Lady Ethel Gwendoline Moffatt Vincent
Forty Thousand Miles Over Land and Water. The Journal of a Tour Through the British Empire and America

PREFACE

My husband, during his six years' tenure of the office of Director of Criminal Investigations, took the greatest interest in the Metropolitan and City Police Orphanage.

In taking leave of his young friends he promised to keep for their benefit a record of our travels through the British Empire and America.

I have endeavoured to the best of my power to relieve him of this task.

It is but a simple Journal of what we saw and did.

But if the Police will accept it, as a further proof of our admiration and respect for them as a body, then I feel sure that others who may be kind enough to read it will be lenient towards the shortcomings of a first publication.

ETHEL GWENDOLINE VINCENT

1, Grosvenor Square, London

CHAPTER I
ACROSS THE ATLANTIC

Lat. 43° 15´ N., Long. 50° 12´ W. All is intensely quiet. The revolution even of the screw has ceased. We are wrapped in a fog so dense that we feel almost unable to breathe.

We shudder as we look at the white pall drawn closely around us. The decks and rigging are dripping, and everything on board is saturated with moisture. We feel strangely alone. When hark! A discordant screech, a hideous howl belches forth into the still air, to be immediately smothered and lost in the fog. It is the warning cry of the fog-horn.

We are on board the White Star steamer Germanic, in mid-Atlantic, not far off the great ice-banks of Newfoundland.

It was on Wednesday, the 2nd of July, that we left London, and embarked from Liverpool on the 3rd.

I need not describe the previous bustle of preparation, the farewells to be gone through for a long absence of nine months, the little crowd of kind friends who came to see us off at Euston, nor our embarkation and our last view of England.

I remember how dull and gloomy that first evening on board closed in, and how a slight feeling of depression was not absent from us.

The next morning we were anchoring in Queenstown Harbour, and whilst waiting for the arrival of the mails in the afternoon we went by train to Cork.

The mails were on board the Germanic by four o'clock. We weighed anchor, and our voyage to America had commenced. The often advertised quick passages across the Atlantic are only reckoned to and from Queenstown. The sea-sick traveller hardly sees the point of this computation of time, for the coasts of "ould Ireland" are as stormy and of as much account as the remainder of the passage.

And now we have settled down into the usual idle life on board ship, a life where eating and drinking plays the most important part. There is a superfluity of concerts and literary entertainments, the proceeds in one instance being devoted to the aid of a poor electrical engineer who has had his arm fearfully torn in the machinery, and whose life was only saved by the presence of mind of a comrade in cutting the strap.

Fine weather again at last, for we are past the banks so prolific in storms and fog. The story goes that a certain captain much harassed by the questioning of a passenger, who asked him "if it was always rough here?" replied, "How should I know, sir? I don't live here."

We are nearing America, and may hope to land to-morrow.

The advent of the pilot is always an exciting event. There was a lottery for his number and much betting upon the foot with which he would first step on deck.

A boat came in sight early in the afternoon. There was general excitement. But the captain refused this pilot as he had previously nearly lost one of the company's ships. At this he stood up in his dinghy and fiercely denounced us as we swept onwards, little heeding.

Another pilot came on board soon afterwards, but the news and papers he brought us were very stale. These pilots have a very hard life; working in firms of two or three, they often go out 500 miles in their cutters, and lie about for days waiting to pick up vessels coming into port. The fee varies according to the draught of the ship, but often exceeds 30l.

At two o'clock a white line of surf is seen on the horizon. Land we know is behind, and great is the joy of all on board.

We watched and waited till behind the white line appears a dark one, which grew and grew, until Long Island and Fire Island lighthouse are plainly visible.

Three hours more and we see the beautiful Highlands of the Navesink on the New Jersey shore; then the long sandy plain with the lighthouse which marks the entrance—and we cross the bar of Sandy Hook. As we do so the sunset gun goes off, and tells us that we must pass yet another night on board, for it closes the day of the officer of health.

We pass the quarantine station, a white house on a lonely rock—then entering the Narrows, anchor in the dusk off lovely Statten Island.

The lights of Manhattan and New Brighton beach twinkle in the darkness. Steamers with flashing signals ply swiftly backwards and forwards. A line of electricity marks the beautiful span of Brooklyn Bridge, and over all a storm is gathering, making the surrounding hills resound with the cannon of its thunder and the sky bright with sheets of lightning.

And so we pass the night, within sight of the lights of New York, with pleasurable excitement looking forward to our first impressions on the morrow.

Sunday, July 13th.—By six o'clock all is life on board the Germanic, for a great steamer takes some time getting under weigh. Breakfast is a general scramble, interspersed with declarations to the revenue officials who are sitting in the saloon.

We pass the Old Fort on Governor's Island, now the military station, in our upward progress, see the round tower of Castle Garden, the emigrants' depôt, and by eight o'clock are safely moored alongside the company's pier.

On the wharf are presently to be seen passengers sitting forlorn on their trunks, awaiting the terrible inspection of the custom-house officer. The one detailed to us showed signs of becoming offensive, being unwilling to believe the statement that a dress some six months' old was not being taken round the world for sale; but on making representations to his superior we were able to throw the things back into the boxes and "Express" them to the hotel.

CHAPTER II
NEW YORK, HUDSON RIVER, AND NIAGARA FALLS

As we drove over the rough streets of New York in the early hours of Sunday morning, it appeared as a city of the dead. There was no sign of life as our horses toiled along Broadway and up Fifth Avenue to the Buckingham Hotel, where we had secured rooms.

This hotel, though comfortable, had the disadvantage of being too far up town for short sojourners, but it has the merit of being conducted on the European system—that is, the rooms and meals are charged for separately. The American plan is to make an inclusive charge of from four to five dollars a day, and it is often troublesome only being able to have meals in the dining-room between certain hours. Besides, it is pleasant to be able to visit the restaurants of New York, which are admirable, and equal, if not superior to those of Paris. Delmonico's, where we dined one evening, is particularly excellent.

We were glad when eleven o'clock came and we could go to St. Thomas' Church, close by. It is one of the most frequented of the many beautiful churches of all denominations in New York, and of very fine interior proportions. Upon the dark oak carving is reflected in many hues the rich stained glass. The service was rendered according to the ritual of the English Church, which is followed by the Episcopal Church of America. They succeed in America in uniting a non-ceremonial service with a bright and hearty one. We listened to a very powerful sermon on St. Paul on the Hill of Mars, in which the eloquent preacher boldly declared that the political honesty of the Athenians 2000 years ago was superior to that of the United States of to-day.

On our way back we went into the Roman Catholic Cathedral, which was just opposite to our windows at the "Buckingham," a very large marble building, but still unfinished.

We found four reporters waiting at the hotel to "interview" my husband. He had eluded them on the landing-stage, but they would take no denial here, and we were much harassed by others in the course of the day.

Our luggage arrived at noon. It is almost a necessity to employ the Express Company for the conveyance of "baggage" throughout America, as the hackney carriages and hotel omnibuses are not prepared to take it. The charges are very high, and it is often extremely inconvenient having to wait two, three, or even four hours for it, after arrival in a town.

The geography of New York is exceedingly simple, and is followed in nearly every American city. "Avenues" traverse the length of the town, which are called first, second, or third avenues, and the "streets" which intersect them are also numbered consecutively, so that you have—Third Street, Fifth Avenue, and know that it is the third street from the commencement of Fifth Avenue.

The houses are built in blocks, and for the most part in the upper portion of New York, of dark red sandstone.

There are ample means of cheap locomotion by two "elevated" railways, and innumerable tramways. Each of the former runs the whole length of the city, a distance of ten miles. They were built by rival companies who afterwards amalgamated. A double line is laid upon iron piers in the centre of the street on a level with the third stories of the houses on each side. One wonders how the necessary powers to build such a line were obtained, but in "free" America, vested interests and damage to property are not taken into account, when financiers have a scheme to carry out.

It is said that the value of the surrounding houses has been increased rather than otherwise by the proximity of the Elevated: more curiously, the tram lines running below it, and which were formerly insolvent, are now paying well.

The uniform fare is ten cents, except after four o'clock on Sundays, when it is reduced to five cents, the same as the fare of the "trams." The train consists of an engine and four light coaches, all of one class, and fitted with comfortable cane seats. They succeed each other every five minutes. A conductor is on the platform of every carriage, and opens the iron gate at the end as soon as the train stops. There is a marked absence of all confusion and haste, partly attributable to there being no collection of tickets, which are dropped into a box on the platform immediately after purchase.

Cabs are few in number and very expensive. They charge four and a half dollars, or nearly 1l., from the quay to the hotels, without luggage, and one dollar a mile, or a dollar and a half per hour.

Independently of these exorbitant prices, driving is very unpleasant from the streets being paved with blocks of granite, and being kept in shocking repair.

It is alleged that the extremes of climate prevent the use of any other material, but there is probably more truth in the statement that the money voted by municipal councils for their paving finds its way into other channels. Washington and Boston were the only towns we afterwards saw with good pavements, without ruts or holes. Above the thoroughfares is a rose of telegraph and telephone wires, and poles and standards abound in the streets. At nearly every house there is a telephone to put the inmates in connection with some place of business or some relative.

In the afternoon we went to Trinity Church, which may be called the cathedral of New York. The service was just ending, and the choir were filing out of the chancel under a blaze of golden glory from the sun shining through the east end window, singing the hymn, "Angels of Jesus, Angels of Light, Singing to welcome the pilgrims of the night."

The voices grew fainter and fainter, and finally died away on the breathless stillness of the air. Then the huge organ, blown by electricity, pealed forth, and the spell was broken.

Mr. Vanderbilt, Mr. Astor, and the Stewart family live in gorgeous palaces, and one is struck how even this Republic cannot prevent a monopoly of property and an accumulation of wealth. Mr. Vanderbilt has three adjoining houses, forming a block, in Fifth Avenue, for himself and his married children.

The squares and gardens are well kept, and it is pleasant to see them all open, full of people sitting in them, without the railings which make London squares so gloomy and of so little pleasure even to those who have the entrée.

We drove round Central Park—a perfect triumph of landscape gardening, with but little help from nature. The "Mall" and alleys were thronged with gay crowds, listening to the band, and boats were plying on the lake. There were not many carriages, the fashionable world having fled from the fagging heat of New York; but those we saw had servants in livery, a comparatively recent innovation, and one much disapproved of by the people.

The cross-bar waggons in general use, weighing little over two hundredweight, with their skeleton wheels, whirl along at a great pace, but the horses all have a check-rein passing over the head, which is far more cruel than even our gag bearing-rein.

Monday, July 14th.—We began our wanderings by going over the beautiful Brooklyn Bridge, which unites New York with its monster suburb, the home of half a million of people, principally of the working classes, of whom a large proportion are Irish. It is a marvellous structure, the finest suspension bridge ever built, and a mile and a quarter long. So graceful and light is the curve it describes that from a distance it seems to be a spider's web suspended in mid-air. We had a long "tram" journey through the dull and dirty streets to Greenwood Cemetery, the great burial-place of New York. A gateway of much beauty marks the entrance, and over the centre arch are the words, "Weep not, for the dead shall be raised." A granite obelisk in the centre of a grass plot attracts our attention. Below it lie the bodies of 103 persons who perished in the burning of the Brooklyn Theatre in 1876. Under that green mound what a mass of human passions were laid to rest! Some of the monuments are very finely conceived in design, and execution; others were grotesque and ugly. Nothing, however, mars the beauty of the whole—the shining river running through this valley of the dead, the surroundings bright with marble, flowers, and shrubs—only, a sweet garden where the people come and walk in the evening cool, watching the sun sinking over the harbour, and thinking, it may be, of how they too will likewise join those who lie at rest here.

In the afternoon we paid a visit to Wall Street, the scene of so many fortunes lost and won. The din in the Stock Exchange was deafening, and the appearance of the frantic, yelling speculators anything but attractive.

The "stores," or shops, in Broadway are very fine inside, but the windows are not so well set out as in Paris or London. The goods for sale are also more general in character, and nearly double in price. This arises from the large duties or imposts in a great measure, but also because the unit of a dollar (4s. 2d.) is so high. It seems as easy to ask one dollar as one shilling or one franc, and the former coin scarcely goes farther than the latter throughout the States.

The New York Herald, Times, World, and other papers come out with long accounts of the interviews given yesterday. They went into the most precise details of dress, manners, and speech.

Tuesday, July 15th.—We had a pleasant morning in seeing the magnificent armoury of the "Seventh Regiment of the National Guard." The Seventh Regiment includes in its ranks some of the best men in New York, and the National Guard corresponds exactly to the Volunteer force of England. The Drill Hall is 300 feet long and 200 feet broad, unbroken by a pillar, and large enough to manœuvre a battalion, having a solid oaken floor so constructed as to prevent reverberation in marching. Each company has a room for itself, and the officers' room, the library, and the veterans' room, where those who have left the regiment come to meet their sons and relatives now serving, are beautiful apartments, richly furnished.

In the afternoon Sir Roderick Cameron kindly took us over to his charming place on Statten Island. It is beautifully wooded, and when the salt marshes are drained, and the mosquitoes reduced in numbers, his farm will no doubt be the site of a populous suburb.

Wednesday, July 16th.—By nine o'clock we were waiting on the shores of the Hudson River for one of the floating palaces which ply to and from Albany. The C. Vibard was seen presently coming—a magnificent vessel of colossal size, with three decks towering one above the other, and yet drawing but six feet of water. What we were particularly struck with on these river and lake steamers was that, although there is no distinction of class, no inconvenience whatever results. All is orderly and quiet; everybody is well-dressed and well-behaved. Indeed, throughout the States, rowdyism seems to be as absent as pauperism, and the deference paid to ladies might well be imitated in older countries. They have a separate entrance at hotels, and a separate "guichet" at post-offices and railway stations. A lady may travel with perfect comfort alone, and walk in the streets without fear of any annoyance.

A fresh wind dappled the blue sky, and raised the muddy waters of the grand old Hudson. Across from New Jersey and Hoboken, those thriving suburbs of New York, came the busy hum of life. The well-wooded hills were clothed with villas, whose domes or towers peep out from amongst the dense foliage. Here and there, standing in a little park, were châlets, or a cottage with gilt minarets, or, even in still more incongruous taste, a Chinese pagoda. It is here the merchants from the great city take their rest and pleasure, within ear-shot and easy reach of their familiar haunts around Wall Street. On the opposite shore the great wall of basaltic trap-rock, known to the early settlers by the name of the "Great Chip Rock," but to their more practical successors as the "Palisades," forms an impenetrable wall, rising in a sheer precipice from the river, a height of from 300 to 600 feet.

Meandering along by its mighty brother, unseen on the other side, there is another river, running at a lower level.

Historical associations crowd upon us as we sail up between the broad banks, stretching from the memory of the early band of settlers who under Hendrich Hudson, the Dutchman, made the first voyage of discovery up the river to which he afterwards gave his name; to the little villages of Tappan and Tarrytown, glowing with the memories of the brave but ill-fated Major André. Need I repeat his well-known story? In the dead of night he landed from the Vulture at Stony Point to meet Arnold, who had turned traitor, to arrange with him for the surrender of West Point, the key of the position. André was captured in returning by land, searched, the papers found on him, and executed, to the sorrow of both armies; whilst Arnold, escaping to the Vulture, was rewarded with 6000l., and became a Brigadier-General in the British army. Many know well the monument afterwards erected to André in Westminster Abbey.

Sunnyside, a little white cottage, the home of Washington Irving, lies on the hill, almost hidden by the surrounding trees. The front is covered with ivy grown from a sprig that Sir Walter Scott sent from Abbotsford. "Sleepy Hollow," the scene of so many of Washington Irving's charming romances, is quite near. Every side of life is here represented. All manner of men have found their greatest happiness in the quiet beauty of the Hudson's banks. Besides authors and actors, such as Forrest, the great tragedian—science, in the person of Professor Morse, of telegraph fame, and the great merchant princes, such as Stewart, Astor, and Jay Gould, have made their homes here. Miss Warner, authoress of the "Wide, wide World," has a cottage near Teller's Point.

At Tappan Zee the river opens out into a lake ten miles broad. The gloomy fortress of Sing Sing, the State prison, lies on an island near the shore. Croton Lake is close by, and supplies New York with from 40,000,000 to 60,000,000 gallons daily, through an aqueduct thirty-three miles long. The wooden sheds found at intervals along the banks are the great storehouses where in winter the ice is cut and kept, ready to supply the vast consumption of New York.

The beautiful bay of Haverstraw leads to the narrow defile and the northern gate of the Highlands. In rugged and varied beauty the mountains close us in on every side, overshadowing us with their wooded heights; maple and sycamore mingling with darker belts of pine, or a thick undergrowth of stunted oaks. They are so like the Highlands that you look—but in vain—for the bracken and the furze.

"The glory of the Hudson is at West Point," says a well-known author, and I suppose there could not be a more beautiful situation for the Military College of the United States, the Sandhurst of America, than at West Point. It stands on a commanding bluff, the river winding round three sides of the promontory in an almost impregnable position.

From the southern gate of the Highlands, green marshy fields, with weeping-willows trailing along the banks, form the chief feature of the landscape, and we pass several thriving towns like Peekskill and Poughkeepsie. In the afternoon, blue and purple in the far distance, we saw the glorious range of the mighty Catskill Mountains, forming one unbroken series of snow-capped domes, hiding in their deep recesses many of Nature's grandest secrets. The evening was closing in as the steamer passed under the swinging arch of the bridge at Albany, the chief town of New York State.

Albany is chiefly remarkable for its very fine Capitol, which has been in process of building since 1871, and is still far from finished, though it has already cost an enormous sum. At the present time every one is talking about Albany, owing to the fact that Grover Cleveland, the newly-selected Democratic candidate for the Presidency, is the Governor.

Delaware House gave us shelter for the night; and at 8 a.m. the next morning we were in the "cars" on our way to Niagara.

This was our first experience of American railways. There is no distinction of classes in the railway company's fares, but greater luxury is obtained by travelling in the drawing-room or sleeping car. The former belong to the Wagner, the latter to the Pullman Company, who make a separate charge, which is levied by the special conductor. This is his only duty, except to make himself a nuisance, and generally objectionable. The beds are made up by an obliging coloured porter. The cars are very long, and run on sixteen wheels. There is communication through the train, but it is only used by the condescendingly grand officials and the numerous news and fruit vendors who torment you with repeated exhibitions of their varied wares. The windows are so large, that if opened dust and grit from the slack coal burnt by the engines smother everything, so that with the car full (and they hold from twenty to thirty) the atmosphere becomes terribly oppressive. In winter, and when the stoves are lighted it is even worse. The Americans are very proud of their railway system, but after travelling over most of their lines, it is impossible to see that we have much to learn from them. The traffic is conducted in a very happy-go-lucky style. There is an absence of civility, with a superabundance of officials, and a porter is not to be met with. The traveller must carry his hand-luggage himself. The system of checking the baggage is, however, admirable. A brass check attached to the trunk ensures its going safely to any destination, however distant, and only being given up on presentation of the duplicate, which is in possession of the passenger.

Our journey lay through the smiling valley of the Mohawk River. The operation of hay-making was going on in many of the fields we passed. The hay was cut, raked, turned over, unloaded, and stacked by machinery—the most convincing proof of the absence of hand-labour. Throughout the vast continent of America, from the farms of the east to the cattle ranches of the west, there is the same cry for labour. Still greater is the demand for domestic servants. American girls think nothing of serving in a "store" or at a railway buffet, or even in an hotel. They have their freedom at certain hours, and when their work is done they are their own mistresses; but domestic service they look upon as degrading. It is almost wholly confined to Irish immigrants. A gentleman told us of a large mountain hotel where the waiting during the summer months of the season was done by an entire school of young ladies, who at the end of the time returned with their "salaries" (the term of "wages" is never used) to pay for their winter's schooling.

At Syracuse we experienced for the first time the strange custom of running the train through a street in the heart of the city. Many lives are annually lost, and terrible accidents occur frequently at the level crossings. "Look out for the locomotive" is on a large sign-board, but the public depend more upon the shrill whistle or the ringing of the engine bell. The effect of these engine bells is very melodious when, deep-toned and loud-voiced, coming and going in a station they chime to each other.

Friday, July 18th, Clifton House, Niagara Falls.—"What a moment in a lifetime is that in which we first behold Niagara!" And it is difficult with a very feeble pen to say anything superior to such a commonplace platitude, even when in the presence of one of Nature's most glorious works.

Notwithstanding all written and said, imagined or described, Niagara cannot be put into words; cannot be conveyed to the imagination through the usual medium of pen and paper; can only be seen to be—even then but partially—understood.

