JOURNEY FROM DETROIT TO CHICAGO. 217 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



Journey from Detroit to Chicago Thrashing Machine Face of 

 the Country in Michigan Prairie Hen White Pigeon Prairie 

 Travelling Party La Porte Cooking Breakfast Jaded 

 Horses Thunder Storm Hovel on the Shore of Lake Michigan 

 Face of the Country Notices of Nature Chicago Indian 

 Treaty Horse-racing Intoxication Fair Occurrences at 

 Chicago. 



ON the 13th September, I left Detroit, early in the morn 

 ing, in a stage for Niles, which was drawn by four horses, and 

 well filled with passengers. We breakfasted at the distance 

 of twelve miles, the hotel being a solitary house, the name of 

 which has escaped my memory. 



Here I examined a thrashing-machine, worked by four 

 horses, attached to the ends of two rough poles moving two 

 small horizontal wheels, a few inches from the ground, round 

 one of which was a leather belt moving in a wood case, and 

 connected with the drum or beater placed in the barn. The 

 machinery in the barn consisted simply of a beater, without 

 rollers, shaker, or fan. The board over which the grain slides 

 to the beaters, had a few upright spikes, which formed the 

 only detaining power to the grain while passing the beaters. 

 This machine would not cost more than L.8 sterling, but its 

 imperfections in shaking and fanning, as well as in beating 

 out the grain, which I discovered on examination, render the 

 saving of first-cost injudicious. 



Our roads, for the first stage or two, were very bad, and 

 perhaps affected the passengers, eight in number, who did not 

 exchange half-a-dozen words during the first day. In course 

 of the second day, a few short questions were put and an 

 swered, and on our arrival at Niles, on the evening of the 

 third day, nothing like familiar intercourse had taken place* 



