A great, if not the best part of Arizona, Nebraska, Nevada, and Utah are mostly desert.

More or less of California and New Mexico are the same.

A small part of Daho and Texas may, I believe, be included, but my information on these is from hearsay.

There may be much more than the above. I cannot doubt, from what I have seen in the parts I traversed, that there is, but the above is enough to justify my assertion that "a very considerable part of the States is desert."

I would I could give a map here of the States with all the deserts painted yellow. No map extant delineates these vast wastes. I am afraid to hazard a guess what proportion the said painted parts would bear to the whole, but enough, I am sure, to make the reader wonder as I did.

How enormous these deserts are may be judged of by the fact that the four first states in the list above are together roughly about one third larger than France ... and that the far greater part of them, to say the least, are howling wastes!

A great part of these vast tracts are as truly desert as those in Africa. Sand and nothing but sand; water would have no effect as regards fertilization, and, besides, there is no water. But other parts are different. Not more tempting to the eye, what looks like sand has vitality in it. Water produces a wonderful transformation, and crops, trees—everything will grow with its aid. Thus, in this better class of desert and in the favoured spots where water is procurable, the said blank waste becomes a smiling spot. Such is the desert the Mormons have fertilized, such, as a rule, the deserts in California. Much of the splendid fruit that state produces has its birthplace in such localities.

Where the deserts of the last-mentioned kind are found, did anything like a moderate rainfall happen yearly, they, of course, would not exist. But rain in these localities is very rare, as indeed it is all over the world in such spots. The want of rain, I conceive, makes the desert, and the arid waste responds by keeping off the rain. It is well known vegetation conduces to rainfall, and that a country thickly wooded, when cleared, has less rain after. I have myself seen striking instances of this. On the other hand, vegetation and rain increase simultaneously. It may be, therefore, that, in the course of very many years, a portion of the American deserts will disappear, for where the soil has any vitality in it, and water is procurable, artificial means will bring vegetation, which again, little by little, will increase the rainfall; until at last (it may take centuries) the now said desert tracts will thrive with the rain from heaven alone.

While on the subject of rain, I would mention some curious facts. From what we know of the climate in different European localities (or rather let us confine ourselves to Great Britain, where the western parts, especially Ireland, near to and exposed to the effects of the Atlantic, have an increased rainfall), we (by "we" I mean others, like me, ignorant of meteorology) would think the western Pacific coast of America, with that boundless ocean (far wider than the Atlantic, and stretching across to Asia) in front would fare likewise. But it is not so. In fact quite the reverse. On the greater part of that coast, up to about latitude 42 deg. north, the rainfall is exceedingly scanty, so much so that very little vegetation will thrive without artificial watering, and though north of 42 deg. there is much more, it is still less than on our western coasts. The deficiency cannot arise, except very partially, from lack of vegetation, for though the said coast, south of 42 deg., is very bare, not far back exists a high and well-clad mountain range.[6]

What is the cause I know not, perhaps meteorologists do, I only state the fact. But more: though not to the same degree, all the large tract west of the Rocky Mountains has a deficient rainfall, and artificial irrigation is more or less resorted to everywhere. I shall have more to say as to how it is done when, later, I describe the Antelope Valley.

I left the description of the journey when in the desert, and now return there. As the line enters the State of Arizona it begins to descend. It had ascended previously, which had made the heat bearable. But a few hours of descent made a woful change. Coats, waistcoats were discarded by the men, while the female passengers followed suit as far as they could. No use! we all gasped and panted and used many pocket-handkerchiefs. The temperature rose higher and higher, and the night was the worst, for we were then at the lowest point. Between Tucson and Yuma the heat was simply infernal. I believe this tract is the bed of what, ages ago, was an inland sea; anyhow it had all the appearance of it, and I was later told geologists thought so too. It is, to say the least, very likely, for Yuma, I heard, is several hundred feet below sea-level. The latitude is 32 1/2 deg. north, a warm latitude in any case, but with desert for hundreds of miles all round, with perhaps as low an elevation as exists on earth, shut in on all sides so that not a breath of air can get at it, what wonder that Yuma and all about there is hot? I have experienced great heat in many parts of the world, but Suez, the Red Sea, the hottest parts of India, are a joke to what I felt there. I have since heard it has the reputation of being the hottest place on earth!

Between Yuma and the head of the Gulf of California is about eighty miles. It would not therefore be difficult to let the water of the ocean into this dry bed, and make a large sea there, the same as they propose to do in Northern Africa.

Yuma is on the boundary-line between the States of Arizona and California, but it is some six hours further west by rail ere you leave this supposed dry sea bed and begin to ascend. California had been painted to me in such bright colours, both in England and America, I could not, when daylight came the following morning, and there was still nothing but desert, believe we were really there. But so it was. We ascended for some hours, and the climate bettered as we did so, until at last we could breathe once more, but the desert was still there, and it was not till we came near Los Angeles, which is some 150 miles beyond Yuma, that we began to encounter vegetation. Los Angeles (the Angels) was so named by the Spaniards who founded it. It is on the barren Pacific coast alluded to, but the soil is of desert kind number two, that is, it has vitality in it, and water makes it fertile. Thus by artificial means (for of rain there is very little) the environs of the town are highly cultivated. Fruit is the main product. The grapes are magnificent, so are the peaches, in appearance at least, but they lack flavour. This defect is common to that fruit all over California; but I need not enumerate each kind of fruit grown, all that thrives both in temperate and semi-tropical regions is found there, and, the peaches excepted, all first rate of their kinds.

It was here I first appreciated the cheapness of fruit in California. A big basket of splendid black grapes, which at the cheapest time in London would cost say eight shillings, I bought there for a few cents, say sixpence, and all other fruit in proportion.

I did not stay at Los Angeles; I was anxious to see my sons in the Antelope Valley, and we were now nearing it. I omitted to mention that while I was at New York, I received a letter from them, in it they told me that I had been grossly deceived, and that the said valley was, to repeat their words, "an out-and-out do." That nothing could be done there, that I should never stay, &c., &c. Of course I was much disappointed, but as they were there, I must join them, and I determined to see for myself. Thus, in spite of their warning, I had come to California.

A few miles from Los Angeles the country became bare again. No trees, no vegetation, sand everywhere, with low hills, but they were sand too. "Is all California like this?" I asked in despair of an intelligent American near me. "Yes," he answered, "pretty nearly so, south of San Francisco. North of that city there is rain and any amount of vegetation." My after experience showed me he was right, but he qualified his statement. The mountain range, which runs down the middle of this great country, is, he told me, richly clad, and any amount of vegetation exists on either side some miles from its base. This, he explained to me, is partly due to the greater rainfall there (the hills and the vegetation on them being the cause), partly to the rivers and streams issuing from this mountainous region, and fed by the melting snows. Along their course for miles into the plains, the country is thus watered, in a measure naturally, partly by artificial means. He also told me that the waste and desolate country we were then traversing only wanted water to make it fertile.

We were very near the Antelope Valley by this time, and I asked him if he knew it. "Of course I do," he replied, "you are not going there are you?" I told him all I have told the reader. "Well, it might be worse," he added, "there are quite a few there now, sent out by the same man (I know him well) from the mother country, who would go away to-morrow if they could, but they have spent their all to come, and are now in a tarnation fix. You take my advice, don't you stop there. Take your sons with you, and be off while you can." I asked him if doing anything there was hopeless? "Not at all," he replied "if you've got lots of money, and can import labour, which does not exist there, if you sink a lot of artesian wells (they run expensive), and if when sunk they prove a success (the last two have been failures), if you care to live in such a barren spot, and like a hot climate and the fiery glare from the sand. I might add a few more 'ifs,' but I've said enough. Given water (the rain I guess would not wet your pocket-handkerchief through six times in a twelvemonth), the soil will grow most things, but then you see there is no water, and as for the artesian wells, when successful, they can each only irrigate a small area; but here we are in the valley."

We had been passing through some deep cuttings lately, and had now entered a vast plain bounded by distant hills. No trees of any kind were in sight, the soil sand, but browner than most I had seen. Every few feet was a little shrub, some two feet high, what I know not, but a miserable specimen of vegetation, and besides this not a stalk or leaf anywhere. A more miserable site I have never set eyes on. We passed miles and miles, all the same, till we came to where I had been told to have my letters sent, "Lancaster City"! The last two miles before arrival, an attempt had certainly been made at cultivation. A few acres of alfalfa (a productive American grassy crop), some rye, Indian corn, vegetables, and what not. But the whole area was not fifty acres, the cultivators inhabiting plank huts alongside. The train stopped at the station, and lo! Lancaster City lay around. It consisted of one decent-sized, two-storied building, viz. the hotel, two stores, a saloon, and half a dozen huts. Not another edifice, and the dreary plain described for miles and miles around. This was the haven, the Eden, I had come some six thousand miles to attain!

