Next morning, just at dawn, I woke up and got out on the
platform of the carriage, which is the favorite resort of smokers and their
antithetics, those who love pure fresh air, notwithstanding the printed
caution, “It is dangerous to stand on the platform;” and under the eye of early
morn saw spread around a flat sealike expanse, not yet warmed into color and
life by the sun. The line was no longer guarded from daring Secessionists by
soldiers' outposts, and small camps had disappeared. The train sped through the
centre of the great verdant circle as a ship through the sea, leaving the rigid
iron wake behind it tapering to a point at the horizon and as the light spread
over it, the surface of the crisping corn waved in broad undulations beneath
the breeze from east to west. This is the prairie indeed. Hereabouts it is
covered with the finest crops, some already cut and stacked. Looking around one
could see church spires rising in the distance from the white patches of
houses, and by degrees the tracks across the fertile waste became apparent, and
then carts and horses were seen toiling through the rich soil.
A large species of partridge or grouse appeared very
abundant, and rose in flocks from the long grass at the side of the rail or
from the rich carpet of flowers on the margin of the corn-fields. They sat on
the fence almost unmoved by the rushing engine, and literally swarmed along the
line. These are called “prairie chickens” by the people, and afford excellent
sport. Another bird about the size of a thrush, with a yellow breast and a
harsh cry, I learned was “the sky-lark;” and apropos of the unmusical
creature, I was very briskly attacked by a young lady patriot for finding fault
with the sharp noise it made. “Oh, my! And you not to know that your Shelley
loved it above all things! Didn't he write some verses — quite beautiful, too,
they are — to the sky-lark?” And so “the Britisher was dried up,” as I read in
a paper afterwards of a similar occurrence.
At the little stations which occur at every few miles —
there are some forty of them, at each of which the train stops, in 365 miles
between Cairo and Chicago — the Union flag floated in the air; but we had left
all the circumstance of this inglorious war behind us, and the train rattled
boldly over the bridges across the rare streams, no longer in danger from
Secession hatchets. The swamp had given place to the cornfield. No black faces
were turned up from the mowing and free white labor was at work, and the
type of the laborers was German and Irish.
The Yorkshireman expatiated on the fertility of the land,
and on the advantages it held out to the emigrant. But I observed all the lots
by the side of the rail, and apparently as far as the eye could reach, were
occupied. “Some of the very best land lies beyond on each side,” said he. “Out
over there in the fat places is where we put our Englishmen.” By digging deep
enough good water is always to be had, and coal can be carried from the rail,
where it costs only 7s. or 8s. a
ton. Wood there is little or none in the prairies, and it was rarely indeed a
clump of trees could be, detected, or anything higher than some scrub
brushwood. Those little communities which we passed were but the growth of a
few years, and as we approached the northern portion of the line we could see,
as it were, the village swelling into the town, and the town spreading out to
the dimensions of the city. “I dare say, Major,” says one of the passengers, “this
gentleman never saw anything like these cities before. I’m told they've nothing
like them in Europe?” “Bless you,” rejoined the Major, with a wink, “just
leaving out London, Edinbro’, Paris, and Manchester, there's nothing on earth
to ekal them.” My friend, who is a shrewd fellow, by way of explanation of his
military title, says, “I was a major once, a major in the Queen's Bays, but
they would put troop-sergeant before it them days.” Like many Englishmen he
complains that the jealousy of native-born Americans effectually bars the way
to political position of any naturalized citizen, and all the places are kept
by the natives.
The scene now began to change gradually as we approached
Chicago, the prairie subsided into swampy land, and thick belts of trees
fringed the horizon; on our right glimpses of the sea could be caught through
openings in the wood — the inland sea on which stands the Queen of the Lakes.
Michigan looks broad and blue as the Mediterranean. Large farmhouses stud the
country, and houses which must be the retreat of merchants and citizens of
means; and when the train, leaving the land altogether, dashes out on a pier
and causeway built along the borders of the lake, we see lines of noble houses,
a fine boulevard, a forest of masts, huge isolated piles of masonry, the famed
grain elevators by which so many have been hoisted to fortune, churches and
public edifices, and the apparatus of a great city; and just at nine o'clock
the train gives its last steam shout and comes to a standstill in the spacious
station of the Central Illinois Company, and in half-an-hour more I am in
comfortable quarters at the Richmond House, where I find letters waiting for
me, by which it appears that the necessity for my being in Washington in all
haste, no longer exists. The wary General who commands the army is aware that
the advance to Richmond, for which so many journals are clamoring, would be
attended with serious risk at present, and the politicians must be content to
wait a little longer.
SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and
South, Vol. 1, p. 351-2
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