively, the
Denver and Rio Grande hiis, as before stated, extended
its line to Ogdcn, via Salt Lake City ; and, in order to
vary our route, we returned from Ogden eastward by
this new line, instead of traversing the I'nion Pacific a
second time. Thoso who have followed me thus far
will understand that passengers from the Kast to
California have now a choice of routes as far as Ogden.
They can go either by the old line of the Union I'ucifio
from Omaha, or by the Atcheson, Topeka, and Santa
F6 to Pueblo, and thence by the Denver and Hio
Grande. Getting to Ogden, whether by tlie one route
or the other, the traveller to California has no option
but to i)iocce(l over the remaining 880 miles of his
journey by the Central Pacific.

The Salt Lake and Ogden Sectfon.

As I shall have to deal with the Mormon capital at
some 1< ngth further on, I need only say here that the Uio
Giande train pusses that city about an hour and-a- half
after leaving Ogden The line then follows the valley of
the River .loidan for some distance and skirts Utah Lake
(not the (ireat Salt Lake, but a large body of fresh
water, which is discharged into Great Salt Lake by
means of the Jordan). Until the line finally
leaves the valley which embosoms this lake, thriving
Mormon settlements continue to be passed at intervals.
Tlie principal of these are Prove and Springville. The
lake once left behind, the line begins to ascend steadily
through the Spanish Fork Canon towards Soldier
Summit, a pass whicli would be regarded iis a high one
in England, but which is an insign'^cant affair beside
those \yhioh have to be surmounted fi ther on. Soldier
Summit is the point at which the line crosses the crest
of the Wahsatch Mountains, n lofty and rugged range
which forms an imposing background to Salt LaKe City
as viewed from the west.

A few days before we traversed the line, it had been
moMt unmercifully knocked about by a fiood on the
eastern side of Soldier Summit, (The American word
for " flood," by-thebye, is " washout," The news-
pnjiers head their descriptions of such a calamity witli
the words, " Great Washout.") For eight or nine
miles, every bridge had been destroyed, and all traffic
was suspended for eleven days. The resources of the

Company were strained to the utmoitto restore thecom-
munication in the shortest possible time. The bridges
had not been rebuilt permanently when we traversed
the lini, and so very flimsy did the temporary erections
apppr.r that we were glad to find the driver crossing
one after another at a snail's pace. Even then, they
quivered perceptibly beneath the weight of the narrow-
gauge train. Fortunately, we got safely through the
region devastated by the " wash-out " before night
fell ; otherwise I confess I should have felt somewhat
nervous about goinj; to bed.

We had had a previous opportunity of judging of the
effects of a heavy rainfall in that particular region,
forbefore we reached Soldier Summit a heavy storm
broke oyer the line, and the water rushed down on
both aides of us in furious torrents, and in channels
which it had apparently made for itself for that par-
ticular occasion. For the soil of that region is par-
ticularly soft and yielding, and the renarkable effects
of weather action are visible on ever> h^nd. Up to
the time of which I speak, the railway engineers had
done little or nothing to protect the line from floods.
By this time, their experience has no doubt taught them
where their weakest points are, and they will ulti-
mately be able to render the line secure against all
ordinary ' ' washouts. "

It was in Castle Canon and Price River Canon that
the " washout " had caused so much mischief to the
line. These are traversed by a stream which flows
down into Green River, and the railway follows its
course throughout almost its whole length. These
canons are not among the most imposing of their kind.
At one or t'.vo points, notably at Castle Gate, the cliffs
are particularly bold and picturesque, and approach
within a short distance of each other, but they are
more generally so far apart as to rob the canon
of the character of a gorge. Being apparently
composed of very soft material, they are
almost everywhere weather-worn to an extra-
ordinary extent. Their various strata being, how-
o'er, of varying degrees of hardness, or rather of soft-
ness, the rate of erosion varies greatly, and the conse-
quence is that the cliffs assume the most fantastic
shapes. A lively imagination discovers in their weather-
beaten crests almost any shape it chooses to look for,
and even the most unimaginative cannot fail to find
mile upon mile of ruined castle. The colours of the
various pirata are, moreover, varied and brilliant.
Vegetation is, however, very sparse, except in the
immediate neighbourhood of the stream. The wind-
swept, weather-beaten soil is generally as bare as
Sahara itself.

Before we reached Green River, we stopped for supper,
and soon afterwards we got ourselves put to bed. it is
a case of close quarters even in a broad-gauge
"sleeper" which contains its full complement of
passengers. In a narrow-gauge sleeper, the amount of
elbow-room is still less, especially in the central passage,
where it is dithcult for two persons to pass each other
when all the berths are made up. Some passengers,
moreover, have an ugly habit of leaving valises,
luncheon baskets, and other small baggage in the pas-
sage, so that, at the best of times, the navigation is diffi-
cult, especially after the lights have been turned
down. Some care is necessary to avoid tripping over
something or up against somebody, and thus stumbling
h.ilf into some other gentleman's (or lady's) berth, the
berths being only separated from the passage by a pair
of damask curtains each. The crowding in our sleeper
on the night in question was a good deal aggravated by

135

tho presence of a rough Kansas farmer, liis wife, and
four young children, the whole six having only a single
section between them. During tho day, one or two of
the children occupied parts of other sections on suffer-
ance, but when bed-time came, all the six had some-
how to be condensed into their own section, consisting
of two berths (one upper and one lower), next to mine.
The thing was done somehow, but the younger children
were crying in half-suffocated tones du'ing the greater
part of the night.

1 had another interesting person for a bed-fellow.
When the young man who had the ticket for the berth
over mine began to divest himself of his outer clothes,
I saw that he took a bright metal something frtii his
pocket and deposited it carefully under his pillow. I did
not get a f >''' view of the article, but instinct told me
it was a rovoiv." I asked the owner why ho carried
" that thing " about w''' .iim, and he told me he was
one of the Itailway Company's officials, that he very
often found himself in (|Ueer places and still 'lueerer
company, iind that ho took care never to be without a
lorded revol\«er within reach. As we weio just
entering on a night run throu;;h the very wild country
which lies between the Green Kiver and the Grand
River (the two stream! which combine to form the
Colorado), I did not particularly object to have an
armed oilicial immeiliately above me. His revolver,
however, was not needed, and in the morning it was
duly returned to his jiocket.

That much-condensed family in the next berth pre-
vented my getting much sleep, and I rose with the sun
and walked out upon tho platform of the car. The
scene was a grand one We were surrounded by lofty
ranges of mountains v u every side. Tho sun was
already gilding the topmcst peaks, but the valleys were
still in shade. Into one aeep valley, which the night
mists still half concealed from view, our train was
rajiidly making its way, down a tremendous gradient,
and round ancl round the usual interminable serier li
curves. We were coming down, for the second tiric,
into the valley of the Gunnison lUver, and we knew
that breakfast and the Black Canon of the Gunnison lay
immediately before us. We partook of the former at
a little station called Cimarron. That business having
been disposed of, the train started again, having at its
tail an open observation car, into and out of which the
passengers could walk at their leisure.

Tho train was hardly clear of the station before the
engine had entered the portals of a gloomy gorgo, of
greater depth and more awful grandeur than ary wo
had previously traversed. This was the IJiack (,'anon,
through ^''hich the Gunnison, raging angrily, and dash-
ing itself .nto spray against the gigantic boulders which
obstruct its bed, finds its way down towards the distant
Pacific. Working patiently through incalculable periods
tlio river has thus furrowed out. a channel for itselt
athwart the mountains, and man, in the persons of
tlie Denver and Kio Grande Railway Company, has
"entered into its labours." But for this gorge, the
engineers must have either burrowed under the moun-
tains or scaled their summits.

Some travellers hold that tho Black Canon of tho
■..iunnison is, on the whole, tho grandest gorge which
the engineers, have, so far, turned into a railway cut-
ting. I say " so far " because a vastly longer, deeper,
and more wonderful chasm is still waiting to be threaded
by the iron road. I refer to the Canon of the Colorado
River itself, which, under various names, constitutes a
gorge 300 miles in length, and ranging in depth up to
6,200 feet. All the other canons of the Rocky Moun-

tains pale before the stupendous ilimcnsions and
unspeakable grandeur of this mighty ch isin. Xobody,
however, who has witnessed tho triumpiis which the
engineers have already won among these mountains can
doubt for a moment that the Canon of the Colorado
will be ultimately con(|uered and turned into a busy
highway. At present this canon is dithcult of access.
I did not get within 50 miles of it.

The M.VK.SHALL Pass.

Once c'ear of the Black Canon, the train traverses a
more open country for a considerable distance, passing
the town of (iunnison and a good deal of meadow
land, skirting the Tomichi Kiver. 'I'he line follows tho
course of this stream pretty closely for many miles,
rising gradually at every step. The traveller wlio looks
ahead up the valley may well be excused if he fancies
that the train will bo presently brought to a dead
standstill against an insurmountable obstacle, for he
sees that it is making straight for a great mountain
range which etfectually shuts in the head of the valley
like a wall. That range \i no other and no less than
the main ridge of the Rockies —the Continental Divide
itself, and tiie train, with its living freight, has to scale
the summit. Presently the gradient begins to increase
in steepness, and the locoraotives(there are now two) are
panting like overdriven horses. But they are well up to
their work. Their progress is slow, as a matter of course,
but they show no signs of being actually over-tasksd.
It is well, moreovei-, that the pace is a leisurely one, a;',
ample time is thus allowe''. for the study of the renark-
able engineering of the line and the enjoyment of thi;)
ever-widening, ever - changing landscape. Mile after
mile, the train is lifted bodily at tho rate of nearly 200
feet per mile, and at every mile the range of vision
extends, and a new and more distant horizon dawns
upon the astonished vision.

I need hardly explain tliat all this progress skyward
is only accomplished ))y means ot turnings and wind-
ings and loops innumerable. You tin<l, for instanc.>,
that tho train is slowly labouring up along the right-
hand side of a deep valley which, as a glance shows,
ends abruptly at the foot oi nn almost jierpendicular
ridge two or three miles ahead. If you happen to know
that there are no tunnels on the line, you see at once
that all progress in that direction must soon come to
an end, and the ((Uestion arises— What then becomes
of the line '.' If you have had a lit«le experience
of mountain railways, you know exactly where to
look for it. With some little trouble, you i)resently
pick out what appears to be a scratch on the steep slope
of the mountain on tho ojiposite side of the vailoy to
your left. This faint line is, at the point immediately
opposite, perhaps 500 feet above your level at the
moment, and you can see that it rises rajjidly but
regularly until it disappears behind the brow of tho
mountain. That " scratch " is the line you are ascend-
ing. In a few minutes, your train reaches the head of
the valley, sweeps round a sharp curve, and, almost
exactly reversing its direction, Ijiigins to toil up tho
slope on the opposite side. You now look across to tho
left (and, of course, downwanl) upon the part of the
line you were traversing a few minutes ago ; but before
long a sudden sweep round the brow of the mountain
to the right carries you out of sight of tho valley you
have thus traversed on both sides, and introduces you
to another lon;^ loop in the railway precisely similar to
the last, only that it is very much higher.

And so you go up— up— ..i-— S,000 feet — d.OiX) feet —
10,000 feet— until, at last, the crest is reached at a

13()

heiglit of 10,760 feet. Tho last 17 miles of that tre-
mendous pull against collar have occupied more than
an hour and a half ; and if the locomotives were flesh-
and-blood toilers, they would be fairly "pumped out."

If you were 10,700 feet above sea-level on the Alps
or any other European mountain chain, you would be
in a region of perpetual ice and snow, thousands of feet
beyond the highest point attained by anything in the
shape of a trr>e. But at the summit of Marsh. ill Pass
(and it is Marshall Pass I am trying to describe) not a
particle of i"e or snow ws to be seen when I w.is
there, beyond a few moderate patches on some of the
higher mountains in the distance. As far as I could
see, there was not enough snow to make a snow-ball
within miles of the pass. And what surprised me even
more than the absence of snow was the presence of
timber. I cannot say that the trees were thick enough
to be worthy tho name of a forest, but there were
a good many scattered about, and some were of very
respectable dimensions. It was nearly noon when we
halted at the summit. The sun was shining briuhtly,
and the temperature in the cars was rather unpleasantly
warm. It was, indeed, difficult to realise the fact that
we were on the summit of tho main range of the Rocky
Mountains.

Remembering tho ailvicc of the Denver doctor to
avoid all exertion when at great Iieights and to take a
drop of his "stuff," I acted on it in both particulars.
T sat still in tho car, took the homccopnthic dose, and
suffered no inconvenience whatever. It is cle ir, how-
ever, that passengers are sometimes alfectod by the
great altitude, for when we were at the top of the pass,
the conductor walked through the cars to see if anyone
needed his services. Several persons were sleeping, and
in all such cases he stopjjed and listened to their
breathing. He told me that he was himself sometimes
affected with slight lassitude and drowsiness. A few
days previously, he said, his trainstopped atthe summit
for a few minutes, and a gentleman passenger was un-
wise enough to get out and take a sharp wall for a
short distance. He was so exhausted by the effort
that he had to be lifted into the car, and in spite of the
' ■i.'ilication of restoratives (a stock of which is always
c ried) it was thought he would have died before the
train reached the lower levels.

One is disposed to ask how men were procured to do
all the hard work involved in the construction of a rail-
way at such a height. I presume that the workpeople
had to be carefully selected for the ])ui pose, and tiic
probability is that many who attempted to work at such
heights were compelled to abandon the task. It may
be, moreover, that men of robust constitution, especi-
ally in the region of the heart, become gradually accli-
matised to these great altitudes. As I have before re-
marked, Marshall Pass is not the highest point attained
by Colorado railways. Alpine Tunnel, a few miles from
Marshall Pass, and Fremont Pass, near Leadville, are
both over 11,500 feet. It is, therefore, clear that the
railway companies have found large numbers of work-
men with constitutions adapted to mountain work. Tliat
a good many broke down under it is likely enough ; for
many persons are unable even to live at Leadville, much
less to exert themselves actively.

The view from the summit of Marshall Pass is magni-
ficient in both directions, consisting, as it does, of an
almost unbroken sea of lofty mountains. The view
eastward, which breaks upon the vision the moment the
crest is reached, is the more impressive of the two, the
mountains in that direction being higher than those
westvrard. Among the more prominent objects on the

eastern side are Mount Ouray, an isolated height form-
ing a well-known landmark, and the long snow-capped
ran '0 of the Sangre de Cristo, containing some of the
highest peaks in the country. This range culminates
and suddenly terminates many miles further south in the
famous Sierra Blanca, t'.ie highest mountains in the
Rockies. Put that height is separated from the ridge
traverse! by Marshall Pass by the whole width of the
great i^an Luis Park, parts of which are visible from the
Pass.

The descent is, of course, very much like the ascent
reversed. The windinjis and doublings resorted to by
the engineers, to "make distance " in order to allow the
tremendous perpendicular fall to be got over, are but a
rei)etition of those already described. The first part of
the descent is very remarkable. Tho line runs com-
pletely round a conical peak, a short distance below its
summit, coining back to within a gunshot of the start-
in<![ point ; but in making this apparently meaningless
circuit, it has contrived to "climb down" a perpen-
dicular depth of, perhaps, 2')0 or 300 feet. (I quote
these figures at random ; possibly they ought to be much
larger.) Crossing over the head of a deep valley by
means of a trestle bridge, it turns to the left along the
side of that valley, then to the right a long wf.y up the
siile of another valley, and so on and on, falling many
feet every minute, until it finds itself traversing the
main valley, on a more moderate gradient, alongside a
st'.eam ^vhich flows into the Arkansas.

About two hours'after crossing the pass, we stopped
for dinner >u a place called Salida, where the Leadville
line diverges towaids tho north. Here we were fairly
in the valley of the Arkansas River, and the course of
that stream was pretty closely followed until we raached
Pueblo.

The Grand Canon of thk Arkansas.
About halfway between Salida and Pueblo, the
course of both river and railway is crossed at right
angles by a mountain ridge which rises in plfices to a
heiglit of 3,000 feet. The obstacle loolis insuperable,
bul; there is nothing insuperable to a Ivocky Mountain
stream or a Colorado engineer. The stream has done the
usual thing. It has gnawed out for itself a narrow passage
which, in its depth, its gloomy grandeur, and the per-
pendicular character of its walls, is unsurpassed by any
canon which has hitherto been threaded by a railway.
This chasm is, indeed, the crowning glory of the west-
ern section of the railway. But for it, the line must
have been carrieil up an .abrupt ascent of 3,000 feet and
down a corresiionding descent on the opposite side.
The Arkansas River spared the engineers all this
trouble. But it by no means follows that the construc-
tion of the line through the canon was attended with
no difficulties. On tlie contrary, the obstacles
were exceptionally serious and numerous. In
the first place, the Denver and Rio Grande
Company had to fight for the right to api>ro-
priate the canon. It was .absolutely necessary to leave
its maker and original tenant, the Arkansas River, in
possession of part of the gorge. The permanent dam-
ming-back of such a strong and determined stream was
beyond the power even of American engineers. But,
after leaving the river the very smallest amount of
accommodation it could possibly be made to do with,
there was width enough left for only a s<ngle line of
rails, and hardly that in some places. The
question was, whose rails should that single
line be ? It occurred to two companies — the
Kio Grande and another— about the same time that it

187

<;raB desirable to push a line through the gorge, and a
bitter contest ensued. I am not sure that physical
force was not actually called into requisition. Any-
how, the gor^e was occupied by an armed force, in the
interests of one of the rival companies at least, while
the question was being fought out in the law courts of
the State. The prize ultimately fell to the Rio Grande
Company, and they proceeded to utilize it.

I believe I am right in saying that no human foot
had ever troilden the whole length of the canon before
the engineers began their work. Where the torrent
did not fill the whole space between the perpendicular
clitfs, the gorge was encumbered by vast masses of
granite which had fallen from the heights above. In
order to lay out the line, the surveyors had to let tueir
men down hundreds of feet by ropes, and a foothold
was not always found even then. 1 am not sure that,
at some later stages, mules were not lowered in the same
way. Every yard of the line wa-i laid upon a narrow
shelf obtained either by blasting or by building in the
very bed of the torrent. At one point, the opposing
clift's approached each other so closely, and contractud
the bed of the torrent into such close ([uarters, that it
was found impossible to obtain sutticient space for the
line on either side, The engineers, therefore, resorted
to the expedient of h;inj;ing the line longitudinally oyer
the torrent by means of girders morticed on each side
into the solid rock. The width of the gorgo at this
particular point is but little over 30 feet. This pari is
riglitly named the Royal Gorge, and the whole canon is
well deserving of its name, th^j Grand Canon of the
Arkansas.

For years before the railway was built, it was cus-
tomary for people to drive over the mountains from
Canon City, and peer down into the Royal Gorge. One
writer, in describing his first view from above, says :

"Cowards at heart, pale o:' face, and with painful
breath, we slowly crawl on hands and knees to the
ledge, and as the fated murderer feels the knotted
noose fall down, over his head, so we feel as our eyes
extend beyond thj rocks to catch one awful glimpse of
the eternity of space. Few dare to look more than
once, and one glance suffices for the comprehension of
the meaning of the word ' depth ' never before dreamed
of and never afterwards forgotten. The gorge is 3,000
feet sheer dei)th, and the most precipitous and sublime
in its propoitions of any chasm on tke continent. The
opposite wall towers hundreds of feet above us, and if
possible to imagine anything more terrifying than the
position on this side, that upon the other would be were
its brink safe to approach.'

I cannot refrain from quoting from another descrip-
tion, by Grace Greenwood, who writes : —

" I was lost in silent joy when I came to look down
in that Grand Canon, the greatest sight I have yet seen
in Colorado. It is grander than the Yosemite, because
of its colour, which is everywhere dark with rich
porphyry tints. So awful w.is the chasm, so stupendous
were the mountain steeps around it, sj gloomy were
the woods, so strange, and lonely, and savage and out
of the world seemed the whole vast scene, that it
recalled to me the passage in the ' Inferno ' : —
' Tliere is a place within the depths of hell
Called .Malebolge, all rock, dark staiiu'cl.

With hue forruKiiiotis, e'en as the steep
That romiit it circling wimls. Right in the midst

Of that abominaljle region yawns
.\ spacious gulf profound.'

This great sight ought to draw thousands of tourists
to Canon City, I am amazed that there is no more said

of it and written about it. To me it ia infinitely moM
impressive than Niagara."
Another writer says : —

" On the benches, close by the track, are seen
hundreds of specimens of the bush cactus, holding a
place among plants similar to that of the porcupine
among animals. A little bick, the enclosing granite
walls rise, height above height, in a succession of craggy
ledges, split and shattered, seamed with fissures and
broken with gorges. In these fissures and on the tops of
the ledges, often with no apparent soil to justain them,
are gnarled and rugged cedars. Frejuently through
some narrow cleft in the top of a ledge one catches
glimpses of a much higher ledge beyond, with cedars
clinging to its loftiest crags. Thus far its appearance
is similar to that of other canons, elsewhere in the
state, th?t uit) far-famed for their scenery ; but as the
railway penetrates deeper into the mountains, all other
canons are forgotten in the overwhelmmg grandeur of
the granite barriers that narrow toward the Koyal
Gorge. The canon is here a mere fissure, and the river,
crowded between the walls, and broken into foam by
the rocks that have fallen into its bed, occupies one
side, while the railway track, ten or twelve feet above
it, lies close against ttie opposite wall, save where for a
few rods the walls recede a little, enabling the eye to
follow their surface to the topmost crags, 3,000 feet
above. The rocks are many-hued : bright red, green,
grayish white, and brown ; here stained with drof s ing
water, and there overgrown with moss. Impriaone '. in
this narrow space, so crooked that the walls seem to
close behind and before, the traveller who first beholds
the scene from the platform of a swift passing car is
bewildered with the kaleidoscopic changes, Uere a
smooth surface of granite, perpendicular for over a
thousand feet ; there a jioint so splintered and wrecked
that it seems about to fall ; reaching so far upward
that the imagination stands appalled and struggles in
vain to realise the awful height. Now the train is
under the face of a cliff that has been cut into to make
a roadbed, chip|)ed off for several hundred feet above
by workmen who drilled into the granite while sus-
pended in the air by ropes let down from the top, and
now it sweeps past the mouth of a gorge that runs up
toward the summit, opening frightful vistas of shelving
cliffs and loosened cra^s and doubtfully balanced
boulders, that chill the blood with an 'if.' Suddenly
the walls shut together till the river flows through a
cleft only 30 feet wide, its granite sides rising over
3,000 feet on either hand, and the train runs upon a
bridge built lengthwise with the stream for ten rods,
and suspended from steel rafters mortised into the
rocks overhead. In this culminating grandeur of the
Royal Gorge the traveller instinctively holds his breath,
and the most garrulous are awed into reverent silence,
as in the immediate presence of the omnipotent power
that rent the mountains asunder. Words of
descri|)tion are weak and comparisons are futile
to express the incomparable. The whole length
of the Grand Canon is about eight miles,
and the deepest portion, known as the Royal
Gorge, may be said to extend half that distance. The
tourist who can spare the time will find himself richly
repaid for the labour of talking through it leisurely
from end to end, enjoying its grandeur and studying its
manifold wonders ; and if he would experience a
sensation the most thrilling of his life, let him ride
around to the summit, and look down upon a passing
train, so far, far below that it is dwarfed by distance to
the dimeuHont of • ohild'i toy. Haply he will meok in

13S

the town or along the railway some pemon wIki can

Eicture to him the manner in which thu road was
uilfc ; how, at some of the construction camps, men
and tools, and mules and carts, were let down over the
precipices by ropes, and men and animals received tlieir
food, like Elijah, from above, till they cut a track
through the granite clitfs along the river ; how the
surveyors first picked their way through the canon on
the ice, where before only fishes and birds had been ;
how the rockmen hung suspended in the air, and
drilled holes in the granite for blasts that sent tons
of rock crashing into the stream with a noise louder
than thunder ; and hearing the wonderful tale he will
find himself quoting the familiar adage ' Verily, truth
is stranger than fiction.' "

I need hardly add anything to this description.
Suffice it to say that my companion and I had no time
to ascend the mountain and look down into the gorge ;
but we traversed its whole length in an open observa-
tion car, and the impressions which I brought away with
me of the awful grandeur of the scene will, I am aure,
last as long as life.

