I have not much to say of Detroit—­not much, that is, beyond what I have to say of all the North.  It is a large, well-built, half-finished city lying on a convenient waterway, and spreading itself out with promises of a wide and still wider prosperity.  It has about it perhaps as little of intrinsic interest as any of those large Western towns which I visited.  It is not so pleasant as Milwaukee, nor so picturesque as St. Paul, nor so grand as Chicago, nor so civilized as Cleveland, nor so busy as Buffalo.  Indeed, Detroit is neither pleasant nor picturesque at all.  I will not say that it is uncivilized; but it has a harsh, crude, unprepossessing appearance.  It has some 70,000 inhabitants, and good accommodation for shipping.  It was doing an enormous business before the war began, and, when these troublous times are over, will no doubt again go ahead.  I do not, however, think it well to recommend any Englishman to make a special visit to Detroit who may be wholly uncommercial in his views, and travel in search of that which is either beautiful or interesting.

From Detroit we continued our course westward across the State of Michigan, through a country that was absolutely wild till the railway pierced it, Very much of it is still absolutely wild.  For miles upon miles the road passes the untouched forest, showing that even in Michigan the great work of civilization has hardly more than been commenced.  One thinks of the all but countless population which is, before long, to be fed from these regions—­of the cities which will grow here, and of the amount of government which in due time will be required—­one can hardly fail to feel that the division of the United States into separate nationalities is merely a part of the ordained work of creation as arranged for the well-being of mankind.  The States already boast of thirty millions of inhabitants—­not of unnoticed and unnoticeable beings requiring little, knowing little, and doing little, such as are the Eastern hordes, which may be counted by tens of millions, but of men and women who talk loudly and are ambitious, who eat beef, who read and write, and understand the dignity of manhood.  But these thirty millions are as nothing to the crowds which will grow sleek, and talk loudly, and become aggressive on these wheat and meat producing levels.  The country is as yet but touched by the pioneering hand of population.  In the old countries, agriculture, following on the heels of pastoral, patriarchal life, preceded the birth of cities.  But in this young world the cities have come first.  The new Jasons, blessed with the experience of the Old-World adventurers, have gone forth in search of their golden fleeces, armed with all that the science and skill of the East had as yet produced, and, in settling up their new Colchis, have begun by the erection of first class hotels and the fabrication of railroads.  Let the Old World bid them God speed in their work.  Only it would be well if they could be brought to acknowledge from whence they have learned all that they know.