Our route lay right across the State to a place called Grand Haven, on Lake Michigan, from whence we were to take boat for Milwaukee, a town in Wisconsin, on the opposite or western shore of the lake.  Michigan is sometimes called the Peninsular State, from the fact that the main part of its territory is surrounded by Lakes Michigan and Huron, by the little Lake St. Clair and by Lake Erie.  It juts out to the northward from the main land of Indiana and Ohio, and is circumnavigable on the east, north, and west.  These particulars, however, refer to a part of the State only; for a portion of it lies on the other side of Lake Michigan, between that and Lake Superior.  I doubt whether any large inland territory in the world is blessed with such facilities of water carriage.

On arriving at Grand Haven we found that there had been a storm on the lake, and that the passengers from the trains of the preceding day were still remaining there, waiting to be carried over to Milwaukee.  The water however—­or the sea, as they all call it—­was still very high, and the captain declared his intention of remaining there that night; whereupon all our fellow-travelers huddled themselves into the great lake steamboat, and proceeded to carry on life there as though they were quite at home.  The men took themselves to the bar-room, and smoked cigars and talked about the war with their feet upon the counter; and the women got themselves into rocking-chairs in the saloon, and sat there listless and silent, but not more listless and silent than they usually are in the big drawing-rooms of the big hotels.  There was supper there precisely at six o’clock—­beef-steaks, and tea, and apple jam, and hot cakes, and light fixings, to all which luxuries an American deems himself entitled, let him have to seek his meal where he may.  And I was soon informed, with considerable energy, that let the boat be kept there as long as it might by stress of weather, the beef-steaks and apple jam, light fixings and heavy fixings, must be supplied at the cost of the owners of the ship.  “Your first supper you pay for,” my informant told me, “because you eat that on your own account.  What you consume after that comes of their doing, because they don’t start; and if it’s three meals a day for a week, it’s their look out.”  It occurred to me that, under such circumstances, a captain would be very apt to sail either in foul weather or in fair.

It was a bright moonlight night—­moonlight such as we rarely have in England—­and I started off by myself for a walk, that I might see of what nature were the environs of Grand Haven.  A more melancholy place I never beheld.  The town of Grand Haven itself is placed on the opposite side of a creek, and was to be reached by a ferry.  On our side, to which the railway came and from which the boat was to sail, there was nothing to be seen but sand hills, which stretched away for miles along the shore of the lake.  There were great sand