Chicago--"Who is S. B. D.?"--Milwaukie--The Great Fusion-Wisconsin--The
Sleeping-car--The Train Boy-Minnesota--St. Paul--I start for Lake
Superior--The Future City--"Bust up" and "Gone on"--The End of the Track.
ALAS! I have to go a long way back to the city of Toronto, where I had
just completed the purchase of a full costume of a Western borderer. On
the 10th of June I crossed the Detroit River from Western Canada to the
State of Michigan, and travelling by the central railway of that state
reached the great city of Chicago on the following day. All Americans,
but particularly all Western Americans, are very proud of this big city,
which is not yet as old as many of its inhabitants, and they are justly
proud of it. It is by very much the largest and the richest of the new
cities of the New World. Maps made fifty years ago will be searched in
vain for Chicago. Chicago was then a swamp where the skunks, after whom
it is called, held undisputed revels. To-day Chicago numbers about
300,000 souls, and it is about "the livest city in our great Republic;
sir."
Chicago lies almost 1000 miles due west of New York. A traveller leaving
the latter city, let us say on Monday morning, finds himself on Tuesday
at eight o'clock in the evening in Chicago-one thousand miles in
thirty-four hours. In the meantime he will have eaten three meals and
slept soundly "on board" his palace-car, if he is so minded. For many
hundred miles during the latter portion of his journey he will have
noticed great tracts of swamp and forest, with towns and cities and
settlements interspersed between; and then, when these tracts of swamp
and unreclaimed forest seem to be increasing instead of diminishing, he
comes all of a sudden upon a vast, full-grown, bustling city, with tall
chimneys sending out much smoke, with heavy horses dragging great: drays
of bulky freight through thronged and busy streets, and with tall-masted
ships and whole fleets of steamers lying packed against the crowded
quays. He has begun to dream himself in the West, and lo! there rises up
a great city. "But is not this the West?" will ask the new-comer from the
Atlantic states. "Upon your own showing we are here 1000 miles from New
York, by water 1500 miles to Quebec; surely this must be the West?" No;
for in this New World the West is ever on the move. Twenty years ago
Chicago was West; ten years ago it was Omaha; then it was Salt Lake City,
and now it is San Francisco on the Pacific Ocean.
This big city, with its monster hotels and teeming traffic, was no new
scene to me, for I had spent pleasant days in it three years before. An
American in America is a very pleasant fellow. It is true that on many
social points and habits his views may differ from ours in a manner very
shocking to our prejudices, insular or insolent, as these prejudices of
ours too frequently are; but meet him with fair allowance for the fact
that there may be two sides to a question, and that a man may not tub
every morning and yet be a good fellow, and in nine cases of ten you will
find him most agreeable, a little inquisitive perhaps to know your
peculiar belongings, but equally ready to impart to you the details of
every item connected with his business--altogether a very jolly every-day
companion when met on even basis. If you happen to be a military man, he
will call you Colonel or General, and expect similar recognition: of rank
by virtue of his volunteer services in the 44th: Illinois, or 55th
Missourian. At present, and for many years to come, it is and will be a
safe method of beginning any observation to a Western American with "I
say, General," and on no account ever to get below the rank of field
officer when addressing anybody holding a socially smaller position than
that of bar-keeper. Indeed major-generals were as plentiful in the United
States at the termination of the great rebellion as brevet-majors were in
the British service at the close of the Crimean campaign. It was at
Plymouth, I think, that a grievance was established by a youngster on
the score that he really could not spit out of his own window without
hitting a brevet major outside; and it was in a Western city that the man
threw his stick at a dog across the road, "missed that dawg, sir, but hit
five major-generals on t'other side, and 'twasn't a good day for
major-generals either, sir." Not less necessary than knowledge of social
position is knowledge of the political institutions and characters of the
West. Not to know Rufus P. W. Smidge, or Ossian W. Dodge of Minnesota, is
simply to argue yourself utterly unknown. My first experience of Chicago
fully impressed me with this fact. I had made the acquaintance of an
American gentleman "on board" the train, and as we approached the city
along the sandy margin of Lake Michigan he kindly pointed out the
buildings and public institutions of the neighbourhood.
