Back again to Chicago, we were welcomed by Mr. Arms, whom we found engaged in erecting machinery in the Gowan Marble Works, the largest of the kind in the North-west.  Resting in the sweet haven of home, we passed the winter in this sanctum.

CHAPTER XXV.

    “I love not man the less, but nature more,
      From these our interviews, in which I steal
    From all I may be, or have been before,
      To mingle with the universe, and feel
      What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.”

Renewed and refreshed from our long winter rest, with the migration of the birds we winged our way westward, alighting in many a lovely locality in the flourishing State of Iowa, whose soft undulations of prairies were now swelling in billows of gorgeous green, and touched with the varied tints of flowery bloom.

Our last resting place was in Council Bluffs, so celebrated for the grandeur of its location at the foot of the beetling bluffs of the Missouri River, and for its flourishing and progressive spirit, aside from which it holds a place in our historic annals dating back to aboriginal days.  When this century was in its early infancy, and the shadowy dawn of our young nation was still wrapt in the mists which enshrouded its first struggling efforts; when the little far-away fur station of Astoria, near the whispering waves of the Pacific coast, held not the mellowing memories of time or the living light with which the genius of an Irving has since invested it; when the great explorers, Lewis and Clarke, were leaving their foot-prints on the land bordering the Columbia River, they held a council with the Red Man at Kanesville, Iowa, ever since known as “Council Bluffs.”

Thence we went to Omaha, which is one of the most flourishing places in Nebraska, and from the improvised post-office of early days, the “plug” hat of Mr. Jones, its first post-master, has grown the large distributing office of the department.

It was also a military post and winter garrison for our troops in transitu, its cheerful barracks, well-kept roads and clean parade ground converting it into a favorite drive and walk, where resort many strangers to witness the dress parade of “The Boys in Blue.”

The Platte River Valley is well known to most of my readers from its romantic association with the struggles of the vast army of emigrants, who not only braved the dangers of its uncertain fords and deceitful quicksands, but the tomahawk and scalp knife, ofttimes leaving a nameless grave beside its waters; and, were it not for a laughable incident in this connection, I would pass it by unnoticed.