AMERICAN TRAVEL.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 14, 17 January 1871, Page 4

AMERICAN TRAVEL.

The Spectator of October 15 publishes the following letter "in which a young English girl gives a bright and vivid account of the experiences of herself aud her sister on a journey from New England* to the West." The letter is dated Chicago September 8 : — Yes, here iudeed we are ! the dream of ray youth is accomplished, I am at the West, — the new country, with all its freshness, is around me, the prairies stretch for hundreds of miles between me and either ocean. People asked us before we started if we were not afraid to travel two thousand miles and more through unknown count iy, without escort ; and we answered that we neither of us felt the le;ist nervousness, indeed, that tbe thought of our independence heightened the pleasure of anticination, aud that our faith in the politeness aud kindness of railway officials ami fellow-travellers towards unescorted ladies was entire. A party of bright pleasant. friends, however, were to pass the first night with us. Very early in the morning we left Philadelphia. Surh a strange, dull mornjug it was ! — the air thick and heavy, depressing one with a sense of weight, and discomfort. Our fellow-travellers told us that the haze from which we were suffering was the smoke of burning Canadian forests. Hundreds of miles of wood were on fire. "All morning we travelled through the cultivated hill and dale of the Susquehanna Valley,the scenery being very much like that of the Thames above Maidenhead. We were in a slow train, chosen or. purpose that we might see the country and study the people ■who would get in and out at the wayside stations. Then we left the Susquehanna, and rushed up the narrower, wilder valley of the " blue Juniata," which, however, was never blue, but always brown or green. Such a romantic little river ! — with steep, wooded hills, and sudden bends and turns that seem to transform the stream into hill-locked lakes. Whether it was the charm of the name, or the memory of the "bright Alferata" and her " warrior bold," I do not know ; but I felt a love at first sight for the wild little river, and I was sorry when we turned away from its wooded banks to grind up by steep grades the sides of the Alleghanies. For miles you creep up one mountain spur, trees above you, trees below you. No break to the trees but the railway cutting ; Ihen you round the edge, aud a deep valley is before you, while the mountain takes a great sweep in the form of a horseshoe, and your fellow traveller points to another mountain spur right across the deep ravine and tells you you will be there in fifteen minutes. Slowly the train winds on, the deep ravine below, the wild mouutain above you ; and then you round the extreme bend, and the mountain's arms seem to enclose you ; and then your engine puffs and pants, and the carriages creak, and the wheels grind slowly ou, and the last spur is reached and the horse-shoe is behind you, and you are on the top of the Alleghanies. Such a view is spread before you, — range after range of hills, and hundreds of acres of trees ; no house, no 6teeple, nothing in sight to tell you that the world holds anything but trees and mountains. It was getting dusk as we made the descent, and half the glories of the scene were hidden from us ; but as we swung down in the twilight, we could still see that forests of trees were above and below us. We stopped for the night at Cresson, a cluster of small houses, a railway station, and a monster hotel, perched among the trees about half-way down the mountain side. After tea we took treats in the rather barn-like diniDg-room, which was cleared for dancing, and lighted by numberless small lamps in tin sconces, There was a crowd of children — those typical American children who haunt every fashionable resort — the littie girls dressed in the latest fashion, with the selfpossessed manners of women who have been, in society for fifty years. We watched the antics of the poor little souls till the heart was heavy, for in their looks and ways was nothing of the meek loveliness of childhood. Next morning rose bright and clear ; all the dull haze was gone, and a sweet, fresh breeze was blooming, which was inexpressibly delightful, after the fatigues and depressing atmosphere of the day before. After breakfast we parted from our pleasant companions, they coming down to the wayside station to see us oft*. We had a pleasant compartment in a sleeping car, which looked by day like an ordinary car, except that it is cleaner, and the seats are wider apart, and two by two face each other, four Beats making a compartment. We had each a window, and could watch with interest and delight how the country changed and the stations and villages grew hourly wilder and more western in appearance, and could mark how the rivers and

streams, which before in all our journeying hail flowed eastward, now set in the contrary direction, hurrying one and all to swell the waters of the mighty Mississippi. At two o'clock we reached Pittsburg, the American Birmingham, a smoky dirty city, lying in a cleft of the hills, placed there seemingly with the hope that the smoke should have no chance of escape from its tall chimney- tops. Here we dined and changed cars. lv twenty minutes we were again in motion. There was some little difficulty in finding sleeping-berths, and for ti.e first dozen miles we travelled in the ordinary c;irs, which we found crowded and dusty, filled apparently with emigrants ou their way to the fur West, ; poor tired women, with worn-out, dirty children, and broad-shouldered, brownfaced young men of the Mark Tap ley type. There were evident, signs of kind fe< j lin<r ami siood-fVdlowship fimonst these poor traveller?, and we notice) that each woman lia-1 two or '.':■'. :-r 'ir<>\\ r :i-i-.d;nJi,>.! che.viiliers ready to c.: I!}'1 !}' i.u:id ><•.-. must- si child, or hriii;.' » lie wi'iu y I a'»y and its mother tin cups of ice-waU-r from tlie filler wish which every car is supplied. We caught tln> spirit of the place, and soon established most friendly relations vvith cuj:* tieii:ljbor» ; a fat, .-olemn little fallow of two years old (.'t'iug fast- asleep on my ki.ee with the utmost readiness. My small trie d had a Wt-ll shaped head and earnest little face, and I thought as I watched him that perhaps my kueo pillowed the h"ad of the future President of this wide country. I was really quite sorry when at the next stopping-place the conductor came to us and told us that there was now room in the saloon, and he would show us the way; it seemed almost cruel to go away and leave our poor frieuds, and take refuge, b} r means of extra dollars, iv the spacious, clean, comfortable saloon, the first-class of these Western trains. We found excellent places, aud had our belongings stowed away around us, and then we went to the dressing-room at the end of the car, where you can wash your face aud hands with scented soap in ice-cold water — a most refreshing occupation. "All through that bright September afternoon we rushed at express speed over the prairies, that wide, green ocean of high grass. For many miles the ground was low and marshy, and covered for acres with small, white water-lilies, three or four heads growing on a stem a foot high. The edge of the railway track was bordered by a little thicket of sun-flowers or wild chrysanthemums, the prairie flower surely that Shawondasee fell in love with — " 'Brightest green were all her garments, And her hair was like the sunshine." Can you see the picture ? The bright border of flaunting yellow heads, the large patches of dazzling white blossoms, the glimpses of blue water, and the great green plain which would have stretched away for ever had not the sky come down and stopped it in a cloud of grey-blue haze. We watched the sun set behind low lines of crimson clouds, and while the air was full of golden light, stopped at a prairie village for supper. The. meal was spread in the large wooden refreshment room of the station ; we were very hungry, and rushed with one accord to the food ; but though our movements had been swifr, we found the table almost filled, and the meal half over. Such is Western expedition ! ( To be continued )