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and revised by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.
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Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.

NORTH AMERICA

by

ANTHONY TROLLOPE

In Two Volumes

VOL. I

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

It has been the ambition of my literary life to write a book about the United States, and I had made up my mind to visit the country with this object before the intestine troubles of the United States Government had commenced. I have not allowed the division among the States and the breaking out of civil war to interfere with my intention; but I should not purposely have chosen this period either for my book or for my visit. I say so much, in order that it may not be supposed that it is my special purpose to write an account of the struggle as far as it has yet been carried. My wish is to describe as well as I can the present social and political state of the country. This I should have attempted, with more personal satisfaction in the work, had there been no disruption between the North and South; but I have not allowed that disruption to deter me from an object which, if it were delayed, might probably never be carried out. I am therefore forced to take the subject in its present condition, and being so forced I must write of the war, of the causes which have led to it, and of its probable termination. But I wish it to be understood that it was not my selected task to do so, and is not now my primary object.

Thirty years ago my mother wrote a book about the Americans, to which I believe I may allude as a well known and successful work without being guilty of any undue family conceit. That was essentially a woman's book. She saw with a woman's keen eye, and described with a woman's light but graphic pen, the social defects and absurdities which our near relatives had adopted into their domestic life. All that she told was worth the telling, and the telling, if done successfully, was sure to produce a good result. I am satisfied that it did so. But she did not regard it as a part of her work to dilate on the nature and operation of those political arrangements which had produced the social absurdities which she saw, or to explain that though such absurdities were the natural result of those arrangements in their newness, the defects would certainly pass away, while the political arrangements, if good, would remain. Such a work is fitter for a man than for a woman. I am very far from thinking that it is a task which I can perform with satisfaction either to myself or to others. It is a work which some man will do who has earned a right by education, study, and success to rank himself among the political sages of his age. But I may perhaps be able to add something to the familiarity of Englishmen with Americans. The writings which have been most popular in England on the subject of the United States have hitherto dealt chiefly with social details; and though in most cases true and useful, have created laughter on one side of the Atlantic, and soreness on the other. If I could do anything to mitigate the soreness, if I could in any small degree add to the good feeling which should exist between two nations which ought to love each other so well, and which do hang upon each other so constantly, I should think that I had cause to be proud of my work.

But it is very hard to write about any country a book that does not represent the country described in a more or less ridiculous point of view. It is hard at least to do so in such a book as I must write. A De Tocqueville may do it. It may be done by any philosophico-political or politico-statistical, or statistico-scientific writer; but it can hardly be done by a man who professes to use a light pen, and to manufacture his article for the use of general readers. Such a writer may tell all that he sees of the beautiful; but he must also tell, if not all that he sees of the ludicrous, at any rate the most piquant part of it. How to do this without being offensive is the problem which a man with such a task before him has to solve. His first duty is owed to his readers, and consists mainly in this: that he shall tell the truth, and shall so tell that truth that what he has written may be readable. But a second duty is due to those of whom he writes; and he does not perform that duty well if he gives offence to those, as to whom, on the summing up of the whole evidence for and against them in his own mind, he intends to give a favourable verdict. There are of course those against whom a writer does not intend to give a favourable verdict;—people and places whom he desires to describe, on the peril of his own judgment, as bad, ill-educated, ugly, and odious. In such cases his course is straightforward enough. His judgment may be in great peril, but his volume or chapter will be easily written. Ridicule and censure run glibly from the pen, and form themselves into sharp paragraphs which are pleasant to the reader. Whereas eulogy is commonly dull, and too frequently sounds as though it were false. There is much difficulty in expressing a verdict which is intended to be favourable; but which, though favourable, shall not be falsely eulogistic; and though true, not offensive.

Who has ever travelled in foreign countries without meeting excellent stories against the citizens of such countries? And how few can travel without hearing such stories against themselves? It is impossible for me to avoid telling of a very excellent gentleman whom I met before I had been in the United States a week, and who asked me whether lords in England ever spoke to men who were not lords. Nor can I omit the opening address of another gentleman to my wife. "You like our institutions, ma'am?" "Yes, indeed," said my wife,—not with all that eagerness of assent which the occasion perhaps required. "Ah," said he, "I never yet met the down-trodden subject of a despot who did not hug his chains." The first gentleman was certainly somewhat ignorant of our customs, and the second was rather abrupt in his condemnation of the political principles of a person whom he only first saw at that moment. It comes to me in the way of my trade to repeat such incidents; but I can tell stories which are quite as good against Englishmen. As for instance, when I was tapped on the back in one of the galleries of Florence by a countryman of mine, and asked to show him where stood the medical Venus. Nor is anything that one can say of the inconveniences attendant upon travel in the United States to be beaten by what foreigners might truly say of us. I shall never forget the look of a Frenchman whom I found on a wet afternoon in the best inn of a provincial town in the west of England. He was seated on a horsehair-covered chair in the middle of a small dingy ill-furnished private sitting-room. No eloquence of mine could make intelligible to a Frenchman or an American the utter desolation of such an apartment. The world as then seen by that Frenchman offered him solace of no description. The air without was heavy, dull, and thick. The street beyond the window was dark and narrow. The room contained mahogany chairs covered with horsehair, a mahogany table ricketty in its legs, and a mahogany sideboard ornamented with inverted glasses and old cruet-stands. The Frenchman had come to the house for shelter and food, and had been asked whether he was commercial. Whereupon he shook his head. "Did he want a sitting-room?" Yes, he did. "He was a leetle tired and vanted to seet." Whereupon he was presumed to have ordered a private room, and was shown up to the Eden I have described. I found him there at death's door. Nothing that I can say with reference to the social habits of the Americans can tell more against them than the story of that Frenchman's fate tells against those of our country.

From which remarks I would wish to be understood as deprecating offence from my American friends, if in the course of my book should be found aught which may seem to argue against the excellence of their institutions, and the grace of their social life. Of this at any rate I can assure them in sober earnestness that I admire what they have done in the world and for the world with a true and hearty admiration; and that whether or no all their institutions be at present excellent, and their social life all graceful, my wishes are that they should be so, and my convictions are that that improvement will come for which there may perhaps even yet be some little room.

And now touching this war which had broken out between the North and South before I left England. I would wish to explain what my feelings were; or rather what I believe the general feelings of England to have been, before I found myself among the people by whom it was being waged. It is very difficult for the people of any one nation to realize the political relations of another, and to chew the cud and digest the bearings of those external politics. But it is unjust in the one to decide upon the political aspirations and doings of that other without such understanding. Constantly as the name of France is in our mouth, comparatively few Englishmen understand the way in which France is governed;—that is, how far absolute despotism prevails, and how far the power of the one ruler is tempered, or, as it may be, hampered by the voices and influence of others. And as regards England, how seldom is it that in common society a foreigner is met who comprehends the nature of her political arrangements! To a Frenchman,—I do not of course include great men who have made the subject a study,—but to the ordinary intelligent Frenchman the thing is altogether incomprehensible. Language, it may be said, has much to do with that. But an American speaks English; and how often is an American met, who has combined in his mind the idea of a monarch, so called, with that of a republic, properly so named;—a combination of ideas which I take to be necessary to the understanding of English politics? The gentleman who scorned my wife for hugging her chains had certainly not done so, and yet he conceived that he had studied the subject. The matter is one most difficult of comprehension. How many Englishmen have failed to understand accurately their own constitution, or the true bearing of their own politics! But when this knowledge has been attained, it has generally been filtered into the mind slowly, and has come from the unconscious study of many years. An Englishman handles a newspaper for a quarter of an hour daily, and daily exchanges some few words in politics with those around him, till drop by drop the pleasant springs of his liberty creep into his mind and water his heart; and thus, earlier or later in life according to the nature of his intelligence, he understands why it is that he is at all points a free man. But if this be so of our own politics; if it be so rare a thing to find a foreigner who understands them in all their niceties, why is it that we are so confident in our remarks on all the niceties of those of other nations?

I hope that I may not be misunderstood as saying that we should not discuss foreign politics in our press, our parliament, our public meetings, or our private houses. No man could be mad enough to preach such a doctrine. As regards our Parliament, that is probably the best British school of foreign politics, seeing that the subject is not there often taken up by men who are absolutely ignorant, and that mistakes when made are subject to a correction which is both rough and ready. The press, though very liable to error, labours hard at its vocation in teaching foreign politics, and spares no expense in letting in daylight. If the light let in be sometimes moonshine, excuse may easily be made. Where so much is attempted, there must necessarily be some failure. But even the moonshine does good, if it be not offensive moonshine. What I would deprecate is, that aptness at reproach which we assume;—the readiness with scorn, the quiet words of insult, the instant judgment and condemnation with which we are so inclined to visit, not the great outward acts, but the smaller inward politics of our neighbours.

And do others spare us, will be the instant reply of all who may read this. In my counter reply I make bold to place myself and my country on very high ground, and to say that we, the older and therefore more experienced people as regards the United States, and the better governed as regards France, and the stronger as regards all the world beyond, should not throw mud again even though mud be thrown at us. I yield the path to a small chimney-sweeper as readily as to a lady; and forbear from an interchange of courtesies with a Billingsgate heroine, even though at heart I may have a proud consciousness that I should not altogether go to the wall in such an encounter.

I left England in August last—August 1861. At that time, and for some months previous, I think that the general English feeling on the American question was as follows. "This wide-spread nationality of the United States, with its enormous territorial possessions and increasing population, has fallen asunder, torn to pieces by the weight of its own discordant parts,—as a congregation when its size has become unwieldy will separate, and reform itself into two wholesome wholes. It is well that this should be so, for the people are not homogeneous, as a people should be who are called to live together as one nation. They have attempted to combine free-soil sentiments with the practice of slavery, and to make these two antagonists live together in peace and unity under the same roof; but, as we have long expected, they have failed. Now has come the period for separation; and if the people would only see this, and act in accordance with the circumstances which Providence and the inevitable hand of the world's ruler has prepared for them, all would be well. But they will not do this. They will go to war with each other. The South will make her demands for secession with an arrogance and instant pressure which exasperates the North; and the North, forgetting that an equable temper in such matters is the most powerful of all weapons, will not recognize the strength of its own position. It allows itself to be exasperated, and goes to war for that which if regained would only be injurious to it. Thus millions on millions sterling will be spent. A heavy debt will be incurred; and the North, which divided from the South might take its place among the greatest of nations, will throw itself back for half a century, and perhaps injure the splendour of its ultimate prospects. If only they would be wise, throw down their arms, and agree to part! But they will not."

This was, I think, the general opinion when I left England. It would not, however, be necessary to go back many months to reach the time when Englishmen were saying how impossible it was that so great a national power should ignore its own greatness, and destroy its own power by an internecine separation. But in August last all that had gone by, and we in England had realized the probability of actual secession.

To these feelings on the subject may be added another, which was natural enough though perhaps not noble. "These western cocks have crowed loudly," we said; "too loudly for the comfort of those who live after all at no such great distance from them. It is well that their combs should be clipped. Cocks who crow so very loudly are a nuisance. It might have gone so far that the clipping would become a work necessarily to be done from without. But it is ten times better for all parties that it should be done from within; and as the cocks are now clipping their own combs, in God's name let them do it and the whole world will be the quieter." That, I say, was not a very noble idea; but it was natural enough, and certainly has done somewhat in mitigating that grief which the horrors of civil war and the want of cotton have caused to us in England.

Such certainly had been my belief as to the country. I speak here of my opinion as to the ultimate success of secession and the folly of the war,—repudiating any concurrence of my own in the ignoble but natural sentiment alluded to in the last paragraph. I certainly did think that the Northern States, if wise, would have let the Southern States go. I had blamed Buchanan as a traitor for allowing the germ of secession to make any growth;—and as I thought him a traitor then, so do I think him a traitor now. But I had also blamed Lincoln, or rather the government of which Mr. Lincoln in this matter is no more than the exponent, for his efforts to avoid that which is inevitable. In this I think that I—or as I believe I may say we, we Englishmen—were wrong. I do not see how the North, treated as it was and had been, could have submitted to secession without resistance. We all remember what Shakespere says of the great armies which were led out to fight for a piece of ground not large enough to cover the bodies of those who would be slain in the battle; but I do not remember that Shakespere says that the battle was on this account necessarily unreasonable. It is the old point of honour, which, till it had been made absurd by certain changes of circumstances, was always grand and usually beneficent. These changes of circumstances have altered the manner in which appeal may be made, but have not altered the point of honour. Had the Southern States sought to obtain secession by constitutional means, they might or might not have been successful; but if successful there would have been no war. I do not mean to brand all the Southern States with treason, nor do I intend to say that having secession at heart they could have obtained it by constitutional means. But I do intend to say that acting as they did, demanding secession not constitutionally but in opposition to the constitution, taking upon themselves the right of breaking up a nationality of which they formed only a part, and doing that without consent of the other part, opposition from the North and war was an inevitable consequence.

It is, I think, only necessary to look back to the revolution by which the United States separated themselves from England to see this. There is hardly to be met, here and there, an Englishman who now regrets the loss of the revolted American colonies;—who now thinks that civilization was retarded and the world injured by that revolt; who now conceives that England should have expended more treasure and more lives in the hope of retaining those colonies. It is agreed that the revolt was a good thing; that those who were then rebels became patriots by success, and that they deserved well of all coming ages of mankind. But not the less absolutely necessary was it that England should endeavour to hold her own. She was as the mother bird when the young bird will fly alone. She suffered those pangs which Nature calls upon mothers to endure.

As was the necessity of British opposition to American independence, so was the necessity of Northern opposition to Southern secession. I do not say that in other respects the two cases were parallel. The States separated from us because they would not endure taxation without representation—in other words because they were old enough and big enough to go alone. The South is seceding from the North because the two are not homogeneous. They have different instincts, different appetites, different morals, and a different culture. It is well for one man to say that slavery has caused the separation; and for another to say that slavery has not caused it. Each in so saying speaks the truth. Slavery has caused it, seeing that slavery is the great point on which the two have agreed to differ. But slavery has not caused it, seeing that other points of difference are to be found in every circumstance and feature of the two people. The North and the South must ever be dissimilar. In the North labour will always be honourable, and because honourable successful. In the South labour has ever been servile,—at least in some sense, and therefore dishonourable; and because dishonourable has not, to itself, been successful. In the South, I say, labour ever has been dishonourable; and I am driven to confess that I have not hitherto seen a sign of any change in the Creator's fiat on this matter. That labour will be honourable all the world over, as years advance and the millennium draws nigh, I for one never doubt.

So much for English opinion about America in August last. And now I will venture to say a word or two as to American feeling respecting this English opinion at that period. It will of course be remembered by all my readers that at the beginning of the war Lord Russell, who was then in the lower house, declared as Foreign Secretary of State that England would regard the North and South as belligerents, and would remain neutral as to both of them. This declaration gave violent offence to the North, and has been taken as indicating British sympathy with the cause of the seceders. I am not going to explain—indeed it would be necessary that I should first understand—the laws of nations with regard to blockaded ports, privateering, ships and men and goods contraband of war, and all those semi-nautical semi-military rules and axioms which it is necessary that all Attorneys-General and such like should at the present moment have at their fingers' end. But it must be evident to the most ignorant in those matters, among which large crowd I certainly include myself, that it was essentially necessary that Lord John Russell should at that time declare openly what England intended to do. It was essential that our seamen should know where they would be protected and where not, and that the course to be taken by England should be defined. Reticence in the matter was not within the power of the British Government. It behoved the Foreign Secretary of State to declare openly that England intended to side either with one party or with the other, or else to remain neutral between them.

I had heard this matter discussed by Americans before I left England, and I have of course heard it discussed very frequently in America. There can be no doubt that the front of the offence given by England to the Northern States was this declaration of Lord John Russell's. But it has been always made evident to me that the sin did not consist in the fact of England's neutrality,—in the fact of her regarding the two parties as belligerents,—but in the open declaration made to the world by a Secretary of State that she did intend so to regard them. If another proof were wanting, this would afford another proof of the immense weight attached in America to all the proceedings and to all the feelings of England on this matter. The very anger of the North is a compliment paid by the North to England. But not the less is that anger unreasonable. To those in America who understand our constitution, it must be evident that our Government cannot take official measures without a public avowal of such measures. France can do so. Russia can do so. The Government of the United States can do so, and could do so even before this rupture. But the Government of England cannot do so. All men connected with the Government in England have felt themselves from time to time more or less hampered by the necessity of publicity. Our statesmen have been forced to fight their battles with the plan of their tactics open before their adversaries. But we, in England, are inclined to believe, that the general result is good, and that battles so fought and so won will be fought with the honestest blows, and won with the surest results. Reticence in this matter was not possible, and Lord John Russell in making the open avowal which gave such offence to the Northern States only did that which, as a servant of England, England required him to do.

"What would you in England have thought," a gentleman of much weight in Boston said to me, "if when you were in trouble in India, we had openly declared that we regarded your opponents there as belligerents on equal terms with yourselves?" I was forced to say that, as far as I could see, there was no analogy between the two cases. In India an army had mutinied, and that an army composed of a subdued, if not a servile race. The analogy would have been fairer had it referred to any sympathy shown by us to insurgent negroes. But, nevertheless, had the army which mutinied in India been in possession of ports and sea-board; had they held in their hands vast commercial cities and great agricultural districts; had they owned ships and been masters of a wide-spread trade, America could have done nothing better towards us than have remained neutral in such a conflict, and have regarded the parties as belligerents. The only question is whether she would have done so well by us. "But," said my friend in answer to all this, "we should not have proclaimed to the world that we regarded you and them as standing on an equal footing." There again appeared the true gist of the offence. A word from England such as that spoken by Lord John Russell was of such weight to the South, that the North could not endure to have it spoken. I did not say to that gentleman,—but here I may say, that had such circumstances arisen as those conjectured, and had America spoken such a word, England would not have felt herself called upon to resent it.

But the fairer analogy lies between Ireland and the Southern States. The monster meetings and O'Connell's triumphs are not so long gone by but that many of us can remember the first demand for secession made by Ireland, and the line which was then taken by American sympathies. It is not too much to say that America then believed that Ireland would secure secession, and that the great trust of the Irish repealers was in the moral aid which she did and would receive from America. "But our Government proclaimed no sympathy with Ireland," said my friend. No. The American Government is not called on to make such proclamations; nor had Ireland ever taken upon herself the nature and labours of a belligerent.

That this anger on the part of the North is unreasonable I cannot doubt. That it is unfortunate, grievous, and very bitter I am quite sure. But I do not think that it is in any degree surprising. I am inclined to think that did I belong to Boston as I do belong to London, I should share in the feeling, and rave as loudly as all men there have raved against the coldness of England. When men have on hand such a job of work as the North has now undertaken they are always guided by their feelings rather than their reason. What two men ever had a quarrel in which each did not think that all the world, if just, would espouse his own side of the dispute? The North feels that it has been more than loyal to the South, and that the South has taken advantage of that over-loyalty to betray the North. "We have worked for them, and fought for them, and paid for them," says the North. "By our labour we have raised their indolence to a par with our energy. While we have worked like men, we have allowed them to talk and bluster. We have warmed them in our bosom, and now they turn against us and sting us. The world sees that this is so. England, above all, must see it, and seeing it should speak out her true opinion." The North is hot with such thoughts as these, and one cannot wonder that she should be angry with her friend, when her friend, with an expression of certain easy good wishes, bids her fight out her own battles. The North has been unreasonable with England;—but I believe that every reader of this page would have been as unreasonable had that reader been born in Massachusetts.

Mr. and Mrs. Jones are the dearly beloved friends of my family. My wife and I have lived with Mrs. Jones on terms of intimacy which have been quite endearing. Jones has had the run of my house with perfect freedom, and in Mrs. Jones' drawing-room I have always had my own arm-chair, and have been regaled with large breakfast-cups of tea, quite as though I were at home. But of a sudden Jones and his wife have fallen out, and there is for a while in Jones' Hall a cat and dog life that may end—in one hardly dare to surmise what calamity. Mrs. Jones begs that I will interfere with her husband, and Jones entreats the good offices of my wife in moderating the hot temper of his own. But we know better than that. If we interfere, the chances are that my dear friends will make it up and turn upon us. I grieve beyond measure in a general way at the temporary break up of the Jones' Hall happiness. I express general wishes that it may be temporary. But as for saying which is right or which is wrong,—as to expressing special sympathy on either side in such a quarrel,—it is out of the question. "My dear Jones, you must excuse me. Any news in the City to-day? Sugars have fell; how are teas?" Of course Jones thinks that I'm a brute; but what can I do?

I have been somewhat surprised to find the trouble that has been taken by American orators, statesmen, and logicians to prove that this secession on the part of the South has been revolutionary;—that is to say, that it has been undertaken and carried on not in compliance with the constitution of the United States, but in defiance of it. This has been done over and over again by some of the greatest men of the North, and has been done most successfully. But what then? Of course the movement has been revolutionary and anti-constitutional. Nobody, no single Southerner, can really believe that the Constitution of the United States as framed in 1787, or altered since, intended to give to the separate States the power of seceding as they pleased. It is surely useless going through long arguments to prove this, seeing that it is absolutely proved by the absence of any clause giving such licence to the separate States. Such licence would have been destructive to the very idea of a great nationality. Where would New England have been as a part of the United States, if New York, which stretches from the Atlantic to the borders of Canada, had been endowed with the power of cutting off the six Northern States from the rest of the Union? No one will for a moment doubt that the movement was revolutionary, and yet infinite pains are taken to prove a fact that is patent to every one.

It is revolutionary, but what then? Have the Northern States of the American Union taken upon themselves in 1861 to proclaim their opinion that revolution is a sin? Are they going back to the divine right of any sovereignty? Are they going to tell the world that a nation or a people is bound to remain in any political status, because that status is the recognized form of government under which such a people have lived? Is this to be the doctrine of United States' citizens,—of all people? And is this the doctrine preached now, of all times, when the King of Naples and the Italian dukes have just been dismissed from their thrones with such enchanting nonchalance, because their people have not chosen to keep them? Of course the movement is revolutionary; and why not? It is agreed now among all men and all nations that any people may change its form of government to any other, if it wills to do so,—and if it can do so.

There are two other points on which these Northern statesmen and logicians also insist, and these two other points are at any rate better worth an argument than that which touches the question of revolution. It being settled that secession on the part of the Southerners is revolution, it is argued, firstly, that no occasion for revolution had been given by the North to the South; and, secondly, that the South has been dishonest in its revolutionary tactics. Men certainly should not raise a revolution for nothing; and it may certainly be declared that whatever men do, they should do honestly.

But in that matter of the cause and ground for revolution, it is so very easy for either party to put in a plea that shall be satisfactory to itself! Mr. and Mrs. Jones each had a separate story. Mr. Jones was sure that the right lay with him: but Mrs. Jones was no less sure. No doubt the North had done much for the South;—had earned money for it; had fed it;—and had moreover in a great measure fostered all its bad habits. It had not only been generous to the South, but over-indulgent. But also it had continually irritated the South by meddling with that which the Southerners believed to be a question absolutely private to themselves. The matter was illustrated to me by a New Hampshire man who was conversant with black bears. At the hotels in the New Hampshire mountains it is customary to find black bears chained to poles. These bears are caught among the hills, and are thus imprisoned for the amusement of the hotel guests. "Them Southerners," said my friend, "are jist as one as that 'ere bear. We feeds him and gives him a house and his belly is ollers full. But then, jist becase he's a black bear, we're ollers a poking him with sticks, and a' course the beast is kinder riled. He wants to be back to the mountains. He wouldn't have his belly filled, but he'd have his own way. It's jist so with them Southerners."

It is of no use proving to any man or to any nation that they have got all they should want, if they have not got all that they do want. If a servant desires to go, it is of no avail to show him that he has all he can desire in his present place. The Northerners say that they have given no offence to the Southerners, and that therefore the South is wrong to raise a revolution. The very fact that the North is the North, is an offence to the South. As long as Mr. and Mrs. Jones were one in heart and one in feeling, having the same hopes and the same joys, it was well that they should remain together. But when it is proved that they cannot so live without tearing out each other's eyes, Sir Cresswell Cresswell, the revolutionary institution of domestic life, interferes and separates them. This is the age of such separations. I do not wonder that the North should use its logic to show that it has received cause of offence but given none. But I do think that such logic is thrown away. The matter is not one for argument. The South has thought that it can do better without the North than with it; and if it has the power to separate itself, it must be conceded that it has the right.

And then as to that question of honesty. Whatever men do they certainly should do honestly. Speaking broadly one may say that the rule applies to nations as strongly as to individuals, and should be observed in politics as accurately as in other matters. We must, however, confess that men who are scrupulous in their private dealings do too constantly drop those scruples when they handle public affairs,—and especially when they handle them at stirring moments of great national changes. The name of Napoleon III. stands fair now before Europe, and yet he filched the French empire with a falsehood. The union of England and Ireland is a successful fact, but nevertheless it can hardly be said that it was honestly achieved. I heartily believe that the whole of Texas is improved in every sense by having been taken from Mexico and added to the Southern States, but I much doubt whether that annexation was accomplished with absolute honesty. We all reverence the name of Cavour, but Cavour did not consent to abandon Nice to France with clean hands. When men have political ends to gain they regard their opponents as adversaries, and then that old rule of war is brought to bear, Deceit or valour,—either may be used against a foe. Would it were not so! The rascally rule—rascally in reference to all political contests—is becoming less universal than it was. But it still exists with sufficient force to be urged as an excuse; and while it does exist it seems almost needless to show that a certain amount of fraud has been used by a certain party in a revolution. If the South be ultimately successful, the fraud of which it may have been guilty will be condoned by the world.

The Southern or democratic party of the United States had, as all men know, been in power for many years. Either Southern Presidents had been elected, or Northern Presidents with Southern politics. The South for many years had had the disposition of military matters, and the power of distributing military appliances of all descriptions. It is now alleged by the North that a conspiracy had long been hatching in the South with the view of giving to the Southern States the power of secession whenever they might think fit to secede; and it is further alleged that President after President for years back has unduly sent the military treasure of the nation away from the North down to the South, in order that the South might be prepared when the day should come. That a President with Southern instincts should unduly favour the South, that he should strengthen the South, and feel that arms and ammunition were stored there with better effect than they could be stored in the North, is very probable. We all understand what is the bias of a man's mind, and how strong that bias may become when the man is not especially scrupulous. But I do not believe that any President previous to Buchanan sent military materials to the South with the self-acknowledged purpose of using them against the Union. That Buchanan did so, or knowingly allowed this to be done, I do believe, and I think that Buchanan was a traitor to the country whose servant he was and whose pay he received.

And now, having said so much in the way of introduction, I will begin my journey.

CHAPTER II.

NEWPORT—RHODE ISLAND.

We—the we consisting of my wife and myself—left Liverpool for Boston on the 24th August, 1861, in the "Arabia," one of Cunard's North American mail packets. We had determined that my wife should return alone at the beginning of winter, when I intended to go to a part of the country in which, under the existing circumstances of the war, a lady might not feel herself altogether comfortable. I proposed staying in America over the winter, and returning in the spring; and this programme I have carried out with sufficient exactness.

The "Arabia" touched at Halifax; and as the touch extended from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. we had an opportunity of seeing a good deal of that colony;—not quite sufficient to justify me at this critical age in writing a chapter of travels in Nova Scotia, but enough perhaps to warrant a paragraph. It chanced that a cousin of mine was then in command of the troops there, so that we saw the fort with all the honours. A dinner on shore was, I think, a greater treat to us even than this. We also inspected sundry specimens of the gold which is now being found for the first time in Nova Scotia,—as to the glory and probable profits of which the Nova Scotians seemed to be fully alive. But still, I think, the dinner on shore took rank with us as the most memorable and meritorious of all that we did and saw at Halifax. At seven o'clock on the morning but one after that, we were landed at Boston.

At Boston I found friends ready to receive us with open arms, though they were friends we had never known before. I own that I felt myself burdened with much nervous anxiety at my first introduction to men and women in Boston. I knew what the feeling there was with reference to England, and I knew also how impossible it is for an Englishman to hold his tongue and submit to dispraise of England. As for going among a people whose whole minds were filled with affairs of the war, and saying nothing about the war,—I knew that no resolution to such an effect could be carried out. If one could not trust oneself to speak, one should have stayed at home in England. I will here state that I always did speak out openly what I thought and felt, and that though I encountered very strong—sometimes almost fierce—opposition, I never was subjected to anything that was personally disagreeable to me.

In September we did not stay above a week in Boston, having been fairly driven out of it by the mosquitoes. I had been told that I should find nobody in Boston whom I cared to see, as everybody was habitually out of town during the heat of the latter summer and early autumn; but this was not so. The war and attendant turmoils of war had made the season of vacation shorter than usual, and most of those for whom I asked were back at their posts. I know no place at which an Englishman may drop down suddenly among a pleasanter circle of acquaintance, or find himself with a more clever set of men, than he can do at Boston. I confess that in this respect I think that but few towns are at present more fortunately circumstanced than the capital of the Bay State, as Massachusetts is called, and that very few towns make a better use of their advantages. Boston has a right to be proud of what it has done for the world of letters. It is proud; but I have not found that its pride was carried too far.

Boston is not in itself a fine city, but it is a very pleasant city. They say that the harbour is very grand and very beautiful. It certainly is not so fine as that of Portland in a nautical point of view, and as certainly it is not as beautiful. It is the entrance from the sea into Boston of which people say so much; but I did not think it quite worthy of all I had heard. In such matters, however, much depends on the peculiar light in which scenery is seen. An evening light is generally the best for all landscapes; and I did not see the entrance to Boston harbour by an evening light. It was not the beauty of the harbour of which I thought the most, but of the tea that had been sunk there, and of all that came of that successful speculation. Few towns now standing have a right to be more proud of their antecedents than Boston.

But as I have said, it is not specially interesting to the eye—what new town, or even what simply adult town, can be so? There is an Athenæum, and a State Hall, and a fashionable street,—Beacon Street, very like Piccadilly as it runs along the Green Park,—and there is the Green Park opposite to this Piccadilly, called Boston Common. Beacon Street and Boston Common are very pleasant. Excellent houses there are, and large churches, and enormous hotels; but of such things as these a man can write nothing that is worth the reading. The traveller who desires to tell his experience of North America must write of people rather than of things.

As I have said, I found myself instantly involved in discussions on American politics, and the bearing of England upon those politics. "What do you think, you in England—what do you all believe will be the upshot of this war?" That was the question always asked in those or other words. "Secession, certainly," I always said, but not speaking quite with that abruptness. "And you believe, then, that the South will beat the North?" I explained that I, personally, had never so thought, and that I did not believe that to be the general idea. Men's opinions in England, however, were too divided to enable me to say that there was any prevailing conviction on the matter. My own impression was, and is, that the North will, in a military point of view, have the best of the contest,—will beat the South; but that the Northerners will not prevent secession, let their success be what it may. Should the North prevail after a two years' conflict, the North will not admit the South to an equal participation of good things with themselves, even though each separate rebellious State should return suppliant, like a prodigal son, kneeling on the floor of Congress, each with a separate rope of humiliation round its neck. Such was my idea as expressed then, and I do not know that I have since had much cause to change it.

"We will never give it up," one gentleman said to me—and, indeed, many have said the same,—"till the whole territory is again united from the Bay to the Gulf! It is impossible that we should allow of two nationalities within those limits." "And do you think it possible," I asked, "that you should receive back into your bosom this people which you now hate with so deep a hatred, and receive them again into your arms as brothers on equal terms? Is it in accordance with experience that a conquered people should be so treated—and that, too, a people whose every habit of life is at variance with the habits of their presumed conquerors? When you have flogged them into a return of fraternal affection, are they to keep their slaves or are they to abolish them?" "No," said my friend; "it may not be practicable to put those rebellious States at once on an equality with ourselves. For a time they will probably be treated as the Territories are now treated." (The Territories are vast outlying districts belonging to the Union, but not as yet endowed with State governments, or a participation in the United States Congress.) "For a time they must, perhaps, lose their full privileges; but the Union will be anxious to readmit them at the earliest possible period." "And as to the slaves?" I asked again. "Let them emigrate to Liberia: back to their own country." I could not say that I thought much of the solution of the difficulty. It would, I suggested, overtask even the energy of America to send out an emigration of four million souls, to provide for their wants in a new and uncultivated country, and to provide after that for the terrible gap made in the labour market of the Southern States. "The Israelites went back from bondage," said my friend. But a way was opened for them by a miracle across the sea, and food was sent to them from heaven, and they had among them a Moses for a leader and a Joshua to fight their battles. I could not but express my fear that the days of such immigrations were over. This plan of sending back the negroes to Africa did not reach me only from one or from two mouths; and it was suggested by men whose opinions respecting their country have weight at home and are entitled to weight abroad. I mention this merely to show how insurmountable would be the difficulty of preventing secession, let which side win that may.

