HESPEROTHEN;

NOTES FROM THE WEST:

A RECORD OF A

RAMBLE IN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA
IN THE SPRING AND SUMMER OF 1881.

BY
W. H. RUSSELL, LL. D.
BARRISTER-AT-LAW.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

Vol. I.

LONDON:
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON,
CROWN BUILDINGS, 188 FLEET STREET.
1882.

[All rights reserved.]

LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

TO

HER GRACE

THE DUCHESS OF SUTHERLAND
(COUNTESS OF CROMARTY),

THIS RECORD OF THE RECENT VISIT OF THE DUKE OF SUTHERLAND
TO AMERICA,

IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED

BY

WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL.

London, Dec. 1881.

v

PREFACE.

On the 16th of April last, in pursuance of an arrangement to that effect which was entered into some months earlier with the Duke of Sutherland,[1] a small party of gentlemen and one lady left Liverpool in the Cunard Company's steamer "Gallia," with the object of making a tour in the United States. Previous to their departure, Mr. Henry Crosfield, the Auditor of the London and North-Western Railway Company, had been in communication with friends in America, and had in concert with them sketched out a general scheme to enable the visitors to traverse the Atlantic States, to extend their journey westwards and to obtain the best possible view of the country in the limited space of time vi at their disposal. Although all were "on pleasure bent," those of the tourists who had interests in railways on this side of the world were naturally anxious to study the modes of management which were practised on the principal lines as closely as such a hurried journey would allow them; but the main object of the travellers was "to see the States"—to behold with their own eyes the natural features of the vast continent which is exercising a rapidly increasing influence on Great Britain and Europe itself, and to view the manners and customs of the great nation which even in its present enormous development gives only the indications of a lusty youth, promising a manhood of irresistible vigour and strength in time to come if the body politic fulfils its early hope. To be sure, the inspection could not be very close, minute, or protracted. Shooting flying is not an art given to all people, and the contemplation of man at a hotel or in a street, as one looks around in the dining-room or out of a railway train, does not afford satisfactory foundation for solid knowledge or comfortable conviction. But we had to do the best we could. There were for most of us the attractions in the journey which novelty possesses. There were pleasures in anticipation in the sight of the wonderful cities which man has made and of the grand natural spectacles which God has created, and these pleasures were, I may say now, enjoyed most fully. For my own part, having no railway interests except those I share with so many others in being carried safely, swiftly, and vii cheaply, by the lines to which I entrust myself for conveyance, and having formerly been in the United States, my chief desire was to revive, if not the pleasures of memory, at least the recollections of a country in which I had spent many months of the deepest interest and excitement, and where I made friends whose affection and support were of invaluable assistance and comfort to me when I much needed them at a period of terrible trial. I was also eager to observe what changes had been effected since the close of the Civil War, of one great incident of which I had an unfortunate experience, and to revisit scenes the chief features of which had not been effaced from my recollection by the lapse of nigh twenty years. The expedition was undertaken under excellent auspices. From all quarters of the United States, as soon as our intention was made known, there had come not only expressions of satisfaction and offers of assistance, but an actual competition in good offices, and amid the friendly requests of the great Railway Corporations on the other side of the Atlantic that the visitors would avail themselves of the resources of their Companies the only difficulty lay in the choice of contending routes. Tenders of palace cars and special trains, of receptions and banquets, poured in on all sides; but the programme for our journey was drawn up with a due regard to the number of hours at the disposal of the travellers, and ere they set out from England, the very day of their return from New York had been determined. viii

Having said so much by way of explanation of the motives which led to the excursion, I feel called upon to account for the appearance of these pages, because I am aware that there was not in the extent of our journey nor in the nature of its incidents anything to justify my rushing into print, especially as several very excellent records of much more extensive and protracted tours in the Western World have been recently given to the public. My reasons, or perhaps it would be as well to write my excuses, for publishing this book are, that I was asked to do so by friends who were desirous of possessing a memorial of our rambles. When I left England I had not the least intention of writing anything for publication, but after I had embarked one of my companions, with whose wishes I was glad to comply, requested me to send letters now and then to the Morning Post, and some of the materials in them I shall incorporate in the following pages by the permission of the proprietors. I do not feel quite satisfied that the reasons I have given, or the excuses I have made, will be held to exonerate me from presumption in adding to the well-filled shelves of American travel when I have nothing new to tell of in the way of exploration, sporting, or scenery, but one favour I beseech of those who may be inclined to condemn me for dulness or to censure me for want of novelty, and that is that they will not attribute my faults to my fellow-travellers, whose originality, good humour, power of observation, practical knowledge, and kindness cast over our journey a charm that cannot ix be transferred in any degree to the pages which record its progress, and that they will not ascribe to my companions any responsibility for the opinions I have had occasion to express, which are entirely and altogether my own.

William Howard Russell.

xi

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

1

HESPEROTHEN.

CHAPTER I.
VOYAGE TO NEW YORK.

Mallow to Queenstown—The steam tender—The "Gallia"—Our fellow-passengers—The first night at sea—Observations—Marine inquiries—A brilliant run—A little stranger—Approaches to New York—Sandy Hook—Friends on shore—New York interviewers—First impressions.

On Easter Day I was picked up by the mail—the very limited mail-train at Mallow. There were few passengers in it, some half-dozen Americans and English, all told, for the "Gallia." The Borough, lying snugly in the wooded valley of the Blackwater, of the "Rakes" (who seem to have sown their wild oats and cut them and their sticks long ago), did not contribute so much as one spectator to the little official group—stationmaster, police, and porters—on the platform; perhaps the population generally was engulfed in the churches and chapels of the district; and the half-hour or so which sufficed to reach "the beautiful city called Cork" was passed in observation of external objects—the trout-stream; the umbrageous glens; the fields indifferently cultivated in the rare cases where they are not devoted to pasturage; the ruined abbey; the 2 ridiculous mock Round Tower; the Hydropathic Sanitarium; the "Groves of Blarney"—chiefly of that hazy sort, where familiar scenes are associated with the dim speculation, "Shall I ever see them again?" which occupies the place of thought in the mind of people on the eve of a long expedition of this kind. It is a languid interest. But nevertheless it has its uses, which is more than can be said of the delay on the Cork platform graciously accorded to passengers ere the train starts for Queenstown. Every door is fast shut, and indeed if the observance of the Sabbath were less strict, there would not be any advantage gained by the hungry traveller, for there is only a wilderness of small shops, all closed too, in the dreary street which leads from the station of the Great Midland to the city, and there is no refreshment-room at the Cork Terminus. The directors of this well-managed line seek to combine the inculcation of temperance and the development of habits of meditation over the flight of time with the exercise of self-denial and patience. They do not allow the sale of any sort of spirits, unless they be called "port," "sherry," or "cordial," and they have a little Maine Liquor Law of their own at the railway stations. But our meditations on the Cork platform on the vanity of human wishes were at last dispelled by the ringing of the bell of the train for Queenstown, and in the prescribed time we were duly delivered over there to the "carboys" and the general outlawry of the agents of commerce who await the arrival of passengers for the States—a 3 swarm of ragged boys with newspapers devoted to politics racy of the soil; vendors of the most primitive bouquets of heather, hollyhocks, sweet-brier, and the like; merchants with ragged and rugged sticks offered as genuine shillelaghs; women with baskets of fruit of suspicious aspect—all urged on the notice of the public with great clamour of voice. It is a quaint trade; and wonderful was it to see the number of good Americans who invested in these memorials, relics of European travel, bearing them on board the steam tender with grave solicitude. The steam tender aforesaid was already duly crammed with mail bags, passengers, and a fair proportion of juvenile Americans revelling in the freedom and perfect self-control proper to the race, conspicuous among whom was a pretty little lady of some twelve or thirteen years of age, who had all the airs and graces of "une demoiselle de la vieille Cour." The "Gallia" had made a quick passage from Liverpool, and had been fuming about the moorings off Roche's Point since 5.30 A.M. Many of her passengers had landed and gone, some to church, others to chapel, or to the "grand cathedral," and some to stroll about the uninviting streets, and these were now waiting for us in the tender, but the majority of the voyagers were on board writing letters or abusing the post-office and the authorities generally which enforced such a waste of the time they found so heavy on their hands. I found two acquaintances—one indeed an old friend—among the passengers in the tender, and with them I divided the cares of looking after 4 my two married daughters who came "to see me off," thereby obtaining an opportunity for a dash to "see after" my luggage, for I am too old a traveller to trust to the assurances of porters—"It's all right, your honour!" In twenty minutes more the tender, inspected by hundreds of eyes from over the bulwarks, was alongside the slim vast hull of the great Cunarder. I looked up as the eyes looked down, and saw most of my party above, and in a few seconds more was on deck shaking hands with them all round; finding out my State Room—what a noble appellation for the cubicle, "that heritage of woe," of which I was lord!—exhibiting the charms and conveniences of the same to my anxious daughters, who with feminine enthusiasm declared it was "delightful! so snug!" &c., and distributing my property in its angles and covert retreats. "All on board for the shore!" The bell is ringing for the third time! And as the last adieux are spoken, the last kiss, the last shake of the hand, given, and the outward and visible signs of friendship or of love are relegated to tearful eyes and waving kerchiefs, those who are going to sea think perhaps how pleasant it would be to return to the solid earth, and those who are bound for road or pavement struggle with the thought, "I wish I were going too!" Any stick will do to beat a dog! Any umbrella or hat will do to wave at a friend. And so, at 3.30 that afternoon, the "Gallia" made a graceful curtsy to an incoming wave, screwed herself out of the roadstead, and turned her stem to the Far West, towards the sun "which, by the bright 5 track of his fiery car, gave token of a goodly day to-morrow." How green and fresh seemed the land where the fields swelled to the edge of the cliffs dotted with whitewashed cottages! Forward, leaning over forecastle bulwarks, the poor Irish emigrants and Irish-Americans were watching the coast-lines and listening to the experts who were pointing out the "Killies" and "Bailies" which adorned them. But the bell soon sounded again, this time to prepare for dinner, and in half an hour more, from the recesses of many cabins the multitude came trooping to the banqueting hall, which was at the time just gently yielding to the blandishments of the sea-nymphs to desert the line of strict propriety, and to leave off doing its level best. The "party" had a table all to itself on the right of the Saloon, but at the end there were two places left which we could not occupy, and these were filled by two American gentlemen, one of whom developed a marked talent for salads and anecdote, and the other equal gifts in the way of silence. The Cunard cuisine is copious at all events, and the cellar—albeit vexed by various temperatures and altitudes—commendable. The show of strength at table was creditable to our seagoing powers, and our first night with the expeditionary forces was passed pleasantly in discussing plans and the like till bed-time, when our grim chamberlain put out our candles, and left the inmates of the cabins to rest as best they might. On the second day people began to look more at each other at meal-times—to take notice, as the nurses say—but a strong easterly 6 breeze introduced elements of discomfort and unsociability, and impeded friendly communion even in the smoking-room for a day or two. It was evident that the majority of the living freight of the "Gallia" were returning to their native land. There is always something or other cropping up out of the sad sea wave for those who are not absorbed in their own sufferings from the mal de mer; and though I have been fortunate enough to have escaped the slightest inconvenience in my marine experiences, I have had that share in the misery of others which is derived from sympathy. I have sometimes doubted whether exemption from sea-sickness, in bad weather, is such a boon, till I duly considered the state of those who were its victims. To be quite well, and yet to be unable to read or to write—to sit or to stand, or to lie down—without some sort of tension—is very aggravating. If you go on deck you are wet by sea or spray, and can do nothing but "hold on"; and if you go below you are half suffocated by the close air, and altogether tortured by the cries of distress around you. My cabin was on the main deck forward—large, airy, and, when the ports were open, well lighted—and the only inconvenience attendant on the situation was that it lay some distance from the bath-rooms, which are never numerous enough for the wants of the passengers even in the most liberally-appointed steamers. The knowing ones make a rush for the bath-room steward and inscribe their names at once for their quarter of an hour as soon as they come on board, and the unfortunates who 7 neglect that precaution are obliged to take their chance later in the morning, and sometimes fare but badly. It was my fate once to be a passenger on board one of the steamers of the Messagéries Impériales to Marseilles from the East, at the close of the Crimean War. There was an immense crowd of officers and soldiers on board, and the weather was very hot, but the only bath-room was closed, and it was from a conclusive answer to the demands for admission which were made to the persecuted steward that we learned the reason why—"the bath was occupied." It contained the body of an officer which had been embalmed, and which was being taken to France for burial in some martial cemetery!

Washington Irving wrote long ago that "the sea is all monotony," though he claimed leave to correct the expression, and if it were a monotony of fair winds and smooth water, and eighteen miles an hour, it would be very tolerable indeed. But surely there is no monotony in a sea voyage in an Atlantic liner! Look at the different phases of character exhibited on board day after day! Observe the ups and downs of its life; watch the microcosm of the crowded deck, where every chair holds its little Areopagus and pronounces judgment on the world around it.

There were brave men among us who resorted to ignoble artifices, and went by devious ways to their cabins to escape the masked batteries, and the spectacles and glasses en barbette of the long lines of cushioned bastions where the enemy were lying in vigilant scrutiny of every movement. 8

And then the Babel of tongues at times—the variety of topics one hears discussed. Hark to that trumpet tone! It is not Jeremiah warning the nations to flee from the wrath to come! No! it is merely a gallant officer of a scientific corps who is expounding to some admiring Americans a few articles of his faith, and proving that Mr. Gladstone is the "Man of Sin" specially intended for the destruction of the British army and Empire. And there, in a cozy nook by the wheel-house, an earnest Democrat is holding forth to his English auditors on the evils of democracy as illustrated by the conduct of the Republicans in the exercise of political power, the manipulation of ballot-boxes and public bullion; and a sturdy Briton near at hand is enlarging on the absolute necessity of restoring the worn-out lands of the Eastern States and Canada to fertility by the use of manures of which he is the manufacturer. Among the Americans there were not wanting signs and tokens that the traditions of a great war and the influence of party politics were as powerful as social distinctions, and their cliques were as marked as if each represented a different "set" in one of the old countries.

There is the unfailing anxiety about the weather—and there are remarks on its behaviour, past, present, and future, at every meal, and there must be incessant vigilance respecting the proceedings of the ship. The 9 o'clock observation is regarded with an interest which culminates at noon in the proceedings of the officers engaged in "catching the sun," and then 9 comes the anxious waiting about of the passengers whilst the calculations are being worked out, till the run is announced and the result fixed over the companion. In some vessels a chart is laid out, on which the course of the ship is marked down daily. I have seen an expression of much comfort diffused over the countenances of suspicious voyagers by the inspection of the final remarks which show them "exactly where we are, you know." They are not quite aware of the tricks of the trade, and it is perhaps just as well. Then all operations aloft are attractive—taking in sail or shaking out a reef, or "taking a haul on the weather braces," which seems necessary when nothing else is to be done—and there is the wonderful problem to study of why it is that, no matter where you put yourself away on the deck of a ship, a "hand" comes to you at once to pull the particular rope you are sitting or standing on, or to otherwise civilly molest you! All these common interests bind passengers together. The smoking-room becomes conversational after a time, and "sets" are enlarged. The energies of life, however, are concentrated on but a few objects on board ship, and the general conversation and attitude of the passengers are largely regulated by the vehicle in which they are borne. And that was the course of life in the "Gallia." A flying-fish, a petrel, a porpoise, the glinting of a sail, the smoke of a steamer, became a subject for general conversation, if not an object of universal attraction; and when porpoises or flying-fish came close in shoals, and the "sails" 10 were near, and the steamer's number, or better still, her name, could be read, why, there was quite enough of incident to carry one through the not very long intervals which divided the times for eating and drinking. I have not mentioned the gulls, because I think they are becoming decidedly demoralised and disreputable, and ought not to be noticed. Instead of getting their subsistence and living cleanly by honest labour, as decent gulls should do, they have become mere ocean scavengers, and follow the steamers to and fro across the Atlantic; some, I dare say, preferring the Cunard, others the Inman; and the White Star, Guion, &c., lines, probably having clientelles of their own. It is possible indeed that each vessel has its own habitués, just like a club or a hotel; but this is merely a theory. I am sorry to say that I have observed a tendency on the part of the solan geese to be led away to following these wakes, and if that goes on, the gulls will be driven to farming, for which, in ignorance of the ruinous nature of the occupation they are indeed showing an increasing predilection.

The 19th April was debited with a brilliant run—390 nautical miles in the 24 hours, equal to 16⅜ knots per hour!—and there was an exceeding clangour of tongues at meal-times, attributable, it would seem, to the "Gallia" having screwed her way through the ocean at such high speed. On such occasions as these the deck-frequenting passengers are in high spirits—they in some way unconsciously attribute to themselves a share in the performance. The Auditor drank 11 his "Dry Monopole"—a good tap was discovered on board—with unusual relish; nor was he left to do so single-handed. Mr. Bridgeman developed a salad of great originality and power; the American Colonel, filled with thoughts too big for utterance, smiled on society at large.

By degrees—short and cumulative—acquaintanceship was developing; familiarity took the place of reserve, and the game of "poker," inaugurated by some American experts, enlisted its votaries from expanding circles, and usurped large sections of the saloon tables, not only by night, but by day. It is a pity that it takes so long to bring out or up musical talent at sea, for it is often that sweet voices are heard warbling, deft fingers wake up the notes of the piano, and histrionic gifts are made manifest, in unexpected quarters, only a day or two before the end of the voyage; and just as society begins to enjoy them it is dispersed for ever as though it were an exploded shell! We had on board senators and judges, and men of eminence and women of culture, as we began to find out when we were about to lose them, and day after day jokes became more interchangeable and transferable, like the quaint conceits in "drinks," cocktails, and the like, which were sent round from table to table by the cognoscenti to their friends. One night there came to me, at dinner-time, a card with a drawing on it of a gentleman running at full speed from a suspicion of cavalry in the rear, and underneath were the words "Russell at Bull Run." There was just room enough 12 on the card to enable me to draw in front of the figure so described a pair of legs and part of the body of another fugitive, and writing below the legs "The last man of the Federal army on that occasion," I returned it to my American friend, and the burst of laughter which ensued from the company at the table showed that the réplique had been appreciated.

And there was a domestic event, soon after our departure, which excited much interest. A poor woman, who was going out to join her husband in some distant digging, gave birth to a little girl. Somehow or other the Auditor became involved in the case, and got up a subscription for the benefit of the little stranger and its mother, which compelled him to make many journeys to the steerage, and to make many acquaintances among the ladies, for which he had a happy knack, in the interests of charity. A cynical officer of the ship somewhat damped our benevolence by hinting that "that sort of thing was always going on," and when he was pressed for information he said that intending emigrants in the rank of life to which the mother belonged, frequently deferred their journey to the last moment, when expecting such events, in anticipation of a subscription from the passengers as soon as their time had come. Ere we landed the child was baptized in due form—one of her names being "Gallia"—and a purse of sovereigns was presented to the grateful mother, who certainly deserved them for her maternal solicitude and punctuality in such an important transaction. 13

And there was a fair face on which we gazed every day with growing sadness and sympathy. No one knew anything of the story of the pensive, melancholy girl whose eyes were often suffused with tears, but we heard that the heavy but not unbenevolent-looking ecclesiastic in the garb of a Roman Catholic bishop with whom she was travelling was taking her to America in order to put her into a convent. It was a prospect which she certainly seemed to regard with grief and despair, if one might judge from the expression of her sorrowful countenance and mournful mien. We could pity, and that was all.

Smooth seas and favouring breezes prevailed for the greater part of our course. Early on the morning of the 25th April land was in sight, and Sandy Hook was visible right ahead before noon. After breakfast came that mundane solicitude about baggage, luggage, and the like, which betokens the end of the voyage. The stewards, always prompt, on board the "Gallia," were almost aggressively attentive as though to reproach us for going on shore from them so soon.

Outside Sandy Hook we took in a pilot, a grave bearded gentleman in a black frock coat, tall hat, and satin waistcoat, from one of the pretty pilot boats, the appearance of which in the distance was attended with a good deal of anxiety connected with a sum of money in the lottery, the ownership of which was determined by the figure on her mainsail. But the news the pilot brought us was startling, and engrossed every thought for the time. "Lord Beaconsfield is dead!" In an 14 instant it was known all over the ship. Up to the time of the "Gallia" leaving Queenstown the bulletins had given ground for hope, indeed almost the assurance, that there was no great reason to fear a fatal termination to Lord Beaconsfield's illness, and one of us had received a letter from the best authority, expressing the belief that the critical period had been passed and that he might be expected to "pull through all right." The sad intelligence for a while overpowered all other interests. We had forgotten Europe for eight days, and now the voice which aroused us announced "Lord Beaconsfield is dead!" The various objects on the shores we were approaching or passing were for a time unnoticed. Among our little party were men of different phases of political feeling, but on one point they were all agreed—that England had lost a great minister, and the world one of the most brilliant and original statesmen of the age. Even amongst Americans, who might not be expected to have much sympathy for the loss of a statesmen of his Imperial stamp, much regret was expressed for Lord Beaconsfield's death. "I doubt, sir," said one of them, "if he could have done it in our country. I guess his novels would have prevented it, even if he could have got over being a Jew. We cannot run politics and literature together as you can—that's a fact. The writers who get places don't amount to much—ministers and consuls, and that sort of thing, abroad. To succeed they must take to the one line or the other."

The Health Officer's boat came alongside with friends 15 at the Quarantine Ground, and Judge Pierrepoint, formerly United States Minister at the Court of St. James's, boarded the "Gallia" to welcome the Duke of Sutherland, whose guest he had been at Dunrobin Castle, and to claim the fulfilment of the Duke's promise given in London to dine with him in New York.

In one sense the attachment of Americans to the land of their birth or adoption is generally intense; our fellow-passengers gazed on the shore with delight. "You have before you, sir," said a gentleman alongside, as I leant over the bulwarks, "the most beautiful bay in the world!" "The most beautiful bay in the world"! I wonder how many places there are of that description? Several I know of in Ireland and in Scotland, some in England, a few in the Mediterranean; and others there are in Indian and Chinese seas, right away to California, north and south, and east and west, and in all the isles of the ocean. But, certainly, the approach to the great city enthroned on the Hudson, with its wide-stretching arms of river and commingling sea, is very fine, and, although the scenery around it is not of the very highest order of beauty, New York is grandly placed.

Well! though Sir Walter may have put the thought into very exalted verse, most of us have felt the sensation he describes, and it does not require a very remarkable or ancient pedigree among the nations to 16 cause a country to be beloved of its people. Woman, however, was occupied at that particular moment on board the "Gallia" in devising means to evade the inquisitorial search of the myrmidons of Uncle Sam's Custom House, and to reduce the amount of her contributions to the Imperial Exchequer—for a Republic can be Imperial, I presume—to the lowest possible figure.

The manners of the Custom House officers were exceedingly bland, and so were their customs as far as our baggage was concerned, because they passed it with the greatest readiness on nominal parole, and I may now declare that there was not in the whole lot a single article subject to the smallest duty. But there was a fair and charming lady who was returning with the purchased plunder of, I dare say, the best milliners and dressmakers in the capitals of Europe, and on these treasures there would be heavy duty to pay. Feminine sagacity, aided by masculine depravity, enabled her to achieve a triumph in which most of the outside accomplices rejoiced exceedingly. "Mrs. A., I see you have twenty-two packages marked; have you anything to declare?" Mrs. A. smiled, blushed, and with downcast eyes said, "Yes, sir; I have got some lace, silk, and other things of the kind in box No. 4." "We will search box No. 4, if you please, ma'am." The keys were produced, the articles duly examined and assessed, and the twenty-one unexamined boxes were marked with the sign of customs emancipation. The box which was examined contained, as the lady declared subsequently when she got on shore, 17 the smallest number of articles liable to duty of the whole number; the others were crammed with them!

I shall not attempt to describe the approaches to New York and the various objects on shore—the towering Elevators and the antithetical beauties of the New Jersey hills; the monumental piles of the mammoth hotels on Coney Island—"where," whispers my American, "from 50,000 to 60,000 people go for dinner every day during the season. Why, if they spend but 50 cents each, that's £5,000 to £6,000 a day of your money! Just see!"—but suppose we have worked up the river, and are sidling in to our berth through the flotillas of the white-sailed coasters and the huge walking-beam steamers crowded with people, which impress new-comers perhaps more than any other novelty. 18

CHAPTER II.
NEW YORK.

Friends on shore—The landing—First impressions—Brevoort House—The interviewers—Aspect of the streets—1861 and 1881—Cockades and armorial bearings—The Union League Club—The Fire Brigade.

As the "Gallia" neared the Cunard wharf a mass of upturned faces was visible on shore with eyes fixed on the steamer to detect friends. "There is Jack!" "I see Lucy." "There is Sam!" and so on. And, indeed, there was "Sam" ready to greet us, and the "desiderium tam cari capitis" was gratified by the appearance of its valued owner. It was over twenty years ago since I first landed at this very wharf on a bright March morning in 1861, and there were some men living whom I longed to see once more, despite the change which had been wrought in their faith, and the time which had elapsed and separated our lives. The States were then unconsciously preparing for the tremendous conflict which burst on the world so suddenly. New York was divided into two camps, in one of which was concentrated most of the ability, culture, wealth, and political knowledge of the State, and into that I was thrown on my arrival. I speedily found out there was another and a tremendous power which commanded "les gros bataillons" arrayed on the other side. The decks were now soon thronged with visitors and friends, and passengers mistaken for the 19 Duke enjoyed the intoxication of a brief ovation till the imposture was discovered. There was the leave-taking—the civility which costs so little, and is so agreeable, giving even the misanthrope a kindly impression of human nature escaping from shipboard—the telling off, with all their bags, rugs, sticks, dressing-cases, bundles, and umbrellas, of the party to the quaint old carriages à la Queen Anne's time, and then, scattering groups of interviewers, we set out for our quarters. Our rooms had been taken at the Brevoort House, and we were expected with impatience. The purlieus on the riverside between the landing-place and the streets in which the fashionable hotels are situated are at least as bad as those of other great cities; but in New York the horrors of bad pavements and filthy ways are aggravated by the ribs of the tram-car ways, which cross the roads in every direction. However, our first impressions were effaced by the trimness and neatness of the better parts of the city, the brightness, and even grandeur, of the Fifth Avenue, and by the wealth and display of Broadway. The characteristics of hotels on the American system are well known, but the Brevoort House is not one of these. Instead of a fixed charge per diem, to include bed and board in all its wonderful profusion of meals and of dishes, the Brevoort House has a varied tariff for apartments, and meals à la carte. There is an old-fashioned air about the house, combined with a great degree of comfort and a full attainment of all the objects which American travellers desire in baths, barber's shop, reading-room, 20 bar, and the like. An excellent cook and a large and well-chosen cellar leave little to be desired in the way of eating and drinking. But as the kitchens are far away and dishes are not cooked until the order for them is given, the service, although plentifully armed, is necessarily slow.

Friends, railway authorities, and representatives of the press received the travellers on their arrival, and the process of interviewing commenced at once with great severity. As it would be inconvenient for all the gentlemen of the press to interview the same individual at once, a distribution of duties was made, and very soon after our appearance at the Brevoort House each member of the party had a little private confidence with the representative of some leading journal. The peculiar views of the interviewers themselves were reflected in their reports next day. Some attributed importance to personal details; others desired to ascertain our political opinions; some were anxious to be instructed on English social questions; others were curious to know our views respecting the municipal government of New York and the condition of the city, founded on what we gleaned from our inspection of the streets from the windows of the carriages in which we were carried to the hotel. But as even in so small a party there was diversity of opinions, the accounts of the general impressions of the whole body were rather contradictory and confused. It is a novel experience to English people to be accosted in the most familiar 21 way by persons whom they have never seen in their lives, and to be subjected to an examination, even to minute particulars, respecting their views in relation to all manner of things, knowing all the while that their answers will be given with more or less accuracy in print in a few hours. But it is nevertheless an ordeal to which public men and notabilities in the United States submit generally without a struggle; and it would be considered a mark of "aristocratic exclusiveness" if titled people from England refused to acquiesce in the general custom.

The effect produced on the party by the first sight of the city was not agreeable. The unwonted look of the Elevated Railway, of the forest of crooked telegraph poles, and cobweb-like wires along the sideways, combined to give an unpleasant sensation to the eye. We had occasion, subsequently, to recognise the utility of the Elevated Railway, just as we had to admit the advantages of tramcar railways for the million; but no device can redeem the ugliness of the one, and nothing but a fine spirit of self-sacrifice can reconcile a resident of New York to the devastation caused in the streets, and to the misery of travelling over the iron ruts which run through most of the thoroughfares of the city, with the exception of Broadway. It is only fair to state that the Elevated Railway is not commended by any one from an æsthetic point of view, and there is a theory afloat that the telegraph wires will, some fine day, be laid underground; but, all 22 said and done, there is reason to doubt whether they manage these things in New York much better than they do in some of the decayed old capitals of the Eastern World.

In some respects I found the old parts of New York but little changed since 1861. The words in which I recorded my first impressions then would not inaptly describe what one sees, in 1881, on landing at one of the wharves and driving to the Fifth Avenue, barring the change of seasons, for there was no snow in April, but the condition of the streets was accounted for by the late and severe winter, of which the effects had not yet disappeared.

I wrote on 16th March, 1861:—"We were rattling over a most abominable pavement, plunging into mud-holes, squashing through snow-heaps, in ill-lighted, narrow streets of low, mean-looking, wooden houses, of which an unusual proportion appeared to be lager-bier saloons, whisky-shops, oyster-houses, and billiard and smoking establishments. The crowd on the pavement were very much what a stranger would be likely to see in a very bad part of London, Antwerp, or Hamburg, with a dash of the noisy exuberance which proceeds from the high animal spirits that defy police regulations and are superior to police force, called 'rowdyism.' The drive was long and tortuous; but by degrees the character of the thoroughfares and streets improved. At last we turned into a wide street with very tall houses, alternating with far 23 humbler erections, blazing with lights, gay with shop-windows, thronged in spite of the mud with well-dressed people, and pervaded by strings of omnibuses—Oxford Street was nothing to it for length. At intervals there towered up a block of brickwork and stucco with long rows of windows lighted up tier above tier, and a swarming crowd passing in and out of the portals, which was recognised as the barrack-like glory of American civilisation—a Broadway monster hotel. More oyster-shops, lager-bier saloons—concert-rooms of astounding denominations, with external decorations very much in the style of the booths at Bartholomew Fair—churches, restaurants, confectioners, private houses! again another series—they cannot go on expanding for ever! This is the west-end of London—its Belgravia and Grosvenoria represented in one long street, with offshoots of inferior dignity at right angles to it. Some of the houses are handsome, but the greater number have a compressed, squeezed-up aspect, which arises from the compulsory narrowness of frontage in proportion to the height of the building, and all of them are bright and new, as if they were just finished to order,—a most astonishing proof of the rapid development of the city. As the hall door is made an important feature in the residence, the front parlour is generally a narrow, lanky apartment, struggling for existence between the hall and the partition of the next house. The outer door, which is always provided with fine carved panels and mouldings, is of some rich varnished wood, and looks 24 much better than our painted doors. It is generously thrown open so as to show an inner door with curtains and plate glass. The windows, which are double on account of the climate, are frequently of plate glass also. Some of the doors are on the same level as the street, with a basement story beneath; others are approached by flights of steps, the basement for servants having the entrance below the steps, and this, I believe, is the old Dutch fashion, and the name of 'stoop' is still retained for it."[2]

But the progress, which has never been arrested since the period of my first acquaintance with the Empire City, is attested by statistics; it has grown, and it is growing steadily in size, population, trade, and wealth.

In the evening the Duke and some of the party went to the Madison Square Theatre to see "Hazel Kirke," which has had a wonderful run: but, truth to say, I was more struck by the commodiousness and charming arrangements of the theatre, which are perfect, than by the situations of the highly strained drama, which was rendered, however, by a very effective company, and moved many of those near us to tears.

The day after our arrival (April 26th) the conviction dawned on certain of us that we must be up and stirring, if certain articles of baggage were to be rescued from some unknown limbo and restored to our personal use. (I hope my readers will bear with me if I ask them to accept a few pages now and then of my diary as 25 the best account I can offer them of our tour.) The worthy Briton who had borne up manfully against the unaccustomed trials of sea-sickness, and had valiantly kept watch and ward over the Duke's baggage and that of his friends on board ship, had been fairly overwhelmed by the novitas regni on landing, and he maintained undefeatedly that all the things—his own certainly—were in the hotel, but "that they would not give them up!" There was nothing for it but an expedition to the Cunard dock. Lord Stafford and I drove over to the river side, and there we found the missing portmanteaux, bags, and bundles, quite safe, in a large shed, open apparently to all the world, and returning to the Brevoort were once more entangled in the meshes of many interviewers.

It needs some reflection to appreciate the great fact called New York; some previous acquaintance to recognise the prodigious increase, within the last ten or fifteen years, in all that makes a great city. The Fifth Avenue has extended its well-ordered rows of stately mansions and handsome houses almost to the gates of the favourite recreation ground of fast trotters and well-appointed carriages. The Central Park is now a beautiful resort, of which any metropolis might be proud. "O Quirine! Rusticus tuus sumit trechedipna." If my eyes did not deceive me, I beheld cockades in the hats of honest Republican "helps," and armorial bearings on the panels of democratic broughams. Should the enterprise of a gentleman 26 who proposes to collect particulars of Americans claiming to be sprung from the loins of kings and emperors, to be published at a price which suggests that he must believe in the possession of hereditary wealth by his distinguished subscribers, be successful, imperial and royal honours will be due to people now content with belonging to "the first families" in the States. These, however, are but spots on the face of the sun under which the American "Demos" basks so contentedly, and they may vary in size and number without affecting the purity and force of the celestial rays.

The papers contained elaborate descriptions of the Duke and of his party from the pens of the interviewers of the day before, which afforded us considerable amusement. His Grace of course was the central figure, and, judging from the accounts we read, he must certainly have assumed a variety of appearances. One paper said: "His gait is marked by a slight limp: his manner is easy, even careless, and his movements are noticeable for their restlessness." "Altogether he is the picture of a well-bred English gentleman, and would never be suspected of being the possessor of a dozen titles and an income so vast that he cannot possibly spend it all." Another paper thought he was "a jolly-looking man. He is above the middle height, of robust build, and the very picture of a thoroughly happy, healthy, well-preserved gentleman, still in the prime of life. He wears his beard, whiskers, and 27 moustache, which are of a bright chestnut-brown, and as yet barely touched by the silver tint of time." The appreciations of another reporter were very different. He wrote "the Duke is a tall gentleman with silvery hair and a grey beard, dressed in a sack coat and grey trowsers." According to another authority "He has a look about him which would mark him for a Scotchman. He is tall, of medium size, with greyish hair and whiskers and a sandy-coloured moustache. He was dressed in a grey suit and Derby hat." He was described elsewhere as having "a passion for steam-engines of almost every kind, although the locomotive and the modern fire-engine are his favourites." We all came in for our share of fancy sketching and pen-and-ink drawing, and those who knew themselves best would have been puzzled to detect the originals. Some of the limners thought us "fair types of well-to-do, well-fed gentlemen, of the solid build and florid features which English roast beef produces." Mr. Neale was declared to have "a more elegant external appearance than the other members of the party. On the outskirts of his features grow brown whiskers." We all "talked more affectedly" than the Duke. Mr. Stephen was complimented with reason on his "magnificent physique." It was astonishing how "well posted," to use the Transatlantic idiom, the papers were in Burke and Debrett. They gave full accounts of the ducal house of Sutherland—of its history and possessions, expatiated on the grandeurs of Trentham, 28 Stafford House, and Dunrobin, the treasures of their picture-galleries, the vast acreage of the estates, the richness of the mines, the wealth of the salmon rivers, deer forests, and grouse moors, with most un-Republican enthusiasm.