"There, sir," he finally said, "there is our new monument to Stephen B.
Douglas."
I looked in the direction indicated, and beheld some blocks of granite in
course of erection into a pedestal. I confess to having been entirely
ignorant at the time as to what claim Stephen B. Douglas may have had to
this public recognition of his worth, but the tone of my informant's
voice was sufficient to warn me that everybody knew Stephen B. Douglas,
and that ignorance of his career might prove hurtful to the feelings of
my new acquaintance, so I carefully refrained from showing by word or
look the drawback under which I laboured. There was with me, however, a
travelling companion who, to an ignorance of Stephen B. D. fully equal to
mine own, added a truly British indignation that monumental honours
should be bestowed upon one whose fame was still faint across the
Atlantic. Looking partly at the monument, partly at our American
informant, and partly at me, he hastily ejaculated, "Who the devil was
Stephen B. Douglas?"
Alas! the murder was out, and out in its most aggravating form. I hastily
attempted a rescue. "Not know who Stephen B. Douglas was?" I exclaimed,
in a tone of mingled reproof and surprise. "Is it possible you don't know
who Stephen B. Douglas was?"
Nothing cowed by the assumption of knowledge implied by my question, my
fellow-traveller was not to be done. "All deuced fine," he went on, "I'll
bet you a fiver you don't know who he was either!"
I kicked at him under the seat of the carriage, but it was of no use, he
persisted in his reckless offers of "laying fivers," and our united
ignorance stood fatally revealed.
Round the city of Chicago stretches upon three sides a vast level
prairie, a meadow larger than the area of England and Wales, and as
fertile as the luxuriant vegetation of thousands of years decaying under
a semi-tropic sun could make it. Illinois is in round numbers 400 miles
from north to south, its greatest breadth being about 200 miles. The
Mississippi, running in vast curves along the entire length of its
western frontier for 700 miles, bears away to southern ports the rich
burden of wheat and Indian corn. The inland sea of Michigan carries on
its waters the wealth of the northern portion of the state to the
Atlantic seaboard. The Ohio, flowing south and west, unwaters the
south-eastern counties, while 5500 miles of completed railroad traverse
the interior of the state. This 5500 miles of iron road is a significant
fact--5500 miles of railway in the compass of a single western state!
More than all Hindostan can boast of, and nearly half the railway mileage
of the United Kingdom. Of this immense system of interior connexion
Chicago is the centre and heart. Other great centres of commerce have
striven to rival the City of the Skunk, but all have failed; and to-day,
thanks to the dauntless energy of the men of Chicago, the garden state of
the Union possesses this immense extent of railroad, ships its own
produce, north, east, and south, and boasts a population scarcely
inferior to that of many older states; and yet it is only fifty years ago
since William Cobbett laboured long and earnestly to prove that English
emigrants who pushed on into the "wilderness of the Illinois went
straight to misery and ruin."
Passing through Chicago, and going out by one of the lines running north
along the shore of Lake Michigan, I reached the city of Milwaukie late in
the evening. Now the city of Milwaukie stands above 100 miles north of
Chicago and is to the State of Wisconsin what its southern neighbour (100
miles in the States is nothing) is to Illinois. Being, also some 100
miles nearer to the entrance to Lake Michigan, and consequently nearer by
water to New York and the Atlantic, Milwaukie caries off no small share
of the export wheat trade of the North-west. Behind it lie the rolling
prairies of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, the three wheat-growing
states of the American Union. Scandinavia, Germany, and Ireland have made
this portion of America their own, and in the streets of Milwaukie one
hears the guttural sounds of the Teuton and the deep brogue of the Irish
Celt mixed in curious combinations. This railway-station at Milwaukie is
one of the great distributing points of the in-coming flood from Northern
Europe. From here they scatter far and wide over the plains which lie
between Lake Michigan and the head-waters of the Mississippi. No one
stops to look at these people as they throng the wooden platform and fill
the sheds at the depot, the sight is too common to cause interest now,
and yet it is a curious sight this entry of the outcasts into the
promised land. Tired, travel-stained, and worn come the fair-haired crowd
of men and women and many children, eating all manner of strange food
while they rest, and speaking all manner of strange tongues, carrying the
most uncouth shapeless boxes that trunk-maker of Bergen or Upsal can
devise--such queer oval red-and-green painted wooden cases, more like
boxes to hold musical instruments than for the Sunday kit of Hans or
