We are now half way to Manitoba, and have really done the journey thus far so easily that it seems nothing of a drag; and if it wasn't for the Atlantic, A—— would not seem to be at the end of the world, which we fancied whilst in England.
We left Brooklyn on Wednesday morning, very sorry to part from the Commodore and his family, who have been most kind and friendly, trying their best to make us feel at home. Unfortunately, having only just got the appointment and lately taken up their residence at the Navy Yard, they could do no entertaining. Anyhow, we have had a very pleasant insight into the home life of America, which differs in small ways a good deal from ours, and in character, habits, and everything there is a widish gulf between the two races.
Our train here was a splendid one, stopping only about sixteen times, and doing the nine hundred miles in thirty-six hours. We had a section in the Pullman, which makes a double seat facing each other by day, and at night the two seats are converted into a bed, with the second bed pulled down from the roof, on which mattresses, blankets, and sheets are all arranged with a projecting board at the head and foot, and a curtain in front, so that one is quite private, and we slept like tops. We had also a dining-car on, where every luxury of the season, to strawberries and cream, were served by the blackest of niggers in the whitest of garments, for the sum of a dollar a head per meal.
Only fancy our delight, after leaving Harrisburgh about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, to find friends in the train, people from an adjoining county in England who knew all our friends, and with whom we had much in common. I need hardly tell you that we did "chin" it until our ways parted at this station, they going to the Grand Pacific, we to the Treemont which had been recommended to us as being a quieter hotel for ladies alone.
Men make these hotels their club, where they smoke and lounge all day; but as there is a second door for ladies, one is not bothered in any way unless you want to go to the office for information.
We are astonished at the enormous piles of buildings in this city; land, one would think, must be cheap. All the shops cover an equally large area, though, in many, several offices are on one floor. It is too marvellous to think, when one looks at this place, that three and a half square miles in the centre of the town, which is now in regular handsome broad streets, the fire of eleven years ago should have so completely burnt everything to the ground, though now not a vestige of the conflagration is left. The houses have even had time to get quite blackened with the smoke of the soft coal they use, which is found in great quantities all through Pennsylvania; the mines and furnaces we passed on our way up.
The country the whole way was very pretty. We crossed the Susquehana river, which is grand in width and scenery, and started the Juanita through a chain of mountains turning in and out with every bend of the river, so that one felt always on the slant and could generally see either end of the train. Unfortunately it poured with rain the whole way, so any distant views or tops of mountains were invisible. Some of the country is like England, undulating, rolling, well-cultivated fields, enclosed with pailings which overlap each other and would be awkwardish obstacles in a hunting country; but one misses, like abroad, the cattle—we saw one or two stray cows, but little else. Around Chicago it is a flat plain, and, as there has been a good deal of rain lately, water is out everywhere. For the last hour of our journey we came through the suburbs, and, as there is no protection whatsoever to the line, we had to come very slowly (about seven miles an hour), ringing a great bell attached to the engine to announce our arrival, as children, cows, vans, &c. go along the line in the most promiscuous way; it is extraordinary that more accidents do not happen. By law, I believe, the train ought to go very slowly wherever lines cross each other; anyhow they must ring the bell, the result being that the bells seem going all day when you are anywhere near the station. We were given introductions to one or two people here, one gentleman putting himself at our disposal to show us "around straight away;" and we visited the principal shops, streets, park, which is land reclaimed from the lake, and the tramways, which are worked with a pulley from a centre about six miles off. A Chinaman in San Francisco was once heard to describe the said tramways as "No horsey, no steamy, go helly."
The weather has, unfortunately, been wet and much against sight- seeing, the streets in consequence are too indescribably dirty, mud inches deep, and everyone is so busy making money that they have not time to pull up those who are responsible and insist on the streets being cleaned, though the money is yearly voted by the municipality, and generally supposed to be pocketed by the authorities. We leave this to-night for St. Paul, much impressed on the whole with Chicago. There are one or two more sights I should like to have seen, such as the two tunnels under the river, but I fancy one leaks and the other is unusable for some other reason. I should also have liked to have been to one of the Niggers' revival meetings; but not to the pork manufactory, where pigs go in alive, are killed and cured ready for exportation in less than twenty minutes. Our friends went there this morning, and the descriptions they gave were not particularly inviting. The lady hadn't been able to touch a mouthful of food all day afterwards, and declared it would be years before she could eat pork. I also have been dying to see a house on the move, but had to content myself with looking at a large brick house, which not three years ago had been moved back 150 yards bodily. Chicago is getting too old a city, and ground is too expensive, for people to be able to change the sites of their houses when the fancy takes them; in St. Paul or Winnipeg we may have the satisfaction of meeting one coming down the street.
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THE MERCHANT'S HOTEL, ST. PAUL, May 16.