"We will never abandon the right to the mouth of the Mississippi." That in all such arguments is a strong point with men of the Northern States;—perhaps the point to which they all return with the greatest firmness. It is that on which Mr. Everett insists in the last paragraph of the oration which he made in New York on the 4th of July, 1861. "The Missouri and the Mississippi rivers," he says, "with their hundred tributaries give to the great central basin of our continent its character and destiny. The outlet of this system lies between the States of Tennessee and Missouri, of Mississippi and Arkansas, and through the State of Louisiana. The ancient province so called, the proudest monument of the mighty monarch whose name it bears, passed from the jurisdiction of France to that of Spain in 1763. Spain coveted it; not that she might fill it with prosperous colonies and rising States, but that it might stretch as a broad waste barrier, infested with warlike tribes, between the Anglo-American power and the silver mines of Mexico. With the independence of the United States, the fear of a still more dangerous neighbour grew upon Spain; and in the insane expectation of checking the progress of the Union westward, she threatened, and at times attempted, to close the mouth of the Mississippi on the rapidly increasing trade of the West. The bare suggestion of such a policy roused the population upon the banks of the Ohio, then inconsiderable, as one man. Their confidence in Washington scarcely restrained them from rushing to the seizure of New Orleans, when the treaty of San Lorenzo El Real, in 1795, stipulated for them a precarious right of navigating the noble river to the sea, with a right of deposit at New Orleans. This subject was for years the turning-point of the politics of the West; and it was perfectly well understood that, sooner or later, she would be content with nothing less than the sovereign control of the mighty stream from its head-spring to its outlet in the Gulf. And that is as true now as it was then."

This is well put. It describes with force the desires, ambition, and necessities of a great nation, and it tells with historical truth the story of the success of that nation. It was a great thing done when the purchase of the whole of Louisiana was completed by the United States,—that cession by France, however, having been made at the instance of Napoleon, and not in consequence of any demand made by the States. The district then called Louisiana included the present State of that name, and the States of Missouri and Arkansas;—included also the right to possess, if not the absolute possession of, all that enormous expanse of country running from thence back to the Pacific; a huge amount of territory of which the most fertile portion is watered by the Mississippi and its vast tributaries. That river and those tributaries are navigable through the whole centre of the American continent up to Wisconsin and Minnesota. To the United States the navigation of the Mississippi was, we may say, indispensable; and to the States when no longer united the navigation will be equally indispensable. But the days are gone when any country, such as Spain was, can interfere to stop the highways of the world with the all but avowed intention of arresting the progress of civilization. It may be that the North and the South can never again be friends as the component parts of one nation. Such I take it is the belief of all politicians in Europe, and of many of those who live across the water. But as separate nations they may yet live together in amity, and share between them the great water-ways which God has given them for their enrichment. The Rhine is free to Prussia and to Holland. The Danube is not closed against Austria. It will be said that the Danube has in fact been closed against Austria, in spite of treaties to the contrary. But the faults of bad and weak governments are made known as cautions to the world, and not as facts to copy. The free use of the waters of a common river between two nations is an affair for treaty; and it has not yet come to that that treaties must necessarily be null and void through the falseness of politicians.

"And what will England do for cotton? Is it not the fact that Lord John Russell with his professed neutrality intends to express sympathy with the South, intends to pave the way for the advent of Southern cotton?" "You ought to love us," so say men in Boston, "because we have been with you in heart and spirit for long, long years. But your trade has eaten into your souls, and you love American cotton better than American loyalty and American fellowship." This I found to be unfair, and in what politest language I could use I said so. I had not any special knowledge of the minds of English statesmen on this matter; but I knew as well as Americans could do what our statesmen had said and done respecting it. That cotton, if it came from the South, would be made very welcome in Liverpool, of course, I knew. If private enterprise could bring it, it might be brought. But the very declaration made by Lord John Russell was the surest pledge that England as a nation would not interfere, even to supply her own wants. It may easily be imagined what eager words all this would bring about; but I never found that eager words led to feelings which were personally hostile.

All the world has heard of Newport in Rhode Island as being the Brighton, and Tenby, and Scarborough of New England. And the glory of Newport is by no means confined to New England, but is shared by New York and Washington, and in ordinary years by the extreme South. It is the habit of Americans to go to some watering place every summer,—that is, to some place either of sea water or of inland waters. This is done much in England; more in Ireland than in England; but, I think, more in the States than even in Ireland. But of all such summer haunts, Newport is supposed to be in many ways the most captivating. In the first place it is certainly the most fashionable, and in the next place it is said to be the most beautiful. We decided on going to Newport,—led thither by the latter reputation rather than the former. As we were still in the early part of September we expected to find the place full, but in this we were disappointed;—disappointed, I say, rather than gratified, although a crowded house at such a place is certainly a nuisance. But a house which is prepared to make up six hundred beds, and which is called on to make up only twenty-five becomes, after a while, somewhat melancholy. The natural depression of the landlord communicates itself to his servants, and from the servants it descends to the twenty-five guests, who wander about the long passages and deserted balconies like the ghosts of those of the summer visitors, who cannot rest quietly in their graves at home.

In England we know nothing of hotels prepared for six hundred visitors, all of whom are expected to live in common. Domestic architects would be frightened at the dimensions which are needed, and at the number of apartments which are required to be clustered under one roof. We went to the Ocean Hotel at Newport, and fancied, as we first entered the hall under a verandah as high as the house, and made our way into the passage, that we had been taken to a well-arranged barrack. "Have you rooms?" I asked, as a man always does ask on first reaching his inn. "Rooms enough," the clerk said. "We have only fifty here." But that fifty dwindled down to twenty-five during the next day or two.

We were a melancholy set, the ladies appearing to be afflicted in this way worse than the gentlemen, on account of their enforced abstinence from tobacco. What can twelve ladies do scattered about a drawing-room, so-called, intended for the accommodation of two hundred? The drawing-room at the Ocean Hotel, Newport, is not as big as Westminster Hall, but would, I should think, make a very good House of Commons for the British nation. Fancy the feelings of a lady when she walks into such a room intending to spend her evening there, and finds six or seven other ladies located on various sofas at terrible distances,—all strangers to her. She has come to Newport probably to enjoy herself; and as, in accordance with the customs of the place, she has dined at two, she has nothing before her for the evening but the society of that huge furnished cavern. Her husband, if she have one, or her father, or her lover, has probably entered the room with her. But a man has never the courage to endure such a position long. He sidles out with some muttered excuse, and seeks solace with a cigar. The lady, after half an hour of contemplation, creeps silently near some companion in the desert, and suggests in a whisper that Newport does not seem to be very full at present.

We stayed there for a week, and were very melancholy; but in our melancholy we still talked of the war. Americans are said to be given to bragging, and it is a sin of which I cannot altogether acquit them. But I have constantly been surprised at hearing the Northern men speak of their own military achievements with anything but self-praise. "We've been whipped, sir; and we shall be whipped again before we've done; uncommon well whipped we shall be." "We began cowardly, and were afraid to send our own regiments through one of our own cities." This alluded to a demand that had been made on the Government, that troops going to Washington should not be sent through Baltimore, because of the strong feeling for rebellion which was known to exist in that city. President Lincoln complied with this request, thinking it well to avoid a collision between the mob and the soldiers. "We began cowardly, and now we're going on cowardly, and darn't attack them. Well; when we've been whipped often enough, then we shall learn the trade." Now all this,—and I heard much of such a nature,—could not be called boasting. But yet with it all there was a substratum of confidence. I have heard northern gentlemen complaining of the President, complaining of all his ministers one after another, complaining of the contractors who were robbing the army, of the commanders who did not know how to command the army, and of the army itself which did not know how to obey; but I do not remember that I have discussed the matter with any Northerner who would admit a doubt as to ultimate success.

We were certainly rather melancholy at Newport, and the empty house may perhaps have given its tone to the discussions on the war. I confess that I could not stand the drawing-room—the ladies' drawing-room as such-like rooms are always called at the hotels,—and that I basely deserted my wife. I could not stand it either here or elsewhere, and it seemed to me that other husbands,—ay, and even lovers,—were as hard pressed as myself. I protest that there is no spot on the earth's surface so dear to me as my own drawing-room, or rather my wife's drawing-room at home; that I am not a man given hugely to clubs, but one rather rejoicing in the rustle of petticoats. I like to have women in the same room with me. But at these hotels I found myself driven away,—propelled as it were by some unknown force,—to absent myself from the feminine haunts. Anything was more palatable than them; even "liquoring up" at a nasty bar, or smoking in a comfortless reading-room among a deluge of American newspapers. And I protest also,—hoping as I do so that I may say much in these volumes to prove the truth of such protestation,—that this comes from no fault of the American women. They are as lovely as our own women. Taken generally, they are better instructed—though perhaps not better educated. They are seldom troubled with mauvaise honte,—I do not say it in irony, but begging that the words may be taken at their proper meaning. They can always talk, and very often can talk well. But when assembled together in these vast, cavernous, would-be luxurious, but in truth horribly comfortless hotel drawing-rooms,—they are unapproachable. I have seen lovers, whom I have known to be lovers, unable to remain five minutes in the same cavern with their beloved ones.

And then the music! There is always a piano in an hotel drawing-room, on which, of course, some one of the forlorn ladies is generally employed. I do not suppose that these pianos are in fact, as a rule, louder and harsher, more violent and less musical, than other instruments of the kind. They seem to be so, but that, I take it, arises from the exceptional mental depression of those who have to listen to them. Then the ladies, or probably some one lady, will sing, and as she hears her own voice ring and echo through the lofty corners and round the empty walls, she is surprised at her own force, and with increased efforts sings louder and still louder. She is tempted to fancy that she is suddenly gifted with some power of vocal melody unknown to her before, and filled with the glory of her own performance shouts till the whole house rings. At such moments she at least is happy, if no one else is so. Looking at the general sadness of her position, who can grudge her such happiness?

And then the children,—babies, I should say if I were speaking of English bairns of their age; but seeing that they are Americans, I hardly dare to call them children. The actual age of these perfectly civilized and highly educated beings may be from three to four. One will often see five or six such seated at the long dinner-table of the hotel, breakfasting and dining with their elders, and going through the ceremony with all the gravity, and more than all the decorum of their grandfathers. When I was three years old I had not yet, as I imagine, been promoted beyond a silver spoon of my own wherewith to eat my bread and milk in the nursery, and I feel assured that I was under the immediate care of a nursemaid, as I gobbled up my minced mutton mixed with potatoes and gravy. But at hotel life in the States the adult infant lisps to the waiter for everything at table, handles his fish with epicurean delicacy, is choice in his selection of pickles, very particular that his beefsteak at breakfast shall be hot, and is instant in his demand for fresh ice in his water. But perhaps his, or in this case her, retreat from the room when the meal is over, is the chef d'œuvre of the whole performance. The little precocious, full-blown beauty of four signifies that she has completed her meal,—or is "through" her dinner, as she would express it,—by carefully extricating herself from the napkin which has been tucked around her. Then the waiter, ever attentive to her movements, draws back the chair on which she is seated, and the young lady glides to the floor. A little girl in Old England would scramble down, but little girls in New England never scramble. Her father and mother, who are no more than her chief ministers, walk before her out of the saloon, and then she—swims after them. But swimming is not the proper word. Fishes in making their way through the water assist, or rather impede, their motion with no dorsal riggle. No animal taught to move directly by its Creator adopts a gait so useless, and at the same time so graceless. Many women, having received their lessons in walking from a less eligible instructor, do move in this way, and such women this unfortunate little lady has been instructed to copy. The peculiar step to which I allude is to be seen often on the Boulevards in Paris. It is to be seen more often in second rate French towns, and among fourth rate French women. Of all signs in women betokening vulgarity, bad taste, and aptitude to bad morals, it is the surest. And this is the gait of going which American mothers,—some American mothers I should say,—love to teach their daughters! As a comedy at an hotel, it is very delightful, but in private life I should object to it.

To me Newport could never be a place charming by reason of its own charms. That it is a very pleasant place when it is full of people and the people are in spirits and happy, I do not doubt. But then the visitors would bring, as far as I am concerned, the pleasantness with them. The coast is not fine. To those who know the best portions of the coast of Wales or Cornwall,—or better still, the western coast of Ireland, of Clare and Kerry for instance,—it would not be in any way remarkable. It is by no means equal to Dieppe or Biarritz, and not to be talked of in the same breath with Spezzia. The hotels, too, are all built away from the sea; so that one cannot sit and watch the play of the waves from one's window. Nor are there pleasant rambling paths down among the rocks, and from one short strand to another. There is excellent bathing for those who like bathing on shelving sand. I don't. The spot is about half a mile from the hotels, and to this the bathers are carried in omnibuses. Till one o'clock ladies bathe;—which operation, however, does not at all militate against the bathing of men, but rather necessitates it as regards those men who have ladies with them. For here ladies and gentlemen bathe in decorous dresses, and are very polite to each other. I must say, that I think the ladies have the best of it. My idea of sea-bathing for my own gratification is not compatible with a full suit of clothing. I own that my tastes are vulgar and perhaps indecent; but I love to jump into the deep clear sea from off a rock, and I love to be hampered by no outward impediments as I do so. For ordinary bathers, for all ladies, and for men less savage in their instincts than I am, the bathing at Newport is very good.

The private houses—villa residences as they would be termed by an auctioneer in England—are excellent. Many of them are, in fact, large mansions, and are surrounded with grounds, which, as the shrubs grow up, will be very beautiful. Some have large, well-kept lawns, stretching down to the rocks, and these to my taste give the charm to Newport. They extend about two miles along the coast. Should my lot have made me a citizen of the United States, I should have had no objection to become the possessor of one of these "villa residences," but I do not think that I should have "gone in" for hotel life at Newport.

We hired saddle-horses, and rode out nearly the length of the island. It was all very well, but there was little in it remarkable either as regards cultivation or scenery. We found nothing that it would be possible either to describe or remember. The Americans of the United States have had time to build and populate vast cities, but they have not yet had time to surround themselves with pretty scenery. Outlying grand scenery is given by nature; but the prettiness of home scenery is a work of art. It comes from the thorough draining of land, from the planting and subsequent thinning of trees, from the controlling of waters, and constant use of minute patches of broken land. In another hundred years or so Rhode Island may be, perhaps, as pretty as the Isle of Wight. The horses which we got were not good. They were unhandy and badly mouthed, and that which my wife rode was altogether ignorant of the art of walking. We hired them from an Englishman, who had established himself at New York as a riding-master for ladies, and who had come to Newport for the season on the same business. He complained to me with much bitterness of the saddle-horses which came in his way,—of course thinking that it was the special business of a country to produce saddle-horses,—as I think it the special business of a country to produce pens, ink, and paper of good quality. According to him, riding has not yet become an American art, and hence the awkwardness of American horses. "Lord bless you, sir! they don't give an animal a chance of a mouth." In this he alluded only, I presume, to saddle-horses. I know nothing of the trotting-horses, but I should imagine that a fine mouth must be an essential requisite for a trotting-match in harness. As regards riding at Newport, we were not tempted to repeat the experiment. The number of carriages which we saw there,—remembering as I did that the place was comparatively empty,—and their general smartness, surprised me very much. It seemed that every lady with a house of her own had also her own carriage. These carriages were always open, and the law of the land imperatively demands that the occupants shall cover their knees with a worked worsted apron of brilliant colours. These aprons at first, I confess, seemed tawdry; but the eye soon becomes used to bright colours, in carriage aprons as well as in architecture, and I soon learned to like them.

Rhode Island, as the State is usually called, is the smallest State in the Union. I may perhaps best show its disparity to other States by saying that New York extends about 250 miles from north to south and the same distance from east to west; whereas the State called Rhode Island is about forty miles long by twenty broad, independently of certain small islands. It would, in fact, not form a considerable addition, if added on to many of the other States. Nevertheless, it has all the same powers of self-government as are possessed by such nationalities as the States of New York and Pennsylvania; and sends two senators to the Senate at Washington, as do those enormous States. Small as the State is, Rhode Island itself forms but a small portion of it. The authorized and proper name of the State is Providence Plantation and Rhode Island. Roger Williams was the first founder of the colony, and he established himself on the mainland at a spot which he called Providence. Here now stands the city of Providence, the chief town of the State; and a thriving, comfortable town it seems to be, full of banks, fed by railways and steamers, and going ahead quite as quickly as Roger Williams could in his fondest hopes have desired.

Rhode Island, as I have said, has all the attributes of government in common with her stouter and more famous sisters. She has a governor, and an upper house, and a lower house of legislature; and she is somewhat fantastic in the use of these constitutional powers, for she calls on them to sit now in one town and now in another. Providence is the capital of the State; but the Rhode Island parliament sits sometimes at Providence and sometimes at Newport. At stated times also it has to collect itself at Bristol, and at other stated times at Kingston, and at others at East Greenwich. Of all legislative assemblies it is the most peripatetic. Universal suffrage does not absolutely prevail in this State, a certain property qualification being necessary to confer a right to vote even for the State Representatives. I should think it would be well for all parties if the whole State could be swallowed up by Massachusetts or by Connecticut, either of which lie conveniently for the feat; but I presume that any suggestion of such a nature would be regarded as treason by the men of Providence Plantation.

We returned back to Boston by Attleborough, a town at which in ordinary times the whole population is supported by the jewellers' trade. It is a place with a speciality, upon which speciality it has thriven well and become a town. But the speciality is one ill-adapted for times of war; and we were assured that the trade was for the present at an end. What man could now-a-days buy jewels, or even what woman, seeing that everything would be required for the war? I do not say that such abstinence from luxury has been begotten altogether by a feeling of patriotism. The direct taxes which all Americans will now be called on to pay, have had, and will have much to do with such abstinence. In the mean time the poor jewellers of Attleborough have gone altogether to the wall.

CHAPTER III.

MAINE, NEW HAMPSHIRE, AND VERMONT.

Perhaps I ought to assume that all the world in England knows that that portion of the United States called New England consists of the six States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. This is especially the land of Yankees, and none can properly be called Yankees but those who belong to New England. I have named the States as nearly as may be in order from the North downwards. Of Rhode Island, the smallest State in the Union, I have already said what little I have to say. Of these six States Boston may be called the capital. Not that it is so in any civil or political sense;—it is simply the capital of Massachusetts. But as it is the Athens of the Western world; as it was the cradle of American freedom; as everybody of course knows that into Boston harbour was thrown the tea which George III. would tax, and that at Boston, on account of that and similar taxes, sprang up the new revolution; and as it has grown in wealth, and fame, and size beyond other towns in New England, it may be allowed to us to regard it as the capital of these six Northern States, without guilt of lèse majesté towards the other five. To me, I confess, this Northern division of our once unruly colonies is, and always has been, the dearest. I am no Puritan myself, and fancy that had I lived in the days of the Puritans, I should have been anti-Puritan to the full extent of my capabilities. But I should have been so through ignorance and prejudice, and actuated by that love of existing rights and wrongs which men call loyalty. If the Canadas were to rebel now, I should be for putting down the Canadians with a strong hand; but not the less have I an idea that it will become the Canadas to rebel and assert their independence at some future period;—unless it be conceded to them without such rebellion. Who, on looking back, can now refuse to admire the political aspirations of the English Puritans, or decline to acknowledge the beauty and fitness of what they did? It was by them that these States of New England were colonized. They came hither stating themselves to be pilgrims, and as such they first placed their feet on that hallowed rock at Plymouth, on the shore of Massachusetts. They came here driven by no thirst of conquest, by no greed for gold, dreaming of no Western empire such as Cortez had achieved and Raleigh had meditated. They desired to earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, worshipping God according to their own lights, living in harmony under their own laws, and feeling that no master could claim a right to put a heel upon their necks. And be it remembered that here in England, in those days, earthly masters were still apt to put their heels on the necks of men. The Star Chamber was gone, but Jeffreys had not yet reigned. What earthly aspirations were ever higher than these, or more manly? And what earthly efforts ever led to grander results?

We determined to go to Portland, in Maine, from thence to the White Mountains in New Hampshire—the American Alps, as they love to call themselves,—and then on to Quebec and up through the two Canadas to Niagara; and this route we followed. From Boston to Portland we travelled by railroad,—the carriages on which are in America always called cars. And here I beg, once for all, to enter my protest loudly against the manner in which these conveyances are conducted. The one grand fault—there are other smaller faults—but the one grand fault is that they admit but one class. Two reasons for this are given. The first is that the finances of the companies will not admit of a divided accommodation; and the second is that the republican nature of the people will not brook a superior or aristocratic classification of travelling. As regards the first, I do not in the least believe in it. If a more expensive manner of railway travelling will pay in England, it would surely do so here. Were a better class of carriages organized, as large a portion of the population would use them in the United States as in any country in Europe. And it seems to be evident that in arranging that there shall be only one rate of travelling, the price is enhanced on poor travellers exactly in proportion as it is made cheap to those who are not poor. For the poorer classes, travelling in America is by no means cheap,—the average rate being, as far as I can judge, fully three halfpence a mile. It is manifest that dearer rates for one class would allow of cheaper rates for the other; and that in this manner general travelling would be encouraged and increased.

But I do not believe that the question of expenditure has had anything to do with it. I conceive it to be true that the railways are afraid to put themselves at variance with the general feeling of the people. If so the railways may be right. But then, on the other hand, the general feeling of the people must in such case be wrong. Such a feeling argues a total mistake as to the nature of that liberty and equality for the security of which the people are so anxious, and that mistake the very one which has made shipwreck so many attempts at freedom in other countries. It argues that confusion between social and political equality which has led astray multitudes who have longed for liberty fervently, but who have not thought of it carefully. If a first-class railway carriage should be held as offensive, so should a first-class house, or a first-class horse, or a first-class dinner. But first-class houses, first-class horses, and first-class dinners are very rife in America. Of course it may be said that the expenditure shown in these last-named objects is private expenditure, and cannot be controlled; and that railway travelling is of a public nature, and can be made subject to public opinion. But the fault is in that public opinion which desires to control matters of this nature. Such an arrangement partakes of all the vice of a sumptuary law, and sumptuary laws are in their very essence mistakes. It is well that a man should always have all for which he is willing to pay. If he desires and obtains more than is good for him, the punishment, and thus also the preventive, will come from other sources.

It will be said that the American cars are good enough for all purposes. The seats are not very hard, and the room for sitting is sufficient. Nevertheless I deny that they are good enough for all purposes. They are very long, and to enter them and find a place often requires a struggle and almost a fight. There is rarely any person to tell a stranger which car he should enter. One never meets an uncivil or unruly man, but the women of the lower ranks are not courteous. American ladies love to lie at ease in their carriages, as thoroughly as do our women in Hyde Park, and to those who are used to such luxury, travelling by railroad in their own country must be grievous. I would not wish to be thought a Sybarite myself, or to be held as complaining because I have been compelled to give up my seat to women with babies and bandboxes who have accepted the courtesy with very scanty grace. I have borne worse things than these, and have roughed it much in my days from want of means and other reasons. Nor am I yet so old but what I can rough it still. Nevertheless I like to see things as well done as is practicable, and railway travelling in the States is not well done. I feel bound to say as much as this, and now I have said it, once for all.

Few cities, or localities for cities, have fairer natural advantages than Portland—and I am bound to say that the people of Portland have done much in turning them to account. This town is not the capital of the State in a political point of view. Augusta, which is further to the North, on the Kenebec river, is the seat of the State Government for Maine. It is very generally the case that the States do not hold their legislatures and carry on their Government at their chief towns. Augusta and not Portland is the capital of Maine. Of the State of New York, Albany is the capital, and not the city which bears the State's name. And of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg and not Philadelphia is the capital. I think the idea has been that old-fashioned notions were bad in that they were old-fashioned; and that a new people, bound by no prejudices, might certainly make improvement by choosing for themselves new ways. If so the American politicians have not been the first in the world who have thought that any change must be a change for the better. The assigned reason is the centrical position of the selected political capitals: but I have generally found the real commercial capital to be easier of access than the smaller town in which the two legislative houses are obliged to collect themselves.

What must be the natural excellence of the harbour of Portland will be understood when it is borne in mind that the Great Eastern can enter it at all times, and that it can lie along the wharves at any hour of the tide. The wharves which have been prepared for her—and of which I will say a word further by-and-by—are joined to and in fact are a portion of the station of the Grand Trunk Railway, which runs from Portland up to Canada. So that passengers landing at Portland out of a vessel so large even as the Great Eastern can walk at once on shore, and goods can be passed on to the railway without any of the cost of removal. I will not say that there is no other harbour in the world that would allow of this, but I do not know any other that would do so.

From Portland a line of railway, called as a whole by the name of the Canada Grand Trunk line, runs across the State of Maine through the Northern parts of New Hampshire and Vermont, to Montreal, a branch striking from Richmond, a little within the limits of Canada, to Quebec, and down the St. Lawrence to Rivière du Loup. The main line is continued from Montreal, through Upper Canada to Toronto, and from thence to Detroit in the State of Michigan. The total distance thus traversed is in a direct line about 900 miles. From Detroit there is railway communication through the immense North-Western States of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois, than which perhaps the surface of the globe affords no finer districts for purposes of agriculture. The produce of the two Canadas must be poured forth to the Eastern world, and the men of the Eastern world must throng into these lands, by means of this railroad,—and, as at present arranged, through the harbour of Portland. At present the line has been opened, and they who have opened are sorely suffering in pocket for what they have done. The question of the railway is rather one applying to Canada than to the State of Maine, and I will therefore leave it for the present.

But the Great Eastern has never been to Portland, and as far as I know has no intention of going there. She was, I believe, built with that object. At any rate it was proclaimed during her building that such was her destiny, and the Portlanders believed it with a perfect faith. They went to work and built wharves expressly for her; two wharves prepared to fit her two gangways, or ways of exit and entrance. They built a huge hotel to receive her passengers. They prepared for her advent with a full conviction that a millennium of trade was about to be wafted to their happy port. "Sir, the town has expended two hundred thousand dollars in expectation of that ship, and that ship has deceived us." So was the matter spoken of to me by an intelligent Portlander. I explained to that intelligent gentleman that two hundred thousand dollars would go a very little way towards making up the loss which the ill-fortuned vessel had occasioned on the other side of the water. He did not in words express gratification at this information, but he looked it. The matter was as it were a partnership without deed of contract between the Portlanders and the shareholders of the vessel, and the Portlanders, though they also have suffered their losses, have not had the worst of it.

But there are still good days in store for the town. Though the Great Eastern has not gone there, other ships from Europe, more profitable if less in size, must eventually find their way thither. At present the Canada line of packets runs to Portland only during those months in which it is shut out from the St. Lawrence and Quebec by ice. But the St. Lawrence and Quebec cannot offer the advantages which Portland enjoys, and that big hotel and those new wharves will not have been built in vain.

I have said that a good time is coming, but I would by no means wish to signify that the present times in Portland are bad. So far from it, that I doubt whether I ever saw a town with more evident signs of prosperity. It has about it every mark of ample means, and no mark of poverty. It contains about 27,000 people, and for that population covers a very large space of ground. The streets are broad and well built, the main streets not running in those absolutely straight parallels which are so common in American towns, and are so distressing to English eyes and English feelings. All these, except the streets devoted exclusively to business, are shaded on both sides by trees—generally, if I remember rightly, by the beautiful American elm, whose drooping boughs have all the grace of the willow without its fantastic melancholy. What the poorer streets of Portland may be like I cannot say. I saw no poor street. But in no town of 30,000 inhabitants did I ever see so many houses which must require an expenditure of from six to eight hundred a year to maintain them.

The place too is beautifully situated. It is on a long promontory, which takes the shape of a peninsula;—for the neck which joins it to the mainland is not above half a mile across. But though the town thus stands out into the sea, it is not exposed and bleak. The harbour again is surrounded by land, or so guarded and locked by islands as to form a series of salt-water lakes running round the town. Of those islands there are, of course, 365. Travellers who write their travels are constantly called upon to record that number, so that it may now be considered as a superlative in local phraseology, signifying a very great many indeed. The town stands between two hills, the suburbs or outskirts running up on to each of them. The one looking out towards the sea is called Mountjoy—though the obstinate Americans will write it Munjoy on their maps. From thence the view out to the harbour and beyond the harbour to the islands is, I may not say unequalled, or I shall be guilty of running into superlatives myself; but it is, in its way, equal to anything I have seen. Perhaps it is more like Cork harbour, as seen from certain heights over Passage than anything else I can remember; but Portland harbour, though equally landlocked, is larger; and then from Portland harbour there is as it were a river outlet, running through delicious islands, most unalluring to the navigator, but delicious to the eyes of an uncommercial traveller. There are in all four outlets to the sea, one of which appears to have been made expressly for the Great Eastern. Then there is the hill looking inwards. If it has a name I forget it. The view from this hill is also over the water on each side, and though not so extensive is perhaps as pleasing as the other.

The ways of the people seemed to be quiet, smooth, orderly, and republican. There is nothing to drink in Portland of course, for, thanks to Mr. Neal Dow, the Father Mathew of the State of Maine, the Maine Liquor Law is still in force in that State. There is nothing to drink, I should say, in such orderly houses as that I selected. "People do drink some in the town, they say," said my hostess to me; "and liquor is to be got. But I never venture to sell any. An ill-natured person might turn on me, and where should I be then?" I did not press her, and she was good enough to put a bottle of porter at my right hand at dinner, for which I observed she made no charge. "But they advertise beer in the shop-windows," I said to a man who was driving me—"Scotch ale, and bitter beer. A man can get drunk on them." "Wa'al, yes. If he goes to work hard, and drinks a bucket-full," said the driver, "perhaps he may." From which and other things I gathered that the men of Maine drank pottle deep before Mr. Neal Dow brought his exertions to a successful termination.

The Maine Liquor Law still stands in Maine, and is the law of the land throughout New England; but it is not actually put in force in the other States. By this law no man may retail wine, spirits, or, in truth, beer, except with a special license, which is given only to those who are presumed to sell them as medicines. A man may have what he likes in his own cellar for his own use—such at least is the actual working of the law—but may not obtain it at hotels and public-houses. This law, like all sumptuary laws, must fail. And it is fast failing even in Maine. But it did appear to me from such information as I could collect that the passing of it had done much to hinder and repress a habit of hard drinking which was becoming terribly common, not only in the towns of Maine, but among the farmers and hired labourers in the country.

But if the men and women of Portland may not drink they may eat, and it is a place, I should say, in which good living on that side of the question is very rife. It has an air of supreme plenty, as though the agonies of an empty stomach were never known there. The faces of the people tell of three regular meals of meat a day, and of digestive powers in proportion. Oh happy Portlanders, if they only knew their own good fortune! They get up early, and go to bed early. The women are comely and sturdy, able to take care of themselves without any fal-lal of chivalry; and the men are sedate, obliging, and industrious. I saw the young girls in the streets, coming home from their tea-parties at nine o'clock, many of them alone, and all with some basket in their hands which betokened an evening not passed absolutely in idleness. No fear there of unruly questions on the way, or of insolence from the ill-conducted of the other sex! All was, or seemed to be, orderly, sleek, and unobtrusive. Probably of all modes of life that are allotted to man by his Creator, life such as this is the most happy. One hint, however, for improvement I must give, even to Portland! It would be well if they could make their streets of some material harder than sand.

