on the prairie; and this kind of well is spoken of as an "Artesian" well.

The prairie roads are as straight as a blameless life, intersecting each other every mile or so at strict right angles. They are bordered by prickly hedges of osage orange, very like hawthorn on a larger scale, and bearing a species of orange in the autumn. It is a very painful experience to penetrate an osage hedge, and one which will indelibly impress itself upon the sufferer's memory.

The weather was very cold all the time of our stay in Piper City, averaging ten degrees below zero; and the want of shelter from the searching wind on the boundless flat doubled its intensity. We could not keep water in our room at night, as it would have been frozen solid by morning. (The prairie settler is not always very conscientious in his ablutions during the winter, finding a layer of natural dirt very admirable as a substitute for additional underclothing.) Awaking in the morning, we used to find our breath issuing from between moustache and beard stiff with ice; while the fantastic fretwork of Jack Frost upon the window panes would have driven a pattern designer wild. Davis' pipe cracked in his pocket, the moisture inside freezing and splitting the wood. The good folks of the prairie wear very thick clothing in the winter season, muffling up ears and hands with

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special care. All the men have high boots, with their trousers tucked inside; and long india-rubber boots are often used for the snow, the latter being in Western parlance designated "gum-boots."

The

The houses of a prairie village are all of wood, painted white; and the appearance of the settlement is that of a cluster of low white cottages, with a church spire rising in their midst. The church is no exception to the rule, being also of wood. houses are roofed with wooden shingles, of the same shape and size as slates; and looking very like slates by being painted black. Shingles are cheaper, and fully as suitable as slates, the latter being apt to crack and split from the intense frost.

The houses of the better class are lined with felt, to exclude the cold in winter and the heat in summer; the latter, we were told, being as excessive in its season as is the frost. Summer comes with a rush on the close of winter, there being hardly any spring: in April the sun begins to blaze fiercely, the snows melt, there is a period of universal and inextricable mud, and then vegetation bursts with a leap into full meridian. The corn-fields shoot forth into lusty verdant life, and the snow-drifts by the roadside are replaced by glowing beds of brilliant flowers. In the dog-days mosquitoes and snakes abound; the former a torture beyond expression, the latter for

the most part harmless.

On the unturned prairie there are a number of rattlesnakes, but these speedily disappear as the land becomes broken to cultivation. Prairie folks say that they have little dread of a rattlesnake's bite, if they can only get plenty of raw whisky within half-an-hour of being bitten. They drink the whisky straight on till intoxication appears; and whenever they are drunk, they are cured. The whisky keeps up the circulation, which the snake poison would cause to cease; and so powerful is the poison, that two or three quarts of whisky are required to make an adult man drunk after having been bitten. A little girl has been said in such a case to drink a quart straight off before becoming intoxicated; and I am told that even the Good Templars do not refuse to adopt this remedy.

The majority of the settlers claim American parentage; but a considerable proportion are of Dutch, German, and Scotch extraction, not a few Dutch and German names being noticeable. Almost every nationality is represented on the prairie, in the ancestors at least of the present inhabitants; but most of the denizens have been born where they live, and are "Western men," pure and simple. After once meeting the genuine, unadulterated article, there is little fear of your failing to recognise him on any future occasion.

Farming in Illinois is a strong, healthy life; and if a man enters upon it without any high-flown notions, he is likely to do well in it, and be happy. It is decidedly rough at first, there is little society, and the scenery is painfully monotonous; but if he can put up with those drawbacks, and work hard, he is nearly certain to prosper. An improved farm can be purchased for thirty dollars, or six pounds, an acre.

So we left Piper City after some days, having seen and experienced a phase of American life which not every tourist has the opportunity of doing; and having learned with no common interest something of manners on the Western prairie.

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CHAPTER XII.

DETROIT AND NIAGARA.

HAVING now penetrated as far towards "the home of the setting sun" as occasion permitted, we turned about our faces, and proceeded eastwards to Detroit and Niagara. From Chicago to Detroit is a distance of two hundred and eighty-four miles; which the trains of the Michigan Central Railroad accomplish in ten hours. Unfortunately a thick snow-storm came on during our journey; and we were thus prevented from seeing more of the district through which we passed, than that it was low undulating country, tolerably well cleared. One of the peculiar amenities of American railway travelling is the inefficiency of the lighting apparatus in the carriages; and an application of mine to the Pullman attendant for fuller illumination was met in the following highly satisfactory way.

"Look here," I said, "can't you turn up those lamps a bit ;-I want to read."

"Very sorry, sir, but they ain't lamps. They're candles, and I can't make them burn any brighter."

"Then why on earth don't you have lamps?"