We reached Pueblo early .1 the evening. There I
found my Denver friend awaiting me, prejiared to
accompany me on a journey over the southarn section
of the line, where other wonders of nature and art
awaited our inspection. My travelling companion had
decided on making straight for 8t. Loais, and there I
rejoined him two or three days later after the adven-
tures which I will try to recount in the next chapter.

The Toltkc Gorge.

My Denver friend and I left Pueblo soon after mitl-
night for a run of 220 miles over the southern and
western section] of the line, which we were assured
presented even bolder engineering than any we had yet
seen. The night was a warm one in the Arkansas
valley, in which the city of Pueblo is situated ; but for
the first time I found a fire in the CAr. This did not
surprise me, because I knew that in the early houi s of
the morning we should be crossing the mountains at
Veta Pass. Unii! the sun rose and we approached that
pass, there was nothing to do but to try to sleep,
I tried, but my efforts were not very successful. There
was no Pullman " sleeper " on the train, and we had
to obtain what rest we could on the seats of the
ordinary car, which the stove soon rendered uncomfort-
ably hot. I was glad when the first signs of daylight
appeared, and when the diminished speed of the train
and the more laboured puffing of the engine indicated
that we had begun the ascent towards the Veta Pass.

It is a mistake to see the Marshall Pass befo: e the
Veta. The proper course, in all such matters, is to go from
the less to the greater, and to reach the culminating point
last of all. But going from the Marshall to the \'eta
is going from the greater to the less, and I can quite
understand that it may sometimes result in a little dis-
appointment. But in one who has never been over a
high railroad pass before, the Veta cannot fail to excite
wonder and admiration. The line reaches a height of
9,339 feet, and when near the summit it makes a bold
sweep round the bare and precipitous shoulder of a
mountain, or r, narrow shelf formed by the blasting-
away of the k 'd rock. This is the most interesting part
of the pass, a.;d we reached it just as the sun rose and
lighted up the wondrous and far-reaching landscape.

Beyond the pass the line gradually de.sconds into a
plain of vast extent, in the midst of which is situated
Fort Garland, a stronghold which was originally built
to overawe the turbulent Indian tribes who formerly

occupied the district. The fort is a very difl'orcnt surt
of building from that which we in I'^uroite associate
with the name. There is nothing; aboiit it of the thick-
walled fortress, with its hu,'i' yuns peeping out from
embrasures of massive masonry. There was, of course,
no necessity for providing such ilefeu-cs as these against
enemies who had no artillery. The " fort," therefore,
consists merely of a group of low buildings, scattered
over a considerable area, and protected at certain
points by low, looplioled walls.

As the tram sped, in a straij^ht lino, across the
elevated plain, we saw what looked like an isolated
white mountain of modeiate he'ght standing up sheer
out of the plateau on our ri.^ht. Somehow or other,
we seemed unable to got away from that mountain.
iSIile after mile was traversed, and still its relative
iiosition was not appreciably changed. I very soon
saw that this apparent fixity could have only one
mc inins. The mountain must bo a very hi;^h one, and
it must be much farther olf than I had supposed. I
turned to my map, and to my astonis'nment made the
discovery that this mass was no other than Sierra
lilanca, the highest of the jlocky Mount lins, and the
loftiest peak save one in the United States. Its height
is ll,4iil feet, oi' only about l,:!)(l feet less than that of
Mont lUanc. Ft was dittic\ilt to realise ihe-e facts. The
]ieak appeared to be about 2,00i) feet above the plain, and
a IJriton of sporting jiroclivities. unaccustomed to see
natural objects on a grand scale through a clear atmos-
phere, would have been prepared to stake his all on being
able to walk to its foot in half-an-hour. The di.stance in a
" bee line" was a dozen or fifteen miles; and evenif tho
ascent of the iiiouiitain is practicable at all, it would
probably take a tra'ned mountaineer a lon;{day to reach
its summit from the nearest jioint of the railway. The
perfect transparency of the atmosphere in these r gions
appe.ars to abolisli space, and those who are
new to the country lose all power of estimating distance.
An object looked at through such an atmosphere, across
an unbroken plain, may bo one mile or ten miles oft' ;
it may be a hill of the dimensions of a West of England
tor, or it may be a second Mont Blanc No stranger
can bo sure of anything about it, until he has (.so to
speak) taken tho parallax of the object by travelling a few
miles abreast of it. My little Alpine experience, added
to that which 1 had already acquired in Colorado, had,
T thought, put me olfcctually on my guard. But I con-
fess that I was completely taken in by this huge moun-
tain.

A*- Alamosa, about 21 miles beyond Fort Garland, we
f,topped for a much-needed breakfast. At this point,
a branch line goes off westward towards Wagon
Wlieel Gap, and the main line makes a sharp turn
southward, that direction being maintained until
Antonito is reached. After passing this station, the
line again assumes a westerly direction, and grows
more and more interesting at every step. At
first, there is nothing special to remark except
that the level of the country is rising with
a moderate and regular slope from tho level of tho
plain which has been traversed for more than fifty
miles. But moderate as the slope is, it is more than a
locomotive can be reasonably asked to climb in a
straight line. The usual interminable meanderings
accordingly begin. The windings and turnings are,
however, very different from those I have hitherto
described. They do not run up and down long, deep
(^alleys, and round the precipitous shoulders of bare
mountains at giddy heights. They simply wander about
on the grassy surface and among the scat-

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this point.
Wagon
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139

tered pinei of a hiilside. The rido up this
hillside for twenty miles is delightful. The position
of the train changes every minute, so that a hundred
different views are obtained of the great mountain
ranges which lie beyond the plains. I'art of this ascent
is called the Whiplash, and a most ajipropriate name it
is, for the loops formed by the lines are very much like
what the lash of a whip might make if thrown care-
lessly on the ground. Doubling upon itself twice on
the siJe of the smooth hill, the track passes close
to the same spot three times, but, of course,
on three ditl'eient levels. About the centre of this
"double-bow knot" of railway line stands a house
occupied by the men who have the care of the ))er-
manent way; nnd it is remarked of these men that
each train passes their house so often, that they have
time to make the acquaintance of the passengers before
it finally leaves them. This seemingly aimless winding,
which continues for over I'J miles, of course lands tlie
train at last at a height of many hundreds of feet above
the plain.

But interesting and enjoyable as this ascent is, it is
but an ii'troduction to soii.ething which immeasurably
surpasses it. For, rounding the point of a promontory-
like hill, 2i< miles from Antonito, the traveller suddenly
looks (town into the deep valley of Los Finos Creek.
But he has only a few brief glimpses of its surprising
beauty when a precipitous ravine branches off to the
north, and the track f(dlows the brow of the hills in a
tortuous detour of nearly four miles among the pines —
expensive for tiie railway company, but delightful to
the tourist. Going up this ravine its full length,
making a long curve around its head, and coming back
nearly to the starting point, the passeiiger finds him-
self on the crest of a mountain overlooking one of the
must beautiful of all Kocky Mountain valleys, over
1,000 feet below. The scenery for the next nine miles
is unequalled by that of any other railway in North
America. The road follows the steep n^ountain side
just below the summit, making a great convex bend for
a distance of over four miles, and then dives into a
tunnel in the granite cliffs amid the culminating
grandeurs of Tolteo Gorge. For all this distance, at
the giddy height of over 1,200 feet, the track follows
the irregular contour of the mountains in a suceession of
short curves, cutting through projecting masses of rook,
and running over high " fills," made necessary by deep
and ragged gorges. Before the road was built, a
mountain goat could scarcely have followed its present
course. Along the way are scores of the monumental
rocks for which Colorado is so famous, rising in fantastic
columns nearly as high as the pines beside them.
One projecting point is cut through by a well-timbered
tunnel. Passing the most southern point of the bend,
the first glimp-e of 'J'oltec Tunnel is obtained, at a dis-
tance of about six miles by the course of the road. It
appears as a small black spot in the face of the clifi^, at
a point where it is cut in twain by a great chasm. From
here onward the tunnel appears and disappears at in-
tervals till it is reached. iSoon after passing the tim-
bered tunnel, a sharp curve takes tiie train into a cove
among the hills, with monument-shaped rooks on one
side, and fantastic castellated clitfs 500 or COO feet on
the other. This is known aa Phantom Curve. It is
indeed a wild spot, with the valley so deep below, the
weird, red monumental rockp around, and the tall,
shelving clifl's above. A mil'" beyond Phantom Curve
the railway crosses the head of a ravine on a high bridge
of trestle work. From this point the track runs directly
toward the valley, on a line almost at right angles with

it, to where it narrows into a mere fissure in the rocks
at Toltec Gorge. The ledge along which it passes is
ro.\lly a great wall across the head of the valley or
canon, commanding a full view of it for many miles.
Here the beauty and the grandeur of tho scenery are
beyond description. All the features of tho landscape
are on a Titanic scale. The track over which the train
has just passed can be seen circling the brow of the
mountain for miles, a tiny, yellowish thread. Far be-
yond the distant heights that shut in the valley rises
the round top of San Antonio Mountain, while across
the valley the opposite mountains rise higher and higher
in vast, receding, wooded slopes. Nor is colour wanting
to complete the charm of the picture. The dark hue of
the pines, the light green and white of the shivering
aspen, and the red and gray that alternate in the clitTs,
add their subtle charms to the sublime panorama.
When the train approaches the end of the wall, the
passengers look almost straight down to where the
stream emerges in foaming cascades from the jaws of
Toltec Gorge. The pebble you toss from your hand
drops far beluw, and you hear it strike again and again
hundreds added to hundreds of feet distant, and yet
silence does not signify that it has reached the bottom.
It is simply out of hearing ! Double the distance again,
so far that tlie strongest voii e can scarcely make itself
heard, and when that terrible gulf is passed you might
still look downward upon the tallest steeple in America ;
for the railway track at the brink of the chasm of Tolteo
Gorge is over 1,100 feet above Los Pinos Creek. But in
a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, the scene is changed.
One parting glance at the far-stretching valley and ite
mountain barriers, one shuddering, giddy look far down
the p"ecipice among the jagged rocks, and then all is
hid from view in the darkness of the tunnel. For 600
feet the way is cut through solid granite. The train
emerges upon the other side of the wall on the brink
of a preci]>ioe, looking directly down into the gorge,
across which the opposing cliffs rise abruptly over
2,100 feet. At the most critical point, where the
downward view takes in the deepest depths of the
^orge, lined with crags and splintered rocks, and
boulders as large as churches, fallen from the cliffs
above, amid which the stream dashes downward in
snow-white cataracts, the train runs upon a solid bridge
of trestle-work, set in the rocks, as if it were a balcony
from which to obtain the finest possible view of this
most wonderful scene. Marvellous, sensational, and
grand as is Tolteo Gorge, the climax is not reached
until the railway comes to the summit which separates
tho waters of the Finos from those of the Chama.
From Toltec Gorge to Osier, eight miles, the elevation
of the track above the torrent below gradually lessens
until the valley bottom is almost reached. From Osier
for some miks westward the grade of the railway is
greater than that of the valley, and soon carries the
line up among the topmost turrets which crown tho
summits of the surrounding mesas. The country here
is very broken and confused, and the road clings to,
and winds around, these lofty crags like a huge
serpent trying to reaoh the sky. Suddenly, as the
traveller is rapt in wonder, and is very naturally thinking
" What next, and why this fantastic \nece of engineer-
ing,? " the train glides out from among the pinnacles at
the summit and commences a very rapid descent into
the dense pine forests of the Tierra Amarilla, through
which the tranquil Chama wends its way. After cross-
ing the Chama, and still among the pines, the line
passes imperceptibly from the drainage of the Atlantic
to that of the Pacific— from the basin of the Ohama to

Ill !

140

If^ !

that of the San Juan. Th^ b«ig1it here attained ia
almoBt exactly 10,000 feet.

There are mnny ticklinb points in the forty miles ot
line last described— points at which bluod thnt in
accustomed to curdle is pretty sure to undergo thnt
chanf^o. The most awful-looking spot, probably, ia tho
point at which the line suddenly emerges from the
Tolteo Tunnel upon the short trestle bridge, built up upon
a mere ledge of the almost perpendicular cliff. If tho
train ran off the line here, it would simply fall sheer
down a thousand feet, into the torrent, which boils iind
^dies along at the bottom of the gorge. 1 was told
tnat an empty car did go over at that point during tho
construction of tho line ; and I think I may add (though
I was nit told this) that the Company did not trouble
about the pieces. The speed of the train at tlicse
specially a'.vkward points is, however, so grently
reduced that accidents are rendered in t'le highest
degree improbable. Still, nervous people cannot help
asking themselve'< : "But if anything s/jomW happen'.'"
Wc had only one female in our car on this part of the
journey, and she, poor soul ! was almost beside herself
with fright, " Good Lord ! good Lord !" she said,
appealing to us, her fellow passengers, rather than to her
Deity, " when shall we be over this awful bit of track ? "

Between Toltec and Chama, we stopped for dinner
at a station called Osier. So far as 1 could gather,
Osier consisted of the one house in wliich the meal was
■erved. This house comprised two rooms -the dining-
room and a single bedroom. The only inmates of this
house were a female and a splendid dog of vast size and
strength. The female was a lady of middle-nge, one of
the finest and most intellectual-looking women T over
saw. Her two rooms were full of evidencts of a re-
fined taste. Our party was small— less than a dozen
all told, and the lady waited on us all, having previously
cooked the dinner with her own hands. A better
or more tastefully-served meal I did not meet with at
any " eating station " in the country. The lady told
me that the dog was her only companion, and that
under his protection she roamed at will in the forests
and among the mountains. I have often wondered
what strange fate had thus ordered that a lady who
would clearly have been an ornament to the most
cultivated circles should spend her life in a solitary
cabin, with a dog for her sole companion, amid the
most rugged and inaccessible of the mountains of New
Mexico. Hereon, perhaps, hangs a romance !

We did not go farther than Chama, for a return
train was due there just after we arrived. I would
gladly have gone on to the terminus of the branch at Sil-
verton, in the San Juan silver-mining country, for the
engineering of the line in the Canon of Los Animas,
a few miles short of that place, is one of the most
wonderful things of its kind even in that region of
mechanical marvels. But there are only two trains a
day, and our journey would have been extended by at
least 24 hours, if we had not tui ued back after a few
minutes' stay at Chama. By the time wc again
reached Osier, the eAting-houae lady who consti-
tuted the entire visible population of that place
had supper ready, and the train pulled
up for half-an-hour to allow us to partake of it. I did
not feel ready for another meal, and therefore did not
alight from the car ; but, fortunately, as the sequel will
show, my companion got the lady of the house to make
me up a good bundle of sandwiches.

This train had a sleeping car attached to it, and as
Boon as we left Osier, it being by that time quite dark,
my oompanion and I turned into our berths. Before

wc were asleep, wo found ourselves rumbling over tho
trestle bridge on the verge of the awful gorge
already described, and then thundering through
the Tolteo Tunnel. For tho next hour or
two, we could trace our course by the ev. -
varying speed of tho train and the incessant and
sudden reversals of tho inclination of the car. The
many sharp curves, tiio ups and downs, tho ticklish
points of tho line, were all an clear to us as if we had
been gazing out of the window in full daylight. Before
wo reached the plain in which Fort Oarland stands, 1
was asleep (I had already spent four successive nights in
the cars, and was fatigued), and, all unconscious, I was
dragged up to the summit of the N'eta Tas^ and gently
letdown into the broad valley of the Arkansas.

Stoppage ! Stakvation I ! Tukkt ! ! !
About five o'clock, I was awoke by the sudden
stopiiage of the train. I drew up the blind of my sec-
tion and looked out, but nothing whatever was visible
except a boundless prairie, upon whose brown surface
the unclouded sun was just rising. No station could bo
seen either ahead of us or behind us, and there was no
apparent reason for tho stoppage. We liy some time
longer, in the momentary expectation that the train
would move on ; but it did not move on. At last,
when we were about due at Pueblo, i-..id breakfast was
about due in our respective interiors, my friend and I
coMcluded that it was time to dress and institute
inquiries. We accordingly did both, and at last
extv:4cted from the train men the information
that, in conse(iuencc of a storm in the
night, there had been a " wash-out " some-
where ahead. A bridge had been wholly or p irtially
destroyed, and we were doomed to remain where we
were until ii was repaired. Fortunately, the temporary
repair was soon effected, and we moved on slowly over
the scene of the " wash-out " to the next station. We
were congratulating ourselves that our troubles were
now over, and that we should speedily put behind us
tho .30 odd miles that still separated us from breakfast,
when the ugly fact oozed out that there was something
more serious than a "wash-out" just ahead, and that
we were under sentence of a further and indefinite term
of imprisonment. What that " something " was it was for
a long time impossible to learn. The reticence of an
Englisli railway official in view of an accident is frank-
ness and communicativeness itself beside that of his
American brother in similar circumstances. You can
extract nothing from the latter except by a series of
painful surgical operations. Drawing teeth is nothing
to it. It took all the passengers in our train a full
hour to obtain possession of the bare fact that a train
coming towards us from Pueblo had run into a horse and
got " ditched "—Americanese for "run off."

Here was a pretty fix for civilized people, accustomed
to have their meals regularly in a Chriptlan way ! My
thoughts, of course, turned at once to the bundle of
sandwiches which the Osier lady had provided for me,
and carefully and lovingly I fished the precious paper
parcel out of my bag. There was no knowing where or
when the next provender would be obtained, and it
behoved us to be careful of every crumb of our tiny
store. I took out half the sandwiches, divided that half
with scrupulous exactness between my friend and
myself, and carefully replaced what an American
would call the "balance" of the food in my black
leather hand-bag, which closed with a spring.
A gentleman passenger ind the gentlemanly
agent of the sleeping-oar company were

141

^customed

sitting, breakfnstleBs, in the opposite Keotion, and
I daresay they watohed our operations with covetous
and wolfish eyes, though I did not note the fact, lliiv-
ing disposed of our very modpst mei\l, my friend nnd I
alighted from tliocnr to try tlie effect of a few more sur-
gical operations on any railwny men who happened to 1)0
visible, and it was probably half-an-hour before we re-
turned to our seats. My first and natural thought wa-i
to see that the balance of the provender was all right.
1 took tlie l)ag from under the seat and opened it.
Kohbery ! Murder I The place which had known that
parcel of sandwiches knew it no more. That gentle-
manly traveller and that gentlemanly Hleei>ing-c,\r
agent were still sitting precisely where we left thorn.
They saw me look into my liag, but they betrayed not
the smallest interest in tiie prorcoding. What, indeed,
was it to tliem that I looked in my bag and betrayed
some few si^ns of astonislimont '/ that my friend and
I gazed first at the bag and then, suspiciously, round
the car? Nothing, of course I Tliose two "gentlemen'
had, however, undoubtedly had our sandwiches, but
there was not a particle of evidence to be obtained
against them except by hanging them summarily, and
immediately making a jwat ■mortem examination. Wo
were not prepared for these heroic measures, and possibly
they were equally unprepared ; so wp simply said noth-
ing, and came to the conclusion that we had not been
very wise in forgetting that food is common property in
time of famine.

But the great food quest. ;i soon became pressing
again. There were two ladies among the passengers,
one of them with a baby in her arms, and nobody but
ourselves appeared to have made any preparation for
eventualities. A number of the male travellers, includ-
ing my friend and myself, again alighted from the car
and set out on a foraging exiiedition. Luckily, weatonce
found a " section house " — the residence of a ganger or
foreman on the line— which the wooden shed thatserved
as a station had hitherto hidden from view. That house
contained a dirty, slatternly woman, who spoke with
the richest of Irish brogues, and who was presumably
the " section man's " wife. What we might have dono
after starving for a day or two I cannot say : but,
hungry as we all were, we were not yet in a condition
to eat anything which that woman had touched, or
even to enter her filthy cabin. But here, as;ain, luct
was on our side. She had, as it happened, a large store
of food which she had never touched. How did we
know that ? "Well, the said food was eggs ; and we
were satisfied, without putting her on her oath, that
her fingers had never been inside their shells. So we
bought UD her stock of eggs and " went a-gipsying '' on
the open prairie behind her house. "We made a firo, and
boiled the eggs hard in empty meat-tins, of which, by
the way, an inexhaustible supply is scattered all along
both sides of the western railroads. The lady passen-
gers were duly provided for, and we had a moderate
store of cold, hard-boiled eggs left with which to face
the unknown future.

Soon after our picnic had come to an end in this satis-
factory manner, we were told to get "aboard," and our
train began to crawl along towards the scene of the
accident. We found, on arriving there, that the story
about the horse was true. There, indeed, the poor
creature lay— scattered in little pieces over the lino and
the sides of the embankment. He had realised the fate
which George Stephenson predicted forany "coo ' that
might get in the way of his locomotive. The horse's
head was the biggest piece of him left intact, and I
shall never forget the appearance of the eyes which stared

out of that head. The horse had apparently just
time to put on a look of blank amazement as the cow-
catcher caught him, but not time enough to shut his
eyes on tiie world hu was quitting ; and that
look of astonishment was left stereotyped, as it
were, in his countenance. But while the collision was
awkward for the horse, it was almost ecjually bad for
the little narrow-gauge engine. The accident happened
on an embankment Vt or 10 feet high, and we found the
engine lying almost u|>side down at the bottom of the
bank. The tender, whose connection with the engine
was unbroken, was lying at right angles to it, sloping
up the bank, with its upper end overhanging the line.
Ths body of the baggage oar was on the rails, but its
wheels were at the bottom of tho embankment. The
jiassenger cars had kept upright, and no passenger
was hurt, but the rails were torn up in a
remarkable fashion for 20 or 30 yards. The engine
cabin was smashed and twisted ; Imt, strange to say,
the driver and fireman, though found buried in coal,
sustained no other injuries than a few scratche-). They
were busy hel))ing to right matters, as if what had
happened was all in their day's work. A large gang
of men, consisting largely of Alexicans, was engaged in
clearing and re-laying the line ; and this work was
accomplished in a wonderfully short time. Still, it
was ne rly mid-day before our train was able to pass
on. It was past one before we found ourselves face to
face with our breakfast at Tueblo, and late in the
evening before we reached my friend's house at
Denver.

