The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1884-03-19
My Young English Friend.

n
Office at Boston, and with winning self
introduction. He was from one Of the
English universities, and wished to enter
the sacred profession in the United States.
He showed scholarship without intending
it, and in modest way, and carried the
general address of the family of gentle
man. We chatted of the Fatherland, her
cities and rivers and mountains. He
spoke of the Thames with the ardor of
young man from its banks and bridges, to
whom as yet it was the greatest of rivers.
His thoughtful and grateful ways of
acquiring information about America
showed that he had not " finished his ed
ucation," and it was satisfaction to tell
him of our country, he 80 welcomed and
enjoyed the facts. He would make this
his adopted country, and give his life to
good work in it, and so wished to know all
he could of it before locating. He was,
as thought, one of those men whom
travel makes intelligent rather than talka
tive. I advised him to travel.
Many young men going into business
with capital of twenty thousand dollars
would probably make broader and better
business men, have more success, and
deeper margin of life for the public good
if they would first judiciously put two
thousand of it into American railroads,
and steamboats, and hotels, and see and
know something of the country between
our two oceans.
"Where had best make headquarters
and kind of center for travel p
"Probably Chicago would be the best
city for the present. For, after Boston,
is not Chicago the next grand center in
North America 2"
How far is it to Chicsgo?"
Something over thousand miles,"
The young Englishman looked at me
with amszement. can now see why, for
travelling a thousand miles from London,
| landward, would take one over many
kingdoms, and show large proportion
of the active part of this world.
GA thousand miles to get center from
which to make these little tours of obser-
walton !"
so things seem to be arranged in
this country. Our national makeup has
thrust these immense distances on us.
But we are trying to overcome them. No
other nation is so troubled, and would
apologize, if it would do any good, for hav.
ing our cities so far apart, with so many
others between them"
As preliminary to the American life
of the young man, to whom found my
self drawn more and more cordially, l
proposed an imaginary trip up the Mis-
sissippi and Missouri, to the head of navi-
cation. He seized the fancy as fresh
run salmon does an artificial fly. Here
the figure ends, for with US it was only a
mutual pleasure. There was hanging on
one wall of my Office moster map of our
country, about twelve feet by eighteen,
that had had made to surprise and in-
form just such persons as himself in New
England. Lifting pointer and turning
to the ample canvas, said:
ave will take light.draught steamer,
that we may run as high as possible on
the Missouri. And we will start here at
New Orleans, hundred miles up from
the mouth of the river. Sixty miles in
land, did you say, London is ?"
He playfully moved his finger on the
map up the river, as if impatient to be
off, and followed, making Baton Rouge,
Natchez, Vicksburg and Memphis and
smaller places, till we rounded to for sup.
plies at Cairo.
GLOW far up is Cairo ?" he inquired
with something between timidity and a
smile.
"Eleven hundred and fifty miles from
the mouth - and he made memorandum
of the figures.
ain following this stream along"
added, "you will need caution at those
forks, for if you take the wrong brook
and run up the Ohio you may find your
self fifteen hundred miles out of the way
at Pittsburgh"
AS we run out the plank, speaking
metaphorically, at the levee at st Louis,
think my foreign friend was surprised to
see three hundred and fifty thousand
people instead of herd of buffaloes, and
among the people, no Indians. Arrived
at the mouth of the Missouri. 80 blocked
and obscured by islands and "tow-heads,
l renewed the cautions of Cairo, saying
"If you miss the channel here you may
fluid your steamer taking shower bath in
the Falls of st. Anthony, seven hundred
and eighty'five miles out of your way
Then in soliloquy, hardly knowing that
| said it, the low-spoken words crept
aloI G "London, sixty miles inland, and
at the head of navigation" We ex.
changed the looks of old friends. W.
passed with our fancy and the pointer Oh
the map, Jefferson City, Lsavenworth, st
Joseph, and by and by ran along between
Council Bluffs and Omaha.
"Here at last" he said, sand my bank
ing friend at Omaha will think | am lost
Well, had no idea we could run so fal
up stream on one steamer in the United
States"
"But, my dear sir, we are not half way
yet. We have run only as far as from
London to Naples"
"What do you mean? This is as fal
as we can go by steamer. Where is you
American Lippincott ?"
handed him that Gszstteer for 1856
which would be recent with the Londo,
Times on American geography, and ht
turned and read
"Council Bluffs, on the west bank o.
the Missouri River, about six hundred
and sixty miles from its mouth, is the
highest point to which steamboats, as
cend."
"O1ly three Mistakes replied. 9Th,
wrong side of the river for Council Bluffs
one hundred and fifty miles too far down
stream, and two thousand and six hun
dred miles below the head of steamboa
navigation. We have yet to run up tn,