shoulders to the wheel, and lifted it out of its hole. The same little incident was repeated in half an hour. At five or six miles from Laporte, and seven from Michigan City, our driver stopped, and held a long parley with somebody by the road side. The news was that a bridge in the middle of a marsh had been carried away by a tremendous freshet; and with how much log-road on either side, could not be ascertained till the waters should subside. The mails, however, would have to be carried over, by some means, the next day; and we must wait where we were till we could profit by the post-office experiment. The next question was, where were we to be harboured? There was no house of entertainment near.
We shrank from going back to Laporte over the perilous road which was growing worse every minute. A family lived at hand, who hospitably offered to receive us; and we were only too ready to accept their kindness. The good man stopped our acknowledgments by saying, in the most cheerful manner, "You know you would not have staid with me, if you could have helped it; and I would not have had you, if I could have helped it: so no more words about it; but let us make ourselves comfortable."
We perceived by a glance at the beard and costume of our host, that there was something remarkable about him. He was of the Tunker sect of Baptists, (from _Tunken_, to dip,) a very peculiar sect of religionists.
He explained, without any reserve, his faith, and the reasons on which it was founded.
It was all interesting, as showing how the true and the fanciful, the principle and the emblem, the eternal truth and the supposed type, may become all mixed together, so as to be received alike as articles of faith. This man might almost compare with Origen in his mystical divinations of scripture. The most profitable and delightful part of his communication related to the operation upon his life and fortunes of his peace principles. He had gone through life on the non-resistance principle; and it was animating to learn how well it had served him; as every high exercise of faith does serve every one who has strength and simplicity of heart to commit himself to it. It was animating to learn, not only his own consistency, but the force of his moral power over others; how the careless had been won to thoughtfulness of his interests, and the criminal to respect of his rights. He seemed to have unconsciously secured the promise and the fruit of the life that now is, more effectually than many who think less of that which is to come. It was done, he said, by always supposing that the good was in men. His wife won our hearts by the beauty of her countenance, set off by the neat plain dress of her sect. She was ill; but they made us thoroughly comfortable, without apparently discomposing themselves. Sixteen out of seventeen children were living; of whom two sons and five daughters were absent, and six sons and three daughters at home: the youngest was three years old.
Their estate consists of eight hundred acres, a large portion of which is not yet broken up. The owner says he walks over the ground once a year, to see the huckleberries grow. He gave the upset price for the land; a dollar and a-quarter an acre. He is now offered forty dollars an acre, and says the land is worth fifty, its situation being very advantageous; but he does not wish to sell. He has thus become worth 40,000 dollars in the three years which have elapsed since he came out of Ohio. His sons, as they grow up, settle at a distance; and he does not want money, and has no inducement to sell. I have no idea, however, that the huckleberries will be long permitted to grow in peace and quiet, in so busy a district as this is destined to become. The good man will be constrained by the march and pressure of circumstances, either to sell or cultivate.
The house, log-built, consisted of three rooms; two under one roof; and another apparently added afterwards. There were also out-houses. In one of these three rooms, the cooking and eating went on; another was given up to us ladies, with a few of the little children; and in the other, the rest of the family, the gentlemen of our party, and another weather-bound traveller, slept. Huge fires of logs blazed in the chimneys; two or three of the little ones were offered us as hand-maidens; and the entire abode was as clean as could be conceived.
Here was comfort!
As we warmed and dried ourselves in the chimney corners, and looked upon the clear windows, the bright tin water-pails, and the sheets and towels as white as snow, we had only one anxiety. It was necessary for Mr. and Mrs. L. to be at home, a thousand miles off, by a particular day. We had already met with some delays; and there was no seeing the end of the present adventure. There was some doubt whether we should not have done better to cross the southern end of Lake Michigan, from Niles to Chicago, by a little steam-boat, the Delaware, which was to leave Niles a few hours after our stage. It had been thought of at Niles; but there was some uncertainty about the departure of the boat; and we all anxiously desired to skirt the extremity of this great inland sea, and to see the new settlements on its shores. Had we done right in incurring this risk of detention? Right or wrong, here we were; and here we must wait upon events.