ON TO THE MORMON CAPITAL.

We were due to leave Denver for Salt Lake City on
the evening of the day on which we returned to tho
former city from Leadville ; but my adventures in the
latter place had taken so much out of me that I did not
feel very well prepared immediately for another 24 hours
in a Pullman car. My companion, therefore, preceded
me by a day in starting for the City of the Saints. I,
having meantime pulled myself together a 1.' fol-
lowed him on Saturday afternoon, and rejoinea / at
the Walker House, Salt Lake City, on Sunday e - .ig.

With the exception of the last 37 miles, the vvhole
journey from Denver to Salt Lake City is accomplished
by means of the Union i'acific Railroad. A branch of
103 miles takes the traveller to Cheyenne Junction, on
the main line, where he changes; and thence to Ogden,
51(5 miles, the run is direct. At Ogdon, a change i*
made into the oars of the Utah Centrwl Railroad, which,
in a run of 37 miles, land the traveller in the Mormon
capital.

The only ; if-: of interest between Denver and
Cheyenne is the town of Greeley, which was founded in
tlie midst of the vast Colorado plain by tho late Horace
Greeley, proprietor and editor of the New York
Tribune. The community of Greeley is sujiposed to bo
a purely temperance one. No land within the township
can be bought, except on the express condition that no
intoxicating liqnors shall ever be made or sold upon it.
Other restrictions are. I believe, enforced with the
object of nromotins: tho moral and intellectual welfare
of the place. Whether it is in all respects a
Paradise is more than I can say, though I
was given to understand that the community
was, as a whole, orderly, moral, and thrifty. Seen
from the railway, the place can hardly be said to
present an attractive appearance. In this respect, it is
not unlike other prairie towns ; but then physical
ugliness is, as we all know, sometimes associated with

142

r ■ i

fi'

intellectual and moral beauty, and this is possibly the
ease at Greeley.

Had I not already seen a good deal of the mountain
railways of Colorado, the lun from Cheyenne to Ogden
would have been a most interustlng one ; but
journeys up the Clear ("reek Canon and tlio I'liitte
('anon, and over Kenosha Summit and the Soutli
Parl<, are a bad prepnrution for the main line of the
Union raciHo, remarkable and interesting as the western
half of it really is. Aho\it SO miles west of Choyenne,
the line crosses the Kooky Mountains, at a ]ilace called
Sherman, at a height of K,23r> feet. As it was dark
when I reached the summit, and as I had already been
2,000 feet higher at Leadville, the passing of the Divide
excited no very keen interest. Indeed, I got the car
attendant to "fix" mo early in the evening,
and when I rose next morning the train
was rapidly descending into the valley of
the Green Iliver, nearly 300 miles further west.
Between Green River (where we stopjied to
breakfast) and Ogden Junction, the line is carried
through a nnmber of canons, abounding in the menu-
mental rocks and similar strange geological ])Iienomena
for which the whole Kocky Mountain region is famous.
At times, tlje scenery is grand and savage, and at few
points IS it dull or monotonous enough to be in any
senso wearying:. The line is solid and well-laid, and
the splendid Pullman cars are— in the daytime, if not at
night— almost all that one could desire. Riding
swiftly in this luxurious fashion through one savage
gorge after another, one cannot avoid contrasting
this almost perfect travelling with the weary, painful,
and apparently endless journeyinss by which thousands
of the early settlers in Utah, Nevada, and California
reached their destinations. For scores of miles at a
Btiei;i,h the track along which they toiled huors the rail-
road. There was, indeed, very often no choice in the
matter. Both the waggon track and the railroad
necessarily traversed the gorge") which constitute tlie
only passages through range after range of lofty hills.
Sometimes the track is to the right of the line and
sometimes to the left. Here it is on a higher level than
the rails, there on a lower. Here the inevitable river
flows between the two ; yonder they are side by side
on the same bank.

It was early in the evening of Sunday that I
arrived at Ogden Junction, where I had some half-hour
to wait for the departure of the branch train to Salt
Lake City. Ogden Station is the most important
for hundreds of miles, but it is a mean, rambling, one-
storey, and not very savoury collection of wooden
buildings. I went into the ticket-office, and there found
two or three matters to interest me. A Chinaman was
at the ticket windo^,^ taking a dozen tickets to San
Francisco, for himself and eleven other pig-tailed
Celestials. He was counting out 240 dollars (£48)
in fares. It is not every day that one sees such a
sum handed to a booking-clerk in a lump, but the vast
distances traversed by the American railways, of course,
necessitate big fares. A single person booking through
from New York to San Francisco pays down about £26
for his ticket. These Chinamen were travelling only
one-fourth of the total width of the continent.

Sitting in the ticket-office, waiting for the train
to the Moi'mon Zion, was a shabby-genteel man
with a woman on each s.de of him, each carry-
ing a baby and having other children clinging
to her skirts. No great penetration was needed
to enable one to take in the situation at a
glance. That man was clearly a Mormon, too much

married by at least 50 per cent., and I pitied him
sincerely. His f.ioe bore an expression of unutterable
boredom and molanoholy. He showed no signs of
anger or ill-temper with his too-abundant wives and
children ; he simply looked sad and wearied. He
spake never a word. Wiien it seemed good to him, he
rose from his seat, without giving a hint as to
his intentions, and slouched dejectedly along the plat-
form. His wives, docile anii obedient as spaniels,
and looking as much bored as himself, rose silently and
followed him in Indian file -in the fashion, that is, of
primitive man ; and the two sots of children, mixed,
brought up the rear. A sadder or more depressing
sight than that family ]iroces8ion I never saw. The
party had no luggage, and my impression was that the
husband had taken the two families to Ogden for a
Sunday's outing— to spend, in short, a "happy day."
If this was really the case, I can only say that they
were taking their pleasure as sadly as any ISritons. It may
be, of course, tliat that unfortunate disciple of Joe
Smith's had a few other wives and families at home,
and that his deep depression was duo to bis anticipation
of certain curtam lectures which awaited him ut the
hands, or rattier on the tongues, of the girls he had left
behind him while he was gallivanting with the two
favoured spouses at Ogden.

Ogden is so well situated with regard to railways,
which radiate to all four points of the compass, that it
is becoming a place of great Importance. The
population is rapidly increasing, and the city is
assuming the character of a great trading centre.
For the honour of my profession, I trust
that its press is not fairly represented by t? one
news;)aper I happened to pick up there. The ' is

called T/ie Commercial, Index. It our.siots n if

advertisements, but it is not entirely withe .a

and " editorial " matter. Here, for instance, is its
first " leader " of the day on which I was at Ogden : —

" Kind reailur, this is very warm weather to write. We
want to write something funny, but as the sweat trickles
down our hiick, the fun seems to go with it. We can
write funny articles, but we can't in warm weather. Wo
looked up a copy of Bill Nye's Boomerang, but Bill is like
us ; the starch is out of him, and there was no fun in bis
Uonmeranji. All we can do is to advise you to take this
paper and lay it away carefully, and when you get to'your
journey's end, find some cool and shady nook, and there,
witli your little ones (if you have any) peruse the paper and
enjoy yourself. The foregoing advice is intended for our
readers in the warm climates, such as the United States,
South America, Africa, Asia, etc. Our special advertising
ajrent in search of the North Pole informs us that
tiie weather is very pleasant up_ there, and that
the Index is the most popular advertising medium in cir-
culation. There are many things to annoy an editor of a
large paper like the Index. We are just in receipt of a dis-
patch informing us that England has raised objections to the
clause in the articles of agreen'ent for the construction of
the second Suez Canal which gives the Commercial Index
Co. tlie exclusive right to circulate the Index on and along
the canal. England proposes to consent, provided the Index
Co. will allow the Crown to appoint an associate editor for
the Suez edition of the Index. A special agent has been
dispatched to adjust the matter, and we hope to announce
in the next issue a complete settlement of the trouble. In
the meantime, we shall continue to receive ' ads ' for the
Suez eilition, Gladstone and the English Government to the
contrary notwithstanding."

I was not very much surprised that the " editor '
wrote about the weather, and found himself in-
capable of dealing with any other theme, for I
encountered greater heat at Ogden and Salt Lake City
than anywhere else. Polygamy appears, too, to f%Tour

%»

the multiiilication of a peculiarly ferocious Waok hoiue
fly, which goes for one's blood with a rncklesn ilinrogard
of its own safety. Flies arc a great nuisance in summer
in many parts of America, hut tlicse Alormon Hies nio
an easy first for iiersistcncy ami lilooiithirstino-is. The
rcfieshmentroom at (»«don Junction >vns furnished
witli a numhcr of Hol:'-actinK fans, like horizontal wind-
mills, which wiTc kept revolving hy means of spiinKS and
clock-work. 'riit'so contrivar.ces, revolviiijj in the
centros of tlio tahles, weio intended to fri;^hten tho
flics olf tlic diners' beads ; hut my impicssion was that
the trouhlcsanie brutes had discovero 1 tho sociot of tho
machinery, ami learnt to dosiii^^o it as a harmless frauil.
At S.'dt Lake t'ity, I hid to give up tho attom))t to
write some letters in con' ciiuenco of tlie cruel persist-
ence with which thcso tiica attacked tho backs of my
hands.

It waadiirk when the branch train leachod the^^ormon
Zion, anil I at once ciitorcd a street car. drawn by n pair
of fiiie mules, and made for tin- i)rinoipal hotel, tho
^V'alker I[ousi\ Thero I found my travelling com|ianioii,
and received from him nn account of all I had lost
through not bein;; able to leave I)rn\er with him, and
of what he had lost through not being in Salt Lake
City au hour or two Kroner.

Lynch Law.

What my companion just missed was a couplo of
trauedies, which had stirred tho Mormon community
*,o its depths. On Saturday afternoon, the Chief Con-
stable of the city was shot dead in tlie open street by a
drunken rulhan whom lie was about to arrest. Now,
the Chief Constable was a man of note, highly rospected, a
good INIornion, a jiopular otficer, and tho faithful anil bo-
loveil luisbaml of live wives. Such an exemplary person
had to bo avenged, and the ndi'^^nant and liot-blooded
citizens had not patience to aw.i't the slow iirocesses of
the law. Tlie wretched murderer was dragged out of
the lock-u]) by a fui ious mob, kicked about like a foot-
ball until lie was a mass of blood and bruises, and then
hanged from a beam in a shod behind tho City Hall.
It happened that, on that very same day, another
man was similarly lynched at Park City, only a
few miles olf. In his case, some doubt
wa's afterwards expiessed as to whether he was really
guilty of the offence for which he v as hanged. I!ut
there was no room for doubt in tho Salt Lake City case,
as the murderer was taken red-handed. It must not be
hastily inferred from thooccurrenie of these two lynch-
ingson the ^ame day that the M^Tmons area lawless
people. Tiiat is not the case ordinarily. I was told,
indeed, that no such scene as the one described had
occurred in or near Salt Lake City for many years.
But theie aro districts in the Far AVeafc where such
summary executions have long been the rule, and
where tho haste of the residents to vindicito tho law
has too often resulted in the hanging of tho wrong
man. The following story of one such "little mistake "
is told in Nevada :— -

Early in tlie fifties, on a still, hot summer's afternoon, a
certain ni'ui, ill a camp of the northern n;ines, which shall
bHuaineles.s, Imvnijx tricked his two donkeys ami one horse
a half .nile, and discovereil ti):it a man's track with spur
marks folhiweiH hem, c.iine back to town and told " the
boys," who loitered ahoiit a popular saloon, that in his
opinion some Mexican had stolen the animals. .Such news
as this demanded, naturally, drinks all round.

"Do you know, genllonien," said (me who assumed
hiadership, " that .just naturally to shoot the.«e greasers aint
the best way ? Give 'em a fair jury trial, and rope 'em up
with all the majesty of law. That's the cure."

Such words of moderation were well rooelved, and they
drank agaiu to " Here's hopins we ketch thnt greaser."

.As they JDiifed liMck to the veranil.th. a .Mexican walkr'd
over the hid luow, jiii;;liiig his spurs pleisiiitly in accord
with a whistled waltz,

'I lie advocate for the law said In .m undertone, " That's
the cuss. '

.\iiisli,a struggle, and the .Mexican, bound hand and
feot, I. IV 1)11 his back In the bar-room. The camp turned
out to a lenii.

Happily such cries ns " fitn'iij him vji .'" " litirn Ihe
ih'ii<i'ii\cil hilii-ic'ttnr'." and oilier eipially pleasant phrases
fell uiileedeil upon his Spanish ear. A jury was fpiickly
g;itliered ill the street, and, despite refusals to servo, tho
ci'ovmI hurried tlieiii In li>'hiiid the luir.

A brief stiiteiiieiit of the ca'<o was made by tho «'-(/cr(in(
lolvocate, and they showed the jury into n ciuiiinodious
pokei-room where weio S'lits j;roupi.'d about neat green
tild'H. The nolso dufsiili', in the har-moin. by-nndbye
illi'il away into cnmplrte silence, hut from afar down the
eiiion came confiisud sounds as of disorilerly cheering.
i'liey i.'iiuo iiianr. mid nu'iin the lightlieartoil noise of
hiiiuaii laiii;hter inin;;Ied wiili the clinking glasses ariuinil
Ihe har.

\ lew knock at the jury door, the lock burst In, and a
do/.rii sieiliim fillows asked tho verdict. A foreman
promptly answered, " Sol ii'iilhi."

With volleyed oaths, and oininiiuis hiving of hands nn
pis'nl hilts, the hovs siauimed the iloor with "you'll haie
III (Id heller than Ihcil."

In half-an-hour the advocate gently opened the door
again.

" Your opinion, gentlemen ?"

" (Juilty."

" Coirect, you can come out. We hung him an hour ago."

TIk! jury took theirs next, and when, after a few minutes,
the pleasant village returned to Its former tranrpiility, it
was " nltinred " at more than ono saloon, that " Mexl-
cans'll know enough to let white men's stock idone after
tliis.' One and another exchanged the belief that this sort
of thing was more sensible than " nipping 'em on sight"

Whfii, before sunset, the bard;eeper eoinluded to sweep
siuiie dust lait of his poker-ioom back-door, he felt ti
uioiueutnry surprise nt llndini; the missing horse dozing
under tlio kIiikIow of an oak, and the two lost donkeys
serenely masticating playing-cards, of which many bushels
lay in a dirty pile. He was then reminded that the animals
had been tliere all day.

SALT LAKK CITY.

Salt Lake City, the capital of the Territory of Utah
and the headquarters of the Mormons, stands in a
magnificent position in the midst of a fertile plain, near
the western foot of the Wahsatch Mountains, and about
1'2 miles from the south-eastern corner of tho Great
Salt Lake. The site was selected with great care and
judgment. No Gentile is boun-l to believe that it was
pointed out to Ih-igham Young in a revelation from
heaven, but it is clear that Brigham made good use of
an excellent judgment when he chose the spot as a suit-
able place on which to found the Zion of his "Church."

Nobody who sees that smiling plain as it spreads
itself to the view to-day, divided into well-watered and
fertile fields, producing abundant crops of grain and
fruit, can do full justice to the wisdom of Brigham
Young's choice, unless he happens also to know what
the country looked like when the Mormons first
encamped on it, after their long and weary tramp
across interminable prairies and savage mountain
ranges. For the land was then a forbidding wilderness,
not unlike the deserts which still encompass the Great
Salt Lake on two of its sides and extend almost
across the State of Nevada, A " prophetic "
eye, or an "eye of faith," was really needed to see in
that waste of alkali deposits and thinly-scattered sage-

144

bruah the fertile Paradise of nhioh the plain consists
to-day. Whether Brigham had sufhclent linowledge of
chemistry andagricultuie to be fully alive to the possi-
bilities of the soil I do not know ; but that he made an
excellent choice foi* some reason or otLer nobody can
doubt who has seen the city and its surroundings.

The agent which has worl<ed such a wonderful trans-
formation in the region is water. The soil, as I have
already intimated, was saturated, in some places
actually encrusted, with a white alkali deposit, which was
inimical 1o all vegetation. Thin mineral deposit was
undonbLedly due to the fact that the lake ones covered
the whole plain, ni' that, in shrinking to its prc:'»r''
dimensions, it left behind a co:<ting of the saline
and alkaline matters with which its waters arc charged
to an extraordinary extent. Ai)ai i from these deposits,
the soil was wonderfully rich, and the Mormons rf.t to
work to wash the salt and alkali out of tb. .ound.
They found an ample water supply in the >. .ihsatch
Mountains. This water had hitherto flowed
into the lake without benefiting the soil, but the settlers
soon turned it to useful work. Diverting it into
aitificial canals, they made it flow, in clear, rapid
streams of considerable bulk, through every street in
tlieir newly-planned city, and then by many chanmels
across the plain between the city and the lake. The
results have been truly marvellous. 'ihe salt and
alkali have been completely wa-bed out of the soil, and
the desert has literally been maae to " blossom as the
rose." Whatever one may say or think about Mormon-
ism and its peculiar code of ethics, it mu.i^ be admitted
that the Mormons have made great progress in the work
of turning bhe desert of their choice into an eb'.rthly
Paradise.

The Mormonstellusthattheplanofthecity was "given
by inspiration." As to tliis, I can only hope that it is
not a faithful model of any of the golden cities in which
etherealized humanity is destined hereafter to dwell.
Even the New Jerusalem would prove wearisome if laid
out on th3 plan of a mighty chess-borrd, with never a
curve (that "line of beauty") to break the awful
monotony of its infinity of straight lines and right
angles. But Brigham Young was nothing if not
practical. He clearly thought the pictur-
esque jf little account, and he therefore marked
out the city in such a way as to combine the greatest
possible number of practical advantages, without the
slightest regard for variety of appearance. Being
a prophet, and, as such, foreseeing a mighty future for
his city, he discounted its coming greatness pretty
liberally. The area laid out is between two and three
miles square. This is divided into JGO square blocks
of 10 acres each ; and the streets, which are all straight
and cross each other at right rui^'les, are 128 feet wide.
Only a few of the streets are built close up. The majority
are in a very rough condition, the ronds being in a
state of nature and half grown over with weeds. 'J he
traffic is not en>>'igh to keop the grass down over so
immense a width. Tl.e sidewalks are not much better
than the roadways, and at the crossing of the streets
the pedestrian has often to stride or leap across the wide
gutter in which tlie fertilizing current that has made
the place what it is, is ever flowing. Those streams are
among the most attractive features of the city. They
give an air of life and coolness to the streets, and they
also maintain in rank luxuri.ince the avenues of
beautiful shade trees which everywhere skirt the
footways on both sides. The value and comfort of
these avenues are past telling. The thermometer stood
at 104° in the (hade on the day on which I was in the

city. I walked about a good deal on that day, and Tras,
of course, aware that it " % hot ; but I had no idea
until next day, when f j newspapers recorded the
temperature, that the mercury had been up among ';ho
lOO's. I had before felt, on one occasion at least, what
appeared like a much higher temperature, but that
was wlien sitting, under a mid-day sun in July, on the
bare rock of Europa Point, Gibraltar,

The water which flows through the streets is, how-
ever, made to do something more than nourish the
trees and gratify the eye. There are officials in each of
the twenty wards into which the city is divided, whoso
duty it is to turn the water into the citizens' gardens
by night, according to a set of regulations designed to
secure to every man his fair share of the life-giving
streams.

The present population of Salt Lake City is about
27,000. (I shall have occasion to refer further on to
the proportion which the Gentile population bears to
the Mormon element.) It is obvious that there is
room for a much larger number of inhabitants on the
large irea I have described. If the streets were built
' up with tolerably high houses, room might easily be
I made for a population of 100,000, even although so
j large a part of the area is occupied by the unusually
I wide streets. At present, however, very few of the
streets are thickly inhabited, Ihe majority
of them display numerous bare p'jts, orchards,
and gardens, varied here and there by a L use,
usually of wood and only one storey in height.
Everbody, except in a very few streets, has plenty of
elbow-room. This is an advantage, but, as I have
before explained when describing somewhat similar
cities, the advantage is dearly bought. When a city
possesses an enormous mileage of street in proportion to
its population, the cost of many public works is so ex-
cessive that they have often to be dispensed with al-
together, A wealthy community like that of Bourne-
mouth or Torquay is able to bear (with some grumbling)
the coat of sewers, gas, water, and lighting, vast as it is
in consequence of the great length of roads ; but
a new and comparatively poor city on the confines of
civilization cannot possibly afford such luxuries unless
the inhabitants are content to pack themselves rather
closely together. iSalt Lake City, I was tola, did not
possess a single sewer, and its lighting was in many parts
conspicuous by its absence. As for its r^ads and side-
walks, I have already said enough to indicate that they
are no great burden on the rates. There is .a tolerably
complete system of street tramways. The rails are
badly laid and maiatained, as ii so many other
(Vmerican cities ; but the car-, which are drawn by pairs
of fine mules, appear to afford the favourite means of
locomotion.

My travelling companion, having arrived in the city
on Saturday, was able to attend the Hunday service at
the Tabernacle. The only part of the performanco
which ha i impressed him, so far as I could gather, was
the si.iging, which, accompanied on one of the largest
orgi'iis in America, he described as very fine. That so much
good music should be wasted on the wretched doggerel
of which many of the A'ormon hymns consist, is, how-
ever, a pity.

As I did not arrive till Sundny evening, I was denied
the " privilege" of attending this " service ;" but 1 did
the next best thing— I went with my friend and had a
look at the Tabernacle on Monday. The building is
iusi'ie a huge enclosure surrounded by a high wall. We
entered by a gateway, inside of which stood a porter «i
lodge, and the gatekeeper immediately came forward to

y, and ttm,
nd no idea
corded the
among '.ho
least, what
, but that
uly, on the

jts is, how-
nourish the
s in each of
Jed, whoso
ns' gardens
designed to
life-giving

ity is about
; ther on to
in bears to
at there is
ants on the
were built
it easily be
ilthough so
I unusually
few of the
majority
orchards,
a L use,
in height,
plenty of
as I have
lat similar
hen a city
oportion to
8 is so ex-
(1 with al-
Df Bourne-
grumbling)
h^ast as it is
}a(lB ; but
onfincs of
ries unless
ves rather
did not
;my parts
and side-
that tliey
tolerably
rails are
my other
n by pairs
means of

n tho city
service at
fornianoo
ther, was
10 largest
It so much
dog;gerel
is, how-

■as denied
but 1 did
nd had a
uildiugis
wall. We
. porter'ij
II ward to

145

learn our business. On bein^ told that we wanted to
see the Tabernacle, he replied that we were free to do
80, and at once aocompanieJ us to one of the door!^.