The hotel, quite close to the line, had an open verandah to the upper story, and the rail in front had some thirty or more pairs of boots and shoes apparently attached to the top bar. Still it could scarcely be so, for only the soles were visible. Presently, as the train drew up, some of the boots disappeared, and men took their place. Gradually it became evident that each pair of soles represented an individual, who lay luxuriously poised on the back legs of a chair, with his feet up in the true American posture, which, however, mind you, I in no way decry, being much given to it myself. I had telegraphed to my sons to meet the train, and there they were as I got out. But they were both so sunburnt I scarcely knew them. Luckily the train stayed half-an-hour, so there was time to arrange matters. I plied them with questions. The answers were all to the same effect, viz. that the Antelope Valley (they had seen it from end to end) was in every part as what lay before us. That there existed no hope of doing anything in it, and that the only wise thing was to get away as quick as possible. They told me that the same agent who had sent me out, had also induced all the boot-owners in the verandah to come, and that far the greater number would go away at once, had they the means to do so. Also as to the last artesian wells being failures, and this being so that all hope was gone. Every day or two a fresh lot of victims arrived, and that none with means stayed above a few hours. I mentioned the fruit specimens I had seen in London, they and the bystanders laughed, and averred there was not any fruit in the valley. They told me much more, which was all corroborated by several who had come out of the hotel, and it was really only necessary to look round to be convinced the Antelope Valley was in every sense a miserable tract.

I determined to take my sons on with me by the train. They had supposed I would do this, and were all ready. But there was a difficulty. They had no money, and I had not enough, so I was obliged to leave them there until I could send back funds from San Francisco. I thus went on alone, bidding good-bye to the dreary Antelope Valley for ever.

Night fell soon after, and next morning there was cultivation around, together with enormous orchards of fruit. Soon we reached the terminus on the splendid bay of San Francisco, and steamed across in a ferry larger and even more luxurious than those at New York, which I described.

So my journey was done, and I stood in the great western capital of America, which so many have heard of, and so few, comparatively, seen. "What have I come for?" I asked myself as I landed, and echo answered "What?"

But San Francisco, if any city on earth does, deserves a chapter to itself.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] These letters, I was told by my sons and others, were in no way genuine.

[3] Broadway should be called Longway. It is very long; it is not at all broad.

[4] In Belgium, not only are the classes distinguished by numbers, but the carriages are painted different colours. This is the best plan of all.

[5] This may be partly accounted for by the fact that the said American deserts are all, or nearly all, on the west side of the Rocky Mountains, and that this distant part of the States has not hitherto been very much visited by Europeans.

[6] This is the great range of hills which runs, north and south, pretty well through the whole 800 miles of latitude California occupies. The vegetation on these mountains is luxurious, and some of the forest-trees are of an incredible size. Much beautiful scenery exists there.



CHAPTER IV.

San Francisco—Army and Navy—International Court—Pacific coast—Californian ranch—Social customs—Good-bye, California!

No one, who has read so far, can think I am unduly prejudiced in favour of America and the Americans. I have tried to write fairly, and point out in what respects their institutions, habits, &c., excel ours; but, on the other hand, I have criticized in no sparing language what I consider are faults or peculiarities distasteful to outsiders, and possibly there is more blame than praise in the foregoing pages. If now, therefore, I write strongly in favour of the great capital of Western America, it ought to be accepted as truth.

I have travelled much and seen many cities and towns in different parts of the world, but I have seen nothing to equal San Francisco—not in size of course, but in every respect which makes a town a desirable residence.[7] Climate is the most important, so I will dilate on that first. There is much about it that puzzles me, and that I cannot explain. I leave the solution to others, and confine myself to the facts. There are no extremes of temperature in San Francisco, neither the days nor nights are ever either uncomfortably hot or cold. In summer the usual temperature is warm enough before noon to wear light clothing, but about one o'clock a breeze sets in from the bay and the ocean which reduces the heat considerably, and which sometimes blows stronger than is quite pleasant. This is the only possible fault that any one can find in the climate, and the said periodical wind only lasts for the three or four midsummer months. Winter there differs but little from summer, frost and snow are unknown, and inasmuch as in winter the said periodical sea-wind is quite absent, I have heard many of the inhabitants aver that winter is, in the daytime at least, warmer than summer! Whether this be so or not, it is a fact the winter days are very charming, for as a rule there is a total absence of clouds, fogs, or mist, and the sun shines merrily in a bright blue sky from sunrise to sunset. In that latitude (38 deg.) the sun has considerable power even in the winter. The want of rain on the Pacific coast, south of latitude 42 deg., applies of course to San Francisco. I was there about five weeks. It only rained twice, and not more than one quarter of an hour each time. I stupidly forget what the yearly rainfall is, but very small, I know. How odd, by the bye, are the variations of rain in different parts of the world. Let us guess San Francisco at ten inches, I doubt if it is so much. Here in England put it down at thirty-two inches, though the west coast of Ireland is, I expect, nearer fifty inches. In the tropics, say, 130 inches, though I have been in one place where 300 fell. But there is a spot in Bengal which has the largest rainfall in the world, viz. 600 inches. Fancy, fifty feet of rain! The place is a hill-station, by name "Cherra Poonjee," and the country is so steep none of the rain can lie on it.

With so little rain, fine weather at San Francisco is nearly continual the year round. The air is very dry. It is seldom too hot, never too cold; there are no dark, gloomy days. What more can any one desire? Verily it is, without exception, by far the finest climate on earth.

But there is an odd feature. The above is the climate of San Francisco; it is not the climate of a dozen miles off, either north, south, or east (the west is of course the ocean). For instance, Sacramento, a large town lying north-east about fifty miles, is a very hot place, and abounds with mosquitoes, which are unknown in the capital.

San Francisco resembles New York in the paucity of cabs. Here again nearly every one travels in the street cars. Horses are used in a few of them, but with most the motive power is steam at one end of the route, which works an endless rope. This wire rope runs on rollers under ground between the rails, and there is an orifice from end to end in the roadway above the said rope. Through this said orifice or narrow slit, a pair of pinchers, connected with the car, descends and nips the rope, which runs continually. The said pinchers are made to grip and loose the rope as required.

When you first see these monster cars, with no apparent motive power, rushing about the roads and streets and climbing the steep hills of the town, the effect is very strange. When I first did so I made sure they were driven by electricity. The said cars are of great size, and most luxuriously and conveniently fitted up; with excellent springs and smooth rails, they glide over the ground at about eight miles an hour, with no perceptible motion. A ride in them is most enjoyable.

Market Street is the principal one. It is a noble thoroughfare, at least twice the width of Broadway in New York, with trees on either side, and very wide pavements. The buildings, mostly stone, cast into the shade anything we can show in London, and nowhere on the Continent have I seen such a main artery to any town. The Palace Hotel in it is by far the largest and finest in America, and even those we have here in Northumberland Avenue are more or less small in comparison. It is an enormous, very lofty quadrangle, with inner verandahs on each story, built round a spacious court, which is glazed in at top of the building. I forget how many hundred bed-rooms it contains. The interior is also a model of luxury and comfort. In every department money has been lavishly spent, and the result is that the Palace Hotel is possibly the largest and best in the world. The charges also, considering the comforts offered, are by no means high. I believe it was built by one man out of the enormous fortune he accumulated in the first gold days, but what is the result of the speculation I could not ascertain.

There is a large and very beautiful park outside the town. Trees, shrubs, and flowers from all parts of the world are collected therein, while for those that require tropical temperature huge glass buildings are provided. All testifies to a luxurious growth, and the smooth, closely-shaven, mossy grass is of a picturesque bright emerald green. It is all artificial! Neither grass, shrubs, flowers, or trees would grow at all did they depend on rain alone. Everything is irrigated. Below the surface a network of waterpipes runs in all directions with taps available everywhere. I was much struck by the way the turf is watered. The water is forced with great power through minute orifices in the large splay metal end of a hose, ascends some thirty or forty feet, and falls exactly in the form of very fine rain; thus every blade of grass is moistened. Wonderful indeed is the effect as you stand at the park entrance and compare the scene outside and within. The dry, baked soil, innocent of vegetation on the one hand, the luxurious growth of many lands combined on the other, interspersed with a green sward you long to fling yourself down and roll on!

The Bay of San Francisco is the finest harbour in the world. The navies of all nations could congregate and manoeuvre in it. It is simply a huge inland salt-water lake communicating with the ocean. There is only one entrance, the Golden Gates, possibly one-third of a mile wide. It is commanded by fortifications, built on the rocks on either side, but these being stone appeared to me ill adapted to the enormous forces gunnery can exert to-day. Just outside the Golden Gates, lashed by the waters of the Pacific, is a large solitary rock, called the Seal Rock. Hundreds of seals live on it, finding their food in the ocean. No one is allowed to molest them, but the fishermen on the coast cannot regard them with favour, for they must devour tons of fish daily. The said rock, covered with seals, some sleeping, some playing, rolling off into the water, and clambering out of it, is a very curious and characteristic sight as you enter the bay.

