When We Awoke The Next Morning Our Steamer Was At Chicago.
Any one who had
seen this place, as I had done five years ago, when it contained less than
five thousand people, would find some difficulty in recognizing it now
when its population is more than fifteen thousand.
It has its long rows of
warehouses and shops, its bustling streets; its huge steamers, and crowds
of lake-craft, lying at the wharves; its villas embowered with trees; and
its suburbs, consisting of the cottages of German and Irish laborers,
stretching northward along the lake, and westward into the prairies, and
widening every day. The slovenly and raw appearance of a new settlement
begins in many parts to disappear. The Germans have already a garden in a
little grove for their holidays, as in their towns in the old country, and
the Roman Catholics have just finished a college for the education of
those who are to proselyte the West.
The day was extremely hot, and at sunset we took a little drive along the
belt of firm sand which forms the border of the lake. Light-green waves
came to the shore in long lines, with a crest of foam, like a miniature
surf, rolling in from that inland ocean, and as they dashed against the
legs of the horses, and the wheels of our carriage, the air that played
over them was exceedingly refreshing.
When we set out the following day in the stage-coach for Peru, I was
surprised to see how the settlement of Chicago had extended westward into
the open country.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 228 of 396
Words from 61655 to 61920
of 107287