As we walked towards the Tabernacle, ^e passed
the unfinished Mormon Temple, a vast onilding of
granite, which has been many years in course of erec-
tion, and the finishing of which is likely to occupy many
more. It is impossible to ascertain anything detinite as
to the uses to which this building is to be put when it
is finished — if it ever is. All we "ere able to learn v. as,
that it is iioi< luoended to supersede the existing Taber-
nacle for purposes of worship, but that the " secret
rites of the Church" are to be performed there. Abort
these rites there is as great an air of mystery as there
is ?ver tlie curious antics which accompany, or are sr'd
to accompany, the "making" of a Freemason.
These seci-et rites of the Mormon Church are
now performed in the Endowment House, a
rather mean building which is also inside the
Tabernacle enclosure. The " rites " in question must
be of a specially sacred and important character to
justify the erection of such a building as the Temple.
The walls, of solid granite, are 9 or 10 feet thick, and
are to be nearly 100 fee' high. At each end there aro
to be three towers surmounted by spires, the loftiest of
whio'" is to be 22.") feet in height. Over two millions
o* ii;nglish pounds have already been spent on tho
work, and the Mormons boast that they intend to
spend over six millions. If they are as good
as their word, they wilL I suppose, be able to boast of
having the most costly chnrch in tiiS "crld ; hut if I
may judge of it by the drawings I saw, our Old World
cathedrals will have nothing to fear in a conij;' risen
with it as regards architectural beauty. Tho Temple
was be^ m in 18.53, but it must not be supposed that
the worii has been jirosecuted ever since wit'x uniform
vigour, for the necessary funds, it appef rs, have flowed
in somewhat irregularly. Unless the pr.st rate of pro-
gress is considerably exceeded, the place cannot be
finished in the nineteenth century. It is whispered
by profane outsiders that Brigham Young, who was a
statesman in his way, started the building in order to
provide sometliing on which to concentrate the thoughts
and enerijies of his followers, and thus draw off their
attention from questions which he did not want to see
stirred. In sihort, he kept them out of mischief by
providing them with an almost endless task — so say
Gentile scoft'ers. But, whatever his intentions may
have been, the work has been taken up seriously by his
followers, and I see no reason why it should not bo
finished if — well, if Uncle Warn does not some
day put his foot down upon the whole nest of unclean
birds and crush out polygamy by main force. Tho
Temple, although only half-built, is already too holy a
place to be defiled by the foot of a (Jentile. It is as
jealously guarded against outsiders as a Moslem mosque
against Christians ; and a move which wo made, as we
passed, in the direction of the principal untraiicc, was
instantly checked by our attendant

The existing Tabernacle i.s probably the usrliest build-
ing in tho world, and it is gratifying, so far, to learn
that it was designed by no earthly architect. Tho jdan
was let down, ia the form of a perfect- model, out of
Heaven, or it was revealed to IJrigharn Young in a
dream— I really foiget which ; and aw my readers pay
their money, tbey may tako their c'noioe between these
two modes of architectural revelation. Looked atfrom
the outside, the Tabernacle appears precisely like an
irtimenae oval metal dishcovor. raised a little way .ibovo
tho (ground upon a number of small sq aarc blocks. The

dish-cover is the roof ; the square blocks (49 in number)
are so many plain brick piers which support it. Be-
tween almost every pair of piers are wide doors, with
shallow windows over. The oval interior is 2iM) feet
long and l.'iO broad, and tlio immense concave roof his
not a single support except upon the piers already men-
tioned. The vast span is not broken by a single pillar.
The organ, and a largo rostrum for the choir and the
speal^ers, .occupy one end, and round all the rest of i;he
building runs a deep gallery of vast capacity.
Both floor and gallery aro filled with low,
plain, wooden seats. The Mormons °ay the place
will hold 13,000, or even l."),000, persons at a jjush ; but
the capacity of the place, like that of nearly all public
buildings, is, I feel -lure, greatly exaggerated. The
truth, I believe, is that, r.Uowing 18 inches for each
pers' ■ there is sitting room for 0,000 or 7,000 persons ;
but as Mormon women are iiccustomed to take their
numerous babies and young children to church, it is
jiossiblo that there may sometimes be !t,000 or 10,000
" persons '" present ; but they are certainly not " statute
adults."

The interior of the immense oval dome was, when I
was there, profusely decorated witii numerous festoons
of artificial (lowers in jiaper. These had a very tawdry
appearance, but they were probai)ly an improvement
on th^^ vast expanse of bare wlutewash which would
otherwise have been exposed. They were put up
temporarily for some festivities in 1877, and were
thought to add so decidedly to the beauty of the place
that thoy were allowed to remain.

However sceptical the ( Jentile may ho as to thu celes-
tial origin of the architecture of t'le Tabernacle, it is only
fair to say that on two points Bri,;ham Young was really
inspired—by the soundest print',)les. We are told,
much toD often for our comfort, that there is not a pub-
1- building in London which could be cleared of its audi-
ence, in case an alarm of 'ire were raised, in time to
ensure the safety of the whole audience. In this
respect, Brigham beat the London architects hollow.
As I have already explained, almost half the cir-
cumference of the building consists of wide pairs
of doors. These all open outwards ; and when
the meeting breaks up and the doors are thrown
open, every person in tho idaco walks straight
out of his seat into the open air, without hav-
ing to crawl at a snail's pace down a long and crowded
aisle. The congregation thus emerges in numerous
moderate groups from every part of the building at
once. It is srdd that the place can bo oleaied in threo
mmutes, and I believe it.

lere is yet one other particular in which the Taber-
THiilo surpasses all other buildings I have ever seen or
■;eard of. It is a perfect St. Paul's Whispering Gallerj
on a much larger scale. A whisper uttered at one end
is distinctly heard at the oiiposite end. fSo, indeed, is
the fall of ft pin. Our guide gave us a practical demon-
stration of this fact by <lropi)ing a pin into his hat at
one end of the huililiiiL,', while wo stood in the gallery at
the other end, at least 200 feet distant.

THE GREAT SALT LAKE,

It is from this famous and rather mysterious lake
that Salt Lake < 'ity takes its name. The city is about
12 miles from its south east corner, but the place which
may be called the Brighton of tho Mormon capital is
Lake Point, on tho southern shore, aliort 20 miles from
the city. Lake Point is reached by rail, the line run-
ning the greater part of the dintanoe in a perfectly

■;

^^\

straight line, over a perfectly level plain, which was
clearly covered by the waters of the lake at no very
distant period.

The lake is really a great one, and really salt, so
that its name is appropilate. It is sometliing like
75 miles long and 30 broad, and its surface is 4,200 feet
above the ocean level. The water is very shallow, and
there are six islands of various sizes. Several rivers
flow into the lake, and as it has no outlet, it is obvious
that the evaporation is at least equal to the bulk of the
water flowing into it. A 1 have already intimated,
there is reason to believe that the evaporation has
in bygone ages exceeded the contributions poured
in by the streams. It is quite clear that the
lake was once much larger than it is now,
and, of course, it then presented a larger
surface to the sun and atmosphere, and the
evaporation was necessarily greater, while the inflow
from the rivers was probably about the same as at ore-
sent. In course of time, the lake has no doubt shrunk
in area until it has reached a point at \<hich, on the
average, the inflow anii the evaporation are eiual. In
the spring of the year, it expands and overflows part of
the low ground on its eastern siilo ; but as summer
advances, the increased evaporation and diminished
inflow reduce it to its ordinary dimensions.

The saltness of ordinary sea water conveys no idea
of the intensely saline character of the Great Salt
Lake. Nearly 22.^ per cent, of its water consists
of mineral matter in solution. The result is, that
the specific gravity is very high, and it is impossible
for the human body to sink in it. The bather can,
indeed, float with his head, his arms to the elbow, and
his legs up to the knee, above the surface. Floating is
thus easy enough, but swimming is not so easy; the
difficulty is to keep the legs under water when striking
out. Bathing in such water has its drawbacks. One
cannot well be drowned in it, butdrowningis not the only
method of dying. One may be strangled, and it is said that
a bather who accidentally gets a good gulp of this very
dense and curious solution of minerals into his stomach
runs some little risk of shaking o''^ his " mortal coil "
in that painful fashion. Even a drop of the water in
the eye causes intense pain. Taere is yet another
drawback tc a bath in the (ireat .Salt Lake. Clear as
the lake water is to all a))pearance, it is necessary to
wash in fresh water after bathing, for a thick deposit
of salt and other mineral substances adheres to the skin
in a very uncomfoi table fashion. The Great Salt Lake
has been often compared with the Dead Sea in
Palestine, The waters of both are very much alike in
density, and they probably owe their large proportions
of mineral constituents to similar ca-ises. It is obvious
that a salt lake whose area is in course of contraction
through excessive evaporation must necessarily tend to
become salter. The water alone goes olf in vapour,
while the solid elements remain. Apart from the
quality of its water, the Great Salt Lake has anotlier
point of resemblance to the Dead Sea. It has a Uiver
Jordan running into 't. The Mormons are fond of
regarding their oliy as the Zion of their so-called
"Church," and they naturally christened the river
which flows near it after the famous stream which
flows through the Holy Land, within a short distance
of the real and original .Terusalem.

In spite of the drawbacks 1 have mentioned, the IMor-

mons regard a bath in the lake as a great luxury. They

have turned Lake Point into a regular bathing station,

running a sort of pier out into the lake, and erecting a

ftrge number of wooden dressing boxes, in which com-

plete bathing dresses for both sexes are provided. A
bathing train runs to Lake Point every afternoon
during the season, returning to the city after a suitable
interval.

My friend and I went to the lake and back by this
train. We had by that time become pretty well
accustomed to the free-and-easy style in which the
American railways wander about the cities on the
level, but this particular train supplied a new illustra-
tion of free-and-easiness. It was actually drawn up in
the middle of the wide, half-dusty, half grass-grown
strip of common land called a " street." Intending
travellers approached from both sides— from all sides,
in fact, and clambered into the covered but open-sided
cars in a delightfully promiscuous way. Some drove
up in buggies and other vehicles, drew up alongside the
train, and stepped off their own conveyances into the
cars. If they happened to have no ticko+,s, they could
get them of the conductor after starting. When start-
ing time came— or rather wlien it occurred to the
officials that they might, perhaps, as well start—
we moved off in a very deliberate fashion, passing
along one dustv, dreary-looking avenue after f.nother,
until we at last emerged, without noticing how or at
what exact point, into the open country. At first, our
way lay through irrigated, unfenced fields ; but as we
receded from the city, we receded from cultivation
also, and before we reached the corner of the lake and
turned along the southern shore, we were in the
primitive wilderness. Here, too, we left the plain
behind us. The lake was on our right, and on our left
rose a range of bare, savage mountains, which were
the mere foot-hills of loftier ranges behind. When I
say that this re;;ion is a wilderness, I do not mean that
it is absolutely bare. As a matter of fact, it is thinly
covered, as nearly all the barren regions further west
p.ie, with a plant known as "sage brush." It was on
the shore of the Great Salt Lake that I first made a
close acquaintance with this remarkable plant, but I
afterwards traversed many hundreds of miles
of deserts which produce literally nothing else.
Sage brush is simidy a dwarf shrub, a foot
or two high, of a pale green colour, and
emitting a strong and not very pleasant herby
odour when crushed. It is the (Chinaman of western
vegetation. It lives and thrives where nothing else
Neither soil (as we understand the term) nor

can.

moisture appears necessary to its existence. It stands
up, juicy and vigorous, out of a soil which appears to
consist entirely of hard gravel, and where not a drop of
rain falls for months together. Hundreds of miles
of sage brush at a stretch are, it must be ailmitted, a
little monotonous and wearisome ; but it is something
to have the interminable deserts clothed even with this
humble and apparently useless plant.

We did not bathe at Lake Point, but we found ample
amusement in watching the Saints (and sinners) who
did. Poth sexes, in full bathing costume, bathed to-
gether, and the arrangement struoi< me as a very
sensible one. The idea that there was any impropriety
about it never entered my head, although I can (|uite
believe that many a British matron, who sees nothing
objectionable in the semi-nudity and promiscuous
mixing of a modern ball-room, would have held up her
hands at tlie sight in virtuous horror. We wore
standing on the pier watching the antics of the
various groups of bathers, when a lady who was flopping
about with her husband in water about waist-high,
appeared suddenly to rv^cognise my friend. With that
frankness and freedom from oonventiouality which

147

very
propriety
an (luite
nothing
miscuous
lI up her
Ve wore
of the
flopping
ist-hiith,
ith that
which

oharActerise the Americans, she called out, " Oh ! you
should come in. It's/eal eleRant ! " (I have ventured
to translate the last two words, ^yhat she really said
was: "raal allygant.") I naturally looked at my com-
panion for an explanation of this incident ; for, so far
as it was possible to form any idea of the
personality of a lady in a bathing dress,
this particular Americaness was a stranger to me,
and I wondered how he knew her. His explar ition
was perfectly satisfactory. On leaving me behind at
Denver, he had travelled with her and lier husband for
many hours, and had formed something like confi-
dential relations with them. They were a Cincinnpti
couple, out for a little holiday trip of a few thousand
miles, and were "doing" the Mormon capital in
regular course.

MORMONISM AND POLYGAMY.

That unrcrt"nate illness of mine up at Leadville
npset my plans in more ways than one. I hud hojicd,
for instance, to have sufficient time in Salt Lake City
to make some investigations on the spot into tiio
delicate question of the "peculiar in.stitution " of
Mormondom. But owing to my loss of time at Denver,
I had reluctantly to abandon this part of my scheme,
and but for a lucky accident I should have had nothing
whatever to say about jiolygamy. That lucky accidtnt
befel me in this wise. Soon after leaving Salt Lake
City for San Francisco (of which journey I sliall have
more to say in a future chapter), I found that
one of the persons berthed in my car was
a young and intelligent merchant, carrying on
business in the Mormon capital- a man who, from
his virtual repudiation of Mormonism, his objections to
polysamy, and the frankness with which ho talked
about his fellow-citizens, was an admirable subject fi.r
cross-examination. I was in the sime car v'Mi this
gentleman for two days and a night, and th. i :

long enough to allow of the formation of .
intimate acquaintance. Before we reached the (.1 jli.
City, 1 was on tolerably contidential terms with the
citizen of the Mormon Zion, and I will try to give a
brief summary of the information he imparted to me in
a series of conversations extending over several hours.

It was not long before I discovered that Mr. C. (I
must not give his name in full) was a Mormon only
nominally. I told him of my discovery, and he ad-
mitted the soft impeaohmont.

" But," ho said, " I owe a great deal to Mormonism—
my position in life, if no ^reat si)iritual benefit. My
father was a London carpenter, with a larjjo family and
a small income. We all knew what hard tiiiies meant.
But while I was yet a little boy, my fatlier was con-
verted to Mormonism, and, as a family, we accepted:
his new creed. Mormomism opened up to us a prospect;
of an escape from a life ot poverty and toil. With
bright visions of an earthly Para lise beyond tlie Ilocky
Mountains, we gladly abandoned our Knglish home and
faced the perils of travel by sea and land. Tliero was
no Tacific Railroad in those days, and from the
Blissouri westward wo toiled along for weeks ovor
prairie and mountain, carrying our lives in our hands,
for the attacks of Indians upon the moving bands
of immigrants were incuEsant, and were somutiincs
marked by whoksaie massacre. But at last we were
rewarded for all the toils and dangers of the way. We
looked down from the summit of the last range of
mountains that had to be crossoil upon the Zion of our
hopes, and, as a family, we have all reason to be

thankful that my father's converaion brought us there.
We are all doing well ; whereas, if we had remained in
London, we should probably have continued poor to
the end of the chapter."

I suggested that he was taking a rather worldly view
of things, and remarked that what I wanted particu-
larly to learn something about was his own attitude
with regard to Mormonism. He was perfectly frank
with me.

"No," he said, "of course I don't believe in it.
My eyes were very soon opened on that subject. But
I am not e(|ually outspoken when I am at home, for I
tell you candidly that I don't feel enough zeal in the
cause of any existing religion to impel me to run a
crusade against the faith of my own family and
friends, to say nothing of the general com nunity of
Utah, I am surrounded with Mormons anu Mormon-
ism. Salt Lake City contains about 25,000 inhabit-
ants. Of that number only about 5,000 are Gentiles.
The balance of 20,000 consists entirely of Mormons,
real or nominal, 10,000 of these are in grim earnest,
and would, I believe, fight to the death for their creed.
The otiier 10,000 are more or less like myself —nominal
Mormons, more or less scepcic.-il, but declining to go
against the dominant religion, a id in many cases con-
forming outwardly to the demands of the Church."

" In what light, then, do the leading Mormons regard
you ?" I asked.

"Well, they know I am a sort of Gallic, for they
are i|uito aware that I am not often at the Tabernacle,
and not particularly prompt and regular in paying my
tithings. ]5ut then I a,m not openly hostile, and they
are obliged to tolerate my very obvious want of zeal."

At tliis point, something like his youthful zeal for
the faith of Joe Smith appeared for a moment to re-
turn and reanimate him, for, adopting a somewhat more
earnest toni, he continued—

" Not, mind you, but what I would as soon believe in
Mormonism as in any other religion. There are ele-
ments ill it which I dislike: ''Ut, on the other hand,
there are some real pretty 'Kiii^s about it."

The application of tht; |)eculiar national expression
" .>;i! pretty " to > religious belief struck me as
comica' and I asked 'lim, laughing, what he meant by
" pretts " doctrines.

" Well,'" ho said, "there are iiuite a few. Take, for
instance; the doctrine of i ptism for the dead. I am
not nov/ discussii'g whether it is true or false. AVTiat I
say is chat it is thr kind of thing to attract benevolent,
self sacrificing j • r.sons. They are told that by under-
going baptism themselves they may give a lift to their
friends who have passed into tho invisible world ; and
it is a fact that this lootrine proves attractive to
them.'"

" But," I said, course you do not regard poly-

gamy as one of yo . |irotty doctrines?"

"No," ho roiiliud, "I do not. I never believed in
it. I have no wife myself, ami I guess one is enough
for any man.""

Having tlius well started him on this ticklish sub-
ject, I endeavoured to lead him on by asking him to give
mo his cmdid opmion as to how polygamy woiked.

"Variously," ho replied, "In some of tho happiest
families I know in tho whole city tliere are two or more
wives. I, being a bachelor, am myself boarding at tho
house of a frirnd who has three wives, and there is
perfect harmony. At this time of the year, it is a very
common thing for my friend, myself, and one, two, or
all throe of his wives, to take our rocking-chairs out on
the stoop together in tho evening, and to sit chatting

:;d

pleaBantly by the hour, Tire males smoking and the
women sewing or knitting."

" Are there any children ? " I asVed.

"Yes," he said ; " all the wives have children."

" In what light do the children of one wife regard
the other women ? " I inquired,

" Oh, they get on all right together. The children
of each wife are taught to call the other wives
•Auntie.'"

"But," I said, "nobody who knows anything of
human nature — especially the female variety thereof —
can believe that such domestic harmony as you have
described is invariably the attendant of polygamy."

" Not by a jug-full ! " he rejlied, in that grotesquely
and quaintly figurative stylo so peculiar to the Far
West. " There u.u (jlenty of cases of the other sort, and
I am not the man to send you away with a false impres-
sion on that point. I have known jealousies and
troubles enough caused by the introduction of fresh
wives. And in this connection I am going to tell you
what you will find it very hard to believe, but what is,
nevertheless, a fact. The women are tliemselves
among the most active promoters of polygamy. Incred-
ible as the statement may appear to you, I tell you
seriously that I have known married men entrapped —
I might even sav seduced— by their own wives into
connections with other women, with the object of
bringing about their marriage with them. And I must
add that, in some of these cases, I have known the poor
foolish creatures to have good reason very soon to
repent their folly."

I may remark here that Mr, C.'s statements on this
subject — incredible as they appear — are fully borne out
by other evidence. In 1878, a mass-meeting of 2,000
Mormon women was held in the Opera House, Salt
Lake City, to protest against an attempt of the Gentiles
of the Territory to interfere with their " peculiar
Institution." The resolutions passed at this meeting
declared polygamy to be " one of the most important
principles of our holy religion," and some of the more
fanatical of those who attended raised the cry "Poly-
gamy or Death."

I questioned my Mormon companion as to the pros-
pects of Government interference with polygamy, and
I foun 1 he was doubtful as to whether anything would
ever come of it.

"The truth is," he said, "some of the loudest talkers
against the system in Congress are afraid to push
matters to extremities, for they live in glass houses
themselves. Polygamy was threatened again and
again during Brigham Young's life, but the threats
were never executed. Brigham sent spies to Washing-
ton, to worm out particulars as to the manner of life
of those who were loudest in their condemnation of
polygamy ; and he found, or pretended to find, that
these very men were practically polygamists them-
selves, but did not possess the courage and the candour
to call their practices by the right name. Whether
there was any truth in Brigham Young's statements I
do not know ; what is certain is, that ho threatened ex-
posure of certain i)oliticians, and that, as a matter ot
fact, nothing effectual was done to suppress polygamy
while he lived.

I found a very strong feeling ])revalent on the sub-
ject of polygamy in some of i,he Eastern States. More
than once, Americans said to me : " We put down
slavery, great though the cost was in money and in
human life ; and some day or other Uncle 8am will
put down his foot upon that nest of unclean birds in
Utah, aud will orusb it at any cost," This prediction

ia now being fulfilled. Some reeent legislation on the
subject has enabled the Federal Government to proceed
effectually against the polygamists, and the proprietor*
of some of the largest harems have had to make them-
selves scarce, in order to avoid arrest. Others have
been arrested, and only this week it is reported in the
newspapers that two or three of them have been con-
victed and sentenced to fines and imprisonment.

As long as the Mormons constituted a community
apart from the civilized world, separated from the rest of
the States by rugged mountains and trackless wilder-
nesses, they wi .'e able to count on something like
immunity for their unnatural and mischievous aocial
system. They did not obtrude themselves and their
institution on the outer Gentile world, and they ooou-
pied a position so remote and naturally so strong that
it would have been no easy task to coerce them. But
the opening of the Pacific Railroad and the spread of
population westward have brought about an entire
change in the situation. The Mormons are no longer a
people and a law unto themselves. They are close to
the chief highway of the continent, A k""*'^' Qputile
State has sprung up to the west of them, and on all
other sides a people to whom their social system ia
detpstable are gradually closing in around them. The
isolation on which they reckoned is already at an end,
and it is useless for them to kick against the pricks. It
is clear that polygamy has " got to go."