To millions of Americans the exact status of a Duke is as great a mystery as the rank of a Jam or of a Thakoor is to the mass of Englishmen out of India; but millions of Americans had heard of the Duke of Sutherland. Stafford House is a name familiar to those who remember the times when "Uncle Tom's Cabin," Mrs. Beecher Stowe, and the anti-slavery agitation which emanated from Exeter Hall made noise in the world. Still, the great gulf which the Revolution and the Act of Independence made between the social systems of the New World and the Old is only passed by the travelled American, except in rare instances. The colonel who informed Martin Chuzzlewit that "your Queen, sir, lives in the Tower of London," was scarcely an exaggeration of popular American ignorance on such subjects. But, after all, how many Englishmen are there who could give an exact account of the working of the Electoral College in the election of one of the most potential of sovereigns, or who could define the differences between a Republican and a Democrat? An old lady on board the "Gallia" who insisted that "the Duke of Sutherland was a cousin of the Queen of England" represents a large number of people who cannot or do not care to understand the 29 functions and constitution of what they call "your privileged classes." The authority to whom I refer above was on her way to her home in the Far West after a tour in Europe and a visit to Great Britain, and she told her auditory that "she thought Ireland, at all events, would be a great deal better off if there were more dollars and less dukes in it," which, seeing that the Green Isle has only two peers of that rank, argued perhaps some intolerance on her part towards the ducal aristocracy. A duke who takes an active interest in the great works of national progress which Americans exhibit with a just pride to all comers is sure to be honoured in the Great Republic; and when he examines mechanical inventions, ascends elevators, descends mines, dips into graving-docks, investigates factories and workshops, drives an engine, or goes deeply into the working of a farm or of a fire brigade, he excites something like enthusiasm, especially if he be discreetly moved to express his feelings of admiration to those around him.

It was considered by all the Duke's friends that a banquet at Delmonico's was obligatory, and to the refined taste and discrimination, polished by long experience of many capitals, of "Uncle Sam," to the brilliant originality of Mr. Hurlbut, and to the sober judgment and critical acumen of Mr. Butler Duncan, with the proviso that there were "not to be too many dishes," the task of ordering "a quiet little dinner" at that famous restaurant was confided. What the notion 30 of the chef as to "much or many, more or most," under ordinary circumstances, may have been, it would not be easy to determine, but his inventive genius was confined within the limits of a moderate menu, and the result quite justified the reputation of the house in regard to cuisine and cellar. Especially admirable was the arrangement of the table in the cabinet, which was set forth with exquisite flowers and fine fruit. There is no single establishment of the kind in Paris, or in any other city, as far as I know, which can rival Delmonico's new restaurant. It serves the purpose of Willis's Rooms, the London Tavern, the Albion, the Freemasons', and similar establishments in London, for public banquets and breakfasts, civil, military, political, and social; for anniversary convivialities as well as for little dinners and suppers; and of the Café Anglais, Bignon's, Voisin's, &c., in Paris. It is provided with many pretty suites of rooms, and some vast salons, with a very large restaurant à la carte. It is a blaze of lights and mirrors at night, and there is a cliquetis of steel, plate, and glass, a coming and going of ladies and gentlemen in evening dress, a constant movement and an animation in the corridors and approaches, which make one think that, if they be always in force, New York must be in a state of perpetual festivity and luxurious enjoyment. It should be remarked that the charges are high in comparison with the highest standard with which I am acquainted, and that the habitués should belong to classes to whom 31 money is no object.[3] And yet close at hand there is much poverty, if not absolute misery. The sewerage of streets not far off the Fifth Avenue in all its glory was, we were told, in the worst possible condition, and some of the houses, filled with squalid people packed as they are in the lowest parts of London, were pestilential and poisonous. Some people who do not like Republican Republicanism in power, though they do not object to Democratic Republicans in office, seem inclined to lay the blame of bad sewers, bad air, bad pavements, and bad water on the various Commissioners, the elected of the people, who have charge of such things in the Empire City. I was especially warned against the water. It was denounced and charged, in the press, with many serious offences against the public health and against nose, eye, and palate, and I did not test the truth of the accusation.

The Delmonico dinner was but a preparation for a function at the Union League Club, which was giving a "Ladies' Reception" at the Club-house in Fifth Avenue, where "all New York was to be present." The boast, or threat, was scarcely an empty one. As far as the spacious premises could accommodate New York, its fathers and mothers, indeed its grandfathers and grandmothers, its uncles and its aunts, they were there; but the sisters and daughters appeared either to be kept at home, or to dislike the Union League 32 Club, for there were in the vast crowd of well-dressed people of both sexes but few young ladies, which was a bitter disappointment to the gayer of the party; and when one of them repaired to a supper-table, at which there was a rolling fire of corks going on, and asked for a glass of champagne to keep up his spirits, the domestic whom he addressed demanded his wine-ticket, and he, being destitute of any such document, retired disconsolate and thirsty. Mr. Hamilton Fish, the President of the Club, and other members of the Committee did the honours for the Duke, and presented many ladies and gentlemen in their progress through the Club to him, and many amiable offers of service and suggestions for the disposal of our time were tendered, which the time aforesaid would not permit us to accept. It was trying to wander about long series of rooms upstairs and downstairs, and to struggle up and down staircases and along corridors in a throng of strangers; more trying still to be brought up all standing, and to be made an involuntary enemy to progress by the ill-timed but well-meant efforts of the Committee of Reception to introduce eminent citizens or citizenesses to the Duke and his friends. The walls were hung with paintings lent for the occasion by members of the Club, and the predominance of the Foreign schools in the American market was very clearly marked in the names of the painters and the choice of subjects. There were Meissoniers and Rosa Bonheurs, and pictures from Brussels, Paris, Dusseldorf, and Munich, as well as a display of native works, 33 but there were few, if any, specimens of the divisions of the English school. Mr. Bierstadt told me subsequently that there was a growing appreciation of the works of British artists in the States, and that some valuable examples of our best modern painters had been recently acquired for their galleries by private collectors. At all events, on the present occasion the best pictures in the world would literally have gone to the wall, as there was no chance of seeing them thoroughly, although the rooms were brilliantly lighted. Mr. J. Milbank is the fortunate owner of De Neuville's "Reconnaissance," as well as of a good Bonnat and Bouguereau, and Mr. Sloane lent a Gerome (a Moulvie) and a De Neuville, Mr. Raynor sent a "Mussulman at Prayer" by Gerome and good examples of Troyon. Of Corot there were numerous pictures belonging to different members. Mr. J. C. Runkle was happy in the possession of Millets, Geromes, Corots, and Troyons, and liberal in lending them. Detaille's "Halte" (belonging to Mr. C. S. Smith), Meissonier's "Trumpeter," and many other pictures exhibited by members betokened the existence of taste and money, and altogether—"glimpsed" as it was—we saw an excellent selection and had a fair criterion of the value of New York art interiors. There was a sprinkling of naval and military United States officers in uniform among the guests, and I observed that since I was last here an innovation has been made on the Republican simplicity which affected indifference to ribands and decorations, and that several of the officers wore emblems of service 34 on their breasts and in their button-holes—whether authorised by the State or the tokens of voluntary association, like Freemasons' badges, &c., I could not ascertain, as I did not like to ask. The Union League dates from the early period of the Civil War, when, as I remember, there were two opinions in New York, and it was started by prominent members of the Republican party to support Mr. Lincoln in the Empire State and city when he much needed help. The attack on Fort Sumter gave a powerful impetus to the development of the national sentiment in favour of union and unity, and the death of Ellsworth and the defeat of the first Federal army at Bull Run added such an intensity and coherence to the feeling that the Union League became a power in the State, equipped regiments, raised funds, and in every way contributed to the carrying on of the war with spirit, affording by its action and success a powerful illustration of the vigour with which voluntary associations can be worked in America. That there was still in New York a strong party which by no means belonged to the Union League Club or approved of the principles of the association, however, we had reason to suspect from the manner in which our announcement that we were going to the Ladies' Reception there was received by some of our American acquaintances. At one of the several clubs of which our party were made honorary members during our stay in the city, I happened, the same night, to ask a gentleman with whom I was speaking, "Have you been at the Union League 35 Club Reception?" "Union League! What on earth would take me or any one there who could go anywhere else? No, sir! I should be very sorry to meet a friend of mine inside that sort of place." It was, I suppose, like asking a member of Brooks's if he went much to the City Conservative, or a Carlton man if he was going to the Cavendish, but that sort of knowledge which enables people to avoid social rocks does not come but by experience.

Long as the day, and trying as our experiences had been, our labours were not yet over. The Duke's fame as an amateur of fire-engine work had been proclaimed and insisted upon in the American papers, and it would be difficult to say whether an ordinary reader thought the principal object of his Grace's visit was to buy railway shares or land, or to put out fires in the United States. If there is any one of the many things of which Americans are proud, that they take more pride in than another, it is their Fire Department. And their pride is not at all diminished by the reflection that fires are perhaps more frequent and destructive in the United States than in any country in the world, not even excepting Russia.

Mr. Butler Duncan had arranged before dinner that we should visit a fire-station; but it was understood that no warning should be given, and that we were to take any station near at hand à l'improviste. Accordingly we went from one of the clubs down Fifth Avenue, and turned up a cross street to a house not distinguishable 36 from those on either side of it, except by a lamp and the name and number of the station. On the ringing of a bell the door was opened by a man in a kind of uniform, and we were shown into a hall occupying the whole of the ground floor, in the centre of which there was a fire-engine and tender, and at one side stalls, in which four horses were peaceably nibbling their fodder by gas-light. The officer in charge summoned his chief, who came downstairs partly dressed, and who, when made acquainted with the desires of his visitors, quickly set to work to carry them out. On his pressing a brass knob in the side of the wall, we heard the clang of an alarm-bell, and in a second or two, down the stairs, pell-mell, there came a gang of firemen, who had evidently been sleeping in their boots and breeches, and who were hastily buttoning their coats as they descended. In the twinkling of an eye they were in their places on the fire-engine and the horses trotted out and placed themselves in position of their own accord, so that by an electric arrangement the harness was lowered on their backs from the ceiling, and secured in a moment. The gate in the wall was thrown open in front to the street, and out dashed the engine ready for work. All this was exceedingly well done. The Duke was so pleased with it that the experiment was repeated again, and we retired thanking the courteous chief of the establishment for the trouble he had taken, and with the conviction that if they do not always put out fires in New York, it is not owing to any deficiency in the 37 speed with which the engines are turned out of the stations, or the efficiency of the Fire Department.

April 27th.—The early morning was devoted to a stroll down Fifth Avenue and Broadway, and then we returned to the hotel and gave some time to the consideration of the plans for the journey which was to be made to the Far West, and to the details of the excursions which had been arranged before we left England. We had "friends in council," and it says a good deal for the care and forethought with which the expedition had been sketched out that but very few alterations, and those of a trifling character, were necessary in the programme. The hall of the Brevoort House was still thronged with gentlemen desirous of interviews with the new-comers, or verifying the descriptions of them in the newspapers.

In the forenoon we were conducted to the Elevated Railway, and took our places in the special train which started from a station in a cross street close to the Brevoort House, off the Fifth Avenue. I am not going to be the world's policeman, or to inveigh against a mode of conveyance which is tolerated by the people most affected by it; but as I travelled along this extraordinary construction, I could not but feel, as I inadvertently looked into a long series of private interiors, through the open windows on a level with me, and beheld the domestic arrangements of family after family carried out under my eyes, that I was taking a great liberty with private life. Here, drawn by an engine which in common with the carriages distilled oil plentifully 38 on the road below, at a height varying from 20 to 40 feet, was I being borne along in the middle of streets thronged with people and filled with vehicles, looking into drawing-rooms or third-floor windows as I travelled. In a city elongated for miles as New York is, the convenience, no doubt, is very great; but I fail to see why the railway should not have been made on the plan of our own Metropolitan underground system. The speed, in spite of the numerous stoppages, was very respectable, more than 15 miles an hour; but we were retarded from time to time by the trains in advance of us. Wonderful was it to see them gliding round the sharp curves as the line pursued its sinuous course through the streets like a monster millipede. At some parts of its career the railway seems to run right over the pavements, and if the passers-by are not careful, they may receive some of the disjecta of the carriages on their clothes and faces; indeed I am not sure that any amount of care would prevent that sometimes occurring. The remarks which I made to one of the railway officials respecting the inconvenience to which the railway must subject the people living in the houses on either side of it, were met by the statement that "the rents had not diminished." The case of a householder who brought an action against the Company for damages and got a verdict in his favour was not regarded with much favour, and was, I was told, not likely to become a precedent, inasmuch as the final appeal did not lie with the court in which the judgment had been entered; 39 and it was the intention of the company to carry the cause to a higher jurisdiction, where their contention that they had right to cause inconvenience to the few on account of the benefit of the many would be accepted, probably, as good morality and law. To my mind, however, nothing but hard necessity could compel people to live under such conditions as those to which the inhabitants of the houses exposed to the nuisance of the Elevated Railway must submit. It is not alone that they are under incessant inspection of the passengers if they keep blinds and windows up or open, but that the noise and whirl must be distracting. A train passes every minute, I was told, during the hours of business. There are two of these elevated railways, one going east from the Battery to Harlem, the other west from the same starting-point to Fifty-Ninth Street. The Metropolitan line starts from a point near West Broadway to the Central Park. The line on which we were travelling ultimately struck out for the more open country till we came to the Harlem river. There we got out and inspected a very remarkable bridge, with a draw of a most ingenious construction for the passage of vessels, which will be completed speedily. From the railway we enjoyed a fine view of the Croton Aqueduct, of which New York may well be proud, the high bridge by which it is carried across the Harlem River being an imperial work recalling the grandest enterprises of the kind of the Roman engineers. There was a good view of the Central Park and of the country which has been so rapidly encroached upon 40 by the builders; but there is still a considerable tract of land occupied by sheds and shanties of a very abject and miserable aspect, in the possession of squatters who cause much anxiety to landowners, and are very difficult to dispossess. Whether they have rights of disturbance or not I cannot say. Probably if they were to introduce some of the machinery of the law which is considered peculiarly suited to the wants of Ireland, the New Yorkers might find it to their advantage.

On the route to the Harlem River the line rises to a dizzy height, quite above the tops of houses of three stories. Now that the system has been adopted, it seems impossible to change it, as these "L Lines," as they are called, have cost too much money (I think more than twelve millions sterling) to be abandoned or bought up, and they are still in course of construction. No amount of utility can compensate for the intrinsic ugliness of these erections which block up the vista and darken the streets below; and in winter time, when New York, groaning under a burden of snow, has to suffer from the accumulations thrown down by the railway, the inconvenience must be greatly aggravated.

When this very interesting excursion was over, the party returned to the Brevoort House, and after a short interval for repose they were off again, this time to visit Wall Street, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Sub-Treasury of the United States. The latter is an exceedingly fine Doric building of white marble, with a noble rotunda, supported inside by sixteen Corinthian 41 columns. It stands upon the site of the Federal Hall, where Washington delivered his first address as President of the United States. The Duke and his friends were received here by General ——, and conducted through the various departments to the strong rooms, in which were deposited, in neat jackets of canvas, many millions of gold. At the Chamber of Commerce we found some interesting memorials of the old British occupation, portraits of governors and generals of the ante-revolutionary period. The venerable statistician, Mr. Ruggles, gave us much valuable and elaborate information respecting the enormous development of the trade of New York, and expatiated on the vast extension of the wheat and corn-growing power of the United States, and its increasing exportations to Europe.

In the evening the Duke and his friends were entertained by the Hon. Edwards Pierrepoint, where we met a very distinguished party—Mr. Blaine, Secretary of State, Governor Cornell, Mr. Hamilton Fish, Mr. Jay, Mr. Low, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Royal Phelps, Mr. Stout, Mr. Potter, Mr. Choate, Messrs. Beckwith, Mr. Robinson. The honours of the mansion in Fifth Avenue, which contains many interesting souvenirs of Mr. Pierrepoint's official career in England, were graciously rendered by Mrs. Pierrepoint. And later, there was a reception, at which a number of eminent persons were presented to the Duke.

I am not sufficiently versed in the details of fire department management in great cities to offer an 42 opinion on the merits of any particular system. I have seen many fires in my life, and I can only suppose that if the present arrangements are nearly perfect in any one place fires must be regarded as invincible, and fire departments can only report progress and stay the march of the well-called devouring element towards universal sway. Alderman Waite was very anxious that the Duke, as an expert, should have an opportunity of seeing officially the working of the New York system, and it was arranged that what was styled another "impromptu" should be made.

On our way from dinner at Mr. Pierrepoint's to a fire station near our hotel we had to pass the house in the Fifth Avenue where Mr. Edison's head-quarters are situated, and the party turned in to pay him a visit. We found him, a bright-eyed, smooth-faced, broad-browed, almost boyish-looking man, with a pleasant, gentle manner, literally in a blaze of his own making, as far as the manifestation of the electric light was concerned, in a room clear as day, in which Edison lamps were doing the work of the sun, or of a moon with sunny proclivities. He turned his lights off and on at discretion. Coal-owners and gas share proprietors trembled. "But," said Mr. Edison, "there is a great deal yet to be done." And indeed the world is wide enough for gas and electric lighting—for old Captain Shandy and the new blue bottle.

Whilst the Duke and his friends were visiting Mr. Edison there was a small gathering of gentlemen on their way to the quarters of Engine Company No. 4 in 43 Eighteenth Street, near Broadway, where we speedily joined them, and saw a repetition of the business of last night. The engine was reposing in its bedroom—the horses, near at hand, were at work in their cribs and mangers. Foreman Shay strikes a gong and manipulates an electric bell, and down tumbles at once, ready for work, a gang of firemen from their beds in the room above, and in an instant lead out the horses, which rush to the shafts, are harnessed at once by a detachment of the harness, all ready above them hanging from the roof, by the electric power of the station, and are in galloping trim in 2 minutes 30 seconds. This was done several times; the horses seemed to like it more than the firemen. The Alderman and the Fire Commissioners, and others were much pleased at the expression of the Duke's satisfaction, and a gentleman whom I regarded with much interest on account of his title (which I commend to our army reformers), "Fire Master" Sheldon, was especially gratified. It would seem as if the title was honorary or undeserved, for there is no master of fire in New York, as several conflagrations during our stay in the city proved in a very conclusive manner. But in order to show how a fire ought to be put out the Duke, instead of going to bed, was taken off to the corner of Twelfth Street on Fifth Avenue, after the inspection of the premises, stables, sleeping-rooms, and office. The Fire Commissioners, marshals, and aldermen trooped in front of us till we come to the "alarm," which lived in a little pillar-looking box by the side of the kerbstone. The 44 Duke, properly instructed ad hoc, turned on the alarm, and hey presto!—well, nearly so—the effect of his operations became manifest.

Be it noted that our small crowd at the corner of a street close to the most dignified thoroughfare in New York attracted little or no notice from the passers-by; but presently there was a thunder of wheels and hoofs, and a cry of "Hi! hi!" up Fifth Avenue, and vomiting out sparks of fire, snorting, and curveting, came down the engine of our friend Captain Shay from Eighteenth Street, No. 14, in 2' 5"; and in fast succession rushed up engine No. 18, from Tenth, Greenwich Avenue, in 2' 40"; No. 3 Hook and Ladder, from Thirteenth, near Fourth Avenue, in 3'; No. 33, from Mercer Street, near Fourth, in 3' 25"; the Insurance Patrol from Great Tower Street in 4'; and No. 5 Hook and Ladder Company, from Charles Street, in 4' 25". It was very fine to see these engines and their attendants as they made night hideous hastening to the summons, and then ranging up in order to begin, for which there was happily no need. A strong patrol of police came up at the double, formed across the road, charged the crowd to keep them back, and made a resolute demonstration of physical force on the Duke as he was in the act of examining an engine; but such interludes speedily lost all interest in the necessity which presented itself for working out the law of self-preservation, for a special call having been made for the self-propelling engine, No. 24, from Morton Street, near Hudson, and in 6' 15" that fearful 45 mechanism made its appearance—a veritable Stromboli on wheels, and apparently quite wild with fine spirits, and perfectly unmanageable, for it went rampaging up and down the Avenue, vomiting fire and sending the spectators flying for their lives. The hydrant was opened, and the cold water had a calming effect on No. 24, which began to propel a strong jet of water down the Avenue, and, after covering itself with glory and some unwary passers-by with wet, was taken off, and our little party broke up for the night.

April 28th.—Our last day in New York! Our visit to the Empire City was just long enough to satisfy us that it would need a longer sojourn than we could afford to enable us to gain even a general idea of its sights and institutions, and a lifetime to exhaust its hospitality. We perched for a moment on the rim of the Circean bowl and flew off after a glance at the surface, not taking even a sip of the contents, unless the dinner at Mr. Edwards Pierrepoint's pleasant house, the feast of Spartan simplicity at Delmonico's, where every dish was a culinary triumph, and the glasses were charged with wines of race, could be likened to a draught.

"Surgit amari aliquid de fonte." I wonder who was behind "Box 2174, Post Office, New York"? Because we all had a circular to-day containing two printed papers, one entitled "Who is my neighbour?" the other, "Shall the Victors of Spitzkop fight in vain?" in which reference was made to that box as the centre of an organisation—based on the supposition 46 that there is an ever-present feeling of hate to England in the mind of the American people, which, I believe, is erroneous—to make a war against Great Britain for the purpose of assisting the Boers to obtain the restoration of their independence. The man behind the box, however, stated his case artfully and forcibly, if not truthfully. He declared that the immediate and provocative cause of the annexation of the Transvaal was the attempt of the "Republic" to construct a railway to Delagoa Bay. "Alas, they did not know the depths of English hate and English greed! First the English missionary, next the English Consul, and then her hireling soldiery. This is the policy of England—first lies, next intrigue, then butchery." There was an appeal to Mr. Gladstone, however, following one "to the American people," which argued that the man behind the box had more confidence in the former than in the latter, though they were reminded and adjured "We have fought for the African! Let us now fight for the Africander!" and there were model resolutions to be adopted at imaginary public meetings; the last of all was—"Resolved: That we advise the English masses to take the government of their country into their own hands, for their dukes, their earls, their knights, and their lords and their merchant princes can only lead them in the future as they are now doing, and have done in the past, to war, dishonour, desolation, death, debt, misery, and taxes." The appeal terminated with some doggerel, headed "War Song of the Africanders." Some 47 one else sent us numbers of a comic periodical, with a woodcut of our respectable old British Lion, in a shako and uniform, retreating precipitately from a very bandit-looking person, with the words, "The British Lion meets a Real Live White Man!"

If Americans are subjected in England to the same fire of paper projectiles that was opened on the Duke and his friends, there is some reason for their avoiding our country. Circulars we are accustomed to at home—announcements of alarming sacrifices and reckless sale we can bear with patience. But here we have ways and means revealed to us of achieving absolute health, wealth, and happiness—patents and portents—mechanical inventions certain to "annihilate both time and space," and make "investors" happy—parents with children to be adopted—patent safes—veritable El Dorados—mines of gold and silver—medicines of subtlest power—agricultural implements—chemical products—hair dyes—new motive forces—astrologers burning to reveal the secrets of the world of spirits and stars—mediums palpitating with anxiety for conference and confidence—the Atomic Steam Coal Gas Reform's disciples insisting on our using their gas "made from refuse coal-dust and steam" and joining the "National Gas Reform Syndicate."

Having completed all our baggage arrangements and handed the pile over to Mr. Trowbridge, the obliging agent of the London and North-Western Railway, to see safely stowed in the special train at the other side of the river, we drove down to the wharf, where the steamer "Juniata," chartered by our 48 indefatigable hosts, the Philadelphia Railway Company, was awaiting us. We embarked, and made an agreeable excursion up and down the river, inspecting the termini of the railways and the corn elevators, and passing under the great bridge which is to connect Brooklyn with the city. The lively aspect of the waterway, crowded with shipping, and the incessant movement of the vast ferry-boats and steamers, impressed us greatly. When one thinks that it is not three centuries ago since Henry (whom the Americans persist in calling Hendrick) Hudson made his way up the stream and began the civilising processes on the Red man, which have ended in their disappearance, New York, with its forest of steeples and chimneys, and great elevators, is indeed a marvel. At the beginning of this century its population was very little over 60,000; last year it was 1,207,000.

The four Commissioners sent over by Charles II. "to reduce the Colony into bounds" in 1664, who, August 29, "marched with 300 red-coats to Manhadoes and took from the Dutch the chief town, then called New Amsterdam, now New York, and turned out their Governor, with a Silver Leg, and all the rest but those who acknowledged subjection to the King of England, suffering them to enjoy their houses and estates as before," had a very easy task if the old book[4] from which I quote be correct. "Thirteen days after," continues the writer, "Sir Robert Carr 49 took the fort and town of Aurania, now called Albany, and twelve days after that the fort and town of Avasapha, then Delaware Castle, manned with Dutch and Swedes, so that the English are now masters of three handsome towns, three strong forts, and a castle, without the loss of one man." In those days New York was reputed a large place, "containing five hundred well-built houses of Dutch brick, the meanest not valued under one hundred pounds—to the landward it is encompassed with a wall of good thickness, and fortified at the entrance of the river, so as to command any ship that passeth that way, by a fort called James Fort." The inhabitants "were supplied with venison and fowl in the winter and fish in the summer by the Indians at an easie price, and had a considerable trade for the skins of elkes, deers, bears, beaver, otter, racoon, and other rich furs." These Indians are described as well proportioned, swarthy, black-haired, very expert with their bows and arrows, very serviceable and courteous to the English, being of a ready wit and very apt to receive instruction from them, "but there are now but few Indians on the island, being strangely decreased since the English first settled there, for not long ago there were six towns full of them which are now reduced to two villages, the rest being cut off by wars among themselves or some raging mortal diseases." The question arises, however, how it was that these wars and diseases did not reduce the numbers of the Indians before the arrival of the English, and the answer might point to 50 the theory that the latter had had something to do with the spread of both. And, indeed, the author soon tells the terrible secret of it all. "They are very great lovers of strong drink, so that without they have enough to be drunk they care not to drink at all—if any happen to be drunk before he has taken his share, which is ordinarily a quart of brandy, rum, or strong waters, to show their justice they will pour the rest down his throat, in which debauches they often kill one another, which the friends of the dead revenge upon the murtherer." He declares they are descendants of the Jews, and gives some curious reasons for it. In another place the author says, "Don't abuse them, but let them have justice and you win them. The worst is that they are the worse for the Christians, who have propagated their vices and have given them tradition for ill, and not for good things." Alas, that it should be so! How little was the pious prayer he offers heard on High! "I beseech God to incline the hearts of all that come into these parts to outlive the knowledge of the Natives by a fixed obedience to their greater knowledge of the will of God, for it were miserable indeed for us to fall under the just censure of the poor Indian conscience whilst we make profession of things so far transcending it." What Nemesis has followed the wrong the English white man rendered to his fellow? None, I trow. 51

CHAPTER III.
DEPARTURE FOR PHILADELPHIA.

Our Special Train—On the Rail—Eye-sores—The Quaker City—The Pennsylvania Railroad—Reminiscences—Excursions—The New Public Buildings—Mr. Childs and "The Ledger"—Mr. Simon Cameron—Baltimore—Arrival at Washington.

At 12.30 we landed at the Pennsylvania Terminus or Depôt, where our special train was in readiness, consisting of several Pullman palace-cars and the private car of President Roberts, and a staff of smart, well-uniformed coloured waiters, and, as we found, with an ample store of creature comforts. At the Depôt the experts examined the whole system of transportation of freight, stowage, passenger traffic, and baggage checking. As far as I could gather from Mr. Neale and the Directors, who applied their minds to the subject, the American system of checking luggage offers no advantages which would recommend its introduction in England, although it may be, and is, no doubt, exceedingly well suited to the United States, where passengers may have to travel thousands of miles continuously over different lines of railway with many breaks. It seemed to our London and North-Western Directors that English travellers would not put up with the 52 delays which would be experienced in the transportation of their baggage from the railway stations to the hotels, under the American check system, and that they would prefer a short detention when the train arrived, in order to pick out their own property and carry it away with them bodily.

Presidents and vice-presidents of railways in this country are great powers, and exercise vast influence, if not in the State, at least on their own lines—aye, and farther too. On one occasion I was informed, when inquiring into the functions of the several officers of a great company, that one of them was charged especially with looking after those interests of the railway which might be affected by legislation—in other words, that he had to see lest the company should suffer detriment from the views of persons who might be returned to positions in which they might carry out theories dangerous to their monopoly. The distance from New York to Philadelphia is ninety miles, which, under ordinary circumstances, is traversed in two hours and a half, or thereabouts; but our special was timed to do it in considerably less. The train passes right through the streets of Jersey City, which would be considered a large town in the old country, and boasts of a population of nearly 90,000. As the bell of the engine tolled, women and children skipped out of the way or ran across the line, when they eluded the vigilance of the railway officials who lowered ingenious barriers as the train approached. But although they say "practice makes perfect," "killed by the 53 cars" is a very ordinary head-line in the American newspapers. The country outside "Jersey City," which is like an ugly continuation of New York, is flat and uninteresting, but the low land which the railroad traverses is dotted by factories and industrial establishments of all kinds. We were soon aware that we were carrying with us the plague of hideous advertisements plastered upon walls, and even upon the natural features of the country, which we had observed in the environs of New York. From imperious commands to "smoke" somebody's "mixture" down to wheedling supplications to "use" somebody else's "oil," the eye encountered at every hundred yards on the hoardings, on the sides of houses, on trees and palings, the mendacious advertisements of quack doctors and sellers of patent or unpatent nostrums, frequently illustrated by woodcuts set forth in glaring colours. So close to Jersey City that we were scarcely aware that it was separated from it by a few fields, we came to Newark, a great town of brick and wood houses, chimneys, factories, and churches, containing more than 120,000 people, and as we ran through the streets we got glimpses of some fine-looking buildings, of which we have nothing more to say.

Then came Elizabeth City, with many well-to-do houses and country seats around, and some small mansions with patches of ground, which would not be quite dignified with the name of "park" in England. "New Brunswick," a manufacturing town of 20,000 people, thirty-two miles from New York, was specially 54 commended to our notice on account of the College called Rutgers', and a few miles farther on we were told that we were passing Princetown College, which is one of the most celebrated institutions in the United States. "Trenton," the capital of New Jersey, is famous for its potteries, but to us it was chiefly attractive in connection with lunch, and we were whirled past the State House, the Penitentiary, and Lunatic Asylum at a speed unfavourable for the calm contemplation of the town which Washington made historical by the defeat he inflicted on the unfortunate subjects of the Grand Duke of Hesse, in the pay of King George. The conviction is growing upon my mind that the party of travellers, of which I have the honour of being one, is not likely to have much experience of actual American railway life, or much knowledge of the ordinary conditions in which people live in the United States. It is neither our fault nor misfortune that we are so specially well taken care of; but my recollection of what the traveller had to endure in crowded railway cars in former days, and in the rush and scuffle at the tables d'hôte of the hotels, whilst it induces me to congratulate myself and our friends on our exemption from such trials, is a satisfactory demonstration that we are not likely to gain much insight into the manners and customs of those who, like ourselves, are wandering over the face of the Union.

Passing a very small Bristol, the train brought us in sight of Philadelphia, where we were safely handed over to a number of gentlemen who were awaiting our 55 arrival with most hospitable intent, and thence we were driven to the Continental Hotel. In the drive through the streets between the railway terminus and the hotel, our friends were very much struck by the fine appearance of the town, which was far superior to New York in the cleanliness of the streets, and quite rivalled the Empire City in the display in the shop-windows and the gay appearance of the large establishments in the main thoroughfares. At the Continental Hotel there was the usual crowd in the hall, before whom we had to defile on our way to our rooms, after the necessary process of inscription in the hotel registry. Then after a short interval for repose we made an excursion through the city, and drove out to the beautiful grounds of Fairmount Park, "the largest in any city in the world," in which stands all that remains of the buildings of the Great Exhibition. If I were writing a guide-book I might give some details, out of many with which our friends favoured us, respecting the World's Fair and the Quaker City, but I am rather inclined to make this a narrative of what we did. Marvellous as are most of the great cities in the States, in relation to their recent origin and extension, Philadelphia, which has a respectable antiquity, is entitled to a high place amongst the wondrous works of American man. In an old book which I came across, describing the colonies and settlements as they were 200 years ago, an anonymous writer, under the date of 1682, says:—"Philadelphia, our intended metropolis, is to be two miles long, and a 56 mile broad. At each end it lies upon a navigable river. Besides the High Street that runs in the middle from river to river, and which is 100 feet broad, it has eight streets laid out to run the same course which are 50 feet broad. Besides Broad Street, which crosses the town in the middle, which is 100 feet broad, there are twenty streets that run the same course, also 50 feet broad. The names of these are to be taken from the things that spontaneously grow in this country, such as the Vine, the Mulberry, the Chestnut, Walnut, Filbert, and the like." And there, sure enough, they were inscribed on the corners of the houses as they are to be seen at this day.

At the Continental Hotel, which must be classed among the number, not very large, of first-class hotels in the Old and New World, we found the dining saloons, halls, passages, and the street in front illuminated by the electric light, which will probably come into use in similar establishments in London in a generation or two; and in the room in which we dined two electric burners were doing the work which ten gas chandeliers each with ten burners were wont to do, as was apparent from their neglected splendour.

The Pennsylvania Railway authorities, represented by Mr. G. B. Roberts, Mr. F. Thomson, and others, did all that lay in their power (and that was great) to enable us to turn our visit to the best account. But it was trying, after all our efforts, to leave so much unseen, and yet be obliged to confess that our powers were taxed by trying to see too much. And 57 the same remarks apply to our journey throughout, which, as my readers will see if they care to read, was performed under high pressure almost from the beginning to the end. There was something more than an exhibition of mere courtesy towards brother directors in the attention paid by the representatives of the great American railway company to the party. They had reason to show attention to Mr. Crosfield, the Auditor, for he had rendered them substantial service, I was told—and I need not say it was not Mr. Crosfield who gave me the information—on one occasion, when they were engaged in a financial operation in London, by testifying to the satisfactory condition of their affairs and accounts. They got their money forthwith. Whatever may be the length and capital of other great railways in the States, our experience, I may say at once, was that in the excellence of the permanent way and carriages, punctuality and speed, the Pennsylvania was not excelled, if closely approached, by any. It is a great corporation. The four general divisions (of which each is subdivided, to the discomfiture somewhat of students of time-tables) of the line comprise 1845 miles, and it is stated that the Company is engaged in extensive absorptions and acquisitions, and that many little lines will be "bolted," and I hope digested, in due course. Their capital is too serious and complicated a matter for me to deal with, but I believe we wise men from the East were convinced that it is as sound as the ground on which the line runs, though I shall not forget the look of incredulity with which one of the 58 gentlemen in the train with us heard the answer to his question respecting the capital of the London and North-Western. "A hundred millions! Dollars, of course, you mean?" "No, sir, a hundred millions sterling." After a while incredulity gave place to respectful admiration. "Five hundred million dollars. Well! that's a big pile, I'll allow." The appearance of Philadelphia caused a most agreeable surprise to the party, and Chestnut Street was voted to excel Broadway in the elegance and magnificence of the shops, although it cannot boast—nor, as far as I know, can any city in the world—of such a colossal store as Stewart's. We especially admired the Park and the Girard Bridge, one of the grandest and most beautiful in existence; but the object which challenged the admiration of the visitors more than anything they had seen so far was the vast pile in which the public departments are to find their gorgeous home, the effect of which will, some of us think, be spoiled rather than enhanced by the portentous clock-tower which is to be raised to a height that shall dwarf all known steeples, campaniles or towers in the two hemispheres by many gratifying feet.