Christian--clothing much soiled and worn by lower-deck lodgment and spray
of mid-Atlantic roller, and dust of that 1100 miles of railroad since
New York was left behind, but still with many traces, under dust and
seediness, of Scandinavian rustic fashion; altogether a homely people,
but destined ere long to lose every vestige of their old Norse habits
under the grindstone of the great mill they are now entering. That vast
human machine Which grinds Celt and Saxon, Teuton and Dane, Fin and Goth
into the same image and likeness of the inevitable Yankee--grinds him too
into that image in one short generation, and oftentimes in less; doing it
without any apparent outward pressure or any tyrannical law of language
or religion, but nevertheless beating out, welding, and amalgamating the
various conflicting races of the Old World into the great American
people. Assuredly the world has never witnessed any experiment of so
gigantic a nature as this immense fusion of the Caucasian race now going
on before our eyes in North America. One asks oneself, with feelings of
dread, what is to be the result? Is it to eliminate from the human race
the evil habits of each nationality, and to preserve in the new one the
noble characteristics of all? I say one asks the question with a feeling
of dread, for it is the question of the well-being, of the whole human
family of the future, the question of the advance or retrogression of the
human race. No man living can answer that question. Time alone can solve
it; but one thing is certain-so far the experiment bodes ill for success.
Too often the best and noblest attributes of the people wither and die
out by the process of transplanting. The German preserves inviolate his
love of lager, and leaves behind him his love of Fatherland. The Celt,
Scotch or Irish, appears to eliminate from his nature many of those
traits of humour of which their native lands are so pregnant. It may be
that this is only the beginning, that a national decomposition of the old
distinctions must occur before the new elements can arise, and that from
it all will come in the fulness of time a regenerated society:--
"Sin itself be found,
A cloudy porch oft opening on the sun."
But at present, looking abroad over the great seething mass of American
society, there seems little reason to hope for required alteration. The
dollar must cease to be the only God, and that old, old proverb that
"honesty is the best policy" must once more come into fashion.
Four hundred and six miles intervene between Milwaukie, in the State of
Wisconsin, and St. Paul, the capital and principal city of the State of
Minnesota. About half that distance lies through the State of Wisconsin,
and the remaining half is somewhat unequally divided between Iowa and
Minnesota. Leaving Milwaukie at eleven o'clock a.m., one reaches the
Mississippi at Prairie-du-Chien at ten o'clock same night; here a steamer
ferries the broad swift-running stream, and at North Macgregor, on the
Iowa shore, a train is in waiting to take on board the now sleepy
passengers. The railway sleeping-car is essentially an American
institution. Like every other institution, it has its critics, favourable
and severe. On the one hand, it is said to be the acme of comfort; on the
other, the essence of unrest. But it is just what might be expected under
the circumstances, neither one thing nor the other. No one in his senses
would prefer to sleep in a bed which was being bornc violently along over
rough and uneven iron when he could select a stationary resting-place. On
the other hand, it is a very great saving of time and expense to travel
for some eighty or one hundred consecutive hours, and this can only be
effected by means of the sleeping-car. Take this distance, from New York
to St. Paul, as an instance. It is about 1450 miles, and it can be
accomplished in sixty-four hours. Of course one cannot expect to find
oneself as comfortably located as in an hotel; but, all things
considered, the balance of advantage is very much on the side of the
sleeping-car. After a night or two one becomes accustomed to the noise
and oscillation; the little peculiarities incidental to turning-in in
rather a promiscuous manner with ladies old and young, children in arms
and out of arms, vanish before the force of habit; the necessity of
making an early rush to the lavatory appliances in the morning, and there
securing a plentiful supply of water and clean towels, becomes quickly
apparent, and altogether the sleeping-car ceases to be a thing of
nuisance and is accepted as an accomplished fact. The interior
arrangements of the car are conducted as follows. A passage runs down the
centre from one door to the other; on either side are placed the berths
or "sections" for sleeping; during the day-time these form seats, and are
occupied by such as care to take them in the ordinary manner of railroad
cars. At night, however, the whole car undergoes a complete
transformation. A negro attendant commences to make down the beds. This