SALT LAKE CITY TO SAN FRANOISOO.
The Nevada Deserts.

As I have already ixplained more than once, the
main line of the Centra! Pacific Railroad extends from
Ogden to San Francisco, a distance of 833 miles. It is
simply a westward continuation of the Unior Pacific
line, which extends from the Missouri River to Ogden ;
but the two systems belong to and are worked by
different companies. The time occupied in the run
from Ogden to San Francisco is 37 hours, or about twt
days and one night. The express train leaves Ogien at
7.15 a.m. and arrives at the western terminus between
eight and nine p.m. of the foUowiUi; day. In order to
reach Ogden Junction in time, n'e had to leave Salt
Lake City between five and six in the morning. Time is
allowed at Ogden for a " square meal " before the Cen-
tral Pacific train starts on its long journey.

For nearly 100 miles after leaving Ogden, the line
skirts the northern and north-eastern shores of the
(iroat Sail I.ake. But the lake is not always in
sight, as its coast is very irregular, being indented on
the north by a peninsula of greit length, running, in
fact, out almost into the centre of the lake. It is not,
however, till four or five hours after leaving Ogden that
this great inland sea is finally lost sight of. Before
this happens, the train passes a station called Promon-
tory, which is of little present importance, but which
has a historical interest that will always render it
famous. It was at this point that the " marriage " of
the Union Pacific and Central Pacific lines tookplace, on
May 10th, ] 800, after tho wonderful and exciting compe-
tition in track-laying whi ii I described in a former chap-
ter. Promontory beingamere pointin space, so to speak—
a place of no importatioo, and not likely to become
imi)ortant, situated, as it is, on the edge of the Great
American Desert, tlip two companies " guessed " that
it was not a oonvenidit " location " for the junction of
their respective systems. It was, therefore, arranged
thattiie Union Pacific Co. should give up to the Central
Pacific the laat 53 milea it had laid and retire to

Ogden, and that that place, being the destined junction
for the Salt Lai' p City line southward and for important
branches northward, should be the transfer station of
the two systems. Of the whole 1,865 miles from the
Missouri Biver to the Pacific coast, 1,032 were thus
left to the Union Pacific, and 8:^3 to the Central Pacific.

Soon after passing Promontory, the traveller finds
himself traversing deserts such as he has probably
hitherto regarded as peculiar to Asia and Africa. But
perhans I am assuming that all travellers are as ignor-
ant as X Tas, and I had better, therefore, speak for my-
self alone. I am free to confess that the utter barren-
ness and enormous extent of these deserts were f
revelation to me. Hour after hour— all day long in-
deed, and all night long too — we traversed a region
well nigh as arid, and apparently as useless, as
the Sahara itself. The first part of the desert, for about
60 miles, is covered tiiiok with fine alkaline dust.
When there is anything like a wind, this dust is raised
in blinding clouds, penetrating the cars, however care-
fully and cunningly they may be closed, and irritating
the throats and nostrils of the passengers in a very dis-
agreeable fashion. Luckily for us, there was no wind
blowing when we crossed this forbid<ling region west-
ward ; and when we returned eastward, we traversed it
while asleep. The r^kali dust, therefore, caused us no
trouble, but the experience of many travellers is very
different.

The alkali plains once passed, the desert assumes a
somewhat less forbidding as|)ect, but it continues, with
a little variation here and there, for nearly 500 miles.
The only vegetation visible for hours at a .stretch is the
hardy and lowly sage brush already described. There is
little or no vestige of animal life near the railway, hue
the traveller is told that there is plenty of big game
away beyond the bare, savage mountain ranges which
almost everywhere close in the view.

It may be thought that a ride through such a country
is monotonous and tiresome. Monotonous it is. no doubt,
but I did not find it tiresome. As I have already stated,
I spent part of the time in gathering information from
a Mormon fellow-traveller about the Mormons and their
system of polygamy. But, apart from this, the hours
did not hang heavy on my hand?. There is something
to be seen every wiiere, if one only brings eyes
capable of discerning it. If one gains nothing else by
such a journey, he acquires new conceptions of im-
mensity. To rush at the tail of a looorjotive, through
a whole day and a whole night, across a "Wretch of
territory which on an ordinary map is repre; ted by a
perfectly bare patch such as can be covered with the
top of the thumb, is to learn how large the world is
from some points of view, small as it looks from other
points. But there is variety even in the monotony of
the desert. The mountains are all treeless and water-
less, but they are for ever assuming now shapes,
and (grouping themselves in new and unlooked-for com-
binations. To a traveller in any way interested in
mechanical affairs the wonderful engineering of the rail-
way is a perpetual study. I shall speak presently of the
marvellous feats by which the engineers carried the line
across the Sierra Nevada ; but apart from this great lift
the railway has many ups and downs such as are not to
be found on any line in Great Britain. The openness of
the country and the remarkal clearness of the atmos-
phere often enable the traveller to take in vast stretches
of the track at a single gla. ne, and to admire the skill
with which deep valleys have been crossed, and lofty
ridges, which seem to bar the way eU'eotually, have
b«en ciroumTeated or surmounted.

Eating Stations and the Triais of Eatkss,
The three daily stoppages at the " eating stations "
also go far to break the monotony of the journey. The
train pulls up amid the loud ringing of a bell or the
beating of a gong, and there is a wild and general rush
from the train to the refreshment room, where (the
attendants having been duly informed exactly when the
train would arrive) a variety of viands more or less
palatable and eatable is already served out into plates.
Eveiybody sets to without ceremony, and as if his life
depended on his clearing his plate within so many seconds.
As a miitter of fact, there is no real necessity for such
violent haste. Ample time is allowed for the meal. Every-
body knows this, and the officials repeat their assur-
ance of the fact on every occasion. But the assurance
produces no effect on the majority of the passengers.
For some inscrut^able reason, they all bolt their food in
one-half the alloti<Qd time, hurry back to the platform,
and there wait about impatiently for the starting of
the train. This haste is contagious, and it is dithoult
for the coolest oalcul-itor of time anc of his own eating
powers to resist its "".riuence. I more than once
muttered hard things anent my own folly in bolting
half a linner in 10 minutes, when I knew that 20 or 30
minutes were available, and that, whether I ate half a
dinner or a whole one, the inevitable dollar would have
to be handed over to the man or womp.n at the door as
I vent out.

The viands provided at 'hese eating-houses vary
greatly, both in nature an(i in riuality. Sometimes the
meal is an excellent one ; at other times, it is otherwise.
But it is fair to remember that, in many cases, almost
every article comprised in the bill-of-fare and in its
preparation has had to be procured from a distance of
hundreds of miles. Now and then, a dish of local
origin is to be met with, such as an antelope steak or
what passes under that alias ; but this is exceptional.
The greatest defect in the eating-house arra.ngements is
in the matter of cutlery, if, indeed, tlie term "cutlery"
can be applied to implements which will not out. The
knives are invariably plated articLs, which cannot be
ground or otherwise .sharpened without destroying the
plating. Consequently, there is no "cut " in
them; and the tough " beef -steak," or whatever the
mysterious fibrous substance may be which passes as
such, has ♦o be torn to pieces by sheer foroe.
These wretched knives often spoil what would
otherwise be a decent meal. This spoiling process
is also often assisted by another barbarism peculiar to
American refreshment rooms. The cotfec cupj are
simply small, thick, clumsy basins, without handles,
and it is almost impossible to drink out of them with-
out scalding the fingers. Imagine a nervous traveller,
a stranger to Western ways, trying to get a " squaro
meal "' aboard, under these ciicumstances. He is sur-
rounded by men who understand the business, but who
arc, nevertheless, bolting their food in defiance
of all physiological laws and to the ruin of
their digestive organs. They are apparently
eating and drinking against time ; and in
spite of the official assurance, "Plenty of time, gentle-
men !" the stranger is caught by the epidemic of
haste. Armed with the plated, edgeless knife afore-
.said, he struggles manfuUy with ins heef-stoak or his
antelope-steak, and after a des,)eratc contest contrives
to tear it into half-a-do/en pip jes. He scalds his fin-
gers and his throat with hif coffee, bolts a triangular
piece of the inevitable and omnipresent pie, leaves sev-
v,.»l ?ther delicacies untouched, and rushes to the door
with as much nervoua anxiety as if he saw the train

150

^''

§\

already in motion. He probably still has a quarter of
an hoar to the good, during which he can pace the plat-
form and thus assiut his stomach in commencing the
cruel task he has imposed upon it.

I asked more than once why the knives had no edges
(or rather, I should say, a good fraction of an inch too
much edge), and the cups no handles. The oxpliiniition
was always the same. Labour of the domestic kind
is 80 scarce that knifo-cleaning of the ordinary kind has
to be avoided as much as possible. Plated knives are,
therefore, used, becauf.e they can be quickly washed,
and reiiuire no other cleaning. As for the thick, strong,
handleless cups, they can be shovelled pell-mel) 'v^^o a
tub of water and washed in the mass. If thev h id
handles, this rough, wholesale treatment would st. vjn
rob thtm of those appendages. I was repeatedly half
frightened out of my remaining wits, when sitting in
eating-houses, by the noise of what appeared like an
avalanche of crockery. It was, I found, only some
"help " tumbling a tray-full of cups into a vessel of
water.

An Oasis in thk Deskkt.

One of the eating stations on the Central Pacific is
sure to live in the memory of all wlio have passed over
the line. It is called Humboldt, the Humboldt River
being not far off. It is in the midst of the most arid
and forbidding part of the Nevada desert. Barren
mountains frown down upon it on every side ; sage
brush is tl)e only kind of vegetation within the range
of vision. Tlie Railroad Company had to bring water
from a considerable distance for the .supply of its
engines ; and as its pipes bring more than is required
for this purpose, the surplus water has been emjiloyed
to irrigate a small area immediately around the .station.
The result is marvellous. Humboldt has become an
artificial oasis in the midst of the desert. Numerous
trees are growing luxuriantly. Tliere are patches of
turf which would do duty very well as English lawns.
There is even a fountain playing in the middle of a
basin containing gold fish, and diffusing a delightful
eoolnesp and moisture all around. The relief with
which the eye turns from the desert to feast upon the
delightful greenery of this tiny oasis is unspeakable. I
said "tiny," and tiny it is. For at the cry of "All
aboard 1 " you reluctantly climb into your car, and
before the engine driving-wheels have made a score of
revolutions, you are again in the desert, with the
prospect of having sage brush and naked hills for your
sole natural companions for many liours. The experi-
ence gained at Humboldt tends to modify one's opinions
as to the hopeless barrenness of the desert. It is appar-
ently all a question of irrigation ; and if only an
unlimited water supply can be found, the deserts of
Nevada may yet " blossom aj the rose."

An UNHKAIiTHY PlACK FOR EDITORS.

Passing a station called Palisade, about 158 miles east
of Humboldt, I noticed a branch line running away
towards the mountains to the south ; and, not having
my map at hand at the moment, I asked a fellow-
traveller whither it went. It was, he said, a branch
to a mining town called Eureka. Finding he knew
something of the place, I questioned him about it. He
lived there once, he said. VVhy did he leave it ? Wa'al,
because he wanted to go on living. There was, he said,
before he went there, only one newspaper in the place —
a Democratic organ ; and the Re|)ublicans of the place
induced him, by finding for him several thousand
dollars capital, to go there to start an opposition

(Republican) paper. He went and started it, and ran
it for a time. It paid him well ; nevertheless, he left
it, and shook the dust of Eureka off his feet. Again I
asked the reason why. Wa'al, he carried his life in his
hand all the time be was there. Running a Republican
paper in Eureka, and dealing, however tenderly, with
public abuses, was to disi|ualify oneself for insurance
in any respectable life office on any terms; it was,
indeed, as risky a business as leading a forlorn hope.
Ho had been shot at repeatedly — had been actually
shot, though not in any vital part, more than once ;
and this sort of thing became at last so monotonous
that he decided on leaviuf; Eureka — and he left. Two
editors who, one after another, succeeded him, had both
been shot dead, and nobody had been hanged or other-
wise punished for either crime. On bearing this tragical
story, I forthwith decided not to accept the editorship
of any newspaper in a Nevada mining town. Country
journalism in England has its drawbacks, no doubt — a
good many of them ; but, at any rate, our readers are
not accustomed to shoot the editor at sight whenever he
happens to bestow a little gentle criticism on them and
their doings. The ex-editor who thus edified me with
the story of his journalistic life, was a native of Shrop-
shire, and was, when I met him, travelling on behalf of
an insurance company— a business which he found safer
and more agreeable, if not more profitable, than writing
articles and being shot at in the interests of £urek»
Republicans.

More Coincidences.— A Break-down in the Desert.

Ilotween Humboldt and Palisade, I met, on my
return journey, with an adventure which is perhaps
worth describing here, inasmuch as it was attended by
a coincidence almost as striking as the one with which
I met at Chicago, where (as already mentioned) J
found a Yeuvil man in charge of my baggage at the very
moment when it was necessary tor me to establish my
identity and my claim to my trunk. It was somewhat
past mid-day, and we had just left behind a station called
Raspberry Creek, and entered on a 20-mile run to a
place rejoicing in the euphonious name of Winnemucca,
so called after a famous local Indian chief. I was dis-
cussing with an American fellow-traveller the ever-
lasting question of the relative excellence and speed of
English and American railway travelling. He
was describing to me a wonderful run of
over 100 miles without a stoppage which the
Chicago ex))res9 had recently begun to accomplish daily
on the Pennsylvanii' Railroad, somewhere between
Pittsburg and l''ort Wuyne ; and he remax-ked, with an
air of triumpli, " Why, they even pick up the water as
they run." After a decent interval, to allow him to
get a reasonable amount of enjoyment out of his sup-
posed triumph over the Britisher, I said :

" We have done that in England for many years — I
cannot say how many ; but some of the North Western
expresses have certainly watered without stopping for
12 or lo years."

At this moment, a gentleman in the next section of
the car, who had been intently listening to our discus-
sion, turned round, leaned over the back of his seat, and
(addressing me) said :

" Yes, sir, for a still longer time. I was a dri/er on
the North-Western myself, and watered my own engine
in that way at least eitjhtetn years ago."

I stared hard at the speaker ; so did my American
friend. And well we might. Here, in the midi^t of the
Nevada desert, a witness had dropped down Uom the

151

clouds, in the niok of time, to confirm by Iiis own per-
sonal jxperience a statement as to a working detail of
a particular English railway. The witness certainly
looked very little like an engine-driver, and his
turning up at that particular moment was so remark-
able that I might nave had a little <loul)t as to the
truth of his statement but for an incident which hap-
pened immediately afterwards. He had dropped down
mysteriously to confirm my assertion ; an event at
once occurred which put his own statements to the
test. The train was suddenly pulled up, for no
apparent reason, in the midst of the boundless expanse
of sage brush. No station or other building was visible
either behind us or ahead, as far as the eye could
reach. Looking out of the oar window, I saw that the
engine-men were crawling under thu ?ngine, the
conductor and baggage porter standing aloi^gside the
line looking on. Something had evidanily hap-
pened to the engine, and many of the male past:Qngers
at once alighted and walked towards the head o." the
train. The gentleman who claimed to be an old > oith
Western driver was among the first to reach it, and, on
learning the nature of the mishap, he at once thn^w olf
his coat, ciawled under the engine, and set to work to
help the driver and fireman as only one familiar with .".
locomotive could do. The eccentric which gave motion
to one of the cylinder valves had broken, Repair was
out; of the question, and there was nothing to be
done but to disconnect one cylinder, and to n ake
an effort to reach AVinnemucca by means of the other.
The disconnecting business involved two hours of ht rd
work .on the part of the engine-men and their voluntt?r
assistant, and many were the spec;. laf ions among the
passengers as to whether a single cylinder, with its two
" dead points" at every revolution, would ever get the
huge train under way. It happened, however, that the
line was almost perfectly level all the way to the next
station, and, once moving, we got on .at a very fair
pace. Another engine was waiting for us at Wiune-
mucca, and the time we had lost war, easily made up
before we reached Ogden.

Over the Sierra Nkvadas.

On our westward journey, we retired to our berths in
the midst of the desert, soon after passing Be-o-w .■ we,
a place which is doubtless perfectly familiar to my
readers. When we rose in the early morning, we had
begun to ascend the valley of the Truckee Kiver, and
we knew that the glories of the Si«rra Nevada mountains
were near at hand. We sto-jjped for breakfast at Keno,
and from this poitit westward the journey increased in
interest every mile. Tho mountains, clothed with
forests, were closing in around us, and the .scenery
formed a perfect contrast to that on which we had
looked during the whole of the previous day. I have
already described so fully the mode in which tho rail-
ways of the West approach and scale a great mountain
chain that I need not enter into details on this occa-
sion, except in so far as the Central Pacific engineering
is peculiar.

The ascent of the Sierra Nevadas really begins at a
place called Browns, which we passed soon after four in
the morning. That station is 3,t)2<J feet above sea
level. By the time we reached Reno, our breakfast
station, we had risen to 4,497 feet. Between this point
and Truckee, which was reached at 10 o'clock, another
1,300 feet is added to the height, the altitude of
Truckee being 5,81!) feet. It is between Truckee and
Summit that the greatest rise takes place. In that
distance of 15 miles, the tioia ia lifted bodily

exactly 1,200 feet, and this short run oocnpiea
an hour. In that distance, the line doubles back upoa
itself twice. It foUows tho left hand side of a deep
valley for several miles, rising all the time ; it then
crosses the valley a.nd turns back along the opposite
side, still mounting iiigher and higher at every stei).
It is thus brought to ihe end, and nearly to the top, of
a spur of the main range ; and, turning sharply round
the shoulder of this spur, it resumes something like its
former direction i and the train at once loses sight of
the valley up which, first on one side and then on the
other, it has been toiling so long.

There is one drawback to the enjoyment of this
wonder ul ride, and that is a serious one. The snow-
fall in tud Sierra Nevada is immense, and all the higher
levels and more exposed parts of the line have to be
protected from snow drifts and avalanches by timber
sheds of enormous strength. These snow-sheds almost
deserve a chapter to themselves. Their vast extent,
their great cjst, the elaborate and expensive precau-
tions which have to be taken to protect them against
fire, are all matters of the greatest interest. But
my space is limited, and I must nut go into
details. Suthce it to say that, when about
half-way between Truckee and Summit, the train
inshes into one of these sheds which, with a few breaks
of i\ few yards each, extends for ^S miles. Summit
Station itself is in the shed. It is tantalizing in the
extreme, as you rush through these interminable
galleries, varied occasionally by a short tunnel through
".olid rock, to know that you are in the midst of some of
the most Rorgeous scenery on the American continent.
Now and then, the train rushes into the open for a few
seconds, or you catch instantaneous glimpses of the outer
world through small openings in the side of the ahcd,
and thus you become conscious of the fact that, far
down in tht valley below you, there lies a lake of the
most exquisite beauty, enibo.".^':ied in forests and
mountains. This is Donner Lake. Lake Tahoe, a
much larger and equally beautiful sheet of water, is in
theimmediace neiglibourhood, though not visible from
the line. The whole district is, indeed, so charming,
that the traveller who can spare tJ . time ought to stop
at Truckee for a few days, and make it his business to
explore it thoroughly.

But, the snow sheds once pfissed, the run down into
the plains of California is an experience of mii /els
and delights such as can never be forgotten. At no one
poinu between Ogden and Summit does the line fall
lielow the 4,000-feet level, bo that the ascent of
the mountains on the east side is only about 3,000 feet,
and this rise is spread over l.'iO miles. But on the
weitern slope the descent of tho whole 7,000 feet,
right ^wn to within 50 feet of sea level, is
made at one gigantic plunge, between Summit and
Sacramento. The distance is but little over 100 miles,
and the time occupied in the run down is five hours. In
that time and distance, the train falls through a space
ec|ual neaily to half the height of Mont Blanc. The
Colorado railways already ae.scribed ascend to greater
heights than the Central Pacific reaches at Summit ;
but then they all start from a high level — viz., that of
the Colorado i)lain, which is more than 5,000 feet above
the sea. .There is not one of them which rises 7,000 feet
in little over 100 miles. In that resj)ect. the Central
Pacific stands alone, in North America, if not in the
world.

For five successive hours, the train needs little
Svoam-power to keep it moving. The driver's chief
buuness is to moderate, by means of the brakes, the

152

,1 ;

■i
I .1,

it.

downward rash due to gravitation alone, 1,400 feet;
perpendioulnr per hour is the rate at which the truiu
18 thus let down, and 70 feet per mile is the average
gradient. On the first 50 miles west of Summit, the
gradient is 85 feet per mile.

I need hardly say that such a descent as this, through
a range of rugged mountains, was not accomplished
without a display of engineering Hkill of the mo.st
daring kind. The 50 miles of line immediately west of
Summit displays, indeed, the most wonderful en-
gineering to be seen on any part of the main
route between New ^Tork and San Francisco. The
journey over this section is full of surprises. The
most unsusceptible and matter-of-fact passenger is
roused to something like enthusiasm, and rushes
about from side to side of the car, or to and from the
platform at the end, so as not to miss a single scene in the
ever-changing panorama. The scenery itself is superb,
and one's enjoyment of it is heightened by the endless
variety of points from which the moving train allows it
to be vi&wed. The train winds about like a huge
serpent, here to avoid some towering height whicli
rises straight up in its path, there to circumvent some
deep nivine which for the moment seems to render
its further progress impossible. Here and there, it
clings to and winds round the bare face of an almost

Eerpendicular mountain, on a more shelf which was
lasted out of the solid rock by workmen let down by
ropes from above. The most noted point of this descrip-
tion is called Cape Horn, some 50 or 55 miles above
Sacramento. Looked up at from the American
Kiver Canon, nearly 2,000 feet below, the rail-
way appears to be simply a thread stretched
round the mountain's brow. A nerve steadied
by previous experience is needed to enable one to look
down from the line into the Canon, unmoved, even
though the train may be cautiously working its way
round the face of the precipice at a speed of only 10 or
12 miles an hour. There is, however, nothing to fear.
The line is well laid on the solid rock ; the rolling stock
is of the best ; the brakes are simply perfection ; and
the engineers the most careful of men, working by strict
rule. A flying leap into the valley is, of course, possible ;
but no train has yet accomplished the feat, and there is
no particular reason why it should ever be performed.
Those who are thinking of going to California need not
be deterred by thoughts of Cape Horn. The thought
of it and the neighbouring marvels ought, on the con-
trary, to be among the greatest inducements to them to
undertake the journey.