There is a blue river, two miles wide, without ripple or ruffle on the surface, coming down from a great lake, pursuing its even course. There are breakers ahead—little clouds, then white foam sprayed into mid-air. The contagion spreads, until on the whole surface of the river are troubled waves, noisily hurrying down, down, with ever-increasing velocity, to the great Canadian fall. The mockery of those few yards of clear, still water! In a suction green as an uncut emerald, a volume of water, twenty fathoms deep, is hurled over a precipice 160 feet high. One hundred million tons of water pass over every hour, with a roar that can be heard ten miles away, and a reverberation that shakes the very earth itself, into the seething cauldron below, shrouded in an eternal mist:—"There is neither speech nor language, but their voices are heard."

In a minor key the American waters repeat the mighty cannonade, and blending their voices, mirror the sea-green colour of the wooded precipices as they flow on their onward course. Long serpent trails of foam alone bear witness to the late convulsion.

The gorge is narrowing; the waters are compressed into a smaller space; they are angry, and jostle each other. They hiss, they swirl; they separate to rush together in shooting shower of spray, and so struggle through the Rapids.

A gloomy pool, with darkling precipices of purple rocks, forms a basin. The waters are rushing too surely into that iron-bound pool. The current is checked and turned back on itself, to meet the oncoming stream. A mighty Whirlpool forms. The waters divide under the current, and one volume returns to eddy and swirl helplessly against the great barrier, whilst the other volume, more happy, finds a cleft, broadened now into a wide gateway, and gurgling and laughing to itself, glides away on a smooth course, to lose its volume in Lake Ontario. What a world-renown that stream will always have—a short course full of awful incident.

On the 25th of July, 1883, Captain Webb was drowned while attempting to swim the rapids. Diving from a small boat about 300 yards above the new cantilever bridge, he plunged into the stream. The force of the current turned him over several times; then he threw up his arms and sank, crushed to death, it is supposed, by the pressure of the water. The enterprising owners of the restaurant at the rapids, have arranged with his widow to come over during the season to sell photographs opposite the spot where her husband perished.

Goat Island forms the division between the American and Canadian Falls. The waters are rapidly eating away the banks, and the rocky promontory, which forms such a principal feature, may some day disappear. What a glorious junction it would be! Four years ago a large piece of rock in the centre of the horse-shoe came away, and its symmetry was somewhat marred. The three pretty little Sister Islands are joined by their graceful suspension bridges to Goat Island. These islands, lying out as they do amidst the roughest and most tumultuous part of the rapids, have a magnificent view of the waters as they come tumbling down. The Hermit's Cascade is connected with the pathetic story of a young Englishman who, coming one day to see Niagara, remained day after day overpoweringly fascinated. Unable to tear himself away, he lived year after year for ever within sight and hearing of the falls. He is supposed to have perished in their waters whilst bathing one day, but whether intentionally or not was never known. I believe those who have sat and watched those tumultuous waters for any great length of time would understand the working of the spell on a sensitive brain.

Biddle's Stairs lead down to the "Cave of the Winds." It is awe-inspiring to watch the fall from below, and yet this is only a streamlet of the great volume of the fall. What must it be inside, when the beating of the spray-like hail, the roaring of the winds, mingling with the thunder of the cataract, form a combination of the majesty of the elements on earth.

After a morning spent amongst these terrifying wonders, we had a quiet drive along the right bank of the river through Cedar Island. The thunder and roar was succeeded by quiet pools and swiftly-flowing currents, calm and clear, rippling in the afternoon sunlight. Weeping-willows, long grasses, and bending reeds whispered in the cool breezes. From the heights above we again surveyed the whole scene. And returning home once more came under the spell of the Mermaid, looming white and mysterious in the gloaming.

Niagara becomes very dear—a child of the affections; and to those who are unfortunate enough to have to picture Niagara from description, I should say efface mine quickly, quickly I say, and turn to that of Anthony Trollope:—

"Of all the sights on this earth of ours which tourists travel to see—at least, of all those which I have seen—I am inclined to give the palm to the Falls of Niagara. In the catalogue of such sights I intend to include all buildings, pictures, statues, and wonders of art made by men's hands, and also all beauties of nature prepared by the Creator for the delight of His creatures. I know no other one thing so beautiful, so glorious, and so powerful.

"We will go at once on to the glory, and the thunder, and the majesty, and the wrath of that upper belt of waters.

"Go down to the end of that wooden bridge, seat yourself on the rail, and there sit till all the outer world is lost to you. There is no grander spot about Niagara than this. The waters are absolutely around you. If you have that power of eye-control which is so necessary to the full enjoyment of scenery, you will see nothing but the water. You will certainly hear nothing else. And the sound, I beg you to remember, is not an ear-cracking, agonized crash and clang of noises, but is melodious and soft withal, though loud as thunder. It fills your ears, and, as it were, envelopes them; but at the same time you can speak to your neighbour without an effort. But at these places, and in these moments, the less of speaking I should say the better. There is no grander spot than this. Here, seated on the rail of the bridge, you will not see the whole depth of the fall. In looking at the grandest works of nature, and of art too, I fancy, it is never well to see all. There should be something left to the imagination, and much should be half concealed in mystery.

"And so here, at Niagara, that converging rush of waters may fall down, down at once into a hell of rivers for what the eye can see. It is glorious to watch them in their first curve over the rocks. They come green as a bank of emeralds, but with a fitful flying colour, as though conscious that in one moment more they would be dashed into spray and rise into air, pale as driven snow. The vapour rises high into the air, and is gathered there, visible always as a permanent white cloud over the cataract; but the bulk of the spray which fills the lower hollow of that horse-shoe is like a tumult of snow.

"The head of it rises ever and anon out of that cauldron below, but the cauldron itself will be invisible. It is ever so far down—far as your own imagination can sink it. But your eyes will rest full upon the curve of the waters. The shape you will be looking at is that of a horse-shoe, but of a horse-shoe miraculously deep from toe to heel; and this depth becomes greater as you sit there. That which at first was only great and beautiful, becomes gigantic and sublime till the mind is at a loss to find an epithet for its own use. To realize Niagara, you must sit there till you see nothing else than that which you have come to see. You will hear nothing else, and think of nothing else. At length you will be at one with the tumbling river before you. You will find yourself among the waters as though you belonged to them. The cool liquid green will run through your veins, and the voice of the cataract will be the expression of your own heart. You will fall as the bright waters fall, rushing down into your new world with no hesitation and with no dismay; and you will rise again as the spray rises, bright, beautiful, and pure. Then you will flow away in your course to the uncompassed, distant, and eternal ocean.

"Oh! my friend, let there be no one there to speak to thee then; no, not even a brother. As you stand there speak only to the waters!"

CHAPTER III
THE DOMINION OF CANADA

Since our arrival at Niagara we had been on Canadian soil, and in view of the falls, which form Canada's greatest glory; but our first experience of the Dominion only really commenced when we left Niagara Station by the Grand Trunk Railway for Toronto.

It may have been prejudice, but we thought that the country bore signs of greater prosperity than over the American border.

The farms are more English in character and the cattle in greater abundance. The soil looks richer, and the pretty wooden zigzag fences, which take the place of hedges or railings, look most picturesque. In many places the blackened stumps of trees showed the recent clearing by fire.

From Hamilton, a prosperous town, we ran for nearly forty miles along the shores of Lake Ontario to Toronto.

Toronto is the capital of the province of Ontario, the chief city of Upper Canada, and the Queen City of the West. There is jealous rivalry between Montreal and Toronto. The former has the shipping interest, and for a long time held the lead; but Toronto is quickly gaining ground, and is the centre for a rapidly increasing commercial interest. Five lines of railway converge to her termini.

Hamilton and London, both rising places, centralize their commerce here. Lake Ontario supplies water transit to Montreal and the ocean; and the numerous banks do a thriving trade. In 1871 the census of the population was 50,600; ten years later it was 80,445. Wide streets of great length, avenues of trees, and churches are the chief characteristics of Toronto. The churches are built from the voluntary subscriptions of the congregations, the pastors being chosen and maintained by them. There is no State Church, and the Dissenters have as fine places of worship as the Episcopal body. The Metropolitan Methodist Church, with almost cathedral proportions, was built by Mr. Puncheon, the American Spurgeon, and it compares as advantageously to the Tabernacle as do the Churches to the Chapels of England.

Toronto abounds in pretty suburbs, chief among them being Rosedale. The comfortable wooden houses of the upper and middle orders convey an idea of prosperity, with their neat gardens, a swinging hammock in the creeper-covered verandah, and the family sitting out in the cool of the evening.

The Provincial Parliament is a dingy building; but Osgood Hall—or the Law Courts—opened in 1860 by the Prince of Wales, and called after the Chief Justice of that day, is a very fine stone edifice, complete in all its arrangements. There are full-length portraits of the Chief Justices in succession, which being continued, will form a very complete legal gallery of local talent. There are fourteen judges, receiving 5000 dollars a year, nominated by the Governor-General from local men. The bar and solicitors are united as in America, and work together in firms, and are both eligible for judicial preferment, and have a like right of audience.

The Toronto University is second only to Harvard on the American Continent. The lecture-rooms, hall, museum, and library are all worthy of the fine Gothic building. There are 600 students, many of whose families coming to reside in Toronto, add much to the pleasantness of society. We stayed three days at Toronto. Mr. Hodgins, Q.C., Master in Chancery, was most kind in introducing my husband to some of the chief political men—to Mr. Mackenzie, the late Liberal Premier; Mr. Blake, the present leader of the Opposition; Mr. Ross, the Minister of Public Education, and others. The latter Minister showed us over the Normal School for the Instruction of Teachers. It has a well-arranged library and museum, and copies of many works of the old masters, and busts of the principal men in British history. Toronto is considered the most English of all the Canadian towns, and the Torontans pride themselves on this, and take a keen interest in home affairs. The previous night's debate in Parliament is on the breakfast-table: cabled over, and aided by the five hours' difference between the time of Greenwich and that of the Dominion, it appears in the first edition.

We dined with Mr. Goldwin Smith, the distinguished Oxford Professor of History, who, after a long sojourn in the United States and Canada, has settled with his wife at Toronto. Their house is delightfully old-fashioned. Though in the centre of the town, the garden and some of the original forest trees are still preserved to it; and it contains the tail-end of family collections, valuable bits of China, busts by Canova and Thorwaldsen, ivory carvings, morsels of jade, and some relics of the first settlers. Amongst the latter are some wine-glasses belonging to General Simcoe, the first Governor-General in 1794, which are without feet,—"To be returned when empty."

Wednesday, July 23rd.—We left Toronto in the afternoon by the steamer Algeria, coasting along the low-lying country of the left bank of Lake Ontario. Touching at the various thriving towns, we judged by the crowd who came down to the pier that it was the usual thing for the population to stroll down in the evening and watch for the arrival of the steamer.

All night we were crossing Lake Ontario, and at four o'clock the next morning, in the grey dawn, touched at Kingston. We waited here an hour for daylight, in which to approach the Thousand Islands. As we passed out we saw the gilt dome of the famous Military College.

In the freshness of the early morning, with the sun just flushing the waters and warming into life the bare and purple rocks, we wound in and out of the narrow channel of the Thousand Islands. It is the largest collective number of islands in the world. Some are formed of a few bare rocks just appearing on the surface of the water, others are large enough for a villa, a garden, and a boat-house, and others again for farming purposes. Their uniform flatness causes some disappointment and mars their collective beauty, though here and there one may be singled out for the prettiness of its woods.

At Alexandra Bay, a familiar summer resort, with two monster hotels, the St. Lawrence opens away from the lake, and we are descending between its monotonous banks for some hours.

The increasing swiftness of the current and the prevailing thrill of excitement of all on board, warns us of the approach of the Long Sault Rapids. We see a stormy sea, heaving and surging in huge billows.

All steam is shut off, four men are required at the wheel to keep the vessel steady, as we "shoot the rapid." One minute we are engulfed; the next rising on the crest of the wave. Intense and breathless excitement is combined with the exhilaration of being carried in a few minutes down the nine miles of descent. Every now and again a peculiar motion is felt, as if the ship was settling down, as she glides from one ledge of rock to another.

We pass some smaller rapids; but it is late in the afternoon before Baptiste, the Indian pilot, comes on board for the shooting of the great Lachine Rapid. Whirlpools and a storm-lashed sea mingle in this reach, for the shoal-water is hurled about among the rocks. The greatest care and precision of skill are necessary, for with lightning speed we rush between two rocks, jagged and cruel, lying in wait for the broaching of the vessel. A steamer wrecked last year lies stranded away on the rocks as a warning. These natural barriers to the water communication between Montreal and the West, are overcome by canals running parallel with the rapids.

The Ottawa forms a junction with the St. Lawrence at the pretty village of St. Anne's, which has become famed by Moore's well-known Canadian boat-song,—

"Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near and the daylight's past,
Soon as the woods on shore grow dim,
We'll sing at St. Anne's our evening hymn."

The Victoria Bridge, a triumph of engineering skill, spans the river above Montreal. It is built of solid blocks of granite, a mile and three quarters in length; and it is in passing under its noble arches that we get our first view of Montreal, the metropolis of the Dominion.

A filmy mist lay over the "city of spires," spreading up even to the sides of Mount Royal—the wooded mountain that rises abruptly and stands solitary guard behind the city. The golden dome of the old market of Bonsecours, and the twin spires of the cathedral of Notre Dame loomed faintly out from its midst. Before us there is a sea frontage of three miles—vessels of 5000 tons being able to anchor beside the quay.

One hundred and fifty years ago the French evacuated Montreal, but you might think it was but yesterday, so tenaciously do the lower orders cling to the tradition of their founder, Jacques Cartier. The quaint gabled houses and crooked streets of the lower town, the clattering and gesticulating of the white-capped women marketing in Bonsecours, remind one of a typical Normandy town. Notices are posted in French and English, and municipal and local affairs are conducted in both languages.

The post-office, the bank, and the assurance company make a fine block of buildings as the nucleus of the principal street of Notre Dame, but all the others are crooked, narrow, and ill-paved.

The Catholic Cathedral in the quiet square is very remarkable for its double tier of galleries, and for being painted and decorated gaudily from floor to roof. The Young Men's Christian Association has erected another of its fine buildings at Montreal. The society seems to thrive and to be doing an enormous work of good throughout the length and breadth of the American Continent. We found it well-housed in every considerable town we visited, and what was our surprise when later we found it had penetrated even to the Sandwich Islands, and that the Y.M.C.A. was one of Honolulu's finest buildings!

Sunday, July 26th.—We went to morning service at the English Cathedral of Christ Church. The interior is bare and unfinished at present, but it is the best specimen of English Gothic architecture on the Western continent. There was a good mixed choir of men and women.

We had a charming drive in the afternoon, up Mount Royal from which the city takes its name. Fine houses and villas standing in their own gardens, lie around the base, and the ascent, through luxuriant groves of sycamore trees, is so well engineered as to be almost imperceptible. You do not realize how high you are till the glorious panorama opens out before you, and you stand on a platform—Montreal at your feet, the broad river flowing to right and left, and the blue mountains on the horizon line.

We returned by the cemetery, a square mile, laid out in avenues and shady walks. Flowers blossoming on the graves and smooth-shaven turf, made it a garden, and favourite drive and walk. At the entrance was a notice—a sarcasm on human nature—desiring persons "wishing to return from funerals by the mountain drive to remove their mourning badges!"

That evening we dined with Mr. and Mrs. George Stephen in their beautiful house in Drummond Street. He is the President of the Canadian Pacific Railway. In two years time this railway will run from ocean to ocean, and will join the Atlantic and Pacific; opening up the unlimited lands of the great North-West, so rich in mineral wealth, and containing the best wheat-growing country in the world. This discovery of the North West has altered the whole aspect of affairs in Canada, and by bringing into habitation a country as large as the United States, laid the foundation of an immense future for our great possession. Thirty-six thousand men are now working on the railway, and it will be completed in half the time of the contract, viz. five years instead of ten.

Monday, July 27th.—Three hours by rail, through a thinly-populated district and backwoods roughly cleared by burning, brought us to a gloriously golden sunset against which rose the spires of the Dominion Houses of Parliament at Ottawa.

Ottawa was only a small town with about 4000 inhabitants in 1867. All ask, "Why was it chosen as the seat of government?" which previously had been at Quebec, Montreal, and Toronto alternately. A minister's wife travelling with us in the train, laughingly gave us the answer. Quebec refused to vote for Montreal, Montreal for Quebec, and between them there was always warring jealousy. Toronto "WOULD" have voted for Montreal if Quebec had been willing to do the same. The authorities at home—it is said the Queen herself—taking the map, pointed to Ottawa as being equidistant from all, and on the borders of both Upper and Lower Canada. A magnificent pile of buildings accordingly rose, containing two legislative halls for the Senate and the House of Commons (both the same size as their English originals), and other public offices. The Parliament buildings are built of buff freestone with many towers and miniature spires, and have a very fine frontage of 1200 feet, surmounted by the iron crown of the Victoria Tower. The Octagonal Tower contains a library of 40,000 books, open not only to members, but to all the inhabitants of the town. In the centre stands a full-length marble statue of the Queen, by Marshall Wood. The members speak in French or English at will, and all notices of motions are in both languages.

Timber-lugging is the great trade of Ottawa. As seen from the upper town, the lower presents the appearance of one vast timber-yard; masses of piles line the banks, and cover the surface of the stream. These piles are cut in the winter from the back forests, and floated down some 100 miles. At Ottawa they pass into the yards through what is called a timber-slide, to avoid the dangerous channel of the Chaudière Falls. Here they are lashed together to form rafts, houses being built for the men who drift down on them to Quebec. From thence they are shipped to all parts of the world, principally to England. We went over one of these large timber-mills and Eddy's match manufactory, both immensely interesting, with the perfection of machinery, entirely superseding any manual dexterity, and driven by the neighbouring water-power.

The La Chaudière Falls, so called from the cauldron into which they seethe and boil, though not of a great height, have been sounded to 300 feet without touching the bottom. They contain a very angry, copper-coloured element.

We drove out to Rideau Hall, the residence of the Governor-General, who was away at the time. We found a very deserted, miserable building, about which the only sign of life was a sleepy policeman. A tobogging-slide seemed to usurp the greater part of the garden. The Ottawa public was much offended by a recent prohibition forbidding entrance to the park, which has hitherto been free to all. There is a little occurrence which will always remain connected in our minds with Ottawa, an example which we certainly found followed nowhere else. Our driver, even after considerable pressure, refused to take more than his ordinary fare!

Ottawa, other than the Parliament buildings, which are alone worth coming to see, is the dullest and most primitive of towns. C. was, however, glad to have been there, as it gave him the opportunity of meeting the Ministers of Inland Revenue, and Agriculture, and other authorities, and hearing their views on the rapid development of Canada.

Returning to Montreal, we took the night boat to Quebec. A golden, glorious sunset, sinking behind purple clouds, was reflected in the water, and this was succeeded by a trail of silver light from the newly-risen crescent moon.

Tuesday, July 29th.—At 7 a.m. on a cloudy morning, from the deck of the steamer we were looking up at Quebec, perched, Gibraltar like, on an inaccessible promontory of precipitous rock, formed by the junction of the River St. Charles with the St. Lawrence.

The narrow streets of the lower town, with their picturesque red-tiled roofs and overhanging gables, seem at first sight as if they were entirely cut off from the upper town by a shelving mass of rocks.

However, we were soon wending our way upwards by a street so steep that it could only be likened to climbing a mountain. The houses on either side seemed also to be climbing the roof of the houses above, the upper storey being on a level with the second floor of its neighbour. Any sand there ever has been was long ago washed down by the rain, leaving a stony surface as a precarious foothold for the poor struggling horses. This was the more circuitous route for carriages. A nearer one for pedestrians lay in the perpendicular flight of steps cut out in the face of the rocks leading immediately to Dufferin Terrace. This terrace was called after Lord Dufferin, the most popular of Governors-General, and is built on the old buttresses and platform formerly occupied by the Château of St. Louis. It is a favourite resort of the townspeople, perhaps as being the only level ground, so far as we could see in the town, but probably more so on account of the beautiful view it commands over the river. Vessels of all classes and sizes, coming from all parts of the world, but more especially from England, were anchoring in the broad basin formed by the confluence of the two rivers. Immediately beneath us were the wharves of the old town, where we could see two or three colliers discharging coal, and even hear in the still morning air the rattling of the chains as the crane was swung to and fro. On the opposite side rose the fortified bluff of Point Levy, and on the other the St. Charles winding away up its peaceful valley. The white houses of Beaufort form a straggling line almost as far as the Montmorenci Falls, which latter seem only a speck in the distance. There was a light morning mist floating away over the opposite heights, and the murmur of the busy hum of life reached us from below.