Living in San Francisco is very cheap as regards the cost for food. Fruit, as I have said, is far cheaper there than anywhere in the world. It is quite incredible what a few pence will procure in that way. Enough of splendid grapes, apricots, greengages, currants, strawberries, and what not to last three or four people several days. The price of meat too is very low. Mutton or beef, which costs here in England say 10d., per pound, can be had there for 3d. to 4d. Vegetables are the same. Bread is cheap too, say three-quarters the price it commands here. Thus very little will keep body and soul together in San Francisco, but outside bare necessaries in the way of food, most things are dear. Groceries are about the same cost as in England. Furniture, and the many things required in a house, are all much dearer, but this of course only affects the poor in a measure. There are no beggars, no very poor, in San Francisco, for labour is in demand; the climate necessitates but a small outlay for fuel and clothes; and as for food, what better meal than bread and grapes, the latter to be had almost for the asking.

San Francisco is a very cosmopolitan town. All nationalities are to be found there. In the first gold fever days crowds poured in from all parts of the world, and they or their descendants are there still. Perfect as San Francisco is as a city, it is not thirty years since a small fishing village alone stood there. How such a perfect town has been erected in the time is truly a wonder, more wonderful still that in so many respects it should excel other capitals.

There are curious stories told of those gold-fever days. How law and order there was none. A man there at that time held his life by a frail tenure, viz. only as long as he could himself take care of it—

"The good old rule, the simple plan, That they should take who have the power, And they should keep who can,"

held in California at that time. Later, as San Francisco enlarged, as the first attempts to put down violence and bloodshed were made, gambling in the gold stocks and mines assumed huge proportions. New mines, or new water-courses rich in gold dust, came forward daily. Shares often attained one hundred times their original value in a week. Beggars became rich, the millionaire a pauper in the same time. We shudder when we read of a suicide at "Monte Carlo" once or twice in the season. At the time of which I write there were often two or three at San Francisco in a day! That it should be so, was perhaps natural, for never, I believe, in this world's history were there such violent and sudden ups and downs as California then witnessed.

While I was at San Francisco an English man-of-war came into the bay. She was an object of great interest, and crowds flocked on board to see her—the result a wholesome appreciation of England's naval power. The fighting power of the United States at sea is very limited. She has really no navy to speak of. Odd that it should be so, but it is no less a fact. Congress is well aware of this, and admits it. But it will not be long thus, for the Americans realize how truly helpless they are in this way, and have commenced to remedy the defect as fast as they can. The United States, almost as much as England, need fear no foes except from over the water, but her position to-day in that respect is a sad one. Did war occur between Great Britain and the States, there is not a town on her sea-board which could not be annihilated by British men-of-war. America, isolated as she is, need fear no European or Asiatic convulsions, and the time is distant, if it ever come, that Canada, without England's support, though her neighbour, will be able to cope with her in the field. But to give her a voice among nations, a navy is a necessity, and, as I have said, she has now fully realized that fact.

Of the United States' army I can say but little, for I saw but little of it. That little I was not favourably impressed with. No one who recalls the war between the North and South, can doubt the material is at hand, the question is whether the best is made of it. The physique of the American (national physique can only be spoken of generally) is perhaps not equal to the physique of some European nations, still the inferiority, if it exists, is slight, and physique has not so much to say in battle now as in times gone by. A soldier is more of a machine to-day than he was then. Courage given, it is discipline, coolness under fire, self-reliance, all teachable qualities, which makes the individual valuable. Has the American soldier these qualities in perfection? I rather doubt it from the little I saw. I have trained soldiers myself, and from rough materials (I raised a cavalry regiment of Albanians during the Crimean War, and previously served with the native army in India), so I speak with experience.

While armies and navies of large dimensions are necessities for nations to-day, is it always to be so? Because one nation, as Germany, has bloated armaments, must others have the same? Is there to be no limit to the fighting-power each nation must have on hand, with the waste of labour, the misery, the poverty entailed on the masses thereby? Cannot international arbitration supersede the roar of the cannon, the brute force which now decides the differences of nations? The Almighty has made man a reasoning animal, and yet in spite thereof the ultimate resort is senseless slaughter. Shame to the age that it should be so! Why cannot Cobden's great idea of an international Court, to decide national disputes, be carried out? The difficulties in its way are, I believe, more imaginary than real. I have thought on this matter so long, and most willingly would I lay down my life to-morrow to see the attempt made. Suppose two or three powerful nations, say France, England, and one other, commenced it. At the request of either of two nations disputing, both should be called on for the facts, and the judgment given. The powers composing the Court should be bound by united action and force of arms to compel obedience to their mandate. The Court once formed would issue invitations to all other powers to join, that is, to appoint members and delegate them to the said Council. Those kingdoms that did join would realize the advantage that their representatives would form part of the deciding body in any case in which they were directly or indirectly interested, while those that held aloof would lack this benefit, and yet be amenable to the decision, if the opponents in any quarrel asked for the judgment of the said Court. What nation would eventually hold aloof? Verily none, I believe, for though in any possible case it might be that the establishment of such a Court was not approved of, yet once constituted, to keep out of it would necessarily be a losing game. The only way that any power could keep clear, and still hope to hold its own, would be by holding fighting forces in hand equal to, or superior, to the combined power of all the nations forming the Court, which would be simply impossible.

Such a Court once established would increase in numbers quickly, until the whole civilized world had joined, and then war, among the said civilized nations, would be at an end, or rather, if there was war, it would be the many against the one, a justifiable, a quick, decisive war, with only one possible ending. The first would probably be the first and last!

Then would armies be reduced to the small dimensions necessary to enforce order in each country. Then would the sufferings, the dreadful horrors entailed by war, cease. Then would the millions sterling of expenditure on bloated armaments, representing incalculable labour wasted, come to an end, and thus allow of light taxation. Then would there be food for all, and, as a consequence of less want, less crime. Then could great works, benefiting all mankind, be executed. Then would man progress as he has never done yet. In a word, the millennium, at present a religious myth, would then be realized!

Oh! that abler pens than mine, that some great statesman, would take this subject in hand. That the press would agitate it, that nations would try and carry it out, not on the rude outlines I have given, so faulty in all but intention, but on the collective wisdom of the great and wise on earth. If it failed, what harm? If it succeeded, what millions yet unborn would bless their efforts!

As I write I see that the great European Powers are about to deliver an ultimatum to Greece, backed with force if disregarded, to stay her warlike preparations against Turkey and disarm. Of the wisdom of the step, both in the interests of Greece and the said great Powers, there can be but one opinion, viz. that it is well. But of the right so to act on the part of the Powers, of the justice thereof, I do not think there can be the same unanimity in the affirmative. I for one think the Powers are in no way justified. Were Greece a great kingdom instead of a very little one, they would not do so. The fact of her being weak can be no argument in favour of the course taken. When France wantonly tried to invade Germany some years back, there was quite as much, nay more, reason for united action to restrain her. But such an idea was never mooted, simply because France is a great Power. As things are, and always have been, any nation can, and does, make war on the most frivolous pretexts, often wars of aggression and conquest on no pretext at all. How often has England done so! What right, except conquest, have we to the whole of Hindustan which we hold to-day? How would England, or any great Power, have brooked interference such as is exercised in the case of Greece now? No. As things are among civilized nations to-day, I see not how the action of the powers in this case can be defended, except on the score of expediency, for, in truth, the interference is most unjust and arbitrary.

But what is wrong now would have been right had an international court been previously convened, and had Turkey asked for arbitration. What is taking place to-day, and the result, if the Powers are firm, viz. the avoidance of a bloody war, and the risk of other nations being drawn into it, Europe possibly in a few months in a blaze—all this evil set aside, by the action of the many against the one, is surely an example in favour of an international Court to settle national disputes.

Arbitration has made progress in nationalistic public favour during the last few decades. But, alas! it is only when both disputants sue for it that it is exercised. As I have said, my idea is that the proposed Court being formed at the request of one of the parties, judgment should be given. If neither applied, then let them fight it out. But this last, I think, would be rare, and more, I think many will agree with me, that when in a few years the advantages of the Court would be recognized by all nationalities, and its members were consequently many, they would with general sanction enact that all national disputes should be laid before them for decision.

Such are my crude ideas on this all momentous subject. There is none on earth with a tithe of its importance. Will international arbitration ever be an accomplished fact? I think yes for the following reasons:—

Much as it argues degradation in man, or want of even common sense if he allows the present state of things to continue, it has lasted for all time, and may well, therefore, march yet awhile. But there are forces at work which will compel him, sooner or later, to ponder the subject. I think possibly the progress of Socialism will one day cause the masses to refuse to fight, and lay down their lives for the ambition, the purposes, of the few. But if this fail, and it is, I admit, only a possibility, there is still looming a more potent and likely hindrance to war in the wonderful power of attack over the power of defence. Already, by the use of torpedoes (still in their infancy) the largest iron-clads can be destroyed by two or three men in a small boat. Can we suppose that invention in this respect will stay where it is? In a few years it may well be that either in this direction or some other we wot not of, the whole of a national fleet will be in the power of one man with destructive engines at command. Will this not stop maritime warfare? Further, think you invention, science, will be idle as regards the annihilation of armies? How many new destructive agents, how many new modes of applying them, the last few years have brought forth. Is there to be no more progress? Is it not reasonable to suppose that, in time, even armies will be at the disposal of a few? When that day comes, how can nations continue their senseless wars? What then will remain but international arbitration? This generation may not see all the above, but science is no laggard in these days, and the next possibly will. Why wait for it? Let us do now what they will be obliged to do then, and avoid all the intervening misery.

