The Great Lone Land. Sir William Francis Butler
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position among the great trade centres of America. It stands almost at the head of the navigation of the Mississippi River, about 2050 miles from New Orleans; not that the great river has its beginning here or in the vicinity, its cradle lies far to the north, 700 miles along the stream. But the Falls of St. Anthony, a few miles above St. Paul, interrupt all navigation, and the course of the river for a considerable distance above the fall is full of rapids and obstructions. Immediately above and below St. Paul the Mississippi River receives several large tributary streams from north-east and north west; the St. Peter's or Minnesota River coming from near the Coteau of the Missouri, and the St. Croix unwatering the great tract of pine land which lies West of Lake Superior; but it is not alone to water communication that St. Paul owes its commercial importance. With the same restless energy of the Northern American, its leading men have looked far into the future, and shaped their course for later times; railroads are stretching out in every direction to pierce the solitude of the yet uninhabited prairies and pine forests of the North. There is probably no part of the world in which the inhabitants are so unhealthy as in America; but the life is more trying than the climate, the constant use of spirit taken "straight," the incessant chewing of tobacco with its disgusting accompaniment, the want of healthier exercise, the habit of eating in a hurry, all tend to cut short the term of man's life in the New World.' Nowhere have I seen so many young wrecks. "Yes, sir, we live fast here," said a general officer to me one day on the Missouri; "And we die fast too," echoed a major from another part of the room. As a matter of course, places possessing salubrious climates are crowded with pallid seekers after health, and as St. Paul enjoys a dry and bracing atmosphere from its great elevation above the sea level, as well as from the purity of the surrounding prairies, its hotels--and they are many--are crowded with the broken wrecks of half the Eastern states; some find what they seek, but the majority come to Minnesota only to die.
Business connected with the supply of the troops during the coming winter in Red River, detained me for some weeks in Minnesota, and as the letters which I had despatched upon my arrival giving the necessary particulars regarding the proposed arrangements, required at least a week to obtain replies to, I determined to visit in the interim the shores of Lake Superior. Here I would glean what tidings I could of the progress of the Expedition, from whose base at Fort William, I would be only 100 miles distant, as well as examine the% chances of Fenian intervention, so much talked of in the American newspapers, as likely to place in peril the flank of the expeditionary force as it followed the devious track of swamp and forest which has on one side Minnesota, and on the other the Canadian Dominion.
Since my departure from Canada the weather had been intensely warm: pleasant in Detroit, warm in Chicago, hot in Milwaukie, and sweltering, blazing in St. Paul, would have aptly described the temperature, although the last named city is some hundred miles more to the north than the first. But latitude is no criterion of summer heat in America, and the short Arctic summer of the Mackenzie River knows often a fiercer heat than the swamp lands of the Carolinas. So, putting together a very light field-kit, I started early one morning from St. Paul for the new town of Duluth, on the extreme westerly end of Lake Superior.