The Governor's garden, facing the road on the opposite side, is only an enclosure overgrown with rank weeds and grass, but it contains the obelisk erected to the joint memory of Wolfe and Montcalm. It is a novel idea to combine the names of the victorious and conquered, but it shows a true appreciation of the two generals who each gave up their life for their country in the hour of battle. In the Ursuline Convent, near by, we see Montcalm's grave, said to have been made by the bursting of one of the enemy's shells during the bombardment, with the inscription in French—

Honour to Montcalm

Fate,

In depriving him of Victory,

rewarded him by

A glorious Death

There are some very quaint old buildings and curious bits of architecture in out-of-the-way corners, and the town altogether has an old-world look, as if life were passing it by. The outside of the Catholic Cathedral is homely and irregular, and very damp and musty inside; but attached to one of the pillars is a fine "Crucifixion" by Van Dyke; and the adjoining seminary has quite a large collection of pictures highly prized by the inhabitants, though by artists unknown to fame. The Laval University, chartered by the Queen in 1852, is the most modern building in Quebec.

The population is almost entirely French, and the maintenance of their language and institutions was guaranteed to them at the conquest. Descendants of the old noblesse still linger here, preserving among themselves the traditions of their forefathers in a circle of society renowned for its polish and refinement; preserving, too, in its entirety the purity of the mother language. They do not mix at all with the English.

The Citadel is gloriously situated on the high ground above the town, surrounded by walls and ramparts, but our approach to it was under the following untoward circumstances. We hired an ungainly cabriolet, a vehicle on two wheels, with a narrow board in front, on which the driver—a raw-boned Irish boy in our case—driving a sorry steed, was seated. After going up a very steep hill, the entrance to the fortress is over a wooden drawbridge guarded by massive chain gates. The hollow sound of the wood frightened the horse beyond control, and we discovered then that he could go, when he turned and bolted down the hill. We only prevented ourselves from being pitched out head-foremost by clinging on to the sides of the old-fashioned hood. The driver was powerless, and C. eventually stooped over and jerked the reins happily with success. We must have caused much amusement to the soldiers looking out from the guard-house window.

The Governor-General's residence is part of the low stone building in the courtyard, the remainder of the Citadel being used for barracks; the windows on the river side command a superb view.

In the absence of Lord Lansdowne, Lord and Lady Melgund entertained us most hospitably, and very kindly took us on the river in the police launch after luncheon, near enough to obtain a good view of the beautiful Montmorenci Falls. The volume of water is powerful in the first instance, but dwindles into fringes, and evaporates altogether in mist at the base.

A storm was gathering on the heights as we returned, and a dense bank of fog rolled down the river. The thunder muttered overhead, and a rift in the clouds let a curious light stream over the roofs of the town; and then, closing up, the black cloud swept towards us, creeping up Diamond Cape, till the Citadel above loomed out white and ghostly from the surrounding clearness. In a downpour of tropical rain we reached the wharf.

We should liked to have managed an expedition from Quebec to the beautiful Saguenay River, combining a visit to Sir John Macdonald, the present Premier; but that great Nemesis, time, was already beginning to pursue us. We left Quebec the next morning, passing again through Montreal at five in the afternoon, and sleeping at Plattsburg, on the shores of Lake Champlain.

It was a great disappointment to us not to be able to see more of Canada, but we shall hope to pay it a more extended visit on some future occasion. It offers as great attractions to the lover of nature as to the sportsman, and affords a glorious and unlimited field for the emigration of men and women since the opening up of the Far West by the Canadian Pacific Railway.

CHAPTER IV
THE AMERICAN LAKES, AND THE CENTRES OF LEARNING, FASHION, AND GOVERNMENT

Thursday, July 31st.—Up at 6 a.m. this morning to catch the steamer. However early we rise for these matutinal starts there is always a rush in the end to catch the train or boat. It is a depressing thought when we think of what frequent occurrence they will be for the next few months.

We were soon plying our way over the placid bosom of Lake Champlain, holding a central course. The shores on either side are flat and ugly, for the beauty of the lake lies in the broad expanse of unruffled waters reflecting the various changes of the sky, generally of a heavenly blue, but on this morning taking the leaden hue of the low-lying clouds.

Numberless islands lay dotted on the calm surface, kept fresh and green from the continued lapping of the waters around their indented shores.

The range of the green mountains of Vermont lay hidden by a transparent haze, the sun shining brightly behind, and presently piercing through, rising to gladden the gloomy morning.

After crossing the broad bay and touching at a further point in the eastern shore—at Burlington, a thriving town—the waters narrowed and flowed on the one side through flat green meadows, pretty though uninteresting; but, on the other, rose in the full beauty of their verdant summer foliage, the mountains of the Adirondacks. The steamer threaded its way through the narrow channels, and we lay right under their mighty shadows, looking into the calm depths of the quiet pools formed by the boulders of rock, that in the course of ages have loosened their hold and slipped down the precipitous sides.

We looked up into dark ravines, piercing through the heart of the mountains, dividing one rounded peak from another. We followed the undulating outline of the mountains, now bare and stony, or more often fringed to the summit with pine forests. The dark green of these pines, and the bright foliage of the stunted oaks, formed a brilliant contrast to the orange lichen covering the grey protruding boulders.

Here and there we came upon a wall of rocks, descending in a sheer precipice to the lake, reflecting purple shadows on the still water.

And so we passed on, one scene of beauty succeeding another, till we reached Fort Ticonderoga. It was here during the Revolutionary War, that the brave Eathan Allen with his celebrated band of Green Mountain Boys surprised the British commander in the dead of night, and appearing at his bedside demanded the immediate surrender of the fort. "In whose name?" demanded De le Place. "In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress," replied Allen,—and the fort was surrendered.

An hour by rail brought us to the head of Lake George. The Indians gave it the poetical name of "Horicon," or "Silvery Waters," from the great purity of the water. Its peaceful shores have been the scene of many a bloody battle in the great conflict between the Indian and the white man, and the mountains have oft resounded to the war-whoop and battle-cry of the savages and the despairing shriek of the captives whom they scalped alive. Now a death-like stillness broods over the scene. The scenery of Lake George is far grander than that of Champlain. The other only leads up to and forms a preparation for this one. The mountains which surround Lake George and close it in on all sides have a bolder, more sweeping outline. Here and there one projects lone and solitary, forming a promontory round which the steamer creeps, seeming to cling to its densely-wooded sides. The dark whispering pine forests grow down to the very edge of the waters, mingling their sighings with the rustling of the waters over a shallow bottom. There are numberless islands, some mere strips of sandy beach and rocks, dividing the silvery rapids on either side, and others are wooded with a stunted undergrowth. We noticed one curious conical-shaped mountain, formed of a sharp escarpment of rock from the summit to the base, which is called "Roger's Slide." The story goes that an Englishman, Major Rogers, being hotly pursued by the Indians to the edge of the cliffs, suddenly bethought himself of reversing his snow-shoes and retracing his steps by this means leaving no foot-prints. The Indians tracked him to the brink of the precipice, and then concluded he had slid down into the lake, under the protection of the "Great Spirit."

As the steamer turned into the "Narrows" we saw a beautiful little waterfall, falling down the ravine in a feathery shower of spray, spanned in the afternoon light by a vivid rainbow. At Sabbath Day Point the scenery is more striking and majestic. Think of the "Trosachs" in the Highlands, and that will give the best idea of the grandeur of the scene before us.

Adding to the beauty of all we saw that afternoon was the ceaseless play of light and shadow on the mountains. I tried to carry away with me in the mind's eye the picture of those mountains, dark and powerful as a background, the quiet beauty and picturesqueness along the banks as a foreground, and the deep calm blue waters of the lake all around.

Alas! a sudden storm came up and obscured the view before us, and we ended our journey at Fort William in a blinding hurricane of rain and wind. We were glad to find shelter from it in the train, which brought us to Saratoga Springs by the evening.

Friday, August 1st.—Saratoga is the Ems or Baden-Baden of America, the most fashionable resort as a watering-place, only equalled by the more select charms of Newport.

Seen on a sunny morning such as we had, nothing can surpass the brightness and gaiety of the scene in Broadway. Along its broad shady avenues stroll the collected beauty and fashion gathered at Saratoga, and light cross-bar waggons and buggies bowl swiftly by. There are no villas, but life is confined entirely to pensions, and the three colossal hotels in Broadway. The "United States" is perhaps the finest of them. It covers seven acres of ground, accommodates 1200 guests, and gives employment to 150 black waiters. Built round three sides of a quadrangle, there are broad covered piazzas running the entire length of the building, opening on to a large and beautifully kept garden, gay with flowers. Morning and evening the band plays here, when the piazza becomes a fashionable promenade, visitors from all the other hotels congregating in it.

American women are the best dressers in the world; for taste and skilful combination, particularly in pale colours, they are unsurpassed. A change of costume thrice daily is absolutely de rigueur at Saratoga, and it becomes at last quite exciting to see how many more varied dresses are going to appear.

Illustrating a great feature in American life is the wing devoted to the cottages where families come and live during the season, in separate suites, everything being provided by the hotel. A good example of the attendance which it is expected you will require can be gathered from the notice in each room: "Ring once for the bell-man, twice for stationery, and three times for iced water." The chamber-maid plays a very unimportant part in any hotel, and a "bell-man" is attached to each floor. The consumption of iced water is prodigious; not only is it placed at your elbow at every meal, but large jugs of it are brought at stated hours of the day to every room. At the "United States" it was quite formidable walking the immense length of the dining-room, or venturing across the vast spaces of the yellow satin-lined drawing-room. The lift has been known to go up and down 300 times in the course of the afternoon.

Amid the shady groves and green lawns of Congress Park we found the mineral springs bubbling up into artificial wells, with a few drinkers idling about, and languidly sipping their waters, but we came to the conclusion that visitors were not here so much for the purposes of health as of amusement. The springs are of all kinds, Vichy, sulphur, iron, magnesia, soda, &c., and it has often been necessary to bore down several hundred feet before finding the water. Two or three of the most powerful medicinal springs are some miles away, and these are bottled and brought in fresh daily for the drinkers in town.

The fashionable afternoon drive is to the lake, some two miles away, and is reached by a straight dusty road, bordered for the most part by rushes and long grass, where the frogs maintain a cheerful chorus of chirping. When you arrive there you find a primitive café, with groups sitting about the tables under the trees, and the lake, pretty enough, lying in the hollow, with small excursion steamers constantly plying from the landing.

In the evening there is generally a "hop," or dance, advertised in one or other of the hotels, but I confess that that evening we preferred the good-humoured crowd and the fireworks in Congress Park to the hop at Congress Hall Hotel. Alternating with the fireworks were the strains of the band wafted from the pagoda in the centre of the lake, and all sat about heedless of the heavy dew lying on the grass.

We were very sorry to leave Saratoga the next morning, and undergo a very hot and dusty journey to Boston. We passed Pittsburg, as famed for its great ladies' college, as its southern namesake is for its iron-works, and late in the afternoon reached Boston, Massachusetts. A red and yellow coach, suspended by straps to C springs, such as were in use in the last century, conveyed us to the Hotel Vendôme.

I think Boston the most charming of all the American towns. The broad sweeping avenues are bordered by houses of red sandstone, a soft mellow colour, that contrasts well with the green avenues of trees and grass borders. Commonwealth Avenue is the finest of these continuous "parks," and is a mile and a half long. The Common, with its avenues of fine elm-trees, forms a large open space in the middle of the town, and separated only by a road are the public gardens. A bronze statue of Washington rises in the middle, surrounded by a brilliant flower-bed, the colours blending in carpet-gardening to form a Moorish inscription, which translated means "God is all-powerful," a very fitting motto for the great hero. The gilded dome of the Massachusetts State House dominates them from the eminence of Beacon Hill; but far more interesting than this new erection is the venerable time-worn building of the "Old State House," where some of the most stirring scenes of the Revolution were enacted. From this balcony the Declaration of Independence was read to the people. Our troops occupied the buildings during the Stamp Riots, but at the close of the war Washington stood on its steps the chosen hero of the exultant populace. So many of the buildings are closely associated with humiliating remembrances of that fatal epoch in British history when these fair provinces, owing to the lack of foresight and imbecility of her leaders, were for ever lost to England.

There is the old Scotch church, so famous as the political meeting-place of the Boston Tea Party; Tancred Hall, the "Cradle of Liberty," nurtured by the patriotic orations of Adams, Everett, and above all of Daniel Webster; the harbour, with its numerous shipping, where was lighted the first straw of that great conflagration of the "Rebellion," by the throwing overboard of those few chests of tea.

The city is rich in churches, there being no less than 150 belonging to all denominations, who raise their spires heavenwards within its precincts. But Trinity Church surpasses all in beauty and design. It is built of granite and freestone in the form of a Latin cross, in Romanesque style. The stained glass is rich in harmonious colouring, depicting no subject, but blending into a mystery of blue, orange, and purple. Some lancet windows, filled with iridescent glass of pale blue, gave the appearance of shining steel.

We started early on that quiet Sunday morning for a drive to Cambridge in one of the "Herdic Hansoms." These curious vehicles with their jolting motion can only be described as covered two wheeled carts. We passed the green hill on which stands Bunker's Hill Monument. It is inexpressibly grand in its massive simplicity, being only huge blocks of granite narrowing in such imperceptible proportion to the summit, that the pyramidal ending seems in perfect accord with the broad base. No railing surrounds it. There is no decoration or inscription: it stands alone in its majesty, sufficiently raised to be a landmark to the whole town. Our road led through Charlestown, where the seafaring population chiefly live close to the harbour. A long, straight, dusty road, under a blazing sun for three miles, brought us to Cambridge, the immediate approach to which is through stately avenues of elm-trees.

The colleges of Harvard University are clustered together, forming an irregular quadrangle. There was a delightfully quiet and studious look about the dull red-brick buildings, low latticed windows, and ivy-covered walls,—a look of antiquity unusual to America. In this comparatively newly-risen continent so much is thought of age, that Harvard College, the oldest of the fifteen of which the University consists, is prized most highly for its foundation dating from 1636.

Chief amongst the colleges for beauty is the Gothic tower of Memorial Hall, erected by the alumni in memory of the students who perished in the War of Secession. It contains the great dining-hall with carved screens and galleries, busts and portraits of the founders of the college, and has stained-glass windows bearing the college and State arms. A theatre, library, museum, scientific school, and chapel are in different parts of the irregularly laid-out square, which is sacred to the University buildings.

It was vacation time, and the place was utterly deserted, save by a few straggling church-goers, their footsteps resounding on the narrow paved walk, and lingering amongst the tenantless walls. It must be a different scene in term, when 1300 students and forty-seven professors gather under the classic shades of a university already numbering among its former students such men as John Adams the second President of the United States, Edward Everett, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Lathrop Motley, J. Russell Lowell, and Wendell Phillips. The University course extends over four years. It may be interesting to know, in face of the recent agitation at our own universities on the subject, that women are not as yet admitted to the University lectures, though allowed to matriculate and pass the different examinations.

Quite near the University is a battered elm-tree, whose shattered branches are sustained by iron stanchions, and which marks the place where General Washington took command of the rebellious colonists. Further on we passed a plain, square, wooden house, with pointed roof, and a small garden, surrounded by a high laurel hedge, a gravel path, and little white gate leading to the verandah and entrance. There was nothing particular to mark a house, homely enough in its exterior. But yet it was here that in 1775 Washington established his headquarters, when it was the scene of many warlike preparations and much enthusiasm. Later it has been hallowed by the quiet presence of the great poet Longfellow.

"The old house by the Lindens
Stood silent in the shade,
And on the gravell'd pathway
The light and shadow play'd."

And it was in this quiet retreat that he passed away in 1882.

We followed the winding road, almost an avenue of willow-trees, to Mount Auburn Cemetery, and with great difficulty found his last resting-place. We were terribly disillusioned. Not a garden of flowers, tended by loving hands; not a simple marble monument with short inscription, prompted by a knowledge of the gentle, retiring, nature; but we found a great, ugly block of sandstone, a huge sarcophagus, with a name and date on one side, and an ingenious pattern on the other, taking X as a centre letter, and forming a senseless device, and utterly inappropriate to the memory of the great poet.

No more beautiful garden than this cemetery could be conceived: grassy slopes, planted with waving palms and the choicest plants; bright flower-beds interspersed among the white marble crosses and memorials of the dead; an air of quiet beauty and repose, mingling with the many signs of respectful care on the different graves, such as bunches of newly-cut flowers. Those who have served their country had a miniature flag of the stars and stripes waving over their heads. The mortuary chapel stands on the high ground, and opposite to it there is a magnificent marble sphinx with this soul-stirring inscription,—

"American Union Preserved,
African Slavery Destroyed,
By the Uprising of a Great People,
By the Blood of Fallen Heroes."

Throughout the length and breadth of America this intense respect to the dead may be seen in regard to their last resting-place. In strange contrast is the irreverence shown in the removal of bodies. Several times we saw coffins, travelling at first-class fares, placed in the luggage-vans, piled under Saratoga trunks, and with the party of mourners in the same train.

In returning from the cemetery we passed Mr. Russell Lowell's country-house, standing in grounds fairly hidden by surrounding trees.

Boston is the great literary and scientific centre of America. The saying goes that at Boston they ask you "what you know," in New York "what you have," and at Philadelphia "who you are."

Fostered by its close neighbourhood to Harvard, Boston boasts more literary institutions than any other town in America; whether in its remarkably fine Public Library, its Atheneum (which corresponds to our Royal Institution), its two museums, or the English High and Latin School, the first public school in the States.

One of the celebrated steamers of the Fall River Line took us that evening to Newport.

What fascination the word exercises over "the aristocracy" of America! Filled throughout the summer months with society—select and fashionable, hospitable to foreigners, but difficult of access to new-comers, and closed to those who do not belong to the upper circle of finance. The gay butterfly life is carried on in "cottages," or villas, as we should call them—small houses, unattractive outside, standing in gardens adjoining the road, too public and suburban for English taste. So also is the life, entirely without privacy; morning calls are customary; and beginning society thus early, does not prevent its being carried on at high pressure for the remainder of the day.

There is a well-known and accommodating Frenchman, who undertakes not only to supply a "cottage," but all the elaborate necessaries, servants, linen, plate, &c., for a stay at Newport. The Ocean Drive and Bellevue Avenue are daily crowded with joyous equipages and neat phætons, driven by their fair owners, and equestrians.

The toilettes are very elaborate, and of unceasing variety. The cost must be enormous, seeing that prices are double, if not treble those of London and Paris. The profusion of lace and jewels is unending; but a feeling is gaining ground that elaborate costumes and diamonds are a little out of place in the morning. A coloured maid observed to her mistress, in response to a rebuke, that she had been accustomed to live with "people of quality." Pressed as to what she understood by people of quality, she promptly replied, "they were those who dressed simply and wore no jewels by day."

We had wretched weather; a sea fog which penetrated everything, and succeeded in damping even the bright life of Newport. Polo and yachting are very favourite amusements here. A dance was given at the Casino in the evening, in honour of the yachts which managed to come round in the course of the day from New Brighton, despite the thick fog, and to which we went. These Casino dances take place two nights in the week; the entry is only by payment, no vouchers are required. And yet I believe they are, as the Newportians say, quite select. This fact may be cited as a proof that no one not in "the set" attempts life at Newport. The latter place and its inhabitants look down with ineffable scorn and covert sneer at the rival watering-place of Saratoga.

A tempest of wind and rain, added to the discomforts of the Ocean House (let no one be deceived by advertisements and a printed list of guests in daily papers into thinking it a palatial abode), caused us to abandon all idea of staying, and leaving numerous letters of introduction unpresented, we packed up and made the best of our way back to New York by a morning train.

August 8th.—After a day spent in New York we left for Philadelphia, crossing in the ferry to New Jersey City, where we saw the blackened ruins of the Pennsylvania Station, burnt a few days previously. Three hours' quick run brought us to Philadelphia, and the Hotel Lafayette.