But enough, for this book is supposed to be on America, and the above is a sad digression.

I have not much more to say about San Francisco (its pet name is Frisco), and this reminds me of the great affection some Americans have for California, and especially its capital. On my way west I met a man in the train who had lived a long time in California and knew the capital well. In answer to my inquiries, he replied, "California is God's country, I can't say more." He did, however, say a great deal more, for he lauded it in every way, and as for "Frisco," he only wondered how any one, who could live there, lived anywhere else. Others also spoke to me in the same way. I need scarcely say my later experience, while corroborating their opinions of the capital, stopped short there. The real fact is that the State of California has been very much overrated—"distance has lent enchantment to the view,"—for while San Francisco is truly next door to a Paradise, the said state cannot with truth be much eulogized. It is the first fruit country in the world, and when irrigation is possible it is in many parts wonderfully fertile; but, like all spots on earth where there is a deficiency of rain, the general outlook is far from pleasant. Up north of San Francisco it is, I believe, better, for there is much more rain, but I did not go there.

One of my objects in going to America was to start my sons on land of their own, and though much disappointed with what I had seen of California, I inquired there about land. I found it could be had from the Government on very easy terms, but that all worth anything had been taken up long ago. There were enormous tracts, millions of acres, free, but it was either forest, necessitating a large outlay to clear it, or some equally valid reason why it had not been hitherto appropriated. It was, of course, possible that, travelling about and spending months in searching, some land well worth having might be found, but after much inquiry I had come to the conclusion that cattle-raising was the best thing to go in for, and I need hardly say that California, with its small rainfall and consequent want of grass is not a good cattle-raising state. Still I continued my inquiries. I found there was any amount of land held by private owners for sale, but that very high prices in every case were asked. The idea of all landowners there seemed to be that it was only a question of time before numberless emigrants of all classes would pour into California, and that when that day came even much higher prices than now asked would be realized.

I came to quite an opposite conclusion, and have not wavered from it since. I do not think there will ever be a large tide of immigration into California; and I think, moreover, that, ten years hence, the present owners of land there will be glad to take far less than they ask for it now. Great efforts are being made at San Francisco, by a large and well-organized staff, and in a most efficient way, sparing neither time, money, nor labour, to attract immigrants into California from all parts of the world. Numberless pamphlets and maps, describing the country, where and how land can be had, what it will grow, the enormous crops produced, its wonders as a fruit region, &c., &c., are being published, and sent to many countries, as well as all over the States. In all these there is much truth, and I need scarcely add, the source being American, much exaggeration, and, worse still, important omissions. The great feature of the country, want of rain, though allowed in a passing way, is made light of, and the facilities of irrigation dwelt on. I doubt not the said publications have, and will, attract (I am one instance), but as few will be satisfied after arrival, the real truth will eventually be known, and therefore, I think, the great tide of emigrants looked for will fail.

Though California, as I have said, is not well suited for raising cattle, I was surprised to find at San Francisco that cattle ranches existed, and several were advertised for sale. I determined to go and see one. It was situated down south, possibly two hundred miles from the capital, and not far from the Pacific coast. I took one of my sons with me. We went down in a coasting-steamer, stopping at different places en route. The coast was the same in character all the way down, patches of cultivation here and there where irrigated, but otherwise brown-baked earth, be it hill or plain, with nothing on it. I have never seen a less inviting coast. We landed at some of the places we called at, and inspected the country as far as we could in the given short time. The towns were clean and nice, and some houses had gardens attached, but outside the town limits always the same dry-baked earth and no vegetation or trees. The heat, which more or less prevails in inner California, is tempered by the Pacific on the coast. "Charming climate, woful country," my son exclaimed, and I quite agreed with him.

Some twenty hours on board brought us to our destination, the port of San Obespo, and a short railway took us up to the town, where we hired two saddle-horses on which to go out and see the ranch. English saddles, the Americans call them pancake saddles, are quite the exceptions in mid-America and out west. Nothing but Mexican saddles are used. I have ridden on many kinds in different countries, but for keen discomfort the Mexican, in my opinion, beats them all. There is a peak in front, about a foot higher than the saddle-seat, which is capped by a wooden pin with a large wooden button on the top. The object of this is to twist the lasso round when, after a successful hunt behind cattle, wild or tame, the struggling beast is at the other end. But however useful it may be, it is not a pleasant appendage to a saddle, and must give cruel wounds to the rider if he is thrown forward. There is also a cantle behind, higher than any saddle cantle I have seen, and between these two the seat of the saddle slopes down before and behind, forming an obtuse angle between the slopes, which obtuse angle you sit on! When in the saddle you feel possibly like Mazeppa did on the wild horse, safe not to fall off, but very uncomfortable and helpless. The stirrups—but no, never mind them or any other part of the saddle, the whole affair seemed to me ingeniously constructed for the purposes of torture, and when I returned in the evening, I had not lost "leather," in the way it is understood in England, I was simply raw, not only on the part over the obtuse angle aforesaid, but for many inches higher, before and behind, owing to the lasso pin and cantle described. It was some weeks after ere I could sit down comfortably. My son was more or less used to these ingenious Mexican torturing machines, and declared that I too would by use arrive at the same state, but when I did succeed in dismounting that night (a difficult gymnastic feat at any time, sore as I was, a very trying operation), I vowed never to trust myself to a Mexican saddle again, and never did!

The ranch, as I expected, disappointed us. It was large, above 1000 acres, an undulating valley bordered by high mountains. But grass, as we understand the word, there was none. Still the land was not bare. There was a scanty vegetation on it, and here and there much wild oats, which is, I believe, good food for cattle. I do not doubt cattle could be raised there, and that they would thrive more or less. It was well watered by two running streams. But, in both my son's and my opinion, the vegetation was far too scanty, and the price asked for it, above 2l. per acre, was, I thought, much above its value, and I don't believe the owners will ever get anything like that figure. I declined in any case to become the purchaser.

There was a very decent hotel at San Obespo, where we slept that night. There is one thing common in rooms in America which it would be well to introduce in England. Above all the doors are glass window-frames, working on a centre pivot, so that they can be either opened or shut. When open into the passage, staircase, or hall, you thus obtain fresh air, and being high up near the ceiling, the privacy of the room is not endangered thereby, while its altitude prevents draught. Thus in a bedroom, when the weather is too cold to sleep with the outer window open, this inner one supplies fresh air. The ventilation thus secured is utterly wanting in English rooms. You can't have a bedroom door open, and if the outer window is shut the same air is breathed over and over again all night long, which is a monstrous evil in a sanitary point of view.

Another matter, though a small one. At meals, in America, as pepper is shaken out lightly from a perforated castor over food, so can you do with the salt, which is in similar receptacles. This is a great improvement over our English salt-cellars. We have the salt castors in India too; we call them muffineers there. In India, as a rule, each individual has both a salt and pepper muffineer before his plate. If you doubt how far it is an improvement, just try it.

The steamer we came down in was a very fairly comfortable, well-appointed, and quick boat, but as she went down much farther south, she would not be due on her way back for some days, and I cared not to wait. A small passenger-steamer, on the way to San Francisco, was expected next day, and we returned in her. She was in every way a most miserable craft. She called at all the coast stations, and took forty-eight hours en route. There were many Americans on board, but few of a good class. The saloon was as dirty as any pig-sty, and the table-cloth must have been in use many days to judge by its coloured appearance. It could not have been designedly, but there was a capital gravy map of North America in the centre. Knives were much in vogue, to the exclusion of forks and spoons. It really was wonderful the practice some had attained with the weapon. A combination of meat and vegetables was carefully, but quickly, adjusted on the said knife, and then a slight turn of the wrist, and presto—it disappeared. As the performer's mouth was nowhere near, what had become of the greasy mass at first puzzled me, but watching closely, for the sleight-of-hand was marvellous and the passage between knife and mouth instantaneous, I realized it all!

"You can't say these people eat with their knives," I said to a nice and exceptional American by me.

"No," he replied, laughing, "you must go to Germany to see that. My countrymen—I hope, however, we don't all do it—have left that vulgar and dangerous practice far behind. The knife, you see, is used only as a propeller, and very neatly they do it."

"It must take a lot of practice," I added.

"Doubtless, and so does a Yankee's power of spitting. Their aim in that way far beats the knife exhibition," he replied with gusto. He was a Southerner, and evidently no friend to Yankees. "Ah now," he continued, "that's bad, and I object."

"Yes," I replied, "so do I," as a fat man opposite sucked his knife first to clean it, and then helped himself to butter. "The liberty of the subject entitles him to do as he will with his own food, but scarcely with that of the masses," I added.

As other knives were shortly used in the same way, neither my companion nor I cared to have butter, and contented ourselves with cheese, which luckily was cut at a side-table, and presented to us in large blocks, in the shape of dice, mathematically correct as to planes and angles.