Our sleep, amidst the luxury of cleanliness and hospitality, was most refreshing. The next morning it was still raining, but less vehemently.
After breakfast, we ladies employed ourselves in sweeping and dusting our room, and making the beds; as we had given our kind hostess too much trouble already. Then there was a Michigan City newspaper to be read; and I sat down to write letters. Before long, a wagon and four drove up to the door, the driver of which cried out that if there was any getting to Michigan City, he was our man. We equipped ourselves in our warmest and thickest clothing, put on our india rubber shoes, packed ourselves and our luggage in the wagon, put up our umbrellas, and wondered what was to be our fate. When it had come to saying farewell, our hostess put her hands on my shoulders, kissed me on each cheek, and said she had hoped for the pleasure of our company for another day. For my own part, I would willingly take her at her word, if my destiny should ever carry me near the great lakes again.
We jolted on for two miles and a half through the woods, admiring the scarlet lilies, and the pink and white moccasin flower, which was brilliant. Then we arrived at the place of the vanished bridge. Our first prospect was of being paddled over, one by one, in the smallest of boats. But, when the capabilities of the place were examined, it was decided that we should wait in a house on the hill, while the neighbours, the passengers of the mail-stage, and the drivers, built a bridge. We waited patiently for nearly three hours, watching the busy men going in and out, gathering tidings of the freshet, and its effects, and being pleased to see how affectionate the woman of the house was to her husband, while she was cross to everybody else. It must have been vexatious to her to have her floor made wet and dirty, and all her household operations disturbed by a dozen strangers whom she had never invited. She let us have some dough nuts, and gave us a gracious glance or two at parting.
We learned that a gentleman who followed us from Niles, the preceding day, found the water nine feet deep, and was near drowning his horses, in a place which we had crossed without difficulty. This very morning, a bridge which we had proved and passed, gave way with the stage, and the horses had to be dug and rolled out of the mud, when they were on the point of suffocation. Such a freshet had never been known to the present inhabitants.
Our driver was an original; and so were some of the other muddy gentlemen who came in to dry themselves, after their bridge making. One asked if such an one was not a "smart fellow." "He! he can't see through a ladder." Our driver informed us, "when they send a man to jail here, they put him abroad into the woods. Only, they set a man after him, that they may knew where he is." A pretty expensive method of imprisonment, though there be no bills for jail building. This man conversed with his horses in much the same style as with us, averring that they understood him as well. On one occasion, he boxed the ears of one of the leaders, for not standing still when bidden, declaring, "If you go on doing so, I'll give you something you can't buy at the grocer's shop." I was not before aware that there was anything that was not to be bought at a At half-past two, the bridge was announced complete, and we re-entered our wagon, to lead the cavalcade across it. Slowly, anxiously, with a man at the head of each leader, we entered the water, and saw it rise to the nave of the wheels. Instead of jolting, as usual, we mounted and descended each log individually. The mail-wagon followed, with two or three horsemen. There was also a singularly benevolent personage, who jumped from the other wagon, and waded through all the doubtful places, to prove them. He leaped and splashed through the water, which was sometimes up to his waist, as if it was the most agreeable sport in the world. In one of these gullies, the fore part of our wagon sank and stuck, so as to throw us forward, and make it doubtful in what mode we should emerge from the water. Then the rim of one of the wheels was found to be loose; and the whole cavalcade stopped till it was mended. I never could understand how wagons were made in the back-country; they seemed to be elastic, from the shocks and twisting they would bear without giving way. To form an accurate idea of what they have to bear, a traveller should sit on a seat without springs, placed between the hind wheels, and thus proceed on a corduroy road. The effect is less fatiguing and more amusing, of riding in a wagon whose seats are on springs, while the vehicle itself is not. In that case, the feet are dancing an involuntary jig, all the way; while the rest of the body is in a state of entire repose.
