Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1886-12-23
Great Things to BE Seen In America.


A leading journal strikes true chord
when il asks the question: els it in
order to see walled towns that they (the
intending traveler) would have gone
to Europea Where will they come
across one more to their mind than in
the Gibraltar of America. where Quebec
sits on her rock overlooking her mighty
river, with view that has few rivals in r
the world, with her ramparts anS cita-
| del, her medieval streets aud dwellings,
her cathedrals and converts, and
strange schools and foreign tongues and
immortal hisiories2 Is it only ancient
cities they desire? Then there is st.
Augustine among its palmettOs beside
the sea, almost at the extremity of the
continent and almost as old as the dis
covery of the continent Is it SEMI.
tropical beauty of landscape and weather
they would have? Not all the soft
vapored cities by the Mediterranean will
offer them more than Savannah and the
Sea Islands, ....,...... .....
'Is it foreign life they want? Where
| will anything more alien to all our
northern and eastern experience be seen
or heard than in the Rue Royale and
the Rue Bourbon. at the French market
or at the Spanish Fort of New Orleans,
with its mOcking-birds and magnolias,
where, rs late as the middle OF June,
gardens full of jasmine and oleanders,
cape myrtles and palms, with moon
light that might be the northern sun
filtered through domes of crystals, make
one doubt If it be plain, matter-of-fact,
progressive American Or where will
more quaintness and delight be seen
than in the Texas town OF San Antonio.
where the roses lie on tho red roofs of
the long and low dwellings, where the
jalousies are lattieed with the vine of
the 'night-blooming cereus. where the
banana trees blow to ribbons in the
strong sweet southeast gales, and the
lanes are lined with figs and apricots,
aud one walks under avenues of stately
pecans; where forests, draped in mel
ancholy moss, swaying heavily. make
the landscape all unreal; where grape
vines interlace the thickets with stems
the size of forest trees themselves; where
the priests 90 about with fiocks of little
children sclinging, to their skirts, and
where the ruins Of tho old missions rival
in scul ptured wonder many ruins Of old
SpainP Or i II absolute Spain itself
that our friends would travel overp Let
them cross the Rio Grande by rail, and
in Chlhuahua and Sonor:t and the heart
of Mexico they have reached much that
makes old Spainasthey have found the
old Spain OF 400 years ago, and have
! do our travellers want, deserts and
thirst for their summer experienced
They will find deserts la Arizona rival
ing all Africa, with colors, and mirages
that even the Sahei does not give. Do
they pant for Snioantain-c -chmbingP If =.
the White Mountains and the Aileghau-
les do not offer difficulties enough, are
there not Mount ST. Elias, with Its H.
600 feet of altitude, SHASTA and Whit
ney, the terribly sobstruct8d heights of
Sogrls and Of Snow Mass Peak, all the
wild SUBMITS of the Sierras, the fearful
beauty Of the Yellowstone paris. and the
wild grandeur. too lovely to be terrible.
of the YosemiteP And do the Danube,
the Rhine, the Nile allureP Then shall
not the waterseof the Hudson, ,with7its
picturesque reaches. Of the Mississippi,
with its breadth and volume, of the
Columbia, with its gorges and cataracts.
wash out all memory Of lesser and less
beautiful streams. .' a ~. e..
E, Where, for mere beauty, for the de-
light of the eye, can all Europe show us
anything like a blossomng prairie
through which, we may ride all day and
never comeSto the end of the blossom
ingp And what hoary antiquity to
charm the Thought back to the source OF
races has Europe to offer that shall out
do the anclontness of the ruins of our
prehistoric peoples in the heart OF the
continent? In fact, America is SO full
of historic interest and picturesque
loveliness that it is, wonderful anybody
should wish to visit Europe at all be.
fore exhausting it; and ifanything hap
pens to deter people from crossing the
ocean and incites them to become ac-
quainted with their own territory, they
cannot be the losers by Chicago
Western World.