Duluth, I was told, was the very newest of new towns, in fact it only had an existence of eighteen months; as may be inferred, it had no past, but any want in that respect was compensated for in its marvellous future. It was to be the great grain emporium of the North-west; it was to kill St. Paul, Milwaukie, Chicago, and half-a-dozen other thriving towns; its murderous propensities seemed to have no bounds; lots were already selling at fabulous prices, and everybody seemed to have Duluth in some shape or other on the brain. To reach this paradise of the future I had to travel 100 miles by the Superior and Mississippi railroad, to a halting-place known as the End of the Track-a name which gave a very accurate idea of its whereabouts and general capabilities. The line was, in fact, in course of formation, and was being rapidly pushed forward from both ends with a view to its being opened through by the 1st day of August. About forty miles north-east of St. Paul we entered the region of pine forest. At intervals of ten or twelve miles the train stopped at places bearing high-sounding titles, such as Rush City, Pine City; but upon examination one looked in vain for any realization of these names, pines and rushes certainly were plentiful enough, but the city part of the arrangement was nowhere visible. Upon asking a fellow-passenger for some explanation of the phenomena, he answered, "Guess there was a city hereaway last year, but it busted up or gone on." Travellers unacquainted with the vernacular of America might have conjured up visions of a catastrophe not less terrible than that of Pompeii or Herculaneum, but an earlier acquaintance of Western cities had years before taught me to comprehend such phrases. In the autumn of 1867 I had visited the prairies of Nebraska, along the banks of the Platte River. Buffalo were numerous on the sandy plains which form the hunting-grounds of the Shienne and Arapahoe Indians, and amongst the vast herds the bright October days passed quickly enough. One day, in company with an American officer, we were following, as usual, a herd of buffalo, when we came upon a town standing silent and deserted in the middle the Trairie. "That," said the American, "is Kearney City; it did a good trade in the old wagon times, but it busted up when the railroad went on farther west; the people moved on to North Platte and Julesburg--guess there's only one man left in it now, and he's got snakes in his boots the hull season." Marvelling what manner of man this might be who dwelt alone in the silent city, we rode on. One house showed some traces of occupation, and in this house dwelt the man. We had passed through the deserted grass-grown street, and were again on the prairie, when a shot rang out behind us, the bullet cutting up the dust away to the left. "By G---- he's on the shoot," cried our friend; "ride, boys!" and so we rode. Much has been written and said of cities old and new, of Aztec and Peruvian monuments, but I venture to offer to the attention of the future historian of America this sample of the busted up city of Kearney and its solitary indweller, who had snakes in his boots and was on the shoot.
After that explanation of a "busted-up" and "gone-on" city, I was of course sufficiently well "posted" not to require further explanation as to the fate of Pine and Rush Cities; but had I entertained any doubts upon the subject, the final stoppage of the train at Moose Lake, or City, would have effectually dispelled them. For there stood the portions of Rush and Pine Cities which had not "bust up," but had simply "gone on." Two shanties, with a few outlying sheds, stood on either side of the track, which here crossed a clear running forest stream. Passenger communication ended at this point; the rails were laid down for a distance of eight miles farther, but only the "construction train," with supplies, men, etc. proceeded to that point. Track-laying was going on at the rate of three miles a day, I was informed, and the line would soon be opened to the Dalles of the St. Louis River, near the hecad of Lake Superior. The heat all day had been very great, and it was refreshing to get out of the dusty car, even though the shanties, in which eating, drinking, and sleeping were supposed to be carried on, were of the very lowest description. I had made the acquaintance of the express agent, a gentleman connected with the baggage department of the train, and during the journey he had taken me somewhat into his confidence on the matter of the lodging and entertainment which were to be found in the shanties. "The food ain't bad," he said, "but that there shanty of Tom's licks creation for bugs." This terse and forcibly expressed opinion made me select the interior of a wagon, and some fresh hay, as a place of rest, where, in spite of vast numbers of mosquitoes, I slept the sleep of the weary.
The construction train started from Moose City at six o'clock a.m., and as the stage, which was supposed to connect with the passenger train and carry forward its human freight to Superior City was filled to overflowing, I determined to take advantage of the construction train, and travel on it as far as it would take me. A very motley group of lumberers, navvies, and speculators assembled for breakfast at five o'clock a.m. at Tom's table, and although I cannot quite confirm the favourable opinion of my friend the express agent as to the quality of the viands which graced it, I can at least testify to the vigour with which the "guests" disposed of the pork and beans, the molasses and dried apples which Tom, with foul fingers, had set before them. Seated on the floor of a waggon in the construction train, in the midst of navvies of all countries and ages, I reached the end of the track while the morning sun was yet low in the east. I had struck up a kind of partnership for the journey with a pedlar Jew and an Ohio man, both going to Duluth, and as we had a march of eighteen miles to get through between the end of the track and the town of Fond-du-Lac, it became necessary to push on before the sun had reached his midday level; so, shouldering our baggage,