The drive was so exciting and pleasant, the rain having ceased, that I was taken by surprise by our arrival at Michigan City. The driver announced our approach by a series of flourishes on one note of his common horn, which made the most ludicrous music I ever listened to. How many minutes he went on, I dare not say; but we were so convulsed with laughter that we could not alight with becoming gravity, amidst the groups in the piazza of the hotel. The man must be first cousin to Paganini.
Such a city as this was surely never before seen. It is three years since it was begun; and it is said to have one thousand five hundred inhabitants. It is cut out of the forest, and curiously interspersed with little swamps, which we no doubt saw in their worst condition after the heavy rains. New, good houses, some only half finished, stood in the midst of the thick wood. A large area was half cleared. The finished stores were scattered about; and the streets were littered with stumps.
The situation is beautiful. The undulations of the ground, within and about it, and its being closed in by lake or forest on every side, render it unique. An appropriation has been made by Government for a harbour; and two piers are to be built out beyond the sand, as far as the clay soil of the lake. Mr. L---- and I were anxious to see the mighty fresh water sea. We made inquiry in the piazza; and a sandy hill, close by, covered with the pea vine, was pointed out to us. We ran up it, and there beheld what we had come so far to see. There it was, deep, green, and swelling on the horizon, and whitening into a broad and heavy surf as it rolled in towards the shore. Hence, too, we could make out the geography of the city. The whole scene stands insulated in my memory, as absolutely singular; and, at this distance of time, scarcely credible. I was so well aware on the spot that it would be so, that I made careful and copious notes of what I saw: but memoranda have nothing to do with such emotions as were caused by the sight of that enormous body of tumultuous waters, rolling in apparently upon the helpless forest,--everywhere else so majestic.
The day was damp and chilly, as we were told every day is here. There is scarcely ever a day of summer in which fire is not acceptable. The windows were dim; the metals rusted, and the new wood about the house red with damp. We could not have a fire. The storm had thrown down a chimney; and the house was too full of workmen, providing accommodation for future guests, to allow of the comfort of those present being much attended to. We were permitted to sit round a flue in a chamber, where a remarkably pretty and graceful girl was sewing. She has a widowed mother to support, and she "gets considerable" by sewing here, where the women lead a bustling life, which leaves no time for the needle. We had to wait long for something to eat; that is, till supper time; for the people are too busy to serve up anything between meals. Two little girls brought a music book, and sang to us; and then we sang to them; and then Dr. F. brought me two harebells.--one of the rarest flowers in the country. I found some at Trenton Falls; and in one or two other rocky and sandy places; but so seldom as to make a solitary one a great treasure.
Our supper of young pork, good bread, potatoes, preserves, and tea, was served at two tables, where the gentlemen were in proportion to the ladies as ten to one. In such places, there is a large proportion of young men who are to go back for wives when they have gathered a few other comforts about them. The appearance of health was as striking as at Detroit, and everywhere on this side of Lake Erie.
Immediately after supper we went for a walk, which, in peculiarity, comes next to that in the Mammoth Cave; if, indeed, it be second to it.
The scene was like what I had always fancied the Norway coast, but for the wild flowers, which grew among the pines on the slope, almost into the tide. I longed to spend an entire day on this flowery and shadowy margin of the inland sea. I plucked handfuls of pea-vine and other trailing flowers, which seemed to run over all the ground. We found on the sands an army, like Pharaoh's drowned host, of disabled butterflies, beetles, and flies of the richest colours and lustre, driven over the lake by the storm. Charley found a small turtle alive. An elegant little schooner, "the Sea Serpent of Chicago," was stranded, and formed a beautiful object as she lay dark between the sand and the surf. The sun was going down. We watched the sunset, not remembering that the refraction above the fresh waters would probably cause some remarkable appearance. We looked at one another in amazement at what we saw. First, there were three gay, inverted rainbows between the water and the sun, then hidden behind a little streak of cloud. Then the sun emerged from behind this only cloud, urn-shaped; a glistering golden urn. Then it changed, rather suddenly, to an enormous golden acorn. Then to a precise resemblance, except being prodigiously magnified, of Saturn with his ring. This was the most beautiful apparition of all. Then it was quickly narrowed and elongated till it was like the shaft of a golden pillar; and thus it went down square. Long after its disappearance, a lustrous, deep crimson dome, seemingly solid, rested steadily on the heaving waters. An inexperienced navigator might be pardoned for making all sail towards it; it looked so real. What do the Indians think of such phenomena? Probably as the child does of the compass, the upas tree, and all the marvels of Madame Genlis' story of Alphonso and Dalinda; that such things are no more wonderful than all other things. The age of wonder from natural appearances has not arrived in children and savages.