Before the train has completed its descent into the
plains, the traveller begins to realise to what an extent
man is capable of spoiling the most beautiful nfitural
scenery. The line passes tij rough a district which lias
yielded vast quantities of the precious metals, and the
operations of the miners have converted a great part of
the region on both sides into a hideous wilderness. For
mile after mile, the country looks as if it had been
devastated by a particularly insane earthquake. The
very bowels of the earth appear to have been turned
inside out, and left exposed in all their hideous ugliness.
And that is precisely what has happened. The miners
found that hand digging with spade and pick was too
slow a business, and with true American ingenuity
they called to their aid the only great natural
force immediately available. That force was water, of
which an endless supply was always pouring down the
mountain side. Not only was the quantity ample, but
it all poured down from great heights ; that is to say,
there was plenty of " fall " ; and where there is abun-

dance of water and plenty of fall, there is power. The
problem was how to make the water dig the gold. The
problem was very soon solved, and hydraulic mining
came into existence.

The water is taken prisoner at a great height above
the scene of operations, and brought down in pipes oon-
structed to withstand tremendous pressure. As it
issues with little less than the force of a cannon-ball
from a nozzle at the lower end of the pipe, the
stream is directed upon the soil which has to be
broken up, and the soil goes down just as if it were so
much salt or sugar. The most closely-packed strata are
powerless to resist the jet. They literally melt away.
The softer materials are washed into the streams ; the
harder ones, even when consisting of rooks of con«
siderable size, are effectually scattered. Whatever
gold there may be is easily secured from among the
smaller dibris. The pressures at which these jets are
used are such as one never hears of except in connection
with the hydraulic press. Sometimes the head of water
exceeds 500 feet, and I have heard of a pressure of
1,300 lbs. to the square inch. Such a stream, issuing
from a six-inch nozzle, comes out as solid, appirently,
as a cylinder of ice. Its force is irresistible. The most
solid bed of cement crumbles away before it, and huge
boulders, weighing tons, are tossed about as if they
were pebbles.

Imagine many square miles of soil literally torn to
pieces and disintegrated by such a potent agency as
this, and then left in the state of chaos to which it has
been reduced, and you will begin to form an idea of
what the country alongside the Central Pacific Kail-
roud is like in the neighbourhood of Dutch Flat and
Gold Kun.

But the mining region is soon left behind ; and the
train, still running down hill, but upon a gradient
which is constantly becoming gentler, enters on one of
the great wheat-growing districts of California. That
State was entered several hours before— some time,
indeed, before the summit of the Sierras was reached ;
but it is not until, first the gold-fields, and then the
wheat-fields are reached that one begins to discover the
features which are supposed to be characteristic of the
Golden State. The wheat had all been cut and
thrashed long before the date of our visit ; and the
grain, in countless sacks, was stacked in the open air
in huge, symmetrical blocks as large as English corn
ricks. I was told that it might be safely left there for
many weeks more without running the slightest risk of
bomg damaged by rain. The seasons of California are,
apparently, slightly more regular and trustworthy than
the weather of the British Islands.

To the wheat fields succeed vineyards on a large
scale. At one point, the line passes through a single
vineyard which I was told contained 2,000 acres. Wine-
growing is one of the many industries of California,
and it is carried on on an ever-increasing scale. The
one of the fruits which the
abundance and in perfection,
we reached Denver, the news-
the cars brought round for
sale magnificent pears which hailed from California.
Considering their abundance, they were abominably
dear. " Three for a quarter " was the usual rate ; that
is to say, the pears were about 4d. each. I remember
telling one ot those lads— a particularly "cheeky"
youngster — that the fruit was too dear for me. "Oh,
well," he said, "when you get to California, you will
bo able to steal it." Presently, he came round in the
most anooncerned way and pressed me to bay some-

grape is only
State yields in
Long even before
paper boys in

153

thins else. It was then my tarn. "No, thank yon," I
replied. " I may as well wait till I reach California,
and steal that too."

Between •Sacramento, which is the state capital of
California, and San Francisco, which is its commercial
capital, the traveller bas to cross two separate arms
of San Francisco Bay. The first of these crossing-
places is at Benicia, and here the train (engine and all)
IS taken on board a flat-bottumed steam vessel of huRO
dimensions and ferried across bodily. This ferry-boat
is said to be the largest of its kind in the world,
and it is certainly a marvellous structure. Three
or four lines of rail run parallel to each
other over its whole length. It lies in a dock
whioh it exactly fills, and an ipclined plane, turning on
a pivot at one end and rising and falling according to
the state of the tide at the other, connects the land
lines with those on the deck. On the arrival of the
train, it is broken up into three or four sections, and
run upon the deck with a celerity which is simply
amazing. In a very few minutes, the huge boat is
moving off towards the opposite shore, a distance of two
or three miles. On its arrival there, it is steered with
the greatest accuracy into a dock similar to that from
which it started, an inclined plane— the counterpart of
that on the other side— is lowered upon the deck, and in
as little time as it takes to write this description the
various sections of the train are dragged ashore, coupled
up, and started on the last stage of the journey. The
actual terminus of the railway is at Oakland, a suburb
of San Francisco, separated from the city by the whole
width of the harbour. Here the traveller finally
leaves the cars, enters a magnificent ferry boat belong-
ing to the railway company, and in a few minutes is
put ashore at the foot of Market Street, the great
central thoroughfare of San Francisco. We arrived
there late in the evening, and at once entered a cable
car, which within five minutes set us down at the doors
of the " biggest hotel in Creation."

SAN FRANCISCO.
The Gold Fever of '48.

It was in the year 1848 that California's vast stores of
gold were first revealed to the world, and those whose
memories go back to that period will readily recall the
wild excitement to whioh the discovery gave birth, and
the equally wild rush which adventurers from every
point of the compass made for the Golden Gate. I
was at that time about 14 years of age (ladies who are
curious about my age, please copy), and I remem-
ber the excitement and the rush as distinctly as if they
were things of but yesterday. I have good reason to
remember them ; for the truth is the gold fever and
the thirst for adventure seized upon me, even as they
seized upon thousands equally young. The stories daily
published of men growing rich in a day fired my youth-
ful imagination, and I went to bed nightly to dream
over schemes of working my passage out to the golden
land, and of returning, after no long absence, the
possessor of untold wealth. Fortunately fot their peace
of mind, my friends never knew how near I was at one
time to making an actual start.

It is an amazing fact that San Francisco has come
into existence, and gro n into a city greater than
Bristol, since the perif^ I *hich is thus so well within my
own recollection. The site now covered hj the city was
in 1848 a group of barren hills, some of w'.ich consisted
of loose sand, blown hither and thither by the strong
Pacific breezes. Among the earliest settlers was a

gentleman of my aoc^naintanoe who is now spending the
remnant of his days m a West of Enffland city. When
he and his brother entered the Golden Gate with a
stock of drugs which they had brought from Buenos
Ayres, they had to transfer their belongings from the
ship to boats, to row as near the beach as possible, and
to finish the business by wading ashore with the goods
on their shoulders. And this was at a spot where stately
ships from all parts of the world now load and unload
daily alongside miles of i[unys and wharves.

San Francisco contained about a thousand inhabitants
In 1848, but two years later the population had in-
creased to 25,000. In 1860, the number was nearly
57,000 ; in 1870, it had reached 150,000 ; while at the pre-
sent moment it is understood to be about 260,000.

A Grand Position.

It would not be easy to imagine a more splendid
position for a great commercial city than that of San
Francisco. A vessel approaching it from the open
Pacific sails first up a channel less than a mile in width
and about six miles in length. The entrance to this
channel is tho far-famed Golden G:ite, so called either
from the fact that it is tho ocean gateway to the
Golden State, or, as I have elsewhere beard the name
explained, because the setting sun pours a flood of
golden light up the channel. Arrived at the inner end
of this channel, a vessel finds itself in San Francisco
I3ay— an inland sea of considerable length, and entirely
landlocked except as regards the Golden Gate entrance.
This inland sea constitutes a single vast harbour,
protected by two peninsulas of varying width
from the storms of the open ocean. Those
peninsulas, whose extremities are separated by the
Golden Gate, run res|)ectively north and south. Tho
northern half of the inland sea thus enclosed sends a
long arm up into the country eastwards. As each of
the peninsulas is something like 30 miles in length, the
main bay is over 60 miles long, and it is obvious that it
and its eastern branch present between them a coast-
line of vast extent. This coast is dotted with numerous
cities and village^:, all of which possess water commu-
nication with San Francisco, to which they all look up
as the London or New York of the whole district.

San Francisco stands at the northern extremity of
the southern peninsula already described, and slopes
down eastward to the shore of the bay. A vessel which
has entered by the Golden Gate, therefore, turns south-
ward (or to the right) as soon as she reaches the bay,
and almost immediately finds herself off the city ^uays.
Those who have followed me in this brief description of
the situation of the city, and who remem-
ber that this was the nearest part of the
coast to tba rich gold-fields discovered in 1848
and 1849, will find no difficulty in understanding
why San Francisco has become the greatest inlet and
oiitlf t for the commerce of the Western States and
Territories. Not that the supremacy of the city has
been altogether unch.allenged. The opening of the
Northern Pacific Railroad has recently elevated Port-
land (Oregon) into a sort of rival, at a very humble
distance, of its mighty and wealthy neighbour ; and
the approaching completion of the Canadian Pacific
Railroad is sure to be followed by the springing up of
other Pacific ports at a still higher lalitude. Between the
competition of Portland and the ;;eneral depression of trade
throughout the States, the profii)erity of San Francisc"
has of late sulfered a slight check. But I do not believe
it possible for any rival to supplant her. The more
northern ports will, undoubtedly, thrive on tho trade of

164

li'

the TAst dintriots of which thoy form tho outlets, in pro
portion as those districts become a.' ttled ; but notliiii;
can rob the older city of her splendid natural ailvun
ttiges, or of the fruits of her own marvollouH
enterprise. The attempts of the other and newer cities
to overtake her will probably be similar to the otrorts
of a child to uveruaice a man in the matter of age.
The boy rapidly adds to tho number of his years, and
becomes successively a youth and an adult man. But
the man adds to his years also, and always m.iintains
the original distance between himself and his rival. Ho,
I apprehend, rortlmd (Oregon) and the city which has
yet to be built at the terminus of the Canadian Tacific
Railroad will grow in size and prosperity as they grow
in years ; but I shall be greatly surprised if the great
oity which sits at the Golden Qate should fail to keep
them well in the rear.

The city stands mainly, as I liave already explnined,
on a group of hills. Some of the lower parts, however,
are on " made ground " — tliat is, on ground reclaimed
from the harbour. Where tho ships of the first comers
floated in deep water in 1848 there are now paved
streets, full of bustle and trade. Some of the hills
were originally cut up and separated by abrupt gullies
and ravines. These have been filled up ; but the
slopes of lomo of the hills are still so steep that,
although they are laid out in streets and partially built
over, no ordinary wheeled vehicle can traverse them. It
was in order to provide a means of locomotion specially
suited to these frightful gradients that a Californian
genius invented the cable oar, a full description of which
was given in one of my articles on Chicago, a city where
it is also largely used. For such hilly streets its some of
those in Francisco, the cable car is admirably adapted.
But for it, indeed, some of the streets could
never have boon used at all for locomotion, and
would probably never have been constructed. As
the Pacific coast and the Golden Gate are approached,
the hills gradually assume a more and more sandy
character, until at last they take the form of mere
heaps of loose white sand, utterly devoid of vegetation,
into which sand tho pedestrian sinks over his boots at
every step. Impelled by the strong winds which blow
daily from the Pacific, this sand whirls and
shifts about continually. It is apparently engaged in
a perpetual effort to reconquer and overwhelm the dis-
tricts which have been reclaimed and built over,
and if it were left to itself, it would undoubtedly
very soon succeed so far as the northern and western
outskirts of the city are concerned. But the contest is
not a one-sided one. The citizens not merely hold their
own against the sand ; they are constantly, if slowly,
pushing tho enemy back towards the ocean. Some of
the sand mounds have been removed bodily, while in
other places the arid wastes have been planted with
special kinds of shrubs and grass, which presently bind
the surface together, and check, if not altogether stop,
the drifting.

The Golden Gate and its Park.

Between the city and the Golden Gate the visitor
comes suddenly upon a charming park, rivalling, in the
beauty of its trees, the verdure of its turf, and the per-
fection of its flower-beds, any English park I know,
public or private. It is difficult to believe that this
paradise has been created out of the desert. Such,
however, is the almost literal fact. There were, I
believe, a few groups of rather scrubby trees on the site
when the work of laying out the park was commenced ;
but they ooastituted about the only element which

unassisted Nature contributed to the work, A laviih
expenditure of labour and money has done thereat.

No visitor to San Francisco fails to visit the Golden
Gate, and to look out across the miglity Pacific towards
far-off China and Japan. On the edge of a cliff, a few
hundreds of yards south of the Gate entrance, stands a
refreshment house called the Cliff House, and hither
and to the beach below the San Franciscans , resort in
their thousands on all popular holi lays. The Cliff
House has a long balcony overhangi< (4 the cliff. Here
visitors sit with field glasses obligingly provided for the
purpose, and connected by a chain to a large ring,
which the observer puts over hia head, so
as to save the glass from destruction if it
happens to slip from his hand. The special object of
the glasses is to enable visitors to get a good view of a
great herd, or flock, or school, or shoal (which is it ?)
of seals and sea lions which are everlastingly disport-
ing themselves upon and around a group of rocks a few
hundred yards from the shore. These strange creatures
are public pets, being protected from molestation by a
city ordinance or a state law. Their gambols are cer-
tainly very amusing. Every moment some of them take
headers into tho waves, while others are scrambling up
again in their clumsy fashion. All the time, they keep
up an incessant noise which is a cross between a grunt
and a bark. Everybody has to see the seals. A
stranger who had visited the oity without paying his
respects to them would be regarded as "real mean."
Ho would be looked upon as a rustic who goes to
London, and fails to .see the Zoo, is regarded by his
fellows. There is, however, something besides
seals ami water to be seen from the Cliff
House. In and out of the Golden Gate pass
shii)s innumerable— great steamers for China and
Japan, others, equally fine, for the Sandwich Islands
and Australia, splendid sailing vessels crammed with
grain for Liverpool and other European ports, some
kind of craft or other for everywhere. The Golden
Gate is the channel between the whole of the United
States on the one hand and India and the Far East on
the other ; nay, certain kinds of light traffic between
Western Europe and China and Japan pass through the
great Californian port.

STREKTa and Bdildinos.

The .streets and buildings of San Francisco vary im-
mensely in character and attractiveness. Some of the
main thoioughfares are lined with splendid public and
private buildings, and are provided with good solid stone
sidewalks of great width. Of the street paving little
that is favourabl can be said, except where the Cable
Car Companies have laid narrow tracks of squared and
perfectly-fitting stone between their rails. Whoever
wants to ride without dislocating his joints and bruising
his softer tissues in an alaiming manner eschews every
kind of vehicle which does not run on rails. The cable
cars carry one anywhere and everywhere for five cents.
The street hacks and coaches reckon their fares by the
dollar, probably because the badness of the paving ren-
ders it necessary to repair or renew their springs daily.

But many of the streets are still lined almost
throughout with the dingy wooden shanties which
were hastily "run up " in the early days of the city ;
and in nearly all such streets as these the sidewalks are
still of wootl, more or less worn and rotten. While the
softe- parts of the planking have been worn almost
throU};h by the daily tramp of ten thousand well-
shod feet, tile hard knots and the heads of huge nails
are left standing up like the rooky pinnacles of a

ini

Colorado "park " on whioh erosion has prodaced little
effect. It is unnecessary to say that xuch a side-walk
has to be navigated with tho fj;reatcst care, even when
no gaping pitfalls, due to the actual breaking away of
the planks, exist — as, however, they often do. Tho
tolerance and good humour with whioh Americ.ms [lut
up with diingerH and nuisances of this sort aro
phenomena whioh simply amaze foreigners. The
citizens, who elect their own local rulers, have nobody
to blame but themselves, and I suppose it is because
they fully recognise this fact that they tolerate without
a murmur a state of things which would drive an
English community frantic, and lead to the summary
lynching of its Corporation or Local Board.

But while San Francisco runs the outskirts of Chicago
hard in the matter of dingy and repulsive frame
shanties, it shows the world what wood is capable of as
material for housebuilding in the hands of skilful
architects, instructed by rich men who are preiiared to
spend freely. T'here are in San Francisco, especiiilly on
California Street, mansions, consisting almost entirely
of wood, which, for size, apparent stability, and
architectural beauty, yield the palm to few West end-
of London palaces. Until I came near enough to
examine these buildings closely, I could not believe
that they were not built of massive masonry. It may
be asked why men to whom money is no
object should prefer to build their houses of
a material which is so easily burnt and so
prone to decay as wood. But the truth is, tho particu-
lar timber which is now mainly used in building in San
Francisco is a red wood from the Sierras, whioh neither
burns freely nor decays readily. Moreover, fire and de-
cay are not the only enen.ies the inhabitants have to
think of. The city is liable to slight shocks of earth-
quake. These are seldom or never serious enough to
throw down any decently-built house ; but, of course,
there is never knowing exactly what may happen,
and many citizens prefer to keep on the safe side
by building with materials which are nut easily shaken
to pieces. It is said that there are wooden palaces in
the city whioh cost a million dollars. I oannot vouch
for the accuracy of this estimate ; but, speaking from
personal observation, I can say that the mansions of
Mr. Stanford and Mr. Crocker, magnates of tho
Central Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroads, and of
one or two other possessors of millions, are apparently
among the most costly private residences I ever saw.
When I was in the city, a plot of ground on California
Street, at the top of a hill commanding a fine bird's-
eye view of the place, was being prepared for the
erection of a mansion for Mr. Mackay, tlie Silver King,
whose income is said to be a million or two sterling a
year. It need hardly be said that his house will con-
stitute another notable addition to the city.

A Huge Hotel.

Speaking of my arrival in San Francisco, I said I
went at once by oar to the "biggest hotel in Creation."
On consideration, and not being a Yankee, I withdraw
that statement, as I know nothing of the hotel accom-
modation in the other planets, to say nothing of more
distant worlds. But I think I am safe in saying this —
that the Palace Hotel, San Francisco, is, even now that
the vast Hotel Metropole is open in London, the largest
place of the kind in the world, with the exception of
one or two huge caravanserais, at Saratoga and else-
where, which are "run" only a small part of
the year. The " Palace " covers an entire block,
and therefore faces four separate streets. It is

Mi feet by 2G5 feet, and is seven storles^hlgh.
The ground story alone has a height of over 27 feet,
and the other stories aro from 14 to 10 feet. The
building is, therefore, something like KiO feet high.
Every out8i<le window is a " bay ;" ami as there are
three or four hundred of these windows, the building,
as viewed from any commanding standpoint, towers
above the general level of the city roofs like a gigantic
sijuare birduagi'. 'i'he walls are of stone, but
they are so braced and interlace<l with iron
that it is believed tho hotel could only be
seriously damaged by a renlly .violent earthquake, of
its monotonous architecture the less said the better; but
of its adaptation to the purposes of a groat hotel it is
difficult to say too much. It is built round a vast
central court, whose ({lass roof is on a level with the
main roof of tho building. This court is surrounded
by an open gallery on each of tho six upper floors, and
the galleries are supported by round and graceful
jiillars, for which I felt considerable res|)ect as long as I
thought them polished marblo. When I found, through
noticing a long slit in one of them, that they were only
painted wood, my respect evpporatcd. The arrange-
ment is, nevertheless, a ver> oll'octive one, especially
when the cuurt is illuminated by the electric light, and
animated groups are moving about below or promenad-
ing the nu, nrous galleiies above.

The Palace Hotel contains 1,300 rooins. The week be-
fore we iirrived there, tiie Knights Templars— some
kind of Masonic body — from all parts of the States had
been holding their annual gatherings in the city, and the
hotels were filled to overflowing. We were told that the
''Palace " contri veil, by putting an extra bed in every
room and filling the wide corridors with other beds, to
sleep — at any rate, to provide with lying-down places —
3,000 persons. Its culinary departtneat was even more
severely tested, foritwas said that .5,000 persons were fed
daily. I heard that 100,000 dollars passed through the
hotel cashier's hands during that week. We met the
"knights" and their "ladies" returning eastward in
shoals as we went westw.inl, and by the time we reached
the city, the vast crowd of visitors had, fortunately,
disappeared ; but many of the gaudy decorations which
the citizens bad put up in honour of their guests still
hung about the streets with a faded and belated air.

A MiUAor-K.

About six o'clock in the evening of the first day we
spent in San Francisco, my travelling companion
telegraphed home to his friends, to let them know we
had reached t'ue extreme limit of our wanderings. Next
morning, when we came down to breakfast, a reply
from his family was awniting him. The marvels of the
telegraph have become so famili:tr and commonplace a
thoine that it is not easy now-a-days to pump up much
amazi^ment over them. But I confess that the
prom )tness of this reply brought home to me,
as no similar event had ever done, the apparently
snpernatur.U character of the agent which we daily
compel to do our bidding without a thought as to its
marvellojs way of doing it. For two whole months, we
had been pushing westward more or less rapidly— over
the trackless ocean, up great rivers and inland seas,
across interminable prairies and weary deserts, and over
the summits of lofty mountain chains. Between 7,000
and 8,000 miles of these vast obstacles separated us
from home. Nevertheless, without going outside of our
hotel, we were thus able to speak to those whom
we had left behind, and thus to hear their reply.
While our friends at home were sleeping, the swift

1S6

(, if

tneiMn^er wr^ rnihinp; towards them, with the weleomo
meosage on his wings, with a spcod which arithmctiu
findH it hard to oxprcHS. Vaulting over mountain
ranges, rushing across desert and prairiu alilce, plung-
ing deep down into the ooeitn on the wild coast of New-
foundland and climbing up out of it again on the shores
of Ireland or Cornwall— swift as light, swifter than
the pen or the imagination can follow the various
stages of the mighty journey— this meHRonger sped,
and ho laid his message on a certain break-
fast table in a far-otf Somersetshire village.
Despatched almost immediately with an answer,
untiredand untirable, he flew back while we slept, and
his missive was under the roof of our hotel long before
we came down to our breakfast. The same kind of
thing is, of course, going on daily, and familiarity with
the phenomenon has blunted our sense of wonder, if
it hits not, in the word.s of the proverb, br^d contempt.
Bat it is as wonderful as ever, and we ai<? apparently
as far off as ever from an explanation of iht' seeming
miracle, useful and docile as we find the mi^a'^ulous
agent to be.

More Hotels.— Thb Biogkst Telbscopb in xhk
World.

