AMERICAN TRAVEL.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 15, 18 January 1871, Page 4

AMERICAN TRAVEL.

(concluded) . We were soon in our seats again, whivlingover the wide green earth in the grey twilight, which soon grew to darkness, made visible by two miserable lamps. I retired into a dnvk corner to muse and meditate, or to slumber; it was only seven o'clock, rather too early to go lo bed,. So I got out my book, T tried every position i_ our compartment, held mjf book at every angle to try to catch some ray of light, but in vain. Never was a helpless damsel more miserable ; but help came to Andromeda, before the beast, and my Perseus appeared before I was in utter despair. He came truly like an angel of light, for. he bore in bis hand the guard's lamp, ani approaching me with a bow, proposed to hold it for me while X read ;. and in five miuutes we •were comfortably seated, the lamp between us, he deep \a his paper, I in mine. My Perseus was a broad-shouldered younjr man, with a handsome face, and " soft Western acceut. After we had read an hour or more he began to talk, and I found that my companion came from Helena, in -the territory of Montana. We talked, of course, about the West and. its marvellous capabilities, and be told of the wonderful growth of Helena ; how it was only five years old, and had 30,000 inhabitants, aod how be should bave to travel 500 miles by stage before ho reached it, and then how he had served iu the war, and been captured and confined in the Libby Prison, and of all its horrors, and the life in a prison encampment in the woods, without shelter aud almost without clothing or food, and of his escape, and fight with bloodhounds. The time passed away quite pleasantly till the conductor came to make up our berths. He pulled the seats to pieces, put down imlttrassas, spread sheets and counterpanes, arranged pillows and bolsters, aud hung up* iu front heavy woollen curtains, behind, these we crept, one iuto the top shelf, tbo other into tbe lower. The novelty oi the position, the jolting of the car, the constant aud steady "downfall of grit from the eugine kept me awake for hours. Through the windows, just on a level with my pillow I could see the stars swinging and rolling backwards and forwards, and the black telegraph lines dipping np and down across them. Then the train pulled up at a little shanty to take in water, and lights flashed up and '"3own, and men shouted to each other, and then tbe bell rang, and away we rushed off again uuder the swinging heavens. And wbo can tell of the horrors of the grit ! When we awoke in the early dawn we found our pillows and everything about us covered with a thick layer of this pleasaut substance,' and we had to call to mind the successful enterprise of Beuzoni and Lay ard before we had the courage to attempt to arise. With much perseverance and more patience we performed our simple toilet ; the only position iu which this could be done, owing to the shaking of the cars, was by kneeling on your shelf, your head firmly pressed against the roof above. This over, we staggered to the rear of the car and washed our faces in the never-failing ice-water. Soou our mattrasses, pillows, and curtaius disappeared, and we were seated once more on our red velvet cushions, the windows open, and the sweet fresh air pouring in, and' the wide green ocean lying like a kindly future before us, mysterious in the dim tender lights, blue, grey, aud gold, of sunrise. " After breakfast our Montana friend joined us with the morning paper, and on the rolling prairies, four thousand miles away from Paris, we read the words of Jules Favre, uttered twelve hours ago declaring for the deposition of the Emperor and the Republic of France. « There's Chicago !' said our companion, in the midst of the war talk which followed. We sped on, past acres of level ground covered with oue storeyed woodep*houses, past immense lumber y&ffia, machine shops, gas works, and through streets and across railways, and pulled up at last in a big,, ; dusty, wood built, barn like station. There on the platform stood our friend3— whom last we had seen in a London drawing-room — looking ' bright, fresh aud haudsome as if there were no such things as dust and cinder grit and impossible toilets ! - ( And now we bave been foo some days in this wonderful city, this*- child qf the present, growing up on the most approved systems.- Everywhere lam struck with the perfectness of the arrangements. The streets remind me of Paris, so evenly paved,. so clean, and so broad, with wide side wiilks and rows of trees ; the pavement is of wood, and the carriage rolls over it" with delightful ease and quiet. There are handsome .shops aad.-ware-houses built .of. stone, and marble, ornamented, with pillars, and cornices, and French roofs. There are monster ; hdtels, theatreß, concert halls, art galleries, and

loug boulevards going out for miles towards tbe country, lined witb handsome houses, as fine as auy you might see in Fifth Avenue, New York. Between these lie the acres of neat white and green wooden houses, -wbere the workmen are located. We have been to see an elevator, a huge woodeu tower where grain is stored. We watched the cars hacked under itsgreat archway,; and the yellow loads shovelled out iuto a trough, and whisked up ove#our heads iu little buckets fastened on a strap ; Ibis unloading went on at the rat<j of len trucks in five minutes. Then .■ye mounted hundreds of steps to tbe top of the tower, where wo found the little, buckets', hard at work tilting the grain in a yellow stream into huge bins. Here it is weighed. From these bios it is poured through wido tubes into tbe vessels lying at the wharf below', twenty minutes being sufficient lo give out a cargo of eighteen thousand bushels. We were told that the elevator we were in had stored iu tbe last twelve months twenty millions of bushels of grain. And these golden seeds, which have waved in the sunshiue over the generous soil of Wisconsin, lowa, or Illinois, mostly go to help to make a penny roll, to be bought by a ragged street Arab in some small shop of a dirty alley in Seven Dials. " Aud now we have seen the great river of the West. As we stood upon tbo platform of tbe cars, suddenly-^mong the trees we saw, glinting aud glancing in tbe sunlight, tbe water of the Mississippi, and soou afterwards we began to lumber over the high tresselwork bridge that is built on three island-?, and spans the wide flood ; but rather seems as you move across it to rise straight out of the water, aud bold you without railing or protection of any kiud just above the rushing river. Later on we took an exciting walk across the huge rafts that lay at the water's edge, the logs wailing to be carried into (he large wooden saw- , mill, wbich we were told was the largest iu the United States, and which we visited next morning. There we saw the great trunks of trees that had, flourished in Canadian forests, and had floated hundreds of miles down the river drawn up as if by magic from the water, | aud relentlessly pushed into the jaws of a great monster, whence they reissued in a few moments transformed into white planks, to be sent off by trains that waited below lo all the surrounding States. "But our sail at sunset upon the great river! My memory of it is tbat. we moved on noiselessly iu molten gold, and that we came to a fairy island where the trees wero wreathed with heavy festoons of creepers ; where there were red, ard purple, and yellow flowers bending at the water's edge and reflecting themselves into double beauty; and where splendid butterflies flitted about in the sunshine, tbat flickered and glinted through the trees. Tbe beauty was enough to carry one out of oueeelf, and out of the world almost. Then the sunlight faded away like the smile from a beautiful face, and we turned our boat, and were borne swiftly homeward by the tremendous current."

THE NELRON EVENING MAIL, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY IS, 1871.