operation is performed by drawing out, after the manner of telescopes,
portions of the car heretofore looked upon as immoveable; from various
receptacles thus rendered visible he extracts large store of blankets,
mattresses, bolsters, pillows, sheets, all which he arranges after the
usual method of such articles. His work is done speedily and without
noise or bustle, and in a very short time the interior of the car
presents the spectacle of a long, dimly lighted passage, having on either
side the striped damask curtains which partly shroud the berths behind
them. Into these berths the passengers soon withdraw themselves, and all
goes quietly till morning-unless, indeed, some stray turning bridge has
been left turned over one of the numerous creeks that underlie the track,
or the loud whistle of "brakes down" is the short prelude to one of the
many disasters of American railroad travel. There are many varieties of
the sleeping-car, but the principle and mode of procedure are identical
in each. Some of those constructed by Messrs. Pullman and Wagner are as
gorgeously decorated as gilding, plating, velvet, and damask can make
them. The former gentleman is likely to live long after his death in the
title of his cars. One takes a Pullman (of course, only a share of a
Pullman) as one takes a Hansom. Pullman and sleeping-car have become
synonymous terms likely to last the wear of time. Travelling from sunrise
to sunset through a country which offers but few changes to the eye, and
at a rate which in the remoter districts seldom exceeds twenty miles an
hour, is doubtless a very tiresome occupation; still it has much to
relieve the tedium of what under the English system of railroad travel
would be almost insupportable. The fact of easy communication being
maintained between the different cars renders the passage from one car to
another during motion a most feasible undertaking. One can visit the
various cars and inspect their occupants, and to a man travelling to
obtain information this is no small boon. Americans are always ready to
enter into conversation, and though many queer fish will doubtless be met
with in such interviews, still as one is certain to fall in with persons
from all parts of the Union--easters, Southerners, Western men, and
Californians--the experiment of "knocking around the cars" is well worth
the trial of any person who is not above taking human nature, as we take
the weather, just as it comes.
The individual known by the title of "train-boy" is also worth some
study. He is oftentimes a grown-up man, but more frequently a most
precocious boy; he is the agent for some enterprising house in Chicago,
New York, or Philadelphia, or some other large town, and his aim is to
dispose of a very miscellaneous collection of mental and bodily
nourishment. He usually commences operations with the mental diet, which
he serves round in several courses. The first course consists of works of
a high moral character standard English novels in American reprints, and
works of travel or biography. These he lays beside each passenger,
stopping now and then to recommend one or the other for some particular
excellence of morality or binding. Having distributed a portion through
the car, he passes into the next car, and so through the train. After a
few minutes delay he returns again to pick up the books and to settle
with any one who may be disposed to retain possession of one. After the
lapse of a very short time he reappears with the second course of
literature. This usually consists of a much lower standard of excellence
--Yankee fun, illustrated periodicals of a feeble nature, and cheap
reprints of popular works. The third course, which soon follows, is,
however, a very much lower one, and it is a subject for regret on the
part of the moralist that the same powers of persuasion which but a
little time ago were put forth to advocate the sale of some works of high
moral excellence should now be exerted to push a vigorous circulation of
the "Last Sensation," "The Dime Illustrated," "New York under Gas
light," "The Bandits of the Rocky Mountains," and other similar
productions. These pernicious periodicals having been shown around, the
train-boy evidently becomes convinced that mental culture requires from
him no further effort; he relinquishes that portion of his labour and
devotes all his energies to the sale of the bodily nourishment,
consisting of oranges and peaches, according to season, of a very sickly
and uninviting description; these he follows with sugar in various
preparations of stickiness, supplementing the whole with pea-nuts and
crackers. In the end he becomes without any doubt a terrible nuisance;
one conceives a mortal hatred for this precocious pedlar who with his
vile compounds is ever bent upon forcing you to purchase his wares. He
gets, he will tell you, a percentage on his sales of ten cents in the
dollar; if you are going a long journey, he will calculate to sell you a
dollar's worth of his stock. You are therefore worth to him ten cents.
