xxxii] CALIFORNIA TO QUEBEC 185 



The next morning (Wednesday, July 27) we were near 

 Omaha, in a flat but fertile and cultivated country of un- 

 dulating prairie, with meadows, and even hedges ! the hay- 

 stacks, horses, and cattle near the farmhouses having a more 

 homely aspect than the usual half-desert waste of prairie. 

 After crossing the Missouri, and leaving Council Bluffs, the 

 country became more undulating, with fields of maize and 

 rather more flowers. Among these were yellow Oenotheras 

 showy rudbeckias, orange marigolds, and the white euphorbia. 

 Further on, the country was almost all cultivated, wheat being 

 all cut, maize growing vigorously, grass all closely cropped 

 off, and no flowers. Every engine that has passed us has 

 poured out a column of smoke of intense blackness, the result 

 of bad coal, careless stoking, and total disregard of the 

 comfort of passengers. We passed the Mississippi about 

 midnight, and in the morning found ourselves near Chicago. 

 For miles before reaching it there are grass-grown streets 

 laid out in the bare open country, with a house here and 

 there — indications of a land " boom," such as are continually 

 got up by speculators. 



Having six hours to wait for my train to Michigan, I took 

 a bus and some walks after breakfast to see the town. The 

 chief impression was of endless vistas of long parallel streets 

 ending in the lake-shore, the whole enveloped in a smoky 

 mist worthy of London itself. Like all new American cities, 

 there were great incongruities in the buildings, small two- 

 storey wood houses next door to handsome shops or palatial 

 warehouses seven or eight stories high. This extreme irregu- 

 larity is the more an eyesore from the contrast of wood and 

 granite, or other fine building stone; but, of course, this will 

 gradually disappear. The great lake, which might have given 

 the city a grandeur and dignity of its own, has been spoilt by 

 the railroad companies, for though there is a belt of park 

 and promenade, the shore-front itself is given up to eight 

 parallel lines of railways with ugly iron railings, and a notice 

 that the public will cross this at its own risk. There is here 

 a great area of black dust or mud, screeching engines pouring 

 out dense volumes of the blackest smoke, and at this time of 