It is one of the privileges of advancing years. A grave Indian, who could look with apathy upon the cataract and all the tremendous shows of the wilderness, found himself in a glass-house at Pittsburg. He saw a glassblower put a handle upon a pitcher. The savage was transported out of his previous silence and reserve. He seized and grasped the hand of the workman, crying out that it was now plain that he had had intercourse with the Great Spirit. I remember in my childhood, being more struck with seeing a square box made in three minutes out of a piece of writing-paper, than with all that I read about the loadstone and the lunar influence upon the tides. In those days I should have looked upon this Indiana sunset with the same kind of feeling as upon a cloud which might look "very like a whale."
We walked briskly home, beside the skiey sea, with the half-grown moon above us, riding high. Then came the struggling for room to lie down, for sheets and fresh water. The principal range of chambers could have been of no manner of use to us, in their present state. There were, I think, thirty, in one range along a passage. A small bed stood in the middle of each, made up for use; but the walls were as yet only scantily lathed, without any plaster; so that everything was visible along the whole row. They must have been designed for persons who cannot see through a ladder.
When I arose at daybreak, I found myself stiff with cold. No wonder: the window, close to my head, had lost a pane. I think the business of a perambulating glazier might be a very profitable one, in most parts of the United States. When we seated ourselves in our wagon, we found that the leathern cushions were soaked with wet; like so many sponges. They were taken in to a hot fire, and soon brought out, each sending up a cloud of steam. Blankets were furnished to lay over them; and we set off. We were cruelly jolted through the bright dewy woods, for four miles, and then arrived on the borders of a swamp where the bridge had been carried away. A man waded in; declared the depth to be more than six feet; how much more he could not tell. There was nothing to be done but to go back. Back again we jolted, and arrived at the piazza of the hotel just as the breakfast-bell was ringing. All the "force" that could be collected on a hasty summons,--that is, almost every able-bodied man in the city and neighbourhood, was sent out with axes to build us a bridge. We breakfasted, gathered and dried flowers, and wandered about till ten o'clock, when we were summoned to try our fortune again in the wagon. We found a very pretty scene at the swamp. Part of the "force" was engaged on our side of the swamp, and part on the other. As we sat under the trees, making garlands and wreaths of flowers and oakleaves for Charley, we could see one lofty tree-top after another, in the opposite forest, tremble and fall; and the workmen cluster about it, like bees, lop off its branches, and, in a trice, roll it, an ugly log, into the water, and pin it down upon the sleepers. Charley was as busy as anybody, making islands in the water at the edge of the marsh. The moccasin flower grew here in great profusion and splendour. We sat thus upwards of two hours; and the work done in that time appeared almost incredible. But the Americans in the back country seem to like the repairing of accidents--a social employment--better than their regular labour; and even the drivers appeared to prefer adventurous travelling to easy journeys. A gentleman in a light gig made the first trial of the new bridge: our wagon followed, plunging and rocking, and we scrambled in safety up the opposite bank.