I must not leave the town without desiring those who may visit it to mount the Observatory. They will from thence get the best view of the harbour and of the surrounding land; and, if they chance to do so under the reign of the present keeper of the signals, they will find a man there able and willing to tell them everything needful about the State of Maine in general, and the harbour in particular. He will come out in his shirt sleeves, and, like a true American, will not at first be very smooth in his courtesy; but he will wax brighter in conversation, and if not stroked the wrong way will turn out to be an uncommonly pleasant fellow. Such I believe to be the case with most of them.

From Portland we made our way up to the White Mountains, which lay on our route to Canada. Now I would ask any of my readers who are candid enough to expose their own ignorance whether they ever heard, or at any rate whether they know anything of the White Mountains. As regards myself I confess that the name had reached my ears; that I had an indefinite idea that they formed an intermediate stage between the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghenies, and that they were inhabited either by Mormons, Indians, or simply by black bears. That there was a district in New England containing mountain scenery superior to much that is yearly crowded by tourists in Europe, that this is to be reached with ease by railways and stage-coaches, and that it is dotted with huge hotels, almost as thickly as they lie in Switzerland, I had no idea. Much of this scenery, I say, is superior to the famed and classic lands of Europe. I know nothing, for instance, on the Rhine equal to the view from Mount Willard, down the mountain pass called the Notch.

Let the visitor of these regions be as late in the year as he can, taking care that he is not so late as to find the hotels closed. October, no doubt, is the most beautiful month among these mountains, but according to the present arrangement of matters here, the hotels are shut up by the end of September. With us, August, September, and October are the holiday months; whereas our rebel children across the Atlantic love to disport themselves in July and August. The great beauty of the autumn, or fall, is in the brilliant hues which are then taken by the foliage. The autumnal tints are fine with us. They are lovely and bright wherever foliage and vegetation form a part of the beauty of scenery. But in no other land do they approach the brilliancy of the fall in America. The bright rose colour, the rich bronze which is almost purple in its richness, and the glorious golden yellows must be seen to be understood. By me at any rate they cannot be described. These begin to show themselves in September, and perhaps I might name the latter half of that month as the best time for visiting the White Mountains.

I am not going to write a guide-book, feeling sure that Mr. Murray will do New England, and Canada, including Niagara and the Hudson river, with a peep into Boston and New York before many more seasons have passed by. But I cannot forbear to tell my countrymen that any enterprising individual with a hundred pounds to spend on his holiday,—a hundred and twenty would make him more comfortable, in regard to wine, washing, and other luxuries,—and an absence of two months from his labours, may see as much and do as much here for the money as he can see or do elsewhere. In some respects he may do more; for he will learn more of American nature in such a journey than he can ever learn of the nature of Frenchmen or Americans by such an excursion among them. Some three weeks of the time, or perhaps a day or two over, he must be at sea, and that portion of his trip will cost him fifty pounds,—presuming that he chooses to go in the most comfortable and costly way;—but his time on board ship will not be lost. He will learn to know much of Americans there, and will perhaps form acquaintances of which he will not altogether lose sight for many a year. He will land at Boston, and staying a day or two there will visit Cambridge, Lowell, and Bunker Hill; and, if he be that way given, will remember that here live, and occasionally are to be seen alive, men such as Longfellow, Emerson, Hawthorne, and a host of others whose names and fames have made Boston the throne of Western Literature. He will then,—if he take my advice and follow my track,—go by Portland up into the White Mountains. At Gorham, a station on the Grand Trunk line, he will find an hotel as good as any of its kind, and from thence he will take a light waggon, so called in these countries;—and here let me presume that the traveller is not alone; he has his wife or friend, or perhaps a pair of sisters,—and in his waggon he will go up through primeval forests to the Glen House. When there he will ascend Mount Washington on a pony. That is de rigueur, and I do not, therefore, dare to recommend him to omit the ascent. I did not gain much myself by my labour. He will not stay at the Glen House, but will go on to—Jackson's I think they call the next hotel; at which he will sleep. From thence he will take his waggon on through the Notch to the Crawford House, sleeping there again; and when here let him of all things remember to go up Mount Willard. It is but a walk of two hours, up and down, if so much. When reaching the top he will be startled to find that he looks down into the ravine without an inch of fore-ground. He will come out suddenly on a ledge of rock, from whence, as it seems, he might leap down at once into the valley below. Then going on from the Crawford House he will be driven through the woods of Cherry Mount, passing, I fear without toll of custom, the house of my excellent friend Mr. Plaistead, who keeps an hotel at Jefferson. "Sir," said Mr. Plaistead, "I have everything here that a man ought to want; air, sir, that ain't to be got better nowhere; trout, chickens, beef, mutton, milk,—and all for a dollar a day. A top of that hill, sir, there's a view that ain't to be beaten this side of the Atlantic, or I believe the other. And an echo, sir!—We've an echo that comes back to us six times, sir; floating on the light wind, and wafted about from rock to rock till you would think the angels were talking to you. If I could raise that echo, sir, every day at command I'd give a thousand dollars for it. It would be worth all the money to a house like this." And he waved his hand about from hill to hill, pointing out in graceful curves the lines which the sounds would take. Had destiny not called on Mr. Plaistead to keep an American hotel, he might have been a poet.

My traveller, however, unless time were plenty with him, would pass Mr. Plaistead, merely lighting a friendly cigar, or perhaps breaking the Maine Liquor Law if the weather be warm, and would return to Gorham on the railway. All this mountain district is in New Hampshire, and presuming him to be capable of going about the world with his mouth, ears, and eyes open, he would learn much of the way in which men are settling themselves in this still sparsely populated country. Here young farmers go into the woods, as they are doing far down west in the Territories, and buying some hundred acres at perhaps six shillings an acre, fell and burn the trees and build their huts, and take the first steps, as far as man's work is concerned, towards accomplishing the will of the Creator in those regions. For such pioneers of civilization there is still ample room even in the long settled States of New Hampshire and Vermont.

But to return to my traveller, whom having brought so far, I must send on. Let him go on from Gorham to Quebec, and the heights of Abraham, stopping at Sherbrooke that he might visit from thence the lake of Memphra Magog. As to the manner of travelling over this ground I shall say a little in the next chapter, when I come to the progress of myself and my wife. From Quebec he will go up the St. Lawrence to Montreal. He will visit Ottawa, the new capital, and Toronto. He will cross the Lake to Niagara, resting probably at the Clifton House on the Canada side. He will then pass on to Albany, taking the Trenton falls on his way. From Albany he will go down the Hudson to West-Point. He cannot stop at the Catskill Mountains, for the hotel will be closed. And then he will take the river boat, and in a few hours will find himself at New York. If he desires to go into American city society, he will find New York agreeable; but in that case he must exceed his two months. If he do not so desire, a short sojourn at New York will show him all that there is to be seen, and all that there is not to be seen in that great city. That the Cunard line of steamers will bring him safely back to Liverpool in about eleven days, I need not tell to any Englishman, or, as I believe, to any American. So much, in the spirit of a guide, I vouchsafe to all who are willing to take my counsel,—thereby anticipating Murray, and leaving these few pages as a legacy to him or to his collaborateurs.

I cannot say that I like the hotels in those parts, or indeed the mode of life at American hotels in general. In order that I may not unjustly defame them, I will commence these observations by declaring that they are cheap to those who choose to practise the economy which they encourage, that the viands are profuse in quantity and wholesome in quality, that the attendance is quick and unsparing, and that travellers are never annoyed by that grasping greedy hunger and thirst after francs and shillings which disgrace in Europe many English and many continental inns. All this is, as must be admitted, great praise; and yet I do not like the American hotels.

One is in a free country and has come from a country in which one has been brought up to hug one's chains,—so at least the English traveller is constantly assured—and yet in an American inn one can never do as one likes. A terrific gong sounds early in the morning, breaking one's sweet slumbers, and then a second gong sounding some thirty minutes later, makes you understand that you must proceed to breakfast, whether you be dressed or no. You certainly can go on with your toilet and obtain your meal after half an hour's delay. Nobody actually scolds you for so doing, but the breakfast is, as they say in this country, "through." You sit down alone, and the attendant stands immediately over you. Probably there are two so standing. They fill your cup the instant it is empty. They tender you fresh food before that which has disappeared from your plate has been swallowed. They begrudge you no amount that you can eat or drink; but they begrudge you a single moment that you sit there neither eating nor drinking. This is your fate if you're too late, and therefore as a rule you are not late. In that case you form one of a long row of eaters who proceed through their work with a solid energy that is past all praise. It is wrong to say that Americans will not talk at their meals. I never met but few who would not talk to me, at any rate till I got to the far west; but I have rarely found that they would address me first. Then the dinner comes early; at least it always does so in New England, and the ceremony is much of the same kind. You came there to eat, and the food is pressed on you almost ad nauseam. But as far as one can see there is no drinking. In these days, I am quite aware, that drinking has become improper, even in England. We are apt at home to speak of wine as a thing tabooed, wondering how our fathers lived and swilled. I believe that as a fact we drink as much as they did; but nevertheless that is our theory. I confess, however, that I like wine. It is very wicked, but it seems to me that my dinner goes down better with a glass of sherry than without it. As a rule I always did get it at hotels in America. But I had no comfort with it. Sherry they do not understand at all. Of course I am only speaking of hotels. Their claret they get exclusively from Mr. Gladstone, and looking at the quality, have a right to quarrel even with Mr. Gladstone's price. But it is not the quality of the wine that I hereby intend to subject to ignominy, so much as the want of any opportunity for drinking it. After dinner, if all that I hear be true, the gentlemen occasionally drop into the hotel bar and "liquor up." Or rather this is not done specially after dinner, but without prejudice to the hour at any time that may be found desirable. I also have "liquored up," but I cannot say that I enjoy the process. I do not intend hereby to accuse Americans of drinking much, but I maintain that what they do drink, they drink in the most uncomfortable manner that the imagination can devise.

The greatest luxury at an English inn is one's tea, one's fire, and one's book. Such an arrangement is not practicable at an American hotel. Tea, like breakfast, is a great meal, at which meat should be eaten, generally with the addition of much jelly, jam, and sweet preserve; but no person delays over his tea-cup. I love to have my tea-cup emptied and filled with gradual pauses, so that time for oblivion may accrue, and no exact record be taken. No such meal is known at American hotels. It is possible to hire a separate room and have one's meals served in it; but in doing so a man runs counter to all the institutions of the country, and a woman does so equally. A stranger does not wish to be viewed askance by all around him; and the rule which holds that men at Rome should do as Romans do, if true anywhere, is true in America. Therefore I say that in an American inn one can never do as one pleases.

In what I have here said I do not intend to speak of hotels in the largest cities, such as Boston or New York. At them meals are served in the public room separately, and pretty nearly at any or at all hours of the day; but at them also the attendant stands over the unfortunate eater, and drives him. The guest feels that he is controlled by laws adapted to the usages of the Medes and Persians. He is not the master on the occasion, but the slave; a slave well treated and fattened up to the full endurance of humanity; but yet a slave.

From Gorham we went on to Island Pond, a station on the same Canada Trunk Railway, on a Saturday evening, and were forced by the circumstances of the line to pass a melancholy Sunday at the place. The cars do not run on Sundays, and run but once a day on other days over the whole line; so that in fact the impediment to travelling spreads over two days. Island Pond is a lake with an island in it, and the place which has taken the name is a small village, about ten years old, standing in the midst of uncut forests, and has been created by the railway. In ten years more there will no doubt be a spreading town at Island Pond; the forests will recede, and men rushing out from the crowded cities will find here food and space and wealth. For myself I never remain long in such a spot without feeling thankful that it has not been my mission to be a pioneer of civilization.

The farther that I got away from Boston the less strong did I find the feeling of anger against England. There, as I have said before, there was a bitter animosity against the mother country in that she had shown no open sympathy with the North. In Maine and New Hampshire I did not find this to be the case to any violent degree. Men spoke of the war as openly as they did at Boston, and in speaking to me generally connected England with the subject. But they did so simply to ask questions as to England's policy. What will she do for cotton when her operatives are really pressed? Will she break the blockade? Will she insist on a right to trade with Charlestown and New Orleans? I always answered that she would insist on no such right, if that right were denied to others and the denial enforced. England, I took upon myself to say, would not break a veritable blockade, let her be driven to what shifts she might in providing for her operatives. "Ah; that's what we fear," a very stanch patriot said to me, if words may be taken as a proof of stanchness. "If England allies herself with the Southerners, all our trouble is for nothing." It was impossible not to feel that all that was said was complimentary to England. It is her sympathy that the Northern men desire, to her co-operation that they would willingly trust, on her honesty that they would choose to depend. It is the same feeling whether it shows itself in anger or in curiosity. An American whether he be embarked in politics, in literature, or in commerce, desires English admiration, English appreciation of his energy, and English encouragement. The anger of Boston is but a sign of its affectionate friendliness. What feeling is so hot as that of a friend when his dearest friend refuses to share his quarrel or to sympathize in his wrongs? To my thinking the men of Boston are wrong and unreasonable in their anger; but were I a man of Boston I should be as wrong and as unreasonable as any of them. All that, however, will come right. I will not believe it possible that there should in very truth be a quarrel between England and the Northern States.

In the guidance of those who are not quite au fait at the details of American Government, I will here in a few words describe the outlines of State Government as it is arranged in New Hampshire. The States in this respect are not all alike, the modes of election of their officers and periods of service being different. Even the franchise is different in different States. Universal suffrage is not the rule throughout the United States; though it is I believe very generally thought in England that such is the fact. I need hardly say that the laws in the different States may be as various as the different legislatures may choose to make them.

In New Hampshire universal suffrage does prevail; which means that any man may vote who lives in the State, supports himself, and assists to support the poor by means of poor rates. A governor of the State is elected for one year only, but it is customary or at any rate not uncustomary to re-elect him for a second year. His salary is a thousand dollars a year, or £200. It must be presumed therefore that glory and not money is his object. To him is appended a council, by whose opinions he must in a great degree be guided. His functions are to the State what those of the President are to the country, and for the short period of his reign he is as it were a Prime Minister of the State with certain very limited regal attributes. He however by no means enjoys the regal attribute of doing no wrong. In every State there is an Assembly, consisting of two houses of elected representatives; the Senate, or upper house, and the House of Representatives so called. In New Hampshire this Assembly, or Parliament, is styled The General Court of New Hampshire. It sits annually; whereas the legislature in many States sits only every other year. Both Houses are re-elected every year. This Assembly passes laws with all the power vested in our Parliament, but such laws apply of course only to the State in question. The Governor of the State has a veto on all bills passed by the two Houses. But, after receipt of his veto, any bill so stopped by the Governor can be passed by a majority of two thirds in each House. The General Court usually sits for about ten weeks. There are in the State eight judges, three Supreme who sit at Concord, the capital, as a court of appeal both in civil and criminal matters; and then five lesser judges, who go circuit through the State. The salaries of these lesser judges do not exceed from £250 to £300 a year; but they are, I believe, allowed to practise as lawyers in any counties except those in which they sit as judges,—being guided in this respect by the same law as that which regulates the work of assistant barristers in Ireland. The assistant barristers in Ireland are attached to the counties as judges at Quarter Sessions, but they practise or may practise as advocates in all counties except that to which they are so attached. The judges in New Hampshire are appointed by the Governor with the assistance of his Council. No judge in New Hampshire can hold his seat after he has reached seventy years of age.

So much at the present moment with reference to the Government of New Hampshire.

CHAPTER IV.

LOWER CANADA.

The Grand Trunk Railway runs directly from Portland to Montreal, which latter town is, in fact, the capital of Canada, though it never has been so exclusively, and, as it seems, never is to be so, as regards authority, government, and official name. In such matters authority and government often say one thing while commerce says another; but commerce always has the best of it and wins the game whatever Government may decree. Albany in this way is the capital of the State of New York, as authorized by the State Government; but New York has made herself the capital of America, and will remain so. So also Montreal has made herself the capital of Canada. The Grand Trunk Railway runs from Portland to Montreal; but there is a branch from Richmond, a township within the limits of Canada, to Quebec; so that travellers to Quebec, as we were, are not obliged to reach that place viâ Montreal.

Quebec is the present seat of Canadian Government, its turn for that honour having come round some two years ago; but it is about to be deserted in favour of Ottawa, a town which is, in fact, still to be built on the river of that name. The public edifices are, however, in a state of forwardness; and if all goes well the Governor, the two Councils, and the House of Representatives will be there before two years are over whether there be any town to receive them or no. Who can think of Ottawa without bidding his brothers to row, and reminding them that the stream runs fast, that the rapids are near and the daylight past? I asked, as a matter of course, whether Quebec was much disgusted at the proposed change, and I was told that the feeling was not now very strong. Had it been determined to make Montreal the permanent seat of government Quebec and Toronto would both have been up in arms.

I must confess that in going from the States into Canada, an Englishman is struck by the feeling that he is going from a richer country into one that is poorer, and from a greater country into one that is less. An Englishman going from a foreign land into a land which is in one sense his own, of course finds much in the change to gratify him. He is able to speak as the master, instead of speaking as the visitor. His tongue becomes more free, and he is able to fall back to his national habits and national expressions. He no longer feels that he is admitted on sufferance, or that he must be careful to respect laws which he does not quite understand. This feeling was naturally strong in an Englishman in passing from the States into Canada at the time of my visit. English policy at that moment was violently abused by Americans, and was upheld as violently in Canada. But, nevertheless, with all this, I could not enter Canada without seeing, and hearing, and feeling that there was less of enterprise around me there than in the States—less of general movement, and less of commercial success. To say why this is so would require a long and very difficult discussion, and one which I am not prepared to hold. It may be that a dependent country, let the feeling of dependence be ever so much modified by powers of self-governance, cannot hold its own against countries which are in all respects their own masters. Few, I believe, would now maintain that the Northern States of America would have risen in commerce as they have risen, had they still remained attached to England as colonies. If this be so, that privilege of self-rule which they have acquired, has been the cause of their success. It does not follow as a consequence that the Canadas fighting their battle alone in the world could do as the States have done. Climate, or size, or geographical position might stand in their way. But I fear that it does follow, if not as a logical conclusion at least as a natural result, that they never will do so well unless some day they shall so fight their battle. It may be argued that Canada has in fact the power of self-governance; that she rules herself and makes her own laws as England does; that the Sovereign of England has but a veto on those laws, and stands in regard to Canada exactly as she does in regard to England. This is so, I believe, by the letter of the Constitution, but is not so in reality, and cannot, in truth, be so in any colony, even of Great Britain. In England the political power of the Crown is nothing. The Crown has no such power, and now-a-days makes no attempt at having any. But the political power of the Crown, as it is felt in Canada, is everything. The Crown has no such power in England because it must change its ministers whenever called upon to do so by the House of Commons. But the Colonial Minister in Downing Street is the Crown's Prime Minister as regards the Colonies, and he is changed not as any Colonial House of Assembly may wish, but in accordance with the will of the British Commons. Both the Houses in Canada—that, namely, of the Representatives, or Lower House, and of the Legislative Council, or Upper House—are now elective, and are filled without direct influence from the Crown. The power of self-government is as thoroughly developed as perhaps may be possible in a colony. But after all it is a dependent form of government, and as such may perhaps not conduce to so thorough a development of the resources of the country as might be achieved under a ruling power of its own, to which the welfare of Canada itself would be the chief if not the only object.

I beg that it may not be considered from this that I would propose to Canada to set up for itself at once and declare itself independent. In the first place I do not wish to throw over Canada; and in the next place I do not wish to throw over England. If such a separation shall ever take place, I trust that it may be caused, not by Canadian violence but by British generosity. Such a separation, however, never can be good till Canada herself shall wish it. That she does not wish it yet is certain. If Canada ever should wish it, and should ever press for the accomplishment of such a wish, she must do so in connection with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. If at any future time there be formed such a separate political power, it must include the whole of British North America.

In the meantime, I return to my assertion, that in entering Canada from the States one clearly comes from a richer to a poorer country. When I have said so, I have heard no Canadian absolutely deny it; though in refraining from denying it, they have usually expressed a general conviction, that in settling himself for life, it is better for a man to set up his staff in Canada than in the States. "I do not know that we are richer," a Canadian says, "but on the whole we are doing better and are happier." Now, I regard the golden rules against the love of gold, the "aurum irrepertum et sic melius situm," and the rest of it, as very excellent when applied to individuals. Such teaching has not much effect, perhaps, in inducing men to abstain from wealth,—but such effect as it may have will be good. Men and women do, I suppose, learn to be happier when they learn to disregard riches. But such a doctrine is absolutely false as regards a nation. National wealth produces education and progress, and through them produces plenty of food, good morals, and all else that is good. It produces luxury also, and certain evils attendant on luxury. But I think it may be clearly shown, and that it is universally acknowledged, that national wealth produces individual well-being. If this be so, the argument of my friend the Canadian is nought.

To the feeling of a refined gentleman, or of a lady whose eye loves to rest always on the beautiful, an agricultural population that touches its hat, eats plain victuals, and goes to church is more picturesque and delightful than the thronged crowd of a great city by which a lady and gentleman is hustled without remorse, which never touches its hat, and perhaps also never goes to church. And as we are always tempted to approve of that which we like, and to think that that which is good to us is good altogether, we—the refined gentlemen and ladies of England I mean—are very apt to prefer the hat-touchers to those who are not hat-touchers. In doing so we intend, and wish, and strive to be philanthropical. We argue to ourselves that the dear, excellent lower classes receive an immense amount of consoling happiness from that ceremony of hat-touching, and quite pity those who, unfortunately for themselves, know nothing about it. I would ask any such lady or gentleman whether he or she does not feel a certain amount of commiseration for the rudeness of the town-bred artisan, who walks about with his hands in his pockets as though he recognized a superior in no one.

But that which is good and pleasant to us, is often not good and pleasant altogether. Every man's chief object is himself; and the philanthropist should endeavour to regard this question, not from his own point of view, but from that which would be taken by the individuals for whose happiness he is anxious. The honest, happy rustic makes a very pretty picture; and I hope that honest rustics are happy. But the man who earns two shillings a day in the country would always prefer to earn five in the town. The man who finds himself bound to touch his hat to the squire would be glad to dispense with that ceremony, if circumstances would permit. A crowd of greasy-coated town artisans with grimy hands and pale faces, is not in itself delectable; but each of that crowd has probably more of the goods of life than any rural labourer. He thinks more, reads more, feels more, sees more, hears more, learns more, and lives more. It is through great cities that the civilization of the world has progressed, and the charms of life been advanced. Man in his rudest state begins in the country, and in his most finished state may retire there. But the battle of the world has to be fought in the cities; and the country that shows the greatest city population is ever the one that is going most ahead in the world's history.

If this be so, I say that the argument of my Canadian friend was nought. It may be that he does not desire crowded cities with dirty, independent artisans; that to his view small farmers, living sparingly but with content on the sweat of their brows, are surer signs of a country's prosperity than hives of men and smoking chimneys. He has, probably, all the upper classes of England with him in so thinking, and as far as I know the upper classes of all Europe. But the crowds themselves, the thick masses of which are composed those populations which we count by millions, are against him. Up in those regions which are watered by the great lakes, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, and by the St. Lawrence, the country is divided between Canada and the States. The cities in Canada were settled long before those in the States. Quebec and Montreal were important cities before any of the towns belonging to the States had been founded. But taking the population of three of each, including the three largest Canadian towns, we find they are as follows:—In Canada, Quebec has 60,000; Montreal, 85,000; Toronto, 55,000. In the States, Chicago has 120,000; Detroit, 70,000; and Buffalo, 80,000. If the population had been equal, it would have shown a great superiority in the progress of those belonging to the States, because the towns of Canada had so great a start. But the numbers are by no means equal, showing instead a vast preponderance in favour of the States. There can be no stronger proof that the States are advancing faster than Canada,—and in fact doing better than Canada. Quebec is a very picturesque town,—from its natural advantages almost as much so as any town I know. Edinburgh, perhaps, and Innspruck may beat it. But Quebec has very little to recommend it beyond the beauty of its situation. Its public buildings and works of art do not deserve a long narrative. It stands at the confluence of the St. Lawrence and St. Charles rivers; the best part of the town is built high upon the rock,—the rock which forms the celebrated plains of Abram; and the view from thence down to the mountains which shut in the St. Lawrence is magnificent. The best point of view is, I think, from the esplanade, which is distant some five minutes' walk from the hotels. When that has been seen by the light of the setting sun, and seen again, if possible, by moonlight, the most considerable lion of Quebec may be regarded as "done," and may be ticked off from the list.

The most considerable lion according to my taste. Lions which roar merely by the force of association of ideas are not to me very valuable beasts. To many the rock over which Wolfe climbed to the plains of Abram, and on the summit of which he fell in the hour of victory, gives to Quebec its chiefest charm. But I confess to being somewhat dull in such matters. I can count up Wolfe, and realize his glory, and put my hand as it were upon his monument, in my own room at home as well as I can at Quebec. I do not say this boastingly or with pride, but truly acknowledging a deficiency. I have never cared to sit in chairs in which old kings have sat, or to have their crowns upon my head.

Nevertheless, and as a matter of course, I went to see the rock, and can only say, as so many have said before me, that it is very steep. It is not a rock which I think it would be difficult for any ordinarily active man to climb,—providing, of course, that he was used to such work. But Wolfe took regiments of men up there at night—and that in face of enemies who held the summits. One grieves that he should have fallen there and have never tasted the sweet cup of his own fame. For fame is sweet, and the praise of one's brother men the sweetest draught which a man can drain. But now, and for coming ages, Wolfe's name stands higher than it probably would have done had he lived to enjoy his reward.

But there is another very worthy lion near Quebec,—the Falls, namely, of Montmorency. They are eight miles from the town, and the road lies through the suburb of St. Roch, and the long straggling French village of Beauport. These are in themselves very interesting, as showing the quiet, orderly, unimpulsive manner in which the French Canadians live. Such is their character, although there have been such men as Papineau, and although there have been times in which English rule has been unpopular with the French settlers. As far as I could learn there is no such feeling now. These people are quiet, contented; and as regards a sufficiency of the simple staples of living, sufficiently well to do. They are thrifty;—but they do not thrive. They do not advance, and push ahead, and become a bigger people from year to year as settlers in a new country should do. They do not even hold their own in comparison with those around them. But has not this always been the case with colonists out of France; and has it not always been the case with Roman Catholics when they have been forced to measure themselves against Protestants? As to the ultimate fate in the world of this people, one can hardly form a speculation. There are, as nearly as I could learn, about 800,000 of them in Lower Canada; but it seems that the wealth and commercial enterprise of the country is passing out of their hands. Montreal, and even Quebec are, I think, becoming less and less French every day; but in the villages and on the small farms the French remain, keeping up their language, their habits, and their religion. In the cities they are becoming hewers of wood and drawers of water. I am inclined to think that the same will ultimately be their fate in the country. Surely one may declare as a fact that a Roman Catholic population can never hold its ground against one that is Protestant. I do not speak of numbers, for the Roman Catholics will increase and multiply, and stick by their religion, although their religion entails poverty and dependence; as they have done and still do in Ireland. But in progress and wealth the Romanists have always gone to the wall when the two have been made to compete together. And yet I love their religion. There is something beautiful and almost divine in the faith and obedience of a true son of the Holy Mother. I sometimes fancy that I would fain be a Roman Catholic,—if I could; as also I would often wish to be still a child, if that were possible.

All this is on the way to the Falls of Montmorency. These falls are placed exactly at the mouth of the little river of the same name, so that it may be said absolutely to fall into the St. Lawrence. The people of the country, however, declare that the river into which the waters of the Montmorency fall is not the St. Lawrence, but the Charles. Without a map I do not know that I can explain this. The river Charles appears to, and in fact does, run into the St. Lawrence just below Quebec. But the waters do not mix. The thicker, browner stream of the lesser river still keeps the north-eastern bank till it comes to the island of Orleans, which lies in the river five or six miles below Quebec. Here or hereabouts are the Falls of the Montmorency, and then the great river is divided for twenty-five miles by the Isle of Orleans. It is said that the waters of the Charles and the St. Lawrence do not mix till they meet each other at the foot of this island.

I do not know that I am particularly happy at describing a waterfall, and what little capacity I may have in this way I would wish to keep for Niagara. One thing I can say very positively about Montmorency, and one piece of advice I can give to those who visit the falls. The place from which to see them is not the horrible little wooden temple, which has been built immediately over them on that side which lies nearest to Quebec. The stranger is put down at a gate through which a path leads to this temple, and at which a woman demands from him twenty-five cents for the privilege of entrance. Let him by all means pay the twenty-five cents. Why should he attempt to see the falls for nothing, seeing that this woman has a vested interest in the showing of them? I declare that if I thought that I should hinder this woman from her perquisites by what I write, I would leave it unwritten, and let my readers pursue their course to the temple—to their manifest injury. But they will pay the twenty-five cents. Then let them cross over the bridge, eschewing the temple, and wander round on the open field till they get the view of the falls, and the view of Quebec also, from the other side. It is worth the twenty-five cents, and the hire of the carriage also. Immediately over the falls there was a suspension bridge, of which the supporting, or rather non-supporting, pillars are still to be seen. But the bridge fell down one day into the river; and, alas, alas! with the bridge fell down an old woman, and a boy, and a cart,—a cart and horse,—and all found a watery grave together in the spray. No attempt has been made since that to renew the suspension bridge; but the present wooden bridge has been built higher up, in lieu of it.

Strangers naturally visit Quebec in summer or autumn, seeing that a Canada winter is a season with which a man cannot trifle; but I imagine that the mid-winter is the best time for seeing the Falls of Montmorency. The water in its fall is dashed into spray, and that spray becomes frozen, till a cone of ice is formed immediately under the cataract, which gradually rises till the temporary glacier reaches nearly half-way to the level of the higher river. Up this men climb,—and ladies also, I am told,—and then descend with pleasant rapidity on sledges of wood, sometimes not without an innocent tumble in the descent. As we were at Quebec in September, we did not experience the delights of this pastime.

As I was too early for the ice cone under the Montmorency Falls, so also was I too late to visit the Saguenay river which runs into the St. Lawrence some hundred miles below Quebec. I presume that the scenery of the Saguenay is the finest in Canada. During the summer steamers run down the St. Lawrence and up the Saguenay, but I was too late for them. An offer was made to us through the kindness of Sir Edmund Head, who was then the Governor-General, of the use of a steam-tug belonging to a gentleman who carries on a large commercial enterprise at Chicoutimi, far up the Saguenay; but an acceptance of this offer would have entailed some delay at Quebec, and as we were anxious to get into the North Western States before the winter commenced, we were obliged with great regret to decline the journey.

I feel bound to say that a stranger regarding Quebec merely as a town, finds very much of which he cannot but complain. The foot-paths through the streets are almost entirely of wood, as indeed seems to be general throughout Canada. Wood is of course the cheapest material, and though it may not be altogether good for such a purpose it would not create animadversion if it were kept in tolerable order. But in Quebec the paths are intolerably bad. They are full of holes. The boards are rotten and worn in some places to dirt. The nails have gone, and the broken planks go up and down under the feet, and in the dark they are absolutely dangerous. But if the paths are bad the roadways are worse. The street through the lower town along the quays is, I think, the most disgraceful thoroughfare I ever saw in any town. I believe the whole of it, or at any rate a great portion, has been paved with wood; but the boards have been worked into mud, and the ground under the boards has been worked into holes, till the street is more like the bottom of a filthy ditch than a roadway through one of the most thickly populated parts of a city. Had Quebec in Wolfe's time been as it is now, Wolfe would have stuck in the mud between the river and the rock, before he reached the point which he desired to climb. In the upper town the roads are not so bad as they are below, but still they are very bad. I was told that this arose from disputes among the municipal corporations. Everything in Canada relating to roads, and a very great deal affecting the internal government of the people, is done by these municipalities. It is made a subject of great boast in Canada that the communal authorities do carry on so large a part of the public business, and that they do it generally so well, and at so cheap a rate. I have nothing to say against this, and as a whole believe that the boast is true. I must protest, however, that the streets of the greater cities,—for Montreal is nearly as bad as Quebec,—prove the rule by a very sad exception. The municipalities of which I speak extend, I believe, to all Canada; the two provinces being divided into counties, and the counties subdivided into townships to which, as a matter of course, the municipalities are attached.