To strangers, interesting and attractive, with many fine buildings and noble public institutions to show, Philadelphia is connected with the most important events in the early life of the Republic, and possesses for an American larger and more numerous souvenirs of the fathers of the Union and of their labours than any other place on the Continent. From some points 59 in the park there is a good coup d'œil to be obtained of the monuments, churches, and undulating sea of roofs between the Schuylkill and the Delaware. The Girard Bridge, on the way, is one of the finest in the world. On every side there was much to admire, but the sun was blazing and fierce—unusually so—and at last we sought the shades of the Continental. There was none very soon after our arrival, for the hotel was, as I have said, illuminated by electricity. I could not recognise the place in which I had once stood in a time of wild excitement. "Sumter was to be relieved!" A throng of men discussing the news that was destined to lead to such stupendous results, so dense I could not make my way to the office where there was now only a crowd of some dozen people waiting to see "this Duke and the Britishers." The clerk, or one of those gentlemen in the office who control the destinies of travellers and visitors to hotels in the States, remembered the time well. He had served in a Pennsylvania regiment (not one of those which went away from McDowell the morning of Bull Run), and had been lieutenant, if not captain, and now, like many of his comrades in higher places, he was engaged in civil pursuits. Many interviews, and to bed.

April 29th.—The Duke was carried off at an early hour to begin the work of the day, into which was to be crammed many inspections and sights. These tell on the tourists somewhat; for as we are handed over, day after day, from one important body of ever kind and indefatigable guides and hosts, we are, of 60 course, paying with our persons, whereas, for those on whom we descend there is but a few hours' hard labour, and then comes repose to them and "good-bye" to us. There is an eminently respectable air about Philadelphia; the shops in the main streets are attractive and beautiful; the citizens look prosperous; the vehicles are soberly luxurious, and the horses sleek. The Auditor, who belongs to the Society of which the founder of the State and city was the great ornament and chief, finds himself at home among many "Friends," and albeit they do not generally affect the attire of the sect, and the broad-brimmed hats, upright collars, single-breasted coats, and knee-breeches of sober hue, of the men, and the coal-scuttle bonnets, square, plain collars, and straight-cut cloth dresses of the women, have given place to garments of modern fashion, the good people called Quakers still form a numerous and influential community. We were told, and I believe truly, that there are more house-proprietors—that is, more people who own the houses they live in—in the population than in any city of the Union; and I was struck by the immense number of dwellings of moderate dimensions, all trim and nice, freshly painted, with flowers in the windows, and little gardens of which we caught glimpses in our early drives through the clean, neat, well-ordered streets. There was a lunch or breakfast at the house of General and President Roberts to fortify the party for a minute inspection of the terminus of the Pennsylvania Railroad at Fifteenth and Filbert Street, where all the arrangements 61 for freighting and unloading the trains and for the great passenger traffic were explained and closely examined, and then they were conducted to the Elevated Road, and found a special train of Pullman palace-cars waiting to convey them to West Philadelphia; and a distinguished company of railway and other potentialities—Mr. G. A. Childs; Vice-Presidents Cassatt, Kneass, and Strickland; Mr. Dubarry, President of the Philadelphia and Erie Company; a number of directors—Messrs. Morris, Felton, Biddle, Shortridge, Cummins, Welsh, &c.—of the main line; Mr. Hinckley, President of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Company; Mr. Griscom, of the International Navigation Company; Mr. Drexel, and many others, to do them honour. The drawing-rooms of the cars were ornamented with bouquets of the most lovely flowers; it is a never-failing and always welcome compliment, and Americans rival Parisians in the love, skill, and taste they display in the arrangement of these floral triumphs. The party visited Greenwich Point and Girard Point, and I saw with alarm some stupendous elevators in the distance, for the sun was exceedingly powerful, and we had already been called upon to witness the storage of corn non sine pulvere, at the terminus, but our kindly guardians were not imperative, and an outside view was all that was demanded of us. Passing under the Market Street bridge by the west bank of the river, and crossing to the east side by the line to the Delaware, we found a steamer waiting for us, in which we embarked, and were treated to a very pleasant 62 excursion along the front of the city by water, to Port Richmond and to the freight station, where more elevators menaced us, but were appeased by external worship. The railway cognoscenti declared that all the details of the railroad management, and the sheds, warehouses, &c., were excellent, and this they did before the lunch (No. 2) which awaited the party at the offices of the Pennsylvania Railway in Fourth Street, whereof certain terrapin arrangements elicited expressions of much approval. After lunch, the party were led off, with re-invigorated powers, to visit Independence Hall, calling on Mayor Mr. King, at his office en route. Here there were more introductions, and Mr. Mayor, a bland and genial gentleman, made pretty little speeches to his visitors—"welcomed them as well on account of their distinction among the governing influences of their country, as for their useful mission in effecting an interchange of ideas in connection with improvements in transportation of products and diffusion of commerce." (Not a word of protective duties, Mr. Mayor!) From the Mayor's presence to Independence Hall was but a short way, and after we had inspected the building and its contents (vide Guide-Books), we were taken on to "The Ledger" Office, which is one of the sights of Philadelphia, as Mr. Childs is one of the institutions which his friends would desire to be immortal if that were possible, and the Duke and his friends were received with much courtesy by the learned, urbane, and energetic gentleman, who, having built up a fortune as well as one of the finest newspaper offices in the 63 world, devotes the former to most worthy and liberal objects, and directs in the latter a journal of the highest reputation for literary excellence and political honesty.

Bibliopolery and bibliomania are rather rampagious in America. Were not Caxton and Wynkyn de Worde ancestors of English born in America as well as of English born in England? And who shall say Shakespeare is not the common property of the Anglo-Saxon race wherever they are found? As to that "quae regio in terris," &c. When I was in New York the other day, I was shown the outside of a house on the borders of the Central Park, filling an entire block from Seventieth to Seventy-first Street, and of the interior I heard such an account from "Uncle Sam" that I felt burglarious proclivities, which were restrained possibly by physical feebleness and the chastening reflection that I could not dispose of my plunder without the certainty of detection. It was the Lenox Library, containing priceless early Bibles, Shakespeares, and the like, in addition to treasures of art and belles lettres of the highest order, guarded by a one-headed Cerberus who would not let us in when we sought admission later in the year, for the same reason that London clubs are closed in the autumn. I dare say I could have obtained admission to the Lenox Hospital close at hand had I been duly qualified. Here in Philadelphia Mr. Childs has a library which, tout vu, is a credit to his taste and his industry, and which is rich in the autographic letters of English and American authors and MSS. In a 64 small pamphletette from Robinson's 'Epitome of Literature' there is a very pleasant account of some of the treasures of the collection, and Mr. Childs is as liberal as the day in the display of them to all who desire to see them.

From "The Ledger" Office en route once more. There was still the new City Hall to inspect—a day's work in itself. A short drive brought us to the stupendous mass; Mr. Perkins, President of the Commission, and Mr. McArthur, the architect, received the Duke and his friends, and led them over some portion of the vast erection. It would be impossible, without a series of photographs, to give an idea of the "New Public Buildings," as they are called, which are described as "an immense architectural pile," occupying an area of four and a half acres under one roof, in a square of 428 feet, which with the projections for convenience and architectural effect are extended on the flanks to 470 feet from east to west, and 486½ feet from north to south. It is of the Renaissance, "modified and adapted," as the architect states, "to the varied and extensive requirements" of the great American municipality. I am sorry to say that amongst these is included the necessity for a clock-tower or campanile so out-Heroding Herod in its enormous altitude and ungainly bulk as to give in the architectural drawing an idea of comparative meanness to the bold elevation of the building below. It would seem as if the people of Philadelphia were bent upon emulating the Tower of Babel, or at all events of thrusting up towards heaven a shaft of stone which should be far nearer to 65 it than anything hitherto erected by the hand of man; for this clock-tower is to be reared to such a height, that the centre of the clock-face shall be 361 feet above the level of the pavement. The diameter of the face of the clock is in proportion—20 feet—and even that will not be too much for time-keeping in such an elevated position. Those who revel in such details ought really to get the account of the contractor's work, of the 46,000,000 of bricks, and the 476,000 cubic feet of marble, and of the excavations and tonnage of iron used up already in this building, which is to contain the city offices, the law offices of the State, the military headquarters, and in fact everything State and municipal that requires a local habitation and a name for administrative and executive purposes. The reasons for such a creation were well set forth in the oration of Mr. Benjamin Brewster, on the occasion of the laying of the corner stone seven years ago. It causes one to think what "posterity" means when it is used as a phrase to express the people who live after us according to the orator's position, as we read that amongst those whose names posterity will not willingly let die are "Rittenhouse and Bush, Godfrey and Bartram." British posterity very probably would hear of the extinction of these respected memories without a pang—American posterity is called upon to keep them alive for ever. But tall buildings are appropriately inaugurated by tall talk. Penn and Franklin, it must be admitted, notwithstanding the somewhat narrow view of the character of the Great Quaker taken by very eminent historians in this country, were certainly men 66 deserving well of their fellows, and to be remembered always on the American Continent, and on those portions of the earth where English is the language and English ideas are found; but why should the others "be passed down through time linked with Solon, Lycurgus, Pythagoras, Archimedes, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, the crowned monarchs of human thought"?

There was still a visit to be paid to the Academy of Fine Arts, and I can answer for myself at least when I say it was, though it came last, the most agreeable incident in the long day's work. It is an institution of which the promoters may boast with every reason, and which must in time develop the taste and skill of native artists, of which its walls already exhibit creditable specimens.

One little incident of the visit was amusing. In one of the rooms, by way of a surprise to the Duke, and to give a local colour to the place in his eyes, there was in waiting, amidst a group of lady pupils and students of the sculpture models, a full-dressed Highlander. He was all alive, too, and made his bow very nicely, but he was exceedingly disconcerted when the Duke exclaimed, "He has got on his plaid over the wrong shoulder." The Highlander, amid the laughter which followed the remark, merely said in good American, "I'm not a Scotchman nor a Highlander at all." I believe there are many in the kilted regiments at home who might make a similar confession. He had been evidently dressed after a photograph, and the plaid reversed. 67

In development of public spirit and wealth, in the beautiful park, the public buildings, the scientific and literary societies, and commercial activity, the city possesses an indefeasible title to be considered the real capital of the State of Pennsylvania.

April 30th.—After three separate heads had popped in at my bedroom this morning and popped back again, seeing that it was "tubbing" time, at 8 A.M. I bolted the door and proceeded to finish my business. Desperate attempts to get in—knock! knock! knock! "You can't come in! I'm undressed!" "Only for a minute!" "I tell you I'm undressed." A card was pushed under the door. Presently I go to the spot, and find on the card in pencil, "S. Cameron, Harrisburg, Pa." It was my old friend, the venerable ex-Senator of Pennsylvania, Mr. Lincoln's first War Secretary, Simon Cameron! I hurried down-stairs to the office. Mr. Cameron was not staying in the Hotel. After a time it was ascertained that he was quartered at the Girard House, nearly opposite, but he was not in, and I had to go away without seeing him.

At 10.30 we bade good-bye to Philadelphia and many friends, and departed in a special train for Baltimore (98 miles) by the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railway on our way to Washington. In Mr. Hinckley, the President of the line, who accompanied us and told us he was about to be boa-constrictored by the P. R. R., we found a delightful companion, and a most agreeable guide; a man of wit and travel, full of observation and anecdote; a sportsman, 68 a naturalist, as well as a railway president; conversant with prairie and Indian life, abounding in anecdote concerning beasts, birds, devil-fish, grizzlies, buffaloes, Red men, as well as the newest devices and dodges of civilised life in the dreadful forms of oleomargarine, butterine, glucose, and the like. Just imagine the atrocity of filling bee-hives with glucose, and selling them as charged with bee-made honey! Fancy, again, the ingenuity of providing the industrious little hymenoptera with artificial hives, with cells and all complete, made out of gutta-percha or papier-mâché, or the like, so that the bee is free to expend all his energy in storing up honey at once, and need not bestow a thought upon making wax, or gathering the materials for it!

The line of railway to Baltimore passes through a populous, unattractive country, which seemed exceedingly prosperous. On our way we passed the oldest city in the State, which, though it bears the name of Chester, was founded by the Swedes about the time of our Civil War, shortly before the raising of the standard by Charles I. It is now remarkable for the ship-building yards of a gentleman of Irish origin, named Roach, and the Swedes have all vanished. A little farther on is the Brandywine River, on which, in 1777, was fought the battle which the Americans have somehow persuaded themselves was a victory. The stones set up to mark "Mason and Dixon's Line" are near Newark, close to Maryland, and the special was stopped to enable us to visit them. Mr. Hinckley told us some very interesting facts connected with the original 69 survey, the dispute between Lord Baltimore and the colony of Pennsylvania concerning their boundaries, the verification of the original survey by the Special Commissioners, and knocked several ignorant delusions on the head.

There was but one expression of feeling at our departure—one of regret; into our short stay in Baltimore, which we reached in a couple of hours, there was compressed so much cordiality and hospitable intent that we were beggared even in thanks. There was a drive with Mayor Latrobe through the city and Druid Park, following an excursion down the harbour and Fort M'Henry in a steamer, visits to elevators and wharfs and landing-piers, and lunches without speechmaking, all to be got through ere the special resumed the run to Washington, of which the Capitol loomed in sight just as the last rays of the sun shot up from behind the ridge which I remember white with the tents of the army of the Union. The long drive to Rigg's House—a magnificent creation of the last few years—was a succession of surprises; new streets, splendid mansions, smooth pavements, electric lights, private carriages, an animated crowd of well-dressed, pleasant-looking people in Pennsylvania Avenue, reminiscences of Paris and New Vienna all around us, instead of mud and closed shutters, gloom, and "John Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave" sounding out of patriotic cellars, horses tethered to every tree, orderlies galloping, patrols marching, and the noise of never-ending convoys of warlike stores. It was indeed a happy change. Si sic omnia, si sic semper! 70

CHAPTER IV.
WASHINGTON.

Heroes New and Old—The Soldiers' Home—The White House—President Garfield—His Visitors—The Capitol—Mount Vernon—Mr. Blaine—"On to Richmond!"—Fitzhugh Lee—The Capitol, Return—The Corcoran Gallery—Sight-seeing.

May 1st.—Such a May-day as our poets sang of ere there was a change of style, and of climate too! A local paper remarks that "the remarkable facility with which an Englishman takes to water under certain conditions was exhibited by the word 'bath' appended on the register of the hotel to the name of every gentleman of the party;" but it was not quite so easy to obtain the thing as to write the word. However, everything comes to him who knows how to wait, and we were all provided at last. By some mischance it was ordered that we should have a private room (No. 32), instead of breakfasting in the common room, which was large and airy, and our "aristocratic exclusiveness," which was quite involuntary, was punished by immurement in an inferno which daylight could not reach, and which was perforce illuminated by gas. It was "ad suffocandum," as Dr. Syntax would say, hot and stuffy. There was a great clangour of church bells after breakfast. The air was resonant with invitations, and we had choice of many places 71 and forms of worship. The Church of the Epiphany in our street was near at hand, and those who attended there found a large congregation, an excellent preacher, and a well-ordered service. Mr. Victor Drummond gave the Duke and myself lunch at his lodgings, where we met Lord G. Montagu and Mr. De Bunsen, of the Legation, and as we walked to the house I had ample opportunities, though I still know the names of my friends, of lamenting the effects of the "longa oblivio" of which Juvenal writes, for the changes which have been made in the city have obliterated most of the landmarks, and time has done the rest. I could not identify "Jost's," where I lived for so many weeks between the rout of Bull Run and the winter of McClellan's preparations in 1861, nor quite satisfy myself as to the precise house "in Seventeenth Street, at the corner of I," where so many anxious days and nights were passed during "the Mason and Slidell" pourparlers, and where "the Bold Buccaneers" were wont to meet. There were new squares and streets in the way, and, moreover, there were statues to heroes whose lights were then hidden under a bushel. In addition to the colossal statue of Washington, by Clark Mills, at the crossing of the Pennsylvania and New Hampshire Avenues, there are the equestrian statue (heroic) of General Scott, by H. Brown, at the crossing of Massachusetts and Rhode Island Avenues; Balls' enormous and "characteristic" statue of Lincoln (paid for by negro subscription) in Lincoln Park; an equestrian statue of Nathaniel Greene, the revolutionary general; one of General Rawlins (to me an unknown 72 quantity—ignoramus that I am!). To these (most of them "buccæ bene notæ oppido") must be added a statue of Admiral Farragut, very like, but complicated by a ridiculous telescope; a fine statue on horseback of General Thomas, one of the best of the Federal generals (pace General Grant and General Badeau); another of General McPherson, who fell at Atalanta, and the Naval Monument, near the Capitol, to the sailors who were killed in the Civil War. These were all Federal heroes, and Washington is a Federal capital. I could not but think how near it was, for the time at least, being a Confederate capital after that memorable July day in 1861, when in despair Mr. Lincoln crossed the Potomac to visit the only fortified port which lay between Washington and the victorious but inept Southerners at Manassas, and found the defenders in flagrant disobedience to orders. But that time is as dead and gone as the period of the Wars of the Roses, albeit the evil that men do lives after them, and the Southern fire blazes no longer—it burns all the same.

Later in the day the Attorney-General, Mr. MacVeagh, drove the Duke and myself out to the Soldiers' Home, which gave me another opportunity for meditations, with which I shall not weary my readers. The drive revealed new improvements and grand efforts on the part of "the city of magnificent distances" to come to terms with its outlying boundaries. How pure the air, how bright the sky, how fair the scene! The wide expanse of roofs, the still waves of the ordered house-tops, above which rose the rocky 73 steeples, the colossal mass of the Capitol on the Virginian shore, the rolling wooded heights of Arlington, the Potomac shining like a sinuous belt of burnished gold in the setting sun! It seemed so peaceful and so secure. And yet we are climbing to "the Soldiers' Home," the outcome of one of the most sanguinary wars of modern times, of which in one sense this District of Columbia was the cause and end. It consists of a number of detached buildings of stone or marble, on a high plateau broken into wooded dells and undulating gently towards the south and west, where the ground dips so as to give a fine view of the city some three miles away. The Home stands in a large enclosed park (500 acres), and there is plenty of land beside for the soldiers to cultivate for the benefit of the institution. In these grounds there is a pleasant detached house, which is set apart for the use of the President pro tem., when the heat renders Washington more than usually abominable in summer time, and Mr. MacVeagh said he thought it very possible the President would move out as soon as he could. Mr. Lincoln was very fond of his villeggiatura here. As it was Sunday there was no work going on, and, moreover, it was not easy, we found, for even an Attorney-General of the Republic and a Minister of State to get in through the closed gates, so the Duke got out of the phaeton which Mr. MacVeagh's fast trotters had whirled up the steep at a creditable rate, and sought to repeat the miracle of Samson at Gaza, but we managed to dispense with it. 74 Probably it was because of the day of rest so many old men were crawling about the avenues smoking pipes, and looking very unhappy, I thought. It struck me that there were many small and weak-looking veterans among them—dwindled by the fatigues of war and lapse of years—not such "stalwarts" as I remembered to have seen encamped at Arlington yonder. There were men of all nations amongst them—many Irish and Germans—and foreigners from all the corners of the earth; but Northern American officers say, one and all, that the Americans pur sang bore the brunt of the fighting. Their uniform is neither neat nor becoming; though neither the "Invalos" nor the Chelsea Pensioners have much to boast of in their apparel, they have the advantage of the U.S. veteran. The Duke was received at the central building by the Commandant, to whom he was presented by the Attorney-General, and we were shown over the library, sleeping-wards, dining-rooms, &c., which have a strong family likeness all over the world. A glance at the bookshelves enabled me to come to the gratifying conclusion, and the English litterateur ought to take comfort from the fact, that English literature solaces the leisure of the American veteran very largely. The "genius loci" seems to be a rather deplumed and demoralised-looking eagle, in a cage on the ground outside the central building. I was reminded, as I surveyed his "cadaverous aspect and battered beak," of Audubon's ineffectual protest against the adoption of the bird as the symbol of the Republic. I believe 75 the "aquila chrysaëtos," the Golden Eagle, is not known in America. The eagle which our cousins have taken up with (though it has not two heads, is not black, and does not wear a crown) is but a poor bald-headed falcon, of uncleanly habits and sordid appetites, not very much given to use claws or beak against a vigorous enemy—so, at least, wrote the naturalist—therefore very inappropriate as the type of a brave, generous, and bellicose people. As we turned citywards, the beauty of the landscape was glorified by one of the sunsets which rival the most brilliant phenomena of the kind in India after the monsoons, and Washington, bathed in purple, looked every inch an empire city. The Duke and some others of the party dined with Sir Edward Thornton in the evening, where we spent a very pleasant time, and heard many interesting things about Washington and its society.

May 2nd.—This was indeed a busy day, in which were to be concentrated, we found, many incidents not included in the "programme." Early in the morning, that is, soon after breakfast, amidst much bustle and business carried on in the presence of many visitors—for we were obliged to make the most of our short stay in Washington—the Duke received a message from the Secretary of State, that the President of the United States would receive the party at the White House, and that Mr. Blaine—having courteously sent his son to act as our guide—would be in waiting to introduce them. And so about 10 76 o'clock we strolled out of the hotel and walked up the avenue which leads by the Treasury Buildings to the residence of the chief magistrate of the Great Republic. It is somewhat singular that books of travel do not deal a little more with the really fine city which Washington of late years has become—a capital worthy of so vast an empire. On our way we had occasion to admire the grand frontage of the National Buildings, which rise up close to the Presidential mansion, and which cause the rather homely proportions of the latter to come out in greater relief. There is an absence of state and of any pretence of it in the approaches to the White House; no sentries, not even a policeman on duty, and the only sign that it is not a private citizen's residence about it are the open door and the appearance of many persons passing unconcernedly in and out. A domestic in black received the party at the entrance hall, and ushered them into a waiting-room furnished in quiet and unobtrusive colours, without any pretension to much decoration; and soon afterwards Mr. Blaine made his appearance and led us into what is called the Blue Room, where we were engaged for some moments in conversation with him. We were reminded that the Executive Mansion was burned down by the British in 1814; but it was quickly rebuilt, and was occupied four years afterwards. It is not to be expected that with the modest appointments accorded to the Presidential office there should be any great display of pictures or of objects of art, but 77 there were some exceedingly interesting Louis Quinze and Quatorze clocks and ameublements in the apartments, and Mr. Blaine gave us several interesting particulars respecting their acquisition, of which I have no memoranda. In fact, we were all too much occupied with the expectation of the entrance of the President to pay much attention to details. Presently our urbane guide left the room, and returned in a moment followed by Mr. Garfield.[5] "In appearance the President is striking, of erect, soldierly bearing, above the middle height—in fact, very nearly six feet high—with broad shoulders, and powerful, muscular, well-set frame. His head is large, with a fine frontal development; eyes bright and penetrating, of a mild and kindly expression; the mouth firm, and the jaw, as well as contour can be traced beneath the full rich brown beard shaded with grey, indicative of resolution and strength." In his manner the President was exceedingly affable—courteous and simple—without any of that ceremonious stiffness which is sometimes to be found amongst Americans in official life, and his greeting to the strangers was most kindly, as if he were welcoming friends whom he had known. He engaged the Duke in conversation for a short time, all of the party having been presented in turn, and then he addressed a few remarks to each of them, principally about travelling in the States and the difference 78 that might be observed in the railway conveyances in this country and our own. It is a custom for an American, when you are introduced to him, to repeat your name, which strikes English people, but which, on reflection, I think is eminently utilitarian. For example Mr. Bickersteth is introduced. The President says: "Mr. Bickersteth, sir, I am happy to know you!" We all know what a melancholy jumble is frequently made of names in introductions; but the person whose name may be mispronounced has, on the American principle, an immediate opportunity of correcting any mistake, and of saying: "My name is not Bickerstaff, it is Bickersteth"; and so on, as the case may be. When I was presented to the President he said: "I think we have met before, long ago. You brought us, Mr. Russell, the worst news that ever could be heard by a people; but I do not suppose that you were much more pleased with it than we were," or words to that effect. I said: "I assure you, Mr. President, that no one was ever more unwilling than I was to take such a ride and to bring back such news. I would much rather have had a victory and a rest at the end of the day." "Well," he said, smiling, "we learnt our lesson, and I am sure that we were very much the better for all you told us, though we did not quite relish it at the time." As there were, at the Presidential hours of reception, many people waiting for their turn, the interview was a short one. These calls on the President must be a great, if a necessary tax upon his time. In the grand parlour, called 79 the East Room, which is open from an early hour in the morning until three o'clock, there is generally a gathering of some sort or other, and the Blue, Red, and Green Rooms are also appropriated to the purposes of audience, the private rooms of the President and his family being of restricted number and size on the second floor. The day that we called there was a delegation of one-armed and one-legged veterans with a petition demanding that in Federal appointments preference should be given to discharged soldiers and sailors; and the President seems to have craftily met the requisition by declaring that he was heartily in sympathy with them; that he would, so far as he was concerned, see that preference should always be given to such disabled veterans, there being equal competency among the candidates, which, as the petitioners certainly had lost a leg or an arm each, might, cæteris paribus, be held as hard to be established. Then there were all kinds of senators, big and little (if there be such a thing as a little senator), newspaper editors, city delegates urging the promotion of particular men to different appointments, and mere idlers, who, having nothing else to do, turned in and wanted to have a talk with the President.

From the White House we were driven to the Capitol, which has undergone great improvement since the time of the War. A little more, however, remains to be done in the substitution of the real for the sham; but it would be difficult perhaps to effect that completely. The general effect of the building, which 80 is exceedingly fine—though I doubt if it can be fairly said to be "the most magnificent public edifice in the world"—reminds one strongly of St. Peter's. It towers above all the city, and can be seen from an immense distance. The western front is perhaps the weakest portion of the building. In the decorations of the interior there is much to be desired; and I hope it is not offensive to say that the colossal statue of Washington on the Esplanade in front of the central portico strikes me as being pretentious rather than grand. There is a fine bronze door, cast at Munich, commemorating the discovery of America by Columbus; but the panels in the Rotunda, which have been painted by American artists, are surely not in the best style of American art. It is not remarkable, considering what the history of art is in England, that the best works about the Capitol should have been executed by foreigners, or at least by men with foreign names; but Crawford's statue of Liberty on the ball over the Capitol is worthy of praise, and is undoubtedly American. The Hall of Representatives is a fine apartment with very little ornamentation. There is a portrait of Washington, as a matter of course, and another of Lafayette, and there are two good pictures by Bierstadt in panels on the wall. At the time of our visit there was what they call "nothing" going on in the Senate Chamber. The senators, each at his little desk, were mostly engaged in writing notes or reading newspapers. In the chair sat Mr. Arthur, the Vice-President, a massive man in the prime of life, with 81 a large round head and face, whose look gave one the impression that he might be a person of great common sense without any pronounced ability or character, his expression, perhaps, being that of benevolent sagacious repose. But there seemed to us a good deal going on, because a gentleman was engaged in denouncing in a highly excited manner some other gentleman for his conduct in reference to a proposition before the House, that had been occupying them for many days. "He has been perorating," said one of our friends, "for the last hour, and will go on for another hour, good. That is Dawes." I do not wish to be in the least disrespectful to Mr. Dawes, and I doubt not that if I had had the advantage of hearing him from the beginning, I should have been carried away by his argument, but under the circumstances his vehemence seemed uncalled for. At 1 o'clock we drove down to the Navy Yard and embarked on board the United States steamer "Despatch," a large party having been invited by Secretary Blaine to accompany the Duke for an excursion to Mount Vernon—the British Minister, Sir Edward Thornton, Lady Thornton, and his daughters; Mr. Victor Drummond, Mr. De Bunsen, and the members of the Legation; the representatives of France, Turkey, and Spain; Sherman, the General at the head of the army (looking as if he were quite ready to make another march into Georgia), his wife and daughter. General Sheridan, who had been summoned on business to Washington, and Colonel M. Sheridan were also of the party; and all the principal 82 members, official and non-official, of Washington society, among whom must not be forgotten Mr. Corcoran, Mrs. Wadsworth, and Miss Eustis; the Attorney-General, Mr. MacVeagh, and many others. Nor must I omit my old friend and captor Admiral Porter, who took me in gentle fashion and carried me on board the "Powhattan," in 1861, as I was running the blockade of Pensecola from Mobile. The excellent band of the United States Marines received the Duke with the air of "Hail to the Chief"; and off Alexandria a salute of nineteen guns from the shore battery was repeated from the "Portsmouth" corvette, and the crew of the "Saratoga," lying close at hand, saluted as the "Despatch" steamed by. Awnings were spread from one end of the deck to the other, and, as the party found out, there was an excellent lunch prepared in the saloons below. The day was warm, the weather delightful, and the company included all that was distinguished and sociable in the society of Washington—foreign ministers, and attachés, and most of the gentlemen in office, many senators and a number of agreeable ladies. It had been bruited that there was considerable irritation in Washington society because the incoming powers, represented by their wives, had introduced new rules of etiquette with respect to calls and such like important duties of life; but certainly less pretentious leaders of fashion never were than those who were good enough to join the little expedition to Mount Vernon.

There is among the American officers of both services 83 a camaraderie which is not always exhibited in our own. There may be official jealousies between the Secretary of State of the Navy and the Secretary of State of the Army, and the respective heads of these departments, though I am not aware that there are any; but I was struck by the terms of good-fellowship on which a man occupying the high position of General Sherman appeared to be with the young officers of the United States steamer on board which we were carried to the scene of our entertainment, and the latter had all the frankness and cordiality which the sea service somehow seems to inspire. They exhibited the action of the machine gun for the visitors, and I learned that the result of the experiments made by the Navy on the merits of various systems did not lead them to the conclusion at which our own people had arrived, and that the Nordenfeldt was not thought so well of by them as it is by us. Senator Burnside talked of his experiences at Versailles in the Franco-German war, where I encountered him engaged upon a mysterious philanthropic mission having relation, I believe, to the liberation of friends from Paris, and to the larger object of bringing about terms of peace between the belligerents—a kindly, large-minded man, to whom fortune was not favourable when he was summoned to command the armies of the Republic at a period when success would have made him unquestionably the foremost citizen and soldier of the United States. The same anomaly exists in the administration of the army as is found in England. The present Secretary of State 84 for War, Mr. Lincoln, son of the President, is a very young man, and has no military experience. Nevertheless he has very considerable power, and while we were in the United States he thought nothing of summoning General McDowell from San Francisco or General Sheridan from Chicago to consult with them, which was complimentary, if rather troublesome; but he is said to be possessed of great business capacity and of sound common sense, and to take the advice of his military counsellors with facility.

It is about an hour by a quick steamer from the Navy Yard to Mount Vernon, and a little after 2 o'clock the steam launches, which were in waiting, were busily engaged in transferring the guests from the man-of-war to the landing-place below the wooded heights on which stands the American Mecca, Mount Vernon. The ascent to the house is rather sharp, and I presume it has been the object of the committee who have charge of the place to meddle with its natural features as little as possible. Mount Vernon House, familiar to so many thousands of Americans, remains as it was, so far as the lapse of time will permit it to do so, at the time of Washington's death. The wings to the centre of the house, which is built of wood, were contributed by him; and, but for the relics inside—the key of the Bastille presented by Lafayette to the President, and a few articles belonging to him—there would be little to see, unless the visitor is enabled to throw into the contemplation of the objects around him something of the admiration and hero-worship 85 with which the name of "the Father of his Country—first in peace, first in war, and first in the affections of his people"—inspires the American.

The excellent band of the Marines was playing under the trees on the plateau, and the strains of "God Save the Queen" greeted the English visitors as they gained the portico. If the shadow of the departed hero could but have emerged from the tomb, close at hand, in which his remains repose, it would have been astonished perhaps at the change in costume, and in appearance, of the ladies and gentlemen, from that which had been familiar to Washington on earth. For the great citizen was by no means indifferent to the outward forms. Black silk stockings, knee-breeches, ruffles, and sword would in his mind have been the necessary attire and adjuncts of the heads of the army and navy, and of the ministers and others who were now walking about in pot-hats, morning jackets, and frock coats. As to the ladies, it is not too much to say that Mrs. Martha Washington would have probably disapproved of their pretty Parisian costumes so much that she would have sent out some of her black menials, whom we shall not call slaves, to request their removal from the premises. The ladies of America, however, have a right to claim position in Mount Vernon, for it was their "association" which raised the money with which the demesne and the house were purchased, in order to be handed over by them to the nation. Our own interest in the spot is derived from the English origin of the great man who 86 lived there; and we are not altogether quite cut off from it even in name, because that is derived from the stout old Admiral Vernon, in remembrance of whom Laurence Washington, who fought under him against the Spaniards, named the place.

It was five o'clock ere we embarked on board the "Despatch" for the Navy Yard, after three hours of very pleasant pilgrimage and prattle at "the Mount," and we ran up the river to our destination in less than an hour, passing on our way the "Portsmouth" and "Saratoga," which saluted the steamer.

The Duke and some of the party dined with Mr. Blaine, the Secretary of State, where we met General Garfield. It is rare to meet the President at dinner in Washington, as it is not considered etiquette for him to dine out. To do honour to the occasion, the Duke wore his Garter star, and Sir Edward Thornton the riband of the Bath. The only other person who had any decoration was General Sherman, who wore a small badge at his button-hole. I believe that Congress authorised the wearing of distinctions conferred for military and naval services on the fortunate leaders of the Federal armies and fleets after the war.

The President's manner was singularly easy, natural, and frank. With his Secretary of State he appeared to be on terms of great friendship; and by the latter he is evidently regarded with admiration and affection. He was desirous of learning the impressions produced by his short visit on the mind of the Duke, rather than of leading the conversation; but farther on he 87 became much interested in a discussion respecting recent English novelists. Mr. Black would have been gratified could he have heard the praise bestowed by General Garfield upon his descriptions of natural scenery, of the sea-coast, and of the islands of the West of Scotland, which, said he, "have filled me with a desire that I hope some day to be able to gratify—to visit the scenes he has described." And, having mentioned several writers, especially George Eliot, in reply to a remark that it was wonderful he could have found time to have read so many works of fiction, he said laughingly, "Well, I don't suppose I shall have much time now, or for some years to come; but I am glad to say I have not always been so busy;" and then he quoted a little bit of Horace, to which I think he is rather addicted, inasmuch as he certainly again popped in a quotation. Mrs. Garfield appeared to be an admirable President's wife—calm and simple, with unaffected manners and quiet dignity; and Mrs. Blaine was one of the most charming and lively of hostesses, so that our evening passed very agreeably. When the President and Mrs. Garfield retired, a few of the guests lingered on, listening to the interesting conversation of some gentlemen who remained for an hour longer and gave us many new views of American politics and life.

