his obligations to an Eastern man just as promptly as he meets those contracted at home, and regards the United States, and not Michigan, as his country.  All these were good traits, and we were glad to learn that they existed in one who already possessed so much of our esteem.  At Detroit we found a fine flourishing town, of a healthful and natural growth, and with a population that was fast approaching twenty thousand.  The shores of the beautiful strait on which it stands, and which, by a strange blending of significations and languages, is popularly called the “Detroit River,” were alive with men and their appliances, and we scarce know where to turn to find a more agreeable landscape than that which was presented to us, after passing the island of “Bobolo” (Bois Blanc), near Maiden.  Altogether, it resembled a miniature picture of Constantinople, without its Eastern peculiarities.

At Detroit commenced our surprise at the rapid progress of Western civilization.  It will be remembered that at the period of our tale, the environs of Detroit excepted, the whole peninsula of Michigan lay in a state of nature.  Nor did the process of settlement commence actively until about twenty years since; but, owing to the character of the country, it already possesses many of the better features of a long-inhabited region.  There are stumps, of course, for new fields are constantly coming into cultivation; but on the whole, the appearance is that of a middle-aged, rather than that of a new region.

We left Detroit on a railroad, rattling away toward the setting sun, at a good speed even for that mode of conveyance.  It seemed to us that our route was well garnished with large villages, of which we must have passed through a dozen, in the course of a few hours’ “railing,” These are places varying in size from one to three thousand inhabitants.  The vegetation certainly surpassed that of even West New York, the trees alone excepted.  The whole country was a wheat-field, and we now began to understand how America could feed the world.  Our road lay among the “Openings” much of the way, and we found them undergoing the changes which are incident to the passage of civilized men.  As the periodical fires had now ceased for many years, underbrush was growing in lieu of the natural grass, and in so much those groves are less attractive than formerly; but one easily comprehends the reason, and can picture to himself the aspect that these pleasant woods must have worn in times of old.

We left the railroad at Kalamazoo—­an unusually pretty village, on the banks of the stream of that name.  Those who laid out this place, some fifteen years since, had the taste to preserve most of its trees; and the houses and grounds that stand a little apart from the busiest streets—­and they are numerous for a place of rather more than two thousand souls—­are particularly pleasant to the eye, on account of the shade, and the rural pictures they present.  Here Mrs. Boden told us we were within a mile or two of the very spot where once had stood Castle Meal (Chateau au Miel), though the “general” had finally established himself at Schoolcraft, on Prairie Ronde.