Independence Hall is the centre of interest in Philadelphia; a low stucco building, supported by pillars, it is fraught with precious recollections of the great struggle for freedom. It was here that the Declaration of Independence was signed, on the 4th of July, 1776, and publicly announced from the centre steps. In the same chamber George Washington was appointed commander of the army, and delivered a farewell address, and here Congress afterwards held its sittings till 1797. In a room facing the hall are some relics. Amongst a medley of autographs and medals we singled out a cast of Washington's face taken after death, his horn spectacles, and compass. We saw an earthenware pitcher, brought over by one of the pilgrims of the Mayflower, and the old "Liberty Bell," that sounded to the people the first note of freedom, in the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. "Proclaim Liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof," is the appropriate motto graven on its mouldy green side.

The City Hall, yet unfinished, is of magnificent proportions. Square built, its four sides face, and form the very centre of the town—the point to which all the principal avenues converge. The blocks of marble used in the construction are enormous, and the four gateways are supported by colossal marble figures. Close by is the Masonic Temple, with a tower of quaint turrets, and a beautiful Norman archway; and opposite a church built of a curious green stone, called serpentine.

Many years ago a Frenchman, called Stephen Girard, came and settled in Philadelphia. He conceived the idea of bequeathing his property to the state. At his death it was valued at several millions; and a bequest was especially left of 2,000,000 dollars to erect a college for orphan children. His wish was carried out in the building of this magnificent Corinthian marble edifice, called Girard College. It contains large lecture and class rooms; the dormitories and professors' houses being in two adjoining wings. There is no question of election. Any orphan boy from Pennsylvania or New York State is eligible; and the number, now 1100, is yearly increasing, owing to the rise in value of the Girard property. One curious restriction alone there is. In accordance with a provision in the will, no religious teaching of any sort is allowed; only the elements of morality are taught, and no clergyman of any sect is given entrance to the college. A marble statue of the founder, representing him as a little benevolent, wrinkled Frenchman, faces the entrance, beneath which monument he lies buried.

The Pennsylvania Hospital, though otherwise uninteresting, has such a very quaint inscription on the corner-stone, that I think it is quite worth giving:—

"In the year of Christ MDCCLV., George the Second happily reigning (for he sought the happiness of his people), Philadelphia flourishing (for its inhabitants were public-spirited), this building, by the bounty of the government and many private persons, was piously founded for relief of the sick and miserable. May the God of mercies bless the undertaking!"

We had a pretty drive through Fairmount Park, and ascended by the elevator (how great the Americans always are at any of these mechanical contrivances for saving labour!) to a platform 250 feet high, where we had a beautiful view of the 3000 wooded undulating acres that form one of the largest parks in the world. To give an idea of its comparative size, Windsor has only 1800 acres, the Bois de Boulogne 2158, the Prater 2500, and Richmond 2468. It is five miles long and six broad.

We had not time to go and see the Memorial Hall Museum, in the park, built in commemoration of the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, and which contains the nucleus of an art industrial collection after the model of South Kensington.

A drive through Chestnut Street with a hurried glance at the fine "stores," and we reached the station in time for the afternoon train to Washington.

The towns of America, with their even square blocks so regularly and precisely intersected at right angles leading to the Capitol, City Hall, or State House, whichever is the presiding genius, are apt to become wearisome in the extreme. How delightedly then we compared Washington to these,—the beautiful "city of distances." It were worth coming some way, if only to see the magnificent breadth of Pennsylvania Avenue at Washington, paved with asphalte, and lighted by electricity, sweeping in a perfectly straight line of one mile from the dome of the Capitol to the Corinthian pillars of the Treasury. The other avenues and streets are numerically as well as alphabetically named, commencing from the Capitol. Fifteen of the principal avenues take the names of the fifteen states which comprised the Union in 1799, when government first ordered buildings to be erected for the President, Congress, and public offices, and removed the seat of government to Washington.

The next morning was Sunday, and we went to service at St. John's, the fashionable church in the precincts of Lafayette Square, where the President attends, but a remarkably small dark edifice. We strolled back to "Riggs' House" through the Square. Here stands the equestrian statue to General Jackson, which is cast from the brass guns and mortars he captured. The poise of the figure is very fine as he sits the horse, which is represented as rearing. The balance of this position is only maintained by the flanks and tail of the horse being filled with solid metal.

The small red-brick houses in the square overshadowed by the neighbouring trees, where most of the senators and members live, remind one of many a story of "wire-pulling" and "place-hunting" exercised by the clever wives of influential senators. It is a centre of intrigue during the session, for the influence of women plays no unimportant part in American politics.

The White House is quite near. It is a low stucco building, standing in a garden, a small strip only of which is kept private, the remainder lying open to the public. From the entrance gate, where there are neither military nor police on duty, a broad gravel drive sweeps under the portico.

Inside there is a long corridor hung with portraits of former Presidents. A screen of coloured glass divides this corridor from another, which leads off to the principal sitting-rooms. It would be difficult to imagine any official residence so simply appointed as the White House. The state dining-room, which they say will hold thirty-five on occasion (but it must be a tight fit), is most suitable for every-day use. A room with terra-cotta walls is an ordinary drawing-room; the Blue Room is circular, and here the President stands and receives at the levées, which are open to all comers. The Green Room is a large drawing-room; and a ball-room in white and gold, with enormous pendant chandeliers, forms the entire suite. A back staircase at either end leads to the upper floor.

The State Department and the War and Navy have very fine buildings beyond the White House. An obliging official, a groom of the chambers, who descends in his office to successive Presidents, showed us through; but as for seeing anything of the other public buildings in Washington on Sunday we found it was utterly impossible. The further south you come the more abundant are the black woolly heads of the negroes, with the flaming colours they love to wear, the orange plume with the purple, green, or alternating with stripes of red and yellow. The further south you come also the stricter is the observance of the Sabbath.

We took the car and explored the dreary suburb of Georgetown. As we approached a cross-street, the boom of muffled drums and the strains of a funeral march were heard, and we stopped to allow of a long procession, headed by various deputations, to pass. The open hearse, drawn by white horses, was followed by some mourning-coaches. It was the funeral of one of the unfortunate victims of Greely's Arctic Expedition. The press just now are celebrating the honours of his return, and side by side is raised a controversy on the awful doubt as to whether cannibalism was resorted to or not. Certain it is that when the bodies were disinterred by the rescue party to be brought home, the flesh was found stripped off the bodies in many cases. Some said it was used as a bait for fishing, but the more dreadful suspicion is that the survivors, pushed to the last extremity, devoured it. In the case of Private Henry, shot for stealing the stores, Greely is even accused by the relations of resorting to that punishment in order to provide sustenance. It is hard, very hard that after the intolerable dangers and hardships the brave little band endured, such suspicions should be raised to meet them on arrival at home.

Strolling about the avenue rather aimlessly, we came to an equestrian statue. On inquiring about the original, a passer-by advised us if we "wanted to see statues to go further on to the Circle." From here we occupied a central position, looking down no less than eight broad avenues, and seeing in them some six or all the principal statues of the city in a coup d'œil.

An ugly circular temple with an obelisk of granite, 550 feet high, is being erected as a grand national monument to Washington. It stands facing the semicircular portico of the back of the White House, between that and the River Potomac.

Monday, 11th of August, Washington.—We had to be up very early to see the Capitol before leaving by a ten o'clock train. What a beautiful building it is, standing as it does on the Capitol Hill, with its broad stone terraces and grass slopes leading into a park. The west front, with a flight of innumerable steps the length of the centre building, commands the Plaza; and the newly-elected President, standing here, delivers his inaugural address to the people below.

The first building, laid by Washington, was burnt in 1793, and the present one was commenced twenty-eight years after. Daniel Webster laid the corner-stone and inscribed on it an inscription grandly worthy of the building that rose above it:—

"If, therefore, it shall be hereafter the will of God that this structure shall fall from its base, that its foundation be upturned, and this deposit brought to the eyes of men, be it then known that on this day the Union of the United States of America stands firm, that their Constitution still exists unimpaired, and with all its original usefulness and glory, growing every day stronger and stronger in the affection of the great body of the American people, and attracting more and more the admiration of the world. And all here assembled, whether belonging to public life or to private life, with hearts devoutly thankful to Almighty God for the preservation of the liberty and happiness of the country, unite in sincere and fervent prayers that this deposit, and the walls and arches, the domes and towers, the columns and entablatures, now to be erected over it, may endure for ever.

"God save the United States of America."

The colossal bronze statue of Liberty crowns the iron dome, and under the Corinthian portico are the bronze doors, almost as fine in workmanship as those of the Baptistery at Florence. They represent Columbus's interview with Ferdinand and Isabella, his landing in America, his battle with the Indians, triumphant return, imprisonment and death. The Rotunda is decorated with frescoes painted in such a way as to appear in bas-relief. Under the dome is shown the stone where Garfield's body lay in state for three days, visited by thousands of people. It was estimated that each incoming train brought its hundreds into Washington during those few days. The Americans were most deeply touched, and allude, even now, to the wreath sent by the Queen. The two wings are given up, the one to the Senate, and the other to the House of Representatives. The old senate chamber is now used as the Supreme Court of Justice, the highest judicial tribunal in America. The various lobbies and reception-rooms are very gorgeous in different coloured marbles, and ceilings frescoed and gilded, but the interior is hardly worthy of the plain but massive grandeur of the exterior. The gallery in the House of Representatives will seat 1200, and it is not reserved only for reporters or friends of members, but open to the public, and to any who care to hear the debates. There is a ventilator underneath each member's seat which enables him to regulate the hot air at will.

We were much amused at the ragged condition of the Speaker's table, the blue cloth being hammered to pieces in the interests of "order." A National Statue Gallery has been formed by the excellent idea of inviting each state to send statues of two of its most representative men. I admired particularly among the frescoes one by Leutze, called "Westward Ho," very touching in its speaking significance of the hardships the first emigrants endured. It represents the cart piled up with household goods, the mother pale and dejected, with the baby sitting on the top, the elder children plodding along unheeding, whilst the father points hopefully towards the West; in the background other emigrants are crowding along the track.

The Sergeant-at-Arms' room is small; too small they say for "pay" day, when the members come to receive their salaries. Fancy paying your member 1000l. a year to represent your interests. He must be dearly bought in many cases. The total comes to double our civil list. The President's salary is only 10,000l.—too meagre for the representative of such a great nation—and the ministers and judges only receive the insufficient salary of 1500l. per annum. Frequent scandals are the result of this parsimony. Such a beautiful view is obtained of the broad avenues and public buildings of the city from the windows of the west front, and the silver band of the Potomac winding round the outskirts at the foot of the green heights of Mount Vernon.

We should like to have found time to go to Mount Vernon, and have seen the plain wooden house, in a lovely situation, overhanging the river, which Washington made his home; also the key of the Bastille, given to him by Lafayette, and the room where he died. The plain marble sarcophagi near the landing-stage marks "the tombs of Washington, and Martha, his wife." The house after his death was bought and presented to the nation by "the women of America."

We had to give up all idea of seeing the Smithsonian Institute, a Gothic building of red sandstone, standing in its own park, presented to the city by Mr. Smithson, an Englishman. And the Patent Office we found was not open at this early hour of the morning. Inventive genius is here protected and encouraged. In tin boxes, labelled and kept in pigeon-holes, is a model of every patent that has ever been taken out. The fees are much smaller than in England, and contrivances for the most homely details have thus been protected.

CHAPTER V
TO THE FAR WEST

It was ten o'clock on Monday, the 11th of August, when we arrived at the station of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which was to take us to Chicago. We had great difficulty in threading our way amongst several hundreds of negresses bent on a religious excursion. At first the train followed the winding course of the Potomac, through a fertile country; but presently we were going through a mountain gorge, wooded and precipitous, through which the river rushed and foamed. We crossed an iron bridge over the broad river to Harper's Ferry, the culminating point of a very beautiful mountain scene. As the train drew up at the wooden station, the absolute stillness, broken only by the sound of rushing waters, enhanced the spell of the mountains, which seemed to close us in on all sides.

At Cumberland the country then changed to long, undulating hills; and soon after a halt was called, and dinner served at the station. When further on a second engine was attached, a pleasurable excitement prevailed throughout the cars, and there was an underhand scuffle for the right-hand side of the carriage. We were approaching the glorious range of the Alleghenies, and preparing to cross the mountains. It was a wild scene of the greatest beauty, the glorious solitude of the vast range, broken only by the hideous shriek of the engine, as we climbed the side suspended over a fathomless precipice. As we rose the view extended over many mountain-tops, a panoramic scene of great extent and beauty. We were going up a gradient of sixteen feet to the mile for eighteen miles, with curves so sharp that the middle of the train was doubled inwards or outwards, until we, in the last car, were almost parallel to the engine. We were hanging half way out of the windows, and in full enjoyment of the glorious view, when a sharp angle cruelly shut it all out, and the summit was reached. I was glad that the scene changed so completely at once. So often the full effect of some specially beautiful masterpiece is spoilt by a gradual preparation, Nature working herself up as she goes along; but here the transition is sudden, and the open, park-like spaces present a gentle contrast—golden as they were then in the setting sun.

It seemed as if the beautiful part of our journey was over, when we found ourselves on a yet steeper ascent; and if the other was lovely, far more so was this one. Grand and gloomy the mountains stood above us. A line of silver and a gentle rushing sound alone told us of the presence of the Cheat River, coursing many hundred feet below, through a chasm in the rocks. The pine forests around us whispered softly. Some of their blackened trunks, hideous and deformed, waving their ghostlike and withered arms close to the line, tell of the fury of the storms confined in these narrow mountain gorges.

In the growing dusk we rushed with maddening and increasing speed down into the valley, the glowing furnaces of a manufacturing village sending out a ruddy glow into the dark night.

We passed the night in the Pullman sleeping-car, and I slept soundly. Indeed, there is no reason why you should not do so in these "sleepers." The upper berth lets down from the roof; a sliding partition and an ample curtain forms a "section;" and there are mattresses, pillows, and blankets to form a very comfortable bed, whilst the black porter produces clean sheets and pillow-cases. Dressing and undressing in a sitting posture requires dexterity, which comes with practice. And nothing is more amusing than looking down the length of the car—to see the mysterious heaving and bulging of the curtains, and the protruding arms and legs. I think the general scramble for the "Ladies' toilette" in the chill of the early morning is perhaps the worst part of a night in the cars. How I got to hate the large fringes and crimped bandeaux of the American ladies, which required such an undue amount of care and time in curling!

At Chicago Junction we were hurried out of the "Pullman" into one of the ordinary cars. This meant a carriage, dirty as a London Metropolitan third-class, crowded with thirty people of all degrees. We had been dreading our long journey to the far West, of which this was the first stage; and our fears were being realized. Terribly hot and wearisome was the long day, stopping at every small station. Very dusty, tired, and hot were we, as we skirted the blue shores of Lake Michigan at 7 p.m., and neared the end of our journey, passing for the last four miles through Hyde Park, a suburb of Chicago. We thought ourselves in the greatest luxury when we arrived at length at the Grand Pacific Hotel.

Chicago, August 13th.—"Schicago," as the Americans softly pronounce it, is the great commercial capital of the West, receiving, as it does, the chief bulk of the enormous grain-producing country lying to the westward. Therefore do its streets present no fine buildings, except those of mercantile banks, business offices, and warehouses; and therefore are its streets blocked with drays and waggons, and present generally a bustling activity.

The streets are laid with blocks of stone, and perhaps it is the best kind of pavement after all, regarding health more than comfort. We found the wood pavement, not being properly kept, was far from pleasant in hot weather. The same might be said of the broad asphalte avenues of Washington, which under a blazing sun perfumed the air with a pungent smell of tar.

After the great fire of October, 1871, Chicago rose like a phœnix from its ashes. A curious calculation resulted in the discovery that in the period of six months one building, from four to six storeys high, was completed each hour in a day of eight working hours. It certainly presents an unprecedentedly rapid growth, and the population entirely keeps pace with it.

Chicago is just settling down after the intense excitement of the Convention, held here only the other day, when Blaine was chosen as the Republican candidate, and Cleveland by the Democrats. Every four years the whole country is convulsed with these Presidential elections, a tenure of office far too short to allow of any settled policy to attain to maturity. The country is blazoned with portraits of the rival candidates; debased often to the use of advertisements, as when Mr. Blaine (who is dyspeptic) is seen standing by a bottle as big as himself of "Tippecande." The newspapers resound throughout the country with their mutual vituperations. "Blaine is corrupt!" cry the Democrats; "Cleveland is immoral!" retort the Republicans.

Party warfare descends even to the shape of the hat. In New York we had several times noticed the predominating number of tall white hats. It was explained they were Blaine's followers; whereas Cleveland's wore a wider brim in a brown felt. In America, where every adult male, be he householder or not, has a vote, politics have a wider range, and are discussed eagerly amongst all classes. We got at last to have quite a "national" interest, and should like to have been in America during the final struggle coming in November.

We went to see the Central Grain Elevator at a large warehouse, which raises, weighs, and stores several thousand bushels of grain daily. The working of the machinery is somewhat complicated, but one of the vats, into which four wooden troughs converge and pour their contents, holds seventy feet of grain, which is afterwards shot down by machinery into railway waggons waiting in a siding below.

It was five miles to the Stockyards, which really constitute the great sight of Chicago. The cable cars, running so swiftly and silently as if by magic, by means of invisible underground machinery, down State Street, conveyed us thither and back for the modest sum of 5d. The yards with their well-filled pens on either side, presented a wild appearance. Droves of cattle were being driven by men on horseback, galloping and cracking their long whips, with the curious wooden stirrups and peaked saddle of old Spanish Mexican make. We threaded our way through them to Armour and Co.'s, one of the largest establishments, where daily many thousands of pigs, sheep, and oxen are purchased, killed, cut up, cooked, salted, and packed in the shortest possible space of time. We were allowed to wander about the reeking, blood-stained floors, and thoroughly sickened, and fearful that every turn would reveal more bloody horrors, I stopped opposite a gory pile of horns being carted away, whilst C. went to see the oxen killed. He described how they are driven in single file through a narrow passage into separate pens, over the top of which runs a broad plank, on which the "gentleman who does the shooting" stands with a small rifle. The poor beast looks up a second after his admission to the pen, and the rifle bullet fells him instantly stone dead. The further door is opened, and the carcase dragged away by cords to the cutting-up room. There could be no more merciful mode of killing without any unnecessary brutality.

We were told that they stopped killing hogs at noon every day. These have their throats cut (some say they are guillotined by machinery); and it is possible that half an hour after the pig has been squealing in the pen, it will be neatly packed in one of those enormous stacks of tins which we passed on our way out.

We went for a stroll in the evening, and found the shop windows swarmed over by a species of brown moth, with long bodies and gauzy wings, called Canadian Soldiers. They come from the shores of the lake, and are quite harmless, buzzing around the electric lights to their own destruction. A clock, showing the various times of the different capitals in Europe, carried us back in thoughts to London, which at that moment would be sleeping like a city of the dead, dawn only beginning to break. There is about six hours' difference in time, and yesterday we lost an hour in going from the 30th meridian to the 46th.

August 14th.—A very sultry morning; and to refresh us before starting on our journey of two days and two nights in the cars, we had a charming drive in Lincoln Park, along the shores of the lake. Broad gravelled paths, bordered with trees, numberless flower-beds dotted about, and a sheet of water, formed one of the prettiest parks imaginable. South Park, leading from Michigan Avenue, is still finer; and altogether Chicago possesses six of these beautiful parks, dedicated to the use of the people. Returning home through the suburbs we passed the Waterworks. The door was standing open, free to all comers, perhaps ready to inspire some child's mind with a taste for machinery (how different to our ideas!), and through it we saw the magnificent cylinders, revolving to the roof of the building, and the tiny wheels and cogs all performing their appointed motions. The water is supplied from "the crib" through a tunnel running two miles under the bottom of the lake.

It was wonderful what a different impression we carried away of Chicago after this drive. We should have liked now to have stayed another day to have seen some "trotting races," and made an expedition to Pullman City, the Utopian village erected by Mr. Pullman for his large colony of workers, employed solely in the construction of his Palace Cars. The clean, well-paved streets; the model houses, with improved ventilation and sanitary methods; the fine gardens, and the complete absence of poverty, renders the little village quite celebrated. We had a letter of introduction to Mr. Pullman, through whose express permission alone the works are viewed.

We left Chicago at noon, by the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy route, familiarly known as the "C. B. and Q." A dining car attached to the train provided luncheon, and we travelled in a Pullman, with inlaid and polished panels, plush curtains, velvet cushions, and looking-glasses. The heat was terrible, and we gasped and panted through the long hours of the afternoon, taking refuge at last on the platform outside the car, sitting on camp-stools, heedless of dust and grit, and the deafening roar, as the on-rushing cars thundered over the rails, willing to endure any discomfort for the chance of a breath of air. In the evening, at dusk, we crossed the mile-long bridge over the Missisippi, and looked into the rolling volume of turbid waters. "Blackie" gave us a little supper, neatly and cleanly served on a movable table, of blackberries, bread and butter, cold tongue and eggs, iced tea and lemonade—so much nicer than the hurried meal at the railway buffet. The car was turned upside down, and beds made up at 9 p.m.