Now you cannot do better in his first round of high moral literature than
present him at once with this ten cents, stipulating that on no account
is he to invite your attention, press you to buy, or offer you any candy,
condiment, or book during the remainder of the journey. If you do this
you will get out of the train-boy at a reasonable rate.
Going to sleep as the train works its way slowly up the grades which lead
to the higher level of the State of Iowa from the waters of Mississippi
one sinks into a state of dim consciousness of all that is going on in
the long carriage. The whistle of the locomotive--which, by the way, is
very much more melodious than the one in use in England, being softer,
deeper, and reaching to a greater distance-the roll of the train into
stations, the stop and the start, all become, as it were, blended into
uneasy sleep, until daylight sets the darkey at his work of making up the
sections. When the sun rose we were well into Minnesota, the-most
northern of the Union States. Around on every side stretched the great
wheat lands of the North-west, that region whose farthest limits lie far
within the territories where yet the red man holds his own. Here, in the
south of Minnesota, one is only on the verge of that great wheat region.
Far beyond the northern limit of the state it stretches away into
latitudes unknown, save to the fur trader and the red man, latitudes
which, if you tire not on the road, good reader, you and I may journey
into together.
The City of St. Paul, capital and chief town of the State of Minnesota,
gives promise of rising to a very high position among the great trade
centres of America. It stands almost at the head of the navigation of the
Mississippi River, about 2050 miles from New Orleans; not that the great
river has its beginning here or in the vicinity, its cradle lies far to
the north, 700 miles along the stream. But the Falls of St. Anthony, a
few miles above St. Paul, interrupt all navigation, and the course of the
river for a considerable distance above the fall is full of rapids and
obstructions. Immediately above and below St. Paul the Mississippi River
receives several large tributary streams from north-east and north west;
the St. Peter's or Minnesota River coming from near the Coteau of the
Missouri, and the St. Croix unwatering the great tract of pine land which
lies West of Lake Superior; but it is not alone to water communication
that St. Paul owes its commercial importance. With the same restless
energy of the Northern American, its leading men have looked far into the
future, and shaped their course for later times; railroads are stretching
out in every direction to pierce the solitude of the yet uninhabited
prairies and pine forests of the North. There is probably no part of the
world in which the inhabitants are so unhealthy as in America; but the
life is more trying than the climate, the constant use of spirit taken
"straight," the incessant chewing of tobacco with its disgusting
accompaniment, the want of healthier exercise, the habit of eating in a
hurry, all tend to cut short the term of man's life in the New World.'
Nowhere have I seen so many young wrecks. "Yes, sir, we live fast here,"
said a general officer to me one day on the Missouri; "And we die fast
too," echoed a major from another part of the room. As a matter of
course, places possessing salubrious climates are crowded with pallid
seekers after health, and as St. Paul enjoys a dry and bracing atmosphere
from its great elevation above the sea level, as well as from the purity
of the surrounding prairies, its hotels--and they are many--are crowded
with the broken wrecks of half the Eastern states; some find what they
seek, but the majority come to Minnesota only to die.
Business connected with the supply of the troops during the coming winter
in Red River, detained me for some weeks in Minnesota, and as the
letters which I had despatched upon my arrival giving the necessary
particulars regarding the proposed arrangements, required at least a week
to obtain replies to, I determined to visit in the interim the shores of
Lake Superior. Here I would glean what tidings I could of the progress of
the Expedition, from whose base at Fort William, I would be only 100
miles distant, as well as examine the% chances of Fenian intervention, so
much talked of in the American newspapers, as likely to place in peril
the flank of the expeditionary force as it followed the devious track of
swamp and forest which has on one side Minnesota, and on the other the
Canadian Dominion.
Since my departure from Canada the weather had been intensely warm:
pleasant in Detroit, warm in Chicago, hot in Milwaukie, and sweltering,
blazing in St. Paul, would have aptly described the temperature, although
the last named city is some hundred miles more to the north than the
first. But latitude is no criterion of summer heat in America, and the
short Arctic summer of the Mackenzie River knows often a fiercer heat
than the swamp lands of the Carolinas. So, putting together a very light
field-kit, I started early one morning from St. Paul for the new town of
Duluth, on the extreme westerly end of Lake Superior.
