It is not wonderful.  But it will not, I think, be admitted by the politicians of the world that the navigation of the Mississippi need be closed against the West, even though the Southern States should succeed in raising themselves to the power and dignity of a separate nationality.  If the waters of the Danube be not open to Austria, it is through the fault of Austria.  That the subject will be one of trouble, no man can doubt; and of course it would be well for the North to avoid that, or any other trouble.  In the mean time the importance of this right of way must be admitted; and it must be admitted, also, that whatever may be the ultimate resolve of the North, it will be very difficult to reconcile the West to a divided dominion of the Mississippi.

St. Paul contains about 14,000 inhabitants, and, like all other American towns, is spread over a surface of ground adapted to the accommodation of a very extended population.  As it is belted on one side by the river, and on the other by the bluffs which accompany the course of the river, the site is pretty, and almost romantic.  Here also we found a great hotel, a huge, square building, such as we in England might perhaps place near to a railway terminus in such a city as Glasgow or Manchester, but on which no living Englishman would expend his money in a town even five times as big again as St. Paul.  Everything was sufficiently good, and much more than sufficiently plentiful.  The whole thing went on exactly as hotels do down in Massachusetts or the State of New York.  Look at the map and see where St. Paul is.  Its distance from all known civilization—­all civilization that has succeeded in obtaining acquaintance with the world at large—­is very great.  Even American travelers do not go up there in great numbers, excepting those who intend to settle there.  A stray sportsman or two, American or English, as the case may be, makes his way into Minnesota for the sake of shooting, and pushes on up through St. Paul to the Red River.  Some few adventurous spirits visit the Indian settlements, and pass over into the unsettled regions of Dacotah and Washington Territory.  But there is no throng of traveling.  Nevertheless, a hotel has been built there capable of holding three hundred guests, and other hotels exist in the neighborhood, one of which is even larger than that at St. Paul.  Who can come to them, and create even a hope that such an enterprise may be remunerative?  In America it is seldom more than hope, for one always hears that such enterprises fail.

When I was there the war was in hand, and it was hardly to be expected that any hotel should succeed.  The landlord told me that he held it at the present time for a very low rent, and that he could just manage to keep it open without loss.  The war which hindered people from traveling, and in that way injured the innkeepers, also hindered people from housekeeping, and reduced them to the necessity of boarding out,