We found ourselves the next morning on the muddy banks of the Missouri, the second of America's great rivers and unnavigable, owing to the large sandbanks which form between the swift currents. Soon we passed Council Bluffs, with Omaha, a large town on the broad plateau just opposite. Yesterday we were journeying through the State of Illinois, during the night through that of Iowa, and now, through Nebraska, Lincoln, the capital of which we had just passed.

I believe every one, from the days of early childhood, from books of voyages and travel, forms some vague idea of the prairies. We were nearing them now, and I was longing for my first sight of that vast deserted plain, "the blankness of desolation." The scene was growing wilder and wilder; dreary, uninhabited expanses were succeeded by wooden shanties, clustering round a small store with a few cultivated fields and low-lying marshes; horses and cows were hobbled in the vicinity of the village to prevent their straying away to the plains. The sunflower, a smaller kind than ours, flourished luxuriously in large patches; but that was the only evidence of nature, usually so prolific, here so grim and stingy. The day was cold and gloomy, with frequent scuds of rain.

At length we seemed to leave all human habitations behind; and in the majesty of loneliness we were crossing the desert, on a single track, in the midst of the lone prairie lands.

Those beautiful rolling plains—millions of acres, covered with the short, yellow buffalo grass—extend to the horizon in undulating lines, a wide, uninhabited, lifeless, uplifted solitude. The blue of the sky overhead and the dried-up grass are the only blending of colours. Monotonous as they are, there is the greatest fascination about the prairies. Involuntarily you cannot help looking for some sign of life, some tree or green plant. Sometimes too, far-distant specks resolve themselves into the cattle, roaming at will over the boundless plain.

Buffaloes there are to be seen now and again, but they are dying out fast. The indigenous prairie dog alone remains. These curious little animals are of a grayish-brown colour, always fat, with the long body and bushy tail of a dog, and the head of a ferret. They scamper away at the first sign of the train to their "villages," uttering a short, yelping bark. Their mounds are burrowed as much as two or three yards underground; and the rattlesnake and the burrowing owl are supposed always to share the home.

In the evening we had a grand sight, when a storm swept with terrific force over the prairie. A dense blackness enveloped the previously lurid sky, against which the forked lightning played in jagged edges, and the thunder pealed overhead, mingling with the rattling of the hailstones. The engine ploughed along,—we were swallowed up in darkness and gloom, till the sky lightened and gradually broke, and from a confused mass of purple clouds the rays of the setting sun converged into a pale gold mist on the distant hills.

When the storm cleared we found ourselves in the fertile little valley of the Platte River, the narrow stream winding and circling among green meadow-land, the banks fringed with waving grass and rushes; a scene of quiet beauty.

That night we longed to see a prairie fire, but I suppose such good fortune rarely happens to any traveller. It must be an awful but marvellously grand scene. The heavens and the horizon are first seen like a furnace, and then the long line of flame, banked up with dark smoke clouds, comes sweeping on its resistless course. The wonderful thing is how they are ever checked, but most of these prairie fires are said to burn themselves out. And when they approach within two or three miles' range of the settler's ranch a counter fire is started, which eats up all before it, and, joining with the greater fire, leaves it nothing to feed upon. The flames will often travel twenty miles an hour, and leap angrily into the air to a height of fifteen feet. Sometimes they are started by the careless dropping of a match, or some ashes shaken from a pipe, but more often from the spark of a locomotive. It touches the grass, dry as tinder, and the breeze fans into life the little flame destined so soon to burn millions of acres. There is a very curious feature in connection with these prairie fires. So long as they rage, nothing but tufted or prairie-grass will grow; but so soon as they cease, trees, shrubs, and bushes of all sorts spring up spontaneously—in fact it ceases to be prairie. "It is an ill-wind which blows nobody good," for the next year the grass comes darker and richer than ever, and strange as it seems, this burnt-up grass is the finest feeding pasture in the world for cattle and horses. With this unfulfilled wish we lay down to sleep peacefully.

At three in the morning, we were awoke with a dreadful shock, under which the car shivered and upheaved. We heard the crash of falling china, and seemed to feel the furious application of the air brakes, which brought us to a dead stop.

In the awful stillness that succeeded, the conductor rushed through the cars and begged us to "keep still." Every head was protruded from between the curtains, and there were frightened exclamations to be heard from all sides. The suspense that ensued was terrible.

Too soon the truth came. There was our engine smashed to pieces off the line, the tender high in the air, telescoping the luggage van. Ten feet off was another engine of another passenger train. It was eastward-bound, and therefore on the main track, waiting for us, the westward train, to pass on to the siding. The signal, a covered head-light, had gone out; the fireman moving to replace it, accidentally waved a lighted lantern, which the driver of our train took as a signal that the east-bound train had gone into the siding instead, and, at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour, we continued running into the stationary passenger-train! The drivers and firemen of both engines saved themselves by jumping off, and we all had a providential escape from what might have proved a terrible accident. We were forty miles from a village, and eighty from a town and any surgical aid. A messenger was sent to walk to the nearest telegraph station, six miles away, and nothing remained to us but to wait. We looked out on the silent prairie, the stars solemnly keeping watch in the deep blue vault of heaven, thinking of the strange situation, till dawn broke and the sun rose. Then we could penetrate to the scene of the disaster. There was much débris scattered about the track, and the broken engines lay on the ground facing each other. The corpses of some murdered fowls were inside the luggage van, and, suspended in mid-air, I saw at once my new saratoga, a last American acquisition. The remainder of the baggage was more or less injured, and two trunks were completely wrecked, and their contents strewn on the ground. We were resigned, and prepared to spend the day on the prairie, when, sooner than we thought possible by the earliest calculation, two relief engines arrived, and drew off each train. The eastward-bound was first sent on its way rejoicing, and we followed. The black porter had been very much to the fore about seven o'clock, providing breakfast for all, as those bringing provisions had calculated on arriving at Denver in the early morning. "Guess I'se best man on the car this morning," he said, with a grin, showing his white teeth. For the remainder of the journey we suffered dreadfully from the heat, and the sand penetrated into every crevice and corner. How we strained our aching eyes over that burnt, parched plain, in search of the vestige of a shadow, or any green thing to give relief! At last we did see something, a mirage it almost seemed for the first moment, of dark blue mountains, with dazzling crowns of snow. They were the glorious range of "the Rockies" bounding the horizon, and Denver lay at their feet.

As we got out on the platform it seemed almost as if the atmosphere inside the car were preferable to that outside, so sultry and oppressive as it was; the heated pavement burnt the soles of our feet, and the trees near the station were drooping and white with dust. However, we took a more cheerful view after we had changed our dusty garments and been refreshed with a bath—thought it, in fact, almost worth while having felt so hot and weary, to be now so bright and fresh, and ready for a drive in the cool of the evening. As we passed through those quiet, orderly streets, it was very difficult to realize that Denver sprang into existence with the discovery of the gold diggings, and twenty years ago was peopled entirely by the lawless roughs brought thither by the gold fever. They are being gradually superseded by a quiet, industrious population, centring here from the country districts. Though often even now you look into the face of many a man following some menial occupation, who shows traces of not being "to the manner born," but who, in the search for sudden wealth at the diggings, has left the little he had below ground, and thankfully turned to any kind of work to earn a bare livelihood.

We passed a fine house, with the proprietor sitting in the garden, our driver pointed to him, "That 'ere man this time last year was a beggar, to-day he is one of the richest men in Denver." In five weeks he had made one million and a half of dollars at the diggings. The man spoke bitterly, and we more than suspected he too had had his turn of ill luck at them; and the like story might be told of most of its inhabitants. There are a few streets, and the remainder of the town consists of pretty little villas and cottages, each standing in a garden, kept fresh and green by the unlimited use of water. They have an ingenious contrivance for watering, consisting of a pipe attached to the hose, with a top perforated with holes, that turning with the action of the water scatters forth a shower of spray, and is left always playing upon the grass. Life is carried on to a great extent out of doors, people working, meeting and receiving guests in the verandahs. The houses are kept dark and cool by shutters, and the fine wire doors are an absolutely necessary precaution against the plague of flies.

Denver has not yet reached that stage in its development when it can have any public buildings of interest, but they are moving in that direction, as is shown by the fine City Hall they are just finishing erecting on the hill.

We had the disagreeable business to be gone through of going down to the station late in the evening, to receive the wreck of our luggage brought on from the scene of the morning's accident by the next passenger train. My Saratoga was levered down with some difficulty, and, with great care exercised in the removal, happily lasted till it reached the hotel. C.'s hat-box and its contents were reduced to an unrecognizable mass, and the remainder of the baggage was more or less torn, and with locks broken. I must say we thought the company behaved exceedingly well, as without demur they gave us damages to the amount of 35 dollars; but we afterwards learnt the reason, which was that if further injuries were discovered no further compensation could be claimed.

Sunday, August 17th, Denver, Colorado.—We went to the morning service at the cathedral. It is a plain, brick building, at present cold and bare inside, but it is intended to decorate it richly when the necessary funds are forthcoming. The stained glass windows in the chancel are really beautiful, copied from Vandyke's "Crucifixion" at Antwerp; the organ is fine, and the singing of the well-trained choir of men and women (the latter sitting behind a screen), quite worthy of it. We had a very eloquent and sarcastic sermon from Dean Hart, an Englishman; he chose as his text, "Balaam, the son of Beor."

Under the very shadow of "the Rockies," in the far West, how strange it was to be listening to a full cathedral service; and the prayers of the Church of England binding together both American and English!

The air was very sultry, with frequent storms in the afternoon. We went by the circular railway to Jewell Park and enjoyed the beautiful sight of the Rocky Mountains, swept with dark storms or momentarily emerging under a brightly shining sun.

Monday, August 18th.—We left Denver at 8 a.m., and our way lay for many miles along the foot of the Rockies. Though twenty miles away, the rarefied atmosphere of 5000 feet above the level of the sea brought them apparently to within two or three miles of us. And now we could understand their name of "Rockies," for boulders of rock and loose stones, with the long scars where they have given way under the influence of the snow, form their prominent characteristics. There were some little patches of snow yet unmelted and nestling in the deep crevasses.

Buffalo grass was still to be seen on all sides, and the fat, brown prairie dogs kept popping in and out of their holes, and, for the first time, too, we noticed the cacti that grow in such wild profusion on the prairie. We were imperceptibly mounting the Great Divide, and as we reached the small lake at the summit, the country grew fresher and greener, and the broad grass expanse, with groups of trees, gave to it the appearance of a vast park. The remainder of the way lay through cultivated fields, the great barrier of mountains on one side always leaving to the imagination the pleasure of the great unknown beyond. We were soon at Colorado Springs.

Here there was no sign of a village; we could only see the large hotel, "The Antlers," through the over-arching trees of a long avenue. In the afternoon we took a buggy and drove over to Manitou. The clear, dry climate of this high altitude, draws many invalids to Manitou, and there are several large hotels clustering in the neighbourhood of the springs of soda, iron, and sulphur; also numerous boarding-houses, where we observed many little white tents pitched in their neighbourhood, to allow for an over-flow of boarders. One was very aptly called, "The Rocky Rest," and was "to Rent."

Manitou lies under the shadow of the great Range. The rocks seem ready to fall and crush the little village, and the pine forests cast their gloom into the valley. From the many surrounding peaks, Pike's Peak raises its giant head towering above the others, and the little black speck just distinguishable on the summit if the clouds are not down, is the signal station, whence three times daily weather reports are telegraphed to all parts of the States, and the storms forwarded across the Atlantic to us. The picturesque ascent of ten miles on mules is soon to be no more, for a syndicate of four speculators are making a railway, taking a circuitous route of thirty miles to the top, and already the dark line of earth and the rows of telegraph poles tell of its progress.

We drove on, up the Ute Pass to the Rainbow Falls, but there were, unfortunately, no iridescent beams from the sun that afternoon. If we could have gone on climbing that beautiful cañon (pronounced canyon) for 120 miles, we should have come suddenly upon one of those vast open spaces or "parks" that form Colorado's greatest beauty. They are comparatively unknown at present, owing to the want of railway communication.

We had tea with Dr. and Mrs. Bell, who have built themselves a charming house in Manitou; they live there all the year round, and say the winters are comparatively mild.

We stayed so long that it was late before we drove on to the "Garden of the Gods," but I was glad, for nothing could have been more beautiful than the evening shadows creeping up the mountains, the blue gloom of the pines, and before us a park with stunted oaks and masses of light red sandstone. They are curled, twisted, writhing masses, strewn in wild confusion on the ground, forming the most incongruous series of objects. There was the old Scotchman in his Highland bonnet, two sheep kissing each other, their idiotic noses distinctly seen in the act of touching, the Newfoundland dog, the old man's cellar, the semicircle of mushrooms, very perfect in form, and the magnificent outline of the lion cut out on the face of the rock. You irresistibly give play to the imagination—people this little kingdom with fairy fancies entering at the Gate Beautiful.

A storm has swept down from the mountains, bringing a dark mist peopled by the demons, dwelling in its hidden caverns. Whilst the storm rages and the thunder crashes through the echoing mountains, and the lightning flashes on the rugged peaks, the works of darkness are done, the destruction wrought—the Garden of the Gods is so no longer. The name is ironical. Some such dim idea floated through our minds, I suppose, as the three glorious piles of the brightest red sandstone, rose before us 300 feet in height, forming the entrance called the Gate Beautiful; and the cathedral is near by with delicate spires pointed heavenwards. Monuments, they stand to last throughout eternity; and as we passed through the portals and left the land of enchantment, what a dull, cold feeling gathered round us! The warmth of the red glow inside was superseded by gloom added to by that formation of cold white rock outside. Though it was growing dark, we ventured up the weird gorge to Glen Eyrie, with General Palmer's residence guarded by the three pillars, the one called major domo being in the centre. We spied an eagle's nest built into a split in the rock.

Then home we galloped across the plains, the horses hardly touching the ground, darkness creeping over the prairie, clouds on Pike's Peak, and Manitou in gloom.

After dinner we went out to see the stars, which are so beautiful in this clear atmosphere, with the Milky Way, a trailing cloud across the sky.

Tuesday, August 16th. In the train going to Salt Lake City.—We have been spending the day in the Rocky Mountains, amongst some of the most beautiful scenery in the world, awed and struck by the grandeur of the scenes we have passed through.

We began in the early freshness of the morning with a drive up the Cheyenne Pass, a wild gorge, penetrating for some miles into the heart of the mountains. We passed first through prairie fields, where pink anemones, wild larkspur, bluebells, sunflowers, large white poppies, cornflowers, and a delicate pink flower, called here a primrose, grew in wild luxuriance, over a very roughly-laid road, where only a carriage of such light build as ours was could have been driven. The bridges over the many freshets were made of the stems of pine-trees loosely laid together, and as often as the horses stepped on one end the other rose up.

It was a scene of the wildest beauty as we penetrated ever deeper into the contracting gorge. One of the great charms of this range is the rich colour of their red sandstone masses, blackened and weather-stained in parts by the action of centuries. We were surrounded, hemmed in, overhung by those stupendous fragments, and masses of rocks leaning towards each other, and leaving only a narrow streak of sky as a relief to the surrounding gloom, which was heightened by the dark pines that clung and found a footing on every narrow ledge. When we reached the end of the cañon which by this time was so deep and dark as to form only a chasm amongst the rocks, we were fairly spell-bound, breathless almost from the astounding magnificence of the scene before us. Seven waterfalls falling down the face of the black cliff, seven clouds of spray falling one under each other, each into its dark pool below. We climbed up a frail, wooden staircase, hung out from ledges in the rocks, looking into every little hollow, following the fall of the water over each, till we traced it to its source, where it first comes gliding over from the quiet, green pool lying hid in a rocky basin above. This pool takes the reflection of the dark pines on its calm depths.

We lingered, and tried to go—turned back, and at last left it, with a gnawing pang of regret. We shall not soon forget that quiet spot away from the haunts of man. We passed into the darkness of the chasm below, retraced our steps, and were soon out in the open, under the bright sunshine once more; and, before an hour was over, were speeding many miles away in the train.

We found the train leaving Colorado Springs very crowded, adding to the discomfort of the narrow gauge, with a proportionally narrowed car.

We kept the backbone of "the Rockies" in sight for a long way, now and then drawing near to one of the outlying spurs. We dined at Pueblo, a town standing on a bluff of bare rock destitute of vegetation; and its Spanish origin is still evidenced by the fine breed of mules, brought from their colonies in Mexico. We saw here the arrival of the "Pony Express," with the leather mail-bags slung across the peak of the saddle, to be carried on by the train; but its arrival now is very different to that described by Mark Twain in his reminiscences in "Roughing It:"—

"In a little while all interest was taken up in stretching our necks and watching for the 'pony rider'—the fleet messenger who sped across the continent from St. Joe to Sacramento, carrying letters 1900 miles in eight days. He got but little frivolous correspondence to carry—his bag had business letters in it, mostly. The little flat mail-pockets, strapped under the rider's thighs, would each hold about the bulk of a child's primer. They held many and many an important business chapter and newspaper letter, but these were written on paper as airy and thin as gold-leaf. There were about eighty pony-riders in the saddle all the time, night and day, stretching in a long, scattered precession from Missouri to California, forty flying eastward, and forty towards the west, and among them making 400 gallant horses earn a stirring livelihood.

"'Here he comes!'

"Every neck is stretched further, and every eye strained wider. Away across the endless dead level of the prairie a black speck appears against the sky, and it is plain that it moves. In a second or two it becomes a horse and rider, rising and falling, rising and falling—sweeping towards us nearer and nearer—growing more and more distinct, more and more sharply defined, nearer and still nearer, and the flutter of the hoofs comes faintly to the ear. Another instant a whoop and a hurrah from our upper deck, a wave of the rider's hand, but no reply, and man and horse burst past our excited faces, and go winging away like a belated fragment of a storm!

"So sudden is it all, and so like a flash of unreal fancy, that but for a flake of white foam left quivering and perishing on a mail-sack after the vision had passed by and disappeared, we might have doubted whether we had seen any actual horse and man at all."

At 3 p.m. we were entering the great cañon of the Arkansas. The Royal Gorge must have been formed by some great convulsion in nature, rending the mountains from the top to the bottom, and leaving this deep chasm. The muddy mountain torrent has burrowed a channel through for itself, where it lashes and foams into fury against the obstructing rocks. It was an ingenious idea, making the line on ground literally blasted out of the rock or bridged over the torrent, while the precipices overhanging it meet above. No green thing grows on their polished sides; but there was a beautiful blending of colours in the red and blue and green veins of the rocks. We were in the deepest shadow, from the depth of the gorge. The train crept along only too quickly, and we were trying to enjoy to our utmost the stupendous grandeur of the scene by hanging out of the windows of the car, when we gradually became aware that it was fading. And though for some time longer we were going through a succession of mountain passes, which opened out before us, were passed, and looked back upon, they paled by comparison with the Royal Gorge.

Late in the afternoon we were crossing an open plain, and, separated by countless nearer summits, we saw the irregular snow-capped peaks of the Sangre de Christo, I am not sure that I did not think this irregular, indefinite view of green, far-stretching plains and blue haze on distant mountains more beautiful than the solemn grandeur of the Royal Gorge.

At the small station of Salida three engines were waiting for us, and the train was broken into two, the baggage cars and one engine preceding us. We watched with the greatest interest for the beginning of the ascent of fourteen miles up the Marshall Pass, for the crossing of the Rockies, the "Great Divide," as they are called, separating as they do the Atlantic and Pacific continents. There was a grade of 217 feet to the mile, and the engines puffed and panted, emitting alternately their black columns of smoke, taking it in turns to pull us up the steep inclines–so steep they were that everything in the cars slipped downwards, and the conductor passing through appeared to be walking up-hill. Looking upwards, the dark line of earth winding round the mountains showed us our onward track, and we looked, almost incredulous of ever reaching there, till sweeping round another curve, the length of the train often doubling itself, we were brought on a level with it. But the most dangerous thing appeared to us the crossing of the wide gullies in passing from one mountain to another, the train describing one of its deep curves on a frail wooden trestle-bridge, before continuing in the upward track.