From Quebec to Montreal there are two modes of travel. There are the steamers up the St. Lawrence which, as all the world know is, or at any rate hitherto has been, the high road of the Canadas; and there is the Grand Trunk Railway. Passengers choosing the latter go towards Portland as far as Richmond, and there join the main line of the road, passing from Richmond on to Montreal. We learned while at Quebec that it behoved us not to leave the colony till we had seen the lake and mountains of Memphra-Magog, and as we were clearly neglecting our duty with regard to the Saguenay, we felt bound to make such amends as lay in our power, by deviating from our way to the lake above named. In order to do this we were obliged to choose the railway, and to go back beyond Richmond to the station at Sherbrooke. Sherbrooke is a large village on the confines of Canada, and as it is on the railway will no doubt become a large town. It is very prettily situated on the meeting of two rivers; it has three or four different churches, and intends to thrive. It possesses two newspapers, of the prosperity of which I should be inclined to feel less assured. The annual subscription to such a newspaper published twice a week is ten shillings per annum. A sale of a thousand copies is not considered bad. Such a sale would produce £500 a year, and this would, if entirely devoted to that purpose, give a moderate income to a gentleman qualified to conduct a newspaper. But the paper and printing must cost something, and the capital invested should receive its proper remuneration. And then,—such at least is the general idea,—the getting together of news and the framing of intelligence is a costly operation. I can only hope that all this is paid for by the advertisements, for I must trust that the editors do not receive less than the moderate sum above named. At Sherbrooke we are still in Lower Canada. Indeed, as regards distance, we are when there nearly as far removed from Upper Canada as at Quebec. But the race of people here is very different. The French population had made their way down into these townships before the English and American war broke out, but had not done so in great numbers. The country was then very unapproachable, being far to the south of the St. Lawrence, and far also from any great line of internal communication towards the Atlantic. But, nevertheless, many settlers made their way in here from the States; men who preferred to live under British rule, and perhaps doubted the stability of the new order of things. They or their children have remained here since, and as the whole country has been opened up by the railway many others have flocked in. Thus a better class of people than the French hold possession of the larger farms, and are on the whole doing well. I am told that many Americans are now coming here, driven over the borders from Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont by fears of the war and the weight of taxation. I do not think that fears of war or the paying of taxes drive many individuals away from home. Men who would be so influenced have not the amount of foresight which would induce them to avoid such evils; or, at any rate, such fears would act slowly. Labourers, however, will go where work is certain, where work is well paid, and where the wages to be earned will give plenty in return. It may be that work will become scarce in the States, as it has done with those poor jewellers at Attleborough, of whom we spoke, and that food will become dear. If this be so, labourers from the States will no doubt find their way into Canada.

From Sherbrooke we went with the mails on a pair-horse waggon to Magog. Cross country mails are not interesting to the generality of readers, but I have a professional liking for them myself. I have spent the best part of my life in looking after and I hope in improving such mails, and I always endeavour to do a stroke of work when I come across them. I learned on this occasion that the conveyance of mails with a pair of horses in Canada costs little more than half what is paid for the same work in England with one horse, and something less than what is paid in Ireland, also for one horse. But in Canada the average pace is only five miles an hour. In Ireland it is seven, and the time is accurately kept, which does not seem to be the case in Canada. In England the pace is eight miles an hour. In Canada and in Ireland these conveyances carry passengers; but in England they are prohibited from doing so. In Canada the vehicles are much better got up than they are in England, and the horses too look better. Taking Ireland as a whole they are more respectable in appearance there than in England. From all which it appears that pace is the article that costs the highest price, and that appearance does not go for much in the bill. In Canada the roads are very bad in comparison with the English or Irish roads; but to make up for this, the price of forage is very low.

I have said that the cross mail conveyances in Canada did not seem to be very closely bound as to time; but they are regulated by clock-work in comparison with some of them in the United States. "Are you going this morning?" I said to a mail-driver in Vermont. "I thought you always started in the evening." "Wa'll; I guess I do. But it rained some last night, so I jist stayed at home." I do not know that I ever felt more shocked in my life, and I could hardly keep my tongue off the man. The mails, however, would have paid no respect to me in Vermont, and I was obliged to walk away crestfallen.

We went with the mails from Sherbrooke to a village called Magog at the outlet of the lake, and from thence by a steamer up the lake to a solitary hotel called the Mountain House, which is built at the foot of the mountain on the shore, and which is surrounded on every side by thick forest. There is no road within two miles of the house. The lake therefore is the only highway, and that is frozen up for four months in the year. When frozen, however, it is still a road, for it is passable for sledges. I have seldom been in a house that seemed so remote from the world, and so little within reach of doctors, parsons, or butchers. Bakers in this country are not required, as all persons make their own bread. But in spite of its position the hotel is well kept, and on the whole we were more comfortable there than at any other inn in Lower Canada. The Mountain House is but five miles from the borders of Vermont, in which State the head of the lake lies. The steamer which brought us runs on to Newport,—or rather from Newport to Magog and back again. And Newport is in Vermont.

The one thing to be done at the Mountain House is the ascent of the mountain called the Owl's Head. The world there offers nothing else of active enterprise to the traveller, unless fishing be considered an active enterprise. I am not capable of fishing, therefore we resolved on going up the Owl's Head. To dine in the middle of the day is absolutely imperative at these hotels, and thus we were driven to select either the morning or the afternoon. Evening lights we declared were the best for all views, and therefore we decided on the afternoon. It is but two miles; but then, as we were told more than once by those who had spoken to us on the subject, those two miles are not like other miles. "I doubt if the lady can do it," one man said to me. I asked if ladies did not sometimes go up. "Yes; young women do, at times," he said. After that my wife resolved that she would see the top of the Owl's Head, or die in the attempt, and so we started. They never think of sending a guide with one in these places, whereas in Europe a traveller is not allowed to go a step without one. When I asked for one to show us the way up Mount Washington, I was told that there were no idle boys about that place. The path was indicated to us, and off we started with high hopes.

I have been up many mountains, and have climbed some that were perhaps somewhat dangerous in their ascent. In climbing the Owl's Head there is no danger. One is closed in by thick trees the whole way. But I doubt if I ever went up a steeper ascent. It was very hard work, but we were not beaten. We reached the top, and there sitting down thoroughly enjoyed our victory. It was then half-past five o'clock, and the sun was not yet absolutely sinking. It did not seem to give us any warning that we should especially require its aid, and as the prospect below us was very lovely we remained there for a quarter of an hour. The ascent of the Owl's Head is certainly a thing to do, and I still think, in spite of our following misfortune, that it is a thing to do late in the afternoon. The view down upon the lakes and the forests around, and on the wooded hills below, is wonderfully lovely. I never was on a mountain which gave me a more perfect command of all the country round. But as we arose to descend we saw a little cloud coming towards us from over Newport.

The little cloud came on with speed, and we had hardly freed ourselves from the rocks of the summit before we were surrounded by rain. As the rain became thicker, we were surrounded by darkness also, or if not by darkness by so dim a light that it became a task to find our path. I still thought that the daylight had not gone, and that as we descended and so escaped from the cloud we should find light enough to guide us. But it was not so. The rain soon became a matter of indifference, and so also did the mud and briars beneath our feet. Even the steepness of the way was almost forgotten as we endeavoured to thread our path through the forest before it should become impossible to discern the track. A dog had followed us up, and though the beast would not stay with us so as to be our guide, he returned ever and anon and made us aware of his presence by dashing by us. I may confess now that I became much frightened. We were wet through, and a night out in the forest would have been unpleasant to us. At last I did utterly lose the track. It had become quite dark, so dark that we could hardly see each other. We had succeeded in getting down the steepest and worst part of the mountain, but we were still among dense forest-trees, and up to our knees in mud. But the people at the Mountain House were Christians, and men with lanterns were sent hallooing after us through the dark night. When we were thus found we were not many yards from the path, but unfortunately on the wrong side of a stream. Through that we waded and then made our way in safety to the inn. In spite of which misadventure I advise all travellers in Lower Canada to go up the Owl's Head.

On the following day we crossed the lake to Georgeville, and drove round another lake called the Massawhippi back to Sherbrooke. This was all very well, for it showed us a part of the country which is comparatively well tilled, and has been long settled; but the Massawhippi itself is not worth a visit. The route by which we returned occupies a longer time than the other, and is more costly as it must be made in a hired vehicle. The people here are quiet, orderly, and I should say a little slow. It is manifest that a strong feeling against the Northern States has lately sprung up. This is much to be deprecated, but I cannot but say that it is natural. It is not that the Canadians have any special Secession feelings, or that they have entered with peculiar warmth into the questions of American politics; but they have been vexed and acerbated by the braggadocio of the Northern States. They constantly hear that they are to be invaded, and translated into citizens of the Union: that British rule is to be swept off the Continent, and that the star-spangled banner is to be waved over them in pity. The star-spangled banner is in fact a fine flag, and has waved to some purpose; but those who live near it, and not under it, fancy that they hear too much of it. At the present moment the loyalty of both the Canadas to Great Britain is beyond all question. From all that I can hear I doubt whether this feeling in the Provinces was ever so strong, and under such circumstances American abuse of England and American braggadocio is more than usually distasteful. All this abuse and all this braggadocio comes to Canada from the Northern States, and therefore the Southern cause is at the present moment the more popular with them.

I have said that the Canadians hereabouts are somewhat slow. As we were driving back to Sherbrooke it became necessary that we should rest for an hour or so in the middle of the day, and for this purpose we stopped at a village inn. It was a large house, in which there appeared to be three public sitting-rooms of ample size, one of which was occupied as the bar. In this there were congregated some six or seven men, seated in arm-chairs round a stove, and among these I placed myself. No one spoke a word either to me or to any one else. No one smoked, and no one read, nor did they even whittle sticks. I asked a question first of one and then of another, and was answered with monosyllables. So I gave up any hope in that direction, and sat staring at the big stove in the middle of the room, as the others did. Presently another stranger entered, having arrived in a waggon as I had done. He entered the room and sat down, addressing no one, and addressed by no one. After a while, however, he spoke. "Will there be any chance of dinner here?" he said. "I guess there'll be dinner by-and-by," answered the landlord, and then there was silence for another ten minutes, during which the stranger stared at the stove. "Is that dinner any way ready?" he asked again. "I guess it is," said the landlord. And then the stranger went out to see after his dinner himself. When we started at the end of an hour nobody said anything to us. The driver "hitched" on the horses, as they call it, and we started on our way, having been charged nothing for our accommodation. That some profit arose from the horse provender is to be hoped.

On the following day we reached Montreal, which, as I have said before, is the commercial capital of the two Provinces. This question of the capitals is at the present moment a subject of great interest in Canada, but as I shall be driven to say something on the matter when I report myself as being at Ottawa, I will refrain now. There are two special public affairs at the present moment to interest a traveller in Canada. The first I have named, and the second is the Grand Trunk Railway. I have already stated what is the course of this line. It runs from the Western State of Michigan to Portland on the Atlantic in the State of Maine, sweeping the whole length of Canada in its route. It was originally made by three Companies. The Atlantic and St. Lawrence constructed it from Portland to Island Pond on the borders of the States. The St. Lawrence and Atlantic took it from the South Eastern side of the river at Montreal to the same point, viz., Island Pond. And the Grand Trunk Company have made it from Detroit to Montreal, crossing the river there with a stupendous tubular bridge, and have also made the branch connecting the main line with Quebec and Rivière du Loup. This latter company is now incorporated with the St. Lawrence and Atlantic, but has only leased the portion of the line running through the States. This they have done, guaranteeing the shareholders an interest of six per cent. There never was a grander enterprise set on foot. I will not say there never was one more unfortunate, for is there not the Great Eastern, which by the weight and constancy of its failures demands for itself a proud pre-eminence of misfortune? But surely the Grand Trunk comes next to it. I presume it to be quite out of the question that the shareholders should get any interest whatever on their shares for years. The company when I was at Montreal had not paid the interest due to the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Company for the last year, and there was a doubt whether the lease would not be broken. No party that had advanced money to the undertaking was able to recover what had been advanced. I believe that one firm in London had lent nearly a million to the Company and is now willing to accept half the sum so lent in quittance of the whole debt. In 1860 the line could not carry the freight that offered, not having or being able to obtain the necessary rolling stock; and on all sides I heard men discussing whether the line would be kept open for traffic. The Government of Canada advanced to the Company three millions of money, with an understanding that neither interest nor principal should be demanded till all other debts were paid, and all shareholders in receipt of six per cent. interest. But the three millions were clogged with conditions which, though they have been of service to the country, have been so expensive to the Company that it is hardly more solvent with it than it would have been without it. As it is, the whole property seems to be involved in ruin; and yet the line is one of the grandest commercial conceptions that was ever carried out on the face of the globe, and in the process of a few years will do more to make bread cheap in England than any other single enterprise that exists.

I do not know that blame is to be attached to any one. I at least attach no such blame. Probably it might be easy now to show that the road might have been made with sufficient accommodation for ordinary purposes without some of the more costly details. The great tubular bridge on which was expended £1,300,000 might, I should think, have been dispensed with. The Detroit end of the line might have been left for later time. As it stands now, however, it is a wonderful operation carried to a successful issue as far as the public are concerned, and one can only grieve that it should be so absolute a failure to those who have placed their money in it. There are schemes which seem to be too big for men to work out with any ordinary regard to profit and loss. The Great Eastern is one, and this is another. The national advantage arising from such enterprises is immense; but the wonder is that men should be found willing to embark their money where the risk is so great, and the return even hoped for is so small.

While I was in Canada some gentlemen were there from the Lower Provinces—Nova Scotia, that is, and New Brunswick—agitating the subject of another great line of railway from Quebec to Halifax. The project is one in favour of which very much may be said. In a national point of view an Englishman or a Canadian cannot but regret that there should be no winter mode of exit from, or entrance to, Canada, except through the United States. The St. Lawrence is blocked up for four or five months in winter, and the steamers which run to Quebec in the summer run to Portland during the season of ice. There is at present no mode of public conveyance between the Canadas and the Lower Provinces, and an immense district of country on the borders of Lower Canada, through New Brunswick and into Nova Scotia is now absolutely closed against civilization, which by such a railway would be opened up to the light of day. We all know how much the want of such a road was felt when our troops were being forwarded to Canada during the last winter. It was necessary they should reach their destination without delay; and as the river was closed, and the passing of troops through the States was of course out of the question, that long overland journey across Nova Scotia and New Brunswick became a necessity. It would certainly be a very great thing for British interests if a direct line could be made from such a port as Halifax, a port which is open throughout the whole year, up into the Canadas. If these Colonies belonged to France or to any other despotic Government, the thing would be done. But the Colonies do not belong to any despotic Government.

Such a line would in fact be a continuance of the Grand Trunk; and who that looks at the present state of the finances of the Grand Trunk can think it to be on the cards that private enterprise should come forward with more money,—with more millions? The idea is that England will advance the money, and that the English House of Commons will guarantee the interest, with some counter-guarantee from the Colonies that this interest shall be duly paid. But it would seem that if such Colonial guarantee is to go for anything, the Colonies might raise the money in the money market without the intervention of the British House of Commons.

Montreal is an exceedingly good commercial town, and business there is brisk. It has now 85,000 inhabitants. Having said that of it, I do not know what more there is left to say. Yes; one word there is to say of Sir William Logan the creator of the Geological Museum there and the head of all matters geological throughout the Province. While he was explaining to me with admirable perspicuity the result of investigations into which he had poured his whole heart, I stood by understanding almost nothing, but envying everything. That I understood almost nothing, I know he perceived. That, ever and anon, with all his graciousness became apparent. But I wonder whether he perceived also that I did envy everything. I have listened to geologists by the hour before—have had to listen to them, desirous simply of escape. I have listened and understood absolutely nothing, and have only wished myself away. But I could have listened to Sir William Logan for the whole day, if time allowed. I found even in that hour that some ideas found their way through to me, and I began to fancy that even I could become a geologist at Montreal.

Over and beyond Sir William Logan there is at Montreal for strangers the drive round the mountain, not very exciting; and there is the tubular bridge over the St. Lawrence. This, it must be understood, is not made in one tube, as is that over the Menai Straits, but is divided into, I think, thirteen tubes. To the eye there appear to be twenty-five tubes; but each of the six side tubes is supported by a pier in the middle. A great part of the expense of the bridge was incurred in sinking the shafts for these piers.

CHAPTER V.

UPPER CANADA.

Ottawa is in Upper Canada, but crossing the suspension bridge from Ottawa into Hull the traveller is in Lower Canada. It is therefore exactly in the confines, and has been chosen as the site of the new Government capital very much for this reason. Other reasons have, no doubt, had a share in the decision. At the time when the choice was made Ottawa was not large enough to create the jealousy of the more populous towns. Though not on the main line of railway, it was connected with it by a branch railway, and it is also connected with the St. Lawrence by water communication. And then it stands nobly on a magnificent river, with high overhanging rock, and a natural grandeur of position which has perhaps gone far in recommending it to those whose voice in the matter has been potential. Having the world of Canada from whence to choose the site of a new town, the choosers have certainly chosen well. It is another question whether or no a new town should have been deemed necessary.

Perhaps it may be well to explain the circumstances under which it was thought expedient thus to establish a new Canadian capital. In 1841 when Lord Sydenham was Governor General of the Provinces, the two Canadas, separate till then, were united under one Government. At that time the people of Lower or French Canada, and the people of Upper or English Canada differed much more in their habits and language than they do now. I do not know that the English have become in any way Gallicized, but the French have been very materially Anglicized. But while this has been in progress, national jealousy has been at work; and even yet that national jealousy is not at an end. While the two provinces were divided, there were, of course, two capitals, and two seats of Government. These were at Quebec for Lower Canada, and at Toronto for Upper Canada, both which towns are centrically situated as regards the respective provinces. When the union was effected, it was deemed expedient that there should be but one capital; and the small town of Kingstown was selected, which is situated on the lower end of Lake Ontario in the Upper Province. But Kingstown was found to be inconvenient, lacking space and accommodation for those who had to follow the Government, and the Governor removed it and himself to Montreal. Montreal is in the Lower Province, but is very central to both the provinces; and it is, moreover, the chief town in Canada. This would have done very well, but for an unforeseen misfortune.

It will be remembered by most readers that in 1837 took place the Mackenzie-Papineau rebellion, of which those who were then old enough to be politicians heard so much in England. I am not going back to recount the history of the period, otherwise than to say that the English Canadians at that time, in withstanding and combating the rebels, did considerable injury to the property of certain French Canadians, and that when the rebellion had blown over and those in fault had been pardoned, a question arose whether or no the Government should make good the losses of those French Canadians who had been injured. The English Canadians protested that it would be monstrous that they should be taxed to repair damages suffered by rebels, and made necessary in the suppression of rebellion. The French Canadians declared that the rebellion had been only a just assertion of their rights, that if there had been crime on the part of those who took up arms that crime had been condoned, and that the damages had not fallen exclusively or even chiefly on those who had done so. I will give no opinion on the merits of the question, but simply say that blood ran very hot when it was discussed. At last the Houses of the Provincial Parliament, then assembled at Montreal, decreed that the losses should be made good by the public treasury; and the English mob in Montreal, when this decree became known, was roused to great wrath by a decision which seemed to be condemnatory of English loyalty. It pelted Lord Elgin, the Governor General, with rotten eggs, and burned down the Parliament House. Hence, there arose, not unnaturally, a strong feeling of anger on the part of the local Government against Montreal; and moreover there was no longer a House in which the Parliament could be held in that town. For these conjoint reasons it was decided to move the seat of Government again, and it was resolved that the Governor and the Parliament should sit alternately at Toronto in Upper Canada, and at Quebec in Lower Canada, remaining four years at each place. They went at first to Toronto for two years only, having agreed that they should be there on this occasion only for the remainder of the term of the then Parliament. After that they were at Quebec for four years; then at Toronto for four; and now are again at Quebec. But this arrangement has been found very inconvenient. In the first place there is a great national expenditure incurred in moving old records, and in keeping double records, in moving the library, and as I have been informed even the pictures. The Government clerks also are called on to move as the Government moves; and though an allowance is made to them from the national purse to cover their loss, the arrangement has nevertheless been felt by them to be a grievance, as may be well understood. The accommodation also for the ministers of the Government, and for members of the two Houses has been insufficient. Hotels, lodgings, and furnished houses could not be provided to the extent required, seeing that they would be left nearly empty for every alternate space of four years. Indeed it needs but little argument to prove that the plan adopted must have been a thoroughly uncomfortable plan, and the wonder is that it should have been adopted. Lower Canada had undertaken to make all her leading citizens wretched, providing Upper Canada would treat hers with equal severity. This has now gone on for some twelve years, and as the system was found to be an unendurable nuisance it has been at last admitted that some steps must be taken towards selecting one capital for the country.

I should here, in justice to the Canadians, state a remark made to me on this matter by one of the present leading politicians of the colony. I cannot think that the migratory scheme was good; but he defended it, asserting that it had done very much to amalgamate the people of the two provinces; that it had brought Lower Canadians into Upper Canada, and Upper Canadians into Lower Canada, teaching English to those who spoke only French before, and making each pleasantly acquainted with the other. I have no doubt that something,—perhaps much,—has been done in this way; but valuable as the result may have been, I cannot think it worth the cost of the means employed. The best answer to the above argument consists in the undoubted fact that a migratory Government would never have been established for such a reason. It was so established because Montreal, the central town, had given offence, and because the jealousy of the provinces against each other would not admit of the Government being placed entirely at Quebec, or entirely at Toronto.

But it was necessary that some step should be taken; and as it was found to be unlikely that any resolution should be reached by the joint provinces themselves, it was loyally and wisely determined to refer the matter to the Queen. That Her Majesty has constitutionally the power to call the Parliament of Canada at any town of Canada which she may select, admits, I conceive, of no doubt. It is, I imagine, within her prerogative to call the Parliament of England where she may please within that realm, though her lieges would be somewhat startled if it were called otherwhere than in London. It was therefore well done to ask Her Majesty to act as arbiter in the matter. But there are not wanting those in Canada who say that in referring the matter to the Queen it was in truth referring it to those by whom very many of the Canadians were least willing to be guided in the matter; to the Governor General namely, and the Colonial Secretary. Many indeed in Canada now declare that the decision simply placed the matter in the hands of the Governor General.

Be that as it may, I do not think that any unbiassed traveller will doubt that the best possible selection has been made, presuming always, as we may presume in the discussion, that Montreal could not be selected. I take for granted that the rejection of Montreal was regarded as a sine quâ non in the decision. To me it appears grievous that this should have been so. It is a great thing for any country to have a large, leading, world-known city, and I think that the Government should combine with the commerce of the country in carrying out this object. But commerce can do a great deal more for Government than Government can do for commerce. Government has selected Ottawa as the capital of Canada; but commerce has already made Montreal the capital, and Montreal will be the chief city of Canada, let Government do what it may to foster the other town. The idea of spiting a town because there has been a row in it seems to me to be preposterous. The row was not the work of those who have made Montreal rich and respectable. Montreal is more centrical than Ottawa,—nay, it is as nearly centrical as any town can be. It is easier to get to Montreal from Toronto than to Ottawa;—and if from Toronto, then from all that distant portion of Upper Canada, back of Toronto. To all Lower Canada Montreal is, as a matter of course, much easier of access than Ottawa. But having said so much in favour of Montreal, I will again admit that, putting aside Montreal, the best possible selection has been made.

When Ottawa was named, no time was lost in setting to work to prepare for the new migration. In 1859 the Parliament was removed to Quebec, with the understanding that it should remain there till the new buildings should be completed. These buildings were absolutely commenced in April 1860, and it was, and I believe still is, expected that they will be completed in 1863. I am now writing in the winter of 1861; and, as is necessary in Canadian winters, the works are suspended. But unfortunately they were suspended in the early part of October,—on the 1st of October,—whereas they might have been continued, as far as the season is concerned, up to the end of November. We reached Ottawa on the 3rd of October, and more than a thousand men had then been just dismissed. All the money in hand had been expended, and the Government,—so it was said,—could give no more money till Parliament should meet again. This was most unfortunate. In the first place the suspension was against the contract as made with the contractors for the building; in the next place there was the delay; and then, worst of all, the question again became agitated whether the colonial legislature were really in earnest with reference to Ottawa. Many men of mark in the colony were still anxious—I believe are still anxious,—to put an end to the Ottawa scheme, and think that there still exists for them a chance of success. And very many men who are not of mark are thus united, and a feeling of doubt on the subject has been created. £225,000 has already been spent on these buildings, and I have no doubt myself that they will be duly completed, and duly used.

We went up to the new town by boat, taking the course of the river Ottawa. We passed St. Ann's, but no one at St. Ann's seemed to know anything of the brothers who were to rest there on their weary oars. At Maxwellstown I could hear nothing of Annie Laurie or of her trysting place on the braes, and the turnpike man at Tara could tell me nothing of the site of the hall, and had never even heard of the harp. When I go down South I shall expect to find that the negro melodies have not yet reached "Old Virginie." This boat conveyance from Montreal to Ottawa is not all that could be wished in convenience, for it is allied too closely with railway travelling. Those who use it leave Montreal by a railway; after nine miles, they are changed into a steamboat. Then they encounter another railway, and at last reach Ottawa in a second steamboat. But the river is seen, and a better idea of the country is obtained than can be had solely from the railway cars. The scenery is by no means grand, nor is it strikingly picturesque; but it is in its way interesting. For a long portion of the river the old primeval forests come down close to the water's edge, and in the fall of the year the brilliant colouring is very lovely. It should not be imagined,—as I think it often is imagined,—that these forests are made up of splendid trees, or that splendid trees are even common. When timber grows on undrained ground, and when it is uncared for, it does not seem to approach nearer to its perfection than wheat and grass do under similar circumstances. Seen from a little distance the colour and effect is good, but the trees themselves have shallow roots and grow up tall, narrow, and shapeless. It necessarily is so with all timber that is not thinned in its growth. When fine forest trees are found, and are left standing alone by any cultivator who may have taste enough to wish for such adornment, they almost invariably die. They are robbed of the sickly shelter by which they have been surrounded; the hot sun strikes the uncovered fibres of the roots, and the poor solitary invalid languishes and at last dies.

As one ascends the river, which by its breadth forms itself into lakes, one is shown Indian villages clustering down upon the bank. Some years ago these Indians were rich, for the price of furs, in which they dealt, was high; but furs have become cheaper, and the beavers with which they used to trade are almost valueless. That a change in the fashion of hats should have assisted to polish these poor fellows off the face of creation must, one may suppose, be very unintelligible to them; but nevertheless it is probably a subject of deep speculation. If the reading world were to take to sermons again and eschew their novels, Messrs. Thackeray, Dickens, and some others would look about them and inquire into the causes of such a change with considerable acuteness. They might not, perhaps, hit the truth, and these Indians are much in that predicament. It is said that very few pure-blooded Indians are now to be found in their villages, but I doubt whether this is not erroneous. The children of the Indians are now fed upon baked bread, and on cooked meat, and are brought up in houses. They are nursed somewhat as the children of the white men are nursed; and these practices no doubt have done much towards altering their appearance. The negroes who have been bred in the States, and whose fathers have been so bred before them, differ both in colour and form from their brothers who have been born and nurtured in Africa.

I said in the last chapter that the city of Ottawa was still to be built; but I must explain, lest I should draw down on my head the wrath of the Ottawaites, that the place already contains a population of 15,000 inhabitants. As, however, it is being prepared for four times that number—for eight times that number let us hope—and as it straggles over a vast extent of ground, it gives one the idea of a city in an active course of preparation. In England we know nothing about unbuilt cities. With us four or five blocks of streets together never assume that ugly, unfledged appearance which belongs to the half-finished carcase of a house, as they do so often on the other side of the Atlantic. Ottawa is preparing for itself broad streets, and grand thoroughfares. The buildings already extend over a length considerably exceeding two miles, and half a dozen hotels have been opened, which, if I were writing a guide-book in a complimentary tone, it would be my duty to describe as first-rate. But the half-dozen first-rate hotels, though open, as yet enjoy but a moderate amount of custom. All this justifies me, I think, in saying that the city has as yet to get itself built. The manner in which this is being done justifies me also in saying that the Ottawaites are going about their task with a worthy zeal.

To me I confess that the nature of the situation has great charms,—regarding it as the site for a town. It is not on a plain, and from the form of the rock overhanging the river, and of the hill that falls from thence down to the water, it has been found impracticable to lay out the place in right-angled parallelograms. A right-angled parallelogramical city, such as are Philadelphia and the new portion of New York, is from its very nature odious to me. I know that much may be said in its favour—that drainage and gas-pipes come easier to such a shape, and that ground can be better economized. Nevertheless I prefer a street that is forced to twist itself about. I enjoy the narrowness of Temple Bar, and the misshapen curvature of Pickett Street. The disreputable dinginess of Holywell Street is dear to me, and I love to thread my way up by the Olympic into Covent Garden. Fifth Avenue in New York is as grand as paint and glass can make it; but I would not live in a palace in Fifth Avenue if the corporation of the city would pay my baker's and butcher's bills.

The town of Ottawa lies between two waterfalls. The upper one, or Rideau Fall, is formed by the confluence of a small river with the larger one; and the lower fall—designated as lower because it is at the foot of the hill, though it is higher up the Ottawa river—is called the Chaudière, from its resemblance to a boiling kettle. This is on the Ottawa river itself. The Rideau fall is divided into two branches, thus forming an island in the middle as is the case at Niagara. It is pretty enough, and worth visiting, even were it further from the town than it is; but by those who have hunted out many cataracts in their travels it will not be considered very remarkable. The Chaudière fall I did think very remarkable. It is of trifling depth, being formed by fractures in the rocky bed of the river; but the waters have so cut the rock as to create beautiful forms in the rush which they make in their descent. Strangers are told to look at these falls from the suspension bridge; and it is well that they should do so. But in so looking at them they obtain but a very small part of their effect. On the Ottawa side of the bridge is a brewery, which brewery is surrounded by a huge timber-yard. This timber-yard I found to be very muddy, and the passing and repassing through it is a work of trouble; but nevertheless let the traveller by all means make his way through the mud, and scramble over the timber, and cross the plank bridges which traverse the streams of the sawmills, and thus take himself to the outer edge of the woodwork over the water. If he will then seat himself, about the hour of sunset, he will see the Chaudière fall aright.

But the glory of Ottawa will be—and, indeed, already is—the set of public buildings which is now being erected on the rock which guards as it were the town from the river. How much of the excellence of these buildings may be due to the taste of Sir Edmund Head, the late Governor, I do not know. That he has greatly interested himself in the subject is well known: and as the style of the different buildings is so much alike as to make one whole, though the designs of different architects were selected, and these different architects employed, I imagine that considerable alterations must have been made in the original drawings. There are three buildings, forming three sides of a quadrangle; but they are not joined, the vacant spaces at the corner being of considerable extent. The fourth side of the quadrangle opens upon one of the principal streets of the town. The centre building is intended for the Houses of Parliament, and the two side buildings for the Government offices. Of the first Messrs. Fuller and Jones are the architects, and of the latter Messrs. Stent and Laver. I did not have the pleasure of meeting any of these gentlemen; but I take upon myself to say that as regards purity of art and manliness of conception their joint work is entitled to the very highest praise. How far the buildings may be well arranged for the required purposes, how far they may be economical in construction, or specially adapted to the severe climate of the country, I cannot say; but I have no hesitation in risking my reputation for judgment in giving my warmest commendation to them as regards beauty of outline and truthful nobility of detail.

I will not attempt to describe them, for I should interest no one in doing so, and should certainly fail in my attempt to make any reader understand me. I know no modern Gothic purer of its kind, or less sullied with fictitious ornamentation. Our own Houses of Parliament are very fine, but it is, I believe, generally felt that the ornamentation is too minute; and, moreover, it may be questioned whether perpendicular Gothic is capable of the highest nobility which architecture can achieve. I do not pretend to say that these Canadian public buildings will reach that highest nobility. They must be finished before any final judgment can be pronounced; but I do feel very certain that that final judgment will be greatly in their favour. The total frontage of the quadrangle, including the side buildings, is 1,200 feet; that of the centre buildings is 475. As I have said before, £225,000 has already been expended, and it is estimated that the total cost, including the arrangement and decoration of the ground behind the building and in the quadrangle, will be half a million.