I shall never forget the berth I was given on board that steamer. It was a lower one, and as to sheets and bedding clean enough, but the cabin, a deck one, was very low, and thus the space for two berths, one above the other, was confined. There was only about fifteen inches' space between the two, entailing when lying down a painful sensation of confinement. But to get in at all was the difficulty, only exceeded by the difficulty of getting out. The only way of getting in practicable was by lying quite flat on the projecting board, considerately, I presume, placed there for the purpose, and wriggling in like a worm; to get out much the same, except that the upper sheet and blankets came out with you, and increased the difficulty. They say one gets used to everything, but this I do deny; I should never have got used to that berth, for entering or leaving it was a gymnastic and painful puzzle.

There was an American stewardess on board, to whom I complained of the berth in my cabin. She bristled up dreadfully as she replied, "Cabin! I guess you're a Britisher. I presume you mean your state-room. As for the berth, I guess again it whips what you're accustomed to the other side of the water," and she sailed off with great dignity.

I felt crushed, of course, but I called after her, "Well, it is a state-room in one sense, for the state I get into before I succeed in crawling in quite—" But she had slammed the saloon door, and could hear no more. True, I had the last word, still I did not feel I had come off victorious.

The Americans know the value of time; anyhow the way they despatch their meals argues it. When the bell rings for dinner on board ship or at an hotel, there is a strange scene. As the time approaches, so eager is the expectation, conversation lulls. Some, anxious to get a good start, congregate near the companion ladder or the door. Tingle, tingle, at last goes the bell; every one jumps up, and away they go to the dining-room pell-mell, as men crush in for the best seats in the pit of a theatre. Seated, they devour their food as if eating against time, and the stranger who cares not to be left a course or two behind, has to look sharp too. Dinner is naturally soon over, and then they lounge out in striking contrast to their mode of entrance. Half an hour at the outside, and the table is clear. I asked my American friend, a travelled man, to account for it all, striking as it is in its contrast to the European mode.

"I can't do so," he replied, "for of course here on board ship they have nothing to do afterwards, and at hotels most of them lounge about for an hour or two after dinner. It can only be habit; but it does not hold in good society anywhere in the States, and down south, whatever the society, meals are taken in a leisurely way."

It is a great mistake to suppose the antagonism between north and south has died out. Of course I know not what it was, but it exists very plainly now. They are really separate races in thoughts and habits, and will not easily amalgamate. Courtesy is the rule in the south, the exception in the north, and the southerners naturally resent this, both for their own sakes and the national credit.

Will the United States continue for all time as one united republic? I doubt it, if for no other reason, because of its size. Were all Europe one united kingdom, should we expect it so to remain? And yet the cases are nearly alike. Leave out one-third of Russia, and the two areas are about the same. Nevertheless all works well now.

What to do after my return to San Francisco became a question. My sons, from all they had seen in America, liked the idea of breeding cattle best, and thought to possess a good ranche was the best way to make money. I was inclined to the same opinion, and discussing the matter after my return, we decided that a ranche should carry the day. But California is not the country for ranches, and we determined to go elsewhere. They had both been a long time in Colorado, and seen many ranches in that state. There, they said, was any amount of grass, making Colorado one of the best, if not the best, ranch country. I had heard much the same from others, and Colorado was eventually decided on. Between decision and departure not many days elapsed. Our stay at San Francisco had still further limited my means, there was a ranche to buy and pay for, and thus economy was more necessary than ever. We took third-class tickets to Denver, the capital of Colorado, and for a part of the way, luckily, got an emigrant car, in which we could find room for our mattresses, and so managed to sleep at night. But, as I have said before, accommodation for emigrants is given westward only, and I know not why this exception was made over a part of the line; but this I do know, when, during the last two nights and one day of the journey, we were put into a second-class carriage because there was no third, and had to sit up on seats all night, it was very trying.

Every one knows the Americans spit a good deal, but few know the extent to which they carry the nasty habit. The second-class carriage was far worse in this respect than the emigrant car. The floor was literally covered with saliva, and sit where you would, for it was crowded, you did not feel safe. True, they are good shots, and can generally make sure to three square inches of the spot they aim at; still, when you are surrounded with shooters, as we were in this car, you feel nervous, especially at night when the dim light makes it more than ever hazardous. In the Pullman car spitting on the floor is not allowed; the class so travelling are naturally more considerate in this way, nay, possibly, we will hope, steer clear of the habit, but to some even there it is a necessity, and entails an open window or frequent rushes to the spittoon, put considerately out of the way, so that in the Pullman car you avoid the nuisance.

I may as well group nasty subjects together, then the fastidious reader can skip them. The toothpick is more in vogue in America than in any country I have seen. A prolonged use of it is made after each meal, but some people are never without it. It is held in the hand when an argument is enforced with manual action, and when the speaker is satisfied he has proved his case, it is transferred to the lips, as if that was its natural place, while the owner leans back and surveys you blandly. If you are convinced, it probably remains there; if you are not (though some have acquired the power of speaking without removing it), the hand grasps it once more, and brandishes it like a dagger. I must though, in justice to the American, state that the most inveterate toothpick-man I ever met was an Englishman who had been in America since boyhood, and crossed the Atlantic with me on my return. He always, morning, noon, and night, had one either in his hand or projecting out of his mouth. It signified not what was his occupation, the little stiletto was always to the fore. We used to speculate on board if he so slept, and the ayes were in the majority.

California is about 800 miles from north to south, but across, from west to east, the average width is only, perhaps, 200 miles. The rail line, the direct one from San Francisco to New York, was the line I ought to have taken when bound west, as I explained before. Owing to the northerly course the rail takes after leaving San Francisco, some 300 miles in California, not 200, has to be traversed ere you reach the next state, Nevada, and having left the western capital in the afternoon we crossed the boundary next morning. I could not, of course, see much of the Californian scenery at night, but the general character of the country we passed through seemed to be much as I had seen in other parts of that state, very fertile where water for irrigation was at command, but barren otherwise.

Before finally leaving California I must add the last I heard of that "almighty swindle" (so styled by an American I met, who was one of the victims) the Antelope Valley. Every one who could leave it had done so, but there were many who could not, who had spent their all to get there. Some of these had wives and children, and their condition was of course most pitiable. There was naturally no work to be had there, and I heard that many of them were living on charity. The hotel-keeper in the valley, a most charitable man, and his good wife, did all in their power to mitigate the suffering, which was excessive. What became of the colony after I left I know not. Some who departed to return to England vowed they would be revenged on the agent in London, and if there was no legal redress (which I imagine is the case) thrash him well! I hope they did, but I have heard nothing, except that I saw in the paper one of the victims appeared before a London magistrate, and detailed the case. How he had sold up everything in England to go there, induced to do so by the said agent's representations, and on arrival found himself landed in a vast desert. But it did not appear that the magistrate could help him.

I can only hope the Antelope Valley episode will be a warning to emigrants. The United States is too well known, the country too much explored, to make it likely that any spot, or El Dorado, with the advantages the Antelope Valley was said to possess can exist unutilized. The Americans are far "too cute," if they found such a place, to tout for occupants from England.

As this is the last I have to say about California, I will close this chapter.

FOOTNOTE:

[7] Always excepting the pavements. These are bad, but not as bad as in New York.



CHAPTER V.

Nevada—Utah—Wyoming—Denver—A restless night—Seeking for a ranch—Ranch work—Colorado Springs, the Sanitarium of Western America.

Nevada, east of California, is a wretched waste, and like Arizona, described some pages back, mostly, if not all, desert. True, in both cases, I only saw the parts traversed by the rail, but it is absurd to suppose, were any part otherwise, it would not have been selected for the line. The whole distance across the state is, say, by rail, 350 miles, and certainly 250 of that is a sandy waste. Then came the state of "Utah," famous as the abode of the Mormons, and part of this was also bare sand, but not like Nevada, for where irrigated, as California, it seemed fertile.

This was the last I saw of the American Deserts, and recalling the hundreds of miles of such I had traversed in my two journeys, I wondered greatly at the ignorance of Western nations on this head. It may be so, because, if you look at the map, you will see the parts described by me as desert are far out west, and that few Europeans go there. Of course Americans do, but even with them it is the exception, and quite in keeping with national characteristics to keep it quiet. The day will come that we shall know how many square miles of desert there are in the States. When it does many, not I, will be surprised.

In "Utah" we skirted the north side of the Great Salt Lake, but saw nothing of the Mormons. Salt Lake City, their abode, is perhaps 100 miles south, at the southern end of the lake. The next state we entered was "Wyoming," which differs much from either "Nevada" or "Utah." Here are great rolling plains of grass, such as hold in Texas, and cattle raising is carried on over the whole state, at least so I was told. It is a large country, about 350 miles long east and west, and 250 broad. The line of Rocky Mountains runs through it, and some of the scenery is superb. As far as abundant food in the shape of grass goes, Wyoming must be a good ranch locality. But the winters are very severe, and the snow lies a long while on the ground. At such times, of course, cattle have all to be more or less sheltered and fed, which diminishes profits, and great losses are experienced from the extreme cold, which kills many. Here in England we think it very cold if the quicksilver shows 10 deg. (Fahr.) below freezing-point, that is 22 deg. Zero there is not thought cold, and the thermometer varies between that and 35 deg. below zero, for two or three months. Fancy 35 deg. below zero which is 67 deg. below freezing-point! I have experienced similar cold in Norway, and recall how acutely painful it was. The English climate is far from perfect, but in our immunity from extremes of temperature we are blessed.