May 3rd.—We are going to Richmond to-day. In the first or original "programme" (a word which is spelt by Americans without the final "me," and, as it strikes me, correctly, if "telegram" be proper) the 88 excursion on which the party started at 9 A.M. this morning was not included. However they were impressed with some of the reasons which were suggested for devoting one day to a Southern City which has especial claims to the consideration of Englishmen in the antecedents of the State of which it is the capital. At the outset of the war, the name became the watchword of the North, "On to Richmond!" was the cry. How it rung in one's ears in Washington that fervent summer of 1861! How it met the eye in broad type at the head of every leading article! It was as the "à Berlin!" of the Paris mob in 1870. For a time it seemed as though the answer might be given by the sound of the enemy's guns at Baltimore, Philadelphia or New York. From Washington to Richmond is only 116 miles. The road was barred for four years by the genius of Lee, the skill of his generals, and the fiery valour of the South. It would perhaps be ungenerous and unjust to say that the ineptitude of the North entered for something into the estimate of the causes which impeded the march of the Federal armies till Grant "whittled away" the life of his opponents. My friends had none of these recollection to distract their minds from the contemplation of the present.

And this is Washington? How strange it all seems to one like myself, whose latest memories of the city which has expanded into such placid beauty teem with vision of vast camps—the march of serried battalions—the roll of artillery—the circumstance and pride, without 89 the pomp, of war—the passion and fury of civil strife—the agony of a nation—to see it now staid and stately and calm as some lake which rests in the embrace of the mountain shores after the subsidence of the storm! Down Pennsylvania Avenue I have seen in full flow a river of sparkling bayonet waves, and have heard the refrain of "John Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave" pealing from myriads of lips, where now the bourgeois 'bus rolls over the asphalte, and the greatest excitement is a pair of fast trotters behind the vehicle of some well-to-do legislator on his way to or from the Capitol. There was a special train at "the Depôt" at 10 o'clock A.M.—palace cars—our ever-obliging, smiling, active attendants—the usual official courtesies—giant bouquets on the tables, and all the luxury of the road which Presidents and directors' friends enjoy in the Republic of Railroads. The old Long Bridge over which I rode the night of Bull Bun, bringing the news of the defeat to Lord Lyons at the British Legation, has been removed, and the Baltimore and Potomac Railway is carried across the Potomac on a more recent structure rejoicing in the old name. How could I expect my companions to be much interested in "Alexandria," once so conspicuous in the history of the Civil War, when I found an American gentleman beside me quite ignorant of the fate of "Ellsworth," the protomartyr of the Union?

In travelling from Washington to Richmond, and in passing through part of Maryland, the visitors were struck by the dilapidated appearance of the large 90 farmhouses, mostly built of wood, to many of which there were attached curtilages, where the slaves were formerly penned in at night; and it was observed that the fences were very ragged, that the fields were left full of stumps of trees, and that the careful cultivation which had struck our eyes in the more northern States was wanting. One gentleman told us that the railway, passing through the worst and most neglected portion of the country, did not form a favourable platform from which to judge of the general condition of the State. But it is, I believe, undeniable that the soil has been very much exhausted on the Atlantic side in Virginia and in Maryland by the constant succession of crops of tobacco, and that it is necessary to use manure, not sparingly, in order to farm the land with advantage. The country by the right bank of the river seems very much as it was at the period of the war or before it—rugged, unkempt—with patches of forest and low swampy land, perforated by sullen lagoons and marshy streams.

At a station near Quantico Creek General Fitzhugh Lee, nephew of the great Confederate leader, the daring chief of the Confederate cavalry after the death of "Jeb" (J. E. B.) Stewart in battle, joined our party; a soldierly-looking man, broad-browed, bright and keen-eyed, of immense breadth of chest, thick throated, large limbed, with a resemblance to Pelissier in his best days, to which, no doubt, a massive moustache and a heavy barbe d'Afrique somewhat contribute. He is now settled as a farmer on the banks of the Potomac, 91 in a region every foot of which reeks with the memories of the four years' war. He lives on his estate and cultivates it with profit, and he draws, moreover, a rich harvest, at the time of the shad fishing, from the river, where his nets sweep in occasionally 60,000 or even 80,000 of these much-prized fish at a haul! Fitzhugh Lee told the Duke that he fully and entirely accepted the situation: he acknowledged the Union, and he would not, if he could, go back to the old order of things. Nay, more, he declared that the Virginians round about him were of the same way of thinking. Labour was to be had when needed. The negroes tilled the fields for wages, and the hirer had no further care about them when their work was done. Contrast that with his trouble with his biped property! The ladies of his house had to look after the women in travail. The negroes, when sick, were thrown on the hands of the master. When worn out with work or stricken by illness, the coloured people became burdens on the farm; and any one who has a breeding establishment for cattle or horses knows what infinity of demands on purse and patience the accidents and maladies to which all living things are exposed produce. Into Quantico Creek flows the stream of Bull Run, and away on our right was fought the first of the three battles which make the name renowned in the annals of the war. General Fitzhugh Lee did not dwell on the first defeat of the Federals with any relish either, but he could not forget all that happened on that memorable 3rd of July, 1861, any more than he 92 could forget the long years of incessant combat of which it was the precursor, and when our train approached Fredericksburg, the scene of Burnside's disaster, and he was warmed up by the interest and interrogatories of his companions to recall the episodes of the three days' sanguinary fighting, the fire was kindled within him, and the burly Virginian farmer, standing beside the Duke on the carriage platform, described the position and the movements of the two great armies as if he were still engaged in it. Without any vaunting, the Southern leader spoke of his experiences in the war, and those who heard him recollected with feelings not easy to analyse that but a few hours before they had been listening with equal interest to General Sheridan, the antagonist of the gallant gentleman who was now talking to them and describing some of their cavalry engagements. He pointed out Maree's Hill, and the slopes on which the Irish Brigade lay in long rows of dead and dying at the close of Meagher's desperate assault, the site whence Lee surveyed and directed the action, the hills on which the Confederates were entrenched, the plains over which Burnside's column advanced and deployed under the Confederate fire, and the cardinal mistake of the Federal leader in attacking the left instead of the exposed right of the Southern army. "I have often spoken about it to Burnside since. He and I are very good friends now. I have often fought the battle over with him, and told him his best chance would have been against our right, which he could have got 93 at by crossing the river lower down than he did." It was but the day before we had been chatting with the Federal general, now a senator of the United States, at Washington, and as genial and lusty[6] as he was when he came to the German headquarters at Versailles on the chivalrous if somewhat Quixotic enterprise of saving Paris from the last necessities of defeat.

There was a body of Virginian gentlemen at the Richmond station, which is some way from the town, to welcome the Duke, and carriages were awaiting the train. After the usual introductions our guides, philosophers, and friends drove us round and did the honours of their capital with much kindness and courtesy. The weather was disagreeable, but it was certainly exceptional—there was a grey sunless sky; bitter blasts swept the dusty roads, raising clouds of fiery red sand from the brickfield soil on which the city is built, and quite destroying previous impressions of the climate of Virginia. At Richmond itself there is not very much to be seen by an unsympathetic stranger, but for Americans of every stripe of political opinion the scene of such important events must be intensely interesting. We found the traces of the works thrown around the Confederate capital had nearly disappeared. A remnant of some of the earthworks may still be seen up the river, and in the Cemetery, marked by a pyramid of stone, lie Jeb Stewart and many a valiant comrade. The cemeteries, which form a melancholy addition to the interesting 94 spots around the Virginian capital, are filled with the remains of the victims of that long and deadly struggle. Petersburg, from which Lee, after his brilliant and skilful defence, was obliged to fall back to the Court-House of Appomatox, where he surrendered, was too far for us to visit, but we saw much that was of interest in our hurried drive—the house in which ex-President Davis lived, the church in which he was at prayers when the news of Lee's abandonment of Petersburg was brought to him, the Tredegar Foundry where the Confederate guns were made, the Capitol which resounded to the ardent declamation of the statesmen who made Virginia illustrious, and to the eloquence of those who shared her evil fortunes. We saw the abodes of despairing or hopeful multitudes, of the sickness unto death, and of the death which is a release, the ruinous brick walls of Libby Prison, the Hospital, and we thought that it would be just as well to level the ugly piles to the ground. Later in the day we met one who had charge of the Federal prisoners, of whom some 75,000, he told us, had been under his care, a grave and courteous man, deeply imbued with the teaching of the fathers of the Constitution, who as a Judge believed that Heaven, in siding with les gros bataillons, had not done justice to a holy cause, and he made a remark which illustrated, I think, the spirit of many of those who accept the actual results of the contest as inevitable if not equitable. "At the outset of the war," he said, "all the prisoners were either Yankees or Irish; at the end of it the great proportion 95 of the prisoners were Dutchmen—Germans, who could not understand a word of English, and who had come to fight for pay." The Irish ceased to enlist as soon as the Federal Government let loose and enlisted the negroes, and the war, he explained, was carried on by the foreign immigration from Europe. The Judge, indeed, held that if the North and the South had been left to fight it out the latter must have won. But what avail these speculations now? Let the dead bury their dead, and let the victors suffer the living to dwell in peace. Here are men, Southerners and Northerners, living in the same land, who have stood face to face in battle, and would live all the better if the sleeping dogs of war were let lie in peace. We were shown on our way to Richmond the humble shanty in which Stonewall Jackson breathed his last, and in the grounds of the Capitol itself the statue raised by admiring strangers to the memory of the Virginian Havelock—and it cannot be held, I think, that such a memorial as the latter can be classed with the celebration of the defeats of the Southern armies by permanent military organisations. He would be a very thin-skinned and ridiculous sort of Briton who took umbrage at the forthcoming festival at Yorktown which is to commemorate the surrender of Cornwallis to Rochambeau and Washington; but the Americans would have good reason to be moved to anger if we in England were to appoint a day for the glorification of the capture and destruction of Washington in the last war, an act of which none of us feel very proud, and of 96 which most Englishmen are utterly ignorant, even though they may have heard of New Orleans, Lundy's Lane, and Plattsburg.

The State Capitol is said to be an imitation of the square house at Nismes. It stands in a fine situation in a park which is decorated with statues and planted with trees, peopled by beautiful grey squirrels—evidently the pets of the people. Its principal treasure is the statue of Washington, by Houdon; but there is a dishevelled-looking Library of 40,000 volumes, amongst which are some valuable works connected with the early history of the colony. In front of the Capitol there is another statue of Washington, equestrian and colossal, surrounded by statues of Henry, Jefferson, Marshall, Mason, Nelson, and Lewis; and there is also a fine statue of Henry Clay in the grounds; but I think we strangers regarded with a deeper interest, derived from the recollection of more recent exploits, the statue of Stonewall Jackson, erected by subscriptions raised in England to the memory of one of the most single-minded and gallant soldiers who ever fought for a lost cause.

The manufacture of tobacco still flourishes in the capital of Virginia. We were conducted to two of the largest establishments, where we were shown, with great courtesy by the managers and owners, the processes by which the most celebrated preparations for smoking and chewing are turned out from beginning to end; but I observed that—whether to prevent idle strangers from gratifying their curiosity, or an unauthorised 97 investigation of trade secrets—we were always personally introduced by our guides, and that the doors of the factories were closed. The most interesting part of the interior was a long room, in which was a crowd of coloured people, men, women, and children, sorting tobacco, rolling up the leaves, and manipulating it for the various preparations which it undergoes in the presses and in the addition of saccharine matter, and the like, before it is packed up or cut for use. A happier looking people could not be seen, and at times their feelings of contentment burst out into song. They all joined, singing in chorus, with a great sweetness, some of the extraordinary melodies—half comic, half religious—of which we had a good experience subsequently.

Colonel Carrington, the proprietor of Ballard House, the principal Richmond Hotel, had sent a telegram before we started to request the Duke to postpone his visit for a week, as there was a Medical Conference being held, and all the hotels were filled, his own included, at the time. But our arrangements had been made, and it was not possible to alter them. What would become of our "programme"? Colonel Carrington did his best to accommodate the party, but the Medical Conference was in the ascendant. It was amusing to read in a Washington paper that the Duke had "expressed a desire to partake of a real old Virginia dinner," and that Colonel Carrington had gratified him to his heart's desire, so that "his Grace declared it was the best meal he had had since he 98 landed." This announcement was made under capital letters: "The Duke's Dinner. He Gets A Square Meal In Richmond." It was late at night when we reached Washington. Notwithstanding the exceedingly unpleasant day the visit was exceedingly interesting, and I was more than ever content that I had persuaded my friends to visit the place which was once the centre of political life to the Southern Confederacy.

May 4th was devoted to an inspection of various objects of interest. It was our last day in Washington, and many visits had to be paid and cards left, for in no country in the world are the obligations of courtesy connected with card-leaving more rigidly exacted than in the United States; and perhaps there are no people usually so negligent in such matters as our own countrymen, unless they are connected with diplomacy. English travellers—at least if we are to judge from recent books—seldom come to a capital which is in every way worthy of inspection. In the two latest and best books of travel there is no mention of it at all. It is now incomparably the most beautiful city in the Union; the broad streets, asphalted, or well paved, lined with trees, no longer strike right and left into illimitable distances of unoccupied space, but present long rows of well-built houses.

At the time of the advance of the Federals the feeling of Washington was unmistakably Confederate, or "Secesh," as it was called in those days. I scarcely knew a man of any prominence there who was not 99 opposed to the policy of the Government and Mr. Lincoln; always excepting, of course, the senators and the Congress-men then sitting at the Capitol, though even amongst them there were dissidents, for Breckenridge and his friends had not yet left Washington. There were suspects whom it was desirable to intimidate, or necessary to molest; and amongst these were Mr. Corcoran, who is regarded with respect by all who know him, and who now occupies the highest position in the estimation of the society of the city, to which he has been a large benefactor. The Corcoran Gallery owes its origin and its maintenance to his taste, wealth, and public spirit; and the visit which was paid to it to-day was well rewarded by the inspection of a number of very fine paintings and statues of very high order.

Amongst the survivors of the time, now so far back, of my long residence at Washington, I was glad to find General Emory and his wife. One of the earliest explorers of the territories acquired from Mexico at the outset of the war, he commanded the 6th Cavalry, which was quartered at Washington on ground which is at present covered with fine houses. After a distinguished career in the campaign he became Governor of New Orleans, where he re-established confidence and did much to abate the bitter feelings which had been aroused by the acts of his predecessors in the minds of the inhabitants. Of the officers of that gallant corps, after whom I enquired, there were none left that I knew; and the same answer was made to 100 each name I uttered. "What has become of W——?" "Oh! dead long ago." "What of L——?" "He is dead, too." "What of K——?" "Oh; poor fellow, he died not very long ago;" and so on. "The Commodore," our neighbour, witty, shrewd, quaint, and the embodiment of kindly fun and satire, he too is gone! It is the penalty of living to lose one's friends. The feelings which were aroused by these memories were not diminished by a visit to Brady the photographer, who displayed whole albums filled with likenesses of deceased friends, and worse still, with photographs—alas! no longer likenesses—of men and women taken twenty years ago, now offering painful contrasts to their recognisable semblances in the life and flesh.

Another old friend, General Hazen, called on us to-day. General Hazen visited the headquarters of the German army during the siege of Paris, and was for some time in residence at Versailles, where I often had the pleasure of meeting him, and he subsequently made an extensive tour over Europe, with the view of examining the military establishments of the Great Powers, of which he recorded the results in a very useful volume. He is now in charge of the Meteorological Department, to which the Duke paid a visit in the afternoon; and the mechanism and arrangement of the extensive system of observations for national purposes conducted under his care were shown and explained to us by the officers of the department in the most painstaking manner. 101

And then there was the Smithsonian to be visited, where the rooms seemed to me haunted by the shade of the dear Professor Henry who was wont to accompany me through the galleries in times past, explaining the mysteries of the contents of the institution over which he presided with such care, knowledge, and judgment, with that gentle and persuasive inductiveness which we recognise in the style of Professor Owen.

The Patent Office, which would repay a week's careful study, was hurriedly inspected, and the Post Office and Agricultural Department shared the same fate. Everywhere we had to acknowledge the extreme courtesy of the officials of the national establishments in the United States.

In a restaurant in Pennsylvania Avenue, where, in the midst of all these multifarious labours, we took refuge for a moment, to eat an oyster, there was lying on the table a dish of frogs' legs about the size of those of a chicken, neatly garnished with green leaves, beneath a block of ice. The Duke asked the attendant whether they were really good to eat. "I believe you!" he replies. "For myself I cannot bear poultry, but I can always eat those. And now look!" said he, "I will show you a curious thing. You would think that these legs have no life in them. But just watch." He took up a pinch of salt from a cellar near at hand and sprinkled it on the legs, which immediately were agitated with convulsive twitches, amounting in several instances to vigorous kicks. I 102 felt as surprised as Galvani was when he touched the leg of the frog with his scalpel. Apropos of this plat I may mention that subsequently we overcame our repugnance so far as to order a dish, and found it very excellent indeed, and whenever the delicacy was obtainable it became quite a usual portion of our more sumptuous entertainments. But for my part I considered it very like flavourless but tender chicken. Once, indeed, long ago, I had had an involuntary experience of the taste, for, walking one morning with a southern planter by the side of a shallow ditch bordering his sugar-cane field, I saw an enormous thing about the size of the top of a man's hat, struggling in the mud, upon which one of the black attendants precipitated himself, and seizing it, he mounted the bank with a frog the size of a good fowl in his hand. "What on earth is that for?" "Oh, it is most excellent eating," said my friend. "I would die of starvation," exclaimed I, "before I would touch a morsel of it." At lunch that day there was put upon the table a spatch-cock fowl, which my host asked me to try. "What do you think of it?" "It is excellent." "That," he said, "is a part of the frog you despised so much this morning."

The Attorney-General, Mr. MacVeagh, assembled a party to meet the Duke at dinner; and our last night, which was passed at his hospitable mansion, was the pleasantest we had in Washington. 103

CHAPTER V.
Harrisburg—new york—boston—canada.

Departure from Washington—Harper's Ferry—The State Capital—Rats on the Rampage—Pennsylvania Farming.

Next day (May 5th), at 10 o'clock, we left by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, sorry we had not more time to enjoy the hospitalities of our friends, and to see more of the interesting people and scenes with which we made such a short acquaintance; but, indeed, the number of attractions presented for the time that we had at our disposal was quite embarrassing enough, and whilst we were at Washington the party, broken up in detachments under the care of various friends, lost no time, but went to racecourses, galleries, and national institutions, crossed the Potomac to the heights of Arlington, and visited the cemeteries where tens of thousands of stone memorials, placed, as the dead men beneath them once stood, in orderly array, attest the severity of the tremendous conflict in which the first shots were fired, not very far from the spot, more than twenty years ago. It is said that there are about 15,000 bodies buried in one enclosure; even in death the white and the black are divided—the former are 104 buried near Arlington House, the coloured men's remains lie half a mile or more away. Another cemetery, containing 5400 soldier's bodies, is near the Soldiers' Home. These and many other places were visited; but we must leave Washington at last, and were carried at express speed to the Shenandoah Junction. We are on our way to Harrisburg. Fortunately the day is bright and clear, and the sun not too warm, so that we can enjoy the charming scenery through which the railway passes, and we are interested in observing that the canal, in spite of the competition of the iron road, still keeps up navigation, and that strings of gaily-painted barges with the national flag are passing to and fro close at hand. The course of the Potomac, to which we now and then come near, is marked by the wooded heights which once formed the skirmish-ground of two great armies. It would not have been safe at one time for a man to have shown his head above the cutting of the canal, or to have ridden by the river-banks, for in all probability a Secesh bullet would have found him out or dismounted him, as there was fighting-ground all about; and the peaceful scene seemed strange to me when I contrasted it with the sight it presented as I saw it after the battle in which Senator Baker was killed and many Union men with him, and great gloom reigned at Washington—when General McClennan led all the troops that could be spared, who were pouring out in a long column on this road, and the country-side was alive with armed men in order to counteract the menaced invasion of Maryland. 105 At the Shenandoah Junction, six miles west of Harper's Ferry, we halted for a while. It seemed to me as if it had not quite recovered from the ravages of war, and Harper's Ferry appeared as if the storm of battle that had passed over it—taken and retaken as it was so many times—had left an indelible mark of wreck and ruin about it. Nothing, however, can destroy the charm of the scenery of the beautiful valley in which the Potomac and the Shenandoah meet. We got out on the platform and walked a little way to look at the ruin of the Arsenal which was occupied by John Brown when he led his forlorn hope, "shouting the battle-cry of freedom," little deeming that the hills and valleys would re-echo with the hymn-song which so often heralded the Federal soldiers on their march to battle, to defeat or victory.

As we stood on the bridge surveying the scene, a decrepit and not very cleanly-looking old man, who was regaling himself with a use of tobacco of which the issues were visible around him, came up to have a look at the strangers. He knew every inch of the place; had been here all during the war. Sometimes the Secesh had it, and then the Federalists would drive them out; then the Confeds would take it, and so on. "There was pretty considerable fighting all round. See them hills? That one there had a Federal fort on top of it; that other one the Confeds used to hold." Why, he remembered old John Brown's scare as if it was yesterday. "Yes, sir! But they hanged him pretty smart! He and his people could make no fight 106 of it when Uncle Sam's reg'lars came up." And in front of us were the walls of the burned armoury of the Government, and the name of the United States officer in command still visible over the doorway—the gaunt ruin, roofless, windowless, of a time which seemed so remote and which was not a generation gone by.

After our short stay there we went on to Hagerstown, where Colonel Kennedy, the President, and Judge Watts, one of the Directors, of the Cumberland Valley Railroad, joined us, after a divergence to the junction of the two rivers to get a sight of the country.

The Cumberland Valley is one of the most fruitful tracts in the United States. It presented in its substantial farmhouses, clean well-tilled fields and kempt fences, strong contrast to the untidy-looking farms in Maryland and Virginia on the road to Richmond; we heard that the soil had somewhat suffered from incessant cropping, and that the competition of the Western States is causing the cultivation of corn to be neglected. The towns appeared to be numerous and thriving, and the people well-to-do. It had been arranged that we should pay a visit on our way to a very interesting establishment, as it proved, at Fort Carlisle, and I give elsewhere a detailed account of what we saw in connection with a subject which appears to me to be of great, if somewhat sentimental, interest—the condition and future of the Indian race. The Duke's address to the Red children seemed to give 107 them great satisfaction, and he said with truth that nothing we had seen since we had arrived in the United States interested us so much as the establishment where they were the objects of a philanthropic experiment, to which every one all over the world will, I am sure, wish success.

It was evening when the train reached the end of our day's journey, and the party drove in a shower of rain to their quarters at the hotel.

Harrisburg has apparently seen its best days without having ever witnessed very good ones, but our means of judging were meagre indeed. The weather was bad, and our visit was very brief. It must be understood that I write of places as I see or find them, and the contrast between Philadelphia and the capital of the State of Pennsylvania, as we beheld it in the drive from the station to our hotel, was very marked in favour of the former. The shops in the main street belonged to the old country rather than to the new, and there was an aspect of "want of flourishing," as a friend said, which was not in keeping with the surroundings. And yet when John Harris, after his rescue from the Indians who were about to torture him and did not, though they did not foresee that they were about to be disposed of without torture, founded the city, less than a hundred years ago, on the banks of the Susquehanna, he had a very fine eye for a situation, and had fair grounds for thinking he had done a very good thing. But why was it made the State capital in 1812? Surely Philadelphia even then deserved the 108 honour. We were told we should have put up at the Lochiel House (something to do with Simon Cameron who lives here, I suppose), but we did not, and that which was selected for the party was not of the first or second class. The sewers of the city were open, or only partially covered. The rats which played about in view of our sitting-room window were of a size of which Harrisburg may be justly proud, and I observed from the windows of the hotel many fine animals come up to take the air and see what was going on, with the style of well-to-do citizens, meaning no harm and fearing none. They were, perhaps, a little too numerous for the comfort of nervous people, though I will not aver that there is not plenty for them to do. The market-place across the way was ancient and dilapidated, or, as it was of wood, delignified.

It was not till a year before the Civil War Harrisburg received a charter, and at the moment of our visit the population did not number 80,000. A State House and Library, a State Arsenal, a State Lunatic Asylum, a County Prison, Opera houses, Masonic Hall, churches, Harris Park and Cemetery, and great ironworks, all unvisited, but duly enumerated by citizens zealous of the honour of their city, haunted conscientious tourists as things which ought to be seen, but they were not in the programme—we could not find them in the bond—and so they were taken for granted; not so the substantial interviews which had to be attended to, and the arrangements for visiting the Baldwin Iron and 109 Steel Works, and Colonel Long's farm at Middleton, which were to be taken on our way to New York.

On the 6th we left Harrisburg, at 9 o'clock in the morning, for New York, visiting the famous Iron Works on our way, and halting at Middleton to inspect the farm of Colonel Long, which is one of the sights of the country, and which all the agriculturalists of the party declared was an exceedingly well-managed display of agricultural skill; an admirable exhibition of what may be done in the States to emulate the best establishments of the old country. The produce of the farm was pronounced to be excellent, the fields clean and well apportioned, beautiful pasture for stock, and fine arable for various crops, but the result of conversation with Colonel Long led some of the party to the conclusion that a farmer with good land in England can, at present prices, hold his own with any farmer in the Eastern States. The most interesting fact connected with the investigation was the discovery that the cultivation of tobacco is making great way in Pennsylvania, and that wheat has been abundant in consequence of the impossibility of competing with the West. Heavy manuring is requisite; nevertheless large tracts of Pennsylvania are passing under cultivation for tobacco-growing, and are stated to produce a weed almost equal to the best Maryland or Virginia.

But the coal and iron and the manufactures of this favoured region must ensure it a long continuance of the extraordinary prosperity which was visible on all sides, if the asses in their fatness do not kick over the 110 traces. For many miles of the country over which we travelled yesterday the storm of war had rolled heavily, and every town near at hand had some record of suffering or lucky escape from Lee's invading host. The Confederates had come within six miles of Harrisburg. Martinsburg, Frederic—in fact, every town near at hand had felt the hand of the South at its throat, till at Gettysburg the blow was struck which paralysed it for ever. At Carlisle one of our friends mentioned incidentally that his house had been "shelled by that confounded Fitzhugh Lee"—our travelling companion of a few days before. There were strong expressions uttered by others concerning the partition of Virginia and the State debt, but these were mysteries to us, and all we could see was that, in spite of past sufferings, there was now a vigorous, healthy, wealthy life in the land, of which the signs and tokens were visible as far as the eye could reach in our long day's travel. Our railway directors studied maps and asked questions and made notes indefatigably, and they no doubt comprehended the connections and arms of the railroads which were spread over the country—a mighty range, and all with a plan—but I cannot pretend to share any of their knowledge, and can only say that we had a very pleasant, if somewhat warm, journey to New York, which we reached at 4.30 o'clock. Here we found a new wonder awaiting us in the aspect of the Falls River boat, on which we embarked for Boston at one of the piers on the North River. It was the happy idea of Mr. Crosfield that we ought to leave the iron road for 111 a few hours and take to the water, and for it and much besides the members of the party were indebted to him. The service of the steamboat line is admirable. To begin with, the steamers (of which there are two, the "Bristol" and "Providence") are floating palaces for King Populus, of such vast dimensions that we could scarcely "take in" all at once that in which we were to make our voyage as it lay at the pier; its bright white side towering far above the roof of the wharf shed, with tiers of windows lighted up as if en fête, like an old three-decker at the least. Our surprise did not diminish when we got on board and found ourselves in a vast sort of gilt and painted courtyard, surrounded by galleries with many hundreds of passengers—a band playing, electric lights, a book-stall, newspapers, a restaurant, hairdresser's establishment, boot-cleaning corner, bar and liquor saloon, hot baths, cold baths—I should not like to say what that marine monster did not contain. There were waiters in neat, clean dresses, in swarms, and clerks and officers of the service in much gold lace and brass buttons—formidable as admirals, and civil as dancing-masters. The sleeping-saloons were perfectly arranged; and when the dinner or supper bell rang, and the streams of people were set in motion, it was if some small city was on the tramp. The great creature was moving! Up went the vast walking-beam on high, with the polished piston smoothly gliding from its case, and then, trembling in every airy plank to the beat of the mighty paddles, the steamer backed off into 112 the stream, and with that indescribable tumult of creaks, squeaks, rattles and clatters, which may be taken as the breathing of this sort of thing, set off on its way rejoicing as a giant to run its course, and far better able to do it. There was light enough for us to see the city of New York, and the forest of steeples and towers above the serried lines of illimitable roofs, the fringe of masts and chimneys on one side, and the interesting islands where the Law, Medicine, and Charity have their palaces—Penitentiaries, Hospitals, Asylums, Nurseries, Refuges—and where Crime, Smallpox, Typhus, Idiotcy, and incurable Disease hold their separate courts in granite cells, and the Brooklyn shore, as the steamer threaded her way through the ruck of tugs, flats, coasters, ferry-boats, and steamers, big and little, to the great boil of waters well-named Hell Gate, in Long Island Sound—a veritable Maelstrom, which the engineers are blasting, boring, and blowing up and down as hard as they can. As we bore down the adverse fury of the swirling tideway with our irresistible wheels, the mighty vessel trembled with the strain, but we prevailed, and went through the Gate past the dredges, which were shovelling up the rocks from the bottom, and had time to enjoy the scenery of Long Island glorified by a fine sunset, ere darkness shut out all but the lights on shore, and those which marked out what to seek and avoid for the toiler on the seas. The course of the steamer for the greater part of the night lay in tranquil waters, for Long Island was on our right, and on our left was 113 the shore of Connecticut; but after midnight I awoke, and had no doubt as to what the wild waves were saying, and looking out of my window saw a confused sea, to the lively forces of which our steamer was making unmistakable submission. A less confidence-inspiring craft for rough weather than our palace I thought I never had been in, and I was not dissatisfied when the trial of her powers was at an end, and the tyranny of the seas was overpast as we approached Newport and got under the shelter of Martha's Vineyard at some early hour in the morning. Says I to a nautical gentleman on the staff of the noble ship, "Would she cross the Atlantic, do you think?" "Certainly," quoth he, "if it wasn't bad weather." "Well! but how would she do in a gale?" "It would just be as well not to try, but if we could keep her head right to it there would not be much harm—no forcing, though—no, sir!" At Newport there was a great exodus of passengers and baggage about 3 o'clock, and some two hours later the steamer, passing up Narraganset Bay, arrived at Fall River, where we landed, and took our places in a train of the Old Colony Railroad for Boston. Fall River, which one might take to be a cascading stream, turned out to be an enormous manufacturing town of some 50,000 people, all factories, chimneys, and storehouses, and what we saw of Massachusetts as we ran through it gave us a higher idea of its commercial activity and manufacturing industry than of its natural advantages. 114 I cannot say how many towns of note we skirted or ran through in our two hours' journey—glimpses of magazines, stores, warehouses, smoke-stacks, staring placards at intervals here and there, were all we knew of them; but the land did not seem rich nor the scenery attractive, and yet there are good crops to be had, and fruit is abundant and excellent. There is a long hard winter and an ardent summer here, and some of the weaker vessels among the Pilgrim Fathers (and mothers) must have often wished themselves back in the clammy East Countree on the German Ocean, or in their foster-mother Holland, when, like so many Calibans (for conscience' sake), they were persecuted by Indians, Witches, Quakers, and the climate, in the days before they were strong enough to persecute in their turn, and so reconcile themselves to atmospheric vicissitudes. Among our fellow-passengers in the "Gallia" was Mr. Washburn, ex-Governor of the State, and one of a very eminent band of brothers who have risen to deserved distinction in America, and to his kind offices were the Duke of Sutherland and his friends indebted for the graceful empressement of the leading men of Boston to do the honours of their city. On our arrival at the terminus we found every preparation had been made for our reception, and several gentlemen were in attendance to meet the Duke on the platform. Well-appointed carriages whirled the party off to one of the finest hotels in the world—"The Brunswick"—and not only that, but one of the most comfortable. 115 How these old names hold! It is a long time since "Braunschweig" had aught to do with the "old Colony"—some time since the House of Hanover (from which we parted company in 1866) has had any relation to Massachusetts. There may be some good reason for the appellation of our excellent hostelry—it is quite enough to say it could not be sweeter or neater with any other name, and it made us reflect with some feelings of humiliation on the sort of accommodation an American would find in a large town in England till the recent improvements in the establishments which have chiefly sprung out of the enterprises of the great railways. The British colours floated above the building beside the Stars and Stripes—a compliment which was very much appreciated; and the good Bostonians allowed us fair time for breakfast and a little unpacking and settling down before they came to take the party in charge and show them over their noble city. Mr. Rice, formerly Governor of the State, Mr. Fitz, President of the Board of Trade, Mr. Beard, Collector of the Port, Alderman O'Brien, came as a committee to tender us all the civilities, and many more than we could accept, and had a programme, which even their kindness could not render of easy accomplishment, for the disposal of our time. First there was a long drive through the principal quarters of the town—innumerable phœnixes in marble, granite, iron, and brick, reared out of the ashes of the Great Fire nine years ago—Sears, 116 Brewer, Franklin, Rialto, Cathedral and other Buildings, and monumental insurance offices and stores. Then there is a stately quarter built on land where was once water—on an artificial foundation made by filling up part of a shallow arm of the harbour called Back Bay. One peculiarity about the city is the localisation of trades and professions. If I had not seen their names on the brightest brass plates in the clearest of engraving, I could not have believed there were so many doctors and surgeons in any one city in the world. Surely they must practise on one another? They were in rows up and down long streets. And yet the citizens and citizenesses did not look unhealthy—rather otherwise—and the younger people mounted on street skates were portentously active on the pavements—pretty well-dressed little ladies doing the pas des patineurs with all their might, and sweeping resistlessly over the flags on their way from school. I am not going to describe Boston. There is a refrain in my ears, "All this was built since the fire!" I can only say the fire was a great regenerator. I could understand why Boston people are proud of their work, and I could look up at Bunker Hill without any sense of shame, as I beheld such a wonderful display of energy and progress in the fair city, with its monuments, statues, parks, public buildings, churches, and on the sea furrowed by keels and studded with sunny canvas. We were taken out on that same sea. The Collector, Mr. Beard, one of the most courteous of men, 117 had the Government Revenue Cruiser prepared for a cruise in the harbour, and we examined the Navy Yard, the wharves, and the extension works, the forts, &c., with an interest which was enhanced by the intelligent explanations of our guides, varied with little discussions about Free Trade and Protection, the future of Boston, projected improvements, and general conversation, till it was time to return to land and finish with an inspection of more "objects" on shore. And then, to end the work of the day, there was an "informal dinner" at the Brunswick, to which the Duke and his friends were bidden without yea or nay—"it was quite informal." I presume that means, in Boston, an elaborate banquet. We were told, however, that it merely meant that we were to dress as we pleased, and that there were to be no set speeches. Alderman O'Brien presided; Governor Rice, Mr. Beard, Mr. Choate, President of the Old Colony Railroad, Genl. Wilson, President of the New York and North-Eastern Railroad, Mr. E. C. Fitz, Mr. Sears, Mr. Spaulding, Mr. Phillips, Aldermen Whitten, Haldemann, Slade, Curtis, Frost, Caldwell, &c., were our hosts, and our party was sandwiched pleasantly between our American friends—all point de vice—evening dress—flowers in buttonholes, flowers on the table, but "no formality." And then, just by way of an exception, Alderman O'Brien to do honour to the occasion, with a facility which showed that he had not lost the potestas loquendi attributed to his race, made an "informal" 118 speech in proposing "informally" the health of the Duke, who made an informal reply, and from that time till the company broke up, towards midnight, there was a succession of toasts, speeches, speeches and toasts, till every man had had his turn at one and the other, and informality could do no more with a very pleasant evening. There was a good deal of railway talk, in which prophecy was not neglected. It so happened that among the guests or hosts was a gentleman whom I had met at the St. Patrick's dinner, New York, in 1861, and we had an agreeable conversation respecting the events of that time. I could not help thinking how very much changed was the tone in which slavery was discussed then from that in which it is now mentioned. On that occasion the American gentleman (one of the first men in New York, and by no means Irish except in name and descent) inveighed against Boston with something like ferocity. He declared that Mr. George Thompson, who had lectured on slavery long ago, was the most diabolical scoundrel who ever trod the earth, that the people of Boston ought to have hanged or burned him and Garrison and his accomplices in 1835, as the authors of the fearful war which was inevitable—the sure precursor of the disruption of the Union—for which Boston, represented by Mr. Sumner, was responsible, and he indignantly denounced the Bostonians—they who had fattened on the slave-trade and on the South—for their anti-slavery proclivities. There are not many who hold such 119 opinions now. Bristol and Liverpool forget they ever made money out of "black ivory," and Boston has an equal right to take its share of the waters of Lethe. And so to bed.

