The Sun.
London, England, 1860-10-09 00:00:00

American neighbours, they rash into land specula-
tions more wild and more improvidently hopeless
than any of the bubble schemes which the annals
of Capel•court can show. Such spendthrift aber-
rations throw the colony back for years, for
during the rage of these land fevers—fevers
which no past experience of loss and bank-
ruptcy of provinces seems to mitigate—a tract
of forest in which no man has penetrated will sell
for almost twice the present price of land in Cheap-
side. The value of uncleared land in Upper Canada
varies from 2 dols. to 4 dols. an acre; yet some-
times, during the prevalence of these speculative
epidemics, £6OO sterling per acre has been offered
and refused, and as much as £l2O per foot of front-
age tendered in vain for by-streets in small towns.
Towards dusk the Royal train quitted the cleared
farm lands, and entered upon a tract which the
tremendous Canadian forests hemmed in close,
casting a peculiar sombre gloom, unknown to
autumn evenings, over the little line of rails be-
tween. There is something in the ponderous still-
naess of these forests—something in their wild, torn,
mossy darkness, their utter solitude and mournful
silence which impresses the traveller in a new aspect
each time he sees them—which awake ideas of
melancholy which I wish I could describe, though
I cannot forget. In Upper Canada the endless hills
of pines give way at last, or at most stand thinly
intermingled with gigantic beeches, tall hemlocks,
and ash, with maples, birch, and wild sycamore,
the underwood of these great leafy hills. Mile after
mile and hour after hour of such a route was passed
—a deep black solitude, with here and there a vista
opening up, showing the massive trunks, gray as
cathedral ruins, which bore the rich canopy of
leaves aloft. I call it leaves, for even the hurry of
writing would not excuse its been called a canopy
of green. The winter is closing in fast upon the
sombre glory of the forests, and they stand in such
glowing tints, such deep rich starlets, as if the
leaves were steeped in blood; such piles of glitter-
ing yellows, of pinks, and quiet faded mellow
hues, that you gaze, lost in admiration, as hill after
hills opens out in sheets of burning colour, like the
last grand shower of Nature's pyrotechnics before
they close in frost and snow and darkness for
the winter season. Crossley and other artists
may paint an American autumn, but who can
describe it ? Look at the monstrous pine, that
was barked last year, and which, all dead and
white, seems to spread its lean shrivelled arms
abroad like fleshless bones, trying to stay its fall.
Over the trunk a creeper comes, which, turned to
pink, to purple, gold, and scarlet by a few nights'
frost, droops in festoons of colour like ragged, bril-
liant drapery ; Out so bright, so wild, and graceful
in its quiet curves, that it seems at once both more
and less than natural—the work of a decorator in
its arrangement of colours, such as only Nature's
colours ever give. In the foreground stands a clump
of trees, clustering round in piles of gold, inter-
mixed with wild sycamores of light quick green,
red, purple, crimson, and almost blue. Behind are
trees of every shade of autumn glory, from faded
gold to almost black, while above towers the massive
deep-green pine, unchangeable in its solemn features
as Canada itself, with a host of umbrageous deserters
round it in wrinkled brown and fade leaves of all
hues, rustling to the wind with a sharp dry crackle
as the " fall" comes on them. Let any one who can
from such poor description imagine miles upon miles
of this forest scenery bathed in all the tints of a
stormy sunset, with hill and vale, mountain and
river bank deep swathed in gorgeous robes of hues
like these, and he can then form a poor—though
but a poor—idea of what North American scenery
is during the Indian summer, that bright, quiet,
treacherous forerunner of the severest winter in the
world. Now and then a little clearing was passed
in the twilight, with the log hut wreathed in ever-
greens and flowers, with the settler's family stand-
ing at the door anxiously watching that the train
might pass, and the Prince see their little decora-
tion before night closed in. Windsor, the last town
in the Canadian frontier, and facing Detroit on the
opposite bank of the river St. Clair, was reached
at 9 o'clock. There were plenty of illuminations
and fireworks at Windsor, but the Prince did not
halt a minute, but at once went on board the
little steamer which was to take him across
the river to the United States. All the craft in
the stream were illuminated, bells rang, guns
fired, and rockets shot into the air from every
point. But as the boat approached the landing-place
at Detroit it became almost a serious question
whether the Prince would be able to land at all.