There were other bad places in the road, but none which occasioned further delay. The next singular scene was an expanse of sand, before reaching the lake-shore,--sand, so extensive, hot, and dazzling, as to realise very fairly one's conceptions of the middle of the Great Desert; except for the trailing roses which skirted it. I walked on, a-head of the whole party, till I had lost sight of them behind some low sand-hills. Other such hills hid the lake from me; and, indeed, I did not know how near it was. I had ploughed my way through the ankle-deep sand till I was much heated, and turned in hope of meeting a breath of wind. At the moment, the cavalcade came slowly into view from behind the hills; the labouring horses, the listless walkers, and smoothly rolling vehicles, all painted absolutely black against the dazzling sand. It was as good as being in Arabia. For cavalcade, one might read caravan. Then the horses were watered at a single house on the beach; and we proceeded on the best part of our day's journey; a ride of seven miles on the hard sand of the beach, actually in the lapsing waves. We saw another vessel ashore, with her cargo piled upon the beach. The sight of the clear waters suggested thoughts of bathing. Charley dearly loves bathing. He follows the very natural practice of expressing himself in abstract propositions when his emotions are the strongest. He heard the speculations on the facilities for bathing which might offer at our resting-place; and besought his mother to let him bathe. He was told that it was doubtful whether we should reach our destination before sunset, and whether any body would be able to try the water. Might he ask his father?--Yes: but he would find his father no more certain than the rest of us. "Mother," cried the boy, in an agony of earnestness, "does not a father know when his child ought to bathe?"--There was no bathing. The sun had set, and it was too cold.
The single house at which we were to stop for the night, while the mail-wagon, with its passengers, proceeded, promised well, at first sight. It was a log-house on a sand-bank, perfectly clean below stairs, and prettily dressed with green boughs. We had a good supper, (except that there was an absence of milk,) and we concluded ourselves fortunate in our resting-place. Never was there a greater mistake. We walked out, after supper, and when we returned, found that we could not have any portion of the lower rooms. There was a loft, which I will not describe, into which, having ascended a ladder, we were to be all stowed. I would fain have slept on the soft sand, out of doors, beneath the wagon; but rain came on. There was no place for us to put our heads into but the loft. Enough. I will only say that this house was, as far as I remember, the only place in the United States where I met with bad treatment.
Everywhere else, people gave me the best they had,--whether it was bad or good.
On our road to Chicago, the next day,--a road winding in and out among the sand-hills, we were called to alight, and run up a bank to see a wreck. It was the wreck of the Delaware;--the steamer in which it had been a question whether we should not proceed from Niles to Chicago. She had a singular twist in her middle, where she was nearly broken in two.
Her passengers stood up to the neck in water, for twenty-four hours before they were taken off; a worse inconvenience than any that we had suffered by coming the other way. The first thing the passengers from the Delaware did, when they had dried and warmed themselves on shore, was to sign a letter to the captain, which appeared in all the neighbouring newspapers, thanking him for the great comfort they had enjoyed on board his vessel. It is to be presumed that they meant previously to their having to stand up to their necks in water.
In the wood which borders the prairie on which Chicago stands, we saw an encampment of United States' troops. Since the rising of the Creeks in Georgia, some months before, there had been apprehensions of an Indian war along the whole frontier. It was believed that a correspondence had taken place among all the tribes, from the Cumanches, who were engaged to fight for the Mexicans in Texas, up to the northern tribes among whom we were going. It was believed that the war-belt was circulating among the Winnebagoes, the warlike tribe who inhabit the western shores of Lake Michigan; and the government had sent troops to Chicago, to keep them in awe. It was of some consequence to us to ascertain the real state of the case; and we were glad to find that alarm was subsiding so fast, that the troops were soon allowed to go where they were more wanted. As soon as they had recovered from the storm which seemed to have incommoded everybody, they broke up their encampment, and departed.
Chicago looks raw and bare, standing on the high prairie above the lake-shore. The houses appeared insignificant, and run up in various directions, without any principle at all. A friend of mine who resides there had told me that we should find the inns intolerable, at the period of the great land sales, which bring a concourse of speculators to the place. It was even so. The very sight of them was intolerable; and there was not room for our party among them all. I do not know what we should have done, (unless to betake ourselves to the vessels in the harbour,) if our coming had not been foreknown, and most kindly provided for. We were divided between three families, who had the art of removing all our scruples about intruding on perfect strangers. None of us will lose the lively and pleasant associations with the place, which were caused by the hospitalities of its inhabitants.