May 8th.—By the kindness of Mr. Sears, seats were obtained for the whole party at the morning service in Trinity Church, a vast and highly ornate structure, of fine proportions externally, alight with gilding, profuse in mosaic, lavish in stained glass, and exquisite woodwork inside; a very noble temple, in good truth, if somewhat theatrical in effect, Romish, or more correctly Byzantine, producing the same sort of feeling that a Russian or Greek Church does on strangers not to the manner born; but still grand, rich, and luxurious. And the congregation, which filled every part of the sacred edifice, was suitable unto it. It was obviously composed of the great ones of the city—the cream of the Episcopalian flock—satined, silked, fine feathered, Paris bonneted, sleek hatted, glisteningly black, delicately perfumed—a very goodly company. The musical part of the service was evidently what might be called a feature of the attractions, though they be considered to culminate in the person of the pastor of the fold. The organ, an instrument of extraordinary size, power, and richness, was moved by skilful fingers to interpret passages which led one to imagine that the selector had acted on John Wesley's advice, "not to let the Evil one have all the good music to himself," and that he had invaded the repertoires of secular enjoyment in 120 that way, and the choir delivered psalm and hymn with an artistic finish which at once gave rise to suspicions that it was not "wild warbling nature all beyond the reach of art." "Professional," I asked on a proper opportunity; "is it not?" "Not all; the tenor and the bass are, I think, and one or two others, perhaps." Well, the harmony was full and fine, and I preferred it to the unassisted efforts in that matter of rural religionists. It is mainly to the impetus of the personal character of the Rev. Phillips Brooks that the erection of this magnificent edifice and the maintenance of the service in such Christian state are due. The Book of Common Prayer was used with trifling variations—some small sacrifices to prudery or decency, or whatever words you will array them in; but to me the most interesting portion of the service was the part in it of the pastor—a man of great corpulence and stature, with a massive head cast in a mould to match, and features with a resemblance to those of Sydney Smith, or perhaps more nearly those of Charles James Fox. He was attired in black silk gown and bands, but did not, I think, show any academic badge. The sermon, which had for its text "Bow down the heavens, O Lord! touch the mountains, and they shall smoke!" delivered with extraordinary rapidity—sometimes, in fact, approaching to the verge of jumble—flowed on in a stream of language, often beautiful and occasionally grand, with a great clatter of metaphor, and a rolling 121 noise of poetical images of a very pleasing character, for a long half-hour or more, without causing any desire for the preacher to desist; and indeed the ingenuity with which he illustrated and dragged in his unpromising text occasioned a series of intellectual shocks. The influence of Mr. Brooks must be, I think, as beneficial as it is powerful, and he has at all events given the world a splendid demonstration of what can be done by the voluntary principle in a wealthy democracy. It was not to his detriment, in the eyes of his stern Republican flock, that, on the occasion of a recent visit to Europe, he was received with favour in high places; or that "Your Queen Victoria had him to stay with her at Windsor Palace."

I was doomed to a great disappointment to-day after our return from church. A little excursion had been planned for the party by Mr. Sears to visit Harvard University and a pilgrimage to Longfellow, at Cambridge, and I was up in my room waiting for a summons to join the party, when it was said by some one he believed I had gone out, or would not go, and so they drove out without me, and I "was left lamenting." Had I been a revengeful person, I might have taken pleasure in the thought that they had an utterly abominable drive, for there was a bitter wind and clouds of the finest and most choking dust, but I was very sorry indeed. The "old man eloquent" was delighted to welcome the Duke, whom, as a boy, he remembered well at the time of his lengthened 122 visit to England, when he was a frequent and honoured guest at Stafford House, where he was held in great esteem by the gracious lady who presided. He was courteous to all the other visitors; but they did not place a heavy tax on his patience, for they had to go over Harvard, where they were received by some of the authorities and conducted over the University, and then the inevitable drive through the city had to be accomplished. As for me, despite the dust and wind, I walked through some of the staid, discreet, and sombre streets and squares of opulent merchantdom, all very quiet and decorous, with fair faces at the windows, and groups of prettily dressed children in the balconies, and went to the Somerset Club and to the Union Club, which had extended their courtesies to the strangers, and left cards. I had the fortune to foregather for a while with Mr. L. Curtis, an old acquaintance of the time of the Prussian occupation of Versailles, when his venerable father—a veteran of the United States navy—and family, were caught there by the flood of invaders, as they were about to escape from Paris. We had an early dinner, and then had to prepare for another flitting, about which some of us were much exercised, for it was to take us back to New York again! I must confess to a sense of shame at such a hurried visit to the "hubbiest" of American cities. The excuse was, that there was an imperious desire on the part of our directors to see the Hudson River Line, and Albany, the capital of the State of New 123 York, and so at 10 P.M. we were "all on board" and rattling in a Wagner palace-car over rather a rough line down South; needless to say, we did not see much of the country, though it was not easy to sleep, owing to the jumpiness of the carriages.

May 9th.—Next morning before 6 o'clock, after a journey of 230 miles, we were delivered on the platform of the station in New York. All our roads lead to it apparently! We walked through the silent streets to Sherwood House, in Fifth Avenue, where a welcome and excellent breakfast had been ordered. The arrangements, the air, and the perfect repose of the place produced a most agreeable impression. The landlord informed us that it was almost exclusively frequented as a family hotel, and that when the New York season was over he closed his doors, shut up his windows, and went off for his holiday. At 9.30 A.M. we were on our way to Albany accompanied by Mr. Vanderbilt, junior, and several of the directors of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company. Americans are justly proud of the Hudson; it delights the eye of every traveller, and in some respects, particularly in the beauty of the autumn foliage, it excels the most famous rivers of Europe. All the more ought they to wage war against the disgusting outrages on the face of nature which are permitted to disfigure its banks. The very stones prate of the whereabouts of some loathsome quack or some ludicrous nostrum, and aggravating repetitions of the same names and specifics, painted in staring 124 colours, mile after mile, force the philanthropic traveller to sigh for a measure of dynamite, and to thirst for the ruin of the miscreants who so disturb his peace. The Hudson river-side close to the capital is not very inviting; the works of the Elevated Railway, which is preparing for a tremendous spring over its Harlem tributary, do not appeal to one's sense of the beautiful; and a squatter population in what one of my friends called "very squattery shanties" does not prepare the traveller for the long stretch of maisons de plaisance, country houses, airy villages, and flourishing townlets which greet his eye as the train speeds in close to the edge of the left, or east, bank. The sheer, precipitous downfall of rock, at the opposite side, called the Palisades, soon comes in view. It may be dimly thought out that the appearance of the trap rock, which is ranged in perpendicular columns, suggested the name. The formation continues for nearly twenty miles, at an elevation of from 200 to 300 feet, and the summit is fringed with trees. Needless to say, with such a city as New York below, and with densely populated banks above, the broad sweeps of the beautiful Hudson displayed an infinity of navigating craft—steamers, ships, trim coasters, fishing-boats, net-poles and buoys near the banks marked the haunts of the much-prized and inexhaustible shad.

There is much of the interest of American history connected with the Hudson, and there is the wider interest of all English-speaking races attached to it 125 by the associations with the scenery of Washington Irving and his charming creations. An Englishman can forgive the death of André for the sake of Sunnyside and Tarrytown. We pass the Convent of the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, who would have been roused out pretty quickly by the Pilgrim Fathers and their children—the wide expanse of the Tappan Zee, where Henry Hudson's galliots found great comfort and much astonished the Red-man—"Sing Sing"; the vast state prison, connected in my mind with a joke, too good to be lost, of the time of the (United States) civil war. It was made à propos of a certain Prince of Salm-Salm, who came to offer his sword to the Federal Government at Washington. His title puzzled Mr. Seward. "Psalm-Psalm!" he exclaimed. "Where on earth does he come from, I wonder." "Very probably from 'Sing Sing,'" replied the person whom he addressed. But the gallant German Prince, it needs not to be said, was a soldier of unblemished name and honour.

The Croton Aqueduct, at the other side, which supplies New York, forty miles away, with water, commences at the lake some miles higher up than the station, and we were obliged to hear that the quality of its water was not strained, and that it needed boiling; but that may be a calumny, and I do not think any of us made even one trial to disprove the fact. The scenery beyond Peekskill, at the stretch of river called the Highlands, made me make a mental vow, which will, I fear, never be kept, that 126 I would return and vegetate in one of the hotels of which we caught glimpses in the trees on the slopes of the mountains, which in grand and varied outlines tower over the stream.

Probably since its creation, in no two hundred and seventy years which have rolled over the world has a greater change been effected in the condition of a country than that which has taken place on the banks of the Hudson since the intrepid and unfortunate Englishman from whom it derives its name explored its waters and anchored opposite Pigskill. "This is a very good land to fall in with, a pleasant land to see," he says, under the date of September 2nd, 1609, "the waters abound with salmons, mullets and rayes, very great. The people of the country came aboard of us, seeming very glad of our coming, and brought green tobacco and gave us of it for knives and beads. They go in loose deer-skins, well dressed, and mantles of feathers, skins and divers sort of good furs. They have yellow copper, and use red copper tobacco pipes." And when his men landed he says they found "great store of men, women and children, and good oysters, grapes and pumpkins, beaver and other skins." Then out of the grossness of the time and of the race the Whites wrought the great wrong which, ever continuing, has marked the course of civilisation on their side and of degradation on that of the Red men. Captain Waymouth, who had been on the coast four or five years before, kidnapped natives as a matter of course. Verazzano, the Italian, who really discovered the 127 Hudson eighty-five years before "Hendrick" entered it, had also kidnapped natives, but Hudson's men made them drunk, and the memory of the carouse is still perpetuated, they say, in the word Manhattan.[7] On the shores of this river, now so populous with many towns and villages and joyous country seats, there is not a trace of the Red man, and at West Point there is the great Military Academy for the education of officers whose principal military service will probably consist in the extermination of the few Red men left within the borders of the Great Republic, thousands of miles to the west.

There was but a glimpse of West Point as the train flew past. Places less known to fame, or to us, were seen and carried off down the river ere we could well learn their names and the number of the population; but Newburgh fixed itself on my notes, and Poughkeepsie on my memory; for I saw on the platform of the last-named station the wisest-looking woman I ever beheld. I was informed she was a famous Professor at Vassar College, where young ladies are fitted to be the mothers of heroes by a long course of study—a prodigy of learning, and especially versed in dangerous isms and ologies—so men told me. She had curls, steel-like and lustrous, "an eye like Mars to threaten and command," scarce adumbrated by the light-blue glasses of a pair of spectacles, a Roman nose, and straight-cut lips, and wore a severely classical garment which seemed to have been cut out of Minerva's 128 peplum, and as she moved I expected to hear the clatter of armour beneath her surcoat of lutestring. And yet she was single!

But there is Albany at last—Queen of the Hudson—gazing up admiringly on its crowning glory, the Capitol, and there we prepare to descend, as we are expected to get out for a short visit. Governor Cornell and some of the State and Municipal authorities were waiting on the platform to receive the Duke of Sutherland, and carriages were drawn up outside for the party, in which we were speedily whisked through the streets of the ancient Capital of the State of New York, up to its principal pride and ornament. We were led by Governor Cornell over the Capitol, containing within its walls all the departments and offices of state, executive and administrative, of the State of New York. I was, I confess, struck with astonishment at the enormous size, the vast pretensions, and the profuse expenditure evinced by the work on the unfinished building, which must be more regarded as a monument of liberal outlay than as an exhibition of perfect taste. I was not, however, filled with the burning indignation which animates the diatribes of a recent writer in the 'North American Review.' "Every patriotic son of the Empire State," says the reviewer, "should go on an expiatory pilgrimage, and pass penitential hours in gazing upon the immeasurable iniquities of the Capitol. Whenever I have the pleasure of strolling about beautiful Albany, I am drawn to that accursed and shameful heap of spoil as irresistibly as a 129 floating spar is drawn to a dirty iceberg. Two millions were shot into the cellar, and its ultimate cost can only be conjectured. The mere interest of the money wasted on this unspeakable pile of stone, which it will require two thousand tons of coal a year to keep warm, would give the city of New York clean streets for ever." Still, it is grandiose in its way, rich in decoration, and will probably be commodious.

The State Capital has for some time been rather notorious in the matter of corruption. Let me not be misunderstood. I do not aver that the bankers, gentry, merchants, and people of New York State en bloc are corrupt. But it is quite certain that there has been for years established a caucus of wire-pullers at Albany, who influence or profess to influence the votes of the legislature or members of the legislature by the use of money. The community of the Empire City, at the time of our visit, was distracted by the contentions of rival parties, which it would be almost impious in me to attempt to analyse, but as far as we could judge from the accounts in the papers the newly elected mayor, Mr. Grace, a young Irishman who had acquired a considerable fortune in South America, was conducting an arduous investigation into abuses in the matter of street cleaning, police work, and public contracts generally, which had grown up under his predecessors, from which good results were expected by one set of critics, and nothing but evil by an opposite party. "The Augean stable," shouted some, "was to be cleansed out thoroughly." "This," said others, "is but a desperate 130 rush of a new set of people on the public purse." Above these cries was to be heard the muttering of the thunderstorm which was so soon to burst over the whole of the Union—the great Roscoe Conkling and Platt controversy.

The train had travelled over the 143 miles of rail at a rate of 35 miles an hour, and we had yet a long way to go before we reached Montreal, and so we were obliged to return to the station, where Governor Cornell, and the courteous gentlemen who had assisted him in entertaining the visitors, took their leave, and at 2.30 our journey was resumed towards the Canadian frontier. The pleasure with which we might have gazed on the delightful scenery through which the railroad runs, skirting Lake Champlain, and the interest we felt in the scenes which Cooper's novels had made familiar, were marred by the sultry heat. We were in a furnace—a heat-wave in which we were like to drown. The air was thunderous, but the thunder came not. "Pity 'tis, and pity 'tis 'tis true" that in such a condition of body no scenery can wean a man from the contemplation of his suffering—for "who can bear a fire in his hand by thinking of the frosty Caucasus?"—or looking at the green mountains of Vermont, or the slopes of the Adirondacks? I was not treated with even moderate civility when I tried to get up a little enthusiasm about Fort Ticonderaga, and the name of Plattsburg produced no impression on the perspiring pilgrims; but, truth to tell, perhaps there were few among us who had ever heard of Sir G. Prevost's defeat, and of the 131 signal victory of the Americans; for, as a rule, we are not accurately instructed in the history of our reverses. And yet the region around was almost as rich in historic memories of the great struggle between the French and the English, and their Continental auxiliaries—between French Indians and English Indians—between the English and the Americans in the two wars—as it was in natural beauty. But we did wake up a little, for the approach of evening had wasted the sultry fires of the day, when, shortly after leaving Rouse's Point, we heard a ringing cheer, and an attempt at "God Save the Queen," and, looking out, saw a small crowd, and two British ensigns waving welcome. We were in the Dominion of Canada. 132

CHAPTER VI.
CANADA.

Montreal—Quebec—Niagara—Toronto.

Although the hotels we had visited had prepared us for a good deal of magnificence in upholstery, the rooms of the Windsor at Montreal fairly astonished us. There is nothing in the hotel way in London comparable to the house, except perhaps the Grand at Charing Cross, and if adjectives must be used, I could say the Windsor was the grander of the two. Our rooms were almost too beautiful. The Duke's room was robed in purple satin. Lord Stafford was lodged in a bridal suite, decked in Star of India blue satin, with doves and cupids all over the apartments generally. My bedroom was an arrangement in delicately flowered amber satin. I hope Montreal will live up to the Windsor Hotel.

How miserably small this world is becoming. "Ruling the roast" in the banqueting rooms of the hotel was O'Hara, haply descendant of a kingly race (for, as O'Connell declared long ago, "most of the descendants of Irish kings are engaged on the coal quay; and when they're not there, they generally don't make so much"), but certainly for years the trusted aide-de-camp in 133 personal service to Archbishop Whately and to Lord Strathnairn; at least, if he was not, I am not to blame for this averment.

May 10th.—At 11 o'clock, Mr. Hickson, Manager of the Trunk Railway, the Mayor of Montreal, and many irresistible citizens, came to the hotel, and carried off the Duke and some of his friends in carriages to visit the Victoria Bridge, and other objects of attraction; among which, of course, was the hill above the city, whence a very fine view can be obtained in good weather. But this day was not one favourable to sight-seeing. It rained in torrents in the early morning, and there was, moreover, an exceedingly dense mist. Some of us were a little indisposed. Perhaps the incessant motion by rail and by wheel, and the agitated existence which it had been our lot to lead since our arrival, had something to do with it; so it was that several of the party preferred to remain in the seclusion of their rooms till lunch-time and later, when they were tempted to try the St. James's Club, of which they had been made honorary members.

Ay de mi! How many years is it since I resigned myself doubtingly, but as it seemed necessarily, to the acceptance of Free Trade as the one thing in economics needful for the world. And now I am in a dominion where the doctrine is regarded as a melancholy heresy, and its professors as all but——. "But for protection, Sir," shouted out a vigorous Scotchman, full of figures and faith, "I tell you there would have 134 been no manufactures in Canada; and more, there would have been no population to work our fields! In protection lies our only chance of successful struggle with the States." "Don't go away with that ideey!" exclaims another Scotch philosopher. "I can show you to a dee-monstration that Canady wad bee in a far finer pos-eeshun but for protection, than she has at this pree-sent." Between Canada and the United States there must always be, in all probability, a keen competition in bidding for the traffic of the great quantities of produce which pass down from the upper lakes to the sea. It was natural that we should hear a good deal about a question of very great importance to the well-being of both countries—the water communications from the North-west. There has been a discussion going on, too, respecting the possibility of sending cargoes down the lakes without transhipment, and so out to sea and to Europe; but it is found, practically, that the cargo must be transhipped. The question arises where that operation is best performed. The Welland Canal Company is, at the present moment, about being enlarged; but the shipbuilders on the upper lakes are enlarging their ships too, so that the lakes are covered with craft which could not enter the canal. Grain is carried to Buffalo and the Erie Canal in very large ships which cannot navigate the Welland; and the extra expense of transhipping from these large bottoms is more than compensated by the farming of the grain and other advantages at Buffalo. 135 The Canadian Government have reduced their tolls, and have exhibited an anxiety which is too well justified for their share of the trade. When they ask, however, for the fulfilment of the Treaty of Washington, by which they are entitled to "the freedom of the canals of the United States," they are met with the mocking rejoinder that the United States Government has no power to make the State of New York respect Federal treaties, and that they cannot compel any State in the Union to open its waterways free to foreigners. The solution of many of the contentions between Americans and Canadians, however, may possibly prove to be found in the Mississippi, where barges now are finding their way down to New Orleans, at an average in nine days, loaded with corn, which can be brought from St. Louis for 6 cents, while it costs 22 cents and upwards to carry corn from Chicago to New York. The people of Chicago start at once to open a canal from Rock Island on the Mississippi to Hennepin on the river Illinois; and no doubt each move on one side will be met by a counter-move on the other, and the rivalry between Canada and the United States will be repeated and accentuated in the efforts of the great cities like Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo, Chicago, St. Louis, &c., south of the lakes, to secure as much as possible of the carrying trade, the through traffic, and the consequent profits. I escaped eventually from the clangor virorum, and had a stroll through the town with Lord Stafford, in the course of which I dropped in on my old 136 quarters at the "St. Lawrence," where the host Hogan, racy of the soil, and full of sport, made me doubt if twenty years could have passed since Augustus Anson and I had been his guests. He was charged with reminiscences, and among them recent memories, solidified in photographs, of an excursion for fishing and other purposes, in which Lord "Bewfore"—who was, I believe, his Grace of Beaufort—was introduced. If any one needs a good introduction to fish and hunt in Montreal, I recommend Mr. Hogan with modest confidence.

After an early dinner, we drove to the quay, where the steamer "Montreal" was prepared for all comers, and after some delay, made up her (or its) mind to start for Quebec. It is a mistake to go down the river at this time of year in the hope of enjoying the scenery. Darkness set in on the river very soon after we embarked, and there were no sights on shore to look at. Now and then the local authorities pointed out to us sites of towns, and occasionally through the trees we caught a glimmer of fire, where little circles of bright light dotted the clouds, and indicated the hamlets. On board the steamer there was a senator of a very pronounced national colour, or stripe, or school, whatever the term may be, who considered that the politics of the world revolved round the narrow area in which, according to him, Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Parnell were contending for mastery; and it was not difficult to discover on which side he thought right, if not might, was placed. As he was speaking, there came from the 137 depths between decks a strain of high-pitched speech in French, interrupted by shouts of laughter, and descending the companion to ascertain the cause, I perceived an Indian—charged, I am sorry to say, with the fire-water of the pale-faces—haranguing the passengers on the miseries and misfortunes of his race with great volubility—nay, eloquence. Whenever he made a good hit the Canadians laughed, but when one of the ship's officers seized the orator by the arm and led him away, it was plain the white man had the best of the argument. Poor wretch! Demosthenes could not save Athens from the Macedonian.

By selecting the night steamer from Montreal to Quebec, however, we succeeded in preventing an undue strain on our faculties in the way of admiring scenery. What sights we escaped! what objects we shunned! All night through there were stoppages at unknown stations. The people trooped in and trooped out, and doors were banged on board. To sleep was not facile. And so it was that it was not with clear, composed minds we awoke on the morning of May 11th, just as the bluffs of Quebec were looming in the distance, and in an hour more were preparing to grapple with the wharf under the Citadel, where the Governor-General was already visible waiting, with a moderate cortege, to receive his uncle. There was something else waiting for us too! Scarcely had we got into the open carriages ere a deluge of rain—just as if the St. Lawrence was tumbling out 138 of the skies—began to fall, and, as the ascent to the Citadel is at an angle of 45 degrees or thereabouts, it was not possible to evade the tornado by rapid driving. So we climbed the hill in a waterspout, and were right glad to get under the shelter of the hospitable roof of the Queen's Legate in her good Dominion of Canada. The fires in our rooms were felt to be needed even this 11th of May.

The Citadel is now but an historic site, and has no potency as a fortified place, but Lord Lorne has done much to make the quarters a little better than the rough barrack they formerly were and to improve the accommodation. The apartments are comfortable, absolutely luxurious in their fittings compared with the style of former days, and there are evidences of refined taste in the reception-rooms, which remind one of the illustrious lady whose temporary absence when we were in Canada was much regretted, and whose presence when she returns will be hailed with delight.

When I was last here, Quebec had all the appearance of a large garrison town. It was a time of trouble. I think two battalions of Guards, a couple of regiments of foot, and a strong force of artillery were quartered in and about the city, and the citadel and forts were militarily occupied. The cities of Canada were filled with refugees from the northern States, valiant men and fair women, soldiers like Magruder, and gentlemen like Corbin, whose souls were with the South. They were waiting for the 139 hour of vengeance and victory, for a change in the tide; and they raged exceedingly against the Federals, and reviled Lincoln and Seward and all their ways with the animosity which is engendered by civil war. Americans in Canada spoke more bitter things of the American Government in our common English tongue at that time than were ever perhaps said or written by any people in the world. Now all is changed; the refugees have disappeared, not a single red-coat is to be seen. I am told that there is much to regret in the policy which has handed over the defences of Canada so entirely to the Canadians, and that no one is pleased, but of this I know nothing. The only people who are said to be happy at the withdrawal of the English are the young Canadian gentlemen of French race, who thought that the red-coats were in too much favour at balls and parties, and who are not sorry to be rid of such formidable rivals. But there is a very large and well-appointed force in the Dominion—Canada has an army of her own to be proud of. The Canadian artillery whom I saw could not be distinguished without a very close inspection from the Royal Artillery, and a more serviceable, soldierly-looking detachment than that which presented arms to the Governor-General as he passed to-day, and which paraded on the ground of the Citadel later on, I never beheld. In the forenoon the Duke went out with the Governor to visit the Lieutenant-Governor, M. Robitaille, and when the rain ceased I went down, 140 literally down—and rambled about the old city, which seemed more French and less English than ever. There was a dinner party in the evening, at which the Lieutenant-Governor, the members of the Dominion Government, and as many as the table could hold of distinguished persons and their wives who were in Quebec, were present. And then came a reception, at which as many as could possibly be got into the rather limited suite of rooms came to pay their respects to his Excellency and to see the Duke.

On the 12th we paid an exceedingly interesting visit to the Ursuline Convent. Those who have friends and relatives within the walls are only permitted access to them when the Governor-General or some high dignitary, such as the Lieutenant-Governor, inspects the establishment. In one of the spacious rooms were arrayed the good sisters and the pupils, dressed in charming simplicity, all in virgin white, with bouquets of rare flowers. A young lady delivered an address of welcome to Lord Lorne and to the Duke, which was in very good taste, although it was not unstudied eloquence; and in spite of the natural nervousness of a young girl on such an occasion, every word of the oration was uttered with becoming emphasis, and accompanied by gestures which were easy and graceful. When the address had been delivered, there was a little song of welcome and "God Save the Queen," very prettily sung, and the girls presented bouquets to the strange visitors, and a few words 141 were spoken by the Governor-General and by the Duke in acknowledgment; then, escorted by the sisters and the clergy, the party went over the convent. The skull of Montcalm is the sacred relic of the Ursulines, and is more reverenced by the good priests, I think, than any living head. The Latin epitaph (the work of the Academy, I believe) is very fine. There are many people living under the shadow of the citadel who take greater pride in the victory of the Chevalier de Lévis over General Murray, which is commemorated by the Napoleon statue on the plains where Montcalm was defeated by Wolfe, than they do in the triumph of the latter. Why should it not be so? Blood will ever be thicker than water, and that is a fact to be remembered in Quebec as well as in other places.

After an agreeable hour or two with the devoted ladies who were to be shut in within the walls without seeing a soul except their pupils and the clergy who attend the convent, until the next visit of a Governor-General, we departed, and walked down to the river, where we embarked on board the "Druid" for the Falls of Montmorency, the Harbour Works, the Graving Docks, and the Princess Louise Embankment, as to which I have no novel observation to offer, although my note-book is full of facts and figures connected with Quebec, beginning with Montcalm and Wolfe, and its improvements, ending with the new docks. One thing I may remark, that "the 142 Gibraltar of America" seems to rely on moral force for its defence, so far as artillery goes, for the armament of the works is by no means suitable to modern warfare.

There is still a fine mediæval Catholic "old France" air about Quebec which makes it as refreshing to come upon (not to the nose always), after a string of American cities, as a good old picture is among a gallery of Dusseldorf paintings.

The exceeding heat of the last few days had caused our excellent friend Mr. Knowles great inconvenience (and his friends had shared it with him), but the unpleasant conviction was gradually growing stronger in our minds that it would not be prudent for him to undertake the rapid and protracted journey on which we were about to engage. When he arrived in Quebec he had come to the same conclusion, and to our great sorrow, we felt obliged to admit that he was adopting the wisest course in taking his passage in one of the fine steamers of the Allan Line, direct from the St. Lawrence to Liverpool. He arranged accordingly to sail on the Saturday—the day after we left Quebec. Among the causes for regret at quitting this interesting city, none was felt more than the necessity for saying adieu to one whose close observation, sound judgment, and practical knowledge had rendered his companionship so useful, just as his amiable qualities had made him a most agreeable fellow-traveller. Our party was doomed to suffer still 143 another reduction. Lord Stafford felt that the pressure of his Parliamentary duties, at a time when most important measures were under discussion, would force him to return to London without visiting the Western States.

At 4 o'clock the Governor-General, attended by Colonel de Winton and others of his personal suite, came to the station with his uncle and the party who were bound for Montreal. The kindness of the General Manager of the Pennsylvania Railway, Mr. Thompson, had followed us into Canada, and the President's car, with special carriages, was awaiting us at Quebec. And so we glided out of the station, amidst the cheers of the small crowd of friends, and the waving handkerchiefs of the ladies who had been good enough to see us off, and the fire of fog-signals in lieu of artillery. We were bound to assist at a function that evening, and the special train was tolerably well filled by members of the Legislature and of the Council, and many others who were going to witness the first trial of the electric light under the auspices of the Canadian Electric Light Company, at the depot of the Q. M. O. & O. Railway at Hochelaga. The Premier, Mr. Chapleau, the Provincial Secretary, Mr. Paquet, and other ministers were in the train. The Duke, to do honour to the occasion, and to get a little fresh air and keep his hand in perhaps, drove the engine from Quebec to Three Rivers, a distance of seventy-eight miles, which, according to the Montreal papers, is the 144 first occasion upon which a Duke drove a train in the Dominion, and probably will be the last.

It certainly was not owing to slow driving that we were late, but it so happened that instead of arriving at 9 P.M. we did not reach Hochelaga until 10 o'clock, and then it was to find a great and rather a noisy if good-humoured crowd assembled, and the banquet, which afforded the occasion for the display of the electric light, laid out in the hall of the station. Three large tables were already occupied, and the impatience visible on the faces of the company was, according to one of my friends, very much intensified by the effect of the white light, which cast deep shadows over their hungry looks. But not only was there supper to be eaten, but speeches to be made. The Mayor was irresistible. He got the Duke on his legs, although the latter candidly told the company that he would rather drive an engine through a deep drift of snow than make a speech. There were very telling orations in French and English, and Mr. Chapleau made an excellent address, and there were French-Canadian glees and choruses by the company. Not to be wondered at was it if after such a long day and night we all retired with alacrity to seek rest in our quarters at the comfortable and magnificent hotel Windsor, to which we were once more assigned.

Saturday, 14th.—We were roused up soon after 6 o'clock in the morning, for we had to take the early 145 train to La Chine in order to "enjoy" the descent of the famous "rapids" in the steamer which makes the run down to the city. It was a lovely morning, and we had a delightful run up the left bank, and charming views of Montreal and the "Victoria Bridge." There is nothing in America finer than this Canadian town and its grand frontage of masonry extending for miles along the shores of the lake, the varied architecture of its noble buildings, and the wooded heights dotted with fair villas. We got on board our steamer and shot "the Rapids" as thousands do every year. It was one sensation more. The water was a little too high, however, to give us an idea of all its terrors. Very exciting were the preparations for the committal of the craft, which began to show signs of friskiness as we approached the shoot, to the tyranny of the waters. Steering gear was prepared, extra tackles put on the apparatus, the helm was called on to aid the wheel, four men threw themselves on spoke and rope, and we left off talking about the price of corn and the possible cost per bushel at Liverpool and cognate matters, as we felt the river had got hold of us, and as we looked down from the deck on the boiling swirl and seething eddies which heralded our coming to the broken water. "And the boldest held his breath for a time" as the boat took her header. If anything were to give way?—if the men at the helm did something they ought not to do? A Thames canoe-man who has braved Boulter's Lock in its fury has been moved just as we were—all but the market women, who went on knitting, 146 and the priest, who never raised his eyes from his "Hours"—and the navigating habitués. And there, as with all the power of steam and science we were battling with the evil power of the river, there shot out from the shore a tiny craft with a single Indian sitting bolt upright and keeping his course with his paddles through the tortured flood. "Does he mean to commit suicide?" "Not he. He's going to the other side, I guess. These Injuns don't drown easy." I would not have taken his place for all the silver sculls that ever were won, nor would I advise any winner of them to essay the same. In five minutes it was all over—that is, the worst part of the Rapids. It was rather annoying to be told that there has been no loss of life in the many years the "shooting" of them has been going on. We got back to the town in time for breakfast at the hotel, and then there was a good deal to be done before our departure for Toronto. An excursion about Montreal, "over the hills and far away," engaged the attention and the time of most of my friends for the day; but I remained in all the forenoon, and only went out for an hour before dinner "to take a last fond look" at the well-remembered scene of the hospitalities and repose I enjoyed in the winter of 1861 in the house of the kindest and best of hosts.

Yes! "And there's rosemary—that's for remembrance." The travellers come back delighted with 147 their excursion—to dine early, and start in the special train at dusk, attended by many friends. But the programme must be attended to.

In Canada, where the Scotch form a great and influential part of the most thriving community, the Duke of Sutherland was, of course, received with enthusiasm, and the interest in his visit was not diminished by the fact that he is uncle to a Governor who, succeeding one of the ablest and most popular administrators that ever crossed the seas, has managed to wear the mantle of his predecessor with dignity and grace, and to secure an extraordinary measure of respect and goodwill from all classes of the Queen's subjects in this vast Dominion. There are villages peopled by the descendants of the Sutherland immigrants, who thought it a hard fate to be deported from their bleak hills and watery glens. Their fathers lived long enough to recognise with gratitude the benefits of the policy which they resented so bitterly; and the descendants of these Sutherland men are now prosperous and happy, a credit to the old country and to the clan.

Sunday, 15th.—We awoke from our repose in the train at a siding near Prescott in the early morning—looked out, and, lo, there was Lake Ontario clouded in the rain-sweep and all the landscape shrouded with mist. Presently, at 7.30, the steamer comes up, glistening with wet, and waddles to the wharf. It had been arranged that we were to go from Prescott 148 to Kingston by the Lake and then take the train on to Toronto, and we went aboard accordingly, and found places reserved and every preparation made for us; but the fog was thickening, and as it was possible that the steamer might not start, or if she started at all that she might be brought up all standing in the Lake by reason of the weather, we resolved to go on by train. At 9.30 A.M. the special started, and ran all day without any incident worthy of notice. Stay, ungrateful that I am! Is it possible to forget the surprise at the Coburg Station, where the Grand Trunk Railway Company, to break our journey, had prepared a banquet, set forth with flowers and served by the nicest people possible? Somehow or other our day was a coup manqué, and we hustled through the country in a vacuous way, with an outlook of scraggy pine woods and ragged clearings with black fang-like stumps in the midst, and towns innominate. The rain never ceased, and at 6 o'clock, when we arrived at Toronto and took shelter in the Queen's Hotel, where Captain Geddes, aide-de-camp to the Lieutenant-Governor, the Mayor, Mr. McMurrich, and Alderman Walker saw the Duke and made arrangements for the morrow, it was falling in torrents; but Toronto seen under the most disadvantageous circumstances was voted to be very surprising, for my friends had heard so much of the immobility if not backsliding of Canada, that they were not prepared for such very fine buildings and such a great array of wharves and quays on the 149 lake, and the great fleet of craft alongside them. The hotel, too, was in very good keeping with all the surroundings. Still we were not happy. Those Montreal people had disturbed the minds of some of my companions with statistics bearing on the price of wheat, and the Auditor and others were busy working away turning cents into halfpence and pounds into bushels, and calculating whether wheat could ever be sold at Liverpool for 32s. 6d. a quarter.

We were all pretty fresh after a good night's rest, when we were summoned to breakfast, and after that I had a visit from a soldier whom I parted with on the plateau of Sebastopol, where he fought and bled, and, wounded as he was, remained to the end, till his regiment (the 30th) left, now a pensioner, and not in very good case in Toronto. It is strange enough that there is no race, so far as I know, in the world which is held in the least by the ties of fosterage but one—the Irish—and even with them the relations of that sort are relaxing rapidly.