The firemen had turned out with their torches to
endeavour to keep open the line of route between
the landing place and the Russell-house Hotel,
where the Prince was to stay. As long as there was
no occasion for it this route was kept open pretty
well, and the dense crowd of some 25,000 people on
either side of the narrow little strip of fire remained
in tolerable order; but with the arrival of the
I Prince's boat it became impossible to restrain their
eager curiosity, and after swaying heavily and un-
easily backwards and forwards for a few minutes,
the weight of the masses overbore all resistance,
and the whole crowd collected in one dense, solid
throng round where the Prince intended to land.
The firemen kept partly together in one spot, but
their efforts were useless, save in so far as their
torches cast a red gleam over the sea of upturned
faces, and showed at a glance the utter impossibi-
lity of landing till some way was cleared. The car-
riages, though not a yard from the boat, could not
be reached, and even if reached the crowd had
jammed them in in such a manner that moving them
was out of the question. In vain the authorities
tried to force a passage, and in vain the firemen
strove to collect together and keep round the car-
riages ; a regiment of cavalry could not have found
its way through the dense unmanageable throng
which, with hoarse shouts, and the attempts of
some to advance and of others to extricate them-
selves from the intolerable crush, swayed backwards
and forwards in heavy waves of human beings.
The crowd, in fact, was powerless from its own
numbers and density, and the efforts of those who
strove to restore order only made matters worse.
At last, some more resolute or free to move than
others seized the horses of one of the nearest car-
riages and backed them all, kicking and plunging
through the crowd, till alongsiue the steamer.
'l'bis cleared a passage, which the firemen improved
upon so as to form a short, narrow opening, keep-
ing the people back only by desperate efforts and
thrusting their torches against 'those who en -
croachedthe least. Those in front, Isowever, were
as anxious to keep order as the firemen them-
selves ; it was those fter back who pushed on to see
what they thought must be the gorgeous spectacle
going forward, and whose mere weight made it im-
possible for those in front to resist them. Taking
advantage of the little opening made by backing
the carriage, the Prince, with the Duke of New-
castle, the Governor. General, and Earl St. Germans
at once entered the carriage, which soon forced a
passage through the crowd—the sooner, perhaps,
because not a soul knew that the Prince was in it.
No one for a moment seemed to suspect that the
quiet, handsome fair young man, dressed in the
plainest of travelling suits, was really the Prince of
Wales. Perhaps, as travelling in a private capa-
city, the crowd at Detroit did not expect to see
him in his coronet and feathers, but they certainly
looked forward to his being in uniform and at-
tended by a train of gorgeous courtiers bowing to
the dust before his Royal Highness,aner popularlyan and othensvnise
conducting themselves in a manner
posed in the :Western States to be
peculiar to apn-
effete and worn out aristocracy. After two or three
carriages had then departed, and it was thoaght
that the Prince must then really be coming at last,
a great rush was made by the crowd, which over-
whelmed firemen and everything, and surged
heavily up to the water's edge. Mr. Pennefather,
the Governor-General's secretary, with one of the
firemen and a sailor, was forced over the edge of
the wharf into the river, and were near being
drowned before, in the confusion that prevailed,
they could be rescued. Mr. Pennefather had so nar-
row an escape from the wheels of the boat which
had just started that one actually grazed his
shoulder, and took all the skin off. Only by a mid_
den and rather desperate jump back did I save my-
self from a similar inevitable ducking. When the
crowd found that the Prince had really gone there
was a pell-mell rush back to the hotel, round which
thousands crowded till nearly midnight, and all the
passages, doors, ante-rooms' and staircases of which
were quite as crowded as the streets. People seemed
to have an idea that every one who asked to see
his Royal Highness should be admitted at once,
and it was not until some hundreds had been in-
formed that this was quite an erroneous impres-
sion, that they very reluctantly consented to go
away, and leave his Royal Highness to the repose
he so much needed.
On the following morning the Prince drove
round the town. Detroit, though an old French
settlement, is a very new American city—a city
oa
nf somed
hug
e2sstonyeeaarns'd growth,with itsees i
wntiedremsi
intermingled
s
with wooden buildings, which tell houses
of its modern
date and sudden rise Situated on the River St.