The buildings front upon what will, I suppose, be the principal street of Ottawa, and they stand upon a rock looking immediately down upon the river. In this way they are blessed with a site peculiarly happy. Indeed I cannot at this moment remember any so much so. The castle of Edinburgh stands very well; but then, like many other castles, it stands on a summit by itself, and can only be approached by a steep ascent. These buildings at Ottawa, though they look down from a grand eminence immediately on the river, are approached from the town without any ascent. The rock, though it falls almost precipitously down to the water, is covered with trees and shrubs, and then the river that runs beneath is rapid, bright, and picturesque in the irregularity of all its lines. The view from the back of the library, up to the Chaudière falls, and to the saw-mills by which they are surrounded, is very lovely. So that I will say again, that I know no site for such a set of buildings so happy as regards both beauty and grandeur. It is intended that the library, of which the walls were only ten feet above the ground when I was there, shall be an octagonal building, in shape and outward character like the chapter-house of a cathedral. This structure will, I presume, be surrounded by gravel walks and green sward. Of the library there is a large model showing all the details of the architecture; and if that model be ultimately followed, this building alone will be worthy of a visit from English tourists. To me it was very wonderful to find such an edifice in the course of erection on the banks of a wild river, almost at the back of Canada. But if ever I visit Canada again it will be to see those buildings when completed.

And now, like all friendly critics, having bestowed my modicum of praise, I must proceed to find fault. I cannot bring myself to administer my sugar-plum without adding to it some bitter morsel by way of antidote. The building to the left of the quadrangle as it is entered is deficient in length, and on that account appears mean to the eye. The two side buildings are brought up close to the street, so that each has a frontage immediately on the street. Such being the case they should be of equal length, or nearly so. Had the centre of one fronted the centre of the other, a difference of length might have been allowed; but in this case the side front of the smaller one would not have reached the street. As it is, the space between the main building and the smaller wing is disproportionably large, and the very distance at which it stands will, I fear, give to it that appearance of meanness of which I have spoken. The clerk of the works, who explained to me with much courtesy the plan of the buildings, stated that the design of this wing was capable of elongation, and had been expressly prepared with that object. If this be so, I trust that the defect will be remedied.

The great trade of Canada is lumbering; and lumbering consists in cutting down pine trees up in the far distant forests, in hewing or sawing them into shape for market, and getting them down the rivers to Quebec, from whence they are exported to Europe, and chiefly to England. Timber in Canada is called lumber; those engaged in the trade are called lumberers, and the business itself is called lumbering. After a lapse of time it must no doubt become monotonous to those engaged in it, and the name is not engaging; but there is much about it that is very picturesque. A saw-mill worked by water power is almost always a pretty object, and stacks of new cut timber are pleasant to the smell, and group themselves not amiss on the water's edge. If I had the time, and were a year or two younger, I should love well to go up lumbering into the woods. The men for this purpose are hired in the fall of the year, and are sent up hundreds of miles away to the pine forests in strong gangs. Everything is there found for them. They make log huts for their shelter, and food of the best and the strongest is taken up for their diet. But no strong drink of any kind is allowed, nor is any within reach of the men. There are no publics, no shebeen houses, no grog-shops. Sobriety is an enforced virtue; and so much is this considered by the masters, and understood by the men, that very little contraband work is done in the way of taking up spirits to these settlements. It may be said that the work up in the forests is done with the assistance of no stronger drink than tea; and it is very hard work. There cannot be much work that is harder; and it is done amidst the snows and forests of a Canadian winter. A convict in Bermuda cannot get through his daily eight hours of light labour without an allowance of rum; but a Canadian lumberer can manage to do his daily task on tea without milk. These men, however, are by no means teetotallers. When they come back to the towns they break out, and reward themselves for their long enforced moderation. The wages I found to be very various, running from thirteen or fourteen dollars a month to twenty-eight or thirty, according to the nature of the work. The men who cut down the trees receive more than those who hew them when down, and these again more than the under class who make the roads and clear the ground. These money wages, however, are in addition to their diet. The operation requiring the most skill is that of marking the trees for the axe. The largest only are worth cutting, and form and soundness must also be considered.

But if I were about to visit a party of lumberers in the forest, I should not be disposed to pass a whole winter with them. Even of a very good thing one may have too much. I would go up in the spring, when the rafts are being formed in the small tributary streams, and I would come down upon one of them, shooting the rapids of the rivers as soon as the first freshets had left the way open. A freshet in the rivers is the rush of waters occasioned by melting snow and ice. The first freshets take down the winter waters of the nearer lakes and rivers. Then the streams become for a time navigable, and the rafts go down. After that comes the second freshet, occasioned by the melting of far-off snow and ice up in the great northern lakes which are little known. These rafts are of immense construction, such as those which we have seen on the Rhone and Rhine, and often contain timber to the value of two, three, and four thousand pounds. At the rapids the large rafts are, as it were, unyoked, and divided into small portions, which go down separately. The excitement and motion of such transit must, I should say, be very joyous. I was told that the Prince of Wales desired to go down a rapid on a raft, but that the men in charge would not undertake to say that there was no possible danger. Whereupon those who accompanied the prince requested his Royal Highness to forbear. I fear that in these careful days crowned heads and their heirs must often find themselves in the position of Sancho at the banquet. The sailor prince who came after his brother was allowed to go down a rapid, and got, as I was told, rather a rough bump as he did so.

Ottawa is a great place for these timber rafts. Indeed, it may, I think, be called the head-quarters of timber for the world. Nearly all the best pine wood comes down the Ottawa and its tributaries. The other rivers by which timber is brought down to the St. Lawrence are chiefly the St. Maurice, the Madawaska, and the Saguenay; but the Ottawa and its tributaries water 75,000 square miles; whereas the other three rivers with their tributaries water only 53,000. The timber from the Ottawa and St. Maurice finds its way down the St. Lawrence to Quebec, where, however, it loses the whole of its picturesque character. The Saguenay and the Madawaska fall into the St. Lawrence below Quebec.

From Ottawa we went by rail to Prescott, which is surely one of the most wretched little places to be found in any country. Immediately opposite to it, on the other side of the St. Lawrence, is the thriving town of Ogdensburgh. But Ogdensburgh is in the United States. Had we been able to learn at Ottawa any facts as to the hours of the river steamers and railways we might have saved time and have avoided Prescott; but this was out of the question. Had I asked the exact hour at which I might reach Calcutta by the quickest route, an accurate reply would not have been more out of the question. I was much struck at Prescott—and indeed all through Canada, though more in the upper than in the lower province—by the sturdy roughness, some would call it insolence, of those of the lower classes of the people with whom I was brought into contact. If the words "lower classes" give offence to any reader, I beg to apologize;—to apologize and to assert that I am one of the last of men to apply such a term in a sense of reproach to those who earn their bread by the labour of their hands. But it is hard to find terms which will be understood; and that term, whether it give offence or no, will be understood. Of course such a complaint as that I now make is very common as made against the States. Men in the States with horned hands and fustian coats are very often most unnecessarily insolent in asserting their independence. What I now mean to say is that precisely the same fault is to be found in Canada. I know well what the men mean when they offend in this manner. And when I think on the subject with deliberation, at my own desk, I can not only excuse, but almost approve them. But when one personally encounters their corduroy braggadocio; when the man to whose services one is entitled answers one with determined insolence; when one is bidden to follow "that young lady," meaning the chambermaid, or desired, with a toss of the head, to wait for the "gentleman who is coming," meaning the boots, the heart is sickened, and the English traveller pines for the civility,—for the servility, if my American friends choose to call it so,—of a well-ordered servant. But the whole scene is easily construed, and turned into English. A man is asked by a stranger some question about his employment, and he replies in a tone which seems to imply anger, insolence, and a dishonest intention to evade the service for which he is paid. Or if there be no question of service or payment, the man's manner will be the same, and the stranger feels that he is slapped in the face and insulted. The translation of it is this. The man questioned, who is aware that as regards coat, hat, boots, and outward cleanliness he is below him by whom he is questioned, unconsciously feels himself called upon to assert his political equality. It is his shibboleth that he is politically equal to the best, that he is independent, and that his labour, though it earn him but a dollar a day by porterage, places him as a citizen on an equal rank with the most wealthy fellow-man that may employ or accost him. But being so inferior in that coat, hat and boots matter, he is forced to assert his equality by some effort. As he improves in externals he will diminish the roughness of his claim. As long as the man makes his claim with any roughness, so long does he acknowledge within himself some feeling of external inferiority. When that has gone,—when the American has polished himself up by education and general well being to a feeling of external equality with gentlemen, he shows, I think, no more of that outward braggadocio of independence than a Frenchman.

But the blow at the moment of the stroke is very galling. I confess that I have occasionally all but broken down beneath it. But when it is thought of afterwards it admits of full excuse. No effort that a man can make is better than a true effort at independence. But this insolence is a false effort, it will be said. It should rather be called a false accompaniment to a life-long true effort. The man probably is not dishonest, does not desire to shirk any service which is due from him,—is not even inclined to insolence. Accept his first declaration of equality for that which it is intended to represent, and the man afterwards will be found obliging and communicative. If occasion offer he will sit down in the room with you and will talk with you on any subject that he may choose; but having once ascertained that you show no resentment for this assertion of equality, he will do pretty nearly all that he is asked. He will at any rate do as much in that way as an Englishman. I say thus much on this subject now especially, because I was quite as much struck by the feeling in Canada as I was within the States.

From Prescott we went on by the Grand Trunk Railway to Toronto, and stayed there for a few days. Toronto is the capital of the province of Upper Canada, and I presume will in some degree remain so in spite of Ottawa and its pretensions. That is, the law courts will still be held there. I do not know that it will enjoy any other supremacy, unless it be that of trade and population. Some few years ago Toronto was advancing with rapid strides, and was bidding fair to rival Quebec, or even perhaps Montreal. Hamilton, also, another town of Upper Canada, was going a head in the true American style; but then reverses came in trade, and the towns were checked for a while. Toronto, with a neighbouring suburb which is a part of it, as Southwark is of London, contains now over 50,000 inhabitants. The streets are all parallelogramical, and there is not a single curvature to rest the eye. It is built down close upon Lake Ontario; and as it is also on the Grand Trunk Railway it has all the aid which facility of traffic can give it.

The two sights of Toronto are the Osgoode Hall and the University. The Osgoode Hall is to Upper Canada what the Four Courts are to Ireland. The law courts are all held there. Exteriorly little can be said for Osgoode Hall, whereas the exterior of the Four Courts in Dublin is very fine; but as an interior the temple of Themis at Toronto beats hollow that which the goddess owns in Dublin. In Dublin the Courts themselves are shabby, and the space under the dome is not so fine as the exterior seems to promise that it should be. In Toronto the Courts themselves are, I think, the most commodious that I ever saw, and the passages, vestibules, and hall are very handsome. In Upper Canada the common law judges and those in Chancery are divided as they are in England; but it is, as I was told, the opinion of Canadian lawyers that the work may be thrown together. Appeal is allowed in criminal cases; but as far as I could learn such power of appeal is held to be both troublesome and useless. In Lower Canada the old French laws are still administered.

But the University is the glory of Toronto. This is a Gothic building and will take rank after, but next to the buildings at Ottawa. It will be the second piece of noble architecture in Canada, and as far as I know on the American continent. It is, I believe, intended to be purely Norman, though I doubt whether the received types of Norman architecture have not been departed from in many of the windows. Be this as it may the College is a manly, noble structure, free from false decoration, and infinitely creditable to those who projected it. I was informed by the head of the College that it has been open only two years, and here also I fancy that the colony has been much indebted to the taste of the late Governor, Sir Edmund Head.

Toronto as a city is not generally attractive to a traveller. The country around it is flat; and, though it stands on a lake, that lake has no attributes of beauty. Large inland seas such as are these great Northern lakes of America never have such attributes. Picturesque mountains rise from narrow valleys, such as form the beds of lakes in Switzerland, Scotland, and Northern Italy. But from such broad waters as those of Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, and Lake Michigan, the shores shelve very gradually, and have none of the materials of lovely scenery.

The streets in Toronto are framed with wood, or rather planked, as are those of Montreal and Quebec; but they are kept in better order. I should say that the planks are first used at Toronto, then sent down by the lake to Montreal, and when all but rotted out there, are again floated off by the St. Lawrence to be used in the thoroughfares of the old French capital. But if the streets of Toronto are better than those of the other towns, the roads round it are worse. I had the honour of meeting two distinguished members of the Provincial Parliament at dinner some few miles out of town, and, returning back a short while after they had left our host's house, was glad to be of use in picking them up from a ditch into which their carriage had been upset. To me it appeared all but miraculous that any carriage should make its way over that road without such misadventure. I may perhaps be allowed to hope that the discomfiture of those worthy legislators may lead to some improvement in the thoroughfare.

I had on a previous occasion gone down the St. Lawrence, through the thousand isles, and over the rapids in one of those large summer steamboats which ply upon the lake and river. I cannot say that I was much struck by the scenery, and therefore did not encroach upon my time by making the journey again. Such an opinion will be regarded as heresy by many who think much of the thousand islands. I do not believe that they would be expressly noted by any traveller who was not expressly bidden to admire them.

From Toronto we went across to Niagara, re-entering the States at Lewiston in New York.

CHAPTER VI.

THE CONNEXION OF THE CANADAS
WITH GREAT BRITAIN.

When the American war began troops were sent out to Canada, and when I was in the Provinces more troops were then expected. The matter was much talked of, as a matter of course, in Canada; and it had been discussed in England before I left. I had seen much said about it in the English papers since, and it also had become the subject of very hot question among the politicians of the Northern States. The measure had at that time given more umbrage to the North than anything else done or said by England from the beginning of the war up to that time, except the declaration made by Lord John Russell in the House of Commons as to the neutrality to be preserved by England between the two belligerents. The argument used by the Northern States was this. If France collects men and material of war in the neighbourhood of England, England considers herself injured, calls for an explanation, and talks of invasion. Therefore as England is now collecting men and material of war in our neighbourhood, we will consider ourselves injured. It does not suit us to ask for an explanation, because it is not our habit to interfere with other nations. We will not pretend to say that we think we are to be invaded. But as we clearly are injured, we will express our anger at that injury, and when the opportunity shall come will take advantage of having that new grievance.

As we all know, a very large increase of force was sent when we were still in doubt as to the termination of the Trent affair, and imagined that war was imminent. But the sending of that large force did not anger the Americans, as the first despatch of troops to Canada had angered them. Things had so turned out that measures of military precaution were acknowledged by them to be necessary. I cannot, however, but think that Mr. Seward might have spared that offer to send British troops across Maine; and so, also, have all his countrymen thought by whom I have heard the matter discussed.

As to any attempt at invasion of Canada by the Americans, or idea of punishing the alleged injuries suffered by the States from Great Britain by the annexation of those provinces, I do not believe that any sane-minded citizens of the States believe in the possibility of such retaliation. Some years since the Americans thought that Canada might shine in the Union firmament as a new star, but that delusion is, I think, over. Such annexation if ever made, must have been made not only against the arms of England but must also have been made in accordance with the wishes of the people so annexed. It was then believed that the Canadians were not averse to such a change, and there may possibly have then been among them the remnant of such a wish. There is certainly no such desire now, not even a remnant of such a desire; and the truth on this matter is, I think, generally acknowledged. The feeling in Canada is one of strong aversion to the United States Government, and of predilection for self-government under the English Crown. A fainéant Governor and the prestige of British power is now the political aspiration of the Canadians in general; and I think that this is understood in the States. Moreover the States have a job of work on hand which, as they themselves are well aware, is taxing all their energies. Such being the case I do not think that England needs to fear any invasion of Canada, authorized by the States Government.

This feeling of a grievance on the part of the States was a manifest absurdity. The new reinforcement of the garrisons in Canada did not, when I was in Canada, amount as I believe to more than 2,000 men. But had it amounted to 20,000 the States would have had no just ground for complaint. Of all nationalities that in modern days have risen to power, they above all others have shown that they would do what they liked with their own, indifferent to foreign councils, and deaf to foreign remonstrance. "Do you go your way, and let us go ours. We will trouble you with no question, nor do you trouble us." Such has been their national policy, and it has obtained for them great respect. They have resisted the temptation of putting their fingers into the caldron of foreign policy; and foreign politicians, acknowledging their reserve in this respect, have not been offended at the bristles with which their Noli me tangere has been proclaimed. Their intelligence has been appreciated, and their conduct has been respected. But if this has been their line of policy, they must be entirely out of court in raising any question as to the position of British troops on British soil.

"It shows us that you doubt us," an American says, with an air of injured honour—or did say, before that Trent affair. "And it is done to express sympathy with the South. The Southerners understand it, and we understand it also. We know where your hearts are—nay, your very souls. They are among the slave-begotten cotton bales of the rebel South." Then comes the whole of the long argument, in which it seems so easy to an Englishman to prove that England in the whole of this sad matter has been true and loyal to her friend. She could not interfere when the husband and wife would quarrel. She could only grieve, and wish that things might come right and smooth for both parties. But the argument though so easy is never effectual.

It seems to me foolish in an American to quarrel with England for sending soldiers to Canada; but I cannot say that I thought it was well done to send them at the beginning of the war. The English Government did not, I presume, take this step with reference to any possible invasion of Canada by the Government of the States. We are fortifying Portsmouth, and Portland, and Plymouth, because we would fain be safe against the French army acting under a French Emperor. But we sent 2,000 troops to Canada, if I understand the matter rightly, to guard our provinces against the filibustering energies of a mass of unemployed American soldiers, when those soldiers should come to be disbanded. When this war shall be over—a war during which not much, if any, under a million of American citizens will have been under arms—it will not be easy for all who survive to return to their old homes and old occupations. Nor does a disbanded soldier always make a good husbandman, notwithstanding the great examples of Cincinnatus and Bird-o'-freedom Sawin. It may be that a considerable amount of filibustering energy will be afloat, and that the then Government of those who neighbour us in Canada will have other matters in hand more important to them than the controlling of these unruly spirits. That, as I take it, was the evil against which we of Great Britain and of Canada desired to guard ourselves.

But I doubt whether 2,000 or 10,000 British soldiers would be any effective guard against such inroads, and I doubt more strongly whether any such external guarding will be necessary. If the Canadians were prepared to fraternize with filibusters from the States, neither three nor ten thousand soldiers would avail against such a feeling over a frontier stretching from the State of Maine to the shores of Lake Huron and Lake Erie. If such a feeling did exist, if the Canadians wished the change, in God's name let them go. It is for their sakes and not for our own that we would have them bound to us. But the Canadians are averse to such a change with a degree of feeling that amounts to national intensity. Their sympathies are with the Southern States, not because they care for cotton, not because they are anti-abolitionists, not because they admire the hearty pluck of those who are endeavouring to work out for themselves a new revolution. They sympathize with the South from strong dislike to the aggression, the braggadocio, and the insolence they have felt upon their own borders. They dislike Mr. Seward's weak and vulgar joke with the Duke of Newcastle. They dislike Mr. Everett's flattering hints to his countrymen as to the one nation that is to occupy the whole continent. They dislike the Monroe doctrine. They wonder at the meekness with which England has endured the vauntings of the Northern States, and are endued with no such meekness of their own. They would, I believe, be well prepared to meet and give an account of any filibusters who might visit them; and I am not sure that it is wisely done on our part to show any intention of taking the work out of their hands.

But I am led to this opinion in no degree by a feeling that Great Britain ought to grudge the cost of the soldiers. If Canada will be safer with them, in heaven's name let her have them. It has been argued in many places, not only with regard to Canada, but as to all our self-governed colonies, that military service should not be given at British expense and with British men to any colony which has its own representative government, and which levies its own taxes. "While Great Britain absolutely held the reins of government, and did as it pleased with the affairs of its dependencies," such politicians say, "it was just and right that she should pay the bill. As long as her government of a colony was paternal, so long was it right that the mother country should put herself in the place of a father, and enjoy a father's undoubted prerogative of putting his hand into his breeches pocket to provide for all the wants of his child. But when the adult son set up for himself in business, having received education from the parent, and having had his apprentice fees duly paid, then that son should settle his own bills, and look no longer to the paternal pocket." Such is the law of the world all over, from little birds whose young fly away when fledged, upwards to men and nations. Let the father work for the child while he is a child, but when the child has become a man let him lean no longer on his father's staff.

The argument is, I think, very good; but it proves, not that we are relieved from the necessity of assisting our colonies with payments made out of British taxes, but that we are still bound to give such assistance; and that we shall continue to be so bound as long as we allow these colonies to adhere to us, or as they allow us to adhere to them. In fact the young bird is not yet fully fledged. That illustration of the father and the child is a just one, but in order to make it just it should be followed throughout. When the son is in fact established on his own bottom, then the father expects that he will live without assistance. But when the son does so live he is freed from all paternal control. The father, while he expects to be obeyed, continues to fill the paternal office of paymaster,—of paymaster, at any rate, to some extent. And so, I think, it must be with our colonies. The Canadas at present are not independent, and have not political power of their own apart from the political power of Great Britain. England has declared herself neutral as regards the Northern and Southern States, and by that neutrality the Canadas are bound; and yet the Canadas were not consulted in the matter. Should England go to war with France, Canada must close her ports against French vessels. If England chooses to send her troops to Canadian barracks, Canada cannot refuse to accept them. If England should send to Canada an unpopular Governor, Canada has no power to reject his services. As long as Canada is a colony, so called, she cannot be independent, and should not be expected to walk alone. It is exactly the same with the colonies of Australia, with New Zealand, with the Cape of Good Hope, and with Jamaica. While England enjoys the prestige of her colonies, while she boasts that such large and now populous territories are her dependencies, she must and should be content to pay some portion of the bill. Surely it is absurd on our part to quarrel with Caffre warfare, with New Zealand fighting, and the rest of it. Such complaints remind one of an ancient paterfamilias, who insists on having his children and his grandchildren under the old paternal roof, and then grumbles because the butcher's bill is high. Those who will keep large households and bountiful tables should not be afraid of facing the butcher's bill, or unhappy at the tonnage of the coal. It is a grand thing, that power of keeping a large table; but it ceases to be grand when the items heaped upon it cause inward groans and outward moodiness.

Why should the colonies remain true to us as children are true to their parents, if we grudge them the assistance which is due to a child? They raise their own taxes, it is said, and administer them. True; and it is well that the growing son should do something for himself. While the father does all for him the son's labour belongs to the father. Then comes a middle state in which the son does much for himself, but not all. In that middle state now stand our prosperous colonies. Then comes the time when the son shall stand alone by his own strength; and to that period of manly self-respected strength let us all hope that those colonies are advancing. It is very hard for a mother country to know when such a time has come; and hard also for the child-colony to recognize justly the period of its own maturity. Whether or no such severance may ever take place without a quarrel, without weakness on one side and pride on the other, is a problem in the world's history yet to be solved. The most successful child that ever yet has gone off from a successful parent and taken its own path into the world, is without doubt the nation of the United States. Their present troubles are the result and the proofs of their success. The people that were too great to be dependent on any nation have now spread till they are themselves too great for a single nationality. No one now thinks that that daughter should have remained longer subject to her mother. But the severance was not made in amity, and the shrill notes of the old family quarrel are still sometimes heard across the waters.

From all this the question arises whether that problem may ever be solved with reference to the Canadas. That it will never be their destiny to join themselves to the States of the Union, I feel fully convinced. In the first place it is becoming evident from the present circumstances of the Union,—if it had never been made evident by history before,—that different people with different habits living at long distances from each other cannot well be brought together on equal terms under one Government. That noble ambition of the Americans that all the continent north of the isthmus should be united under one flag, has already been thrown from its saddle. The North and South are virtually separated, and the day will come in which the West also will secede. As population increases and trades arise peculiar to those different climates, the interests of the people will differ, and a new secession will take place beneficial alike to both parties. If this be so, if even there be any tendency this way, it affords the strongest argument against the probability of any future annexation of the Canadas. And then, in the second place, the feeling of Canada is not American, but British. If ever she be separated from Great Britain, she will be separated as the States were separated. She will desire to stand alone, and to enter herself as one among the nations of the earth.

She will desire to stand alone;—alone, that is without dependence either on England or on the States. But she is so circumstanced geographically that she can never stand alone without amalgamation with our other North American provinces. She has an outlet to the sea at the Gulf of St. Lawrence, but it is only a summer outlet. Her winter outlet is by railway through the States, and no other winter outlet is possible for her except through the sister provinces. Before Canada can be nationally great, the line of railway which now runs for some hundred miles below Quebec to Rivière du Loup, must be continued on through New Brunswick and Nova Scotia to the port of Halifax.

When I was in Canada I heard the question discussed of a Federal Government between the provinces of the two Canadas, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. To these were added, or not added, according to the opinion of those who spoke, the smaller outlying colonies of Newfoundland and Prince Edward's Island. If a scheme for such a Government were projected in Downing Street, all would no doubt be included, and a clean sweep would be made without difficulty. But the project as made in the colonies appears in different guises as it comes either from Canada or from one of the other provinces. The Canadian idea would be that the two Canadas should form two States of such a confederation, and the other provinces a third State. But this slight participation in power would hardly suit the views of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. In speaking of such a Federal Government as this, I shall of course be understood as meaning a confederation acting in connection with a British Governor, and dependent upon Great Britain as far as the different colonies are now dependent.

I cannot but think that such a confederation might be formed with great advantage to all the colonies and to Great Britain. At present the Canadas are in effect almost more distant from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick than they are from England. The intercourse between them is very slight—so slight that it may almost be said that there is no intercourse. A few men of science or of political importance may from time to time make their way from one colony into the other, but even this is not common. Beyond that they seldom see each other. Though New Brunswick borders both with Lower Canada and with Nova Scotia, thus making one whole of the three colonies, there is neither railroad nor stage conveyance running from one to the other. And yet their interests should be similar. From geographical position their modes of life must be alike, and a close conjunction between them is essentially necessary to give British North America any political importance in the world. There can be no such conjunction, no amalgamation of interests, until a railway shall have been made joining the Canada Grand Trunk Line with the two outlying colonies. Upper Canada can feed all England with wheat, and could do so without any aid of railway through the States, if a railway were made from Quebec to Halifax. But then comes the question of the cost. The Canada Grand Trunk is at the present moment at the lowest ebb of commercial misfortune, and with such a fact patent to the world what company will come forward with funds for making four or five hundred miles of railway, through a district of which one half is not yet prepared for population? It would be, I imagine, out of the question that such a speculation should for many years give any fair commercial interest on the money to be expended. But nevertheless to the colonies,—that is, to the enormous regions of British North America,—such a railroad would be invaluable. Under such circumstances it is for the Home Government and the colonies between them to see how such a measure may be carried out. As a national expenditure to be defrayed in the course of years by the territories interested, the sum of money required would be very small.

But how would this affect England? And how would England be affected by a union of the British North American colonies under one Federal Government? Before this question can be answered, he who prepares to answer it must consider what interest England has in her colonies, and for what purpose she holds them. Does she hold them for profit, or for glory, or for power; or does she hold them in order that she may carry out the duty which has devolved upon her of extending civilization, freedom, and well-being through the new uprising nations of the world? Does she hold them, in fact, for her own benefit, or does she hold them for theirs? I know nothing of the ethics of the Colonial Office, and not much perhaps of those of the House of Commons; but looking at what Great Britain has hitherto done in the way of colonization, I cannot but think that the national ambition looks to the welfare of the colonists, and not to home aggrandisement. That the two may run together is most probable. Indeed there can be no glory to a people so great or so readily recognized by mankind at large as that of spreading civilization from East to West, and from North to South. But the one object should be the prosperity of the colonists; and not profit, nor glory, nor even power to the parent country.

There is no virtue of which more has been said and sung than patriotism, and none which when pure and true has led to finer results. Dulce et decorum est pro patriâ mori. To live for one's country also is a very beautiful and proper thing. But if we examine closely much patriotism, that is so called, we shall find it going hand in hand with a good deal that is selfish, and with not a little that is devilish. It was some fine fury of patriotic feeling which enabled the national poet to put into the mouth of every Englishman that horrible prayer with regard to our enemies, which we sing when we wish to do honour to our sovereign. It did not seem to him that it might be well to pray that their hearts should be softened, and our own hearts softened also. National success was all that a patriotic poet could desire, and therefore in our national hymn have we gone on imploring the Lord to arise and scatter our enemies; to confound their politics, whether they be good or ill; and to expose their knavish tricks,—such knavish tricks being taken for granted. And then with a steady confidence we used to declare how certain we were that we should achieve all that was desirable, not exactly by trusting to our prayer to heaven, but by relying almost exclusively on George the Third or George the Fourth. Now I have always thought that that was rather a poor patriotism. Luckily for us our national conduct has not squared itself with our national anthem. Any patriotism must be poor which desires glory or even profit for a few at the expense of many, even though the few be brothers and the many aliens. As a rule patriotism is a virtue only because man's aptitude for good is so finite, that he cannot see and comprehend a wider humanity. He can hardly bring himself to understand that salvation should be extended to Jew and Gentile alike. The word philanthropy has become odious, and I would fain not use it; but the thing itself is as much higher than patriotism, as heaven is above the earth.

A wish that British North America should ever be severed from England, or that the Australian colonies should ever be so severed, will by many Englishmen be deemed unpatriotic. But I think that such severance is to be wished if it be the case that the colonies standing alone would become more prosperous than they are under British rule. We have before us an example in the United States of the prosperity which has attended such a rupture of old ties. I will not now contest the point with those who say that the present moment of an American civil war is ill chosen for vaunting that prosperity. There stand the cities which the people have built, and their power is attested by the world-wide importance of their present contest. And if the States have so risen since they left their parent's apron-string, why should not British North America rise as high? That the time has as yet come for such rising I do not think; but that it will soon come I do most heartily hope. The making of the railway of which I have spoken, and the amalgamation of the provinces would greatly tend to such an event. If, therefore, England desires to keep these colonies in a state of dependency; if it be more essential to her to maintain her own power with regard to them than to increase their influence; if her main object be to keep the colonies and not to improve the colonies, then I should say that an amalgamation of the Canadas with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick should not be regarded with favour by statesmen in Downing Street. But if, as I would fain hope, and do partly believe, such ideas of national power as these are now out of vogue with British statesmen, then I think that such an amalgamation should receive all the support which Downing Street can give it.

The United States severed themselves from Great Britain with a great struggle and after heartburnings and bloodshed. Whether Great Britain will ever allow any colony of hers to depart from out of her nest, to secede and start for herself, without any struggle or heartburnings, with all furtherance for such purpose which an old and powerful country can give to a new nationality then first taking its own place in the world's arena, is a problem yet to be solved. There is, I think, no more beautiful sight than that of a mother, still in all the glory of womanhood, preparing the wedding trousseau for her daughter. The child hitherto has been obedient and submissive. She has been one of a household in which she has held no command. She has sat at table as a child, fitting herself in all things to the behests of others. But the day of her power and her glory, and also of her cares and solicitude is at hand. She is to go forth, and do as she best may in the world under that teaching which her old home has given her. The hour of separation has come; and the mother, smiling through her tears, sends her forth decked with a bounteous hand and furnished with full stores, so that all may be well with her as she enters on her new duties. So is it that England should send forth her daughters. They should not escape from her arms with shrill screams and bleeding wounds, with ill-omened words which live so long, though the speakers of them lie cold in their graves.

