as his neighbour, a young spendthrift from the
city.

The Western people appear to do nothing
for the love of doing it. They do not enjoy
life. They have no choice or relish of food
apparently, but feed themselves with what is
nearest, as if they thought eating a thing to
be done, and done quickly. As you go
further West, the cars stop less and less time
for meals, until the half-hour for dinner is
shortened to a matter of ten minutes. Most
of the passengers are impatient of even so
much delay, and may be seen picking their
teeth with their forks, or squirting tobacco-
juice, their appetites fully satisfied, some
moments before the warning whistle is heard.
At every meal which I took during my journey,
several relays of eaters came and went
while I was discussing my food, in manner
and form as I was brought up to do. In
Chicago the waiters humoured the fashion of
fast people, making the few slow ones like me
wait meanwhile, by serving the dessert at
the same time with the soup and meats, as if
to afford an opportunity of bridging over
with charlotte russe a possible interval
between boiled and roast. In Saint Paul the
business of the breakfast, the only meal which
I took at a table d'hôte, was what are
regarded as its incidents elsewhere—
conversation, which of course ran on land, and the
morning papers. The despatch which those
who had neither the one nor the other made
was prodigious. It was a question not of
rapidity in mastication, but of rapidity in
provisioning the mouth.

Sooner or later, the noble elements of the
Western character will unfold themselves.
The awkward boy, selfish, the creature of
impulse, with manners as bad as manners
be, may yet make a man. One cannot
rationally expect to see parlour graces upon
the person of a van soldier, who is in the
thick of the battle. England was England
before the gentleman appeared. All
Americans have faith in the West. Give it
time.

Our one day we devoted to the usual
drive to the falls of St. Anthony, which are
not what one would expect of the Mississipi.
They are little more than a continuation of
the rapids, a series of irregular cascades, no
one of which leaps more than seventeen feet.
Sawdust and logs half choke them up, and
their roar is almost overcome by that of the
saw-mills and flouring-mills, which have
seized every available inch of water-power.
The one is well-named by the Ojibway
Indians, Kaboh Bikoh, broken rocks. The
surrounding country is a magnificent prairie,
six miles square, with a line of graceful
hills between it and the horizon. Upon
opposite sides of the river, close to the falls,
stand St. Anthony and Minneopolis, two
model Western cities. The latter, though
but three years old, is treading close upon
the heels of the former, which has reached
the advanced age of seven. As we drove
through them, crossing to Minneopolis by a
wire suspension bridge, just above the falls,
we noted signs of neatness and cleanliness as
well as of thrift and eager growth. We
were soon striking into the prairie, with
Minneopolis at our back and a few
farmhouses on each side upon its outskirts. In
the midst of the plain we encountered an
open barouche. Menelaus was talking loud
upon the front seat, while Helen sat tête-à-
tête with Paris behind. By-and-by, everybody
may be called upon to pity the deserted
Menelaus. Does he deserve pity?

An hour's rapid driving brought us to the
Minnehaha, a merry little stream which
empties into the Mississipi, about midway
between St. Anthony and St. Paul. A few
steps from the main road, we found the falls
of Minnehaha, which Longfellow in his last
poem has helped into notice. The volume of
water is not large: the brook leaps only
seventy feet; but it falls into such a charming
glen, with so merry a laugh, that one
lingers and lingers, to see more of the merry
maid of the forest.

After vainly shouting for Hiawatha, and
bidding his squaw an affectionate farewell,
we drove on and soon reached Fort Snelling.
The Fort, not many years ago the extreme
outpost on the frontier, and latterly little
more than a dépôt of stores and a receiving
place for soldiers, was sold by the government,
a few weeks since, together with its
immense reservation, which includes the
falls of Minnehaha, to one Franklin Steele
for ninety thousand dollars,— a bad bargain,
if not a corrupt one. A fort no longer, its
statistics cease to interest. Its site, sooner or
later to be the site of a great city, is magnificent.
It stands on the verge of an extensive
plateau, where are natural gardens and
orchards and wood in abundance. The soil
stands ready to do everything, for the farmer
but plant his seed. One hundred feet
below, the Mississipi and Minnesota, the
former navigable to the Gulf of Mexico,
nearly eighteen hundred miles, the latter for
five hundred miles, unite their waters. The
air is like the air of mountains, fresh and
bracing. In beauty and amplitude of
resources, I doubt if any situation in the
territory be its superior.

The ferry by which we recrossed the
Mississipi was established by the purchaser
of the Fort Snelling Reservation, in eighteen
hundred and fifty-one, when it produced
three hundred dollars. In eighteen hundred
and fifty-five, its revenue was twelve
thousand dollars, and this year it cannot net less
than double that amount. Of course, we
visited the Fountain-cave on our way back
to Saint Paul. Of course, there was no
fountain, but there was sufficient water to wet
one's feet, and white, spectral sandstone, into
which, armed with tallow-candles, we groped
our way for several rods.