Clair, which affords s. len id water communication
Ed
with Lakes Huron and
itrie, and even with Lakes
CiNeel
nict hr
ai glar
mart
and Superior pthoes.ition for commerce
unrivalled,aand
dd
depot for o:
forth long
tlirnmemietnhsaeseobrene nt
r ee
coming from the prairie lands. It is not so
flourishing now, however, and is apparently rather
in the decline, being neither as prosperous nor as
populous as it was five years ago. It is not uncom-
mon in this country to see cities suddenly spring
into wealth and grandeur in the midst of the
prairies, and, after a few brief years of marvellous
prosperity and progress, decline as new favourites
further out west absorb the tide of immigration.
Such is the case with Detroit, the commercial

capital of Michigan. Such,•most likely, in a few
years will be Chicago, that most marvellously
sudden of all the sudden cities here. The corn
depot on the wharfs of Detroit is an immense
wooden building, now crammed up with sacks of
maize and wheat, in winter sometimes full to the
very roof with thousands upon thousands of carcases
of frozen hogs waiting for transport to Canada. In
the centre of the depot was a very pretty fountain,
which struck me as rather an unusual feature, for
" We air a practical people here," and seldom run
to anything like poetical adornment for adornment's
sake. I was told that it had been erected for the
use of emigrants, who arrive here by thousands in
the spring, and who sleep about the depot for days
till hired as " helps," or till their purchase of
prairie land far up in the interior is completed.
Most of these emigrants are Germans and Norwe-
gians. Very few Irishmen come here now, and I
wonder how any come here at all : for your true
American looks down upon the Irish with immea-
surable scorn, regards them as necessary evils for
rough menial work—a sort of free nigger, who at
best is only tolerated on account of a certain slavish
usefulness. Australia is the place for Irishmen, here
their lot is at best that of bitter servitude—of ser-
vitude that gains neither the affection nor esteem of
those who may almost be called their masters. As a
great central corn mart the railways have injured
Detroit almost beyond redemption, but its situation
for commerce is too favourable to allow it long to
remain in its present comparative depression.
The route from Detroit to this city was a long and
tedious affair, a dull monotonous railway journey of
more than 10 hours, though it must be regarded as
a mere trifle to what has to be encountered between
St. Louis and Cincinnati, and Cincinnati and Pitts-
burgh. The Michigan Central Railway is considered
one of the best, if not the very best, in the whole
continent, and if this be true, Heaven shield us
from going in any of the bad ones, for a worse line
I never travelled over. At some parts the car rolled
and jerked like a boat in a rough sea; and if this is
a specimen of a good line, how a really bad one can.
be "navigable" at all I can't imagine. The arrange-
ments at the railway station were not good, and the
crowd of boys and loafers who swarmed up over
the Royal car, pulling down the windows and
thrusting in their heads was so great, that the car
was almost hidden by their numbers. A very little
ordinary care and consideration on the part of the
managers of the station might have saved his Royal
Highness all this annoyance, for however good-tem-
pered he may be, and is, under such inflictions, it
it cannot be otherwise than annoying to any gen-
tleman to be hailed thus, like a wild beast, by a
mob of dirty boys and rowdies. The road from
Detroit for the first 140 miles was of much the same
character as that of Upper Canada—huge peach
trees, however, taking the place of orchards of
apples and pears. The American plan of letting
their peach trees grow wild and free like ordinary
trees, instead of nailing them flat against a wall as
we do, seems to answer beyond what could have
been supposed possible, and even the smallest of
American trees bear more fruit in this manner than
the finest and largest trees in England nailed flat.
