"Always, after supper, take a walk half a mile long," says an old
proverb, dryly adding, "and if convenient let it be upon your own land."
I wonder does any other nation but ours afford opportunity for such a
jaunt as this? Indeed has any previous period afforded it? No one, I
discover, begins to know the real geographic, democratic, indissoluble
American Union in the present, or suspect it in the future, until he
explores these Central States, and dwells awhile observantly on their
prairies, or amid their busy towns, and the mighty father of waters. A
ride of two or three thousand miles, "on one's own land," with hardly a
disconnection, could certainly be had in no other place than the United
States, and at no period before this. If you want to see what the
railroad is, and how civilization and progress date from it--how it
is the conqueror of crude nature, which it turns to man's use, both on
small scales and on the largest--come hither to inland America.
I return'd home, east, Jan. 5, 1880, having travers'd, to and fro and
across, 10,000 miles and more. I soon resumed my seclusions down in
the woods, or by the creek, or gaddings about cities, and an occasional
disquisition, as will be seen following.