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Transcriber's Note:

  Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
  been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.

  On page 59, "ever kind" should possibly be "every kind".

  References on pages 157 and 163 to dates in April should perhaps be
  to dates in May.

  On page 208, words seem to be missing from the phrase starting
  "probably a warrior of renown".

  On page 234, "drave" should possibly be "drove".




     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.




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 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 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.

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 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.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] The party consisted of the Duke of Sutherland, the Marquis of
Stafford, M.P., Mr. Knowles, M.P., Directors L. & N. W. R., Mr.
Bickersteth, Deputy Chairman L. & N. W. R., Mr. O. L. Stephen, Mr. G.
Crosfield, Directors L. & N. W. R., Mr. H. Crosfield, Auditor L. & N.
W. R., Mr. Neale, Superintendent L. & N. W. R., and Mr. Wright, the
Duke's Private Secretary. Major-General Sir Henry and Lady Green, who
were about to visit Canada, joined the party on the invitation of the
Duke of Sutherland in London, and I embarked on board the "_Gallia_"
at Queenstown, having left London the previous week to see some
members of my family in the County Cork.




CONTENTS OF VOL. I.


     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                                                Page 1


     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                   18


     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                                          51


     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                                        70


     CHAPTER V.

     HARRISBURG -- NEW YORK -- BOSTON -- CANADA.

     Departure from Washington -- Harper's Ferry -- The State
     Capital -- Rats on the Rampage -- Pennsylvania Farming        103


     CHAPTER VI.

     CANADA.

     Sight-seeing -- The Traffic Strife -- Quebec -- The
     Ursulines -- The Electric Light -- The La Chine Rapids --
     Sutherland Emigrants -- Toronto -- Niagara -- The Clifton
     House -- The Puff Demons -- "Imperial Cæsar Dead"             132


     CHAPTER VII.

     TO THE WEST.

     Buffalo -- Cleveland -- Magnificent Muldoon -- Euclid
     Avenue -- Toledo -- Detroit -- Chicago -- Jefferson Davis
     -- A Terrible Moment -- Pullman -- Milwaukee                  159


     CHAPTER VIII.

     MINNESOTA.

     The Mississippi -- St. Paul -- Minneapolis -- Le Mars --
     Sioux City -- Life on the Rail -- Muddy Missouri -- Kansas
     City -- Old and New Friends                                   191


     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                                        211




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 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 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 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 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 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
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.

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 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" 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 16-3/8 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
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 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.

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 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 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.

     "Breathes there a man with soul so dead"--

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 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, 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.




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 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, 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 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
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
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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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, 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
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 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 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 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 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; 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] 'My Diary North and South,' vol. i. p. 17. Bradbury and Evans,
London, 1863.

[3] At starting, the party formed a common purse, which was placed in
the hands of Mr. Neale, and a most excellent Chancellor of the
Exchequer he proved from our departure to cross the Atlantic till he
left us to return to England.

[4] "The Present State of His Majesties Isles and Territories in
America, &c. London: Printed by H. Clark, for Dorman Newman, at the
King's Arms, in the Poultry, 1687."




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 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 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 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 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 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 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
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 in the park there is a good _coup d'oeil_ 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

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, 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 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!_




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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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
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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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
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 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 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, 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 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 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 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
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 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 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 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
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 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.

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 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] It is under the impression of the sad event which has caused the
world to take such a profound interest in the President's life that I
transcribe the record of the moment.

[6] General Burnside, I regret to see, died since our return to
England.




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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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. 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 phoenixes in marble,
granite, iron, and brick, reared out of the ashes of the Great Fire
nine years ago--Sears, 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, 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" 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 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 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
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 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 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 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 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 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 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
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 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 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 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.

FOOTNOTE:

[7] "Where they got drunk."




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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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
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 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 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, 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.

     "I cannot but remember such things were
     That were most precious to me."

Yes! "And there's rosemary--that's for remembrance." The travellers
come back delighted with 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 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 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 32_s._
6_d._ 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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
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 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.

FOOTNOTE:

[8] "This great river, the St. Lawrence, has received different names
in different parts of its course. Between Lakes Superior and Huron it
is called the St. Mary, between Lakes Huron and Erie the St. Clair and
Detroit, between Lake Erie and Ontario the Niagara, between Lake
Ontario and the sea the St. Lawrence."--Keith Johnston, Lovell's
Gazetteer, Bevan's 'Modern Geography Manual,' Murray, &c.




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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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" (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 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.

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 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. 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
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.

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 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 Phoenix 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 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.

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 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 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.

_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 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 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, 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.

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 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 25,000_l._, 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, 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 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 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 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
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 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.




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 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 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 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 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.

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 16_l._! 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.

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 1,600,000_l._ for city, town, county, school, district, and
State. These, however, 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 = 5_d._, 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 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.

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,
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 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 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 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 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 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
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 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 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.

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.




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 200,000_l._

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, 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 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; 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 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 15_l._ to 16_l._, which is, they say, a clear profit of 8_l._ an
acre. The United States at present pays about 20,000,000_l._ to
foreign countries for sugar; and if this new industry succeeds, a
large outflow of money will be cut off and turned westwards 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 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 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 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 65_l._; 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.

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
12,000,000_l._ 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 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 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 200_l._, but to give him a fair
chance he ought to have at least double the money. A man with 1000_l._
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 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 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 500_l._ at his command, clear of all 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 26_l._ 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 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 225_l._ 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 123_l._ Where the
whole amount of the purchase money is paid down a discount of 33-1/3
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.

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.

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 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 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 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 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, 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, 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, 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, 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 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 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, 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 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.


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