Duluth, I was told, was the very newest of new towns, in fact it only had
an existence of eighteen months; as may be inferred, it had no past, but
any want in that respect was compensated for in its marvellous future. It
was to be the great grain emporium of the North-west; it was to kill St.
Paul, Milwaukie, Chicago, and half-a-dozen other thriving towns; its
murderous propensities seemed to have no bounds; lots were already
selling at fabulous prices, and everybody seemed to have Duluth in some
shape or other on the brain. To reach this paradise of the future I had
to travel 100 miles by the Superior and Mississippi railroad, to a
halting-place known as the End of the Track-a name which gave a very
accurate idea of its whereabouts and general capabilities. The line was,
in fact, in course of formation, and was being rapidly pushed forward
from both ends with a view to its being opened through by the 1st day of
August. About forty miles north-east of St. Paul we entered the region of
pine forest. At intervals of ten or twelve miles the train stopped at
places bearing high-sounding titles, such as Rush City, Pine City; but
upon examination one looked in vain for any realization of these names,
pines and rushes certainly were plentiful enough, but the city part of
the arrangement was nowhere visible. Upon asking a fellow-passenger for
some explanation of the phenomena, he answered, "Guess there was a city
hereaway last year, but it busted up or gone on." Travellers unacquainted
with the vernacular of America might have conjured up visions of a
catastrophe not less terrible than that of Pompeii or Herculaneum, but
an earlier acquaintance of Western cities had years before taught me to
comprehend such phrases. In the autumn of 1867 I had visited the prairies
of Nebraska, along the banks of the Platte River. Buffalo were numerous
on the sandy plains which form the hunting-grounds of the Shienne and
Arapahoe Indians, and amongst the vast herds the bright October days
passed quickly enough. One day, in company with an American officer, we
were following, as usual, a herd of buffalo, when we came upon a town
standing silent and deserted in the middle the Trairie. "That," said the
American, "is Kearney City; it did a good trade in the old wagon times,
but it busted up when the railroad went on farther west; the people moved
on to North Platte and Julesburg--guess there's only one man left in it
now, and he's got snakes in his boots the hull season." Marvelling what
manner of man this might be who dwelt alone in the silent city, we rode
on. One house showed some traces of occupation, and in this house dwelt
the man. We had passed through the deserted grass-grown street, and were
again on the prairie, when a shot rang out behind us, the bullet cutting
up the dust away to the left. "By G---- he's on the shoot," cried our
friend; "ride, boys!" and so we rode. Much has been written and said of
cities old and new, of Aztec and Peruvian monuments, but I venture to
offer to the attention of the future historian of America this sample of
the busted up city of Kearney and its solitary indweller, who had snakes
in his boots and was on the shoot.
After that explanation of a "busted-up" and "gone-on" city, I was of
course sufficiently well "posted" not to require further explanation as
to the fate of Pine and Rush Cities; but had I entertained any doubts
upon the subject, the final stoppage of the train at Moose Lake, or City,
would have effectually dispelled them. For there stood the portions of
Rush and Pine Cities which had not "bust up," but had simply "gone
on." Two shanties, with a few outlying sheds, stood on either side of the
track, which here crossed a clear running forest stream. Passenger
communication ended at this point; the rails were laid down for a
distance of eight miles farther, but only the "construction train," with
supplies, men, etc. proceeded to that point. Track-laying was going on at
the rate of three miles a day, I was informed, and the line would soon be
opened to the Dalles of the St. Louis River, near the hecad of Lake
Superior. The heat all day had been very great, and it was refreshing to
get out of the dusty car, even though the shanties, in which eating,
drinking, and sleeping were supposed to be carried on, were of the very
lowest description. I had made the acquaintance of the express agent, a
gentleman connected with the baggage department of the train, and during
the journey he had taken me somewhat into his confidence on the matter of
the lodging and entertainment which were to be found in the shanties.
"The food ain't bad," he said, "but that there shanty of Tom's licks
creation for bugs." This terse and forcibly expressed opinion made me
select the interior of a wagon, and some fresh hay, as a place of rest,
where, in spite of vast numbers of mosquitoes, I slept the sleep of the
weary.