Tempting, therefore, as the grassy plains of Wyoming looked in a ranch view after the bare Californian ground, the long snow-sheds we passed through told me much, which inquiry confirmed, as regards the cold in winter, and neither my sons nor I cared to stop short there.

I had never seen snow-sheds over rails before. They are simply long wooden tunnels, erected above ground over the line in spots where snow is likely to drift and block it.

The next state we entered was that of our destination, viz. Colorado, and what I saw of it, in the 120 miles we traversed before arriving at the capital, "Denver," I liked well. Grass and to spare everywhere, well-wooded in parts, some exquisite scenery, and so on. "This is the country," I said to my sons; "glad you brought me here."

We reached "Denver" in due course, a good-looking town, and put up at an hotel near the rail. After the journey accomplished, about 1700 miles, and sitting up two nights, we were pretty well knocked up, so had a hurried dinner and went to bed. But alas! not to sleep. The creatures that attacked us were not fleas, something worse. I have such a horror of the little black thing, we all have, I need not define it. They were in swarms. We had turned in confidingly, we jumped out of bed horrified and lit the candle. They were in dozens on the whitewashed walls, and running all over the beds. To remain was impossible, but it was too late to seek fresh quarters, and we spent the night on tables and chairs below in the bar!

Next morning I complained to the landlord.

"Never heard of such a thing. You must have brought them with you, I guess."

"What, hundreds of them? Come upstairs and look."

He did so, but he did not give in. "Well, it may be some of them belong to the place, but I guess you brought most of 'em."

He was of the true Yankee type—the worst type on earth. So I cared to say no more, but paid the bill and went elsewhere, finding cleanliness, comfort, and as much courtesy as you look for in America, in the next hotel.

"Denver" is a clean, commodious, and pleasant town enough. There are many of the Yankee type there, but also some very nice people. We spent some days inquiring about ranches, and then made trips out to inspect them. I need not drag the reader with me on these little journeys; we mostly travelled in a light one-horse van, taking our food with us, and, as the weather was charming, camping out at night. Except in the winter, when it is far too cold, at night in any case, Colorado is just the country for this gipsy life. The atmosphere is wonderfully dry, and there is no danger whatever in sleeping outside without any shelter. This free kind of life has always had a great charm for me, and, except in winter, Colorado is just the place for it.

After some time I found a ranch to suit me. I bought it, the cattle, and everything on it. The former owner and his family were not long ere they left, and then my sons entered on their duties. They understood the work, I did not, but I used to potter about and help in any way I could.

The profits on a ranch are derived by breeding cattle and horses, and selling the surplus stock, also from dairy work. Firstly, as to breeding cattle. The procedure is different in different parts. Climate principally regulates it. In Texas, a low latitude (33 deg.), the winters are very mild, and the cattle there are never housed, they wander over the vast plains the year round. In Wyoming, and Montana and Dakota which join it, the cold in winter is intense, and the snow lies long. When the land is snow-bound, cattle, of course, can find no food for themselves, and during such time they have to be sheltered (scarcely housed) and fed. To do this costs money, and it goes without saying that in this respect the warm sites are the better. More, in the cold localities many cattle are lost in hard winters, simply frozen to death. But there is compensation as in most of the actions of nature. The cold localities have better grass in the summer.

In latitudes like Texas there is no necessity to grow crops for winter food. In the cold localities much has to be done in this way. Colorado is between these two extremes, latitude about 38 deg., nearly the same as San Francisco. But it is far warmer in summer, much colder in winter, than that capital. This is in a great measure due to its being so far inland, and also to the fact that most of the state is high table-land. Thus in Colorado (the snow seldom lies there more than three or four days at a time) the cattle are only sheltered and fed for short periods.

As a rule they calve in the spring. If it is required to increase the stock, only the male two and three years old and any worn out old cows are sold yearly. There is always a market for them; in fact, in spring and summer dealers travel round to the ranches and buy. If the above plan of keeping all the young female stock is followed out, and the mishaps are few, the cattle on a ranch double themselves in three or four years. When the limit a run will carry is attained, all the increase can yearly be sold.

Great numbers of horses are bred on ranches, and it is a question whether these or cattle are the more profitable. Horses are hardier than cattle, stand both heat and cold better. They consequently require less shelter, and also less food in winter, for horses will paw up the snow and find food when cattle cannot do so. They "rustle" better for themselves, as the Americans forcibly express it.

There are no natural enclosures in ranch countries like hedges, though I see not why, in time, there should not be such. In vast plains, such as are found in Texas, I believe ranches are not fenced in at all, and the cattle wander where they will. But in countries like Colorado, where pretty well every acre has an owner, fences are a necessity. The usual one is a barbed wire-fence. This is thus constructed: at distances of 30 or 40 feet, sometimes more, strong poles, 3 feet in the ground, and say 5 feet above it, are set up. Three wires, the lowest say 18 inches from the ground, the second and third, a like distance from the first and second, run from pole to pole, and are attached thereto by iron cleets. This alone, however, would not suffice to keep cattle in the enclosures, for they often charge the fences in great numbers at a time, and would thus easily break through. But the wires are studded at every 18 inches with sharp spikes, which soon teach the cattle that they cannot run against them with impunity. This is why it is called a "barbed wire-fence," and it is a very efficacious one.

On the ranch I had purchased (I called it the Water Ranch as it was exceptionally well watered with two streams running through it), the snow never lies long, not usually more than two or three days after a fall; thus it is only during these short intervals the cattle require to be fed, and in a measure sheltered. But this occurs again and again during the winter, and the food necessary has to be provided and grown during the summer months in the shape of Alfalfa (a peculiar and productive American grass), hay, turnips, and rye. Besides, as all the food the ranch workers require has to be produced at home, there is thus plenty to do in the kitchen-garden, in growing potatoes and other things. Then there is the poultry-yard. Geese, ducks, and fowls are bred in large numbers, and require much attention. Ranch-men naturally live well, for, besides meat and poultry, there is the produce of the dairy, which, in all its shapes—milk by the bucket, cream ad libitum, and butter in abundance—they can revel in. I never was better fed than on the Water Ranch.

The dairy work is very profitable. Either the cream is sent away and sold to butter and cheese factories established for that purpose in ranch localities, or such are manufactured at home, and sent to the market-town for sale. But it will readily be conceived that milking thirty to forty cows, and the dairy-work in all its shapes, gives plenty of work.

I was convinced, after a little experience, that my two sons, alone, could not do all necessary, and as it does not pay to hire labour in the States (wages are so high), and as the cost of the Water Ranch was more than I could afford to give in its entirety to my sons, after my return to England I sold to two young gentlemen the half-interest on the condition that they should at once go out and work there. This they did, and there are thus now four partners with equal interests in the Water Ranch, and working there together.

I think the reader can now, in a measure, appreciate what sort of existence ranch-life is. Early to bed and early to rise, the latter four a.m. in the summer, breakfast at seven, dinner at one, tea at six; work of some kind or the other all day, but not as a rule hard manual work; many interests, absence of care, good food and sound sleep. It is a placid, if not a very intellectual existence; the charms of society, the ameliorating influence of woman, are wanting, but on the principle some hold, though unjustly, that "she" is at the bottom of all calamities, to such, at least, this latter want is not much felt! Civilization, society, has many charms, but their absence is not an unmixed evil. The freedom entailed thereby, the non-existence of social restrictions, are at least advantages ensured.

I had intended to make my home with my sons on the ranch. The roughness of the life in no way disgusted me, for I am accustomed to such, having experienced it in many countries, and in various occupations. But the want of intellectual pursuits, the absence of society, the lack of woman's influence, and the many charms connected therewith, wearied me sadly. In two words I found I was too old for the life, and that I could not, at my age, adapt myself to such great and violent changes. I was happy while there, but I felt it would not do as a continuance, and thus determined, having started my sons and provided for them, to return to Europe.

"Colorado Springs," the great health resort of Western America, is some twenty-five miles only from the Water Ranch. It is, in many respects, an unique Sanitarium, and should therefore be better known than it is to Europeans. Its climatic and soil advantages (the latter no mean factor), as a cure-place for consumption, asthma, bronchitis, and all pulmonary diseases, are perhaps exceptional, for I doubt if any spot on the earth's surface, owing to weather, temperature, elevation, locality, and soil, possesses so dry an air.[8] When we consider how many thousands of young lives, often the flowers of the household flock, here in England alone, succumb to these maladies, how neither age nor sex is spared, it is surely well that such an exceptional cure-place as Colorado Springs existing should be made known far and wide.

