Start for Chicago—"The Michigan Central"—Arrival at Chicago—Still no letter from Frank—Start for St. Paul—St. Paul and Minneapolis—Commodore Kitson's stables—Falls of St. Anthony—"The Granary of the World"—Falls of Minnehaha—Telegram to Frank.
St. Paul, Minnesota, Oct., 1885.
On the morning of our start for the West we were aroused before five o'clock to catch a train which did not reach our station till 8.30.
The line over which we travelled to Chicago was "The Michigan Central," which runs along the north side of Lake Erie to Windsor; at this point the train is carried bodily across the Detroit river to Detroit on an enormous barge built for the purpose; from thence we proceed to Chicago. Nothing befell us by the way, and I have only to remark about the railway that the carriages were very comfortable, or rather would have been so but for the stifling extent to which they were heated. The dining-car is well managed, and the food excellent. We reached Chicago at ten o'clock the same night, after a long, dusty, and very hot journey, through not particularly interesting scenery.
We have now got a thousand miles on our way to look after the young ranchero, but where is he? Why does he not write? I was growing anxious, for up to this time I had not received a line, and no letter awaited me here. I telegraphed to him, but no reply came. I wrote requesting that a telegram might meet me at St. Paul, over four hundred miles farther on our route.
We were most hospitably entertained by our friends, and after hurriedly driving round the points of interest in Chicago, we made another departure, still for the Far West. Here we take the Chicago and North Western Railroad for St. Paul. This iron road claims to be "the best and most perfectly equipped railway in the world;" its luxuriantly furnished drawing-room coaches are marvels of beauty and comfort, and the dining-cars are superb; the meals and attendance are equal to what one might expect to find in any first-class hotel, and I can bear most willing testimony to the civility we met with from all the officials, from the chief passenger manager down to the road attendants.
We left Chicago at 9.55 p.m., and we reached St. Paul at 2.25 p.m. next day, a distance of 409 miles.
As regards time, I may mention that American railway companies deal very arbitrarily with the sun.[[3]] At Niagara he is bidden to stand still in the heavens for one hour, and is called Eastern time. Then he makes a sudden jump to Mandan, 476 miles west of St. Paul; over this space, viz., one hour, he is called Central time; then from Mandan to Heron (1,429 miles west of St. Paul), he makes another leap and is called Mountain time. From Heron to Portland on the Pacific he again recedes an hour, and is called Pacific time. This hop, skip, and jump across the American continent, in lieu of his usual steady mode of progression, is of course a very convenient arrangement for railways, and it appears to be universally accepted. I suppose he makes the same hourly jumps on the same longitudinal lines throughout the continent. It will thus be seen that the sun rises and sets four hours later at Portland than at New York.