We were climbing higher and higher, already above a lower range of mountains, and soon touching the snow-line. One minute we were in the dark tunnel of the numerous snow sheds, and the next in full view of what is perhaps the most glorious, the most awe-inspiring scene, in its gaunt loneliness and majesty, that we shall ever see in all our lives. A sea of peaks around, and before, and behind, as far as the eye can reach; the cold grey of the wan gloom, tinged with a rosy light, lingering yet long after the sun had gone down; a scene of the greatest desolation, for fire had swept the pine forests not long ago, destroying all vegetation, and the blackened and charred stumps marked but too surely its devastating path. We shivered involuntarily as we stopped for a short time at the very summit, partly from the chilly dampness of the atmosphere, but as much from a feeling of sheer loneliness and dread. We should have liked to have been alone in the car,—left to ourselves for a few minutes, to "realize" that majestic scene, and imprint it indelibly on the memory.

The engine shrieked, and we were carried away into gloom, losing all the beauty of the descent in the gathering darkness,—to supper at a wayside shanty by the uncertain light of guttering oil-lamps.

It seemed wonderful, as we lay down in our berths in the car that night, to think that we had gone up the Rockies and come down on the other side in an ordinary passenger train. Very different it must have been in the old coaching days, when they toiled along the road, which we had traced in a dim, white line in the far distance.

It was most annoying going through the Black Cañon of the Gunnison at night; but I was fortunate enough to wake up at midnight, just as we were passing through it, and, looking out, I could see the ghostly shadows cast by the head-light of the engine in the deep chasm, and could trace the outline of its chief beauty, the straight and slender needle point of the Currecanti.

Wednesday, August 20th. At Grand Junction Station.—We awoke at seven in the morning, to find the car at a standstill, and also to hear that it had been so since 3 a.m. There had been a "wash out" at Green River, some 150 miles up the line. We soon found out what this expressive term signifies; it means an indefinite waiting for an indefinite number of hours—indefinite, I say, because it entirely depends on the subsidence of the freshet and the reparation of a bridge. We learnt afterwards that the Denver and Rio Grande line is particularly subject to these little mishaps, and we noticed that the officials thought nothing at all of the occurrence. The same thing had happened to some ladies now in the train when going over the line two months previously. Adding insult to injury, we were turned out of our Pullman, where we might have spent the day comfortably enough, and the train returned eastwards, leaving the passengers and their luggage a forlorn group on the platform of the Grand Junction.

We found breakfast at a wooden shanty near the station, and fared better than those who tried the hotel. The scene that lay before us was this. On one side there was a collection of wooden huts forming the village, with the grandiloquent name of Grand Junction, bought two years ago from the Indians by the Government. It stands in a sandy desert, with a plentiful sprinkling of alkali, bounded by a low chain of granite rocks; on the other was a marshy ground leading to the river. C. bought some tackle in the village, with a wild idea of fishing, but we found the hot sun on the swampy banks was so unhealthy that we beat a hasty retreat. In writing up my journal and reading, the morning passed, and we again repaired to the shanty for luncheon. In the course of the afternoon we strolled into the town, and laid in a store of biscuits against further accidents, and ran back to the shelter of the station before a coming storm. The heavens opened, and a water-spout came down in the distance, like a pillar of cloud, seeming to draw the earth up to it, and gusts of wind blew up the dust into clouds, sweeping over the little village like a real simoon of the desert.

There was no one in authority to give us any information, and the most intelligent individual about the station seemed to be the telegraph clerk, who had only arrived the previous day from Chicago. He had just made out from a telegram, as he thought, that we were to wait till seven o'clock for a train, when we saw one coming into sight. I don't think any one inquired where it was going, or whether it was the right one, but we all jumped in, and sped joyfully across the dreary plain. We saw a beautiful double rainbow, the most vivid and perfect arcs I have ever seen, just meeting each other where they touched the earth.

We had not been expected at Green River, and there was not much supper forthcoming; but we did not care, as we had, in fear and trembling, previously passed in safety over the bridge.

The conductor, putting his head between the curtains at seven the next morning with the announcement of "breakfast in ten minutes," awoke us, and we looked out upon the beautiful valley of Utah, girdled with the mountains, and abounding in rich farms and orchards, watered by several pure streams of water. Nature seems to have smiled upon this sunny spot; and here the "Mormons," wanderers on the face of the earth for so long, chose a resting-place, and built their City by the Salt Lake. The great range of the Wahsatch Mountains opens out here, and forms a convenient site for a city at their feet; and as we approached we saw that distinctive feature, the dome of the Tabernacle.

The streets of Salt Lake City are wide, too wide for the traffic, for on either side they are overgrown thickly with weeds, forming in some streets into grass borders. The houses are low and pretty, covered with creepers, and the gardens luxuriate with bright flowers, that thrive naturally in these sheltered spots. Swiftly-running water in the gutters answers the double purpose of irrigation and drainage.

We naturally first wended our way to the Tabernacle. It is the dreariest of whitewashed buildings inside. The rounded dome of the roof is unsupported by any pillars, and faded evergreen wreaths and tawdry flags are suspended from the centre, erected for Commemoration Day, some fifteen years ago, and never since taken down. The organ ranks as the third largest in the States. In the little wooden boxes, ranged in tiers on the platform in a gradually descending scale, sit the President, the Elders, and the Bishops. From here they call upon Brother So-and-So to address the congregation. There is a most wonderful echo in the Tabernacle; we distinctly heard a pin dropped at the further end to where we were standing. The marble Temple, which is being built to replace the old place of worship, has already cost 750,000l., but judging from the few workmen in the sheds, we thought the funds had perhaps come to an end. We went next to Zion's Co-operative Store; it is a fine stone building, with the text "Holiness to the Lord" blazoned on a sign over the door, and inside you might fancy yourself in the Army and Navy Co-operative Stores—the same division of departments, including the lift to each floor. An "elder" showed us through; and all those employed in the buildings are Mormons. True believers are exhorted to deal solely at the store.

There is a theatre, and the Walker Opera House; for they maintain, and quite rightly, that, "As all people have a fondness for dramatic representations, it is well to so regulate and govern such exhibitions, that they may be instructive and purifying in their tendencies. If the best people absent themselves, the worst will dictate the character of the exercises."

Behind a high stone wall are the two houses that belonged to Brigham Young, called the Bee and the Lion Houses, from the carved designs over the doors; in the latter Brigham Young died. Exactly opposite is the large stone house—the finest in the territory (Utah is not a state but a territory)—which he built for his last and seventeenth wife and which is now occupied by his successor, President Taylor. Asking to be shown Brigham Young's grave, we were taken to a plot of grass, roughly walled in, and in the centre was the grave, of loosely piled stones, marked with a wooden cross. He was buried here, and not in the cemetery, as a distinguishing mark of respect; but if so, his resting-place might, we thought, have been better cared for. Many of the Mormon residences may be recognized by their green gates and several entrances, for the separate use of the different wives and families. At present the population of Salt Lake City is 14,000, of which about 10,000 are Mormons, but the mines in the Wahsatch range are bringing a great influx of Gentiles. The Government have made many ineffectual attempts to convict the Mormons of polygamy, but the prosecutions always languish for want of evidence, as they are faithful to the tenets of their religion. Not even the unhappy wives superseded, and often tormented by the last favourite, can be brought to give evidence.

Many are followers of the religion of the "Latter Day Saints" without necessarily becoming polygamists. We invested in some Mormon literature; a pamphlet "On the Bible and Polygamy; a Discussion between Elder Orson Pratt, one of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and the Rev. Dr. Newman, Chaplain of the United States' Senate," in which it must be confessed, the former seemed to have rather the best of the argument; also a Mormon Bible, which is divided into the four books of Nephi, and ten others. The Bible seems to have been taken as the foundation for many chapters, and worked into the tenets of the Mormon faith, forms a curious medley. In the Catechism, which we also got, we found that the question and answer was generally authenticated by a text, quoted from the Scriptures and the Mormon Bible, and placed side by side. This catechism consists of eighteen chapters, and seems more to be a full exposition of faith than for the instruction of children. I give a few extracts from the last chapter, which I think may be interesting:—

"1. Q. Has God given any particular revelation in these last days for the preservation of their lives and health to His people?

"A. Yes. He gave a revelation to Joseph Smith on this subject.

"2. Q. What is this revelation called?

"A. A Word of Wisdom.

"7. Q. What does the first paragraph or verse of this Word of Wisdom teach us?

"A. That it is not good to drink wine or strong drinks, excepting in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and then it should be home-made grape wine; that it is not good to drink hot drinks, or chew or smoke tobacco; that strong drinks are for the washing of the body, and that tobacco is an herb for bruises and sick cattle.

"8. Q. What does the second paragraph teach us?

"A. That herbs and fruits are for the food of man; that grain is for the food of man, and beasts, and fowls; and that flesh is not to be eaten by man, excepting in times of winter, cold, and famine.

"11. Q. Why is it not good to drink wine or strong drinks?

"A. Because they excite men unnaturally, inflame their stomachs, vitiate their appetites, and disorder their whole systems.

"13. Q. Why is it not good to smoke or chew tobacco?

"A. Because those habits are very filthy, and tobacco is of a poisonous nature, and the use of it debases men.

"14. Q. Why should flesh be eaten by man in winter, and in times of famine, and not at other times?

"A. Flesh is heating to the human system, therefore it is not good to eat flesh in summer; but God allows His people to eat it in winter, and in times of famine, because all animals suffer death naturally, if they do not by the hand of man."

We left Salt Lake City in the afternoon, and skirted along the shores in the train of the Great Salt Lake—the Dead Sea of America. Two feet of pure salt lie encrusted round its shores; the water contains 20 per cent. of it, and the evaporation of four barrels of water leaves one of salt. The atmosphere is always bluish and hazy from the effects of this active evaporation. No fish or fowl can live in the lake, and it is impossible to drown, so great is the buoyancy of the water, though death can easily be caused by strangulation.

We arrived at Ogden at three o'clock, the junction where a connection with the Central Pacific Railway is made. And here there ensued a very weary waiting of four hours for another Denver and Rio Grande train. When it did arrive we made up a train of twelve cars, with the arrears of passengers and baggage from the late "wash out."

In the year 1844 when Fremont made his first exploration across the vast prairies, there was not a single line of railway west of the Alleghanies. The discovery of gold in California drew attention to the enormous wealth lying to the Far West, and Congress made a grant for an exploration, which resulted in the commencement of the Central Pacific line, this great junction between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. On the 10th of May, 1869, the lines from the east and west met in the middle of the prairie, and the last tie, a silver one, was laid in commemoration of the event.

All through that night we were passing through the great American Desert of 600 square miles, once the bed of a vast saline lake. The next morning there was still nothing to be seen but mud-dried plains with here and there a little sage brush, the ground being cracked and parched under the burning sun. In some parts there were fields of white alkali, making the lips salt and the eyes smart painfully.

I verily believe nothing could surpass the terrific, fiery heat of that day in the cars; we could not read or talk, but sat with parched lips, panting, the sand floating into the car in a white cloud that soon made us and all around invisible. One poor old woman in the next car nearly died; they fanned her all day, whilst she wailed piteously for one breath of air.

At some of the stations we passed there were groups of the Piute Indians, clothed in striped blankets with bead necklaces, and one mother brought her "papoose" (baby), slung on to her back in a long basket, that had the characteristic features of the race—the pear-shaped eyes and the drawn-down corners of the mouth—ridiculously strongly marked in its wee, brown face. The mother begged for "two bits for the wee papoose."

We had luncheon in the middle of the day at Humboldt, a few green trees about the station forming a very oasis in the desert; the exertion of getting out made us, if possible, a little hotter. We thought then of the awful sufferings endured by the early emigrants, as they toiled day after day over these alkali plains. Along earlier stages of the line the "Old Emigrant Trail" can frequently be seen, with here and there a rude wooden cross marking the lonely grave of some emigrant or freighter, who, overcome by sickness and weariness, lay down and died.

We lived through the long hours of that day as best we could, and about seven o'clock we thought it was perhaps just a little cooler, and the glare of the sun not quite so angry. We tried to ventilate the cars by opening all the windows, and standing outside on the platforms before turning in for the night. It was wonderful how mutual sufferings had brought the passengers together, and how friendly we had all become. One charming American lady, the wife of a clergyman, brought us each a most refreshing cup of "real English tea."

After such a trying day it was particularly aggravating to be entering the magnificent scenery of the Sierra Nevadas, and to be crossing them, during the night.

We were in the beautiful valley of the Sacramento the next morning, among its corn-fields, vineyards, and orchards, catching already glimpses of the blue waters of the Bay of San Francisco, running far inland. We crossed the Carthagena Straits on one of those wonderful steam ferries that are capable of carrying four loaded trains. The train was slowed, run on, and before we knew anything had happened, we were halfway across, and able to get down from the car, and going to the side of the ferry, look down into the muddy waters. The platforms at either end are hydraulically raised or lowered, according to the state of the tide, to the level of the ferry. For many miles we continued skirting the bay, partly crossing it on trestle bridges till we reached Oakland, so called from its beautiful groves of oaks; and which, though separated from San Francisco by the bay, is one of its suburbs. We crossed over from Oakland Ferry, and were at San Francisco, our journey to the Far West—across the continent of America, 4000 miles from ocean to ocean, traversing the ten states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, the territory of Utah Nevada, into California—safely accomplished.

CHAPTER VI
SAN FRANCISCO AND THE YOSEMITE VALLEY

I think we never felt more dirty or forlorn in our lives than on that bright morning when, crossing the bay in one of the palatial Oakland ferry steamers, sitting in the deck saloon, we were surrounded by a crowd of smartly-dressed "Frisco" ladies, particularly humiliated by the appearance of two of our fellow-travellers in the cars, in fresh morning toilettes. A bitter east wind was blowing in our teeth, and raising the muddy waters of the bay into "white horses," and the town with its straight lines running perpendicularly up the hill, showing the division of the streets into regular blocks, looked bleak and grey under the wintry sky.

We could not help being struck by the wonderful precision with which they run these enormous ferry-boats into a dock, fitted with exact nicety to their dimensions, rarely "bumping" against the floating piles, which, however give slightly to a pressure on either side as required.

As your foot is set on the wharf, an army of hotel "touts" besiege you, ready to devour you and your small hand-baggage, and it is with difficulty, and only after some display of firmness and decision, that you are allowed to select the natural choice of a first visit to San Francisco—the Palace Hotel. Rejecting the omnibus or large yellow coach, we took a carriage, to be as quickly as possible installed in a charming suite of rooms; all our possessions, from which we have been so long separated, once more gathered around us—luxury again after the four days of heat and discomfort in "the cars."

We have all heard so much, and for so long of "The Palace," that it is hard to be disenchanted. When the hotel was first built, it was a marvel of magnificence, but since then others as beautiful, as gigantic, as costly, have sprung up, by the side of which its celebrity is paling. The arches and white pillars repeat themselves seven times one above the other, round the four sides of the covered courtyard, and when lighted in the evening by the single pendant electric light, form a very brilliant and pretty sight. The attendance, as might be expected, is only moderate, increasing the feeling ever present of being only a unit among the host of visitors. You have the option of the American or European system, and there is an excellent restaurant, but the courtyard, the piazza, the long corridors leading to the ladies' entrance and waiting-rooms, are filled with groups of men lounging and hanging about; it is, in fact, a general meeting-place for the citizens, which renders it unpleasant for ladies. The rooms are not numbered according to floors, but the hotel is divided into blocks, called according to the street towards which it faces, and each block, with its separate lift and numbering, forms a house of itself.

It may be mentioned in passing that the proprietor, Mr. Sharon, is at present defendant in a tremendous divorce case, which has been occupying the court and local press for the last eighty days; the leading counsel on either side is a "colonel" for the petitioner, and a "general" for the respondent. We spent the afternoon in wandering about among the splendid stores, and in re-hatting C., who was much reduced by the loss of one hat in the early days of our travels, and by the collapse of the remainder in the railway accident. At first surprised by the beautiful furs and sealskin paletots of the ladies we met in the streets, we soon understood the wisdom of their winter wraps when at four o'clock we were driven home by the cold wind, and raw sea fog, hanging about the city.

Sunday, August 24th. Palace Hotel, San Francisco.—We arrived in church in time for the second lesson, having met with a shake of the head, and in one case an honest confession "that he never went to church," in answer to our inquiries for Trinity Church.

We made an unsuccessful attempt to reach Cliff House by the Cable Cars in the afternoon. An expedition there is the favourite Sunday amusement. You go out, over the bleak downs, along the edge of the cliffs, to the small hotel, where a few seals are to be seen disporting themselves on the rocks beneath, sounding their monotonous "bark" or call. The wind was blowing in our faces, and the mist driving before us, and at last, as we seemed about to penetrate into a cloud which had descended on the further hill, we called a halt, as we were passing a return car. We had seen part of one of the pretty suburbs that are San Francisco's greatest attractions, where the villas of her Bonanza or railway kings centre—men whose fortunes were made in the gold beds of the tributaries to the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers, barely forty years ago. Then San Francisco was but a village of shanties which they called "Yerba Buena" or good hut, and the "hoodlum" element predominated, traces of which are still to be found but too frequently in many of the low quarters of the city. Not so very long ago it was necessary to carry a revolver about. It was worn daily as a matter of course, and an unintentional raising of the hand to the place where it was secreted might prove fatal, causing an opponent to draw his under suspicion, and in supposed self-defence.

There are many evident traces of the quick rise to wealth that has been the ordinary lot of the inhabitants of the city. You notice it particularly in the extraordinary number of jewellers' stores, and the display of diamonds, in the expensive upholsterers, with their superb if gaudy furniture, in the marvellous curios of Chinese and Japanese art, that here find a ready sale.

Disgusted with the climate of San Francisco, we fully expected to be told the usual story about "phenomenal weather." Every one has observed how exceptional the weather generally is when they happen to visit a certain place. But no, we found it is the rule here for the bright, sunny mornings to change to cold wind and sea fog in the afternoon throughout the summer months. During the winter the climate is warm and equable, and it therefore possesses the advantage of having no great extremes throughout the year.

Monday, August 25th. San Francisco.—A morning of indecision, angry agents, each "touting" for their route, a hurrying about from one office to the other.

The question under consideration was an expedition to the Yosemite Valley. A telegram from New York confirmed the date of the 30th as the arrival of the mails and the departure of the Pacific Mail Steamboat, the Australia, for New Zealand. This left us exactly four days in which to carry out the expedition, one and a half to go into the valley, the afternoon there, and two days to come out again. I confess now that it is all over, that it was a mad idea to think it practicable. Five years ago I had heard my first description of this wonderland, and been seized with an unreasoning desire to see it. All through the continent I had been hurrying and pushing on, particularly towards the last, chafing feverishly against the delays caused by our mishaps on the railways; fearful lest time should fail us at the last for the Yosemite Valley. Was it to be so after all? It was just possible. My earnest entreaties prevailed, and we went.

Miller, generally considered the popular agent, and supported by the powerful influence of the chief clerk of the Palace, drew us out programme No. 1, returning us to San Francisco on Saturday morning in time to catch the steamer. Walton, the rival agent, drew us out programme No. 2, which possessed the advantage of bringing us back on Friday evening, the day before the departure of the steamer. Miller said Walton was underhorsed and undertimed; Walton read us out a letter from an Englishman praising his route and saying he had found Miller "an unmitigated liar." We went to Miller's office, and as we turned the corner were pounced upon by Walton. This might have lasted out the day had we not trenched matters, by deciding to go into the valley by Miller's route, and come out by Walton's, who solemnly promised to stake his reputation on bringing us back on the Friday evening. I packed all our luggage in the morning in readiness to be sent down to the wharf, arranged our cabin boxes for the voyage, and, taking only hand-bags, we started on the expedition.

Mr. Lee, a fellow-traveller, and with whom we became friendly during the long day spent together in the Desert at Grand Junction, came with us; to add greatly to our pleasure by his uniform Irish cheerfulness and imperturbable good temper, under the most trying circumstances.

The first stage of the journey was made in the train, sleeping in the Pullman Car, which was slipped at 11 p.m. and left standing on the rails all night. At 4 a.m. the next morning, we hurried across in the grey dawn to the inn opposite for breakfast. We looked critically at the coach and team of six horses that were standing ready at the door. The vehicle perhaps might be more properly described as a large red char-à-banc swung on leathern straps, with a cover overhead. Later on in the morning we blessed that cover, not only for its grateful protection from the sun, but for the support that its upright iron stanchions afforded us. We clung to them convulsively, for to say that we jolted and bumped would be to give no adequate idea of the violent exercise we went through. We collided with one another, and slipped up and down the seat, we were thrown up in the air to come down again with a thud that jarred the whole system. In vain we grasped the front seat, or clung round the iron standards, planting the feet firmly on the footboard, determined not to go up with the next bound of the coach. It was all to no purpose, and by the end of the first hour we were sore and aching, looking at each other in blank dismay, with the knowledge of the seventy miles' coaching to be gone through that day. I remember that it was our shoulder-blades that suffered most, and that it was impossible to keep the air cushions we tried, as a relief, in their place. It was not the pitching of the coach, though we often saw it rise up above the leaders and then descend till the wheelers were visible again, that we dreaded, but the large stones over which the wheels passed with a relentless jar which communicated itself to the whole nervous system.