I should be quite incompetent myself, from lack of medical knowledge, to dilate on this point satisfactorily, were it not that during a visit of a week to the place, I made the acquaintance of an English physician there of high repute, Doctor S. Edwin Solly, who went there years ago to seek relief himself from some pulmonary complaint (I forget what), found it, and eventually settled there. He gave me a book descriptive of Colorado Springs and Manitou (the latter is the spot, five miles distant, where the medical springs are), which is in two parts. The first is a prize essay by a Mrs. Dunbar, a resident at Colorado Springs, and deals with the climatic, social, and scenic conditions of the Sanitarium as set out in the following notice to her work:—

"In the spring of 1883 a prize of one hundred dollars was offered by a committee of the citizens of Colorado Springs and Manitou for the best article upon these two towns as places of residence and health resorts. Numerous articles were presented and several were of marked merit. Rev. Willis Lord, D. D., and Rev. James B. Gregg, the examining committee, adjudged the prize to Mrs. Simeon J. Dunbar, a resident of Colorado Springs for the past two years, and a correspondent of the Boston press. Mrs. Dunbar has sought to prepare such a statement of facts as she would have welcomed (and believes others desire) when she contemplated making a home in the New West; in this endeavour she has been eminently successful. It is believed that this is the most complete, compact and accurate body of practical information in print concerning these two places, which are becoming more popular every year; and that it will be of great and permanent value to all persons seeking a change of climate or proposing to visit or settle in Colorado."

The second part is written by my friend, Doctor Solly, and treats of the place from a medical point of view. I can, therefore, by giving extracts from the said book, state with very good authority all that is necessary to tell, in the author's own words.

But before I do so, I would, in gratitude to the said Doctor Solly and another, say a few words. My sons, previous to joining me in California, had been several times at Colorado Springs, staying with a Mrs. Garstin, an English lady I had known in London, who has now finally taken up her abode there. Her kindness to my poor boys (who were living a hard life, working as common labourers for ranch and farm owners in the neighbourhood, and who, it goes without saying, had no spare cash) was excessive. She was as a mother to them, and being far from rich herself the doing so often entailed personal privations. Both my sons, while with her, fell ill, and at her kind instance Dr. Solly attended them gratis. This was no exceptional case, he is one of those "who do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame." When, therefore, I went from the Water Ranch to Colorado Springs, partly to see the place, partly to get cured of a sprained back which some farm work had entailed, I went straight to Doctor Solly, both for medical aid, and to thank him for his kindness to my boys. I was, indeed, pleased to make his and Mrs. Solly's acquaintance, and they both, thinking I must be dull all alone at the hotel, insisted on my dining with them daily during my stay. The doctor soon put me all right, and I spent a happy week wandering in the neighbourhood, climbing the Rocky Mountains, and enjoying society at his house in the evening. Surely one may dilate, even in print, on the qualities of individuals of the fair sex if it be all praise. Mrs. Solly is an American lady, and her, among others, I had in my mind when I dilated on the intellectual and broad views, with charitable tendencies, of the best class of our transatlantic sisters. With a high order of intellect, and a capacity for appreciation such as is granted to few women, Mrs. Solly was, in two words, one of the most charming companions I have ever met. On dit, and the idea is a nice one, that in many married lives the wife strives to, and often attains the husband's level. Sometimes, more rarely, it is the other way, and the woman's intellect soars above the man's, while he may, or may not, try and climb so high. In either case, if even perfect success is not attained, the intercourse between the two benefits the weaker vessel, be that male or female. But the above theory did not, in either form, hold good in those I wish to portray. Both were highly intellectual, yet were they quite different. Their individuality had not been affected, as far as I could judge, by marriage. Perhaps the companionship begotten thus is the most charming of any in marital life, but it is rare.

Of the daughter I need only say that she was a fit daughter for such parents, and seemed to me to partake of the individual excellences of both, while the English ideas received from the father, the American from the mother, made a very charming diversity in her individual character.

Doctor Solly has an extensive practice in Colorado Springs and the neighbourhood, and is reputed to be, I should think justly, the first medical man there. What he says, therefore, on the advantages of the Sanitarium deserves every attention, the more so that he honestly points out, in more than one place, the individual conditions which are more likely to receive harm than good from a residence on such high, dry table-land.

I will now proceed to make extracts from the combined book of Mrs. Dunbar and Doctor Solly, and as, in a medical point of view, it explains much, I will first set out the preface to Doctor Solly's work in extenso.

"A committee appointed by our citizens having requested the County Medical Society to select one of their number to write an article, for general publication, upon the qualities of this locality as a health-resort, the choice fell upon me, and the following pages have been written to comply with this request. The opinions therein expressed are set forth upon my individual responsibility, and not as being the combined outcome of the views of the County Society at large. I am, however, indebted to my colleagues for several valuable suggestions and points of experience, but with respect to a subject so complicated as Climatic Influences the saw applies 'Tot homines, tot sententiae.' Nine years ago I resigned the practice of medicine in England to try the influence of the Colorado climate upon my health, with satisfactory results, and the opinions and statements here advanced are founded upon my experience and observation as a practitioner of medicine in this locality for the last nine years. The article being limited did not permit the publication of clinical records or extended discussion of the many interesting problems referred to, but is put forward as an effort to assist physicians and their patients in answering the often recurring question of the wisdom of a change to Colorado, from some safe standpoint and not merely from hearsay reports unsupported by evidence or reasonable inference. Viewing this subject of Climate as resting upon a scientific basis, and not alone upon empirical knowledge gained in particular regions, I have followed the plan of first stating the facts and opinions that are generally known or accepted concerning the features and essentials of climates in general, and their influence upon the healthy body; secondly, giving the general features of elevated climates and their effects both in health and disease, and finally, comparing these general effects with the special effects observed in this particular locality. Thus I have endeavoured to show good reason for the faith that is in me, by connecting this fragmentary study of climate with the whole great subject of climatology."

"S. EDWIN SOLLY." "Colorado Springs, 1883."

Colorado Springs is thus described by Mrs. Dunbar.

"Pike's Peak Range is the most eastern spur of the Rocky Mountains, taking its name from the Peak itself, which rises high above the rest, viz. 14,150 feet above sea level. This eastern sentinel of the vast Rocky Mountain system has its advance-guard directly in front. Cones, peaks, and great shapeless masses of rock, terminating to the south in Cheyenne Mountain, and in the north in a long chain of lower mountains. Twenty-five miles north from base of Pike's Peak, a ridge of hills, 8000 feet high, called the Divide (the water-shed between the Arkansas and Platte river), shoots out into the east for seventy-five miles, its blue-black outline cut sharply on the northern sky. Nearly 100 miles away the sharp eye will detect the outline of the Spanish Peaks almost upon the New Mexico line.

"Out from this semi-circle of hills and mountains stretch the great plains beyond the distant eastern horizon; not suddenly and in one smooth slope, but foothills and small broken mesas end in scattered and irregular bluffs, these gradually blending and losing themselves in the billowy rolling country, which makes up the eastern plains of Colorado.

"On one of these small mesas, close to the foothills and within the first line of bluffs, is situated Colorado Springs, on a level with the summit of Mt. Washington, in New Hampshire, 6000 feet above the sea.

"Neither nature nor art could design and lay out a more finished and beautiful spot for a town. Nature has made the grading perfect for streets and sidewalks, for drainage and for irrigating ditches. The whole town appears perfectly level, but the mesa has just enough descent towards the south and east to take water from the main irrigating ditch as it enters the town from the north-west, and carry it freely throughout the whole city on each side of every street; four of the main streets and avenues have twelve miles of open boxed ditches about two feet wide running in absolutely straight lines. The lawns and gardens are graded and laid out to correspond with the grade of the ditches, from which they are flooded once a week by a box ditch running under the sidewalk.

"The town was founded in 1871 by a colony composed mostly of gentlemen from Philadelphia who were then projecting and building the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad from Denver. The town plat is three miles long and two wide, laid out in blocks four hundred feet square, separated by streets one hundred feet wide, and every third street an avenue one hundred and forty feet wide. These streets and avenues are bordered by rows of flourishing cottonwoods, twenty-five feet apart, that greedily drink the water running over their roots through the spring and summer. The grass on the sides of these small irrigating ditches is green all summer and sprinkled with bright blossoms, and, with the grateful shade of the cottonwoods, makes pleasant walks through the city, which is full of beautiful homes.

"The houses are built of wood, stone, and brick, put together in all styles, varieties, and combinations of architecture, there are hardly two houses alike in the city, and with combinations of colours as various. Everywhere are well kept gardens and beautiful lawns, for the people like pleasant and large yards as well as wide streets and walks. Each householder takes pride in keeping up his place, even the plainest, and it is a rare thing to find a shabby house and yard. More than half of the dwellings are cottages, but there are many large and handsome houses, notably in the north part of the city, which has been built up rapidly within the last two years. There are several elegant stone residences costing from twenty to forty thousands dollars.

"The public buildings are remarkably fine for so young and small a city. The new hotel, The Antlers, the El Paso Club building, the High School building and Colorado College are built of a fine, beautifully pink-tinted stone taken from the Manitou quarries. The City Hall and business blocks are substantial structures, and the Opera House a fine brick building, is a gem inside, perfect in its arrangements, and fitted and furnished with exquisite taste."

The above description is accurate enough, but it is not right to our ideas to speak of Colorado Springs as a "city." It is only a decent-sized, picturesque town. But the Americans name even five or six houses cities, e.g. the City of Lancaster, in the Antelope Valley, which consisted of an hotel, a rail station, and two or three shops! The Antlers Hotel, alluded to, seemed to me, while I was there, to be a very perfect one.