At one of the villages where the train stopped to
take in wood and water there was a repetition of
the same barbarous and disgusting curiosity on the
part of men and boys who swarmed all over the
Royal car. This was repeated to a less extent at
another small village, and after then there was no
trouble. There were crowds always, but their be-
haviour was quiet and decorous, and their natural
eagerness to see the Prince never passed the bounds
of quiet marked respectfulness. As the train neared
Michigan city the country assumed a wild deserted
aspect, huge barren sand " dounes" rising on every
side, much of the same wild and desolate kind
which one meets with in crossing Anglesey to Holy-
head. Suddenly the sand hills opened out, and
along a bleak level shore, wet-looking and desolate
as that at Southport, stretched Lake Michigan, in
a huge deep blue expanse, like a colossal mirror. I
never saw a shore more desolate and sterile-looking,
the very lake itself seemed dead and cold, without
a single riple to quicken its dull blue waters into
life. From this point out to Chicago the train
passed over prairie land. If the prairies are im-
pressive at all, they are so by night. There is
something grand in their huge boundless extent,
their gently waving mounds, and thick long grass,
which makes the distant horizon wavy and indis-
tinct as that of the ocean itself. Yet the impres-
sion is almost weakened as mile after mile is
traversed, and still no change from the dull tra-
mendous uniformity of grass plains, always stretch-
ing away on every side, till the land and sky seem
to meet, with not a bush or tree to break the dead
level of the view. Sometimes, but only rarely, a
little swampy patch comes in, half grass, half water,
choked with weeds, and its margin fringed by a few
stunted trees, which, weak and sickly, seem to have
been poisoned by the malaria of the pools which here
give off Quoii ,Tha L.* Ptraeo of 4En
locating violence. Such swamps, however, as I have
said, are rare, and you lose sight of them in an in
stant, amid the long, rich, waving verdure, over
which the wind sweeps with the violence of a strong
sea breeze, keeping the grass undulating for miles
and miles in gentle billows, as if the whole prairie
was in motion. At these times, with cold light of the
moon showing the scene in gloomy indistinctness,
the prairies look grand and mysterious. What they
are by day I do not know, but I start for them to-
morrow, and remain at a prairie farm not far from
where the Prince has gone to shoot, where I shall
have some opportunity of judging of them for at
least two days before going to St. Louis.
The train arrived at this town soon after 8 o'clock
at night, crossing a long viaduct ogr the edge of
Lake Michigan, and in the centre of the water. The
town itself was all astir, and its long lines of houses,
with lights in all their windows, made it at a dis-
tance look not unlike the first appearance of Venice.
There was an immense concourse of people in the
station, but their conduct, though enthusiastic
enough, was quiet and orderly, and contrasted most
favourably with the crowd at Detroit. His Royal
Highness went at once to his hotel, the Richmond-
house, where every preparation had been made for
his reception by the indefatigable courier and
general provider for the Royal party on this
American tour, Mr. Bachmeyer. The authorities
placed police all round the house to prevent unne-
cessary crowding and intrusion, and a band of
Volunteers serenaded his Royal Highness during
the night. On the whole, if the reception at
Chicagois a sample of what his Royal Highness will
meet throughout the United States, it will certainly
leave nothing to be desired, either on the score of
its hearty welcome or utter absence of anything
like annoyance or intrusion. Yesterday the royal
party drove round the city—a city which is really
worth the name, and one which I must not attempt
to dismiss now with a few hurried words before the
mail closes. It is one of that great class of Western
prairie cities now so rapidly springing up, and
which promise, before long, from their importance,
wealth, and quiet, orderly energy of their popula-
tion to effect great changes in the present political
struggles of the United States. As both the present
candidates for the Presidency have been nominated
for this State of Illinois, party feeling just now runs
high here, yet on the night the Prince arrived I
attended a " Wideawake" demonstration, aid their
quiet bearing and solemn, orderly demeanour would
have been a caution to the free and independent
electors of our small towns on almost similar occa-
sions. '1 he royal party left here yesterday for
Dwight, a small village on the prairies, some 70
miles from here, on the way to St. Louis. Here
Captain Retallack, aide-de-camp to the Governor-
General, has taken and fitted up a farmhouse for
the use of his Royal Highness, and from here the
party will sally out each morning for their day's
shouting in the prairies. The prairie hens, how-
ever, are beginning to pack, and I fear the sport
e
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hfeeraltthhwe,
ifttahhtoioguuegth it is not their )fault thaty they are so ,
down a consteiotumuticieorrnelyofolfrotnhi.s long incessant travel-
ling,
excitement, is enough to break
'The Marquis and Marchioness of Chandos came'
over to the Royal train from Detroit to this city.
anddythhaahvee
meand ea a
rm h
uHpi His
he Lordship Upper
Ottawaturous tourists often attempt. even
longer gaenrdj oaudrvneeny.
ship and party go out e
Paul's, the Falls of St. tthe
eFrFoar
West St
t Loosrdt-.
Anthony,o Minie, &c.

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