The " Palace " is not the only monster hotel in the
city. The Baldwin House is another enormous place,
which in the splendour of its appointments is said to
be second to no hotel in the United States. The
Grand, the Occidental, the Rnss House, and the Lick
House are other Qi st-class hotels. The last-named took
its name from its builder and first proprietor, J\Ir. Lick,
an eccentric Ualiforuian who loft nearly tlie whole of
his vast wealth for the construction and endowment
of an astronomical observatory, to possess the most
powerful telescope in the world. Mr. Lick was a
man of little education, but he took it into his bead
that he would like his own State to " lick Creation "
in the matter of an observatory. He was bent on secur-
ing " a million-dollar telescope " for it, and caused in-
quiries to be made in Pane »c to whether the construction
of such an instrument was p.acticable. The reply of
the Parisian instrument-makers was exactly what so
shrewd a man as Mr. Liok might have been expected to
anticipate. They said : "Why, if we make you a telescope
and charge you a million dollars for it, of course, you
will have a million-dollar telescope " — which nobody can
deny. Mr. Lick did not live to see his great design
carried out ; bat the trustees of his estate have built
the observatory on a suitable eminence, and the tele-
scope is now in course of construction somewhere on this
side the Atlantic.

A Strange Climate.

The climate of San Francisco is ^aid to be very
healthy, but truth compels me to add that it is not
pleasant. The city suffers no great extremes of heat
and cold as between summer and winter. The average
temperature at sunrise for the whole of February, the
coldest month, is above freezing point, and the average
at mid-day in the hottest montlis (Jane to September)
is only 64°. The difference between summer and
winter is comparatively small. It is the differences
which arise during the same day that are the trying
and disagreeable element in the 'Climate. It is impos-
sible to know how to dress, i >\iring the forenoon, it
may be very warm — warm enough to induce a stranger
to don his thinnest summer raiment. But soon after
mid -day, a cold wind sets in from the ocean which soon
pulls the thermometer down 10, 15, or 20 degrees,

i<nd continues to blow till nlKht-fall. This happens
pretty regularly for six or seven months in tho
year, and those tho months which we call summer.
And, unfortunately, this ocean breeze does not oome
empty-handed. It brings with it a white mist which
rolls in dense clouds up and over the hills, rendering it
provokingly difficult to obtain a complete view of the
city at any one time. The wind brings, too, a good
deal of sand from the sandy hills already described,
and it is difficult sometimes to say whether the solid
or the fluid contributions of the breeze to the discomfort
of the inhabitants are the greater nuisance. As the
sand-hills are conqnered piecemeal, and built over or
brought under cultivation, the plague of sand will
gradually abate ; but it is not easy to see how the fogs
are to be abolished. It was at the end of August and
beginning of September that we were in San Francisco.
We required our neck wrappings and overcoats
buttoned close up every afternoon, and there
were blazing fires daily in the drawing-rooms of the
hotel. This sounds strange to those who remember
that San Francisco is in the same latitude as Naples.
A little work on California now before me thus sums
up the climatic peculiarities of the city :— " There is ao
conceivable admixture of wind, dust, cloud, fog, and
sunshine that is not constantly on hand during the
summer at San Francisco.'' I ought to add here that
the Climate of San Francisco is not a fair specimen of
tL»^ jf California generally. The cold ocean breezes
and mists penetrate but a short distance inland. Oak-
land, on the opposite side of the bay, and within half
an hour's steaming of San Francisco, is almost entirely
free from them, and its delightful climate has in-
duced many of the wealthy citizens to fix their
residences there.

Rrnts and Theatres.

San Francisco is a very expensive oity to live in.
Tho smallest coin in use is 5 cents (2Jd), and about the
only cheap thing to be had is riding in the street cars.
There is no way, so far as I oould learn, of getting one's
boots blacked except when they are on the feet, and
the charge is usually 10 cents (.5d). Domestic servants
command fabulous wages and have to be allowed to do
pretty much as they like. The citizen who cannot help
himself, and who is not rich, is very much to be pitiea.
Kents are enormous, especially in the leading business
thoroughfares. I fell in with a man from Torquay who
Avas keeping what is known as a " gentlemen's furnish-
ing store " in a leading thoroughfare. His sho^ was,
perhaps, 30 feet long and 12 feet wide, and this was
the only part of tho building in his occupation. For
this single room he told me he paid 130 dollars a
month, or about £325 a year, and he considered he was
lucky in retaining it at the price. He would hardly
have paid more for such accommodation in Oheapside
or the Strand.

San Francisco has several theatres. Beeing that " Out
American Cousin " — the piece in which the late Mr.
Sothern madu his reputation and his fortune as Lord
Dundreary — was announced to be performed at one of
them, I went to see how the " cousin " would manage
the business in his own country, and how an American
would enter into the part of the lisping, foppish, but
" noble " noodle whom poor Sothern immortalized.
These and some of tlie other prominent characters were
excellently personified, but there was one very amusinit
feature about the play. Those who are familiar with it
will remember thatayounglady, whoappearsagood deal
at oertaia stages of the performance, is oontinnally

oonpUiniofc that ihs ii " m tery dalieala." Thii, in-
de«a, ia almost all she doM lay. But the
manager on thii oooaHion had (m I was
told) to fall back upon an amatour to
fill this part, an<l the amateur happened to be a
buxom damsel with a broad Wei^urn accent. The in-
oeuant reiteration, by this plump, jolly-looking girl, of
the compliiint, "But I'm so vurrydallicatel" was one of
the most comical thinn I ever witnessed, and every
repetition of the thi'eadbare remark was received with
roars of laughter. The girl made laud-\b'e attempts to
look sad and to throw a plaintive expression into her
voice ; but her natural robustness and high spirits were
too many for her, and her success was nut proportionate
to her efforts.

Another favourite place of entertainment is Wood-
ward's Gardens, which are a combination of a zoolotdoal
garden, a fine museum, a botanical collection,
an art gallery, an ar|uarium, and various kinds of per-
formances. The visitor sees all this for 25 cents (Is),
and it is, therefore, necessary for me to qualify my re-
mark that riding in streetcars is the only cheap thing
in the city. Nearly all the theatres and other places
of amusement are open Sunday and week-day alike.

The "Heathen Chinee."

One of the strangest and most interesting features of
San Francisco, as seen by the stranger, is its large
Chinese population. In spite of the determined opposi-
tion, and I may add the oruol persecution, of the native
working classes, the Celestials have continued to crowd
into the State in such numbers that San Francisco alone
contains more than 20,000 of them. They have
succeeded in obtaining possession of a cluster of streets
in the very heart of the city, and their invasion
of the native American quarters is very much
resented. But it appears impossible to stem
the steady advance of these patient, long-suffering
people. If they once contrive to secare a footing in a
street, the whole street is sooner or later abandoned
to them. Their presence at once reduces the value of
the houses and shops next to their own, and the owners
of such property are presently glad to sell it to the
irresistible invader at anv price they can get. The
completeness with which the Chinese have contrived to
obtain entire posession of many whole streets in the
district of which Washington Street is the centre, is
very remarkable. An evening walk throus;h this
region, which is known as Chinatown, is a
curious experience. At a single step, so to spoak, one
passes from Europe to the Far East. (I speak of
Europe, of course, as including all American communi-
ties of European origin.) I have never experienced so
strange and startling a change except in crossing from
Gibraltar to Tangiers. That, of course, is a transfer of
oneself from Europe into what is virtually a combina-
tion of both Asia and Africa, and it is an experience
which I strongly recommend to all who may ever
happen to find themselves within easy reach of the
entrance to the Mediterranean.

The streets of Chinatown, San Francisco, are swarming
with the pigtailed Orientals, The houses are crammed
from cellar to garret, and their enemies (and some of
their friends, I believe) declare that they live ia a state
of physical filth and squalor and of moral degradation
such as the worst slums of our large cities do not
approach. The Chinaman, when in the streets, is
usually so clean and neat in his appearance, that it is
very difficult to believe all this. If, indeed, it is all
true, John must poBsesa a remarkable faculty of keeping

himself apparently decent tinder very nnfavonrable dhf-
oumstanoes. That the Chinese indulge in habits of a
very objectionable kind is sincerely believed by many
intelligent and unprejudiced persons. One of tlie State
Judges whom I met in a railway train assured mu that
he had no sympathy whatever with the jealousy with
which American working men regard their Asiatic
rivals, still less with the brutal violence to which the
latter are subjected by the " hoodlums " of the city.
But he, nevortlielesi, objected strongly tu their admis-
sion into the country, on the ground that they brought
with them from China unmentionable vices with which
he feared the native population might become infected.

Various attem|/ts have been made to stop the tide of
Chinese immigration. First violence on a wholesale
scale was tried. That failed utterly ; no amou"^ cf
beating or killing stopped the Chinaman. I was told,
when in the city, that the State Government
tried the effect of prohibiting the export of human
bodies. This appears to be an eccentric cure
for Chinese immigration, but it was expected to
touch the Chmose on his religious side. It is a part of
his rather short creed that it is necessary, or at least de-
sirable, with a view to his comfort in the future life, that
he be buried in Chinese soil ; and the result is that
every Chinaman looks forward to the time when he
will either return to China to die, or be carried thither
for burial by friendly hands should he happen to die
abroad. Thousands of dead Chinamen have, in obedi-
ence to this superstition, been sent across the broad
Pacific and interred in their native land. It was thought
that, if this curious export trnde could be stopped, the
Chinese would not imperil their future by running the
risk of being buried permanently in foreign soil. It is
said that Chinese ingenuity was too much for the Call-
fornians even here. I was informed that shipload- ^f
earth from China had actually been brought across the
ocean and deposited in tiie (Chinese cemetery, so that
Orientals might, after all, be buried in '* (Jhinese
soil " even if the export of their bodies were stopped.
What became of this law, if it ever existed except in
the imagination of my informant, I do not know ; but
certain it is that the remains of Chinamen were being
exported freely enough about the time I was in the
country. Mr. Lucy, of the Dailii News, who crossed
the Pacific a few weeks after my return, said there
were a number of bodies on board his steamer.

Various attempts on the part of the Californian Ije;{is-
lature having proved abortive, owing to the Chinese
landing in other States and smuggling themselves
across the frontier, the aid of tlie Federal Con-
gress at Washington was invoked, and laws were
enacted against the free immigration of Chinese
which applied to the whole country. These laws have,
I believe, checked the immigration, but have by no
means stopped it ; and the (.Chinese Question is, there-
fore, still one of the chief factors in Californian politics.

The ChinatTian is so ingenious, industrious, and
frugal, that ii; i« a pity he i." intolerable from a sanitary
and moral point of view. Much as he is disliked, all
unprejudiced Californinns admit tliat his patient labour
has done nvent things for the .State. In railway build-
ing, in mining, in the laundry, in every kind of
drudgery at which the native American and the im-

Eorted Irishman turn up their noses, John Cliinaman
as done yeoman's service. He makes a capital domestic
servant, his quickness to learn, and to imitate what he
has once seen another do, being perfectly marvellous.
In the laundry business the Chinese have a monopoly
in almost every uiiy of the Far West, and they are run-

158

xtinK the native washorwomen close as far east as
Montreal and New York. The names which some of
these Celestials exhibit on their sign-boards) are odd
in the extreme. Here are a few I copied : — Sam
Sing, Hung Hen (suggestive of an ancient
rooster that needs "hanging" before cookui;;^ F'^-
Chuok, Hop Wee, Wo Joy & Co.. G o Hong Fat. My
private opinion is that the fathers and mothers of these
Celestials would never know then under these names.
A good deal probably depends ' n the humour of the
American sign-painters. When a raw Chinese laundry-
man, with an untranslateable name, goes to a painter
to get that name put upon a board, the ])ainter has, it
is clear, to draw upon his imagination "some "—as he
would put it. That being so, it is hardly surprising if
the name, done into American, turns out to be a more
or less grotesque collection of syllables. This, be it
understood, is only a theory of my own, but it appear.,
to me to be about the only theory which fits the facts.

Accompanied by my friend, I explored the principal
streets in Chinatown on a .Saturday night. We had
been referred to a particular house in Washington
Street, where a newsi)aper in the Chinese language is
regularly published, to find a guide and interpreter ;
but wo discovered that the entrance to the e.stablish-
meut was through a long and perfectly dark passage of
most forbidding appearance, where Chinamen were
constantly passing to am) fro in the gloom. We
concluded that if the kind of person we sousjht
were only to be got by groping one's way
up that passage, we would manage to do
without him, for it seemed impossible to us that eitlicr
guide or interpreter could be more »orely needed in any
part of Chinatown than in that partioalur expedition.
In short, we wanted a guide and interiireter in order to
find a glide and interpreter. We puzzled our heads
over this curious practical riddle for some time, and
then " gav«; it up," and decided to be content to see as
much of the Chinese quarter as we could explore alone.

I am disposed now to regret this decision, because 1
have discovered th.it some of the most interesting
feiitures of the district can only be found and under-
stood by the assistance of an interpreter who knows the
place. Amona; these are the theatres, opium dens, and
joss housea, all of which a stranger out;ht to see if iio
would fully understand the Chinese. The theatres are
very curious, but to the J']urope.in visitor the plays pie-
sented are of no ear'liJy interest. Some authorities
say that the dramas are of the most astounding length.
Instead of being got through in i' night, as ours are, a
play lasts for weeks, if not months ; and a very
monotonous business it niust be to see one throuoh. if
the descrijitions I have heard and read are trustworthy.
The stage is of the simplest and rudest char-
acter, being merely a bare platform. without
flies, wings, scenery, or any of the other
elaborate machinery which malces th(! stuge
of a European theatre so complicated a con-
trivance. The "band " conw'sta of six or seven bare-
footed and bare-legged men, who sir, at the back of the
stage, and e.\tract the nr^st hideous din, in whii;h
there is no trace of time or tune, from drums, cyndiah,
untuned fiddles, and i>ther instruments for which
there is no I'lnglish name. Some of tlie plays appear
to he of the oharccter of oi)i;ra, for the chief char-
acters sing a good deal. Their singing is worthy of
tho orchestra, and it is impossible to say more.
Women never appear on the sta;ro ; all female char-
Rcteri* have, therefore, to be represented by th'? other
sex. SoiS'j of the male perfotniera oi-o not only naked

as regards the legs and feet, but they are also stripped
down to the waist. The performaucea are of the
most grotesque and ridiculous character — that is, as
viewed from our standpoint.

The joss houses are the temples in which the
Chinese find an outlet for such few religious ideas as
they happen to possess. There are several of these
temples, dedicated to various deities, but Mr. Marshall'!
description of one of them will suffice. He says : —

"The temple we wore taken to was situated ' on ' Dupont
Street, or rather ofthut tlioroughfi'.re, fur we had to grope
our way along a (lark narrow passage which !,^(l out of it,
then pass into a small square full of Celesti, Is living in
dirty higgledy-piggledy, .ipplepie fashion ; ami hen we had
to ascend the outside of a house by several ricl'ety flights
of stairs, to a room on the third story. 'I'liis josi-house was
dedicated to Kwan Tai, the god of war, unit consisted of two
rooms, one a little larger than the other, l)oth of them de-
voted to the worship of the Cliinaman's popular nods. The
door was fortunately opeu, and we entered ; but wo i.ieeame
innnediately sensil)le of such an abominable odour that we
were almost comptlli'd to lieatahasty retreat. However, we
aroused the keeiur, wlio was sound asleepinside, inacorner
near the doorwaj ; and ho lit a few lanterns for us, which
tiiiew a pale (.dimmer on tlie objects around. It was a
simrnlar, tiwdry arrangement that we looked upon, a gaudy
spectacle, grotesque in the e.xtreme. Jied and goM paper
dragons, and ingeniously devised, hideous looking birds and
bt'iLsts, were pasted about the apartment, covering walls and
ceiling. At one end of the room were the images of three
of tlie more important lIeitie^, placed in separate little
rec 'sses or al( oves, and before each god a small red oil-
lamp was dependini.', which, although burning, emitted
little or no liirht. In the centre was the Hjiure of ICwan
Tai himself —a most hidi'ous anil frifihtful object, lie had
a face as red and shiny as a billiard ball. He wore iin
immense black l)eard reaching down below the waist ; pea-
cock's feathers stuck out from his head, and he was robed
in scarlet and uold. The expression of his countenance
was tenific. Tlie Chinese hold this particular deity in the
greatesfc reverence and esteiMU, and claim a correlative
feeling of regard on the part of the deity himself. ' t.'hina-
man helikee him heap niiichee,' says .lnlin, 'and he likee
Cliinamaii heap muchee to.' At the fuec of ICwan Tai
were placed three little cups of tea, in case he should ixr^i,
tbirstv and want to t.ike a drink. On the right of this
deity was a figure of the god of finance ; on his left was
the god of pills— tho medicine god, whose name is Wah
T.\h. He held a pill in his left hand. The walls of thifj
room were decorateii with battle-axes, spears, ami shields,
all broiijrht over from China. There was iv bell and a <lruni
suspendeil just inside the doorway. These are used for
wakeninu up the ijods when they get sleepy, and do not
pr.ipi.'vly respond to the invocations of the worshippers,
iiesides the gods alre.idy riirntioiied, there was, in this
ro'.in, a flguro of Ham Xai Iluti'.; Si;ing Tai, the god
of the. The colour of hi? complexi-m did not belie
his name. In the centre of t!ie room was a very in-
teristinn ind valuable curiosity, naniely, a larg,; 'ron-
fr iiii»d glass cabinet, covered over with wire, cuntaininj;
hundrerls nf grotesque little gold rfilt carved, wooden ti;;ure8
renreai-nting Ohiiiese tse!: ••* v.ark, such as great histjvical
perMoiiages, hemes, warr'.ors. etc , frotn the earliest ages
down to recent times. Nlany of the tlgiiri's represented
U'vlhohmy as well. Tlie dhinesc ittiih the utmnst inioort-
ano' aial vnlne to fhiscollection, It had bcerj lirought hither
fi'iiii! I'iddii. I*;i,-sina iiitii the othi r or snialler room we
foii'i I thi' images of three mnri^
Si'par;ile alcoves. First their
Siie WIS rea-fac-'d, and h" !.ed
bi','ii given one cup of lea. On

of the Tiger Sl.iycr, with a small tiger looklnji lierce by his
siiU) On thr ii;;ht of the Woman Warrior was the Oreat
Religious Woman, or lio.i'!;.^s of Mercy. She had been
Ki\i'ii three iiips of t,«. There was the image of n baby let
into her forehi'ad. In a corner of rite room was a figure of
the J5ad .lo.ss. or Wicked Kellow, put out of sight as niuoh
tts possible."

deities, siioilarly posed in
was the Woman Warrior,
very mas.'idine. .She had
her left was a small tigur,'

169

l).v let-
lie i)f

iimch

These temples, with their hideous deities, appear to
indicate that the Chinese have fallen very far short of
the enlightened teachings of their ancient sage. Con-
fucius. The opium houses afford further and still more
painful evidence of the same fact. In these dens.
Chinamen lie for many hours and even whole days at a
time, and inhale the fumes of opium— tliat noxious drug
which, while it provides their imaginations with a tem-
porary Paradise, destroys alike their mental energy,
their power of will, and their moral fibre, and leaves
tliem intellectual, physical, and moral wrecks. I
have heard and read many descriptions of these loath-
some places, but the subject is too painful to dwell
upon in detail.

The streets of Chinatown on a Saturday night pre-
sent a stirring scene. Streets and shops are alike full
of < hinamen ; scarcely a European is to be seen. Judg-
ing from what I saw, I should say the numerous
barbers are among the most prosperous of the Chinese
community. For the i)igtail of the Chinaman is a
fearful and wonderful thing, and, apparently, demands
a vast deal of looking after. And the naked part of
the head requires an equal amount cf attention, for it
has to be kept shaved perfectly clean, Wi^h the
exceptioii of tlie small circular patch at the buck,
from which the long plaited ]>ig-tail springs,
the head is kept so smoothly shaved as
to present a blueish tinge. Tlie barbers,
moreover, carefully pick out every hair they can find in
the ears, on the neck, and everywhere else oxoept where
the sacred pigtail is attached to the pate. Aij to this a
good deal of washing in a very delil)erate manner, and
it will bo seeu that the processes through which John
Chinaman frequently goes at the hands of his i)arber
are elaborate and protracted, and, I should say, expcn-
aivo. The barbers" shops are to be counted by scores ;
sometimes three or four are found adjoining each other.
Shops containing nothing but money are idso
pretty numerous. Tliese appear to be banks, but
the business is not conducted in the fashion
which finds favour in Threadneedle Street. The whole
of the funds of these establisliments appears to
be displayed in the window — notes, gold, and silver
alike. Now and then, a Chinaman will be seen to enter,
and either to receive or pay in a small sum ; and the
banker or clerk behind the oountor forthwith makes in
a book ft few of those "cat's crrtdlo"-like puzzles
which are to be seen upon teu-chests. This be does
very deftly, using for writing tool a sort of cross
between a pen and a brusli, and working from
the right side of his l>age towards the left.
This system of writing " bnckward.s " as -ve de-
scribe it, appears to be the key to everything Chinese.
Looked at from our point of view, it is all ujjside-
down, or inside-out, or hind-sidc-before. liut then it
is their " way,"' and was |)rohably their " way " when
our predecessors in the occupation of these islands
painted their skins, and perhaps had each other tor
dinner. Whether the Chineso will ever iihandon their
form of civilization for ours is, at this moment, a
quesfion of great practical interest. Their ncighhouss,
the .Irtpanese, b.ivo made the change with almost too
startling a suddenness. Hitherto, the ruling classes in
China have resisted all change, and have done their best
to kcej) from their people all knowledge of European
science and customs. I'.ut wo are now told th it the
most populous and conservati\o of all empires i.s at last
showing signs of yielding to the inlluunce of Western
ideas,and that, for good or evil, it is about to be " opened
up to civilization, "' Let us hope that that "civili-

zation " will take a better and nobler form than It has
sometimes assumed under similar circumstances I If it
does not, the ( 'hinese can hardly be expected to admit
that the uew Europ an article is in any way superior to
their own.

A Thottino Match.

" Let us go to the R.vces, fou To-mokrow wk Die."
I had an op|)ortunity, while at San Franci.sco, of wit-
nessiuK one of the great trotting matches which are so
exceedingly popular throughout the States. The race-
ground is on the western side of the city, between the
Cemeteries and the sea.shore, in the midst of a desolate
region where sand is king. The course, which formsan
immense oval, is so jealously fenced in through its
whole extent by a high wooden barrier, that it is almost
impossible for anyone to get the slightest glimpse of the
interior except by payment of the inevitable dollar for
admission. The interior presented a remarkable contrast;
to an English race-course. There were, it is true, some
raised, covered galleries for the convenience of lookers-
on ; but there was no crowding, no drinking, no black-
guardism, and very little visible betting. Fancy a race-
course without liquor ! This was actually the state of
thing.s I found, so far as outward appearances could be
trusted. There must, I suppose, have been something
to drink stowed away somewhere out of sight, which
those who " knew the ropes ''knew where to find ; but
certain it is that there were no drinking booths ostenta-
tiously displaying their wares, and offering temptation
to every passer-by. Whatever was drunk— if, indeed,
anything was -was consumed secretly in some secluded
spot which f failed to discover. I saw not a single
drunken man, and only one (of whom I shall speak
presently) who appeared to be in the slightest degree
the worse for liquor.