The Mayor and his friends came early and carried off the travellers to do all of Toronto that might be in the time. Some day, surely, this "place of meeting," which is, I believe, the meaning of the name, must be of greater importance than it is now, rapid as has been its growth, and great as is its present prosperity. Twice ruined by American invaders—they are very handy there across Lake Ontario—Toronto has increased in all the elements of wealth and consequence by springs and 150 bounds, and since 1861, when I was there, its population has doubled (it numbers now 82,000 souls), and it is increasing still very rapidly. The University is worthy of a great nation—a noble Norman pile with good endowments and admirable professors, beautifully situated. I regretted much that I had not an opportunity, owing to the shortness of our visit, of seeing the venerable ex-President, Dr. McCaul, whose edition of Horace caused me infinite wailing in the time of Consul Plancus when I was at school, and who is still in perfect mental vigour.

After a visit to the Lieutenant-Governor, Mr. Beverly Robinson, the Mayor, Mr. Walker, Mr. Swinyard, Alderman Denison, &c., conducted the Duke and his party through the city, and showed them the Normal College, the Wellesley Schools, where the Duke got a half-holiday for the children, having put it to their own votes whether they would take it or not, and Osgoode Hall, where Chief Justice Spragge received them. It was only possible to skim the surface of the sights, and the perverse weather made even that slight performance unsatisfactory. President Wilson was disappointed that the visitors could not (I should have said rather that there would have been no use in their doing it under the circumstances) climb the University Tower, from which there is a beautiful prospect in fine weather. There was a lunch, and it was all the more agreeable that there were no toasts or speeches, at Government House, where the Lieutenant-Governor and Mrs. Robinson 151 had a large party to meet the Duke. The Lieutenant-Governor is full of confidence in the future of his beautiful Province—all it needs is to be better known to respectable emigrants. There is an almost neglected island, "Manitoulin," under his sway, about which we heard many good things, that ought to be an agricultural Paradise. It is admitted to be cold, and to be badly off for communication with the rest of the world in winter time. There are many parts of the States quite as cold and as remote, and not so fertile, to which emigrants resort in swarms. Nothing is done to direct the stream to Canada. But we must be off. The "Buckingham"—the Pullman Palace—the Great Western official carriage, the Pennsylvania drawing-room carriage and baggage waggon, and Conductor Blount are waiting for us at the Great Western Station, and at 2 o'clock we resume our journey, and away by Hamilton and past the New Welland we speed, in weather which effectually prevents our seeing anything an inch beyond the panes of glass in the windows, and which gives the idea that Niagara is unduly extending its area.

The rain was still heavy and incessant when the party arrived at Niagara, but they were all bent on making the best of it, and some of them walked from the station at the Falls. They trudged manfully through mud and water along the road right up to the verge of the whirling clouds of steam-like vapour which were drifting over the Canadian side, by the edge of the gruesome gorge through which the St. 152 Lawrence[8] runs at full speed, as if terrified by its tremendous jump, to escape into placid Ontario, and, to the immense wonder of a solitary spectator, went past the hotel. "Well," quoth he, when it went forth that "the Duke, Lord Stafford, and others were walking," "that's ree-markable! The Duke walking in the rain! I guess he don't mind being wet"—which was a fact.

Well! Niagara has disappointed no one, for a wonder! I have seen people who were quite displeased with the Falls at first, because they failed to grasp the magnitude of what they came to look at. And it must be owned the circumstances under which we beheld it were not exhilarating. Church has painted the scene; gifted beings may pour out their souls in a great cascade of words to express what they think ought to be felt by "a properly prehensile intelligence" at the sight, but no one can describe it.

I should have thought it was scarcely within the reach of the power of man to render this stupendous spectacle so irritating to the eye. But on the American side they have succeeded in making Niagara nearly hideous with smoke-stacks, factory chimneys, staring advertisements, and the affiches of quack doctors painted on the rocks. Down by the edge of the water they 153 have put a thing with blue, red, and white bands, like an enormous humming-top, and the banks of the river are disfigured by shoots of rubbish of all sorts, débris and timber, and, terrible to relate, streams of black oozy tarry matter discharged from the gasworks!

On Friday, 13th May, the landlord of the Clifton House was notified of the coming of the party. His house was closed, awaiting the opening day, but Mr. Cotham, scorning the word "impossible," and trenching on the reservations of the Sabbath, set to work, telegraphed to New York for waiters, cooks, and domestics, and papered, painted, and fixed up and dusted so energetically, that when the starving travellers were delivered at his house, they found the interior as dry, warm, and comfortable as if they had been lodged—I had nearly in my Chauvinism written in any English—but will stay in any good hotel at the height of the season. There was a splendid—that is the word—stove in the hall. It was called "The Crowning Glory," and it looked so bright and cheerful, and threw out such a pleasant glow, that it gained instant favour, and its fellows are now warming up English and Scotch interiors. Even the "Museum," inevitable adjunct of such scenes as Niagara, was open, and the good lady was quite ready to sell any number of photographs, fossils, feathers, Indian nick-nacks, warm purse belts, mocassins, and the like, but generally the establishments on the British side looked dank and mouldy. We went to bed, to the thunder of the waters and to 154 the clatter of all the window-shutters, in the hope of a fine day to-morrow—and awoke to find it was not realised.

May 17th.—"Twenty golden years ago"—not that they, or any of them, brought gold to me—since I stood on the esplanade at Clifton House with Augustus Anson, who was fresh from the sunny South and Washington, and another Britisher on his travels! There were few visitors then, for it was winter time. The river, struggling with the bonds of frost, cleft its way between snow-covered banks, bearing triumphantly through the narrowed channel floes of ice which were churned into creamy waves and foam in the wild leap into the gulf, which now was hidden by dense clouds of vapour and drifting rain and fog—cold, raw—and I thought it was incomparably the grandest and the "purest" sight that human eye could see. Above a bright blue sky. Below all the landscape was clad in white—trees, and fields, and house-tops—no other colour anywhere visible save the green of the rushing river, almost of emerald hue, and the stark peaks of the reefs of rocks. Somehow the spectacle was not so striking now. There was only one colour, lead, everywhere, except the Humming-top and the blackened ruins of a factory over on the American side. Stay! What is that rising out of the broken water? I fixed my glass on it, and by all that is horrible I made out a monster advertisement of a quack medicine painted in gigantic letters many feet in height on a huge frame 155 of wood above the Falls. The monster seized the moment when an ice bridge had formed from the shore to one of the rocky islands, and had sent his emissaries across to erect the hideous thing, and when the ice was swept away it was out of the power of anything but artillery to reach it. How delighted I should have been to have opened fire on the outrage!

Lord Dufferin made an effort to secure the Canadian side as public property when he was Governor-General, and the American Government had or has a Commission to the same end on their side, so that in the fulness of time the profanation of one of the most magnificent and awful of Nature's works may be averted, but I own that there are grave reasons to dread the worst. The factory is to be rebuilt at once in red brick! The gasworks are to be enlarged. The harpies are sharpening their beaks and claws. They will fight to the death for their "rights." It is a case for an æsthetic despotism to deal with; but where is that blessing to be looked for now?

Every one went out and had a nibble of a look at the Falls early in the morning. After breakfast the Duke and the other visitors, clad in waterproofs, which soon glistened like coats of black mail, set out on their excursion, and we saw them in half an hour afterwards, when they had crossed the Suspension Bridge to the American side, descending to the edge of the basin by the snow boulders which had not yet yielded to the sunshine. I believe that every one of the party enjoyed 156 his sight-seeing most thoroughly, each in his own way. There was, perhaps, a general impression among the serious-minded and practical that Niagara was having too much of its own way, and that it ought to be turned to better account as a reserve of force. The ultimate destiny of that great power may be safely predicted. Niagara will turn machinery.

After mid-day Lord Stafford, Mr. Wright, and myself drove from the hotel to do the sights. It is an aggravating function. There never was such a nest of harpies as is nurtured here. Talk of a Swiss valley, or Savoy, or the Lakes, or Killarney, of any place infested by the creatures who live on travellers' blood—roll them into one gigantic fee-devouring giant, with the hands and heads of Briareus, it would not be "a circumstance" to Niagara. Every step is marked by demands for dollars and cents. There must be some authority for these payments, but somehow it strikes one that Niagara, which is doing its part—the chief certainly in the play—derives no benefit from its performance, and that a set of impostors are turning its waters into silver and gold. I have no patience with such imposts. I swear, and eke I pay. American side, Canadian side, Goat Island, Burning Well—they are all the same, "Dollars and cents." How near death one may be when he is in a passion! I was walking over a bridge made of planks, from one island to another, on our way from the Burning Well—my foot slipped, and I shot off the plank on my back—No! not 157 into the water, but on a bed of sedge.—There was no one near me. I had just crossed a similar bridge, where a similar accident would have sent me into a rush of water, wherein a few gasps and cries would have been all that could have preceded the death of the strongest swimmer in his agony. But that is a detail. There were at dinner some very clever gentlemen, whose conversation and ideas proved that go-ahead-ishness is not exclusively an American attribute. One of them destroyed Manitoulin, my Island of the Blest with a few contemptuous criticisms. It was, he declared, "a very one-horse sort of place," but he knew of an immense tract to be had almost for a song, where there were homes for thousands, all bound to prosper, &c. And then we heard a development of interesting theories of what might be done with Niagara as a motive force in the way of working spindles, machinery, electric lighting, irrigating, something like M. Victor Hugo's notion, in 'L'Homme qui Rit,' of setting the tides to work on the coast of France. All the while there was Niagara thundering away, never minding the theories, and bent on the practical business of escaping into the sea.

After an animated attack on Montcalm by some of the party, who had been reading up a guide-book in their rain-bound leisure, for allowing his English prisoners to be massacred (vide Fenimore Cooper), we broke up for the night. Next morning (April 18th) our party had to lament another departure. Mr. Knowles sailed last 158 Saturday from Quebec, and now Lord Stafford retraces his steps to the Citadel, and thence goes homeward by way of New York, and we lose one of the best companions in the world. He bade us good-bye, and went off by the 10.30 A.M. train eastward, and half an hour later we drove over the Suspension Bridge to the station on the American side. 159

CHAPTER VII.
TO THE WEST.

Buffalo—Cleveland—Magnificent Muldoon—Euclid Avenue—Toledo—Detroit—Chicago—Jefferson Davis—A Terrible Moment—Pullman—Milwaukee—St. Paul—Minneapolis—Le Mars—Sioux City—Kansas City—The Parting.

Although there is now only one attendant with the party—the omniscient Edward—the baggage-master does his work so well, the conductor of the train is so active, and the service so perfect, that there is never any hitch about luggage arriving or leaving. Every one is sure to find his property in his room, and to find it at the station in time.

The line of the New York Central Railroad was in very good order, and our special, preceded by the "Pony" engine of Mr. Burrows, the Superintendent of the Division, on which the Duke, Lady Green, and I travelled for a time, arrived at Buffalo at half-past 12 o'clock. Between Magna and a station named Tonawanda, I think, which is more than eleven miles, the "Pony" trotted us over the line in ten minutes. I cannot do justice to the kindness of all the gentlemen, representing the New York Central and Hudson Railway, and the Lake Shore and Michigan Railway, who accompanied us, because I do not recollect their 160 names; but they were so anxious that we should see everything they considered worthy of notice, that no sooner had the train arrived at the Buffalo station than we were driven off in four carriages, under the control of Mr. Caldwell, who was described as General Manager of the Red River Transportation Company, to visit the streets, avenues, and manufactories, which are the main attractions, and could do no more than look at the lunch which was laid out for us in the Central Dining Rooms. I say "us"; but I am bound to admit that the charms of Buffalo did not tempt some of the party to go out. A stove factory exhibited so many excellent contrivances, that the Duke gave an order for some of the sort we saw at Clifton House, which rejoice, as I have said, in the name of "Crowning Glory," and other members of the party followed his example. The Roscoe, Conkling and Platt storm was now raging furiously. One would have thought the Union was in the death-throes. Wherever men met it was the main topic of conversation, the papers teemed with articles and telegrams, and we were constantly asked what we thought about it, and we as constantly declined to say we thought at all. Whilst Mr. Bickersteth and I sat reading the papers in the palace car, awaiting the Duke, a smart lad came in on us sans cérémonie, and introduced himself as the representative of a Buffalo paper. He hungered exceedingly for the Duke, but meantime fell upon us; and next day I was astonished to find I had declared "Roscoe was undoubtedly a statesman, but 161 he had gone beyond his boundary." Poor Mr. Bickersteth fared worse, for he was accused of want of "respect for American reporters," as the following report of the conversation with him will show:

Reporter.—"Mr. Bickersteth, will you please give me your full name and special title?"

Mr. B.—"I do not know that I am obliged to."

Reporter.—"Of course not. Just as you feel about it."

Mr. B.—"Well" (putting a third eye on the interrogator), "you American reporters are devilishly fresh, you know." (Buffalo paper.)

Our friends escaped the inquisitor. At 3 o'clock they returned to the Buffalo station, and we continued our career by the Lake Shore Railway to Cleveland. A new set of acquaintances, guardians, officials, and friends in the form of directors, railway engineers, and local authorities accompanied the Duke. Dinner was served in one of the carriages as we travelled. The little side-tables between the centre thoroughfare accommodate two persons very comfortably, and the manner in which the coloured waiters attended was irreproachable.

At 6 o'clock we reached Cleveland, and the Duke and his party were undignified enough to walk to Kennard House, instead of taking the carriages which were in readiness for us. One disadvantage of dining in the train was experienced when we arrived at the hotel. There was nothing to do; so the Duke and I took a stroll down the main street, and were surprised 162 to find one side of it lighted by electricity, and to see several large shops illuminated on the Brush system in the same way. On our return to the hotel, a gentleman in the hall suggested that we should go and see an exhibition of sparring by "Muldoon—the most magnificent specimen of humanity ever born of woman!" and not wishing to lose such a chance, and animated moreover by the promise that we should see Muldoon go through his famous performances as a "Classical Athlete," we set out under the guidance of a coloured domestic of the hotel to the scene of these enjoyments, the rooms of a gymnasium, which proved to be up a long flight of stairs, in a dingy house, in a back street. Our dark guide, who was sent in advance to secure places, met us on the steps with the news that "Muldoon" had gone, but that we might see the gymnasium if we pleased. Without our "Classical Athlete" there was no attraction for us, and we turned to go home; but, passing by the entrance to a building with an illuminated announcement that it was the "Theatre Comique," and assured by our valet de place that it was "a very nice place," we turned in, passed a bar, paid fifty cents, or two shillings, for a private box, and were conducted over a shaky floor behind the scenes to our loge, from which we surveyed such an audience as one might find in a "penny gaff" nearer home. Our attendant, on leaving, advised us to bolt the door inside. The reason for the precaution was soon evident, for the ladies whose presence was not needed on the stage at the time, in pursuance, it would seem, of the 163 recognised custom at the Theatre Comique, came thundering at the door, and were only appeased by economical libations of beer—and so we escaped to Kennard House, and to bed.

Early in the forenoon (April 19th), before we had well done breakfast, the Mayor, Mr. Herrick, Messrs. Mason, Stone, Wade, Colonel Wilson, and a goodly company of Cleveland citizens of repute, called on the Duke to take him and those of the party who were so minded to visit the oil-works, elevators, and the city generally, to drive up Euclid Avenue, and inspect one or two of the fine houses of which they were with reason proud. The Mayor had evidently something on his mind—he had the air of a man with a care of State affecting him—and after a time the truth was known. His Worship, or His Honour, was as well informed as a Sous-Préfet or a Commissaire of Bureau III.—a very Howard Vincent—and he had heard of our visit to the theatre, and was anxious to explain that it was not one of the regular orthodox Temples of Thespis; that, in fact, it was a blot on the purity of Cleveland, and on the powers of the executive. But "the Forest City," as Cleveland is termed, can tolerate a great deal of imputation, and yet lift up its head proudly as a beautiful and almost unique creation of the American genius—the fairy who turns turnips into coaches and four, mice into valets de place, and dreary marshes into the sites of noble towns, replete with all the developments of the most refined civilisation (in which, however, I do not include our magnificent muscular Classical but 164 Christian athlete Muldoon and the reprobate theatre we had visited).

The Cleveland papers were not all very civil—some of them, indeed, were not only uncivil, but untruthful in their accounts of the Duke's party. There were "imaginary conversations" reported, that in all but wit and interest would have done credit to Walter Savage Landor.

At the beginning of this century there were but a few wooden houses to justify the selection of the site of a city laid out in 1794. Fifty years ago there were 1000 souls in Cleveland. But the Canal opened to it the fountains of life, and there are now about 170,000 people in this handsome, well-to-do city.

I hope that other people bear the souvenirs of their disasters in characters of paint, brass, and iron, in monuments of stone and the ære perennius records of history, as well as the normal Briton, who is met in the United States with "Io triumphes" over his race in all kinds of metals and forms. I turned me out of Kennard Hotel, and found myself in a fine square, surrounded by shops and important edifices, and, gravitating towards a statue, I was obliged to recognise the effigies of Commodore Perry, who swept Lake Erie as clear of King George's flotilla as erst did Van Tromp "balaye" the Channel of the ships of the Stuart. Then I recoiled against a cannon, and was brought up all standing by the inscription which recorded another disaster of my countrymen. Finally I wandered off into Euclid Avenue to recover my peace of mind, only 165 wondering whether Frenchmen in England are so heavenly minded under the infliction of innumerable Waterloo and Wellington squares, streets, places, and bridges, and if Russians feel as little the wrongs of Boulevards Sébastopol in Paris, and cannon plantations in every town in England. Now, Euclid Avenue is a street without parallel as far as I know. It is not quite a street, but it is not easy to draw a line between a street and an avenue. The American Euclid drew his line straight enough for more miles than I could go, and then he built on either side spruce, trim villas of very various architecture, shapes, and sizes, each in its plot of ground, with lawns, trees, and gardens, often open and unfenced to the roadway, which is lined with trees in a grand boulevard—a kind of Clapham or Balham frontage, with ideas taken from the Avenue de l'Impératrice, or the suburbs of Versailles—any way, the people who lived in these abodes were well lodged, and must have a fair share of the world's goods. They ought to be very good people, too. Wherever I looked there were church steeples pointing with their silent fingers to heaven. There are, I am told, nearly one hundred churches—to be guide-bookishly accurate, ninety-six—in Cleveland, and, as extremes touch, the Methodists and Presbyterians affect the Gothic style as well as the Episcopalians and Roman Catholics. On hearsay mainly, but in some measure on the evidence of eyesight, I aver that the city literally abounds in edifices of beauty devoted to the highest objects of education, science, learning, 166 and charity. I felt, as I walked along the Avenue of Euclid, and beheld so many evidences of enterprise and prosperity, that (if I could do it in the dark) I ought to go and put a wreath at the foot of Commodore Perry's statue. What would it all have been, had the General in the red coat and the old Commodore on the other side had the best of it? Did any of the people in the nice houses think that an elderly gentleman who was dawdling under the shade of their beautiful trees was rather anxious that he should not be recognised as a compatriot of the degenerate descendants of their common ancestors who failed to prove that they were the better for not having been transplanted? I suppose not, but I was not in the least ashamed, somehow. I walked on mile after mile admiring the scene, and not the less interested in it because it so happened that I seemed to have hit off the witching hour of day when school-mistresses yawn and schools give up their young ladies to dinner, for I encountered processions of young ladies with books and bags, and nods and becks and wreathed smiles for their fellows, some of whom, mounted on their irresistible wheel skates, more terrible than Boadicea in her chariot, swept me off into the road as clean as the great Perry did the Britishers. If ever I see a large American box with "Miss S. Spriggs, Cleveland, Ohio," on it outside any hotel in the world, I shall stand on guard till I see the owner. "Sally! I say, Sally Spriggs! If I don't tell Mrs. Minerva I saw you blow a kiss at that ma-an" 167 (I beg leave to say, alas! I was not the man) "I hope I shan't get my tea." The name was not Spriggs. But that is a detail. I only know that "Sally" was a charming person of some fifteen years of age, and that her vindictive friend, a year younger perhaps, was quite fascinating enough, should she ask grace of me, to induce me to spare Cleveland and all its oil-works if ever I lead a victorious army there to overthrow Perry and carry off those guns. Whatever its early or ultimate results may be, the United States system developes or creates an exquisite abandon and naturalness among the girls and women which they do not share with the men but in a matrimonial way, when they keep their full share all the same. Euclid Avenue must have an end, but I did not find it.

My mayor-ridden or driven friends, much pleased with what they had seen, had reached their hotel before I did, and were singing, metaphorically, their "chanson de départ" for Toledo. As I was busy packing, "Miss Keerin," the châtelaine of the castle, or at least the chieftainess of the female helpdom, looked in upon me—a fine handsome young woman of a Hiberno-Celtic order of beauty, who told me she was Cleveland born, but that her father and mother were "Irish—poor people," driven into exile by the Saxons who came over with Hengist and Horsa. Miss Keerin belonged to the old faith, and there was a touch of Torquemada in the turn of her pretty mouth as she informed me "that she, and every maid in the house, was a good Roman Catholic." So I made my bow in spirit to 168 Mr. MacClosky, the proprietor, and Miss Keerin, the mistress of the maids, for their devotion to the Church.

May 20th.—There is one mystery which never can be revealed to me—I have no brains for it. In vain has it been explained to me by some of the clearest-headed men in the world; in vain have they in a kindly, compassionate way, with maps and time-tables, shown me why it was desirable, if not necessary or inevitable, that we should halt at Toledo on this blessed 20th of May and put up at Boody House! I admit it was in the programme. I have no objection to Toledo in the abstract, nor to Boody House in the concrete, but the value or nature of the reasons which dictated the Toledo turn-out must be beyond my ken for ever. I admit it is on the Maurice river, that it is a port for Erie navigation, that it "handles" grain largely, that thirty years ago the population was not 4000, and that to-day it is more than 50,000, that it is the converging point of thirteen railways, and that the Union depot is an immense, if not, in the words of the guide-book, "an imposing structure," but I am still as puzzled as I was when I entered the portals of Boody House why we ever "lay," as the soldiers say, in that place, considering the violent hurry we were in. One thing I can answer for—if there be a place more unlike another place than Toledo in Ohio is to Toledo in Spain, I have yet to travel for it, and I shall be obliged to any one to tell me where it is, and this I say after having seen the two Syracuses and the three Romes. 169

The preparations made in the various towns for the reception of the party conferred upon it something of an embarrassing character. But, as they were all in honour of the Duke, the humbler members of the party do not consider that they are involved in the ceremonies which await the train on arrival and departure, to signify the high sense that is entertained of the visit, and the desire upon the part of the principal inhabitants to do justice to it. It would be unjust to Toledo not to admit it has great attractions to any student of the American railway system, arising from the number of railways which start thence to most points of the compass. The reception committee, consisting of Mr. Bodmin, Mr. King, Mr. Williams, and Mr. Wells, aided by the Mayor, Mr. Romeis, appointed by the Produce Exchange, were in waiting on our arrival. Again dismay was carried into the hearts of the weaker vessels by hearing the word "Elevators"; but the gentlemen were kinder in their deeds than in their words, and only some of the particular points of interest in what is called the "middle ground" were displayed to those members of the party who did not make the best of their way to Boody House.

In the evening we went to the theatre, and were interested in a drama with the title of "One hundred Wives," which had nothing whatever to do with the play—a piece written for the purpose of bringing into contempt the practices of the Saints in Utah, full of local incidents and acted with very considerable spirit. The sentiment of the audience was shown most 170 unmistakably in the vigorous and sustained applause which greeted any situation or sentiment in which the Mormon leaders and their teachings were held up to contempt and hatred, and the curtain came down, amidst loud cheering, on a fine situation, in which half-a-dozen soldiers, in the uniform of the United States infantry, appeared to execute justice and to establish the predominance of the United States Constitution in the land of the Saints.

There was some friction connected with the arrangements for our journey from Toledo to Detroit this morning. The general manager of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway was anxious that our train should run over his line instead of the Canada Southern, but Mr. Snow, passenger agent, who had come from Buffalo, applied to the customs authorities to pass the Fontaine engine across the border, in order to take the Duke over the other line. Our train consisted of what they call the combination baggage and smoking car, the Pullman hotel car Buckingham, a Pullman saloon belonging to the Pennsylvania Railway, and there was, moreover, the carriage of the general manager of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, the whole drawn by the Fontaine engine, which is a production of the mechanical genius and intelligence of a gentleman of that name in the Southern States. We were bound by schedule to go forty-five miles an hour, and Mr. Fontaine explained the mechanism and the advantages which he claimed for his engine to the party. 171 The Duke got upon the engine with him and proceeded out of the station, with a confidence which it turned out was quite justified, although I admit some persons, not quite so experienced, were rather uneasy at the experiment. We should have gone to pieces in very good company, and there would not have been wanting representatives of the Press, of the Detroit and Toledo papers, to have shared or to have recorded the ruin. The Duke drove the engine to the great satisfaction of the engineer, Mr. Fontaine. Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt, informed of the proceedings, sent a telegram to know how the party were getting on just as we were leaving Toledo. At 2 o'clock we arrived safely in Detroit, where the mayor and several railway officials, Ex-senator Baldwin, Mr. Lord, and others were waiting to accompany the Duke and his friends in the "Truant" steam-yacht, belonging to Mr. Macmillan, in which we took a cruise upon the beautiful river that separates Canada from the United States.

There can be no comparison between the activity and commercial development of towns on the American and on the Canadian side of the great lakes, although Montreal prospers and Toronto has increased greatly in importance and in wealth, but still the credit and resources of the Dominion are more than respectable, and Canadian firms are extending their business in the United States very remarkably and rapidly. In the course of a charming excursion we had occasion to contrast the aspect of the American city with Canadian 172 Windsor, just opposite; the towering elevators, lofty church steeples, smoking factory chimneys, crowded quays, piers, and stores, and the suburbs bright with gay villas, were in strong opposition to the air of rather amateur repose on the British side, which was only remarkable for an enormous whisky distillery vomiting masses of smoke into the sky. But on the American side we were somewhat comforted, whether our solace was derived from sound bases or not, by seeing that Canadian banks and insurance offices were installed in handsome well-appointed offices. Detroit proved a most agreeable surprise to us; there was a pleasant air about it, and an unassuming perkiness very agreeable.

It is the fashion to consider Canada as the Sleepy Hollow of the American continent; but if the giant Progress who is going to devour the East, and who is feeding it meanwhile to make it fat and plump, does not advance with leaps and bounds north of the St. Lawrence (as he does down south), his march is assured and his footsteps are on solid ground.

"Lands divided by a narrow strait abhor each other," sang Cowper. The St. Lawrence (Detroit River) is deep, full, and strong at the town—a very potent stream, but it is not quite broad enough. Windsor was a favourite retreat for Secesh enemies in the Civil War. Detroit is not quite innocent of Fenian enterprise. Windsor, too, makes bad but cheap whiskey—Detroit has a protective tariff, and so there is some little bickering and occasionally a threat of "eating up" the Canadians. 173

There are, perhaps, many more Englishmen prejudiced and unfair towards things and persons American than there are Americans perverse in their opinions regarding the Old World and their British ancestors, and the Americans are I think remarkable for their abstinence from allusions to the great Civil War in ordinary conversation, nor do they obtrude their party views generally on strangers. A pompous gentleman, a harmless little Dogberry enough, who held civic office at Detroit, considered it right to express some strong opinions about the Battle of Bull Run, at which he had not been. I have remarked that expressions of political feeling relative to the great conflict of 1861-5 were most forcible in the mouths of men who had not ventured their legs, heads, or bodies in the fray, and of such was our bourgeois Boanerges. He was desirous of astonishing the Duke by exhibiting "our society" and "our young ladies," of whom he talked as if they were his private property. Judging by what we saw, Detroit may be proud with reason and without the help of the Mayor, of both, but he probably did not mean what he said and meant to be patronising only. The gentlemen of Detroit were most courteous and agreeable, and full of the desire to please and to show their city, without missing one feature of it, but our programme did not permit us to dally on the way, and we had to continue our journey to Chicago in the afternoon, resign the pleasure of Russell House and reject the blandishments of our kindly conductors. Throughout the whole of our tour the only offensive 174 remark concerning the only lady of our party appeared in a Detroit paper, and I am bound to say no one expressed greater disgust and indignation at the attack, which was after all only some coarse criticism on a travelling costume, than the American gentlemen who spoke of it. We dined at the Russell House and drove to the Michigan Central railroad station after midnight, having been ten hours in Detroit.

There had been lately a general revision of the programme, but, after all, Chicago was not so much out. The first idea was to arrive on the 20th: we actually arrived on the 21st, and that before 6 o'clock in the morning.

May 21st.—The special train scrambled into the Chicago terminus, or depot (which has not yet done Phœnix from its ruination in the great fire) at some unpleasantly early hour this morning. (We have been subjected to three, if not four, distinct alterations in time-keeping as we travelled west. New York time rules up to the State borders; Columbia time regulates watches and clocks till Chicago is reached, and then westward the time changes again.)

The cars underwent the shocks that railway flesh is heir to at shunting time, till it was necessary to get up and go forth. Whilst the baggage was being taken out of the train, the Duke and I set out to find our way to the hotel. The ancient landmarks, however, such as I remembered them, had been ruthlessly swept away by the great fire; but it is not easy for a man to lose himself in an American city, where the streets are 175 at right angles to each other, cutting the buildings into rectangular blocks. And so we wandered on through the crowds of early workmen and people going to their various places of business in straight lines, and saw street life in the morning—coffee-stands and shops in full play, crowds round the barbers' doors and saloons, and coloured men and women—a large element—shuffling to and fro along to the scene of their labours. Vast piles of masonry now tower above the broad thoroughfares, bearing the usual striking and disfiguring notices which the traders stick up to "differentiate" their establishments—very wonderful indeed when one reflected that they had all been raised on the area of the recent conflagration, one of the greatest the world has ever seen. Over a large proportion of the shops German names were inscribed; here and there over the cellars figured the styles and titles of Chinese washermen; and small establishments where groceries and drinks and the feebler kinds of commerce were carried on, displayed Hibernian patronymics.

Noble edifices, public and private, challenged admiration from time to time, especially the Post Office and Custom House; and as I read the inscription on the monument to "G. B. Armstrong, a native of Co. Antrim, Ireland, the founder of the Railway Mail Service," I could not but wonder what he could have founded had he remained at home.

Our walk through the streets to the Grand Pacific Hotel gave us the idea that the authorities did not turn much of their attention to sanitary measures. 176

There is reason to be proud of the activity and energy which came forth to reconstruct the city out of the ashes on grander lines than ever. But, oh! the filth of the streets! refuse in masses by the kerbstones, orange and apple peels, pea-nuts, oyster shells, feathers, paper, mud, dirt, on the flags. As such a state of things was felt to be a slur on the administration, it was explained to us that it was, to say the least, unusual, and it is only fair to say that it was accounted for in some measure by the exceedingly severe and protracted winter which filled the streets with snow, and only ended before our arrival. Five thousand men and more had been employed in clearing away the mess and slush; but they had not by any means done the work. The Mayor, Mr. Harrison, was, as we had occasion to perceive, a man of great energy, and he was grappling with the dirt and with official abuses in public administration and elsewhere very vigorously. If he comes out of the struggle with success and unbegrimed, Chicago and he may be proud of each other, and I heartily wish him a safe deliverance.

The Grand Pacific Hotel was involved in the common ruin ere it was completed; but it is now ready for any possible demand on its space and resources.

A little incident of the following morning afforded an illustration of the conditions under which the Venice of the West has grown up. Soon after breakfast Mr. Drake, the landlord, sent up word that General Jefferson Davis was below, and would be glad to pay his respects to the Duke of Sutherland, if his grace would receive him. He had only arrived that morning 177 from New Orleans, which he had left on Monday evening. Nine hundred miles is a long way for an old man to travel at a stretch, but he did not complain of fatigue, and he was going on to Montreal, where he had business that night. The ex-President of the Confederate States—the man who was pronounced by Mr. Gladstone to have "made a nation"—was seated in the crowded hall smoking a cigar alongside of General Wright, who had fought against him on the Federal side, but who had not forgotten the old days when he and Jefferson Davis were cadets together. He is now grey, almost white-headed, wearing a closely-cut beard and moustaches, his features thinner and sharper than of yore, but his eye is as bright and as clear as ever. But it struck me that he had what is called "aged" very much within the last few years, and his step had lost a great deal of the springy lightness which distinguished his walk at the time of the Great War. He sat with the Duke of Sutherland for some time, talking of railway travelling and the improvements in it and other matters in the States; and mentioned with regret that he had been informed of a serious accident to Mr. Benjamin, of whom he spoke in high praise. "The last time I was in Chicago," he said, "I was in command of the post we had here, and the Indians disputed our right to cross the river. That was fifty years ago." How history makes itself in the Western World! This day they are going to place a memorial on the site of the block-house which then contained the little frontier garrison that Jeff 178 Davis commanded, and whose control the red man refused to accept! When he went away every one of the party—and there were some among them who certainly had no sympathy with the lost cause he had championed so valiantly, and to which he still adheres with indomitable courage and affection—expressed the admiration which was inspired by his dignity and charming manner. Diis placuit, &c. A little later the Duke, Sir H. Green, Mr. Stephens, and Mr. Wright visited General Sheridan, and were presented to the members of the Head-Quarters Staff of the immense region over which his command is exercised, and amongst them General Forsyth, who had been in India at the time of the Prince of Wales's visit, and was known to the Duke of Sutherland. General Sheridan promised us every assistance we would require, and held out great temptations to the sporting weaknesses of the travellers could they but stay a little longer; nay, more, he sorely tried the domesticity of Sir H. Green by telling him of an expedition which is to come off on Indian territory never yet trodden by the white man's foot or seen by white man's eye; but a programme is a Procrustean bed which men make for themselves, and these joys had to be foregone like many another by reason of previous engagements. The Duke and most of the party were borne off to visit the slaughter and packing-houses, and so we missed the speeches and the parade which celebrated the erection of a memorial of Fort Dearborn, the frontier post, just fifty years ago, of the United States on Lake Michigan. 179

Armor porcosque cano! Of the slaughter-yards and packing-houses of Messrs. Armour and Co., five miles from Chicago, I need not say much, for they have been described in every detail of killing, scalding, skinning, cutting, and preserving, by many visitors. The sight and the smell were too much for some of the weaker vessels, and they returned to the special train by which they had journeyed to the yards, whilst the others supped full of horrors and statistics. And how these statistics did rain upon us! Millions of pounds weight, millions of dollars, millions of cubic feet—figures in millions and tens of millions everywhere—everything the biggest, the tallest, the deepest, the broadest in the world. What human brain could bear the weight of that multiplication table gone mad? Fortunately it is all down in little books neatly tabulated. I confess the greatest wonder to me was not that so many living things should be slaughtered, and that so much food should be grown and garnered and carried, but that there were over the world so many millions of devouring creatures having stomachs for them all.

I have called Chicago the Venice of the American lakes, or something of the kind. In one respect indeed it excels the Queen of the Adriatic—the odours of the canal-like river to which it owes so much of its extraordinary prosperity. But these odours are to be deodorised some day, and the energies which have raised a city up twice in little more than a generation 180 from ashes and muddy waters, will no doubt accomplish greater works than that.