The construction train started from Moose City at six o'clock a.m., and
as the stage, which was supposed to connect with the passenger train and
carry forward its human freight to Superior City was filled to
overflowing, I determined to take advantage of the construction train,
and travel on it as far as it would take me. A very motley group of
lumberers, navvies, and speculators assembled for breakfast at five
o'clock a.m. at Tom's table, and although I cannot quite confirm the
favourable opinion of my friend the express agent as to the quality of
the viands which graced it, I can at least testify to the vigour with
which the "guests" disposed of the pork and beans, the molasses and
dried apples which Tom, with foul fingers, had set before them. Seated on
the floor of a waggon in the construction train, in the midst of navvies
of all countries and ages, I reached the end of the track while the
morning sun was yet low in the east. I had struck up a kind of
partnership for the journey with a pedlar Jew and an Ohio man, both going
to Duluth, and as we had a march of eighteen miles to get through
between the end of the track and the town of Fond-du-Lac, it became
necessary to push on before the sun had reached his midday level; so,
shouldering our baggage, we left the busy scene of track-laying and
struck out along the graded line for the Dalles of the St. Louis. Up to
this point the line had been fully levelled, and the walking was easy
enough, but when the much-talked of Dalles were reached a complete
change took place, and the toil became excessive. The St. Louis River,
which in reality forms the headwater of the great St. Lawrence, has its
source in the dividing ridge between Minnesota and the British territory.
From these rugged Laurentian ridges it foams down in an impetuous torrent
through wild pine-clad steeps of rock and towering precipice, apparently
to force an outlet into the valley of the Mississippi, but at the Dalles
it seems to have suddenly preferred to seek the cold waters of the
Atlantic, and, bending its course abruptly to the east, it pours its
foaming torrent into the great Lake Superior below the old French
trading-post of Fond-du-Lac. The load which I carried was not of itself a
heavy one, but its weight became intolerable under the rapidly increasing
heat of the sun and from the toilsome nature of the road. The deep narrow
gorges over which the railway was to be carried were yet unbridged, and
we had to let ourselves down the steep yielding embankment to a depth of
over 100 feet, and then clamber up the other side almost upon hands and
knees-this under a sun that beat down between the hills with terrible
intensity on the yellow sand of the railway cuttings! The Ohio man
carried no baggage, but the Jew was heavily laden, and soon fell behind.
For a time I kept pace with my light companion; but soon I too was
obliged to lag, and about midday found myself alone in the solitudes of
the Dalles. At last there came a gorge deeper and steeper than any thing
that had preceded it, and I was forced to rest long before attempting its
almost perpendicular ascent. When I did reach the top, it was to find
myself thoroughly done up--the sun came down on the side of the
embankment as though it would burn the sandy soil into ashes, not a
breath of air moved through the silent hills, not a leaf stirred in the
forest. My load was more than I could bear, and again I had to lie down
to avoid falling down. Only once before had I experienced a similar
sensation of choking, and that was in toiling through a Burmese swamp,
snipe-shooting under a midday sun. How near that was to sun-stroke, I
can't say; but I don't think it could be very far. After a little time, I
saw, some distance down below, smoke rising from a shanty. I made my way
with no small difficulty to the door, and found the place full of some
twenty or more rough-bearded looking men sitting down to dinner.
"About played out, I guess?" said one. "Wall, that sun is h--; any how,
come in and have a bit. Have a drink of tea or some vinegar and water."
They filled me out a literal dish of tea, black and boiling; and I
drained the tin with a feeling of relief such as one seldom knows. The
place was lined round with bunks like the forecastle of a ship. After a
time I rose to depart and asked the man who acted as cook how much there
was to pay.
"Not a cent, stranger;" and so I left my rough hospitable friends, and,
gaining the railroad, lay down to rest until the fiery sun had got lower
in the west. The remainder of the road was thronged with gangs of men at
work along it, bridging, blasting, building, and levelling--strong
able-bodied fellows fit for any thing. Each gang was under the
superintendence of a railroad "boss," and all seemed to be working well.
But then two dollars a head per diem will make men work well even under
such a sun.