The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1856-05-01
W. AtM Ard.

II is something Of a marvel that, though
God arrayed His glorious courier the Sun,
in armor, till ssfar his coming shone," and
bade him westward take his way, man should
only have taken the hint day or two ago,
and followed after him.
But the pioneer has become a multitude,
and the multitude numberless, and the drow-
sy East awaking, seeks the West. There is
but one grand cardinal point to-day, though
the poor ignorant needle is slow to learn
it.
Like the dawning of morning has this pro-
gress been. The ssGenesee," a little while
ago, was name to conjure with, to conjure
visions of wilderness, and noiseless foot
falls, and dimmest threads oftrails, and rife
notes and the red light of camp fires among
the trees. A little while since, to set forth
thither, was Il good deal like dying
piece Of business to be done soemnly and
alone, and when long dumb intervals Of time
yawned between the pioneer of the Genesee
and the home he left behind him.
Those will read these paragraphs who re-
member it, and they are not so very old, after
all.
Then Lake Erie was wonderfully dim in the
blue distance, and he who had seen it and he
who had padded canoe upon its waters,
was travelled soul, and had tales to tell, and
q world of ears TO hear them.
BY and by somebody set foot upon Gods
great meadows, that were waiting to be
fenced, and the plough-share cut the sod os
gaily as a ships bows the parting water,
and smokes went up from new hearths, and
songs from new homes.
Now and then, some silly Canute or other
would throw chain upon the advancing
wave, and utter his edict of "thus far and
no --" and the disobedient tide would
wash him impudently up, and tumble him on
still nearer sunset, with the word sfarther"
Just finished upon his lips.
And this last has been in OUR day and here,
in the times when round the lakes foated the
craft to our port, and over the enameled sod
came the prairie schooners.
Then the East stretched forth its hands to
the West with n brace Of iron bars therein,
and the West looked away to the Mississippi.
The old coaches numbered and lurched, and
went down, and over, and under, sometimes !;
then they waited at the terminus of the pio-
neer Railroad, the GALESA, ten miles out,
fifteen miles out, twenty miles out, where,
like the White Nile, it seemed to lose itself
upon the prairie, and had depot and pas
senger house on grand scale--a depot and
passenger house with n blue roof, and cir
cular walls precisely as large as the horizon,
glorious ventilation and an abundance of
room, and all that. And the Canutes came
about again, with their chains and their in
functions, but the Sun, that bright exemplar,
kept on its way to the West, and the roads
followed after, and the world brought up the
rear.
And we here, away here, on the hither
shore Of Lake Michigan--caught ourself
looking on beyond, for strangely enough, we
we're no longer at the West--the West had
slipped by, almost without our knowing it
slipped by on the railroad, by the rivers,
and in the canvas-covered wains, and on
foot with packs, and even in wheelbarrows.
But the West was all abroad, unfenced and
unclaimed and cheap as the great Uncle Of us
all, in the generosity Of his heart, could make
it.
Awhile ago, as We waited here, wondering
who would come next, and how many more
there were to come, the note Of ssBUGLEo