The mayor (twice elected to that high office), Mr. Harrison, took the Duke out to see the "Crib," as it is termed, whence the waters of the lake are conducted by two iron tunnels, two miles long, to supply the city. On our way he stopped his carriage in an obscure and ill-looking quarter to show us the working of the ingenious system by which 400 police are supposed to be enabled to do the work usually allotted to 1000 men in other cities. Against a dead wall there was affixed a wooden box about 3 ft. square. The mayor took a key out of his pocket and opened it. The key was at once fixed in the lock and could not be removed till the patrol came from the station. This station was a mile and a quarter away. Then the mayor pulled down a small lever inside the box and gave the signal for the patrol to come up at once. Whilst we were waiting he showed us the telephone apparatus by which detailed information can be given to the police of what is required in cases of burglary, assault, fire, &c., and explained that keys similar to those he used are given to trustworthy householders who desire them, so that in case of need they can summon the police at once, and as these keys are numbered and cannot be withdrawn from the lock there is no risk of practical joking, and offenders are heavily fined. In 2½ minutes there came tearing along the street at full speed, driven by a policeman, a light cart with two horses, with two of the force in the vehicle. Inside were 181 stretchers and appliances for removing prisoners, and, that the alarm might not be fruitless, the mayor directed the police to pick up a "drunky" whom we had passed on the way, amusing a group of children by his innocent but ill-regulated gambols. A little crowd assembled round the mayor and the strangers as he explained the devices by which the authorities battled with the crime and excesses of the hybrid population of the city, and I was amused by the expression of disgust on the faces of some of them at the laudations his honour bestowed on the ingenuity and effectiveness of the means he was developing to restrain the lawless desire of gain or the love of a free fight which distinguish some of the citizens.

The proprietor of the grand hotel in which we lodged displayed an amount of energy in directing our movements, for which we were scarcely prepared. He was evidently master in his own house, and in America a man who can keep an hotel is able to do anything, and is certainly a peer of any duke in the world. After dinner, wishing to go to a theatre, a request was made at the bar to procure places. And as we humbly walked off to the place of entertainment, the hotel proprietor accompanied us, and we were joined on our way by an agreeable young gentleman who had introduced himself to us in the early part of the day as Chairman of the Committee of Reception of the Press. I had certain uneasy suspicions that there was going to be some kind of show made of the unostentatious, quiet gentleman who was sauntering along, 182 smoking his cigar, side by side with the spirited hotel-keeper. These were not appeased when, on entering the theatre, I perceived unmistakable officials, managers, box-keepers, and the like, drawn up in the manner of a deputation. It was half an hour behind time, but the play had not yet commenced—they were waiting for the Duke. As he passed along by the pit tier to the stage-box reserved for his use, every eye was directed upon him; and when he entered—awful moment—the orchestra struck up, amidst applause from the gallery and thumping of umbrellas and sticks, and clapping of hands, "God Save the Queen." What it was expected his Grace should do I know not. It was exceedingly embarrassing, and all we could do was to sit tight and take no notice. No doubt it was intended as a compliment, and very kindly meant, but it was most trying, and only the hotel proprietor and the Chairman of the Reception Committee of the Press were at all at their ease at that moment. The play proved an exceedingly interesting national piece; not very probable in all the incidents, but still giving a very fair idea of the general attitude of the American mind in its relation to Mormonism, and tending to bring into deserved contempt the disciples and practices of that most outrageous creed.

May 22nd.—The 'Chicago Times' of Saturday contained the greater part of the revised New Testament, telegraphed from New York. The 'Chicago Tribune' of Sunday (to-day) presents its readers with the whole of the Revised Testament, complete from beginning to end. 183

We had a very pleasant dinner, at which General Sheridan, General M'Dowell, and General Forsyth assisted. It was a relief to get away for a little from grain averages and railway statistics, but these are rare escapades from the study of material interests. The subsidence of the mass of combatants which the Civil War summoned to the field north and south from civil life into the ordinary pursuits of citizens was one of the most wonderful phenomena of the contest. I find my old friends have beaten their swords into all kinds of peaceful implements. One day General McClellan writes to me from a railway office in New Jersey to say he is on the eve of a voyage to Europe. Now I get a letter from "Bangs and Kirkland, attorneys-at-law, 142, La Salle St., Chicago," dated May 9th, which puzzled me a little till I read the text and the well-known signature of "Joseph Kirkland," recalling the old days of the army and head-quarters of the Potomac in 1861, and remembered the martial major who was my frequent companion in excursions about the camps around Washington.

May 23rd.—The Duke and most of the party started at 8.30 to inspect the Pullman car factory. The town is called Hyde Park, South Chicago, Calumet, Grand Crossing, and Kensington—and lies upon the outside of the great city, nine miles distant. Nine months ago, according to a Chicago paper, there was not a single trace of an industrial habitation upon the spot, and for five months of the subsequent time there was one of the most severe winters on record; but in 184 April the largest engine in the world, as we were told, was started as the central motive power of one of the most extensive manufacturing schemes of the world. The Corliss Centennial Exhibition engine, which was built at a cost of 25,000l., was set to work with its 24,000 horse-power, to give life to the machinery which had been erected by the enterprise of Colonel Pullman; and since that time a city of freight shops, hammer shops, equipment buildings, lumber store-houses, foundries, brickworks, with railway tracks to connect them, gas-houses, artesian wells, and wide and long ranges of streets round the central depôt, have sprung up in Pullman; and locomotive works are also busy in connection with the rolling-mills and iron-dale mills which are connected with the town of Pullman by water, rail, and waggon roads. The sentiment of wonder is taxed when one visits this great American enterprise. It is said that before the year is over ten thousand people will be comfortably housed and living in this city, the work of a few weeks. No wonder that the Chicago people are enthusiastic about their city, though they are apt to be somewhat tiresome in the details which they give of its greatness. "I have sometimes tried," said one of them, "when I was travelling about, to invent some fabulous story to relate about Chicago; but when I woke up in the morning I always found that the progress made had exceeded the wildest fabrication I could think of." Twenty-five cars a day will be turned out when the works are in full swing. The most interesting operation, perhaps, 185 was the manufacture of the paper wheels intended to take the place of iron in all railway, and which are already used by the Pullman cars. The paper is made of wood, which is cut on the shores of Lake Michigan, is brought to the works, reduced to pulp, and under hydraulic pressure is made as hard as granite, and perfectly impenetrable by air or water. It is sheathed with a steel band, which holds it like a vice, and it is cheaper and more lasting than iron.

The thermometer at 88 degrees in the shade, and the temperometer higher still. For there are thorns in the flesh, and trials, small though they be, to vex the spirit. Some there are who can endure interviewing without wincing, others who laugh at evil or good reports; but there are people who fret and fume at obstinate inquisition, and who are indignant at misrepresentation. These latter should stay at home. If one of these writes a letter marked "private" to the editor of a newspaper, he may be vexed if he sees it in print, with the word "private" omitted. It must be admitted that the peculiarities which invited comment in times past have nearly disappeared—I mean manners and customs connected with tobacco and its uses. Not only that—the burning curiosity which proved so troublesome to thin-skinned strangers appears to have been slaked by copious indulgence. Americans no longer care to know, or at least, disdain to ask, "Well, sir; and what do you think of our country?" They feel that they have a country which travellers must recognise as one of the first in the 186 world. However, I think an American is not always pleased when an Englishman, tired out, perhaps, by the strain which a continual demand upon his power of expressing surprise involves, meekly intimates that there is something of the same sort to be seen in the Old Country. The other day, when we were taken out on the lake at Chicago, and asked to admire the water, which was not particularly clear, I remarked that the water supply of London, with its three millions and a half of people, and no lake at all, was rather creditable. The worthy Mayor was at once antagonistic. "Where do you get your water?" "From the various water companies—the New River, the Chelsea," &c. The Mayor next day, at a public meeting, congratulated the people of Chicago that they were not supplied with such water as London had to put up with, "where," he said, "I am told it comes from Chelsea, which is one of the filthiest places in the world."

By this time the whole party has got into working order; Lady Green, as a soldier's wife, sets an excellent example of punctuality and ready-packed-up-edness, no matter how early the start may be. It is a large party, but, by reason of its discipline, very easy to move. And so, notwithstanding the work in the early morning nine miles away, we were all ready at the terminus of the Shore Line by noon to strike out for the West by the rail which runs by Lake Michigan, halting first at Milwaukee, eighty miles away.

The Americans have many things to be grateful for 187 on the vast continent of which they own so goodly a share, especially the natural facilities which they possess for turning the development of their energies to account; and among these, next, perhaps, to the navigable rivers opening up the length and breadth of the States to the sea, is the series of lakes stretching from the Atlantic to the central mountain ridges, affording the most admirable intercommunication between the great cities which are growing up on their shores and the corn-growing and stock-producing regions which extend far away on either side of them.

Perchance farther out from the shore, under the influence of a brighter sky, they may be blue, but certainly the waves that broke on the beach were muddy and the river flowing into the lake at Milwaukee, which is visible from the train, is exceedingly filthy. Only comparisons are odious, I would say that it looked as vile as that at Chicago. It needs a strong sense of the picturesque and beautiful to tolerate the waters of the Venetian canals in summer time, but here, without any compensation, there are the odours and the nastiness which one would more willingly encounter in paying homage to the Queen of the Adriatic in July or August.

On the lake were many sailing vessels with snowy cotton canvas, the intermediate belt of land being thickly populated, rich, well cultivated, and prettily wooded. Now and then a huge steamer came in view, vomiting masses of smoke, too common a disfigurement of these pure skies, for neither on shore nor on the 188 river do they burn it. Chicago is almost as black and smoky as Birmingham. Racine seemed to have its full share of prosperity and manufacturing industry, but Milwaukee, which we reached at 2.20 P.M., added one to the many surprises which our party encountered in the United States. Mr. W. Mitchell, who came from Aberdeen some forty odd years ago, one of the chief men of the place, in company with other gentlemen, met the Duke of Sutherland, and drove us through the city. It contrasted very favourably in the cleanliness of the streets and the general appearance of unadulterated well-doing of the population with Chicago—a crowning glory to Mr. Mitchell, and those like him who remember the town as a toddling, wee hamlet, and see it now flourishing and opulent, with its 50,000 inhabitants.

Like many other places in this vast region, the site of Milwaukee owes its discovery to one of the band of French missionaries, who, with devotion and courage never surpassed even by the chivalrous explorers who cast such a glory over the flag of France for nearly two centuries, made their way amongst hostile Indians, carrying the Cross in their hands, through forest, prairie, and mountain, descended rivers and navigated lakes, in the futile attempt to civilise and Christianise the Red Man. The Indians used the indent in the shore where Milwaukee stands as the centre of their permanent settlements. They were established there when the first traders came, and La Framboise, who left some record of his adventures amongst them, began 189 his intercourse in the way which has signalised the early relations of the white to the red man but too often. Nevertheless, the whites and Indians got on exceedingly well for many years. The former were French, or French half-breeds. The French generally agree better with the natives than the British and British-Americans. In 1820, however, a man named Juneau was the only white settler, and it was not till 1831 that he obtained a grant from the Indians of the whole of the ground on which Milwaukee now stands. Two gentlemen named Kilbourn and Walker (names perpetuated in the city) settled and established commercial relations with the people and traders of the outlying regions. As an American writer says,—"The town, which has sprung up like Jonah's gourd, grew up partly on a sand-hill and partly in a mud-hole, one being cut down to fill the other up, because men found they could accumulate wealth there." Chicago, down south, had started in formidable competition, but Milwaukee was not to be beaten. It built its quays and store-houses, and projects its piers and jetties, harbour of refuge and docks. You look round and find it hard to believe that not half a century ago the site of this city was described as "an utter wilderness, a howling, untutored, worthless stretch of forest and prairie." Elevators tower aloft; the marsh has been drained, and is now a maze of canals and slips. The buildings in the city are in strong contrast, in the air of propriety and exquisite cleanliness, to the river on which it is built. This 190 appears much due to the material—a light-coloured brick—largely used in the houses. There is a coquetry in the local architecture. The genius of the American architect in woodwork is varied. It deals in pinnacles, gables, verandahs, porticoes, eaves, and quaintly coloured fronts; and where the proprietor has not indulged in brick or stone, he has availed himself of paint, generally blue or slate colour, to decorate the exterior. The number of detached residences, standing in their own grounds amidst garden-plots and plantations, suggests wealth and comfort. The trees of the forest have been spared, and if the axe has been applied it has been wielded with judgment.

Milwaukee is famous for its beer. More than half a million barrels were made and sold the year before last, and still the trade is growing. There appear to be Germans enough to have stomach for it all in the city and the district round about. A Teutonic soil with a top dressing of Scotch may be said to constitute the stratum of the organic formation of the people of Milwaukee.

After a visit to the Soldiers' Home, an asylum for veterans of the militia and volunteers of Ohio and neighbouring States—a very interesting establishment two miles from the city—and a look at Mr. Mitchell's well-ordered, luxurious residence on the outskirts, Panklinton House received us, and at 10 p.m. we continued our course westwards towards St. Paul, travelling all night, and sleeping most comfortably in the Pullman car. 191

CHAPTER VIII.
Minnesota.

The Mississippi—St. Paul—Minneapolis—Le Mars—Sioux City—Life on the Rail—Muddy Missouri—Kansas City—Old and New Friends.

May 24th.—At 6 A.M. we were aroused from our slumbers by the rattling of the train over the Mississippi bridge near La Crosse, 195 miles from Milwaukee, which is on the east bank of the river.

All next day through a country of great fertility, with many orchards, green pasturage, and fields of wheat and maize, and we were fain to believe that night had hid at least an equal richness from our view.

On the highway of the Central Illinois Railway there is an enormous extent of the richest soil. One may pass miles and miles, day after day, I am told, over prairie land covered with rich grass and vegetation. An emigrant with a strong arm, a strong head, and a little money, pushing far afield out of the beaten track, can still, it is said, secure in Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin, land which in a few years will yield a rich return for his investment and his labour. But it is not, from all I could hear, quite a paradise to live in, nor will the emigrant, at least at the outset, complain of the roses lying too thickly under him. There are broken men here as well as in other parts of 192 the world, but they are "lazy, ne'er-do-weels; they drink and smoke and pass their lives in front of the bar-rooms, liquor saloons, and gambling shops." Some of them deny that the description applies to them; they attribute their ill-fortune to natural causes—to the terrible winters which seem to destroy all life, at times covering the country with snow, which melting, swells the rivers, which sweep over the fields, depositing a thick mud on the surface or carrying away the crops. As to the existence of a winter of great intensity and duration there can be no dispute; but neither man nor cattle succumb to its effects. On all sides, however, we were assured that the cold is not comparable to that which we experience in England, unless there is a strong wind which causes evaporation. How the emigrant can support these long and dreary winters in his log shanty, where fuel is not too plentiful, I am at a loss to understand, unless it be indeed true that the cold, no matter what the thermometer shows, is not so cold as it is in Europe. But, without jesting, there is concurrent testimony from settlers with whom we spoke, that they can go about without inconvenience when the thermometer marks twenty or thirty degrees of frost; and the same fact is reported in Manitoba of Western Canada. It is, they say, the dryness of the air which mitigates the severity of the cold.

The names of places in Wisconsin are often of French or Indian origin, smacking of the old days of exploration and the chase—Prairie du Chien, Portage, Tomah, &c. We did not see much of the 193 country between Milwaukee and La Crosse, but now we roused ourselves to make amends for our forced neglect by diligent observation from the windows.

The iron horse has borne the travellers nearly 200 miles without a check, over canals, rivers, and rich fat lands, and we are now entering on a picturesque region. For many a long mile we ran by the side of the Father of Waters, which hereabouts has traits reminding one of the Rhine, doubled or trebled in breadth, it is true; its broad and turbid waters, now several feet above its ordinary level, are confined by high wooded banks and sharp bluffs. Winona, rich in timber-rafts and many masts—a little inland river port, with a show of steeples and public buildings, won our regards for a moment, and farther on the Mississippi opened out into a grand sheet called, I think, Lake Pepin. At the summit of the bluffs the great prairie lands begin, and after a run beneath these finely contoured natural battlements of two and a half hours along the bank of the stream, the line of cliff seemed to recede and open up, and we caught a glimpse of the green headlands, flattening out into rolling treeless plains—"There is the Prairie"! The River Division of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railway over which we travelled has not always to congratulate itself on its vicinity to the river, nor to think its lot has been cast in pleasant places. The great inundation in which the Mississippi and Missouri did so much mischief left plentiful and numerous traces of its power along our route. At 9 A.M. we 194 crossed the river by a fine bridge to the left bank. In half an hour more the steeples, chimneys, and elevators of St. Paul, 409 miles from Chicago, were in sight, and at 10 A.M. the special stopped at the platform, where General Sibley, whilom governor and almost the father of the country hereabouts, the mayor elect, and a deputation, were waiting to receive the Duke, to whom they were introduced by Mr. Merrill, the manager of the railroad.

We were always "taken charge of" by somebody or other—at least we were told so in the newspapers—but our friends do their spiriting so gently that we are not aware of the surveillance. At St. Paul the party was "in charge" of the Chamber of Commerce.

General Sibley, Mr. Rice, Mr. Kelly, Mr. Clarke, Mr. Noyes, and Messrs. Drake were so anxious to show us over the town that we were at once embarked in carriages and driven through the very wonderful and interesting streets of this creation, away to Dayton's Bluff, over the river, from which there is a very fine view up and down of the city and the valley. Nothing can give one a more vivid impression of the vast progress in the West, that has been made in countries which were once in the hands of the Red Indian, than to go as we did in company with an original settler like General Sibley and hear his stories; to see the lines of commodious and elegant villas standing in well-planted grounds, with greenhouses, conservatories, and gardens in long procession, and in the usual rectangular formation of American suburbs, and to hear that but a 195 few short years ago sanguinary encounters were taking place between red men and white, close at hand. He told us of the terrible incursion of Indians under Little Crow in 1862, by which this State and Dacotah were plunged in mourning, and of the brilliant little campaign in which he destroyed the invaders and broke their power for ever, and it was difficult to imagine that such deeds as he described had been perpetrated not many marches distant by such enemies only nineteen years ago. St. Paul is not to be described in a few lines, and as we listened to General Sibley's account of its rise, and looked at its streets, and shops, and public buildings, it was only the material evidence before our eyes which enabled us to grasp the fact of such a wondrous growth; and the population is said to be nearly 60,000, and to be fast increasing. The capital of Minnesota spreads itself out on both sides of the Mississippi, which is here 2200 miles from its mouths below New Orleans. The principal buildings are on the left bank. The people, without being troublesome or pressing, were interested on the new arrivals, and more than one British flag was visible in the street. The streets were exceedingly dusty, which is not an uncommon circumstance in American towns, and is not to be wondered at either, and I think we were all very glad to reach the Metropolitan Hotel for a little rest and a bath before lunch at 11 o'clock. There was yet much to be done, as we had to visit Minneapolis, 10 miles distant, driving by Summit and University Avenues. 196

Minneapolis would well deserve a separate chapter to itself if I could give it. It is a "twin city," for St. Anthony is linked to it, and it boasts a university, an opera-house, an academy of music, fine public buildings, an Athenæum, a public library, many churches, and the broad streets are lined with shade-giving trees and fine shops and houses; and yet it was as late as 1837 that the United States obtained by treaty from the Sioux the right of settling in the country at all; and the city of St. Paul is partly built on the piece of land which was obtained by a Canadian named Pierre Parent in the same year, and which he sold for 16l.! And now the hum of life, the thunder of machinery, the smoke of factories, fill the valley. The Mississippi groans under the masses of timber and innumerable keels. How much to admire! what energy! what enterprise! But how nature suffered from it all! The Falls of St. Anthony turned into the overflow of a canal lock! The great river converted into a sewer laden with manure and sawdust! The lovely landscape defaced by hideous mills, elevators, factories! How the poets should rage, and the plutocrats rejoice!

An hour had been spent in the drive round the city, an hour and a half more in the excursion by road to the rival greatness of Minneapolis, another hour was devoted to taking a leisurely view of the Falls of St. Anthony (which were artificial and disappointing), and an inspection of Mr. Washburn's great mills worked by the captive river. 197

On our way back the party made a halt to take a glance at Minnehaha, the "laughing water" (Oh, Mr. Longfellow! How could you?)—a pretty little cascade enough as we saw it—in a deep wooded dell, about half the height of the Fall at Powerscourt; beset, too, with photographers and harpies. Still, we did our duty. The Auditor and others descended to the bed of the rivulet, crossed it, and walked round behind the Falls in due course, and struggled up to the top triumphant. Then we went back by a different route to Minneapolis, feeling we had well filled up a very hot, dusty, and profitable day of honest labour, with many a pleasant incident to boot.

In addition to the trade, commerce, and agricultural riches of Minnesota there is yet very good sporting to be found, and those among us who were given that way were much exercised by the accounts we heard of good shooting not far distant, and of unrivalled fishing—of woods filled with deer, of prairies swarming with "chickens," of rivers and lakes boiling with trout! However, one of the gentlemen with us goes away every year to Canada for his fishing, so it must be better there than in Minnesota. The cold in winter is admitted to be intense, but the people are healthy, and there are several resorts for invalids in much favour in the State. There is a considerable State debt, respecting which we heard and read discussions in which the word "repudiation" was mentioned but generally repudiated. After all it is only about 1,600,000l. for city, town, county, school, district, and State. These, however, 198 are very risky subjects for those who are not well acquainted with every detail to dwell upon, and as far as I could learn the development of the State up to the present time may be taken as a measure of its future progress. Governor Sibley told me he recollected the time when the population was only 6000—he puts it down at 1,000,000 to-day.

May 25th.—We were, I find it recorded in my diary, up and "packed" at 7 o'clock and had an early, breakfast. "The party started from St. Paul at 8 A.M., and made a desperate attempt to leave Mr. Close, who was our very arch guide, and one of its members behind, but it was ignominiously defeated and the train brought to a standstill at five miles out from the city, where it had to wait till our special engine and car completed the journey and filled up the establishment." It was in this wise. I wanted to buy a candlestick, for in most American hotels there is only gaslight or petroleum lamps in the bedrooms, and Mr. Close, who had come to St. Paul to conduct us over his farm, set out with me to find an ironmonger's shop. "Don't lose your way," said the good-natured landlord as we left the hotel. No danger of that! Was I not in the hands of a local expert? We turned into a shop, where the gentleman behind the counter let us have the run of the establishment till I found what I wanted, 10 cents = 5d., so Protection does not render tin candlesticks very expensive, any way. And then we sauntered to the station. A number of people were coming up from it as though they had been looking at 199 something. We walked down to the platform and inquired for the special. The porter, pointing with his finger to a bridge far away across the river down below, said slowly, "I guess she'll be about there. She went off five minutes ago." Mr. Close tackled the occasion at once—the station master was hunted down, the telegraph set to work, an engine and a carriage were prepared, and amid much objurgation from our friends, connected with imaginary dangers from collision, &c., we were delivered over to the conductors, who had never missed us, or thought we were in the train.

The district from St. Paul towards Council Bluffs, traversed by the train in which we were journeying to-day, presents every temptation to the agriculturist, but on looking at the map which showed the squares of land belonging to the railway and those at the disposal of the State, we had occasion to ascertain that all the plots (the 620-acre squares adjacent to the line) were disposed of, or only to be had at a very considerable increase on the normal rates. I cannot tell how many small settlements we passed on our way till we halted at the station where Messrs. Close have been carrying on for some time their farming operations. The general character of the country was that of an undulating plain covered invariably with thick, coarse grass and seamed with deep watercourses, which in England, indeed, would be called rivers, by the sides of which grew trees and dense vegetation. The houses and stations were of wood, and I do not think that I saw a stone or brick building for many miles. 200

One of the objects of the detour made north-westwards from Chicago to St. Paul was to pass through Iowa and Wisconsin, and to gratify the desire expressed by the Duke as well to see a country of such great natural fertility and resources, as the process of turning the virgin soil. An opportunity of doing this was to be afforded to us by the Messrs. Close, well-known on the river in times gone by as accomplished oarsmen, who now own large farms in the West. They have in their own occupancy a tract of 42,000 acres, which they intend to divide into farms and on it to build about one hundred houses for their tenants and found a colony, which has indeed been for some time in progress. The party got out near the station of Sibley on the St. Paul and Omaha Railway, where the train stopped, and drove to one of the farms, Le Mars, twenty-five miles from Sioux City, which was inspected with great interest by the Duke and his agricultural friends, as the plough was then turning soil that never had yet been touched by the hand of man. The figures furnished by Messrs. Close show good results; they are quite willing to welcome any gentleman desirous to try his fortune out West as a tenant, on conditions which they will communicate, the general principle being that the tenant and the landowner should be in co-partnership, the returns of the occupant's farming to be divided in certain proportions between him and the owners, until such time as the former becomes absolute proprietor. There are several gentlemen already engaged in this way, and we heard of persons coming from districts in Ireland, Scotland, 201 or England, who had associated together for mutual help and support, and of those it was said that fair success was so far crowning their struggle. For struggle it is, even under most favourable circumstances. At first the conditions of life are hard; what would be considered at home privations, in the matter of food, drink, and living, by the class furnishing these emigrants, has to be endured or the fight must be given up; and it is not until after some years that a little ease can be indulged in, the comforts and the necessaries of life secured, and the tension of constant effort to make even virgin soil yield adequate resources be unknown. Here, as elsewhere, capital is needed. The possession of it ensures a good start, a patient toleration of present mischiefs with the assurance of a better time to come.

After the inspection of part of the farm, the Duke and his friends returned to the train and continued their journey. In traversing the immense expanse of prairie-land which lies between the boundary of Minnesota and Sioux City, the traveller is struck by the paucity of houses. The Sioux City and St. Paul Railway has, however, a great future before it. If the statement of Mr. J. H. Drake, land commissioner at St. Paul, Minnesota, be true, and I see no reason to doubt it, a million acres of unsurpassed farming and stock lands are at the disposal of the "wide, wide world," if it has money in its pockets, with the certainty of a magnificent fortune out of that investment. The system of location of lands is very well known, and any one who 202 wishes to gain full information respecting it cannot do better than procure one of the maps which the St. Paul and Sioux City Railway will send with pleasure, and which exhibits the lots in the possession of the State, and those which the Company have disposed of, or hold over for purchase, numbered. The districts are laid out in squares of 640 acres (5200 square feet to the front); but arrangements can be made by which 40 acres of land can be purchased. Each block alternates with a block of the same size belonging to the State. The shaded squares on the map indicate that they are the property of the Company. Each shaded block is numbered; and the intending purchaser has only to fix upon the line in which it is situated and give the number, and he will procure all the particulars respecting it. But I fear that if it be adjacent to the railway, he will find he has been forestalled, for the land-speculators have been very active, and in Minnesota good prospects are not often to be had at a low price.

A number of ponds, attaining in some places the dimensions of lakes of very considerable size, and worthy of the names they bear, were visible from the railway; one indeed—Heron lake—resembling an inland sea. It is 326 miles, by the Iowa division of the Illinois Central Railway, from Dubuque to Sioux City on the Missouri; all along the Sioux City and St. Paul Railway, the Black Hills branch to Woodstock, the Sioux Falls branch to Valley Springs, and the Rock River branch there are blocks of 640 acres belonging 203 to the Company, apparently well watered if they be like those through which we passed, abounding in rich grasses and wide-spreading meadows; so that if there be not some reason at work, in climate or the like, which prevents an accumulation of settlers, I cannot see why Jackson county, Wattowa, Nobles, Ocecola, Lyon, and other counties, should not be densely settled, at no distant period, by a thriving agricultural and pastoral community.

I confess my head could not hold the statistics which were driven into it only to come out again. It is 117 miles to St. James, and we took about four hours to do the distance, so that the speed left nothing to be complained of. But all the time of our journey, the kind gentlemen who accompanied us poured out information in a copious stream respecting the value of the lands, the fortunes of lots, and the particulars as to the little towns we passed through. Notable was it, however, that at the smallest of these there was sure to be a school-house and some place of worship, whatever the sect might be. But the names, I confess, left few memories behind them: Kasota junction, Mankalto, Christal, all become mixed up with Madelia and St. James when I try to recollect them.

We reached Sioux City at 9.20, continuing our journey all night, and slept in the train, which travelled pretty smoothly.

The easy natural way in which we all "turn in" now at the end of the day would make one suppose it was almost our normal state of life. In fact it is a 204 cruise on wheels, a yachting excursion on iron waves rolling over the land, and this is becoming more lively as we approach the Missouri. There is a cloudy lining to the brightness of the prospect hereabouts. The rivers have been playing havoc, and we are obliged to read in the papers of great mischief by flood and storm, of cyclones and fires, damage to crops and property, and loss of life. Other things we read too. "Right Royally Received! Handsomely Entertained! They Express Admiration of the Wonderful Development and Beautiful Scenery. They Still Think Their System of Railway Management the Best. The Ducal Party Dine!" The climate must have a strange effect on us all. The Duke is a veritable Proteus in dress and looks. Sir H. Green is a man so various that he seems to be "Not one but all mankind's epitome." Mr. Stephen glides steadily through the columns of description with a fair share of commendation and uniformity. I have suddenly become bald, Mr. Neale is a universal favourite, though there is some tendency to resent his reluctance to admit the American system is better than the L. & N. W. R. Mr. Bickersteth and the Auditor and Mr. G. Crosfield are subjected to much modification of description. Crockett has whole paragraphs of apocryphal matter all to himself, but our conductors and drivers are uniformly mentioned in terms of respectful admiration in the local journal.

One paper under the heading of "Cousin George, With Other Distinguished Members of The Foreign Branch of Our Family," gives an account of the party 205 which is certainly minute enough, for the writer, having described the Duke's appearance and dress, observes that "on the little finger of his right hand was a seal ring worn smooth;" but perhaps the description would have been more caustic had not the Chronicler or Dispatcher been propitiated by the admission "that the palace-car was exceedingly elegant, and that nothing like it existed on any of the roads in England."

The interviewers in the Western cities were not as numerous as they were at New York, but there was still a fair demand for information respecting the object of the Duke's visit. It is strange that America, which floods Europe with travellers and sightseers, should be represented in the press at home by gentlemen who want to know why a party of English people have come to the United States. Their descriptions of our personnel, if sometimes flattering, were, as I have said, variable, and the Duke of Sutherland has been represented as "a merry little man," "a tall, grave, serious gentleman," "of aristocratic mien and attire," "of plain aspect and unpretending dress," "with a limp," and with "a swift, strong stride," &c. Most of us were subjected to observations, generally in a kindly spirit, even in the case of the person to whom the papers still attach the soubriquet of "Bull Run Russell" (myself to wit), which was given to me because, twenty years ago, I had the misfortune of being obliged to write an account of a strategic movement of the Federal army, from the advance upon Richmond back upon the Potomac, in which I was involved.

May 26th.—At 10 in the morning we found ourselves 206 at the great Depôt between Council Bluffs and Omaha, where a long delay ensued, whilst arrangements were being made to defeat the attempt of the river Missouri to obstruct us, by effecting a detour of some seventy miles to Creston, whence we were to work over the damaged rails to Kansas City, where we intended to arrive and to sleep at 9.30 P.M. I do not think I should like to creep along an inundated line, with the Missouri close at my flank, every day in the week, but it was very interesting for once in a way, and the engineer was especially commended for his skill in driving us over such an exciting railroad.

The recent inundation in the West, of which we had heard in the Eastern States, had done fully as much mischief as was reported. Looking from the station, mud and slime, trunks of trees, and debris of all kinds, as far as the eye could reach, told of the ruinous extent of the overflow. For more than 200 miles the railway had suffered severely; in some places the "track" had been completely submerged or destroyed. But the gentlemen who had charge of our movements were not to be beaten by even Missouri in full flood, and arrangements were made for the train to circumvent the enemy by a wide sweep round its flank to a point of junction of the line with the railroad to Kansas City. The detour enabled us to see a country of extraordinary fertility, but the liability to such floods must seriously interfere with its attractions as a permanent residence or for profitable farming. The train reached Creston at 12.30, and continued its course immediately, running over a line which had been 207 hastily repaired, and was by no means pleasant to travel over for long intervals. At 3.15 we were at Bolcklow—ninety-four miles from Kansas City—and in an hour and three-quarters came out upon the great river Missouri at a "cut-off" where it was flowing in a stream of liquid mud three miles broad, carrying with it branches, trees, fences, straw, and corn. It was indeed very gingerly work to drive the engine, which at times threatened to slide from under us into the stream, and the boldest held his breadth for a time, when, coming to a very bad bit, and looking out ahead, we saw the engineers anxiously consulting with the directors of the train, and felt the labouring of the engine as it rose up and down over the uneven line. Unless I had witnesses to corroborate my statement I should be loth to aver that on several occasions the rails have sunk so much that when the train was passing over them the end of one carriage was tilted up at a considerable angle to the roof of that which followed it! Winthrop Junction is forty-eight miles from Kansas City, but we did not arrive there until 6.30, having been all that time getting over the ground from Bolcklow. Thenceforth the anxieties of the journey became aggravated instead of lessened; the line was worse and worse, and the interest deepened low or rose high as the engineer, failing to surmount a sharp rise up to the level of the line, over a sort of hole into which we had fallen, reversed the engine, then put on steam, and with a great struggle succeeded in getting into position again. It is quite as well our friends of the London and North-Western 208 had this little experience of western travel ere they left. This was to be the last night that we were all to consort together, for the party was now about to break up into two divisions; Messrs. Crosfield, Bickersteth, and Neale returning to New York on their way home, the Duke, Sir H. and Lady Green, Mr. Stephen, Mr. Wright and I going on to San Francisco; and at dinner in the train, in the middle of the contending emotions which were occasioned by the conditions under which we were continuing our course to the West, the Auditor made a feeling little speech which touched the heart and gained the assent of the company, and healths were proposed.

"Coates's House," Kansas City, on which we descended late at night, is not exactly the hotel a fastidious or exacting person would select as an abiding place if he had one experience of it. Moreover, there was a convention at Coates's House. We have been much exercised by "Conventions," dropping upon them at unexpected times and places—"Conventions" of doctors, of druggists, of railway conductors; and these being in possession, and masters of the situation, were always the most favoured guests. A stranger accustomed to have his own way in his inn, and to have his orders attended to with dispatch, might perhaps have his temper ruffled by the divine calm of the coloured citizens who officiated as helps, or by the haughty composure of the landlord, probably a warrior of renown, and assuredly a "colonel," at the very least who did not complaints or importunities. Quoth British railway director to mine host at the 209 office:—"There is no looking-glass in my bedroom, and I can't find any basin and ewer." To whom the lord of Coates's House:—"Well, I've done the best I can for you! There are ladies sleeping on the floor! And if you don't like what you get here, there are other hotels in Kansas City, and you can go to them if you please." Director collapsed. But he appeared clothed and in his right mind in the morning, and I do not think the Colonel meant to be at all uncivil. Perhaps a party of ten coming in after hours, each demanding a separate bedroom, is considered as a disturbing and aggressive element, to be promptly sat upon and repressed. Next morning we were all up and downstairs betimes. An ample breakfast was well served by white women, aided by "darkies," in the public room, and then came the leave-taking with Mr. Bickersteth, Mr. Crosfield and Mr. Neale, the friends and companions with whom we had been living and travelling day and night, since the 23rd April, in harmony, which was not marred for an instant even when there were discussions concerning the programme, or small conflicts of wishes. The regret of which the outward and visible sign was only a deal of hand-shaking and simply expressed good wishes, based on the harmony of our mutual relations, was sincere. We saw our friends off on their journey to New York, and bade good-bye to Mr. Whelpley our conductor, Mr. Whitfield the baggage-master, who had been with us all along, and to the steward and excellent valetaille of the train, to whose care we were very deeply indebted for our comfort. 210

We were now transferred to the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé Railroad Company. Mr. White, representative of it, who took charge of the Duke and his party, was certainly an admirable selection in all respects, as we had every reason to acknowledge every day and night of the many weeks we were so fortunate as to enjoy his society and profit by his quiet thoughtfulness. Mr. White is one of those Americans—the modern types in all his good qualities of Juvenal's Greek—whom no one, after a short experience of the versatility of their talents—quick, sagacious, bold yet cautious, with a keen eye for character and much quiet humour, full of decision and resource—would be surprised to hear of as candidates for the highest office. He brought with him Mayor Anderson, a railway official who had wide experience of campaigning in the Civil War, and who carried about in his person a leaden memento of battle, which had no effect on his animal spirits, or, I am glad to add, his bodily health; Mr. Jerome, an officer of the Chicago Railway; and Mr. Townsend, correspondent of the Field, to the readers of which he is known, under the name of "St. Kames," as the author of lively papers. We left Kansas City at 11.30, in a complete little special train consisting of two luggage and two saloon and sleeping cars, simply perfection in finish, elegance, and internal arrangements, with kitchen, cooking apparatus, dining and sitting saloon, harmonium, tables covered with bouquets of choice flowers, thanks to Mr. Pullman. 211

CHAPTER IX.
KANSAS—COLORADO—NEW MEXICO.

Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé Railroad—Land Grants—Farming Statistics—Immigration and Settling—Colorado—New Mexico—Santa Fé—Colossal Hotels—Archbishop Lamy—The Rio Grande.

We have now taken a new point of departure. In a few minutes we are in the State of Kansas (in which Kansas City is not, it is in Missouri) and the western world lies before us. We have crossed the great river by a bridge 1387 ft. long, which cost 200,000l.

Kansas has now been opened up, as it is called. The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé Railway, incorporated in 1863, is one of the most important trunk railways of the American continent. It now extends, with its branches, over 1700 miles; but although it was authorised as a railway in the year I have mentioned, the line from Topeka westward was not commenced till 1869; and it was not till 1871 that communication was completed to Newton, and a branch made to Wichita. In the following year the line was completed between Atchison and Topeka; and in 1875 and 1876 between Topeka and Kansas City, with an extension westward to Pueblo in Colorado, increasing the mileage to 820. And now it has spanned rivers, 212 tunnelled mountains, and crossed deserts to Florida Pass in New Mexico, where it "connects" with the Southern Pacific Railway and completes the communication with San Francisco. The Company are still developing and pushing out their lines. The Santa Fé Railroad is striking out for Albuquerque, New Mexico, to make a short route to San Francisco. Another line is being made to Guaymas, on the Gulf of California; and another to the city of Mexico itself. And when all these are completed the boast of the Handbook of the Company will be justified, and the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé will be the longest railway in the world under one management. It will have every reasonable chance of being also the main continental route to China, Japan, Australia, and South America, tapping a large share of the passenger traffic to India, and leading across the American Continent streams of voyagers and tourists. When the Guaymas line is finished there will be a saving of not less than 1400 miles over the San Francisco route between New York and Australia; and Japan and China will be brought nearer by 800 and 1000 miles respectively.

Now it does not, I think, fall within the scope of such a book as this, which is intended to be a record of what a certain number of people did in a short tour in the United States, rather than a work of reference for emigrants, or repository of investigation, to offer any opinion which might mislead those who are looking towards the western world for their future homes 213 and for the scene of their labours in search of competence or fortune; but from what I was told I think it may be taken as true that the railway company I have named has acted with a liberality, in regard to the settlers in the State of Kansas, which, if it has brought in return profits to them, must be admitted to have entitled them to the praise of liberal and intelligent dealing. When misfortune came upon the State, and the frontier settlers needed help, the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé Railway gave it them, and carried them away from the scene of the failure, or granted them terms for the repayment of the obligations they incurred if they were willing to stay upon the farms. The Company have given fair warning to all comers that they do not encourage them to rush off to what is called the "Far West," and to wander about in the wilderness in the hope that they will find quails and manna already cooked and tumbling from the skies. They say that they do not advise any person to come to Kansas to start farming unless he has capital enough to run it for a year. By Act of Congress, in 1863, 3,000,000 acres of land were granted to the Company in alternate sections, between Cottonwood and the border of Kansas on the west, extending twenty miles each side on the line as far as Kinsley, where the breadth narrows to ten miles at each side. Government in these Western States, in the case of grants like this, is authorised by Congress to retain the alternative sections of one square mile, equal to 640 acres, which are retained for homestead and pre-emption; 214 and at the time at which I am writing all the even-numbered sections which are thus belonging to the Government are occupied by settlers as far west as Spearville, and the sections with odd numbers within ten and twenty miles of the railway, belonging to the Railway Company, have now been largely appropriated, about one-third having been sold to actual settlers. But the Company state that it is almost impossible now to find any vacant land over one mile from a neighbour's house, or over three miles from a school-house east of Spearville, except in the strip of sandhills lying on the south side of the Arkansas Railway. In many of the counties, the country is thickly settled and improved, and has an appearance of having been farmed for a quarter of a century instead of a few years.

It would probably be unjust to suppose that the praise and recommendation of the gentlemen connected with the great lines are much, if at all, influenced by the consideration of their own interests as officers or shareholders; and therefore I may take it for granted that the assertion, that "no matter what the speciality of the farmer may be, he will find soil and climate in the sections of the Company to suit him," is justified. Along by Cottonwood, and the eastern half of the Marion county, the high rolling prairie, covered with sweet nutritious grass, broken at short intervals by numerous valleys of corn, a quarter of a mile to a mile wide, through which flow perennial streams fed by hundreds of living springs, and fringed with timber, is 215 peculiarly adapted to cattle-raising and dairying as a speciality, and the soil and climate are favourable to general farming. Between Florence and the Great Bend is described as the finest portion of Kansas. The county is gently rolling, in rich fields of which nearly every acre can be tilled, with deep upland soil and dark sandy loam underlaid with a porous marl, almost equal in fertility and affording a perfect and natural drainage. It is almost ridiculous to enumerate the crops which can be grown, according to my authority in this district—corn, wheat, oats, rye, barley, flax, buckwheat, tobacco, Irish and sweet potatoes, sorghum, castor-beans, broom-corn, rice-corn, millet, clover, timothy, peanuts, silkworms, apples, peaches, pears, plums, cherries, grapes, and all kinds of vegetables.

There was in 1879, and a part of last year, a terrible drought in the western portion of the State, and Mr. Bennyworth, seeing that wheat could not be grown in consequence, planted 600 acres of sugar-cane, and was rewarded for his intelligence and enterprise by a crop of which the sugar and syrup are equal to the best of Louisiana—10 tons to the acre, every ton producing 80 lbs. of sugar and 2 gallons of syrup, the average yield of the acre being 800 lbs. of sugar, at 10c., and 20 gallons of syrup. Value of the crop $75 to $80 per acre, or from 15l. to 16l., which is, they say, a clear profit of 8l. an acre. The United States at present pays about 20,000,000l. to foreign countries for sugar; and if this new industry succeeds, a large outflow of money will be cut off and turned westwards 216 into the pockets of the Kansas farmer. Dhoura, or Egyptian corn, is being also cultivated with success, and is pronounced very excellent food for hogs, cattle, and horses, giving the stock-raiser of the West cheap food for his cattle, and, in conjunction with the buffalo-grass, enabling him to fatten them at the smallest possible rate.

In South Central Kansas, forest trees are rapidly growing up; for it would seem that before the country was settled trees were not found at all, except by the banks of the streams. Between the Great Bend and Dodge City the country has the same deep, rich, well-drained soil, but it presents a great change in the climate and the grasses, the latter being principally the buffalo-grass, instead of the tall blue-stained grass of the country farther east. As we go westward from the Great Bend, there is a higher elevation, a drier atmosphere and a smaller rainfall, and a different system of cropping is required. Winter wheat is dangerous to meddle with, because there may be a short rainfall, which happens once every five years, and then failure is certain; but broom-corn can get on in dry weather, and the sugar-cane has never failed. The manufacture of sugar at Larned in Pawnee County is declared to have been so successful that sugar-growing and making give every promise of being the coming industry in South-western Kansas; and in the same district, sheep-raising has made marked progress. But it is admitted that the result was very much in consequence of the failure of the 217 wheat-crop. Capital is required here for growing wheat, broom-corn, or sugar, or breeding sheep or cattle. West of Dodge City the Company admit that there is only grazing to be had, except along the valley of the Arkansas river, where irrigation is being carried on with successful results in fitting the soil to raise vegetables for the markets in Colorado and New Mexico. It must be remembered that the average elevation of the great region which is traversed by the rail is about 200 feet above the level of the sea; and although I will not go so far as to believe that chills and fevers, asthma, consumption, and pulmonary diseases do not exist, or are relieved and cured by the air, I think there is ground for accepting the statement that the climate is generally healthy.

I cannot offer any opinion on the great question of water supply, but the Railway Company aver that the eastern half of their grant is well watered by running streams, and that though in the western half there are longer intervals between the watercourses, ample supplies of this great necessary can be obtained at a depth of 15 to 50 feet below the surface, and it is only on the summit of the high divides that greater depth must be reached before water is struck. The employment of windmills is becoming pretty general.

Now as to the rainfall. Over such a large extent of territory, it is not to be wondered at that there should be a considerable difference in the averages. The Eastern Belt of Kansas has an average rainfall of 218 33 inches, the Centre Belt 25 inches, and the Western Belt 20 inches; the sufficiency of this rainfall depends upon the nature of the soil, a fact to be remembered and taken much to heart by every man who goes out to Kansas with a view to settling there, and his family. There is almost a menace in the words in which they are told by the local authorities, that deep ploughing, repeated harrowing, and frequent rolling are required for success, and that no State requires so high a standard of intelligence as Kansas. Slipshod farming is not profitable anywhere, least of all in Kansas; my friends of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé Railway admit that there are people who, returning to the east, denounce the climate and the country which they could not understand or work; but take heart at the thought that they are the shiftless who are weeded out, and that pluck and intelligence are attracted and will prosper on a soil peculiarly suited for them.

Kansas was organised as a territory in 1854. It then contained 8000 people. In January 1861 it was admitted into the Union as a State, but the population at that time was not 110,000 souls. In the Civil War party spirit ran high, and the struggle between the Federals and Confederates was protracted and fierce. But the majority of the emigrants were the hardy and adventurous people of the North and North-west States, and these, notwithstanding the vicinity of the great slave States and their consequent influence, established 219 their ascendency, and amongst the most valiant soldiers of the Union were the men of Kansas regiments, of whom it is said that 61 per cent. fell in battle.

On the establishment of the Federal Government, the increase of Kansas was rapid, and the development of the State in the last fifteen years is said to be unparalleled in the history of these lands of wondrous growth and progress, even when compared with the most rapid extension of the most prosperous of its western neighbours. The population increased from 136,000 in 1865, to 997,000 last year. Taxable property in the same time increased from $36,000,000 to $160,000,000; the taxation for State purposes from $217,000 to $884,000. The taxes which were $1 60c. in 1865, were not 89c. last year. The State debts had increased from $456,000 to $1,182,000; but the amount per head had fallen from $3 35c. to $1 18c. The assessed value of the State is 50 per cent. less than the real value. The total number of acres in the State was given at 52,000,000 some odd thousands; but there is a remarkable fact to be noticed, that of these only 22,000,000 and some odd thousands are returned as taxable. The wealth of the State per head is given at the very respectable figure of $323, which may be taken to be about 65l.; and the total value of farm products in 1879 was $81,000,000. There were 5000 school-houses; 7000 teachers in the State; the invested school fund amounted to $1,684,000, and the annual school fund to $303,000; and the estimated value of all unsold school lands to $13,000,000. 220

We are threatened over in the East with an extraordinary rush of cattle across the Atlantic, and from Kansas will come, should that menace be realised, which I do not believe, a very large share of the contribution to our food resources. The corn crop of the State yielded over 100,000,000 bushels in one year; but it is not so much what the value of that crop is, as the amount of cattle, sheep, pigs and horses it would feed, that the Kansas people consider. In 1880, however, the returns did not quite alarm one, although the increase in stock in fifteen years was very remarkable. There were 1,116,000 cattle; 1,282,000 pigs; 427,000 sheep; 368,000 horses, and 59,000 mules. The total value of the stock was estimated at something over 12,000,000l. Note, however, that there has been a failure in the grass crops of Mexico and Colorado, and that vast flocks of sheep were driven perforce from those regions into Western Kansas. I have heard from a good authority that it has been found that herds of cattle absolutely deteriorate the grass instead of enriching it, which is a phenomenon that requires explanation. With respect to sheep there appears to be more certainty. In some districts a threefold increase has taken place in the quantity of stock in one year. Generally, as to prices, there is but an increase of 5 per cent. over the cost of necessary articles in the East, in the large Kansas stores.

While the increase in the population of the United States for the last ten years has been about 1,000,000 221 per annum, the increase in that of Kansas has been 100,000 annually, or one-tenth of the entire increase of the forty-seven States and Territories of the Union. It is believed that when the next census is taken nine years hence, Kansas will be in the position of the fourth or fifth of the States in population and productiveness—yesterday an infant, to-day a giant. However, the giant is exposed to many sorts of trouble as he is attaining his development.

I fear to weary my readers more with figures, but any one who is interested in the actual condition of Kansas, and desirous of investigating the statistics connected with it, will have no difficulty in obtaining full information by applying to the Land Commissioner at Topeka, or to any officer of the United States Government connected with the land.

In order that emigrants may test with their own eyes as far as possible the reality of the statements made respecting these lands, tickets are issued, good for forty days, which may be obtained at all the railway offices in the United States. The holder must go in five days to the Arkansas Valley, and return from it in the same time, so that he will have thirty days to examine the country between Cottonwood and Dodge City; and if a purchase of 160 acres be made from the Company, the amount of the fare will be refunded, and half the fare if the emigrant buys eighty acres. Now as to the people who should come. The artisan looking for employment, the young man who desires to be a clerk, the farmer 222 who has no capital, the man who wants to be rich in a few years without hard work—these are not wanted; there is no hope for them; nor is there for the man who has made a failure wherever he has tried to succeed; nor the agriculturist who sets out with a great stock of machinery under a heavy mortgage. But men and women who expect to meet drawbacks, and who are not discouraged, and not afraid to work; who know how to economise, and possess intelligence, judgment, and enterprise—these, and plenty of them, are wanted. So are people of capital. What is called a gritty farmer may start in a small way with 200l., but to give him a fair chance he ought to have at least double the money. A man with 1000l. can secure—mind, non mea sermo—a fine farm in South Central Kansas in a well-settled community, near schools and churches; put one-third of his capital into stock, and nothing short of mismanagement can prevent the realisation of 33 per cent. from his stock investment. The people who have got all these good things, moral and material, to start with, may do very well in other places. The remark upon that is, that they must succeed in Kansas.

I have seen too many evidences of wealth, natural and acquired, to doubt of the greatness of the future which is opening in the Far West to the citizens of the Republic; but I also have witnessed, even from the windows of a railway train, sufficient to make me aware of the great struggles which must be made by pioneers, and by the early colonists and settlers in 223 these distant regions, before the conditions of civilised life be fulfilled. There can be no question of the severity and length of the winters, but then we were told on all sides, with a concurrent testimony that could not be disputed or doubted, that the exceeding dryness of the climate renders the most excessive cold of very much less actual consequence to the sufferer than it would be in a country where there is moisture in the air. In fact in these Prairie regions, when the thermometer is perhaps 15° or 20° below freezing point, the cold is not so severely felt as with us when it is only 2° or 3° below 32°.

The existence of insect plagues—bugs and beetles of all kinds, or at least many destructive species—the prevalence of drought, violent tornados, the sudden rising of great rivers, forest and grass fires, all and each present elements of insecurity for the harvest. It would seem that one of the most serious mischiefs which the early settler has to encounter—I do not speak of the Indians, who are only to be found in certain districts far away from the region of which I am writing—is the insufficiency of the capital with which most of them begin life. They think that when they have got a square of land they have an assured subsistence, but when they come to break it up and to procure seed and agricultural implements, in a country where labour is scarcely to be had even on exorbitant terms, they find that their little capital with which they commenced—the greater part of which was probably absorbed in the erection of the 224 humble dwelling in which they are content to live at the beginning—is quite insufficient to meet their needs and to enable them to tide over the interval between their establishment on the land and the time when any reward can be reaped for their labour. They and their families must live; food must be bought; and so it is that among these outlying settlements there is one sure harvest to be reaped—that is, the gain of the money-lender, I will not say usurer, who advances on the security of the land sums for which he charges 10, 15 or 20 per cent. interest. Formerly the struggle was not so severe as it is now, because the land was more accessible, and speculators, whose operations have attracted unfavourable comment, had not come into possession; but now it will be very hard indeed to obtain at moderate rates any land on the great lines of railway of a superior quality, except at a high price; and the settler is obliged to go far afield, and to strike out into the country which has not been appropriated by the land-shark.

It would be unsatisfactory to rely on statements, often interested, which one hears respecting the resources of the country; and it was not to be expected that the opportunity of influencing one who might direct a considerable amount of emigration and of money into these parts, would be lost by active-minded gentlemen who are interested in the land. But making allowance for all exaggerations, and trusting to the evidence of one's senses, I could not but believe that a young man with 500l. at his command, clear of all 225 deductions, with determination to get on, a little practical knowledge of agriculture, and absolute self-control to resist the temptations of prairie life, would be master of an assured competence in four or five years, unless he were exceedingly unfortunate or subject to some of the vicissitudes of which I have spoken.

A man can buy outright in Kansas a farm for a year's rent of one in the East, and in less than ten years he can make a good living for himself and family. It is amusing almost to be assured that if he has a wife she should come with him, "because her husband is a landed proprietor, and she will find the social distinctions which in the East are drawn between the family of the landowner and those of the mere renter." They may think that the society they have left is different from that which they will find out in the West, but if they come they will discover as many families of refinement and education among the Kansas farmers as in any part of the States.

The terms of sale are different. First, there is No. 1, or eleven years' credit, with 7 per cent. interest. Let us take a farm of 160 acres, at $5 per acre, bought on the 1st of April, 1882. The first payment of one-tenth of the principal and 7 per cent. interest on the remainder, in all $130 40c., must be made at the time of purchase—that is 26l. In April the following year the payment is only the 7 per cent. interest, and the same for the second year, namely, $50 40c. for each year. On the third year 226 one-tenth of the principal, with 7 per cent. on the balance, amounting to $124 80c., and so on each succeeding year, so that in 1893 the man would become the owner of his plot of 160 acres, for which he would have paid $800 principal and $352 80c. interest—total, $1152 80c., or 225l. In the six years' credit, or No. 2 term, the first payment is made, at date of purchase, of one-sixth principal and 7 per cent.; the second payment is interest only; and in the subsequent year one-sixth of the sum and 7 per cent. interest, and so on; but the Company will give a discount from the appraised prices of 20 per cent. under these circumstances. On two years' credit they allow 30 per cent., the payments being three in number; the first, a third of the principal at the time of purchase, with 10 per cent. interest on the balance, and that balance being paid in two annual instalments. So with the same farm under this system, on term No. 3, the farmer will pay $560 for securing 160 acres of land, and $56 interest, or $616 altogether—about 123l. Where the whole amount of the purchase money is paid down a discount of 33⅓ per cent. is made, so that one can become the owner of 160 acres for $533 33c.; or, if payments are made in advance of maturity, and deed taken up, purchasers on long credit will be allowed a liberal discount. There were still about 1,105,000 acres of land to be let, varying in price from $4 an acre in Sedgewick County, to $1 50c. in Stafford, Pawnee, &c. 227

Droughty Kansas, as it is called, was smitten severely last year, but it is hoped that at least twenty will elapse before the State is afflicted by a similar visitation; and the rain-belt is said to be travelling westward in the past twenty-five years, each increase of acreage cultivated adding to the moisture store, and the capacity of the soil increasing the evaporation.

Travellers like ourselves must depend greatly upon hearsay for any information that we can derive respecting the resources of the country through which we are going.

There are few buildings which would be considered of a permanent character visible from the railway train at the stations. They are generally built for the accommodation of some small town close at hand. Wood, generally to be found in the West before the prairie lands are reached, furnishes the material of which most public edifices and private habitations are constructed; and invariably there is to be seen, wherever a dozen such houses are placed together, one structure, generally the most important of all—the school; and a church and a printing office. These are great agencies. Nothing has perhaps done more to develop the energy of the American people than the amount of general intelligence which has been diffused by the State from the very outset of the Republic by the system of Common Schools, which dates far back, long previous to the successful assertion of their independence by the colonists, and which was grafted upon the institutions of the country. 228

The line of rail regulates its course by the windings of the Kansas River for nearly 200 miles, and as we journeyed on the dim outlines of the Rocky Mountains could be discerned, and they gradually strengthened and grew high and broad as we sped westwards. Towns of which we had never heard rose up imposingly on the plain. Lawrence and Topeka, capital of the State (60 miles from Kansas City), and smaller settlements in a wonderful country. "What have these people done," exclaimed one of my companions, "that God should be so good to them?" And that was said more than once, I think, and would be felt far oftener by distressed agriculturists if they could see the country. All day long we ran through this land of fatness, conversing with our new companions, whom we found very intelligent and agreeable. There was a fresh "crew" on board our ship, but we found no reason to regret the change, loth as we had been to part with our late attendants. The sun set over the western slopes, night fell—our companions retired to their own carriages, and after a talk over our new experiences we followed their example.

May 28th.—The "track" was not always in good order, and the car was "agitated" pretty violently at times, for we were going at a very fair speed over exceedingly sharp curves; in fact, no waggon on the English principle could be expected to remain on the rail at all; and so I had occasion ever and anon to peep out at the stars, for I was shut in and curtained closely in my Pullman, and observed that the country 229 had subsided into a dead waste, treeless, and apparently houseless, through which flowed a broad river, bank-full, and almost on a level with the rail. The line struck the Arkansas at Nickerson, and never left it for hundreds of miles. I awoke at dawn from a troublous sleep, and looked out on the outer world from my secluded couch—on a world so utterly unlike that through which we had passed yesterday, that it was scarcely possible to imagine that we had only travelled through the darkness of one night at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour in the same land. The border line had been passed at "Serjeants," 10 miles east, and we were now in Colorado.

Colorado is a vast square, extending from 25° to 35° west longitude, from 37° to 41° of latitude from Washington. It is bounded by New Mexico on the south, Kansas and Nebraska on the east, Wyoming Territory on the north, and Utah on the west. The great mass of the population is concentrated about the middle of the State, at Denver, Leadville, and on the course of the rivers adjacent to the principal mining districts. On the west towards Utah an enormous extent of country is occupied by Indian reservations, and there are also mountain ranges and vast plateaus which, as yet, are unsettled and almost uninhabited.

By the side of the rail there spread away to the horizon a plain apparently as flat as the sea itself, but the course and current of the river on our left showed that there was a steady rise to the west; the Arkansas has a 230 fall of 7 feet in the mile, so that we mount westward at that rate till we reach the summit of the great upheaval of the Rockies, the existence of which would not otherwise be cognizable. The plain is covered with tufted grass, the soil is thin and sandy. At long intervals a small wooden shanty. Now and then a roof visible above the level of the plain, covering an excavated dwelling—the solitary window just even with the ground, the doorway buried in a covered way, and the early inhabitant pretty sure to have his or her head thereat to inspect the passing train. Prairie dogs popped up their inquisitive faces. Turkey buzzards soared over the carcases of cattle killed on the line, the number of which must be pretty large, if all the skeletons by the way belonged to the category.

As morning broke the greatness of the change became more marked. Farewell to fat corn-fields and undulating plains, beseamed with tree-embowered, deeply set, and muddy rivers, to frequent villages and Kansas towns, to the cheerful aspect of labour and its rich rewards, to the rows of tender green maize, the expanses of wheat, the herds of cattle, belly-deep in the meadows, the black swine wallowing in the ponds! I do not say "farewell" regretfully, but use the word to express a complete departure from the scene of yesterday. By the margin of the river belts of cotton-wood trees lent shade as the day wore on to herds of wild-looking cattle, and presently vast flocks of sheep and lambs 231 appeared on the plain, and droves of horses, the mares with foals at their feet, tended by mounted men, accompanied by slim wiry greyhounds. These belonged to the marshes, which became more frequent as we progressed westward. The character of the soil gradually improved; patches of flowers, purple, blue, and yellow, gave brightness to the colouring of the prairie grass, but it is not easy to identify species from the windows of a railway carriage. Here Pawnees and Apaches hunted the buffaloes, which not long ago literally blackened the meadows. Soon after 8 A.M. the train stopped at Granada—three or four scattered detached houses—a "store," "a drover's home," a ticket-office; the Duke and some others got out "to change the air," and to talk to some workmen who were digging a deep well for engine supply.

More life perhaps, and greater show of cattle and horses—interesting too in what there was to see, for it was of novel aspect; toiling over the track parallel to the railway, tilt-covered carts, one or two, or three perhaps, of emigrants making westwards "immer und immer"; groups of tents where the wayfarers halted; the usual outcome of women and children gazing at the special; tall, long-haired, wild-looking men tending their herds, riding lasso in hand after the wild colts scampering in the distance, for we are now in New Mexico.

If a Boer in a trance were taken up by the breeches and dropped hereabouts, he would surely begin to 232 look about for his house! It is the Transvaal all over—the Drakensberg, with patches of snow here and there on the peaks near at hand. The land does not flow with milk or water, but there is coal in the hills, and there is wealth of sheep, horses, and herds. The "burro" or donkey, which plays such an important part in the domestic economy of the Mexican, abounded; explorers' covered carts, termed "desert schooners," with white tilt roofs, were seen on the plain.

A little before noon the train reached La Junta (the junction)—pronounced by the natives "Le Hunter." Mount Fisher on one side, the Spanish Peak on the other, towered higher and higher. At last, beyond Starkville, we reached the summit pass of the Rocky range, here 9000 feet high. It needed two engines to haul the train up the summit, which is perforated by a tunnel 1700 feet long. I am not sure that the Sömmering or the Bhoreghaut presented greater engineering difficulties. We got out to walk across the hill—not a mile—and were well rewarded for the slight exertion, for there is a grand panoramic view from the top, and we rejoined the train at the foot laden with wild flowers and delighted with the scenery. Our American friends told us not to hurry, as the air was so rarefied it might affect us; but I do not think any of the party were inconvenienced by the climb or descent. Lady Green was the first Englishwoman who ever crossed the summit. There are not, we were told, 233 more than half-a-dozen American or other ladies who have ever been over it.

A little further west we crossed towards evening the frontier of New Mexico. We whistled rejoicingly along cañons, slid down by the sides of tremendous ravines, and sidled into the lower regions, where the train found rest in a siding for the night at Las Vegas ("the meadows").

May 29th.—The ship of the desert was under weigh soon after 6 A.M., and the promises made that early risers would be rewarded by fine scenery were amply fulfilled. We were still making our way by wide, sweeping curves downwards to the hilly plains of New Mexico—a novel flora and a complete change of forestry—scarce a house visible, stations at long intervals, sage bush, juniper, and firs, the river courses marked by belts of cotton-wood trees.

At last we reached Santa Fé—a very pleasant break, indeed, but short, alas! at this ancient city—the oldest now existing on this North American Continent—100 years older than Boston—hubbiest and most rejuvenated of the work of civilised hands! The cupolas of the cathedral, of the hospital, and of the old church of San Miguel, were visible some time before the adobe houses of the "city" came in view. The builders put Santa Fé in a hollow for the sake of the little stream. Colonel Hatch and his staff, who were waiting to receive the Duke in full uniform, entered the saloon and introduced his adjutant, Captain Lord, Major Lee, 234 of the Quartermaster-General's Department, Captain Woodruff, &c. What a charming change it was to meet agreeable, well-informed gentlemen who never once mentioned "dollars," or told us what any one was worth, or the number of bushels of wheat and other stuffs which were raised per acre, and who had no elevators to show! Carriages were waiting. Colonel Hatch drove the Duke of Sutherland "behind" a capital pair of fast trotters. Lady Green and Sir H. Green, accompanied by Major Lee, were in a carriage and pair; Mr. Stephen, Mr. Wright and I were assigned to Captain Woodruff; Edward was on the box; our chariot wheels drave heavily; but the spirited little horses spun us rapidly through the streets of the town, into what would be called in India "the cantonment"—the Head-Quarters of the district of New Mexico. Within a large quadrangle, fenced in by a neat white paling, facing two sides of the square, are placed the detached houses of the officers, each with its little garden and trellised verandah in front, and a small space in the rear; the barracks and hospital, very neat outside, and no doubt equally proper interiorly—efforts at gardening and flowers commendable. In the centre the tall pole bearing "Old Glory" (the Stars and Stripes) aloft to the admiring skies, a Parrot gun for signals, and military properties generally. Some soldiers of the 9th Cavalry and 15th Infantry were lounging about, but the Command is scattered at Fort Union, Fort Bayard, Fort Wingate (13th Infantry), Fort Lewis, 235 Pagosa Springs, Fort Craig, Ojo Caliente, Fort Stanton, Fort Bliss (Texas), Fort Cummings, and Fort Seldon. Just before we arrived a column had marched off to strengthen the frontier posts, 200 miles away, where the Ute Indians were menacing the poor whites with war—one of those troubles which appear to be the greatest blot on the capacity of the United States Government in its civil administration. The streets are narrow, the houses of abode two storeys high, with flat earth roofs, but there is a plaza with some trees, in which there was a small crowd listening to the strains of the excellent band of the 9th Cavalry—a penny theatre, drinking saloons, bars, &c., and a large hotel is being built on a scale which argues a robust faith in the future of Santa Fé. From the mounds on which Fort Marcy stood in the time of the war, we looked down on the flat roofs of the town and wondered how the people were fed, for of cornfields or of green there was no trace; but we were told that there is a good deal of trade in the place, and that it was not as bad as it looked. Thence the Cathedral—to be the magnum opus of the good Archbishop. The lofty walls of cut stone and pillared doorways and windows are rising—let us hope rapidly and surely—round the original adobe of the simple edifice, which was built by the Spaniards in the usual cruciform shape more than two centuries ago. Some veiled and black-robed sisters of charity were praying before the Virgin in the transept; curiosity to see the strangers prevailed for a moment, 236 and for a moment only. Criticism must be mute before the pious intent with which the intrepid missionaries decorated with images and pictures the altar and the lateral chapels. If any one as he stood thought of the peril which attended the steps of these good men, and then felt inclined to scoff at the rude art of the Christian symbols he saw around him, I should not feel proud of his companionship. We went on to the Church of San Miguel, an adobe block, dating from 1572, in the time of the Marquis of Penuelo, but renovated after two fires, the last about 200 years ago. The stalwart sacristan who received us, a full-blooded Canadian, was a famous base ball player. He showed the little there was to be seen with care and courtesy—no doubt "pius miles, fortis sacerdos." A large Hospital, due to the devotion of one nun, who collected and worked year after year among the faithful, was pointed out to us. But we had yet to pay our respects to the venerated and venerable Archbishop. Our carriages stopped at the door of a modest house—the visitors were conducted through an open courtyard in the Spanish fashion, with a fountain sparkling in the centre, to the Archbishop's reception-room, a quietly furnished apartment, with religious paintings and pictures on the walls, bookcases well-filled with patristic theology, history, &c. Presently the Archbishop entered—a tall man of commanding presence and benevolent aspect, dressed in the purple of his rank, with perfect manners and the pleasantest possible expression in his keen yet gentle eyes. Over 237 seventy years of age, he is still the boldest and most untiring of horsemen, and, unarmed and unescorted, he travels from one end of New Mexico to Texas and California without any fear of what man, red or white, can do unto him. It is forty years since Archbishop Lamy left the shores of France for America, and for thirty years he has devoted himself to the spiritual welfare and temporal progress of the people of his enormous diocese. By all classes and all denominations he is held in honour, and when the Pope sent him the archbishop's pallium some years back, the procession was headed by two Jews! a singular token of tolerance on both sides, which might be commended to the notice of religious Germans and Russians. The Archbishop led us to his ample and well-stocked garden, an oasis in the adobe wilderness; to his fish-ponds, where trout and fish unknown to us rose to take food from his hand, all the time chatting so easily and answering questions so kindly that every one felt sorry when it was time to go. If all we were told be true, the field of the Archbishop's labours yields many tares and thistles. Monte is a powerful rival; faro has many votaries; the only two houses of pretension in Santa Fé belong to priests of these cultes. High and low, rich and poor, gamble as the business of life. The ladies, once freed from duennadom by marriage, cause great uneasiness to their father confessors. Several of the younger women, with fine eyes and teeth and raven tresses, were pretty, but we did not see any who looked like a 238 lady; the old ones were fat and exceedingly unlovely. The Mexican men and women were dark as Indians—dusky as Lola—and easily recognisable from Americans by their affectation of gay colours in dress. Colonel Hatch and his officers bade good-bye at the station. General Sheridan had telegraphed that the party would arrive last night, and a little ball had been arranged in our honour, but all we could do now was to thank our friends for their good intentions and drink to their long life and preservation from the Indians and other evils, and at four o'clock the train moved out and left the capital of New Mexico to its own devices. The good prelate sent the Duke a present of Mexican wine, which disappeared between the house and the railway. I hope it disagreed with the rogues who drank it, but that is a detail. The Indians—a race called Pueblos—about here are quiet, civilised after a fashion and a bad one. There is a large settlement some miles farther on than Santa Fé where the train halted, and we were surrounded by red men eager for tobacco, women, and children, with turquoises to sell—keen-eyed, white-teethed, with masses of straight, coarse black hair, cut straight off the forehead, worn by the men in clubs behind, and by the women in unkempt locks. The women had their legs swathed from the knee down in thick folds of cotton cloth, and wore a sort of kilt, with red and black blankets on their shoulders. The men wore deerskin leggings and castaway European clothing; none were armed but one, 239 who had an old musket. I committed a penal offence unwittingly by giving one of them a small glass of whisky. Alas! How long was it before our kind Christian friends discovered that the firewater of the palefaces was not an "agency" for good? How long ere the Wilfrid Lawsons of Washington decreed that temperance for red men should be enforced by law? The train sped on, the broad dry bed of the tributary of the Rio Grande del Norte close at hand. Ere sunset we had struck the great but unprofitable river itself. As the train steamed along through the waste, "It's exactly like Sibi," said one. "It's Beloochistan," says another. "No," argued a fellow, "It's like Egypt about Abul-Simnel." Any way, an Indian Caractacus might well wonder why Hidalgo of Spain or Yankee of New England should envy him his barren, fata-morgana-haunted desert, fenced in by mountain ridges tier upon tier. "By thunder! they'll get $100,000,000 of gold out of that mountain before they be done with it. There is a company forming to make a dam that will cost $500,000 to scoop it out." And the untutored Indian, anxious for a 10c. piece, knew not that more wealth than Cortez, or Pizarro, Drake, or Raleigh, ever dreamt of lay close at hand! The Duke, who had what the Americans call "quite a good time of it" on the engine, with a London and North-Western driver, was struck with the stress of work put on the locomotive. It was to run from Kansas City to Deming—1140 miles—it is not often an English engine 240 has to do more than 200 miles without an overhaul and rest. There were two engineers and two firemen for all the journey, and they were to return from Deming as soon as needed. "Ten o'clock! Arthur, make up the beds—good night, everyone!" Rattle, rattle, all night—onwards under the bright stars through the desert till morning.

END OF VOL. I.

LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.