The only gambling going on was of a very mild kind.
It consisted of betting small sums on the vagaries of a
sort of wheel of foitune. The gambler ))laced his coin
on a i)articular colour on a rainbow-like table. A nigger
attendant gave a spin to the wheel, which was also a
sort of revolving rainbow. If the wheel stopped at a
particular point, the gamliler won ; if it stopped any-
whp;e else, the owner of the concern took the stakes.
A d far as one could see, the chances of the owner and
of Ids i)atrons were about equal ; but somehow or
other- -how I failed to discover— the former contrived
to win in the majority of cases, and his piles of dollars
grew in height regularly, if not very rapidly. When
bupin(!ss grew slack, ho commended his game to the
attention of the crowd in a sot oration from a throat
of brass. This game, he assured his hearers —
with 11 view, I suppose, to the cosmopolitan
nature of his audience — was adapted to people
of every clime, every colour, and creni creed.
Though his countenance was unmoved, there was clearly
a touch of humour in that reference to the religion of
his pos-^ible patrons. It was, moreover, a guarantee of
impartiality and the broadest toleration. He had no
nioro objection to the dollars of a lUiddbist Chinaman
or a Pagan Indian, thaji to the money of a Methodist
itcgro, a Mexican Catholic, or a native American I'ro-
te-tant — and there were no doubt repiescntatives of
each oil the cour^e that day.

To an Kn',di«hman, who is accustomed to regard a
diminutive jockey astride ahorse as the tyi>ioal element
of a race, an American trotting-matcli is an irresistibly
comic performance. The rider sits uf)on a tiny perch
about the size of a dinner plate, and this porch is sup-
ported iu the lightest possible manner upun a pair of

the lightest possible wheels. The whole concern is so
airy that a fairly strong man can lift it bodily with one
hand. The perch is close to tho horse's tail ; and the
driver, resting one foot on each shaft, takes the hind-
quarters of the animal fairly between his legs. Horse
and man appear, indeed, to form one creature, so inex-
tricably are they mixed up.

I i>m not aware that the races I saw were of opeoial
Importance or interest. All I remember about it is that
the fastest horse cont.-ived to cover the railo in 2
minutes and 20 odd seconds, never brealcing out of a trot.
This appeared to me marvellous worlc ; but second by
second the " record " hai since been pulled down, until,
about a month ap;o, a w nderful mare belonging to Mr,
Bonner, a New York d ;Wspaper proprietor, trotted a
mile in a little over 2 minutes 5 seconds.

What struck me as the most remarkable feature of
this race-meeting was the entire absence of excitement.
Almost everybody regarded the results as calmly as I
did ; and as 1 had nothing "on " either horse, and in-
deed did not know one horse from another, I need
hardly say that I was perfectly unmoved. An old
nigger, a good dsal the worse for wear both in ])erson
and clothes, and who clearly had found some liquor
somewhere, was standing close to me while one or two
of the races were being run, and he was
highly indignant at the coolness of tho spec-
tators. I remarked to him that nobody ap-
peared to be moved much at the results— that, in
fact, there was no excitment whatever. Ho expressed
his agreement with a sigh, and assured me that, if I
wanted to see the right sort of races and the right sort
of excitement, I must go down to New Orleans, where
he was "raised." Remarking that there were plenty
of rich men in San Francisco, I asked him how it was
they took apparently so little interest in the great
national sport. At the mention of his rich
fellow-citizens, the old nigger's indignation
rose rapidly tov^.ards boiling point. "Yah!"
he said, " they don't care about nothin' but money-
money — money. They don't git no enjoyment— won't
even come out to a trottin' match. And only think,"
he added, in a subdued tone, partaking of sadness and
pity, " to-morroio they may die f" This burst of
Epicurean philosophy from a shabby and slif-htly
*' drinky " old negro was certainly about the last thing
I had expected to find on that racecourse ; and I could
not help wondering whether tho poor old fellow was
aware that he was simply paraphrasing the motto of a
very ancient school of philosophers when he said (in
effect) : " Let useo to the races, for to-morrow we die."
That men worth millions should be content to run the
risk of dying to-morrow without having first seen tlio
trotting to-day was to liim athinginciomjirehensible. And
he went on to point his moral by a reference to his own
better example. "Look at mo "! lie said, "I've got to
work hard for my bread, but I «'(7/. enjoy myself for a
day ; and I don't care if my liijuor to-tlny do cost me
two bits.'' I regret to have to add that
an hour or two later, as I rode into tho city, I saw a
tram-car conductor refuse to allow that tlisciple of
Epicurus to enter his conveyance ; and the ear-driver
was justified in wliat he did. for the nigger, having
perhaps spent tho balance of his " two bit.s," had got
considerably beyond tlie slightly " drinky " statre, and
was disposed to press his philosophy energetically, not
to say offensively, on every passer-by.

My readers are probiibly wondering what I mean by
"two bits." The "bit" was an old Spanish coin
which cireulatod in the Far West before the dollar and

the stars and stripes had penetrated beyond the Rocky
Mountains. Two "bits were about equal to 26
cents, or a quarter dollar ; and, although the " bit "
has long since disappeared, the Calif ornians are still in
the habit of calling the quarter " two bits," The cus-
tom is a rather absurd one ; for, as I have said, the
" bit," as a coin, no longer exists. Moreover, even as
a mode of reckoning, one never hears of "one bit " (or
12!i cents), for tho simple reason that California recog-
nises no amount below five cent.'), and there is no such
coin as a half-cent in any part of the Union.

The Cobean Embassy.
While we were in San Francisco, an embassy from
Corna, the small state comprising the peninsula which
almost encloses the Yellow Sea, on the coast of China,
arrived at the Palace Hotel, and for several days they
were our fellow-guests. The Ambassador was attended
by two or three of his own countrymen, and by two gen-
tlemen, presumably interpreters, in European dress.
The dresses of the Coreans themselves were very rich in
quality and very splendid as to colour ; but, viewed by
a devotee of dress suits and stove-pipe hats, they were
wildly eccentric in cut. But the head-gear was the
most striking part of the costume. The hat was a tall,
8teei)lelike arrangement, something like that which tho
country women of some parts of Wales still wear. The
hat was held on by a strong metal chain under the chin,
like thai which secures a life-guardsman's helmet.
These hats were never taken off in public.
The Coreans took all their meals in them, and
may have slept in them too for what I know. San
Francisco is pretty well accustomed to curious and
varying costumes, but the dresses of these peojde ox-
cited groat interest even in that cosmopolitan city, and
the Coreans were followed by a small and amused crowd
wherever they went, juEt as they were some months
later in London. We met with them again later on at
New York, and there, again, they stayed at the same
hotel as we did. Ihe business of tlie Embassy, we
afterwards learnt, was to secure commercial treaties
with America, Great Britain, and some other coun-
tries.

THE RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA.

I have hitherto said little of the State of California
at large, although I have devoted a good deal of space
to its great commercial capital. I5ut my task would be
incomplete if I failed to notice, however briefly, the
country itself and its great natural resources.

California is, with one exception, the largest State in
the Union. Texas alone exceeds it. The area of Texas is
about 274,000 square miles. California contains 188,000,
ami is, therefore, about equal in area to France. Its
coast line is 1,100 miles in length, and the .-State itself,
measured in a straight line from north to south, 800
miles. The average width is about 200 miles. The
population in 1S80 was considerably less than a million.
If it were inhabited as thickly as Oreal; Britain, it would
possess a population of over sixty m.llions. There is,
thurofore, plenty of elbow-room yet.

As everybo'ly knows, C^alifornia owes its position as
a civilized and wealthy State, in the first instance, to its
vast stores of mineral weaUh, which fiist became known
to the world in 1S48, While tho wild rush to the dig-
gings lusted, few thought of looking for any other kind
of wealth tlian that which was yielded by the m. os.
But when the excitement due to the gold discoveries
had died away, and men found time to look about them.

161

months

[ater on afc

the same

bassy, we

treaties
her coun-

State in
Texas is
188,000,
nee. Its
to itself,
nth, 800
es. The
million,
it would
There is,

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the di(?*
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e m. 38.
Bcoveries
ut them,

it hegsin to dawn upon the world that California
Iiossoa-ieil licht's of ;i fir more -oliil value and inexhaus-
tible character than evon her far-famed mines. It was
discovered tliat she possessed a soil and a climate
adapted to the giowth, in luxurious al)Undr»nce, of iil-
inost every oonci'ivabli,' kind of af^ricuUural .•\nd h n-
ticultur d i)roduce. <Jalifornia is, iiuleed, a < Golden
^^late in m;)re senses than one. It< fields, iis orciiards,
iis vintiyards, its cjrange i,'ro\e-i. are as truly '' ^oMen "
as its stoiL's of thi; jueuious metal. It i:; still a great
min nj; >tate, imr its mining interests, as compared
with tiiose of its aL,'ii'.;ulture, are year by year declining.
T ere is apparenily no kind of coin or fruit, from
barley tooraiiiies whicli cannotbe grown to advantage
in some part or other of t is great State. ()range-
growing is, of coiuse, confined to the south, l)ut imuiense
vineyards are fo md in tlie north. Th;' lu.vurious-
ness of the growth ai eoiti mhiI fiuit al-
most surpasses belief. .V gentleman connected with
the two greit railways of California (the Central l'a''ilic
and the .Southern I'acilici lias unde. his care a comphte
museu of s[pecimeiis of produce ot all kinds, designed,
of course, to illustrate the womlerful fertility of the
State. I spMit ail hour or two with i iin in this buihl-
ini', and was f:iii Iv amazed at the al)norinal size of tlu,'
tiiiiis, an I the wonderful productiveness of the corn,
some ..f tlie stalks of which, standing on the floor,
touched tlie ceiling of the room.

.\s a wheat-growing State, California has probably
no rival in the world. She already grows between,
;i<),(i()i),(Wii and 40,000,000 bushels of wheat annually,
iiiid tl.. " years ago her exports of this one article
re felled '. he value of seven millions sterling. In spite
of the vast distance of .San Francisco from Kurope by
sei, Califoiniaii wheat reaches this country by the
mill on bu hels. and comiietes successfully with that
whicli comes from t le more e istern prairie Stsites by
w.iy of the lakes oi' the canals. IJut whe.it, though the
jirincipal product of Califoriiian ai^riculture, i.< by no
means the only one. The cli|> of veool is now ^-etween
thirty and forty millions of pounds weight.
The cult vatioii of the vine is yet in its in-
fancy, but the export of wine in 1SS2
reache I three millions of gallons. Hops, dairy goods,
olive oil dried fruits, oranges, and honey are among
tlie other produce of the couiitrv. lertiajis, on tiie
v'hole, the fruit of ('alifonra is its most remarkable
vegetable product. T;ie variety is very great, ami the
aiiundaiice of the crops :imazing. The Californians admit
that l'"lorida heats them in fruit, hut maintain that in
wheat no other State in the whole I'nion can compete
witli theiis onei|ual leniis.

I'rom an agricultural jiointof view, the one ureat draw-
back is the irregularity of iliera;nfall,aiid theconse |uent
danger of drought. I he wet weatherand tiie dryseisons
occur with perfect > egularity, butt he i| nan til y of moisture
which falls <liiriiigthe wet se s >n is sometimes, in the
neigli'io irhool of San l''ranc sco, its little as " '. inches
and at other times is much as ;*.") inches It must not
lie supp'.se i that droug t i' so legular and serious a
trouiile is it is in the arid regions further east, already
referred lo : hut thai it is an ev 1 with which the agri-
cultur 1 settlerin many parts oi' Oalifornia has to reckon
is beyond doubt.

The rainfall wouM. no doulit, jirove to he ample for
all agi 'ultMral purposes, if it were only e|Uaily spread
o\ei the whole year anil over the whole .State. Hut
there is an excess in ciT'ain localities (especudly ainon^
the tnountainsl ainl in certain seasons: while in oth r
districts and in other parts of the year there is a detioi-
enoy. Tins evil is hein,' partially remedied by irr'ua-
tion. as in Colorado. The streams Mowing from the

snow-clad mountains are intercepted at high levels, and
their water is let into a network of artificial canals,
which carry certain fertility wherever they flow. Irriga-
tion hy means of these canals is as yet in its infancy.
Only a small part of the water which flows from the
mountains is yet turned to account, but there cannot be
a douht that the .system is susceptible of almost indefi-
nite extension, and that thousands of scjuare miles
which are more or less subject to drought may be ren-
deted permanently independent of the irregular rainfall
of the valleys.

Another mode of irrigation is by means of artesian
wells. When speaking of Denver, I described what a
boon these inexhaustible supplies of pure water had
proved to that city and to the State of Colorado at
large. Hut in this m itter Californir, has outstripped
Colorado, for it boasts of posseasing more artesian
w Us, in proportion to population, than any other
country in the world. And this boast is probably well
foun'lod. There are thousands of these wells, and the
number is rapidly increasing. <.>ver a large part of the
country it is only necessary to bore deep enough to
secure a never-failing supply of water, which eit!ier
overflows, or rises so near to the surface that an in-
expensive windmill easily brings it to the top. I was
told that a whole farm of 'JOD or ^00 acres could, in
some instances, lie effectively irrigated by means of
a single well. If these wells can be bored anywhere,
anil if they prove to be as inexhaustible as they appear
to be, it is oovious that the gri'at irrigation cjuestion is
virtually solved. There ought to he no danger of
>erious loss by drought in a country where the subter-
ranean su))piie.s of moisture are so easily ta|iped.

('alifornia is being rapidly supplied with the means
of communication, not only between its own compo-
nent parts, but also with the .States and Territories to
tlie Xorth, the Ivast, and the South. The mileage of
railways proportioinitely to population is already very
luge. The priiicijial lines are the Central I'acitic and
the Southern I'acitic, both helon.;ing to the same
Company. Of the Central I'acitic, whose maio line
conncets California with all the Kastern State-, f have
alreaily written pretty fully ; and I regret thiit time
tlid not allow me to accept a courteous iuvitatiim
from the railway authorities to take a run
over the Soatlieru Pacific to Los Angeles, the
centre of the orange grovving district of .Southern
(," ilifornia, ISJ miles from San Francisco. There is
some won Icrful engineering on this line. .V range of
mountains near Los .Vngeles is surmounted by means of
loops smnewhat similar to those on the (,Uear Creek
Canon Line, near ( Jeorgetown, Colorado, The railway
doutdes upon itself four i lines, so that within n short
distance tliero are ti\e ap|iarently distinct tracks almost
pa allel to e icli other. .\t one [loint the line crosses
over itself, the lower loop being in a tunnel and the
upper one at the surface Crossing the (Jolorado Desert,
somewhat farther south, the railway is for liO miles be-
low the sea level. The country is at that point greatly
depressed, the greate-t ilepth reached being 'Jtili feet.
If water Were let into this region, a considerable lake
would lie formed, whic ■ could not jiossibly dischar(;e
itself into the sea until it reached a great dejith.

The prin<:i)>al object of railway extension towards the
South is to supply direct communication with New
Orleans and alternative routes to the lOastern States.
A glance at the niip will show the importance of the
connection with New Orleans. The sea voyage from
San I'rancisco to Kurope, round Cajie Horn, is of enor-
mous length. It is, indeed, about the longest which
it is possible to make between ])ort and port. The aim
of the Sonthein Pacific Railroad Company is to make

3 a '->■

hik

!!■"'

1 1

New Orleans, for the purposes of Kuropean traile, the
port of ( Jaliforniii, ami to render uiinuci'H.siuy tlie long
vova^e round the Horn. Nay, they have obtained control
of a through route from Xew Orleans to New York, and
propose to compete witii the mire direct lines 'or the
through traffic between t' e Atlantic and Pacific
rti'aboards. Fust steamers are, it is said, to be put on
between Liverpool anil New Orleans, and pas^euKers
and goods from Kurope for < 'ali ornia may thus avoid
New York altogether. The adviintiiges held out are —
a voyaije which, though soMiewliat lonsrer than that to
New York, is by a warmei- and less stormy route, and
af*:i;i .vards a much shorter railway journey. The
.^cheme w a hold one, an 1 one in which vast issues are
involveil ; but the men who con-tructe.i the most
lilficult .section of the oiiginal I'aciiic Itailioad are not
ti;e pel ions to be deti^rred by trifles. 'L'hey have the
conman I of unlimiteil millions ot" capital, and their
enttrprisv^and determ'nat'.oii are proverbial. They are,
doubtless, pursuing these gr^iud schemes in the r own
per-;on:il ii. terests; but, whether they serve their own
ends or mt, they canno" fail to benefit the public liy
increasing Jw^ competition lor the ever-increasing tide
of transoonti:>Lital trallic.

I have now don • with ('alifornia, and, iiideod. with
Ami'iioa. for the present. Tlie great cities of t e Kast,
in which I spent th^ iast month of my sojourn in the
States, are toler'ibly familiar to English readers. A
hundred Kuropeana visit them for every one who
penetrates, as I did, the Far AYe-it. It is for that
reason t at I have dealt so fully with the Western
States. Were I to describe with equal fulness *he
cities I visiteil during the last three weeks of Soptemlier
and the first two we^^ksof October, my story would now
beonlv al)out half rold. l}ut ithasalieady run out
to a far greater length than I anticipated, and I must
now bring it to a close.

I have already described (somewhit out of the proper
place) my return from .San Francisco to Denver, and mv
dev atior. from the direct route to view the wonders of
the Toltec (ioige. on the borders of Colorado and New
Mexico. I'rom Denver I made my way to Kansas City
- a L't hour^ run by the Kansas Pacific section of the
Union raciiic Railroad, which parses through the whole
length of the great State of Kansas, .Vrriving at
Kansas City (which, by the way,isin Mi^s)uri and not in
Kansas) just in time to catch the night train to St.
Louis. I at once set olf for that city, and there rejoine 1
ray tr.ivellin:; companion, who had preceded me by two
davs. St. Louis alono would supply materiaU for a
long chapter ; but all I can say about it here is that it
is a city as large as Hirmingham, busy, dirty, and
wealthy, with an immense tr.ule, and situated on the
banksof the .Mississipjii, a short distance below the junc-
tion of that stream with the Missouri.

It was on the IHth of Seotembor tha^ we left St.
Louis for the souiewhat similar but rather less p ipulous
city of Cincinnati, the commercial capitd of Ohio, on
the Ohio lliver. Here, again, there is much worth
seeing and describing. The natural position of the
place is as irregular and pictuies(|ue as that of Mristol,
hut an ever-present cloud of smoke from the number-
less faetories, railway locomotives, and stea nl'oats
venders it impossibl.' to obtain anything like a complete
view. While at Cincinnati, I deviatoil from my east-
ward route to spend a day with an old Uriilport friend,
who had recently transferred his large family from the
town which elected Mr. XYarton to the ttourishin,' and
pleasant little c'ty o' Richmond, Indiana. It was a
very pleas, mt ohange to find one<self warmly welcomed
into a circle of well-known faces.

From Cincinnati to Washington, a journey of twenty
hour-;, we travel'ed by the IJaltimore and Ohio Hail-

road, which crnises the Alleghany Mountains amid
wooded scenery of ex'piisite beaaty. We devoted two
days to the Fe>leral capital, two to Baltimore, and two to
Philadelphia, and on the 22nd of September we found
ourselves for the firtt time in New York. Six days later,
wi; went on to Boston, and. having spent a very ])leisant
afternoon with Mr. Howells, the p i))ular novelist, with
whom we had crossed f cm Liverpool in the
Pafi.ii.an, we iiroceeded to pav a short visit
to another gentleman whose acijuaintance we had'maile
onboard the same steamer -viz., Mr. Dinglev. a news-
paper ))roiuietor at Lewiston, in the State of Maine.
Mr. Dinglev and his good wife gave us a right hearty
Welcome, and -bowed us all the lions of Lewiston and
its twin city Auburn. All 1 can say of these places is
that their prosierity. which is very remarkable, is due
to a f.ill on the Androscoggin lliver, which supplie-
power to eight or ten large cotton and otlier factories.
Leaving our kind hosts with regret, we turned back to
Boston, and, after a dav or two spent in exploring ihe
'' Hub of the I'niverse "' as liostonians are said (on the
author ty of other Americans) to call their famous and
interestin ; cit . we turne i .S )0 miles we -it wards t > see
the glove manufacturing towns of Johnstown and
(iloversville (Srae of \'ew Yoik). Here we found
scores of gloveis (m s^ts nd joirnev men i hailing from
Yeovil an I .Milboine Port, and it w.is a rather- stange
experience to fin 1 ones e\f, so f.ir from home, in the
midst of a col ny o' neighboars and uj receive their
kindlv greeting-, turn where one woul 1.

I'Vom Oloversvi'le we reMirned by r.til to All)any, the
cap tal of the state ot New York where a marble
.State Capitol of vast dimensions is slowly rasinr its
gigantic form above the city at an almost fabulous cost,
I'Voin AUianv we, of course, went down to New Yo.-k
bv steimei .j.i the Hudson. I say " of course.'"
because no sraiiger would dream of go ng by anv other
route. What is our verdi -i as to the Hudson? W'dl
it is a mi h largi>r river thai the Uh ne. but those who
sa , it is mo e p ctu e^que th u the 1 tter river, between
IJonn and B gen, have Ii i'e'-ent not ons of the
pictuin; jue from mine The run ilown the Hudson is,
neveitheless a de i^'htful trip, which no visitor to New
Vork oughf to miss.

Fro'n O tober 'it ' to Octo' er ■ Ith we nent iti Ve a
York an 1 I regre"^ be ng unabl" to sav something iboat
that wjrld-faine 1 it\. Hut what I woohl like to say
would of tself fill I volume of fair imensions. ami
already the n une o'' the hoo'<s ilesiTi live of the
Empire Cit s Leg on. i must nor, add to their nu o
her, even if t e limits of time an 1 space did n it for
bill— as, in view of a;ieneial election, thov do.

On the 14th of Octobur. my fnend and I com iiittod
ourselves to the tender mer.iea of the Whiie Star
St ainsliip Com))any. In their good ship (fcrmanic
we aaileil for home, and on the 2)id we s'e pei.' ashore
at Li'erpool, after a run whch. though n >t al ogether
devoid of unpleasantness, was a ver> fair one fo" the
third week in Oi'tober. The (iivnia ni:. altli uigh a
giant o "),'iO() tons is a rather small steamiM- besii'.o
the ;;■ w monsters of the Cunard and one or tw;> other
lines: but she i< a splei did sea boat, and her loin-
mander (• '.apt. Kennedv) is one of the ablest, co dent
and most trusted of .Vtlantic skipiiers. though his be-t
friends will hardlv contenil that he is the most amiable
and appr 'ach 'ble of rnen.

Having thus briefiy and hurriedly traced mv jirogreas
back from the (!olorado plains fo the quays of Liver-
pool, mv long and often interrupted task is at last done.
If I have s'lci'eeded in conveying anythin,' like a correct
impression of the (ireater Britain beyond the seas to
the minds of my readers, that task will not have been
und^rt iken in vain.