But this sending forth of a child-nation to take its own political status in the world has never yet been done by Great Britain. I cannot remember that such has ever been done by any great power with reference to its dependency;—by any power that was powerful enough to keep such dependency within its grasp. But a man thinking on these matters cannot but hope that a time will come when such amicable severance may be effected. Great Britain cannot think that through all coming ages she is to be the mistress of the vast continent of Australia, lying on the other side of the globe's surface; that she is to be the mistress of all South Africa, as civilization shall extend northward; that the enormous territories of British North America are to be subject for ever to a veto from Downing Street. If the history of past empires does not teach her that this may not be so, at least the history of the United States might so teach her. "But we have learned a lesson from those United States," the patriot will argue who dares to hope that the glory and extent of the British Empire may remain unimpaired in sæcula sæculorum. "Since that day we have given political rights to our colonies, and have satisfied the political longings of their inhabitants. We do not tax their tea and stamps, but leave it to them to tax themselves as they may please." True. But in political aspirations the giving of an inch has ever created the desire for an ell. If the Australian colonies, even now,—with their scanty population and still young civilization, chafe against imperial interference, will they submit to it when they feel within their veins all the full blood of political manhood? What is the cry even of the Canadians—of the Canadians who are thoroughly loyal to England? Send us a fainéant Governor, a King Log, who will not presume to interfere with us; a Governor who will spend his money and live like a gentleman and care little or nothing for politics. That is the Canadian beau idéal of a Governor. They are to govern themselves; and he who comes to them from England is to sit among them as the silent representative of England's protection. If that be true—and I do not think that any who know the Canadas will deny it—must it not be presumed that they will soon also desire a fainéant minister in Downing Street? Of course they will so desire. Men do not become milder in their aspirations for political power, the more that political power is extended to them. Nor would it be well that they should be so humble in their desires. Nations devoid of political power have never risen high in the world's esteem. Even when they have been commercially successful, commerce has not brought to them the greatness which it has always given when joined with a strong political existence. The Greeks are commercially rich and active; but "Greece" and "Greek" are bye-words now for all that is mean. Cuba is a colony, and putting aside the cities of the States, the Havana is the richest town on the other side of the Atlantic and commercially the greatest; but the political villainy of Cuba, her daily importation of slaves, her breaches of treaty, and the bribery of her all but royal Governor are known to all men. But Canada is not dishonest; Canada is no bye-word for anything evil; Canada eats her own bread in the sweat of her brow, and fears a bad word from no man. True. But why does New York with its suburbs boast a million of inhabitants, while Montreal has 85,000? Why has that babe in years, Chicago, 120,000, while Toronto has not half the number? I do not say that Montreal and Toronto should have gone ahead abreast with New York and Chicago. In such races one must be first, and one last. But I do say that the Canadian towns will have no equal chance, till they are actuated by that feeling of political independence which has created the growth of the towns in the United States.

I do not think that the time has yet come in which Great Britain should desire the Canadians to start for themselves. There is the making of that railroad to be effected, and something done towards the union of those provinces. Canada could no more stand alone without New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, than could those latter colonies without Canada. But I think it would be well to be prepared for such a coming day; and that it would at any rate be well to bring home to ourselves and realize the idea of such secession on the part of our colonies, when the time shall have come at which such secession may be carried out with profit and security to them. Great Britain, should she ever send forth her child alone into the world, must of course guarantee her security. Such guarantees are given by treaties; and in the wording of them it is presumed that such treaties will last for ever. It will be argued that in starting British North America as a political power on its own bottom, we should bind ourself to all the expense of its defence, while we should give up all right to any interference in its concerns; and that from a state of things so unprofitable as this there would be no prospect of deliverance. But such treaties, let them be worded how they will, do not last for ever. For a time, no doubt, Great Britain would be so hampered—if indeed she would feel herself hampered by extending her name and prestige to a country bound to her by ties such as those which would then exist between her and this new nation. Such treaties are not everlasting, nor can they be made to last even for ages. Those who word them seem to think that powers and dynasties will never pass away. But they do pass away, and the balance of power will not keep itself fixed for ever on the same pivot. The time may come—that it may not come soon we will all desire—but the time may come when the name and prestige of what we call British North America will be as serviceable to Great Britain as those of Great Britain are now serviceable to her colonies.

But what shall be the new form of government for the new kingdom? That is a speculation very interesting to a politician; though one which to follow out at great length in these early days would be rather premature. That it should be a kingdom—that the political arrangement should be one of which a crowned hereditary king should form a part, nineteen out of every twenty Englishmen would desire; and, as I fancy, so would also nineteen out of every twenty Canadians. A king for the United States when they first established themselves was impossible. A total rupture from the Old World and all its habits was necessary for them. The name of a king, or monarch, or sovereign had become horrible to their ears. Even to this day they have not learned the difference between arbitrary power retained in the hand of one man, such as that now held by the Emperor over the French, and such hereditary headship in the State as that which belongs to the Crown in Great Britain. And this was necessary, seeing that their division from us was effected by strife, and carried out with war and bitter animosities. In those days also there was a remnant, though but a small remnant, of the power of tyranny left within the scope of the British Crown. That small remnant has been removed; and to me it seems that no form of existing government—no form of government that ever did exist, gives or has given so large a measure of individual freedom to all who live under it as a constitutional monarchy in which the Crown is divested of direct political power.

I will venture then to suggest a king for this new nation; and seeing that we are rich in princes there need be no difficulty in the selection. Would it not be beautiful to see a new nation established under such auspices, and to establish a people to whom their independence had been given,—to whom it had been freely surrendered as soon as they were capable of holding the position assigned to them?

CHAPTER VII.

NIAGARA.

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. This is a long word; but as far as my taste and judgment go, it is justified. I know no other one thing so beautiful, so glorious, and so powerful. I would not by this be understood as saying that a traveller wishing to do the best with his time should first of all places seek Niagara. In visiting Florence he may learn almost all that modern art can teach. At Rome he will be brought to understand the cold hearts, correct eyes, and cruel ambition of the old Latin race. In Switzerland he will surround himself with a flood of grandeur and loveliness, and fill himself, if he be capable of such filling, with a flood of romance. The Tropics will unfold to him all that vegetation in its greatest richness can produce. In Paris he will find the supreme of polish, the ne plus ultra of varnish according to the world's capability of varnishing. And in London he will find the supreme of power, the ne plus ultra of work according to the world's capability of working. Any one of such journeys may be more valuable to a man,—nay, any one such journey must be more valuable to a man,—than a visit to Niagara. At Niagara there is that fall of waters alone. But that fall is more graceful than Giotto's tower, more noble than the Apollo. The peaks of the Alps are not so astounding in their solitude. The valleys of the Blue Mountains in Jamaica are less green. The finished glaze of life in Paris is less invariable; and the full tide of trade round the Bank of England is not so inexorably powerful.

I came across an artist at Niagara who was attempting to draw the spray of the waters. "You have a difficult subject," said I. "All subjects are difficult," he replied, "to a man who desires to do well." "But yours, I fear, is impossible," I said. "You have no right to say so till I have finished my picture," he replied. I acknowledged the justice of his rebuke, regretted that I could not remain till the completion of his work should enable me to revoke my words, and passed on. Then I began to reflect whether I did not intend to try a task as difficult in describing the falls, and whether I felt any of that proud self-confidence which kept him happy at any rate while his task was in hand. I will not say that it is as difficult to describe aright that rush of waters, as it is to paint it well. But I doubt whether it is not quite as difficult to write a description that shall interest the reader, as it is to paint a picture of them that shall be pleasant to the beholder. My friend the artist was at any rate not afraid to make the attempt, and I also will try my hand.

That the waters of Lake Erie have come down in their courses from the broad basins of Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, and Lake Huron; that these waters fall into Lake Ontario by the short and rapid river of Niagara, and that the Falls of Niagara are made by a sudden break in the level of this rapid river, is probably known to all who will read this book. All the waters of these huge northern inland seas run over that breach in the rocky bottom of the stream; and thence it comes that the flow is unceasing in its grandeur, and that no eye can perceive a difference in the weight, or sound, or violence of the fall, whether it be visited in the drought of autumn, amidst the storms of winter, or after the melting of the upper worlds of ice in the days of the early summer. How many cataracts does the habitual tourist visit at which the waters fail him? But at Niagara the waters never fail. There it thunders over its ledge in a volume that never ceases and is never diminished;—as it has done from times previous to the life of man, and as it will do till tens of thousands of years shall see the rocky bed of the river worn away, back to the upper lake.

This stream divides Canada from the States, the western or farthermost bank belonging to the British Crown, and the eastern or nearer bank being in the State of New York. In visiting Niagara it always becomes a question on which side the visitor shall take up his quarters. On the Canada side there is no town, but there is a large hotel, beautifully placed immediately opposite to the falls, and this is generally thought to be the best locality for tourists. In the State of New York is the town called Niagara Falls, and here there are two large hotels, which, as to their immediate site, are not so well placed as that in Canada. I first visited Niagara some three years since. I stayed then at the Clifton House on the Canada side, and have since sworn by that position. But the Clifton House was closed for the season when I was last there, and on that account we went to the Cataract House in the town on the other side. I now think that I should set up my staff on the American side if I went again. My advice on the subject to any party starting for Niagara would depend upon their habits, or on their nationality. I would send Americans to the Canadian side, because they dislike walking; but English people I would locate on the American side, seeing that they are generally accustomed to the frequent use of their own legs. The two sides are not very easily approached, one from the other. Immediately below the falls there is a ferry, which may be traversed at the expense of a shilling; but the labour of getting up and down from the ferry is considerable, and the passage becomes wearisome. There is also a bridge, but it is two miles down the river, making a walk or drive of four miles necessary, and the toll for passing is four shillings or a dollar in a carriage, and one shilling on foot. As the greater variety of prospect can be had on the American side, as the island between the two falls is approachable from the American side and not from the Canadian, and as it is in this island that visitors will best love to linger and learn to measure in their minds the vast triumph of waters before them, I recommend such of my readers as can trust a little,—it need be but a little,—to their own legs to select their hotel at Niagara Falls town.

It has been said that it matters much from what point the falls are first seen, but to this I demur. It matters, I think, very little, or not at all. Let the visitor first see it all, and learn the whereabouts of every point, so as to understand his own position and that of the waters; and then having done that in the way of business let him proceed to enjoyment. I doubt whether it be not the best to do this with all sight seeing. I am quite sure that it is the way in which acquaintance may be best and most pleasantly made with a new picture.

The falls are, as I have said, made by a sudden breach in the level of the river. All cataracts are, I presume, made by such breaches; but generally the waters do not fall precipitously as they do at Niagara, and never elsewhere, as far as the world yet knows, has a breach so sudden been made in a river carrying in its channel such or any approach to such a body of water. Up above the falls, for more than a mile, the waters leap and burst over rapids, as though conscious of the destiny that awaits them. Here the river is very broad, and comparatively shallow, but from shore to shore it frets itself into little torrents, and begins to assume the majesty of its power. Looking at it even here, in the expanse which forms itself over the greater fall, one feels sure that no strongest swimmer could have a chance of saving himself, if fate had cast him in even among those petty whirlpools. The waters, though so broken in their descent, are deliciously green. This colour as seen early in the morning, or just as the sun has set, is so bright as to give to the place one of its chiefest charms.

This will be best seen from the further end of the island,—Goat Island, as it is called,—which, as the reader will understand, divides the river immediately above the falls. Indeed the island is a part of that precipitously broken ledge over which the river tumbles; and no doubt in process of time will be worn away and covered with water. The time, however, will be very long. In the meanwhile it is perhaps a mile round, and is covered thickly with timber. At the upper end of the island the waters are divided, and coming down in two courses, each over its own rapids, form two separate falls. The bridge by which the island is entered is a hundred yards or more above the smaller fall. The waters here have been turned by the island, and make their leap into the body of the river below at a right angle with it,—about two hundred yards below the greater fall. Taken alone this smaller cataract would, I imagine, be the heaviest fall of water known, but taken in conjunction with the other it is terribly shorn of its majesty. The waters here are not green as they are at the larger cataract, and though the ledge has been hollowed and bowed by them so as to form a curve, that curve does not deepen itself into a vast abyss as it does at the horseshoe up above. This smaller fall is again divided, and the visitor passing down a flight of steps and over a frail wooden bridge finds himself on a smaller island in the midst of it.

But we will go at once on to the glory, and the thunder, and the majesty, and the wrath of that upper hell of waters. We are still, let the reader remember, on Goat Island, still in the States, and on what is called the American side of the main body of the river. Advancing beyond the path leading down to the lesser fall, we come to that point of the island at which the waters of the main river begin to descend. From hence across to the Canadian side the cataract continues itself in one unabated line. But the line is very far from being direct or straight. After stretching for some little way from the shore, to a point in the river which is reached by a wooden bridge at the end of which stands a tower upon the rock,—after stretching to this, the line of the ledge bends inwards against the flood,—in, and in, and in till one is led to think that the depth of that horseshoe is immeasurable. It has been cut with no stinting hand. A monstrous cantle has been worn back out of the centre of the rock, so that the fury of the waters converges, and the spectator as he gazes into the hollow with wishful eyes fancies that he can hardly trace out the centre of the abyss.

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, agonizing 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 this place, 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. The greatest charm of a mountain range is the wild feeling that there must be strange unknown desolate worlds in those far-off valleys beyond. 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. This you will not fully see from your seat on the rail. The head of it rises ever and anon out of that caldron below, but the caldron 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 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.

When this state has been reached and has passed away you may get off your rail and mount the tower. I do not quite approve of that tower, seeing that it has about it a gingerbread air, and reminds one of those well-arranged scenes of romance in which one is told that on the left you turn to the lady's bower, price sixpence; and on the right ascend to the knight's bed, price sixpence more, with a view of the hermit's tomb thrown in. But nevertheless the tower is worth mounting, and no money is charged for the use of it. It is not very high, and there is a balcony at the top on which some half dozen persons may stand at ease. Here the mystery is lost, but the whole fall is seen. It is not even at this spot brought so fully before your eye,—made to show itself in so complete and entire a shape, as it will do when you come to stand near to it on the opposite or Canadian shore. But I think that it shows itself more beautifully. And the form of the cataract is such, that, here in Goat Island, on the American side, no spray will reach you, although you are absolutely over the waters. But on the Canadian side, the road as it approaches the fall is wet and rotten with spray, and you, as you stand close upon the edge, will be wet also. The rainbows as they are seen through the rising cloud—for the sun's rays as seen through these waters show themselves in a bow as they do when seen through rain,—are pretty enough, and are greatly loved. For myself I do not care for this prettiness at Niagara. It is there, but I forget it,—and do not mind how soon it is forgotten.

But we are still on the tower; and here I must declare that though I forgive the tower, I cannot forgive the horrid obelisk which has latterly been built opposite to it, on the Canadian side, up above the fall; built apparently,—for I did not go to it,—with some camera obscura intention for which the projector deserves to be put in Coventry by all good Christian men and women. At such a place as Niagara tasteless buildings, run up in wrong places with a view to money making, are perhaps necessary evils. It may be that they are not evils at all;—that they give more pleasure than pain, seeing that they tend to the enjoyment of the multitude. But there are edifices of this description which cry aloud to the gods by the force of their own ugliness and malposition. As to such it may be said that there should somewhere exist a power capable of crushing them in their birth. This new obelisk or picture-building at Niagara is one of such.

And now we will cross the water, and with this object will return by the bridge out of Goat Island on the main land of the American side. But as we do so let me say that one of the great charms of Niagara consists in this,—that over and above that one great object of wonder and beauty, there is so much little loveliness;—loveliness especially of water I mean. There are little rivulets running here and there over little falls, with pendent boughs above them, and stones shining under their shallow depths. As the visitor stands and looks through the trees the rapids glitter before him, and then hide themselves behind islands. They glitter and sparkle in far distances under the bright foliage till the remembrance is lost, and one knows not which way they run. And then the river below, with its whirlpool;—but we shall come to that by-and-by, and to the mad voyage which was made down the rapids by that mad captain who ran the gauntlet of the waters at the risk of his own life, with fifty to one against him, in order that he might save another man's property from the Sheriff.

The readiest way across to Canada is by the ferry; and on the American side this is very pleasantly done. You go into a little house, pay 20 cents, take a seat on a wooden car of wonderful shape, and on the touch of a spring find yourself travelling down an inclined plane of terrible declivity and at a very fast rate. You catch a glance of the river below you, and recognize the fact that if the rope by which you are held should break, you would go down at a very fast rate indeed,—and find your final resting place in the river. As I have gone down some dozen times and have come to no such grief, I will not presume that you will be less lucky. Below there is a boat generally ready. If it be not there, the place is not chosen amiss for a rest of ten minutes, for the lesser fall is close at hand, and the larger one is in full view. Looking at the rapidity of the river you will think that the passage must be dangerous and difficult. But no accidents ever happen, and the lad who takes you over seems to do it with sufficient ease. The walk up the hill on the other side is another thing. It is very steep, and for those who have not good locomotive power of their own, will be found to be disagreeable. In the full season, however, carriages are generally waiting there. In so short a distance I have always been ashamed to trust to other legs than my own, but I have observed that Americans are always dragged up. I have seen single young men of from eighteen to twenty-five, from whose outward appearance no story of idle luxurious life can be read, carried about alone in carriages over distances which would be counted as nothing by any healthy English lady of fifty. None but the old and invalids should require the assistance of carriages in seeing Niagara, but the trade in carriages is to all appearance the most brisk trade there.

Having mounted the hill on the Canada side you will walk on towards the falls. As I have said before, you will from this side look directly into the full circle of the upper cataract, while you will have before you at your left hand the whole expanse of the lesser fall. For those who desire to see all at a glance, who wish to comprise the whole with their eyes, and to leave nothing to be guessed, nothing to be surmised, this, no doubt, is the best point of view.

You will be covered with spray as you walk up to the ledge of rocks, but I do not think that the spray will hurt you. If a man gets wet through going to his daily work, cold, catarrh, cough, and all their attendant evils may be expected; but these maladies usually spare the tourist. Change of air, plenty of air, excellence of air, and increased exercise make these things powerless. I should therefore bid you disregard the spray. If, however, you are yourself of a different opinion, you may hire a suit of oil-cloth clothes for, I believe, a quarter of a dollar. They are nasty of course, and have this further disadvantage, that you become much more wet having them on than you would be without them.

Here, on this side, you walk on to the very edge of the cataract, and, if your tread be steady and your legs firm, you dip your foot into the water exactly at the spot where the thin outside margin of the current reaches the rocky edge and jumps to join the mass of the fall. The bed of white foam beneath is certainly seen better here than elsewhere, and the green curve of the water is as bright here as when seen from the wooden rail across. But nevertheless I say again that that wooden rail is the one point from whence Niagara may be best seen aright.

Close to the cataract, exactly at the spot from whence in former days the Table Rock used to project from the land over the boiling caldron below, there is now a shaft down which you will descend to the level of the river, and pass between the rock and the torrent. This Table Rock broke away from the cliff and fell, as up the whole course of the river the seceding rocks have split and fallen from time to time through countless years, and will continue to do till the bed of the upper lake is reached. You will descend this shaft, taking to yourself or not taking to yourself a suit of oil-clothes as you may think best. I have gone with and without the suit, and again recommend that they be left behind. I am inclined to think that the ordinary payment should be made for their use, as otherwise it will appear to those whose trade it is to prepare them that you are injuring them in their vested rights.

Some three years since I visited Niagara on my way back to England from Bermuda, and in a volume of travels which I then published I endeavoured to explain the impression made upon me by this passage between the rock and the waterfall. An author should not quote himself; but as I feel myself bound, in writing a chapter specially about Niagara, to give some account of this strange position, I will venture to repeat my own words.

In the spot to which I allude the visitor stands on a broad safe path, made of shingles, between the rock over which the water rushes and the rushing water. He will go in so far that the spray rising back from the bed of the torrent does not incommode him. With this exception, the further he can go in the better; but circumstances will clearly show him the spot to which he should advance. Unless the water be driven in by a very strong wind, five yards make the difference between a comparatively dry coat and an absolutely wet one. And then let him stand with his back to the entrance, thus hiding the last glimmer of the expiring day. So standing he will look up among the falling waters, or down into the deep misty pit, from which they reascend in almost as palpable a bulk. The rock will be at his right hand, high and hard, and dark and straight, like the wall of some huge cavern, such as children enter in their dreams. For the first five minutes he will be looking but at the waters of a cataract,—at the waters, indeed, of such a cataract as we know no other, and at their interior curves which elsewhere we cannot see. But by-and-by all this will change. He will no longer be on a shingly path beneath a waterfall; but that feeling of a cavern wall will grow upon him, of a cavern deep, below roaring seas, in which the waves are there, though they do not enter in upon him; or rather not the waves, but the very bowels of the ocean. He will feel as though the floods surrounded him, coming and going with their wild sounds, and he will hardly recognize that though among them he is not in them. And they, as they fall with a continual roar, not hurting the ear, but musical withal, will seem to move as the vast ocean waters may perhaps move in their internal currents. He will lose the sense of one continued descent, and think that they are passing round him in their appointed courses. The broken spray that rises from the depth below, rises so strongly, so palpably, so rapidly, that the motion in every direction will seem equal. And, as he looks on, strange colours will show themselves through the mist; the shades of grey will become green or blue, with ever and anon a flash of white; and then, when some gust of wind blows in with greater violence, the sea-girt cavern will become all dark and black. 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.

Two miles below the falls the river is crossed by a suspension bridge of marvellous construction. It affords two thoroughfares, one above the other. The lower road is for carriages and horses, and the upper one bears a railway belonging to the Great Western Canada line. The view from hence both up and down the river is very beautiful, for the bridge is built immediately over the first of a series of rapids. One mile below the bridge these rapids end in a broad basin called the whirlpool, and, issuing out of this, the current turns to the right through a narrow channel overhung by cliffs and trees, and then makes its way down to Lake Ontario with comparative tranquillity.

But I will beg you to take notice of those rapids from the bridge and to ask yourself what chance of life would remain to any ship, craft, or boat required by destiny to undergo navigation beneath the bridge and down into that whirlpool. Heretofore all men would have said that no chance of life could remain to so ill-starred a bark. The navigation, however, has been effected. But men used to the river still say that the chances would be fifty to one against any vessel which should attempt to repeat the experiment.

The story of that wondrous voyage was as follows. A small steamer called the Maid of the Mist was built upon the river, between the falls and the rapids, and was used for taking adventurous tourists up amidst the spray, as near to the cataract as was possible. The Maid of the Mist plied in this way for a year or two, and was, I believe, much patronized during the season. But in the early part of last summer an evil time had come. Either the Maid got into debt, or her owner had embarked in other and less profitable speculations. At any rate he became subject to the law, and tidings reached him that the Sheriff would seize the Maid. On most occasions the Sheriff is bound to keep such intentions secret, seeing that property is moveable, and that an insolvent debtor will not always await the officers of justice. But with the poor Maid there was no need of such secresy. There was but a mile or so of water on which she could ply, and she was forbidden by the nature of her properties to make any way upon land. The Sheriff's prey therefore was easy and the poor Maid was doomed.

In any country in the world but America such would have been the case, but an American would steam down Phlegethon to save his property from the Sheriff; he would steam down Phlegethon or get some one else to do it for him. Whether or no in this case the captain of the boat was the proprietor, or whether, as I was told, he was paid for the job, I do not know; but he determined to run the rapids, and he procured two others to accompany him in the risk. He got up his steam, and took the Maid up amidst the spray according to his custom. Then suddenly turning on his course, he with one of his companions fixed himself at the wheel, while the other remained at his engine. I wish I could look into the mind of that man and understand what his thoughts were at that moment; what were his thoughts and what his beliefs. As to one of the men I was told that he was carried down, not knowing what he was about to do, but I am inclined to believe that all the three were joined together in the attempt.

I was told by a man who saw the boat pass under the bridge, that she made one long leap down as she came thither, that her funnel was at once knocked flat on the deck by the force of the blow, that the waters covered her from stem to stern, and that then she rose again and skimmed into the whirlpool a mile below. When there she rode with comparative ease upon the waters, and took the sharp turn round into the river below without a struggle. The feat was done, and the Maid was rescued from the Sheriff. It is said that she was sold below at the mouth of the river, and carried from thence over Lake Ontario and down the St. Lawrence to Quebec.

CHAPTER VIII.

NORTH AND WEST.

From Niagara we determined to proceed north-west; as far to the north-west as we could go with any reasonable hope of finding American citizens in a state of political civilization, and perhaps guided also in some measure by our hopes as to hotel accommodation. Looking to these two matters we resolved to get across to the Mississippi, and to go up that river as far as the town of St. Paul and the falls of St. Anthony, which are some twelve miles above the town; then to descend the river as far as the States of Iowa on the west and Illinois on the east; and to return eastwards through Chicago and the large cities on the southern shores of Lake Erie, from whence we would go across to Albany, the capital of New York State, and down the Hudson to New York, the capital of the Western world. For such a journey, in which scenery was one great object, we were rather late, as we did not leave Niagara till the 10th of October; but though the winters are extremely cold through all this portion of the American continent—15, 20, and even 25 degrees below zero being an ordinary state of the atmosphere in latitudes equal to those of Florence, Nice, and Turin—nevertheless the autumns are mild, the noon day being always warm, and the colours of the foliage are then in all their glory. I was also very anxious to ascertain, if it might be in my power to do so, with what spirit or true feeling as to the matter, the work of recruiting for the now enormous army of the States was going on in those remote regions. That men should be on fire in Boston and New York, in Philadelphia, and along the borders of secession, I could understand. I could understand also that they should be on fire throughout the cotton, sugar, and rice plantations of the South. But I could hardly understand that this political fervour should have communicated itself to the far-off farmers who had thinly spread themselves over the enormous wheat-growing districts of the North-West. St. Paul, the capital of Minnesota, is 900 miles directly north of St. Louis, the most northern point to which slavery extends in the Western States of the Union, and the farming lands of Minnesota stretch away again for some hundreds of miles north and west of St. Paul. Could it be that those scanty and far-off pioneers of agriculture, those frontier farmers who are nearly one half German and nearly the other half Irish, would desert their clearings and ruin their chances of progress in the world for distant wars of which the causes must, as I thought, be to them unintelligible? I had been told that distance had but lent enchantment to the view, and that the war was even more popular in the remote and newly settled States than in those which have been longer known as great political bodies. So I resolved that I would go and see.

It may be as well to explain here that that great political Union hitherto called the United States of America may be more properly divided into three than into two distinct interests. In England we have long heard of North and South as pitted against each other, and we have always understood that the southern politicians or democrats have prevailed over the northern politicians or republicans, because they were assisted in their views by northern men of mark who have held southern principles;—that is, by northern men who have been willing to obtain political power by joining themselves to the southern party. That as far as I can understand has been the general idea in England, and in a broad way it has been true. But as years have advanced and as the States have extended themselves westward, a third large party has been formed, which sometimes rejoices to call itself The Great West; and though at the present time the West and the North are joined together against the South, the interests of the North and the West are not, I think, more closely interwoven than are those of the West and South; and when the final settlement of this question shall be made, there will doubtless be great difficulty in satisfying the different aspirations and feelings of two great free soil populations. The North, I think, will ultimately perceive that it will gain much by the secession of the South; but it will be very difficult to make the West believe that secession will suit its views.

I will attempt in a rough way to divide the States, as they seem to divide themselves, into these three parties. As to the majority of them there is no difficulty in locating them; but this cannot be done with absolute certainty as to some few that lie on the borders.

New England consists of six States, of which all of course belong to the North. They are Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut; the six States which should be most dear to England, and in which the political success of the United States as a nation is to my eyes the most apparent. But even in them there was till quite of late a strong section so opposed to the republican party as to give a material aid to the South. This, I think, was particularly so in New Hampshire, from whence President Pierce came. He had been one of the senators from New Hampshire; and yet to him, as President, is affixed the disgrace,—whether truly affixed or not I do not say,—of having first used his power in secretly organizing those arrangements which led to secession and assisted at its birth. In Massachusetts also itself there was a strong democratic party, of which Massachusetts now seems to be somewhat ashamed. Then, to make up the North, must be added the two great States of New York and Pennsylvania, and the small State of New Jersey. The West will not agree even to this absolutely, seeing that they claim all territory west of the Alleghenies, and that a portion of Pennsylvania, and some part also of New York lie westward of that range; but in endeavouring to make these divisions ordinarily intelligible I may say that the North consists of the nine States above named. But the North will also claim Maryland and Delaware, and the eastern half of Virginia. The North will claim them though they are attached to the South by joint participation in the great social institution of slavery, for Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia are slave States;—and I think that the North will ultimately make good its claim. Maryland and Delaware lie, as it were, behind the capital, and Eastern Virginia is close upon the capital. And these regions are not tropical in their climate or influences. They are and have been slave States; but will probably rid themselves of that taint and become a portion of the free North.

The southern or slave States, properly so called, are easily defined. They are Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. The South will also claim Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Virginia, Delaware, and Maryland, and will endeavour to prove its right to the claim by the fact of the social institution being the law of the land in those States. Of Delaware, Maryland, and Eastern Virginia, I have already spoken. Western Virginia is, I think, so little tainted with slavery, that, as she stands even at present, she properly belongs to the West. As I now write the struggle is going on in Kentucky and Missouri. In Missouri the slave population is barely more than a tenth of the whole, while in South Carolina and Mississippi it is more than half. And, therefore, I venture to count Missouri among the western States, although slavery is still the law of the land within its borders. It is surrounded on three sides by free States of the West, and its soil, let us hope, must become free. Kentucky I must leave as doubtful, though I am inclined to believe that slavery will be abolished there also. Kentucky at any rate will never throw in its lot with the southern States. As to Tennessee, it seceded heart and soul, and I fear that it must be accounted as southern, although the northern army has now, in May 1862, possessed itself of the greater part of the State.

To the great West remains an enormous territory, of which, however, the population is as yet but scanty; though perhaps no portion of the world has increased so fast in population as have these western States. The list is as follows: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas,—to which I would add Missouri, and probably the western half of Virginia. We have then to account for the two already admitted States on the Pacific, California and Oregon, and also for the unadmitted Territories, Dacotah, Nebraska, Washington, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, and Neveda. I should be refining too much for my present very general purpose, if I were to attempt to marshal these huge but thinly populated regions in either rank. Of California and Oregon it may probably be said that it is their ambition to form themselves into a separate division;—a division which may be called the further West.

I know that all statistical statements are tedious, and I believe that but few readers believe them. I will, however, venture to give the populations of these States in the order I have named them, seeing that power in America depends almost entirely on population. The census of 1860 gave the following results:—

In the North.

In the South—the population of which must be divided into free and slave.

In the West.

In the doubtful States.

To these must be added to make up the population of the United States, as it stood in 1860.

And thus the total population may be given as follows:—

Each of the three interests would consider itself wronged by the division above made, but the South would probably be the loudest in asserting its grievance. The South claims all the slave States, and would point to secession in Virginia to justify such claim,—and would point also to Maryland and Baltimore, declaring that secession would be as strong there as at New Orleans, if secession were practicable. Maryland and Baltimore lie behind Washington, and are under the heels of the northern troops, so that secession is not practicable; but the South would say that they have seceded in heart. In this the South would have some show of reason for its assertion; but, nevertheless, I shall best convey a true idea of the position of these States by classing them as doubtful. When secession shall have been accomplished,—if ever it be accomplished,—it will hardly be possible that they should adhere to the South.

It will be seen by the above tables that the population of the West is nearly equal to that of the North, and that therefore western power is almost as great as northern. It is almost as great already, and as population in the West increases faster than it does in the North, the two will soon be equalized. They are already sufficiently on a par to enable them to fight on equal terms, and they will be prepared for fighting—political fighting, if no other—as soon as they have established their supremacy over a common enemy.

Whilst I am on the subject of population, I should explain—though the point is not one which concerns the present argument—that the numbers given, as they regard the South, include both the whites and the blacks, the free men and the slaves. The political power of the South is of course in the hands of the white race only, and the total white population should therefore be taken as the number indicating the southern power. The political power of the South, however, as contrasted with that of the North, has, since the commencement of the Union, been much increased by the slave population. The slaves have been taken into account in determining the number of representatives which should be sent to Congress by each State. That number depends on the population, but it was decided in 1787, that in counting up the number of representatives to which each State should be held to be entitled, five slaves should represent three white men. A Southern population, therefore, of five thousand free men and five thousand slaves would claim as many representatives as a Northern population of eight thousand free men, although the voting would be confined to the free population. This has ever since been the law of the United States.