But the most trying thing of all was the dust, which under the twenty-four hoofs of our six horses, rose in clouds around us. Sometimes for a moment we were so enshrouded as to be invisible to each other, and then as it cleared off, and we drew breath freely again, mouth and nostril were full of the fine sand which we tasted and smelt. It was, too, of a peculiar red colour, imparting its ruddy tinge to everything we wore; in fact, our things never recovered that expedition, and for long afterwards, notwithstanding the vigorous brushings, which I gave with an unstinting hand on our return, we used to detect its traces and say, "Some of the Yosemite dust!" A soft woollen shawl which we had with us, absorbed such an immense quantity, that it even now responds to a gentle shake by giving forth a little cloud of dust. We used to arrive each night at our destination enshrouded in a film of the same, and there was difficulty amongst the passengers in claiming their small hand-baggage from amongst a pile of dust-smothered luggage.

We began our journey by crossing over a flat plain, and our curiosity was excited by a wooden aqueduct running parallel with the road. We kept it in sight for many miles, and never really lost it throughout the whole day, passing it again late in the afternoon. It was a plane or wooden trough, constructed on a slight incline, filled with a stream of water, flowing at the rate of five miles an hour, and down which lumber was floated a distance of seventy miles. This ingenious contrivance is the means of utilizing much of the splendid timber that lies rotting in the mountain forests, useless because of the enormous labour and expense of transporting it to the abode of man. Several experiments were necessary before the "flume" was perfected, the V shape being adopted, as it was found in the square troughs that the lumber in floating down would be driven transversely, and so occasion a block. We presently exchanged the prairie-like plain for a more hilly country abounding in a stunted undergrowth of dwarf oak, cork, myrtle, and ilex trees, freely interspersed with large masses of rock, in such isolated positions, that we could not help wondering how they ever came there. The blue range of mountains that we were to cross later in the afternoon were becoming more distinct. At a very early hour in the morning the sun had become powerful; we were hungry after our five o'clock breakfast, depressed at the prospect before us, and by eleven o'clock, when we made our first halt to change horses, we had reached a pitch of great misery.

There were some tame rattlesnakes shedding their skins outside the inn, and we were able to get a large cornucopia of sweet white grapes to refresh us.

The Californian coach-drivers are famed for their skilful driving; they are hardly worked with four days a week, driving continuously seventy miles, but they receive high pay, ranging from seventy to eighty dollars a month. It is nice to watch their care and interest in the horses; knowing the peculiarities of each one, husbanding their strength, and frequently stopping to water them from the iron pail that clanks in the boot behind. They are well known on the road, and it is amusing to hear their various merits discussed. They need to be careful and experienced men when you think of the sharp corners turned at a hand gallop, and the roads, which for the most part are made overhanging the precipice. More danger might be feared from the footpads, or "road agents" as they are called, who have frequently stopped the coach and robbed the mails. This occurred only last year, and no traces have ever been found of the robbers.

Another three hours of growing discomfort brought us to Coarse Gold Gulch, where we rested for luncheon. We were received by the German daughters of the house in the cool trellised verandah covered with vines, with long feather brooms, and the outer layer of dust was prudently removed before we were allowed to enter the house. We waited a weary while for the coach returning from the valley, and when it did arrive it was comforting to see others in a condition as bad as ourselves; to hear that we had got over the most scorching and dusty bit of road; to be told of the glories of the valley by those still under its influence; and to be given advice on the best way of spending our one afternoon there.

We discovered at once a passenger booked like ourselves for the Australia, Mr. Davidson, of Edinburgh, who proved, in our subsequent journeyings together, such a pleasant and intelligent travelling companion.

We began gently ascending again, when we continued our journey, for the most part through a shady ravine, till we crossed what was apparently an outlying spur, and began the tedious climb of the larger range. At times the horses seemed hardly to make any progress, and they crawled along with the coach lumbering and creaking after them. Then for the first time we saw specimens of the Sequoia Gigantea, that wonderful genus peculiar to California. Presently we were passing through miles of its forests, their purple and pink-streaked stems, straight and slim, reaching to an enormous height before striking out into long branching arms, which interlace to form a feathery network against the sky. This closely packed array of mighty giants, stretching away into long vistas of upright stems in the dim distance, gives one a feeling of being surrounded by conscious though inanimate beings; they give a feeling of strength in repose, increased by the stillness and silence of all around; for the wheels move noiselessly over the thick carpet of fir needles, and there is only a rustling murmur of the breeze in the pines overhead.

There are no singing birds here, and the only sign of animal life is a ground squirrel darting across the road, and scampering up the nearest tree.

Here and there we emerged into sunlight from the cool depths of the forest, to see the range of mountains forming part of the great Coast Range, looking thin and hazy in the warm afternoon sun. Fire had wrought destruction amongst many of the trees, leaving charred and blackened stumps, decaying into curious and weird forms, Sometimes the trunks and branches, scathed by the fire, remain a beautiful silver grey; in others the trunks would be completely hollowed, and yet still able to support an immense framework above. In one case I remember a pine was burnt through at the base, hollowed out so as to form a perfect V shape.

There appear to be two theories as to the origin of these forest fires; some say that the trees fire themselves in the fall from extreme dryness; the other, which would seem the more probable, that the mischief originates from a spark of the woodman's pipe, or perhaps a brand left burning from the camper's fire. There is no doubt that this is sometimes the cause of the terrible devastation wrought, and it is no uncommon thing to see far away the blue wreaths of smoke curling up from the very heart of a forest that betokens one of these conflagrations.

It is very difficult to convey any idea of the gigantic height of the sequoias by simple measurement or figures, but I know that many of them took root in the ravine so far below, that we in the coach overhanging the precipice, and leaning over, could not trace their origin; whilst the tops would just be on a level with the road. But all this time we were toiling upwards, and the shades of evening were beginning to close around us in gloom, surrounded as we were by the dark pines. We reached the top about 6 p.m. Just one view of a grand, white mountain, with dark, purple shadows lying on its jagged peak touched with a few last rays of light, and we began a mad rush, wild and headlong, down into the valley in the gathering darkness. The horses swung round the zigzag turns at a gallop, the leaders all but over the precipice to allow of room for the remaining four, and for the coach to graze round the corner. Ten, twelve, fifteen miles an hour, the speed gradually increasing, until, breathless and unconscious, save of flying through the air, you gave up at last the anxious watch on the horses, and resigned yourself to the care of the driver.

Mr. Lee, seeing my terrified face, tried to reassure me by saying, "I have perfect confidence in the driver, and in the horses, but hope the vehicle will hold together,"—words that were hardly uttered, when convulsively the driver was seen straining at the reins, and trying to pull up suddenly. One of the powerful brakes had given way, and the horses, feeling the coach at their heels, were preparing to rush madly round the corner we were just coming to, when they were checked—and we were saved. The wheel after that had to be dragged with a chain and straps, and we walked down the remainder of the way, a relief to our overstrained nerves; but the driver looked crestfallen on arriving at Clarke's without the usual flourish round the circular drive, pulling up the steaming horses at the exact arch in the verandah opposite the door.

We slept in the valley that night, guarded by the mountains on every side, with the sound of a gurgling stream in our ears, dimly seen by the light of the crescent moon.

Wednesday, August 27th.—We were off at six the next morning (which meant getting up at five), ascending the mountains, and soon many feet above our last night's resting-place in the valley, looking at the lovely blue mist wreathing and curling up the opposite mountains, out of the dark shadows of the pine forests. We had a still, quiet morning among the giant forest trees and shady glades. Down their gullies trickled sparkling streams, burrowing underground and then flowing out again, forming tiny cascades over a few rocks and sprinkling the surrounding ferns with dewdrops. Some of them were so hidden that we only heard a rustling amongst the green bed by which we traced their course. Everything in nature could not help looking lovely on that bright morning with the keen freshness of the early day yet in the air, and the sunlight peeping through the dark pines, to play in golden cobwebs on the brown carpet below; but again we missed all sign of life in the absence of singing birds, and the stillness became almost oppressive. One of the most beautiful things in these forests are the bright green mosses, that hang like lichens from the branches of the trees, looking most vivid against those that are blackened by the fire. The fir cones that lie on the ground in hundreds are remarkable for their perfect formation and great length, frequently attaining to a foot or more.

All the morning we alternated in a slow and tedious progress up-hill, and one of the quick rushes downhill, when we would accomplish in half an hour the same distance that it had taken us three hours before to mount. But about twelve o'clock we emerged from the forest on to a level winding road, overhanging a terrible precipice on the one side, from which was a view unequalled in beauty and extent in all California. And this is saying something; for throughout these two days' drives we had been enjoying a series of superb and magnificent mountain scenes, that taken singly would alone have been worth coming to see. But here was something that surpassed them all. The valley at our feet was so deep that the eye became giddy in following the downward line of the vertical precipice of rock. You followed the upward slope of dark green mountains rising on either side of the entrance of the valley, till you gradually let the eye float away and away over the blue lines that each indicated a separate mountain range growing fainter as they reached the horizon. This was the great Sierra Nevada Range.

A more frantic and perilous rush than usual, over a rough, shingly road, somewhat damped our keen look-out and eager expectation for the first sight of the longed-for Valley, till we drew up point blank opposite a sign board,—"Inspiration Point."

This is the most memorable incident in a visit to Yosemite, for in this first comprehensive glance you take an impression of the Valley, the one which is to remain always with you, and for all time.

I think this Valley ought to be counted as one of the wonders of the world, and that this Inspiration Point ought to have a world-wide fame; to see it should be counted as much an event in a man's life as "to see Naples and die."

I hope we were not like the gentleman "who had written largely and felicitously on many subjects," but who exclaimed as he reached this point, "My God! self-convicted as a spendthrift in words, the only terms applicable to this spot I have wasted on minor scenes," but I know that we felt awestruck and stunned for a moment by the beauty before us. We were on a platform that projected, so that we saw ourselves hanging over the precipice, just midway between the valley which seemed some immeasurable distance below, and those strangely human rocks above. Six miles long, but at no part broader than one mile, the Valley is simply formed of a cleft or gorge in one of the peaks of the Sierra Nevada. It is full of gigantic sequoias, dwarfed into ordinary fir-trees when seen from this tremendous height.

We traced the green waters of the Merced, whose source is in the imperishable fields of ice and snow, of some far-away peak, in its wayward wanderings, through the centre of the flat valley.

But the grandeur and sublimity of the valley lie above us in those marvellous configurations, those fanciful phantoms and wayward fancies placed there by nature. For centuries and centuries since the foundation of the world, they have stood there alone in their solemn glory, unseen by civilized eye, unknown until some thirty years ago.

Facing us there is El Capitan, called by the Indians Totokohula, or great chief of the valley, the most matchless piece of masonry in the world. The Twin Brothers are there, the Three Graces, the Sentinel Rock, the Cathedral with its graceful Spires, the Bridal Veil, the Dome, and the Half Dome.

"Hundreds have gazed enraptured upon these natural wonders, and return again and yet again to drink their fill of Nature's handiwork; and looking 'from Nature up to Nature's God,' thank Him that He has traced with Almighty hand so many pictures of wondrous and unspeakable grandeur and beauty. In the course of years, countless beholders will feel their souls expand to the dimensions of their Almighty Architect as they gaze upon this incomparable valley."

We drove down over a road invisible from the valley, and stopped just on the bridge under which flows the stream from the "Bridal Veil." The Indians gave it the name of "Pohono," or Spirit of the Evil Wind. You can almost see the single drops falling against the side of the dark rock, as the spray-like foam, far more beautiful than the "Staubbach" in Switzerland, comes over the left side of the Cathedral Rock. It falls in an unbroken sheet, 630 feet, then dashing from the débris of rocks some 200 feet more, flows in a succession of tiny cataracts. The fancifully pretty name came from the body of water, which, when falling lightly over the cliff, is swayed to and fro by the pressure of the wind striking the long column, often giving to it the appearance of a fluttering veil. I thought it the most beautiful object in the valley.

There are several small inns, but we stopped at Barnard's, which lies immediately under the Falls which give their name to the Valley. A hurried consultation with the landlord resulted in the decision to go up to Glacier Point, which has the most extensive and complete view of all the different points of interest in the valley. The ascent was to take us three hours, when it would be possible for us to drive afterwards to Mirror Lake in time to see the sunset. We started immediately on a pony and two mules (Mr. Lee being of the party) up the steep trail, preceded by the guide, who turned out to be surly, useless, and disobliging. The sun glared fiercely in our eyes, blurring out the view of the valley below. I tried with ill-success the shelter of a sun-umbrella, the pony shying violently, and turning round on the narrow path to look me in the face. We became impatient with the slow progress, and weary of urging on the animals, and at last, by dint of persistent questioning, I found out from the guide that Glacier Point was six miles from the valley, or about six hours' expedition there and back! Mirror Lake disappeared entirely from our programme, and we even began to think of contenting ourselves with Union Point. We reached there at 4.30, having taken two hours for the four miles, and the guide assured us we must allow the same time for returning. After some discussion the matter was finally settled for us, by looking at the soft haze about the sun, and seeing that the brightness of the afternoon was passing away. We decided to give up Glacier Point, and be contented with the less extensive, though I can hardly believe less beautiful, view.

At Union Point we were 2200 feet up, and on the platform immediately facing us stood the beautiful Agassiz Column, a spiral fragment of rock raised up on end. There was a great solemnity and grandeur in the silence and stillness of the valley below. We were above the hum and stir of life, away from mankind, from the petty aims and ambitions of the world beneath us, left alone with the grand mountains. The evening shadows, with their soft blue lights, fell on the surrounding points even as we looked, and the valley itself lay in shadow below. Immediately above and inclining down towards us were the Three Brothers, their Indian name signifying "mountains playing leap-frog," giving the truest description of their triple zigzag peaks. We knew that on the other side of the rock, only 200 feet lower down, there was a similar formation—the Three Graces, or the sweet "Wakwahlena" of the Mona dialect. We saw the Sentinel or Watch Tower of the Indians, a mass of perpendicular granite tapering into a peak that seemingly points its summit into the sky, and which for ever stands watching, keeping guard over the valley. Again, on the same side, the beautiful Cathedral Spires were just to be seen tapering to a height of 500 feet above the massive roof of the Cathedral Rock, which is itself a piece of unified granite of 2660 feet in height. These spires are the most graceful specimens of natural masonry and architecture in the valley, and at times when the wind soughs and moans amongst the crevices, and round about the spires, they say you can hear the deep tones as of some minor organ wailing "The Miserere of lost souls."

Turning away from this side and looking on the other, in the far distance we saw the Dome; and a very perfectly rounded dome it is. It seems to be made up of prodigious concentric plates of granite, on one side suggesting the formation of what are called, the "Royal Arches." But towering so far above it, that it is completely dwarfed by comparison, is the half dome, the "Goddess of the Valley," the most remarkable formation amongst the many that are in this valley of marvels. It is a symmetrical dome of bare rock, scarred and worn with the storms that gather and play about its mighty head—"storm-written hieroglyphics,"—they have rightly been called, rising 4737 feet above the valley, the valley itself being 4000 feet above the level of the sea. But instead of sloping away on both sides, this dome, on the left, is cut completely away, and descends in an absolutely vertical line of 1800 feet or more, thus producing a perfect half dome. Some great convulsion of Nature seems to have split it directly in two, and the western half has disappeared, no one knows where. The valley is here narrowed to its smallest limit, and this tends to add to the stupendous majesty of this "imperfect" dome. To give some idea of its vast height, it is not once, nor twice, nor thrice, but fifteen times the height of St. Peter's at Rome—all rock, nothing but rock! "And God's hand built it—not in masses of slow-mounting masonry, gaining adventurously and toilsomely, foot by foot, and pushing its scaffolding ever higher to keep command of the work, and straining its enginery to swing aloft the chiselled and ponderous blocks to their place—but with one lift, without break of course, or any gradation of rising completeness, the Supreme Builder set the domed mountain in its place, foundation wall, and top-stone—one sublime integral whole, unprofaned by craftsmen's tools, untrod by foot of man."

Beneath the Half Dome, but hidden from us, lies the Mirror Lake, where on a surface absolutely motionless, at sunset and at sunrise, are reflected all the magnificent surroundings in perfection. Cloud's Rest is the culminating mountain-top in this part of the valley.

And now, after we have been looking at these far-off points, our eyes fall down to those nearer home, and we look opposite at El Capitan. We follow upwards the lines that seem interminable in their length, from the base to the brow of this wall of rock, this mass of immensity. "El Capitan imposes on us by its stupendous bulk, which seems as if hewn from the mountains on purpose to stand as the type of eternal massiveness." "Wipe out the beautiful Merced with its snow-fed streams, let the fierce summer heat dry up the waterfalls, blast as with a curse the whole valley, El Capitan would still smite you with his austere silence." The spire of Strasburg Cathedral, that masterpiece of Gothic architecture, is 468 feet high, and still the compound height of seven such cathedrals would not equal the height of this granite mass.

Over a recess in a dim corner, during the earlier months of the year, pour the "Ribbon Falls," or "Virgin's Tears," (the "Long and Slender" of the Indians), though in summer it dwindles down into what we saw it, a single ribbon string.

Much the same may be said of the Yosemite Falls, from which the Valley takes its name, signifying in Indian "large Grizzly Bear," which are very beautiful from the months of March till July, when they likewise dwindle into insignificance. These may also be said to be divided into three distinct falls; with a perpendicular descent of 1500 feet, a 600 feet of cataracts over a shelving rock, and a final fall of 400 feet ending in spray and foam.

The great advantage of the further ascent to Glacier Point is that you have the more complete view of the valley which includes the Vernal and Nevada Falls, two very beautiful falls of 400 and 600 feet each, some way up the Cañon of the Merced; the Sentinel Dome, which is a mile and a half above the point; the Washington Column or "Watching Eye," and a very far-reaching view over the further side of the valley—of the "little Yosemite," and the higher peaks of the Sierra Nevada.

This view from Union Point proved our only hope of carrying away with us some general idea of the wonderful formations of the valley in the short space of time we could allow, and after trying, with some success, I since think, to print them indelibly in our mind's eye, we turned our thoughts towards the descent.

My pony had come down on his knees at a very early period of the expedition, and I greatly mistrusted his powers of holding up down the steep stony trail, not counting the discomfort of feeling the legs of the animal sliding away in front, and subsiding behind, whilst simultaneously being pitched forward at a very inclined angle. I declined to ride down the first and steepest part of the trail, and eventually it ended in my running down the four miles, and resting at the bottom for half an hour for the others to come up. We returned to Barnard's decidedly crestfallen, and with very different feelings to those of pleasurable excitement with which we had started out earlier in the afternoon. We went to bed quite worn out after such a long day, but—there was to be no sleep for us that night. Mosquitoes and the hardest beds I ever slept on were small drawbacks when compared to the weekly ball that was going on immediately underneath us. Every sound was heard through the thin partitions, and we could only lie and listen to the Master of the Ceremonies with his "Figure number one, and cross over, turn, face partner, ladies' chain, sides," &c., the scraping of the fiddle, and the shuffling of the feet.

Weary and dispirited, we left the valley the next morning at 6 a.m., taking our farewell view from the top of the mountain which we had been winding up the side of for three hours. We had in the coach with us Mrs. McCauley, who kept the inn at Glacier Point, and one of the first inhabitants of the valley. She told us that there was general complaint about the meagre compensation that Government had given to the inhabitants since they had taken possession. The early settlers had expended much toil on the formation of the first and most dangerous trails to the principal points, charging some small fee. It was in 1864 that Congress granted the valley to the State of California, as "the cleft or gorge in the granite peak of the Sierra Nevada," under the express condition that it was to be kept for "the benefit of the people, for their use, resort, and recreation, and especially to hold them inalienable for all time." And so it always is in America, parks, gardens, all places are kept and maintained for the people. Congress has just taken possession of the comparatively newly discovered Yellowstone Park, for the nation, preparatory to developing its wonders and making it accessible "for the people." A guardian and commissioners were appointed for the valley, who have since done wonders in making the points of interest more approachable by new roads, bridges, and trails.

