On the Bothnia. ii 



The Bothnia turned her face to the east, and out 

 upon old ocean's gray and melancholy waste sailed the 

 Gay Charioteers. As we steamed down the bay three 

 steamers crowded with the most enterprising of Eu- 

 rope's people passed us. emigrants coming to find in 

 the bounteous bosom of the Great Republic the bless- 

 ings of equality, the just reward of honest labor. Ah, 

 favored land ! the best of the Old World seek your 

 shores to swell to still grander proportions your assured 

 greatness. That all come only for the material benefits 

 you confer, I do not believe. Crowning these material 

 considerations, I insist that the more intelligent of 

 these people feel the spirit of true manhood stirring 

 within them, and glory in the thought that they are to 

 become part of a powerful people, of a government 

 founded upon the born equality of man, free from mili- 

 tary despotism and class distinctions. There is a trace 

 of the serf in the man who lives contentedly in a land 

 with ranks above him. One hundred and seventeen 

 thousand came last month, and the cry is still they 

 come! O ye self-constituted rulers of men in Europe, 

 know you not that the knell of dynasties and of rank is 

 sounding? Are you so deaf that you do not hear the 

 thunders, so blind that you do not see the lightnings 

 which now and then give warning of the storm that is 

 to precede the reign of the people ? 



There is everything in the way one takes things. 

 " Whatever is, is right," is a good maxim for travellers 