I never saw a busier place than Chicago was at the time of our arrival.
The streets were crowded with land speculators, hurrying from one sale to another. A negro, dressed up in scarlet, bearing a scarlet flag, and riding a white horse with housings of scarlet, announced the times of sale. At every street-corner where he stopped, the crowd flocked round him; and it seemed as if some prevalent mania infected the whole people.
The rage for speculation might fairly be so regarded. As the gentlemen of our party walked the streets, store-keepers hailed them from their doors, with offers of farms, and all manner of land-lots, advising them to speculate before the price of land rose higher. A young lawyer, of my acquaintance there, had realised five hundred dollars per day, the five preceding days, by merely making out titles to land. Another friend had realised, in two years, ten times as much money as he had before fixed upon as a competence for life. Of course, this rapid money-making is a merely temporary evil. A bursting of the bubble must come soon. The absurdity of the speculation is so striking, that the wonder is that the fever should have attained such a height as I witnessed. The immediate occasion of the bustle which prevailed, the week we were at Chicago, was the sale of lots, to the value of two millions of dollars, along the course of a projected canal; and of another set, immediately behind these. Persons not intending to game, and not infected with mania, would endeavour to form some reasonable conjecture as to the ultimate value of the lots, by calculating the cost of the canal, the risks from accident, from the possible competition from other places, &c., and, finally, the possible profits, under the most favourable circumstances, within so many years' purchase. Such a calculation would serve as some sort of guide as to the amount of purchase-money to be risked. Whereas, wild land on the banks of a canal, not yet even marked out, was selling at Chicago for more than rich land, well improved, in the finest part of the valley of the Mohawk, on the banks of a canal which is already the medium of an almost inestimable amount of traffic. If sharpers and gamblers were to be the sufferers by the impending crash at Chicago, no one would feel much concerned: but they, unfortunately, are the people who encourage the delusion, in order to profit by it. Many a high-spirited, but inexperienced, young man; many a simple settler, will be ruined for the advantage of knaves.
Others, besides lawyers and speculators by trade, make a fortune in such extraordinary times. A poor man at Chicago had a pre-emption right to some land, for which he paid in the morning one hundred and fifty dollars. In the afternoon, he sold it to a friend of mine for five thousand dollars. A poor Frenchman, married to a squaw, had a suit pending, when I was there, which he was likely to gain, for the right of purchasing some land by the lake for one hundred dollars, which would immediately become worth one million dollars.
There was much gaiety going on at Chicago, as well as business. On the evening of our arrival a fancy fair took place. As I was too much fatigued to go, the ladies sent me a bouquet of prairie flowers. There is some allowable pride in the place about its society. It is a remarkable thing to meet such an assemblage of educated, refined, and wealthy persons as may be found there, living in small, inconvenient houses on the edge of a wild prairie. There is a mixture, of course. I heard of a family of half-breeds setting up a carriage, and wearing fine jewellery. When the present intoxication of prosperity passes away, some of the inhabitants will go back to the eastward; there will be an accession of settlers from the mechanic classes; good houses will have been built for the richer families, and the singularity of the place will subside. It will be like all the other new and thriving lake and river ports of America. Meantime, I am glad to have seen it in its strange early days.
We dined one day with a gentleman who had been Indian agent among the Winnebagoes for some years. He and his lady seem to have had the art of making themselves as absolutely Indian in their sympathies and manners as the welfare of the savages among whom they lived required. They were the only persons I met with who, really knowing the Indians, had any regard for them. The testimony was universal to the good faith, and other virtues of savage life of the unsophisticated Indians; but they were spoken of in a tone of dislike, as well as pity, by all but this family; and they certainly had studied their Indian neighbours very thoroughly. The ladies of Indian agents ought to be women of nerve. Our hostess had slept for weeks with a loaded pistol on each side her pillow, and a dagger under it, when expecting an attack from a hostile tribe. The foe did not, however, come nearer than within a few miles.