The western power is nearly equal to that of the North, and this fact, somewhat exaggerated in terms, is a frequent boast in the mouths of western men. "We ran Fremont for President," they say, "and had it not been for northern men with southern principles, we should have put him in the White House instead of the traitor Buchanan. If that had been done, there would have been no secession." How things might have gone had Fremont been elected in lieu of Buchanan, I will not pretend to say; but the nature of the argument shows the difference that exists between northern and western feeling. At the time that I was in the West, General Fremont was the great topic of public interest. Every newspaper was discussing his conduct, his ability as a soldier, his energy, and his fate. At that time General Maclellan was in command at Washington on the Potomac, it being understood that he held his power directly under the President,—free from the exercise of control on the part of the veteran General Scott, though at that time General Scott had not actually resigned his position as head of the army. And General Fremont, who some five years before had been "run" for President by the Western States, held another command of nearly equal independence in Missouri. He had been put over General Lyon in the western command, and directly after this General Lyon had fallen in battle at Springfield, in the first action in which the opposing armies were engaged in the West. General Fremont at once proceeded to carry matters with a very high hand. On the 30th of August, 1861, he issued a proclamation by which he declared martial law at St. Louis, the city at which he held his head quarters, and indeed throughout the State of Missouri generally. In this proclamation he declared his intention of exercising a severity beyond that ever threatened, as I believe, in modern warfare. He defines the region presumed to be held by his army of occupation, drawing his lines across the State, and then declares "that all persons who shall be taken with arms in their hands within those lines shall be tried by Court Martial, and if found guilty will be shot." He then goes on to say that he will confiscate all the property of persons in the State who shall have taken up arms against the Union, or who shall have taken part with the enemies of the Union, and that he will make free all slaves belonging to such persons. This proclamation was not approved at Washington, and was modified by the order of the President. It was understood also that he issued orders for military expenditure, which were not recognized at Washington, and men began to understand that the army in the West was gradually assuming that irresponsible military position, which in disturbed countries and in times of civil war has so frequently resulted in a military dictatorship. Then there arose a clamour for the removal of General Fremont. A semi-official account of his proceedings, which had reached Washington from an officer under his command, was made public; and also the correspondence which took place on the subject between the President and General Fremont's wife. The officer in question was thereupon placed under arrest, but immediately released by orders from Washington. He then made official complaint of his General, sending forward a list of charges in which Fremont was accused of rashness, incompetency, want of fidelity of the interests of the Government, and disobedience to orders from head quarters. After a while the Secretary of War himself proceeded from Washington to the quarters of General Fremont at St. Louis, and remained there for a day or two, making or pretending to make inquiry into the matter. But when he returned he left the General still in command. During the whole month of October the papers were occupied in declaring in the morning that General Fremont had been recalled from his command, and in the evening that he was to remain. In the mean time they who befriended his cause, and this included the whole West, were hoping from day to day that he would settle the matter for himself and silence his accusers, by some great military success. General Price held the command opposed to him, and men said that Fremont would sweep General Price and his army down the valley of the Mississippi into the sea. But General Price would not be so swept, and it began to appear that a guerilla warfare would prevail; that General Price, if driven southwards, would reappear behind the backs of his pursuers, and that General Fremont would not accomplish all that was expected of him with that rapidity for which his friends had given him credit. So the newspapers still went on waging the war, and every morning General Fremont was recalled, and every evening they who had recalled him were shown up as having known nothing of the matter.

"Never mind; he is a pioneer man, and will do a'most anything he puts his hand to," his friends in the West still said. "He understands the frontier." Understanding the frontier is a great thing in Western America, across which the vanguard of civilization continues to march on in advance from year to year. "And it's he that is bound to sweep slavery from off the face of this Continent. He's the man, and he's about the only man." I am not qualified to write the life of General Fremont, and can at present only make this slight reference to the details of his romantic career. That it has been full of romance, and that the man himself is indued with a singular energy and a high romantic idea of what may be done by power and will, there is no doubt. Five times he has crossed the continent of North America from Missouri to Oregon and California, enduring great hardships in the service of advancing civilization and knowledge. That he has considerable talent, immense energy, and strong self-confidence, I believe. He is a frontier man; one of those who care nothing for danger, and who would dare anything with the hope of accomplishing a great career. But I have never heard that he has shown any practical knowledge of high military matters. It may be doubted whether a man of this stamp is well fitted to hold the command of a nation's army for great national purposes. May it not even be presumed that a man of this class is of all men the least fitted for such a work? The officer required should be a man with two specialities—a speciality for military tactics, and a speciality for national duty. The army in the West was far removed from head quarters in Washington, and it was peculiarly desirable that the General commanding it should be one possessing a strong idea of obedience to the control of his own Government. Those frontier capabilities, that self-dependent energy for which his friends gave Fremont,—and probably justly gave him,—such unlimited credit are exactly the qualities which are most dangerous in such a position.

I have endeavoured to explain the circumstances of the Western command in Missouri, as they existed at the time when I was in the North-Western States, in order that the double action of the North and West may be understood. I, of course, was not in the secret of any official persons, but I could not but feel sure that the Government in Washington would have been glad to have removed Fremont at once from the command, had they not feared that by doing so they would have created a schism, as it were, in their own camp, and have done much to break up the integrity or oneness of Northern loyalty. The western people almost to a man desired abolition. The States there were sending out their tens of thousands of young men into the army with a prodigality as to their only source of wealth which they hardly recognized themselves, because this to them was a fight against slavery. The western population has been increased to a wonderful degree by a German infusion;—so much so that the western towns appear to have been peopled with Germans. I found regiments of volunteers consisting wholly of Germans. And the Germans are all abolitionists. To all the men of the West the name of Fremont is dear. He is their hero, and their Hercules. He is to cleanse the stables of the southern king, and turn the waters of emancipation through the foul stalls of slavery. And, therefore, though the Cabinet in Washington would have been glad for many reasons to have removed Fremont in October last, it was at first scared from committing itself to so strong a measure. At last, however, the charges made against him were too fully substantiated to allow of their being set on one side, and early in November, 1861, he was superseded. I shall be obliged to allude again to General Fremont's career as I go on with my narrative.

At this time the North was looking for a victory on the Potomac; but they were no longer looking for it with that impatience which in the summer had led to the disgrace at Bull's Run. They had recognized the fact that their troops must be equipped, drilled, and instructed; and they had also recognized the perhaps greater fact, that their enemies were neither weak, cowardly, nor badly officered. I have always thought that the tone and manner with which the North bore the defeat at Bull's Run was creditable to it. It was never denied, never explained away, never set down as trifling. "We have been whipped!" was what all Northerners said,—"We've got an almighty whipping, and here we are." I have heard many Englishmen complain of this, saying that the matter was taken almost as a joke,—that no disgrace was felt, and the licking was owned by a people who ought never to have allowed that they had been licked. To all this, however, I demur. Their only chance of speedy success consisted in their seeing and recognizing the truth. Had they confessed the whipping and then sat down with their hands in their pockets,—had they done as second-rate boys at school will do,—declare that they had been licked, and then feel that all the trouble is over,—they would indeed have been open to reproach. The old mother across the water would in such case have disowned her son. But they did the very reverse of this. "I have been whipped," Jonathan said, and he immediately went into training under a new system for another fight.

And so all through September and October the great armies on the Potomac rested comparatively in quiet, the Northern forces drawing to themselves immense levies. The general confidence in Maclellan was then very great, and the cautious measures by which he endeavoured to bring his vast untrained body of men under discipline were such as did at that time recommend themselves to most military critics. Early in September the northern party obtained a considerable advantage by taking the fort at Cape Hatteras, in North Carolina, situated on one of those long banks which lie along the shores of the Southern States; but towards the end of October they experienced a considerable reverse in an attack which was made on the Secessionists by General Stone, and in which Colonel Baker was killed. Colonel Baker had been senator for Oregon, and was well known as an orator. Taking all things together, however, nothing material had been done up to the end of October; and at that time northern men were waiting—not perhaps impatiently, considering the great hopes, and perhaps great fears which filled their hearts, but with eager expectation for some event of which they might talk with pride.

The man to whom they had trusted all their hopes was young for so great a command. I think that at this time (October 1861) General Maclellan was not yet thirty-five. He had served early in life in the Mexican war, having come originally from Pennsylvania, and having been educated at the military college at West Point. During our war with Russia he was sent to the Crimea by his own Government in conjunction with two other officers of the United States army, that they might learn all that was to be learned there as to military tactics, and report especially as to the manner in which fortifications were made and attacked. I have been informed that a very able report was sent in by them to the Government, on their return, and that this was drawn up by Maclellan. But in America a man is not only a soldier or always a soldier; nor is he always a clergyman if once a clergyman. He takes a spell at anything suitable that may be going. And in this way Maclellan was for some years engaged on the Central Illinois Railway, and was for a considerable time the head manager of that concern. We all know with what suddenness he rose to the highest command in the army immediately after the defeat at Bull's Run.

I have endeavoured to describe what were the feelings of the West in the autumn of 1861 with regard to the war. The excitement and eagerness there were very great, and they were perhaps as great in the North. But in the North the matter seemed to me to be regarded from a different point of view. As a rule, the men of the North are not abolitionists. It is quite certain that they were not so before secession began. They hate slavery as we in England hate it; but they are aware, as also are we, that the disposition of four million of black men and women forms a question which cannot be solved by the chivalry of any modern Orlando. The property invested in these four million slaves forms the entire wealth of the South. If they could be wafted by a philanthropic breeze back to the shores of Africa,—a breeze of which the philanthropy would certainly not be appreciated by those so wafted—the South would be a wilderness. The subject is one as full of difficulty as any with which politicians of these days are tormented. The Northerners fully appreciate this, and as a rule are not abolitionists in the western sense of the word. To them the war is recommended by precisely those feelings which animated us when we fought for our colonies,—when we strove to put down American independence. Secession is rebellion against the Government: and is all the more bitter to the North because that rebellion broke out at the first moment of northern ascendancy. "We submitted," the North says, "to southern Presidents, and southern statesmen, and southern councils, because we obeyed the vote of the people. But as to you—the voice of the people is nothing in your estimation! At the first moment in which the popular vote places at Washington a President with northern feelings, you rebel. We submitted in your days; and by heaven, you shall submit in ours! We submitted loyally; through love of the law and the Constitution. You have disregarded the law, and thrown over the Constitution. But you shall be made to submit, as a child is made to submit to its governor."

It must also be remembered that on commercial questions the North and the West are divided. The Morrill tariff is as odious to the West as it is to the South. The South and West are both agricultural productive regions, desirous of sending cotton and corn to foreign countries and of receiving back foreign manufactures on the best terms. But the North is a manufacturing country—a poor manufacturing country as regards excellence of manufacture—and therefore the more anxious to foster its own growth by protective laws. The Morrill tariff is very injurious to the West, and is odious there. I might add that its folly has already been so far recognized even in the North, as to make it very generally odious there also.

So much I have said endeavouring to make it understood how far the North and West were united in feeling against the South in the autumn of 1861, and how far there existed between them a diversity of interests.

CHAPTER IX.

FROM NIAGARA TO THE MISSISSIPPI.

From Niagara we went by the Canada Great Western Railway to Detroit, the big city of Michigan. It is an American institution that the States should have a commercial capital, or what I call their big city, as well as a political capital, which may as a rule be called the State's central city. The object in choosing the political capital is average nearness of approach from the various confines of the State; but commerce submits to no such Procrustean laws in selecting her capitals, and consequently she has placed Detroit on the borders of Michigan, on the shore of the neck of water which joins Lake Huron to Lake Erie through which all the trade must flow which comes down from Lakes Michigan, Superior, and Huron, on its way to the eastern States and to Europe. We had thought of going from Buffalo across Lake Erie to Detroit; but we found that the better class of steamers had been taken off the waters for the winter. And we also found that navigation among these lakes is a mistake whenever the necessary journey can be taken by railway. Their waters are by no means smooth; and then there is nothing to be seen. I do not know whether others may have a feeling, almost instinctive, that lake navigation must be pleasant,—that lakes must of necessity be beautiful. I have such a feeling; but not now so strongly as formerly. Such an idea should be kept for use in Europe, and never brought over to America with other travelling gear. The lakes in America are cold, cumbrous, uncouth, and uninteresting—intended by nature for the conveyance of cereal produce, but not for the comfort of travelling men and women. So we gave up our plan of traversing the lake, and passing back into Canada by the suspension bridge at Niagara, we reached the Detroit river at Windsor by the Great Western line, and passed thence by the ferry into the city of Detroit.

In making this journey at night we introduced ourselves to the thoroughly American institution of sleeping-cars;—that is, of cars in which beds are made up for travellers. The traveller may have a whole bed, or half a bed, or no bed at all as he pleases, paying a dollar or half a dollar extra should he choose the partial or full fruition of a couch. I confess I have always taken a delight in seeing these beds made up, and consider that the operations of the change are generally as well executed as the manœuvres of any pantomime at Drury Lane. The work is usually done by negroes or coloured men; and the domestic negroes of America are always light-handed and adroit. The nature of an American car is no doubt known to all men. It looks as far removed from all bedroom accommodation, as the baker's barrow does from the steam-engine into which it is to be converted by Harlequin's wand. But the negro goes to work much more quietly than the Harlequin, and for every four seats in the railway car he builds up four beds, almost as quickly as the hero of the pantomime goes through his performance. The great glory of the Americans is in their wondrous contrivances,—in their patent remedies for the usually troublous operations of life. In their huge hotels all the bell-ropes of each house ring on one bell only, but a patent indicator discloses a number, and the whereabouts of the ringer is shown. One fire heats every room, passage, hall, and cupboard,—and does it so effectually that the inhabitants are all but stifled. Soda-water bottles open themselves without any trouble of wire or strings. Men and women go up and down stairs without motive power of their own. Hot and cold water are laid on to all the chambers;—though it sometimes happens that the water from both taps is boiling, and that when once turned on it cannot be turned off again by any human energy. Everything is done by a new and wonderful patent contrivance; and of all their wonderful contrivances that of their railroad beds is by no means the least. For every four seats the negro builds up four beds,—that is, four half-beds or accommodation for four persons. Two are supposed to be below on the level of the ordinary four seats, and two up above on shelves which are let down from the roof. Mattresses slip out from one nook and pillows from another. Blankets are added, and the bed is ready. Any over particular individual—an islander, for instance, who hugs his chains—will generally prefer to pay the dollar for the double accommodation. Looking at the bed in the light of a bed,—taking as it were an abstract view of it,—or comparing it with some other bed or beds with which the occupant may have acquaintance, I cannot say that it is in all respects perfect. But distances are long in America; and he who declines to travel by night will lose very much time. He who does so travel will find the railway bed a great relief. I must confess that the feeling of dirt on the following morning is rather oppressive.

From Windsor on the Canada side we passed over to Detroit in the State of Michigan by a steam ferry. But ferries in England and ferries in America are very different. Here on this Detroit ferry, some hundred of passengers who were going forward from the other side without delay, at once sat down to breakfast. I may as well explain the way in which disposition is made of one's luggage as one takes these long journeys. The traveller when he starts has his baggage checked. He abandons his trunk—generally a box studded with nails, as long as a coffin and as high as a linen chest,—and in return for this he receives an iron ticket with a number on it. As he approaches the end of his first instalment of travel, and while the engine is still working its hardest, a man comes up to him, bearing with him suspended on a circular bar an infinite variety of other checks. The traveller confides to this man his wishes; and if he be going further without delay, surrenders his check and receives a counter-check in return. Then while the train is still in motion, the new destiny of the trunk is imparted to it. But another man, with another set of checks, also comes the way, walking leisurely through the train as he performs his work. This is the minister of the hotel-omnibus institution. His business is with those who do not travel beyond the next terminus. To him, if such be your intention, you make your confidence, giving up your tallies and taking other tallies, by way of receipt; and your luggage is afterwards found by you in the hall of your hotel. There is undoubtedly very much of comfort in this; and the mind of the traveller is lost in amazement as he thinks of the futile efforts with which he would struggle to regain his luggage were there no such arrangement. Enormous piles of boxes are disclosed on the platform at all the larger stations, the numbers of which are roared forth with quick voice by some two or three railway denizens at once. A modest English voyager with six or seven small packages, would stand no chance of getting anything if he were left to his own devices. As it is I am bound to say that the thing is well done. I have had my desk with all my money in it lost for a day, and my black leather bag was on one occasion sent back over the line. They, however, were recovered; and on the whole I feel grateful to the check system of the American railways. And then, too, one never hears of extra luggage. Of weight they are quite regardless. On two or three occasions an overwrought official has muttered between his teeth that ten packages were a great many, and that some of those "light fixings" might have been made up into one. And when I came to understand that the number of every check was entered in a book, and re-entered at every change, I did whisper to my wife that she ought to do without a bonnet-box. The ten, however, went on, and were always duly protected. I must add, however, that articles requiring tender treatment will sometimes reappear a little the worse from the hardships of their journey.

I have not much to say of Detroit; not much, that is, beyond what I have to say of all the North. It is a large well-built half-finished city, lying on a convenient water way, and spreading itself out with promises of a wide and still wider prosperity. It has about it perhaps as little of intrinsic interest as any of those large western towns which I visited. It is not so pleasant as Milwaukee, nor so picturesque as St. Paul, nor so grand as Chicago, nor so civilized as Cleveland, nor so busy as Buffalo. Indeed Detroit is neither pleasant nor picturesque at all. I will not say that it is uncivilized, but it has a harsh, crude, unprepossessing appearance. It has some 70,000 inhabitants, and good accommodation for shipping. It was doing an enormous business before the war began, and when these troublous times are over will no doubt again go ahead. I do not, however, think it well to recommend any Englishman to make a special visit to Detroit, who may be wholly uncommercial in his views and travel in search of that which is either beautiful or interesting.

From Detroit we continued our course westward across the State of Michigan through a country that was absolutely wild till the railway pierced it. Very much of it is still absolutely wild. For miles upon miles the road passes the untouched forest, showing that even in Michigan the great work of civilization has hardly more than been commenced. As one thinks of the all but countless population which is before long to be fed from these regions, of the cities which will grow here, and of the amount of government which in due time will be required, one can hardly fail to feel that the division of the United States into separate nationalities is merely a part of the ordained work of creation, as arranged for the well-being of mankind. The States already boast of thirty millions of inhabitants,—not of unnoticed and unnoticeable beings, requiring little, knowing little, and doing little, such as are the Eastern hordes which may be counted by tens of millions; but of men and women who talk loudly and are ambitious, who eat beef, who read and write, and understand the dignity of manhood. But these thirty millions are as nothing to the crowds which will grow sleek and talk loudly, and become aggressive on these wheat and meat producing levels. The country is as yet but touched by the pioneering hand of population. In the old countries agriculture, following on the heels of pastoral patriarchal life, preceded the birth of cities. But in this young world the cities have come first. The new Jasons, blessed with the experience of the old world adventurers, have gone forth in search of their golden fleeces armed with all that the science and skill of the East had as yet produced, and in settling up their new Colchis have begun by the erection of first-class hotels and the fabrication of railroads. Let the old world bid them God speed in their work. Only it would be well if they could be brought to acknowledge from whence they have learned all that they know.

Our route lay right across the State to a place called Grand Haven on Lake Michigan, from whence we were to take boat for Milwaukee, a town in Wisconsin on the opposite or western shore of the lake. Michigan is sometimes called the Peninsular State from the fact that the main part of its territory is surrounded by Lakes Michigan and Huron, by the little Lake St. Clair, and by Lake Erie. It juts out to the northward from the main land of Indiana and Ohio, and is circumnavigable on the east, north, and west. These particulars refer, however, to a part of the State only, for a portion of it lies on the other side of Lake Michigan, between that and Lake Superior. I doubt whether any large inland territory in the world is blessed with such facilities of water carriage.

On arriving at Grand Haven we found that there had been a storm on the lake, and that the passengers from the trains of the preceding day were still remaining there, waiting to be carried over to Milwaukee. The water, however,—or the sea as they all call it,—was still very high, and the captain declared his intention of remaining there that night. Whereupon all our fellow-travellers huddled themselves into the great lake steam-boat, and proceeded to carry on life there as though they were quite at home. The men took themselves to the bar-room and smoked cigars and talked about the war with their feet upon the counter, and the women got themselves into rocking-chairs in the saloon and sat there listless and silent, but not more listless and silent than they usually are in the big drawing-rooms of the big hotels. There was supper there, precisely at six o'clock, beefsteaks, and tea, and apple jam, and hot cakes, and light fixings, to all which luxuries an American deems himself entitled, let him have to seek his meal where he may. And I was soon informed with considerable energy, that let the boat be kept there as long as it might by stress of weather, the beefsteaks and apple jam, light fixings and heavy fixings, must be supplied at the cost of the owners of the ship. "Your first supper you pay for," my informant told me, "because you eat that on your own account. What you consume after that comes of their doing, because they don't start; and if it's three meals a day for a week, it's their look out." It occurred to me that under such circumstances a captain would be very apt to sail either in foul weather or in fair.

It was a bright moonlight night, moonlight such as we rarely have in England, and I started off by myself for a walk, that I might see of what nature were the environs of Grand Haven. A more melancholy place I never beheld. The town of Grand Haven itself is placed on the opposite side of a creek, and was to be reached by a ferry. On our side, to which the railway came and from which the boat was to sail, there was nothing to be seen but sandhills which stretched away for miles along the shore of the lake. There were great sand mountains, and sand valleys, on the surface of which were scattered the debris of dead trees, scattered logs white with age, and boughs half buried beneath the sand. Grand Haven itself is but a poor place, not having succeeded in catching much of the commerce which comes across the lake from Wisconsin, and which takes itself on eastwards by the railway. Altogether it is a dreary place, such as might break a man's heart, should he find that inexorable fate required him there to pitch his tent.

On my return I went down into the bar-room of the steamer, put my feet upon the counter, lit my cigar, and struck into the debate then proceeding on the subject of the war. I was getting West, and General Fremont was the hero of the hour. "He's a frontier man, and that's what we want. I guess he'll about go through. Yes, sir." "As for relieving General Fre-mont,"—with the accent always strongly on the "mont,"—"I guess you may as well talk of relieving the whole West. They won't meddle with Fre-mont. They are beginning to know in Washington what stuff he's made of." "Why, sir, there are 50,000 men in these States who will follow Fre-mont, who would not stir a foot after any other man." From which, and the like of it in many other places, I began to understand how difficult was the task which the statesmen in Washington had in hand.

I received no pecuniary advantage whatever from that law as to the steam-boat meals which my new friend had revealed to me. For my one supper of course I paid, looking forward to any amount of subsequent gratuitous provisions. But in the course of the night the ship sailed, and we found ourselves at Milwaukee in time for breakfast on the following morning.

Milwaukee is a pleasant town, a very pleasant town, containing 45,000 inhabitants. How many of my readers can boast that they know anything of Milwaukee, or even have heard of it? To me its name was unknown until I saw it on huge railway placards stuck up in the smoking-rooms and lounging halls of all American hotels. It is the big town of Wisconsin, whereas Madison is the capital. It stands immediately on the western shore of Lake Michigan, and is very pleasant. Why it should be so, and why Detroit should be the contrary, I can hardly tell; only I think that the same verdict would be given by any English tourist. It must be always borne in mind that 10,000 or 40,000 inhabitants in an American town, and especially in any new western town, is a number which means much more than would be implied by any similar number as to an old town in Europe. Such a population in America consumes double the amount of beef which it would in England, wears double the amount of clothes, and demands double as much of the comforts of life. If a census could be taken of the watches it would be found, I take it, that the American population possessed among them nearly double as many as would the English; and I fear also that it would be found that many more of the Americans were readers and writers by habit. In any large town in England it is probable that a higher excellence of education would be found than in Milwaukee, and also a style of life into which more of refinement and more of luxury had found its way. But the general level of these things, of material and intellectual well being—of beef, that is, and book learning—is no doubt infinitely higher in a new American than in an old European town. Such an animal as a beggar is as much unknown as a mastodon. Men out of work and in want are almost unknown. I do not say that there are none of the hardships of life—and to them I will come by-and-by; but want is not known as a hardship in these towns, nor is that dense ignorance in which so large a proportion of our town populations is still steeped. And then the town of 40,000 inhabitants is spread over a surface which would suffice in England for a city of four times the size. Our towns in England,—and the towns, indeed, of Europe generally,—have been built as they have been wanted. No aspiring ambition as to hundreds of thousands of people warmed the bosoms of their first founders. Two or three dozen men required habitations in the same locality, and clustered them together closely. Many such have failed and died out of the world's notice. Others have thriven, and houses have been packed on to houses till London and Manchester, Dublin and Glasgow have been produced. Poor men have built, or have had built for them, wretched lanes; and rich men have erected grand palaces. From the nature of their beginnings such has, of necessity, been the manner of their creation. But in America, and especially in Western America, there has been no such necessity and there is no such result. The founders of cities have had the experience of the world before them. They have known of sanitary laws as they began. That sewerage, and water, and gas, and good air would be needed for a thriving community has been to them as much a matter of fact as are the well understood combinations between timber and nails, and bricks and mortar. They have known that water carriage is almost a necessity for commercial success, and have chosen their sites accordingly. Broad streets cost as little, while land by the foot is not as yet of value to be regarded, as those which are narrow; and therefore the sites of towns have been prepared with noble avenues, and imposing streets. A city at its commencement is laid out with an intention that it shall be populous. The houses are not all built at once, but there are the places allocated for them. The streets are not made, but there are the spaces. Many an abortive attempt at municipal greatness has so been made and then all but abandoned. There are wretched villages with huge straggling parallel ways which will never grow into towns. They are the failures,—failures in which the pioneers of civilization, frontier men as they call themselves, have lost their tens of thousands of dollars. But when the success comes; when the happy hit has been made, and the ways of commerce have been truly foreseen with a cunning eye, then a great and prosperous city springs up, ready made, as it were, from the earth. Such a town is Milwaukee, now containing 45,000 inhabitants, but with room apparently for double that number; with room for four times that number, were men packed as closely there as they are with us.

In the principal business streets of all these towns one sees vast buildings. They are usually called blocks, and are often so denominated in large letters on their front, as Portland Block, Devereux Block, Buel's Block. Such a block may face to two, three, or even four streets, and, as I presume, has generally been a matter of one special speculation. It may be divided into separate houses, or kept for a single purpose, such as that of an hotel, or grouped into shops below, and into various sets of chambers above. I have had occasion in various towns to mount the stairs within these blocks, and have generally found some portion of them vacant;—have sometimes found the greater portion of them vacant. Men build on an enormous scale, three times, ten times as much as is wanted. The only measure of size is an increase on what men have built before. Monroe P. Jones, the speculator, is very probably ruined, and then begins the world again, nothing daunted. But Jones's block remains, and gives to the city in its aggregate a certain amount of wealth. Or the block becomes at once of service and finds tenants. In which case Jones probably sells it and immediately builds two others twice as big. That Monroe P. Jones will encounter ruin is almost a matter of course; but then he is none the worse for being ruined. It hardly makes him unhappy. He is greedy of dollars with a terrible covetousness; but he is greedy in order that he may speculate more widely. He would sooner have built Jones' tenth block, with a prospect of completing a twentieth, than settle himself down at rest for life as the owner of a Chatsworth or a Woburn. As for his children he has no desire of leaving them money. Let the girls marry. And for the boys,—for them it will be good to begin as he begun. If they cannot build blocks for themselves, let them earn their bread in the blocks of other men. So Monroe P. Jones, with his million of dollars accomplished, advances on to a new frontier, goes to work again on a new city, and loses it all. As an individual I differ very much from Monroe P. Jones. The first block accomplished, with an adequate rent accruing to me as the builder, I fancy that I should never try a second. But Jones is undoubtedly the man for the West. It is that love of money to come, joined to a strong disregard for money made, which constitutes the vigorous frontier mind, the true pioneering organization. Monroe P. Jones would be a great man to all posterity, if only he had a poet to sing of his valour.

It may be imagined how large in proportion to its inhabitants will be a town which spreads itself in this way. There are great houses left untenanted, and great gaps left unfilled. But if the place be successful,—if it promise success, it will be seen at once that there is life all through it. Omnibuses, or street cars working on rails run hither and thither. The shops that have been opened are well filled. The great hotels are thronged. The quays are crowded with vessels, and a general feeling of progress pervades the place. It is easy to perceive whether or no an American town is going ahead. The days of my visit to Milwaukee were days of civil war and national trouble, but in spite of civil war and national trouble Milwaukee looked healthy.

I have said that there was but little poverty,—little to be seen of real want in these thriving towns, but that they who laboured in them had nevertheless their own hardships. This is so. I would not have any man believe that he can take himself to the Western States of America,—to those States of which I am now speaking,—Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, or Illinois, and there by industry escape the ills to which flesh is heir. The labouring Irish in these towns eat meat seven days a week, but I have met many a labouring Irishman among them who has wished himself back in his old cabin. Industry is a good thing, and there is no bread so sweet as that which is eaten in the sweat of a man's brow; but labour carried to excess wearies the mind as well as body, and the sweat that is ever running makes the bread bitter. There is, I think, no task-master over free labour so exacting as an American. He knows nothing of hours, and seems to have that idea of a man which a lady always has of a horse. He thinks that he will go for ever. I wish those masons in London who strike for nine hours' work with ten hours' pay could be driven to the labour market of Western America for a spell. And moreover, which astonished me, I have seen men driven and hurried,—as it were forced forward at their work, in a manner which to an English workman would be intolerable. This surprised me much, as it was at variance with our,—or perhaps I should say with my,—preconceived ideas as to American freedom. I had fancied that an American citizen would not submit to be driven;—that the spirit of the country if not the spirit of the individual would have made it impossible. I thought that the shoe would have pinched quite on the other foot. But I found that such driving did exist; and American masters in the West with whom I had an opportunity of discussing the subject all admitted it. "Those men 'll never half move unless they're driven," a foreman said to me once as we stood together over some twenty men who were at their work. "They kinder look for it, and don't well know how to get along when they miss it." It was not his business at this moment to drive;—nor was he driving. He was standing at some little distance from the scene with me, and speculating on the sight before him. I thought the men were working at their best; but their movements did not satisfy his practised eye, and he saw at a glance that there was no one immediately over them.

But there is worse even than this. Wages in these regions are what we should call high. An agricultural labourer will earn perhaps fifteen dollars a month and his board; and a town labourer will earn a dollar a day. A dollar may be taken as representing four shillings, though it is in fact more. Food in these parts is much cheaper than in England, and therefore the wages must be considered as very good. In making, however, a just calculation it must be borne in mind that clothing is dearer than in England and that much more of it is necessary. The wages nevertheless are high, and will enable the labourer to save money,—if only he can get them paid. The complaint that wages are held back and not even ultimately paid is very common. There is no fixed rule for satisfying all such claims once a week; and thus debts to labourers are contracted and when contracted are ignored. With us there is a feeling that it is pitiful, mean almost beyond expression, to wrong a labourer of his hire. We have men who go in debt to tradesmen perhaps without a thought of paying them;—but when we speak of such a one who has descended into the lowest mire of insolvency, we say that he has not paid his washerwoman. Out there in the West the washerwoman is as fair game as the tailor, the domestic servant as the wine merchant. If a man be honest he will not willingly take either goods or labour without payment; and it may be hard to prove that he who takes the latter is more dishonest than he who takes the former; but with us there is a prejudice in favour of one's washerwoman by which the western mind is not weakened. "They certainly have to be smart to get it," a gentleman said to me whom I taxed on the subject. "You see on the frontier a man is bound to be smart. If he ain't smart he'd better go back East;—perhaps as far as Europe. He'll do there." I had got my answer, and my friend had turned the question. But the fact was admitted by him as it had been by many others.