We had another of those magnificent forest drives, looking over the valleys and the mountain peaks of the Sierra Nevada from the opposite side to that on which we had entered the valley; but the coach was of a smaller build than the others we had been in; it was more than unusually laden with passengers, and the heat was very great. We arrived cramped and somewhat cross at Mrs. Crocker's, a Nottinghamshire woman, where we found a charming luncheon provided in a cool, neat cottage.

In the afternoon we drove through the trunk of one of the monster trees, "the Dead Giant," where there was room for the six horses and coach to pass at a full trot, describing a slight curve of the road in passing through the aperture, but it required the fine skilful driving that we had, to do it.

Then we pictured to ourselves those marvellous groves of big trees near the Yosemite, the Calaveras and Mariposa and south groves, wonders which we had missed altogether, without which no description of the valley is complete. I therefore give a rough outline gathered from those who have seen them.

The discovery of this new tree of sequoia occasioned much excitement; at first it was supposed to be of the species of Redwood or Wellingtonia, but eventually it was given a genus of its own and called after a Cherokee Indian, Gigantea Sequoia. It is limited exclusively to the Sierra Nevada Range, as the Redwood is to the Sea Coast Range, and both are Californian natives.

The Calaveras grove contains the most celebrated of these monarchs of the forest; and nearly all have received names from numerous hero-worshippers. They attain to a height varying from 250 to 300 feet, and to a diameter of from 20 to 30 feet. Their age is assigned to be from two to three thousand years, and this is judged from the number of their concentric rings. So many of them are partially destroyed by fire, that it has given rise to a theory that a thousand years ago there must have been a terrible fire which raged among the sequoias alone; and this is supported by the fact that sugar pines and other old trees now side by side with these, show no signs of fire, proving that they had no existence at the time.

On entering the grove the three leading generals of the Union Army, Grant, Sherman, and McPherson, stand facing you; the "Pride of the Forest," the "Miner's Cabin," blown down in a gale in November, 1860, and the "Three Graces," a beautiful cluster, are quite near; others lie all around, each known by its own name.

The "Mother" and the "Twins" are succeeded by the "Father of the Forest." The "Father" long since bowed his head in the dust, yet how stupendous he is even in his ruin! A hollow chamber or burnt cavity extends through the trunk, large enough for a person to ride through, and near its base is a never-failing spring of water.

There are "Richard Cobden," "John Bright," "Daniel O'Connell," the "Sequoia Queen," and her "Maids of Honour," the "Old Maid," and the "Old Bachelor," "Daniel Webster," "George Washington," and very many others, and perhaps what is best of all to see, many other young sequoias growing up with promise of the same gigantic proportions, that may be middle-aged trees of their kind in about a thousand years.

In the south grove, extending for three miles and a half, there are 1300 trees. One of them still standing and growing has the interior portion so burned out, that there is a room large enough to contain sixteen men on horseback at the same time, and yet enough is left of the outer rim to support the colossal proportions above. In this grove traces of the great fire are most visible, and "Noah's Ark" and "Old Goliath," two of the giants, are prone upon the ground. A limb alone of the latter measures twelve feet in circumference, and, standing in the trunk, it is easy to believe you are on the deck of some large ship; meantime the base is used as a stable for horses.

The Mariposa grove is about two miles square, and is divided into an upper and lower grove. "The Grizzly Giant" is its great sequoia, but its upper part is much battered and torn away. Some who have seen these groves concur in a feeling of disappointment about the size of the trees, which is attributable to the two causes of their close proximity, and isolation from other trees, there being no others to compare their height with, and so few of the trees continue complete to the top, nearly all being broken off or withered. But others are very beautiful, and one who has seen them writes:—

"It is impossible for pen to convey or tongue to tell the feeling of shadowy mystery that invites the gazer into the solemn and mighty forests to enter and explore. Little by little the light before begins to pale and dim, and the trunks to grow grander in proportion, the height vaster, until at last one stands in reverence before the silent and ancient monarchs themselves. It is twilight. No breeze whispers through the branches of these forest gods, that climb seemingly to the zenith in their search for space and light. All the eloquence that has stirred and electrified the civilized world, fails utterly to hold spell-bound and attentive the man, as does the mute appeal of these monsters to the truth, 'I am the Lord thy God.' Yosemite is grand, terrific, beautiful, but is stone. These—the trees—'live.' Their tops, as the ocean breeze wafts through them, sigh a mournful requiem of the Ages they have witnessed, of the suffering, the toil and the little recompense of man. What stories could they tell of nations, peoples, cities, born and decayed on this our continent before Columbus came from the rising sun to people with a new race a long-lost world! Do they hold the future of our nation, the destiny of our children, in the grasp of their knowledge, and look mute and pityingly down upon a pride, a glory, that, like all other prides and glories, pomps and circumstances, whether of nations or men, shall surely fade?"

To return to that hot afternoon during which we went coaching on, leaving the mountains behind us, and coming to a dead level country, which was interesting from its being the scene of some of the earliest of the Californian gold diggings. The ground was of a brilliant reddish colour, and in some parts gulched and undermined in all directions. These diggings are deserted now, but traces of the gold fever are left in the numerous and scattered population,—men who came out expecting sudden riches, remaining in the bitterness of disappointment to work for daily bread. We had dinner about five o'clock at Priest's, and then a long moonlight drive afterwards of twenty miles. We descended into a valley to cross the Tuolumne river, coach and horses being driven on to the ferry-boat, which was worked by a man by means of a rope suspended in mid-air across the river. The heat in this valley was intense, nor was it much better when we got up on to the open plain, and galloped along with the shadow of the coach rolling round and round after us in the moonlight; nor yet when we arrived at Chinese Camp, our night's resting-place. We all spent a sleepless night in our small, barely-furnished rooms, with insect companionship, and were glad when the first streaks of daylight came, and we made another early start, in the grey dawn this time, for it was 4 a.m. We had twenty-eight miles to drive to catch the 10.50 train at Milton. It was pleasant after such a bad night to feel the cool breeze of the early morning, and to know the sun had risen behind the hill by the pinky tinge of the sky.

When we stopped for breakfast at Sonora, we found a Noah's Ark waiting to receive us, in place of our coach, which went no further. It was an ancient vehicle lined with greasy yellow leather, with neither door nor window, but curtains that rolled up and down and did duty instead. The way was through a baking piece of prairie, over a road "not" made with hands, and we suffered very bitterly. It was a crowning misery, for we felt that the expedition had been somewhat of a failure. Vainly we strained our eyes across the dreary waste for miles around, in search of what it seemed hopeless to find—a railway station. We did not breathe, we panted breathlessly; we did not sit, we rolled helplessly, and C. quite felt, whilst I almost did, that no Yosemite could be worth such terrible misery. We were near to Milton before we saw it, and found the station, and the train waiting. We were positively ashamed of the dust that we brought into the railway carriage to the other passengers, and certainly were not less so when we arrived at Stockton, and drove to the hotel for luncheon; and a great deal more so when we came to Oakland Ferry, and crossed in the ferry-boat, driving to the "Palace" once more.

We spent that evening in trying to remove some of the traces of our expedition. The rooms seemed almost oppressively luxurious to us, the fare sumptuous after our late experiences, and bed very like an earthly paradise.

Saturday, August 29th.—It was a beautiful sunny morning, and I wanted to carry away with me a happier impression of San Francisco, and so determined to go up Telegraph Hill for a bird's-eye view. The cable-car accomplishes the almost perpendicular ascent in three minutes, and it is so steep that you slip down on to your next-door neighbour unless you hold on. I had a beautiful view of the town on either side; the broad, muddy-coloured bay beneath, with the islands of Alcatraz and Angel; and, beyond all, the Golden Gate, through which we should be passing that afternoon.

I returned to the worry and fuss that seems an inevitable accompaniment to the "going on board." I suppose it is partly that there is no fixed time, and that you may go at any time in the morning, that there are deck chairs to be thought of, and the luggage for the hold, and the luggage that is "wanted in state-room" to be set specially apart. We had a further cause for anxiety in some washing which a Chinaman (an unauthorized washerman, it appeared) had walked off with, and which on inquiry was not forthcoming. The bell-man had told us he would send the washerman, and we naturally confided it to the first Chinaman who appeared and asked for it. I gave it up for lost but the policeman stationed in the courtyard of the Palace, ready to show strangers through the Chinese quarters, spent the morning there searching for it, and brought it forth at the last minute. I was sorry to be going away from San Francisco without seeing one of the most interesting features of the city, the Chinese quarter. In the length of three streets live all the Chinese who swarm about the city. They inhabit cells burrowed underneath the streets, below the level of the drainage, sleeping in bunks placed one above the other. The sights and smells are sickening, but the chief interest of Chinese Town lies in its theatres, temples, gambling houses, restaurants, and opium dens. Wherever the Chinese goes, with his toiling and long-suffering patience, there is the price of labour immediately cheapened; and so strong is the feeling among the lower classes against them that the State of California has been obliged to pass a law forbidding the immigration of any Chinese labourer. Any Chinaman on landing now has to go before a magistrate and prove that he is a merchant, or in possession of property, and that he has come solely for the purposes of trading.

We drove down to the Docks at one o'clock, and went on board the Australia at once.

It was the closing of the first era in our travels, to have thus journeyed over the first of our great continents, to have seen the first of our new worlds, and to have gained the knowledge of a new people with their manners and customs. Though a little marred by the shortness of time, we look back with very great pleasure to our seven weeks spent in America and Canada.

We said our farewell to America as we sailed out of the Golden Gate, regret tempered in leaving her shores by the excitement of going forth on the ocean, in search of other lands and other peoples.

CHAPTER VII
ACROSS THE PACIFIC

At 1.30 p.m. the Australia was crowded with a motley throng of passengers and weeping friends, who were rushing up and down in search of the cabins they were to occupy, claiming the same by the depositing of bags and parcels. There was the luggage coming on board, the chief steward receiving contributions of fresh provisions, a last supply of water being given, apparently to the hold of the ship, by means of a long hose on the wharf, and finally at the eleventh hour arrived the mails.

The warning bell rang; the decks were at last cleared; "All ashore!" rang out. A few parting words from those leaning over the bulwarks to those on the wharf, a rush of the excited crowd to the end of the pier, and we were left in little groups standing on the hurricane-deck, looking suspiciously at each other, in our floating home for the next few weeks.

The Australia looked a noble ship as she steamed through the bay, coasting slowly round the promontory on which San Francisco lies. The captain, the officer of the watch, and the pilot were standing on the bridge, the sun shining on the white sails, the various flags of departure, of the company, and the Union Jack floating from her masts. We sailed between the Angel Island and that of Alcatraz, saw the cliff house, with the waves dashing over the Seal Rocks, looking very desolate and dreary, surrounded by its burnt, dried-up downs. We passed out through the "Golden Gates" into the deep blue ocean. Alas! alas! for those "white horses" and for indifferent sailors. The ship began to roll more and more; she pitched and tossed helplessly in a short, choppy sea, and those already faint-hearted and unhappy at parting with friends on shore lost no time in giving themselves up to mal de mer and—misery.

Needless to say that C. was among the first to succumb.

The table at dinner presented but a dreary series of vacant spaces. An old lady, a great-grandmother to three generations on board, was the only one besides myself to put in an appearance. I confess that I could only just manage to sit through that interminable dinner, and then I too gave in, and crept into my berth very cold and miserable.

At the first start I think everything on board a ship seems depressing. You look suspiciously into dingy corners of the cabins, on to the shabby strip of carpet. The space seems impossibly small for any degree of comfort; the blue moreen curtains, with their yellow cords, jar upon the senses; the water you wash in smells of bilge oil; the towels are marked with plentiful iron-moulds; the washstand is discoloured with much use; the pillows are more like bolsters; and the last straw seems to be the printed regulations, hung up in each cabin of the ship rules, which appear superlatively irksome.

I feel sure nearly all on board would have echoed these sentiments on that gloomy Sunday succeeding our start, when the tolling of the bell at 11 a.m. vainly called us to prayer. The next day brought a slight improvement to some, but the leaden sky and cold wind kept all below in the saloon. The third day there was encouragement for all. The sun rose warm and bright, and brought the poor sick creatures, creeping out on to the decks to sun themselves, looking pale and languid. After this we settled down into the routine of daily life on board ship, a more regular one than one could ever hope to pursue on shore.

It was really pleasant day after day sitting on the hurricane-deck, under the thick double awnings, a hot sun with a cool breeze blowing, dreaming and idling away many a long hour. It was pure enjoyment to look at a sky of opaque blue, and at water varying from the purest ultramarine to the fullest and deepest of indigo dyes. We talk and think of the "Mediterranean blue" as the typical perfection of colour for sky and sea, but it paled into insignificance by comparison with this perfectly heavenly Pacific colour.

We never tired of looking "forward" at the path of foam which we cut cleanly asunder in those dark-blue depths, throwing it up to either side of us, or of the green feathery bubbles left aft by the revolutions of the screw. I have seen in the afternoon the most lovely little rainbows, just reflected for one minute on the foam of the crest of the wave as it rose up to break away. Then in the evening, after we had entered the tropical latitudes, there was always the phosphorescence on the water, looking like a multitude of glow-worms, appearing and disappearing, and twinkling under the darkness of the ocean. For the first few days out we were followed by flights of gulls and albatross, wheeling and circling around us with their powerful wings, which outstretched measure some four feet across from tip to tip. But after we had come beyond even their range, we were left with nothing to look upon but that wonderful circular line, almost imperceptible, where sea touches sky,—left alone on that vast expanse of water those ten thousand miles of ocean which were to the right hand and to the left of us, which lay down below us in a straight line down, down to the depth of three miles. Then we were made to realize the extraordinary lonely, yet exalted, feeling that comes over you as you raise your eyes to the only boundary, the only limit to the sea—the horizon. Lonely, I say, you must feel because you are the one living thing "that moves upon the face of the Waters," and exalted because you know you are feeling to your inmost soul God's most wonderful creation.

We were a little family collected together from all parts of the earth, thrown together very closely for the time, very soon to be separated and to go each our own way; all travelling on different errands, for different reasons—some for business, some for pleasure, some in search of health, some even in search of love, like the three young ladies we were bringing over to Sydney to be married! We had the American Consul at Auckland, Mr. Griffin, on board, step-uncle to Miss Mary Anderson, and who gave us a most interesting account of his adventures at Tutuila, one of the group of Navigator Islands, when he was left there virtually a prisoner for ten months, unable during that time to communicate with his government. We met at meals, and then dispersed about, so much so that going up on the decks, and finding them nearly deserted, you wondered where everybody did go to. In the afternoon, and immediately after luncheon, there was the sort of quiet and lazy cessation from work that sometimes comes unconsciously even on shore, when I believe many took a nap, and then by four there would come a gradual awakening and stirring up, with a sharp turn and brisk walk before the dressing-bell at 5.30, and once more the re-assembling for dinner.

We had a particularly nice set of officers; and Captain Guest was most agreeable and well-informed, very solicitous for the comfort and amusement of his passengers. We sat one on each side of him, with Mr. Davidson on my other side, and there was always a good deal of information flying across me between them. We also all had the advantage of being waited on partly by "Tonga," his Chinese servant, dressed in national costume.

All the sailors were Chinese, with English quarter-masters. They make most efficient, hard-working tars, and are allowed to wear their native dress, rolling up their pigtails under their skull-caps when at work.

September 4th.—It was beginning to get rather warm, as we had entered the Tropic of Cancer.

The captain's patent windsail in the saloon was brought into use with great success, except on one very hot night, when its canvas sails hung limp and flabby, and there was absolutely not one breath of wind to swell it to its usually large dimensions.

We were now within the influence of the trade winds, those hot damp winds that flow on either side of the Equator within a radius of three days' steaming. Whilst they lasted we were never dry; we lived in a perpetual Turkish bath, everything we touched was damp and sticky, the awning dripped in the early morning or after sundown as if there was a heavy dew; scissors, razors, knitting-needles, even the very pins in the pin-cushion became rusted.

Saturday, September 5th.—A blurred outline against the sky seen since early morning, growing into the arid island of Molokai, the place of banishment of six hundred lepers, exiled there to live and die by inches, was the first island of the Sandwich group which we saw. There are eleven in all, only six of which are habitable; these are Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Lauai, Mani, and Hawaii, which contains the volcano of Kilauea. By the afternoon we were passing under the lee of the island of Oahu, on which lies the capital of the group, Honolulu. Oahu has a magnificent outline of jagged peaks, seared and scored by volcanic action; whose precipices dark and gloomy run sheer down into the sea, and form at their base a rocky breakwater against which the sea vainly lashes itself into fury, rising into the air in a cloud of foam. The promontory called Diamond Head stands boldly out into the sea, and rising from the centre of the island is the sharp mountain peak of Pali.

The mouths of extinct craters can be easily traced by the utter barrenness around, and in sharp contrasts to the lava and scoria are the rich valleys running up into the interior of the island, where all grows in tropical luxuriance. There were patches of deep brown on the mountain sides, alternating with others of yellow-green grass; tall straggling cocoa-nut palms waving their feathery arms along the shore, where the intensely blue line of the sea touches the fringe of yellow sand. In a quiet little cove we distinguished a tall manufacturing chimney standing in the midst of its sugar-cane plantation, and further on we passed Waikiki, the favourite watering-place of the Hawaiians, with its vast cocoa-nut grove growing to the water's edge. Amongst them we could see a few flat roofs, with the grey palace of the king standing out prominently. We are going now round the frowning brow of Cape Diamond, and Honolulu comes in sight. It lies on a very dead level, and is a long-drawn-out collection of flat-roofed houses, famous for its many spires.

Mr. McIntyre, the pilot, who for forty years has been bringing ships along the buoyed course and over the dangers of the coral reef which surrounds the bay in which Honolulu lies, boarded us from the flat-bottomed boat, as did all its stalwart native rowers. Inside the reef we saw an iron tripod that supported a small conical-shaped box; from this issued forth a troop of little nut-brown native boys, who with wild whoops plunged into the water and swam towards us, and twisting about like eels, dived after the dimes we dropped over and brought them up successfully. Water seems the natural element of the Hawaiians, and all bathe once if not twice a day, fearless of the sharks who sometimes penetrate within the reef.

How beautiful are these island coral reefs, bringing forth as they do and blending within their shallow depths every unsurpassed and heavenly shade of colour that the ever-varying ocean shows! From the dull purple line near the shore, and within the bay they pass into a delicate opaque sea-green, near the coral reef where the line is abruptly broken by curling circlets of foam, fading away in an indistinct line of sky blue shaded in the distance to cerulean, and then ultramarine, and dying on the horizon to the most exquisite sapphire.

Mr. McIntyre having brought us safely into dock, we took a "buggy" to drive about for the two hours the Australia stayed in port.

Honolulu is a town containing 15,000 inhabitants. With the native population there is an admixture of Germans and Chinese. The American element, too, is very strong, and American manners and customs have strongly influenced the Hawaiians. The roads are of the best macadam, the town is lighted with gas, there is a public telephone office which shows how general is the use of that instrument; and fire-plugs testify to their precautions against fire.

The Parliament House is of stone with handsome colonnades. Before it stands the gold figure of King Kamehameha I., first king of the Sandwich Islands, wrapped in the famous "00" mantle. This mantle descended from generation to generation; it was made from the feathers of a rare black bird, of the tribe of honey-suckers. Under each wing only two or three feathers of the required shade were found, so that it took scores of years to collect the necessary quantity, as the mantle measured some four feet long and eleven feet wide at the bottom widths when spread out.

The palace, surrounded by high walls, stands in beautiful gardens, as does also the Palace of Queen Emma. There is a college, and a native cathedral, built twenty-five years only after the introduction of Christianity; the English church, as yet only four bare walls, the Queen Emma Hospital, the prison, the theatre, and a comfortable hotel. But the gardens, how beautiful they seemed to us—a fairy vision almost—as our first sight of tropical vegetation—I longed to know the name of each and every strange bright blossom I saw.

There was the straight broad leaf of the palm, the jagged one of the banana, the cocoa-nut palm with its straggling arms and brown nuts, the feathery algeroba, and glossy-leaved mango and monkey pod, the dark-green koa, and very many others I had never heard of. And these formed the dark-green background for scarlet bunches of ohias, and the vivid crimson blossom of the hibiscus, for magnolias, and orange trees, and gardenias, heliotrope, roses, and honeysuckle, for thickets of mimosa, trailing passion-flowers and tropical parasites of all kinds.

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