miscellaneously through the country, and the hope of bettering their condition has been the magnet which has drawn them to this centre; yet they are thoroughly imbued with the belief that such an act we pre-eminently magnanimous and noble. It can not be denied that there is a peculiar charm —rather poetic than practical, however—in living in a new and unsettledcountry. The verythought of being dependent upon one's own exertions and prudence, au being, at the same time, beyond the pale of recognized social customs, gives at least a marked individuality, and sometimes begets real kindness for others, and always thoughtful prudence for one's self. A thin veneering of civilization, however, dissipates this charm, and we see that vices are more easily cultivated than virtues, even on a virgin soil.
The sun was shining gloriously the morning that we left Winona. The rounded outlines of bluffs on the opposite side of the river were clearly, yet softly defined; the Mississippi rolled southward in the shimmer of a million scintillating sparkles, and the little town itself seemed to have a fresher impetus and energy than ever before. The shrill scream of the locomotive which bore our train westward, seemed quite in unison with the spirit of the place, and an appropriate way of bidding it an energetic "good-by." The three-miles' breadth of prairie was soon passed, and we found ourselves whizzing over a high trestlework above a deep and broad ravine, or rather series of ravines, among the bluffs. Far below us the tree-tops nodded and swayed to their clear reflections in the streams. The shadow of our own train as it passed, with its attendant train of hazy smoke, seemed like some cloudphantom weirdly traversing the fresh, verdant fields beneath us. At times we touched against the side of a bluff, and then again branched off across the valleys.
As we left the river, the bluffs
became more singular in character—the detached ones often bearing a quaint resemblance to the ruins of a fortified castle—and not unfrequently one more striking than the rest would be designated by the title of "Castle Rock." In one place, the cars wound for half a mile around a bluff whose sides seemed a colonnade, in das relief of pale-yellow sandstone. I have never seen in Nature a closer approximation to the artificial. Although it was not difficult to detect the natural causes which had acted upon the soft sandstone, the effect was as ifa Titan colony had fashioned this as a pattern for mortals to copy. Enthusiastic students of Nature have always asserted that Nature furnishes us patterns for every thing, and it is according as we accept or deviate from the model that we fail or succeed. Hugh Miller tells us that it has been proved by statistics from English print-factories that the pattern which has met with the greatest and most lasting success is almost a facsimile of the veins of a coralin the Old Red Sandstone.
On the road between Winona and Owatanna, a point fifty miles directly west, there were, in 1867, but few towns. Owatanna itself was at that time but little more than a railroad station. There were perhaps a dozen houses besides. The elegance of white paint was very sparingly introduced. We only stopped at this town for dinner, and it was gratifying to know that all of the inhabitants assembled to see us eat. A few were walking up and down the platform outside, and occasionally lolling over the window-sill for a nearer inspection; others crowded into the dining-room, and occasionally asked a question of a goodnatured-looking traveler, or volunteered information in regard to the growth and prospects of their city. Pauses in the conversation were filled up by the American pastime of expectoration. During my journey, I had been enraptured with the