Doctor Solly, on his part, thus describes this charming town and health resort.

"Colorado Springs is situated upon a plateau 6023 feet above sea-level, latitude 39 deg., longitude 105 deg. It is about five miles from the foothills in which the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains terminates and from which the great plains stretch 800 miles east to the Missouri river, south to the Gulf of Mexico, and north to the Black Hills.

"Colorado Springs cannot strictly be called a mountain health-resort, for it is actually situated upon the first plateau of the great plains, but is surrounded on three sides by a semi-circle of hills. Immediately to the west is the great mountain of Pike's Peak, 8000 feet above it and to the summit on an air-line ten miles distant from this the shoulders spread, to the south-west, terminating abruptly in a much smaller but very picturesque mountain named Chiann, while to the north they merge into a spur called the Divide, which melts away eastward into the rolling prairie, first throwing off, some four miles to the east, another spur, this breaking into the irregular shapes of bluffs curves towards the south, extending the shelter that the mountains on the west afford sufficiently to break the force of wind from the north-east, and leaving the plateau open to the plains in its southern and south-easterly aspects.

"The barriers from the wind and weather that this semi-circle just described affords, being an average distance of four miles from the edge of the plateau upon which the town is spread, do not detract from its openness or free exposure to the sun. The Peak lying to the west robs it of the direct effect of the last beams in setting but gives a longer twilight than is usual on this continent. The value of this semi-circle as a protection from storms is especially in the attraction it affords to the clouds that form upon the Peak, drawing the storms along its ridges to the north-east on one side or the south-west on the other, and thus frequently leaving the plateau free from the rain or snow that forms upon the mountains."

Again he thus remarks on the soil, the drainage, and the water-supply, all of them so important in a sanitary point of view.

"There is a top soil of about two feet, below which sand and gravel are found to an average depth of sixty feet, when a clay bed is struck which follows the slope of the surface and the fall of the water-shed to the south. The soil, therefore, is naturally absolutely dry beyond what little moisture the top soil can hold to feed the grass, and with as perfect drainage as could be devised.

"The drainage is into leaching pits which have ventilating pipes in them and in the connecting soil pipes. As no water is taken from the soil and the ground is extremely dry and porous, this system works without danger. The smaller and older houses, however, mostly have earth-closets.

"Irrigating ditches supply the lawns and trees with water, and are further supplemented by that which is conveyed in iron pipes for drinking and domestic purposes. This supply is brought a distance of seven miles from a pure mountain stream, taken at a point among the foothills, above all danger of contamination. The pressure is sufficient to throw the water above the highest houses without the need of fire-engines, and the amount of air bubbles confined in the water gives it a most refreshing taste, but a milky appearance when first drawn, which, as the air escapes, leaves it beautifully bright and clear. The supply is ample, so that baths and water-closets can be well flushed."

Mrs. Dunbar remarks as follows on the water supply, how the town is lighted, and the scenery.

"A complete system of water-works supplies the city with the purest water, brought seven miles in pipes from Ruxton's Creek, beyond Manitou, a clear, pure stream, abundantly fed by the springs and melting snows of Pike's Peak. The same pipes passing through Manitou supply that town and its hotels with water.

"A distributing reservoir on a mesa, considerably higher than the city mesa and two miles distant, receives the water. This gives a fine head and good protection against fire. Hydrants are placed a few hundred feet apart, and three efficient fire-companies have only to attach the hose to throw water over any building.

"Besides the temperance provisions for the social benefit of the town, the colony at the same time wisely provided for its permanent improvement and beauty by setting apart the proceeds, above cost, of a large portion of the lots first sold, for the construction of an irrigating canal, and the planting of trees throughout the city; for trees and vegetables do not grow on these mesas and plains without irrigation. This ditch takes water from the Fountain a short distance below Manitou, and, winding round the foothills and mesas to keep its grade, extends for a distance of thirteen miles before it reaches Colorado Springs. From this point, as already stated, branches extend to all parts of the city, and to the vegetable-gardens on the outskirts.

"The city is lighted by gas; the principal business street has a line of herdics, and telephone wires connect all parts of the town.

"The scenery about Colorado Springs, embracing the mountains and the plains, is grand and beautiful. On the western side the mesas skirt the foothills, these swell to mountains which rise one above another till the magnificent dome of Pike's Peak stands alone above them all,

For ever to claim kindred with the firmament, And be companioned by the clouds of heaven.

The whole mountain is one barren mass of rock as we see it from the town, for the eastern face is open to us almost down to the foothills; deep perpendicular gorges and terrible ravines reveal themselves by narrow white rifts, snow overlappings mark the canyons and the course of streams. A dense black moss, as it appears to the naked eye, covering some of the slopes and delicately fringing summits and sharp ridges, is in reality a heavy growth of timber, the sturdy pine, the tree beloved of Shakspeare. They cling mostly to the southern slopes, leaping the northern ones to climb the south slope of the next fold, sometimes leaving behind in their hurry a few stragglers whose scrawny branches seem pitifully beckoning their companions to wait."

Of the population and death-rate Dr. Solly writes:—

"The town extends over four square miles, upon which the houses of the 6000 inhabitants are widely scattered. The residence lots are mostly 50 x 190 feet; and the streets and avenues vary from 80 to 125 feet in width. There are therefore none of the objections of a city in respect to overcrowding, and no manufactories or smelters to pollute the air. The death-rate, exclusive of death from consumption, is only 5.6 per 1000; from zymotic diseases, 1.6 per 1000."

There is a very extraordinary and I think an objectionable feature in the town. No alcoholic liquors are allowed to be retailed. Thus if you want even a glass of beer you can't get it. But you can have what you will at home, or, if I remember right, in the principal hotels if you are living there. Temperance in all indulgences is a grand thing, and drunkenness is a beastly habit, but the parental legislation described below by Mrs. Dunbar, scarcely recognizes the liberty of the subject, and is a very strange fact in what is supposed to be the freest country on earth.

"There are no saloons and bars in the city, for this is a temperance town. The colony, after receiving the United States title to the town plat, incorporated the following strong provision into the deed of every lot and piece of ground thereafter sold:—

"'That intoxicating liquors shall never be manufactured, sold, or otherwise disposed of, as a beverage, in any place of public resort, in or upon the premises hereby granted.'

"Provision was also made in all deeds that if these conditions were violated, the land and buildings thereon should revert to the original owners. There have been violations of this clause, and the courts of this state, and the Supreme Courts of the United States, having decided in favour of the provision, valuable property has been lost to the owner."

Colorado Springs is a misnomer, inasmuch as the medical springs are not there but at Manitou, five miles off, in the heart of the mountains, and in superb scenery. Mrs. Dunbar thus describes it:—

"Five miles west of Colorado Springs, in the midst of the hills, lies Manitou, at the foot of Pike's Peak, in the beautiful valley of the Fountain, out of whose banks bubble the mineral springs that have made this place the most fashionable summer resort of the West. It is a small and quiet town in itself, of about five hundred inhabitants, with churches, and schools, and pleasant residences, and four large, first-class hotels. During the summer months it swarms with life; its hotels overflow, and private houses take in the strangers; summer cottages and tents are perched like birds' nests on the hillsides, among the rocks and in the canyons, and in every available place.

SODA AND IRON SPRINGS.

"The Fountain is a stream of clear, swift-running water that comes from high up among the mountains, through Manitou Park and down through the Ute Pass, forming there the beautiful Rainbow Falls. Ruxton's Creek, flowing down Engleman's Canyon, joins the Fountain at Manitou. In this canyon of remarkable beauty are several iron springs, the best known and oftenest visited being the Iron Ute. On either bank of the Fountain are scattered the other springs. Their abundant waters overflowing into the Fountain have coloured the rocks and earth with the mineral matter which they contain. Rocks near the Iron Ute look like huge blocks of iron. About the Shoshone, rocks and earth are clothed with a yellow, mosslike crust. Down the sides of the Navajo and Manitou the water trickles over rocks that are white with soda, and striped with green and peacock blue.

"There are six or seven springs in all. Their Indian names and legends are all that remain to remind us of our red brothers, whose offerings to the 'Manitou' of the 'medicine waters' filled the basins of the springs and hung from the neighbouring trees and bushes when the 'pale face' invaded this their favourite camping-ground. The springs differ much in their properties of iron, sulphur, and soda. Some of the waters are taken as a pleasant draught; others should be used only as a medicine, taken when needed and then discontinued; their temperature varies from 43 deg. to 56 deg. Fahr.

BATH HOUSE.

"Pipes convey the water from some of the springs to the bath-houses. A large bath-house has just been completed, fitted with every modern convenience and aid to health and comfort. It is two stories high, with wide piazzas and balconies. On the first floor are the bathing-rooms, parlours, and dressing-rooms; above are reading and reception-rooms and the physician's office. No expense has been spared in making it complete in every particular.

"The surroundings of Manitou are particularly charming, and even without its mineral springs it would be a favourite resort. Mountains high and low shut it closely in. Joined hand in hand like a company of eager children, they press and crowd around the lovely spot, those outside peering over the heads and shoulders of their companions. Calmly the grand old peak looks over them all down into the loveliest places."