Why this should be so, is a question, to answer which thoroughly would require a volume in itself. As to the driving, why should men submit to it, seeing that labour is abundant, and that in all newly settled countries the labourer is the true hero of the age? In answer to this is to be alleged the fact that hired labour is chiefly done by fresh comers, by Irish and Germans, who have not as yet among them any combination sufficient to protect them from such usage. The men over them are new as masters,—masters who are rough themselves, who themselves have been roughly driven, and who have not learned to be gracious to those below them. It is a part of their contract that very hard work shall be exacted; and the driving resolves itself into this,—that the master looking after his own interest is constantly accusing his labourer of a breach of his part of the contract. The men no doubt do become used to it, and slacken probably in their endeavours when the tongue of the master or foreman is not heard. But as to that matter of non-payment of wages, the men must live; and here as elsewhere the master who omits to pay once, will hardly find labourers in future. The matter would remedy itself elsewhere, and does it not do so here? This of course is so, and it is not to be understood that labour as a rule is defrauded of its hire. But the relation of the master and the man admits of such fraud here much more frequently than in England. In England the labourer who did not get his wages on the Saturday could not go on for the next week. To him under such circumstances the world would be coming to an end. But in the Western States, the labourer does not live so completely from hand to mouth. He is rarely paid by the week, is accustomed to give some credit, and till hard pressed by bad circumstances generally has something by him. They do save money, and are thus fattened up to a state which admits of victimization. I cannot owe money to the little village cobbler who mends my shoes, because he demands and receives his payment when his job is done. But to my friend in Regent Street I extend my custom on a different system; and when I make my start for continental life, I have with him a matter of unsettled business to a considerable extent. The American labourer is in the condition of the Regent Street boot-maker;—excepting in this respect, that he gives his credit under compulsion. "But does not the law set him right? Is there no law against debtors?" The laws against debtors are plain enough as they are written down, but seem to be anything but plain when called into action. They are perfectly understood, and operations are carried on with the express purpose of evading them. If you proceed against a man, you find that his property is in the hands of some one else. You work in fact for Jones who lives in the next street to you; but when you quarrel with Jones about your wages, you find that according to law you have been working for Smith in another State. In all countries such dodges are probably practicable. But men will or will not have recourse to such dodges according to the light in which they are regarded by the community. In the Western States such dodges do not appear to be regarded as disgraceful. "It behoves a frontier man to be smart, sir."

Honesty is the best policy. That is a doctrine which has been widely preached, and which has recommended itself to many minds as being one of absolute truth. It is not very ennobling in its sentiment, seeing that it advocates a special virtue, not on the ground that that virtue is in itself a thing beautiful, but on account of the immediate reward which will be its consequence. Smith is enjoined not to cheat Jones, because he will, in the long run, make more money by dealing with Jones on the square. This is not teaching of the highest order; but it is teaching well adapted to human circumstances, and has obtained for itself a wide credit. One is driven, however, to doubt whether even this teaching is not too high for the frontier man. Is it possible that a frontier man should be scrupulous and at the same time successful? Hitherto those who have allowed scruples to stand in their way have not succeeded; and they who have succeeded and made for themselves great names,—who have been the pioneers of civilization,—have not allowed ideas of exact honesty to stand in their way. From General Jason down to General Fremont there have been men of great aspirations but of slight scruples. They have been ambitious of power and desirous of progress, but somewhat regardless how power and progress shall be attained. Clive and Warren Hastings were great frontier men, but we cannot imagine that they had ever realized the doctrine that honesty is the best policy. Cortez, and even Columbus, the prince of frontier men, are in the same category. The names of such heroes is legion. But with none of them has absolute honesty been a favourite virtue. "It behoves a frontier man to be smart, sir." Such, in that or other language, has been the prevailing idea. Such is the prevailing idea. And one feels driven to ask oneself whether such must not be the prevailing idea with those who leave the world and its rules behind them, and go forth with the resolve that the world and its rules shall follow them.

Of filibustering, annexation, and polishing savages off the face of creation there has been a great deal, and who can deny that humanity has been the gainer? It seems to those who look widely back over history, that all such works have been carried on in obedience to God's laws. When Jacob by Rebecca's aid cheated his elder brother he was very smart; but we cannot but suppose that a better race was by this smartness put in possession of the patriarchal sceptre. Esau was polished off, and readers of Scripture wonder why heaven with its thunder did not open over the heads of Rebecca and her son. But Jacob with all his fraud was the chosen one. Perhaps the day may come when scrupulous honesty may be the best policy even on the frontier. I can only say that hitherto that day seems to be as distant as ever. I do not pretend to solve the problem, but simply record my opinion that under circumstances as they still exist I should not willingly select a frontier life for my children.

I have said that all great frontier men have been unscrupulous. There is, however, an exception in history which may perhaps serve to prove the rule. The Puritans who colonized New England were frontier men, and were, I think, in general scrupulously honest. They had their faults. They were stern, austere men, tyrannical at the backbone when power came in their way,—as are all pioneers;—hard upon vices for which they who made the laws had themselves no minds; but they were not dishonest.

At Milwaukee I went up to see the Wisconsin volunteers, who were then encamped on open ground in the close vicinity of the town. Of Wisconsin I had heard before,—and have heard the same opinion repeated since,—that it was more backward in its volunteering than its neighbour States in the West. Wisconsin has 760,000 inhabitants, and its tenth thousand of volunteers was not then made up; whereas Indiana with less than double its number had already sent out thirty-six thousand. Iowa, with a hundred thousand less of inhabitants, had then made up fifteen thousand. But nevertheless to me it seemed that Wisconsin was quite alive to its presumed duty in that respect. Wisconsin with its three quarters of a million of people is as large as England. Every acre of it may be made productive, but as yet it is not half cleared. Of such a country its young men are its heart's blood. Ten thousand men fit to bear arms carried away from such a land to the horrors of civil war is a sight as full of sadness as any on which the eye can rest. Ah me, when will they return, and with what altered hopes! It is, I fear, easier to turn the sickle into the sword, than to recast the sword back again into the sickle!

We found a completed regiment at Wisconsin consisting entirely of Germans. A thousand Germans had been collected in that State and brought together in one regiment, and I was informed by an officer on the ground that there are many Germans in sundry other of the Wisconsin regiments. It may be well to mention here that the number of Germans through all these western States is very great. Their number and well-being were to me astonishing. That they form a great portion of the population of New York, making the German quarter of that city the third largest German town in the world, I have long known; but I had no previous idea of their expansion westward. In Detroit nearly every third shop bore a German name, and the same remark was to be made at Milwaukee;—and on all hands I heard praises of their morals, of their thrift, and of their new patriotism. I was continually told how far they exceeded the Irish settlers. To me in all parts of the world an Irishman is dear. When handled tenderly he becomes a creature most loveable. But with all my judgment in the Irishman's favour, and with my prejudices leaning the same way, I feel myself bound to state what I heard and what I saw as to the Germans.

But this regiment of Germans, and another not completed regiment, called from the State generally, were as yet without arms, accoutrements, or clothing. There was the raw material of the regiment, but there was nothing else. Winter was coming on,—winter in which the mercury is commonly 20 degrees below zero,—and the men were in tents with no provision against the cold. These tents held each two men, and were just large enough for two to lie. The canvas of which they were made seemed to me to be thin, but was I think always double. At this camp there was a house in which the men took their meals, but I visited other camps in which there was no such accommodation. I saw the German regiment called to its supper by tuck of drum, and the men marched in gallantly, armed each with a knife and spoon. I managed to make my way in at the door after them, and can testify to the excellence of the provisions of which their supper consisted. A poor diet never enters into any combination of circumstances contemplated by an American. Let him be where he will, animal food is, with him, the first necessary of life, and he is always provided accordingly. As to those Wisconsin men whom I saw, it was probable that they might be marched off, down south to Washington, or to the doubtful glories of the western campaign under Fremont before the winter commenced. The same might have been said of any special regiment. But taking the whole mass of men who were collected under canvas at the end of the autumn of 1861, and who were so collected without arms or military clothing, and without protection from the weather, it did seem that the task taken in hand by the Commissariat of the Northern army was one not devoid of difficulty.

The view from Milwaukee over Lake Michigan is very pleasing. One looks upon a vast expanse of water to which the eye finds no bounds, and therefore there are none of the common attributes of lake beauty; but the colour of the lake is bright, and within a walk of the city the traveller comes to the bluffs or low round-topped hills from which he can look down upon the shores. These bluffs form the beauty of Wisconsin and Minnesota, and relieve the eye after the flat level of Michigan. Round Detroit there is no rising ground, and therefore, perhaps, it is that Detroit is uninteresting.

I have said that those who are called on to labour in these States have their own hardships, and I have endeavoured to explain what are the sufferings to which the town labourer is subject. To escape from this is the labourer's great ambition, and his mode of doing so consists almost universally in the purchase of land. He saves up money in order that he may buy a section of an allotment, and thus become his own master. All his savings are made with a view to this independence. Seated on his own land he will have to work probably harder than ever, but he will work for himself. No taskmaster can then stand over him and wound his pride with harsh words. He will be his own master; will eat the food which he himself has grown, and live in the cabin which his own hands have built. This is the object of his life; and to secure this position he is content to work late and early and to undergo the indignities of previous servitude. The Government price for land is about five shillings an acre—one dollar and a quarter—and the settler may get it for this price if he be contented to take it not only untouched as regards clearing, but also far removed from any completed road. The traffic in these lands has been the great speculating business of western men. Five or six years ago, when the rage for such purchases was at its height, land was becoming a scarce article in the market! Individuals or companies bought it up with the object of reselling it at a profit; and many no doubt did make money. Railway companies were, in fact, companies combined for the purchase of land. They purchased land, looking to increase the value of it five-fold by the opening of a railroad. It may easily be understood that a railway, which could not be in itself remunerative, might in this way become a lucrative speculation. No settler could dare to place himself absolutely at a distance from any thoroughfare. At first the margins of nature's highways, the navigable rivers and lakes, were cleared. But as the railway system grew and expanded itself, it became manifest that lands might be rendered quickly available which were not so circumstanced by nature, A company which had purchased an enormous territory from the United States Government at five shillings an acre might well repay itself all the cost of a railway through that territory, even though the receipts of the railway should do no more than maintain the current expenses. It is in this way that the thousands of miles of American railroads have been opened; and here again must be seen the immense advantages which the States as a new country have enjoyed. With us the purchase of valuable land for railways, together with the legal expenses which those compulsory purchases entailed, have been so great that with all our traffic railways are not remunerative. But in the States the railways have created the value of the land. The States have been able to begin at the right end, and to arrange that the districts which are benefited shall themselves pay for the benefit they receive.

The Government price of land is 125 cents, or about five shillings an acre; and even this need not be paid at once if the settler purchase directly from the Government. He must begin by making certain improvements on the selected land,—clearing and cultivating some small portion, building a hut, and probably sinking a well. When this has been done,—when he has thus given a pledge of his intentions by depositing on the land the value of a certain amount of labour, he cannot be removed. He cannot be removed for a term of years, and then if he pays the price of the land it becomes his own with an indefeasible title. Many such settlements are made on the purchase of warrants for land. Soldiers returning from the Mexican wars were donated with warrants for land,—the amount being 160 acres, or the quarter of a section. The localities of such lands were not specified, but the privilege granted was that of occupying any quarter-section not hitherto tenanted. It will of course be understood that lands favourably situated would be tenanted. Those contiguous to railways were of course so occupied, seeing that the lines were not made till the lands were in the hands of the companies. It may therefore be understood of what nature would be the traffic in these warrants. The owner of a single warrant might find it of no value to him. To go back utterly into the woods, away from river or road, and there to commence with 160 acres of forest, or even of prairie, would be a hopeless task even to an American settler. Some mode of transport for his produce must be found before his produce would be of value,—before indeed he could find the means of living. But a company buying up a large aggregate of such warrants would possess the means of making such allotments valuable and of reselling them at greatly increased prices.

The primary settler, therefore,—who, however, will not usually have been the primary owner,—goes to work upon his land amidst all the wildness of nature. He levels and burns the first trees, and raises his first crop of corn amidst stumps still standing four or five feet above the soil; but he does not do so till some mode of conveyance has been found for him. So much I have said hoping to explain the mode in which the frontier speculator paves the way for the frontier agriculturist. But the permanent farmer very generally comes on the land as the third owner. The first settler is a rough fellow, and seems to be so wedded to his rough life that he leaves his land after his first wild work is done, and goes again further off to some untouched allotment. He finds that he can sell his improvements at a profitable rate and takes the price. He is a preparer of farms rather than a farmer. He has no love for the soil which his hand has first turned. He regards it merely as an investment; and when things about him are beginning to wear an aspect of comfort,—when his property has become valuable, he sells it, packs up his wife and little ones, and goes again into the woods. The western American has no love for his own soil, or his own house. The matter with him is simply one of dollars. To keep a farm which he could sell at an advantage from any feeling of affection,—from what we should call an association of ideas,—would be to him as ridiculous as the keeping of a family pig would be in an English farmer's establishment. The pig is a part of the farmer's stock in trade, and must go the way of all pigs. And so is it with house and land in the life of the frontier man in the western States.

But yet this man has his romance, his high poetic feeling, and above all his manly dignity. Visit him, and you will find him without coat or waistcoat, unshorn, in ragged blue trousers and old flannel shirt, too often bearing on his lantern jaws the signs of ague and sickness; but he will stand upright before you and speak to you with all the ease of a lettered gentleman in his own library. All the odious incivility of the republican servant has been banished. He is his own master, standing on his own threshold, and finds no need to assert his equality by rudeness. He is delighted to see you, and bids you sit down on his battered bench without dreaming of any such apology as an English cottier offers to a Lady Bountiful when she calls. He has worked out his independence, and shows it in every easy movement of his body. He tells you of it unconsciously in every tone of his voice. You will always find in his cabin some newspaper, some book, some token of advance in education. When he questions you about the old country he astonishes you by the extent of his knowledge. I defy you not to feel that he is superior to the race from whence he has sprung in England or in Ireland. To me I confess that the manliness of such a man is very charming. He is dirty and perhaps squalid. His children are sick and he is without comforts. His wife is pale, and you think you see shortness of life written in the faces of all the family. But over and above it all there is an independence which sits gracefully on their shoulders, and teaches you at the first glance that the man has a right to assume himself to be your equal. It is for this position that the labourer works, bearing hard words and the indignity of tyranny,—suffering also too often the dishonest ill-usage which his superior power enables the master to inflict.

"I have lived very rough," I heard a poor woman say, whose husband had ill-used and deserted her. "I have known what it is to be hungry and cold, and to work hard till my bones have ached. I only wish that I might have the same chance again. If I could have ten acres cleared two miles away from any living being, I could be happy with my children. I find a kind of comfort when I am at work from daybreak to sundown, and know that it is all my own." I believe that life in the backwoods has an allurement to those who have been used to it, that dwellers in cities can hardly comprehend.

From Milwaukee we went across Wisconsin and reached the Mississippi at La Crosse. From hence, according to agreement, we were to start by steamer at once up the river. But we were delayed again, as had happened to us before on Lake Michigan at Grand Haven.

CHAPTER X.

THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI.

It had been promised to us that we should start from La Crosse by the river steamer immediately on our arrival there; but on reaching La Crosse we found that the vessel destined to take us up the river had not yet come down. She was bringing a regiment from Minnesota, and under such circumstances some pardon might be extended to irregularities. This plea was made by one of the boat clerks in a very humble tone, and was fully accepted by us. The wonder was that at such a period all means of public conveyance were not put absolutely out of gear. One might surmise that when regiments were constantly being moved for the purposes of civil war, when the whole North had but the one object of collecting together a sufficient number of men to crush the South, ordinary travelling for ordinary purposes would be difficult, slow, and subject to sudden stoppages. Such, however, was not the case either in the northern or western States. The trains ran much as usual, and those connected with the boats and railways were just as anxious as ever to secure passengers. The boat clerk at La Crosse apologised amply for the delay, and we sat ourselves down with patience to await the arrival of the second Minnesota regiment on its way to Washington.

During the four hours that we were kept waiting we were harboured on board a small steamer, and at about eleven the terribly harsh whistle that is made by the Mississippi boats informed us that the regiment was arriving. It came up to the quay in two steamers, 750 being brought in that which was to take us back, and 250 in a smaller one. The moon was very bright, and great flaming torches were lit on the vessel's side, so that all the operations of the men were visible. The two steamers had run close up, thrusting us away from the quay in their passage, but doing it so gently that we did not even feel the motion. These large boats—and their size may be understood from the fact that one of them had just brought down 750 men,—are moved so easily and so gently that they come gliding in among each other without hesitation and without pause. On English waters we do not willingly run ships against each other; and when we do so unwillingly, they bump and crush and crash upon each other, and timbers fly while men are swearing. But here there was neither crashing nor swearing, and the boats noiselessly pressed against each other as though they were cased in muslin and crinoline.

I got out upon the quay and stood close by the plank, watching each man as he left the vessel and walked across towards the railway. Those whom I had previously seen in tents were not equipped, but these men were in uniform and each bore his musket. Taking them all together they were as fine a set of men as I ever saw collected. No man could doubt on seeing them that they bore on their countenances the signs of higher breeding and better education than would be seen in a thousand men enlisted in England. I do not mean to argue from this that Americans are better than English. I do not mean to argue here that they are even better educated. My assertion goes to show that the men generally were taken from a higher level in the community than that which fills our own ranks. It was a matter of regret to me, here and on many subsequent occasions, to see men bound for three years to serve as common soldiers, who were so manifestly fitted for a better and more useful life. To me it is always a source of sorrow to see a man enlisted. I feel that the individual recruit is doing badly with himself—carrying himself and the strength and intelligence which belongs to him to a bad market. I know that there must be soldiers; but as to every separate soldier I regret that he should be one of them. And the higher is the class from which such soldiers are drawn, the greater the intelligence of the men so to be employed, the deeper with me is that feeling of regret. But this strikes one much less in an old country than in a country that is new. In the old countries population is thick, and food sometimes scarce. Men can be spared, and any employment may be serviceable, even though that employment be in itself so unproductive as that of fighting battles or preparing for them. But in the western States of America every arm that can guide a plough is of incalculable value. Minnesota was admitted as a State about three years before this time, and its whole population is not much above 150,000. Of this number perhaps 40,000 may be working men. And now this infant State with its huge territory and scanty population is called upon to send its heart's blood out to the war.

And it has sent its heart's best blood. Forth they came—fine, stalwart, well-grown fellows, looking to my eye as though they had as yet but faintly recognised the necessary severity of military discipline. To them hitherto the war had seemed to be an arena on which each might do something for his country, which that country would recognise. To themselves as yet—and to me also—they were a band of heroes, to be reduced by the compressing power of military discipline to the lower level, but more necessary position of a regiment of soldiers. Ah me! how terrible to them has been the breaking up of that delusion! When a poor yokel in England is enlisted with a shilling and a promise of unlimited beer and glory, one pities and if possible would save him. But with him the mode of life to which he goes may not be much inferior to that he leaves. It may be that for him soldiering is the best trade possible in his circumstances. It may keep him from the hen-roosts, and perhaps from his neighbours' pantries; and discipline may be good for him. Population is thick with us, and there are many whom it may be well to collect and make available under the strictest surveillance. But of these men whom I saw entering on their career upon the banks of the Mississippi, many were fathers of families, many were owners of lands, many were educated men capable of high aspirations,—all were serviceable members of their State. There were probably there not three or four of whom it would be well that the State should be rid. As soldiers fit, or capable of being made fit for the duties they had undertaken, I could find but one fault with them. Their average age was too high. There were men among them with grizzled beards, and many who had counted thirty, thirty-five, and forty years. They had, I believe, devoted themselves with a true spirit of patriotism. No doubt each had some ulterior hope as to himself,—as has every mortal patriot. Regulus when he returned hopeless to Carthage, trusted that some Horace would tell his story. Each of these men from Minnesota looked probably forward to his reward; but the reward desired was of a high class.

The first great misery to be endured by these regiments will be the military lesson of obedience which they must learn before they can be of any service. It always seemed to me when I came near them that they had not as yet recognized the necessary austerity of an officer's duty. Their idea of a captain was the stage idea of a leader of dramatic banditti, a man to be followed and obeyed as a leader, but to be obeyed with that free and easy obedience which is accorded to the reigning chief of the forty thieves. "Wa'll Captain," I have heard a private say to his officer, as he sat on one seat in a railway-car with his feet upon the back of another. And the captain has looked as though he did not like it. The captain did not like it, but the poor private was being fast carried to that destiny which he would like still less. From the first I have had faith in the northern army; but from the first I have felt that the suffering to be endured by these free and independent volunteers would be very great. A man to be available as a private soldier must be compressed and belted in till he be a machine.

As soon as the men had left the vessel we walked over the side of it and took possession. "I am afraid your cabin won't be ready for a quarter of an hour," said the clerk. "Such a body of men as that will leave some dirt after them." I assured him of course that our expectations under such circumstances were very limited, and that I was fully aware that the boat and the boat's company were taken up with matters of greater moment than the carriage of ordinary passengers. But to this he demurred altogether. "The regiments were very little to them, but occasioned much trouble. Everything, however, should be square in fifteen minutes." At the expiration of the time named the key of our state-room was given to us, and we found the appurtenances as clean as though no soldier had ever put his foot upon the vessel.

From La Crosse to St. Paul, the distance up the river is something over 200 miles, and from St. Paul down to Dubuque, in Iowa, to which we went on our return, the distance is 450 miles. We were therefore for a considerable time on board these boats; more so than such a journey may generally make necessary, as we were delayed at first by the soldiers, and afterwards by accidents, such as the breaking of a paddle-wheel, and other causes to which navigation on the Upper Mississippi seems to be liable. On the whole we slept on board four nights, and lived on board as many days. I cannot say that the life was comfortable, though I do not know that it could be made more so by any care on the part of the boat-owners. My first complaint would be against the great heat of the cabins. The Americans as a rule live in an atmosphere which is almost unbearable by an Englishman. To this cause, I am convinced, is to be attributed their thin faces, their pale skins, their unenergetic temperament,—unenergetic as regards physical motion,—and their early old age. The winters are long and cold in America, and mechanical ingenuity is far extended. These two facts together have created a system of stoves, hot-air pipes, steam chambers, and heating apparatus so extensive that from autumn till the end of spring all inhabited rooms are filled with the atmosphere of a hot oven. An Englishman fancies that he is to be baked, and for a while finds it almost impossible to exist in the air prepared for him. How the heat is engendered on board the river steamers I do not know, but it is engendered to so great a degree that the sitting-cabins are unendurable. The patient is therefore driven out at all hours into the outside balconies of the boat, or on to the top roof,—for it is a roof rather than a deck,—and there as he passes through the air at the rate of twenty miles an hour, finds himself chilled to the very bones. That is my first complaint. But as the boats are made for Americans, and as Americans like hot air, I do not put it forward with any idea that a change ought to be effected. My second complaint is equally unreasonable, and is quite as incapable of a remedy as the first. Nine-tenths of the travellers carry children with them. They are not tourists engaged on pleasure excursions, but men and women intent on the business of life. They are moving up and down, looking for fortune, and in search of new homes. Of course they carry with them all their household goods. Do not let any critic say that I grudge these young travellers their right to locomotion. Neither their right to locomotion is grudged by me, nor any of those privileges which are accorded in America to the rising generation. The habits of their country and the choice of their parents give to them full dominion over all hours and over all places, and it would ill become a foreigner to make such habits and such choice a ground of serious complaint. But nevertheless the uncontrolled energies of twenty children round one's legs do not convey comfort or happiness, when the passing events are producing noise and storm rather than peace and sunshine. I must protest that American babies are an unhappy race. They eat and drink just as they please; they are never punished; they are never banished, snubbed, and kept in the back ground as children are kept with us; and yet they are wretched and uncomfortable. My heart has bled for them as I have heard them squalling by the hour together in agonies of discontent and dyspepsia. Can it be, I wonder, that children are happier when they are made to obey orders and are sent to bed at six o'clock, than when allowed to regulate their own conduct; that bread and milk are more favourable to laughter and soft childish ways than beef-steaks and pickles three times a day; that an occasional whipping, even, will conduce to rosy cheeks? It is an idea which I should never dare to broach to an American mother; but I must confess that after my travels on the western continent my opinions have a tendency in that direction. Beef-steaks and pickles certainly produce smart little men and women. Let that be taken for granted. But rosy laughter and winning childish ways are, I fancy, the produce of bread and milk. But there was a third reason why travelling on these boats was not as pleasant as I had expected. I could not get my fellow-travellers to talk to me. It must be understood that our fellow-travellers were not generally of that class which we Englishmen, in our pride, designate as gentlemen and ladies. They were people, as I have said, in search of new homes and new fortunes. But I protest that as such they would have been in those parts much more agreeable as companions to me than any gentlemen or any ladies, if only they would have talked to me. I do not accuse them of any incivility. If addressed, they answered me. If application was made by me for any special information, trouble was taken to give it me. But I found no aptitude, no wish for conversation; nay, even a disinclination to converse. In the western States I do not think that I was ever addressed first by an American sitting next to me at table. Indeed I never held any conversation at a public table in the West. I have sat in the same room with men for hours, and have not had a word spoken to me. I have done my very best to break through this ice, and have always failed. A western American man is not a talking man. He will sit for hours over a stove with his cigar in his mouth, and his hat over his eyes, chewing the cud of reflection. A dozen will sit together in the same way, and there shall not be a dozen words spoken between them in an hour. With the women one's chance of conversation is still worse. It seemed as though the cares of the world had been too much for them, and that all talking excepting as to business,—demands for instance on the servants for pickles for their children,—had gone by the board. They were generally hard, dry, and melancholy. I am speaking of course of aged females,—from five and twenty perhaps to thirty, who had long since given up the amusements and levities of life. I very soon abandoned any attempt at drawing a word from these ancient mothers of families; but not the less did I ponder in my mind over the circumstances of their lives. Had things gone with them so sadly, was the struggle for independence so hard, that all the softness of existence had been trodden out of them? In the cities too it was much the same. It seemed to me that a future mother of a family in those parts had left all laughter behind her when she put out her finger for the wedding ring.

For these reasons I must say that life on board these steam-boats was not as pleasant as I had hoped to find it, but for our discomfort in this respect we found great atonement in the scenery through which we passed. I protest that of all the river scenery that I know, that of the Upper Mississippi is by far the finest and the most continued. One thinks of course of the Rhine; but, according to my idea of beauty, the Rhine is nothing to the Upper Mississippi. For miles upon miles, for hundreds of miles, the course of the river runs through low hills, which are there called bluffs. These bluffs rise in every imaginable form, looking sometimes like large straggling unwieldy castles, and then throwing themselves into sloping lawns which stretch back away from the river till the eye is lost in their twists and turnings. Landscape beauty, as I take it, consists mainly in four attributes: in water, in broken land, in scattered timber,—timber scattered as opposed to continuous forest timber,—and in the accident of colour. In all these particulars the banks of the Upper Mississippi can hardly be beaten. There are no high mountains; but high mountains themselves are grand rather than beautiful. There are no high mountains, but there is a succession of hills which group themselves for ever without monotony. It is perhaps the ever-variegated forms of these bluffs which chiefly constitute the wonderful loveliness of this river. The idea constantly occurs that some point on every hillside would form the most charming site ever yet chosen for a noble residence. I have passed up and down rivers clothed to the edge with continuous forest. This at first is grand enough, but the eye and feeling soon become weary. Here the trees are scattered so that the eye passes through them, and ever and again a long lawn sweeps back into the country, and up the steep side of a hill, making the traveller long to stay there and linger through the oaks, and climb the bluffs, and lie about on the bold but easy summits. The boat, however, steams quickly up against the current, and the happy valleys are left behind, one quickly after another. The river is very various in its breadth, and is constantly divided by islands. It is never so broad that the beauty of the banks is lost in the distance or injured by it. It is rapid, but has not the beautifully bright colour of some European rivers,—of the Rhine for instance, and the Rhone. But what is wanting in the colour of the water is more than compensated by the wonderful hues and lustre of the shores. We visited the river in October, and I must presume that they who seek it solely for the sake of scenery should go there in that month. It was not only that the foliage of the trees was bright with every imaginable colour, but that the grass was bronzed, and that the rocks were golden. And this beauty did not last only for a while and then cease. On the Rhine there are lovely spots and special morsels of scenery with which the traveller becomes duly enraptured. But on the Upper Mississippi there are no special morsels. The position of the sun in the heavens will, as it always does, make much difference in the degree of beauty. The hour before and the half-hour after sunset are always the loveliest for such scenes. But of the shores themselves one may declare that they are lovely throughout those 400 miles which run immediately south from St. Paul.

About half-way between La Crosse and St. Paul we came upon Lake Pepin, and continued our course up the lake for perhaps fifty or sixty miles. This expanse of water is narrow for a lake, and by those who know the lower courses of great rivers, would hardly be dignified by that name. But, nevertheless, the breadth here lessens the beauty. There are the same bluffs, the same scattered woodlands, and the same colours. But they are either at a distance, or else they are to be seen on one side only. The more that I see of the beauty of scenery, and the more I consider its elements, the stronger becomes my conviction that size has but little to do with it, and rather detracts from it than adds to it. Distance gives one of its greatest charms, but it does so by concealing rather than displaying an expanse of surface. The beauty of distance arises from the romance,—the feeling of mystery which it creates. It is like the beauty of woman which allures the more the more that it is veiled. But open, uncovered land and water, mountains which simply rise to great heights with long unbroken slopes, wide expanses of lake, and forests which are monotonous in their continued thickness, are never lovely to me. A landscape should always be partly veiled, and display only half its charms.

To my taste the finest stretch of the river was that immediately above Lake Pepin; but then, at this point, we had all the glory of the setting sun. It was like fairy land, so bright were the golden hues, so fantastic were the shapes of the hills, so broken and twisted the course of the waters! But the noisy steamer went groaning up the narrow passages with almost unabated speed, and left the fairy land behind all too quickly. Then the bell would ring for tea, and the children with the beef-steaks, the pickled onions, and the light fixings would all come over again. The care-laden mothers would tuck the bibs under the chins of their tyrant children, and some embryo senator of four years old would listen with concentrated attention, while the negro servant recapitulated to him the delicacies of the supper-table, in order that he might make his choice with due consideration. "Beef-steak," the embryo four-year old senator would lisp, "and stewed potato, and buttered toast, and corn cake, and coffee,—and—and—and—; mother, mind you get me the pickles."

St. Paul enjoys the double privilege of being the commercial and political capital of Minnesota. The same is the case with Boston in Massachusetts, but I do not remember another instance in which it is so. It is built on the eastern bank of the Mississippi, though the bulk of the State lies to the west of the river. It is noticeable as the spot up to which the river is navigable. Immediately above St. Paul there are narrow rapids up which no boat can pass. North of this, continuous navigation does not go; but from St. Paul down to New Orleans, and the Gulf of Mexico, it is uninterrupted. The distance to St. Louis in Missouri, a town built below the confluence of the three rivers, Mississippi, Missouri, and Illinois, is 900 miles; and then the navigable waters down to the gulf wash a southern country of still greater extent. No river on the face of the globe forms a highway for the produce of so wide an extent of agricultural land. The Mississippi with its tributaries carried to market, before the war, the produce of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. This country is larger than England, Ireland, Scotland, Holland, Belgium, France, Germany and Spain together, and is undoubtedly composed of much more fertile land. The States named comprise the great centre valley of the continent, and are the farming lands and garden grounds of the western world. He who has not seen corn on the ground in Illinois or Minnesota, does not know to what extent the fertility of land may go, or how great may be the weight of cereal crops. And for all this the Mississippi was the high road to market. When the crop of 1861 was garnered this high road was stopped by the war. What suffering this entailed on the South, I will not here stop to say, but on the West the effect was terrible. Corn was in such plenty, Indian corn that is, or maize, that it was not worth the farmer's while to prepare it for market. When I was in Illinois the second quality of Indian corn when shelled was not worth more than from eight to ten cents a bushel. But the shelling and preparation are laborious, and in some instances it was found better to burn it for fuel than to sell it. Respecting the export of corn from the West, I must say a further word or two in the next chapter; but it seemed to be indispensable that I should point out here how great to the United States is the need of the Mississippi. Nor is it for corn and wheat only that its waters are needed. Timber, lead, iron, coal, pork, all find, or should find, their exit to the world at large by this road. There are towns on it, and on its tributaries, already holding more than one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants. The number of Cincinnati exceeds that, as also does the number of St. Louis. Under these circumstances it is not wonderful that the States should wish to keep in their own hands the navigation of this river.