agreed with me, and attributed his inability to start earlier to the dilatory arrangements at the hotel.  When jogging along at about eleven at night between St. Anthony and the city, I could not help begrudging every minute of fair daylight which had been wasted.  The theory of Judge Story, that it don’t make much difference when a man gets up in the morning, provided he is wide awake after he is up, will do very well, perhaps, except when one is to start on a journey in the stage.

I took a seat by the driver’s side, the weather being clear and mild, and had an unobstructed and delightful view of every object, and there seemed to be none but pleasant objects in range of the great highway.  Though there is, between every village, population enough to remind one constantly that he is in a settled country, the broad extent yet unoccupied proclaims that there is still room enough.  Below Sauk Rapids a good deal of the land on the road side is in the hands of speculators.  This, it is understood, is on the east side of the Mississippi.  On the west side there are more settlements.  But yet there are many farms, with tidy white cottages; and in some places are to be seen well-arranged flower-gardens.  The most attractive scenery to me, however, was the ample corn-fields, which, set in a groundwork of interminable virgin soil, are pictures which best reflect the true destiny and usefulness of an agricultural region.  We met numerous teams heavily laden with furniture or provisions, destined for the different settlements above.  The teams are principally drawn by two horses; and, as the road is extremely level and smooth, are capable of taking on as much freight as under other circumstances could be drawn by four horses.  Mules do not appear to be appreciated up this way so much as in Missouri or Kentucky.  Nor was it unusual to meet light carriages with a gentleman and lady, who, from the luggage, &c., aboard, appeared to have been on somewhat of an extensive shopping expedition.  And I might as well say here, if I havn’t yet said it, that the Minnesotians are supplied with uncommonly good horses.  I do not remember to have seen a mean horse in the territory.  I suppose, as considerable pains are taken in raising stock, poor horses are not raised at all; and it will not pay to import poor ones.  A company of surveyors whom we met excited a curiosity which I was not able to solve.  It looked odd enough to see a dozen men walking by the side or behind a small one-horse cart; the latter containing some sort of baggage which was covered over, as it appeared, with camping fixtures.  It was more questionable whether the team belonged to the men than that the men were connected with the team.  The men were mostly young and very intelligent-looking, dressed with woollen shirts as if for out door service, and I almost guessed they were surveyors; yet still thought they were a party of newcomers who had concluded to club together to make their preemption claim.  But surveyors they were.