Her husband's sister was in the massacre when the fort was abandoned, in 1812. Her father and her husband were in the battle, and her mother and young brothers and sisters sat in a boat on the lake near. Out of seventy whites, only seventeen escaped, among whom were her family. She was wounded in the ankle, as she sat on her horse. A painted Indian, in warlike costume, came leaping up to her, and seized her horse, as she supposed, to murder her. She fought him vigorously, and he bore it without doing her any injury. He spoke, but she could not understand him. Another frightful savage came up, and the two led her horse to the lake, and into it, in spite of her resistance, till the water reached their chins. She concluded that they meant to drown her; but they contented themselves with holding her on her horse till the massacre was over, when they led her out in safety. They were friendly Indians, sent by her husband to guard her. She could not but admire their patience when she found how she had been treating her protectors.
We had the fearful pleasure of seeing various savage dances performed by the Indian agent and his brother, with the accompaniments of complete costume, barbaric music, and whooping. The most intelligible to us was the Discovery Dance, a highly descriptive pantomime. We saw the Indian go out armed for war. We saw him reconnoitre, make signs to his comrades, sleep, warm himself, load his rifle, sharpen his scalping-knife, steal through the grass within rifle-shot of his foes, fire, scalp one of them, and dance, whooping and triumphing. There was a dreadful truth about the whole, and it made our blood run cold. It realised hatred and horror as effectually as Taglioni does love and grace.
We were unexpectedly detained over the Sunday at Chicago; and Dr. F. was requested to preach. Though only two hours' notice was given, a respectable congregation was assembled in the large room of the Lake House; a new hotel then building. Our seats were a few chairs and benches, and planks laid on trestles. The preacher stood behind a rough pine-table, on which a large Bible was placed. I was never present at a more interesting service; and I know that there were others who felt with me.
From Chicago, we made an excursion into the prairies. Our young lawyer-friend threw behind him the five hundred dollars per day which he was making, and went with us. I thought him wise; for there is that to be had in the wilderness which money cannot buy. We drove out of the town at ten o'clock in the morning, too late by two hours; but it was impossible to overcome the introductions to strangers, and the bustle of our preparations, any sooner. Our party consisted of seven, besides the driver. Our vehicle was a wagon with four horses.
We had first to cross the prairie, nine miles wide, on the lake edge of which Chicago stands. This prairie is not usually wet so early in the year; but at this time the water stood almost up to the nave of the wheels: and we crossed it at a walking pace. I saw here, for the first time in the United States, the American primrose. It grew in profusion over the whole prairie, as far as I could see; not so large and fine as in English greenhouses, but graceful and pretty. I now found the truth of what I had read about the difficulty of distinguishing distances on a prairie. The feeling is quite bewildering. A man walking near looks like a Goliath a mile off. I mistook a covered wagon without horses, at a distance of fifty yards, for a white house near the horizon: and so on.
We were not sorry to reach the belt of trees, which bounded the swamp we had passed. At a house here, where we stopped to water the horses, and eat dough nuts, we saw a crowd of emigrants; which showed that we had not yet reached the bounds of civilisation. A little further on we came to the river Aux Plaines, spelled on a sign board "Oplain." The ferry here is a monopoly, and the public suffers accordingly. There is only one small flat boat for the service of the concourse of people now pouring into the prairies. Though we happened to arrive nearly first of the crowd of to-day, we were detained on the bank above an hour; and then our horses went over at two crossings, and the wagon and ourselves at the third. It was a pretty scene, if we had not been in a hurry; the country wagons and teams in the wood by the side of the quiet clear river; and the oxen swimming over, yoked, with only their patient faces visible above the surface. After crossing, we proceeded briskly till we reached a single house, where, or nowhere, we were to dine. The kind hostess bestirred herself to provide us a good dinner of tea, bread, ham, potatoes, and strawberries, of which a whole pailful, ripe and sweet, had been gathered by the children in the grass round the house, within one hour. While dinner was preparing, we amused ourselves with