had only one step to take to call himself a citizen of the Union; the Californian in his mind's eye traversed the plains of the Far West, and crossing the Rocky Mountains had already set foot on their inexhaustible mines. The Mormonite, with elevated brow and scornful lip, hardly noticed these shores, but peered beyond to where stood the City of the Saints on the borders of Salt Lake, in the far-off deserts. As for the young lovers, this continent was to them the Promised Land.
In the meanwhile the sky was growing more and more threatening. A dark line of clouds gathered in the zenith, and a suffocating heat penetrated the atmosphere as though a July sun was shining directly above us.
"Would you like me to astonish you?" said the Doctor, who had joined me on the gangway.
"Astonish me, Doctor?"
"Well, then, we shall have a storm, perhaps a thunder-storm before the day is over."
"A thunder-storm in the month of April!" I cried.
"The 'Great Eastern' does not trouble herself about seasons," replied Dean Pitferge, shrugging his shoulders. "It is a tempest called forth expressly on her account. Look at the threatening aspect of those clouds which cover the sky; they look like antediluvian animals, and before long they will devour each other."
"I confess," said I, "the sky looks stormy, and were it
