308 OCEAN TO OCEAN ON HORSEBACK^ 



€igl)ti)-nmtl) Slag. 



Hurd HousCf 

 Jackson, MichigaNj 

 August Eighth, 



A few minutes after seven in the morning found me 

 in the saddle at Chelsea. I stopped on my way at the 

 Herald office and then struck off towards the main 

 road, along which I cantered to Grass Lake, where 1 

 had dinner and remained until three o'clock. This 

 rest was thoroughly enjoyed, the more so perhaps, as I 

 learned before leaving Chelsea that if my advance 

 agents had not made arrangements for me elsewhere, 

 the people would have asked me to lecture here. In 

 that event I should not have been so familiar with 

 the quiet charms of Grass Lake. 



Probably there are those who, if they had been in 

 my place, would have denied themselves these halts 

 along the way, but they would have been deprived of 

 a double gratification. In the first place they would 

 miss much of the character of the country through 

 which they passed, the real difference in the manners 

 and customs of the people ; and they would miss the 

 opportunity of assuring the credulous that they were 

 not making a test ride acro3B the continent within a 

 certain time and for a certain reward. 



News often travels incredibly fast when there are no 

 evident means of communication, and I was often 

 amused by the curiosity which my advent excited 

 and the reasons which were whispered about in the 

 villages through which I passed, as to the object of 

 my journey. Indeed many Michiganders, from quiet 



