As I review the incidents of my journey in 1836, I can not but contrast the conditions of that era and the present. How great the change in half a century! The journey then required thirty days. It now requires but three. I had passed over but two short lines of railroad, and had made the journey by canal boat, by steamer, by stage, and a large portion of it on foot. There were few regularly established lines of travel. From Michigan to the Mississippi there were no stages nor were there any regular southern routes. Travelers to the centre of the continent, in those days, came either by the water route, via New Orleans or the Fox and Wisconsin river route, or followed Indian trails or blazed lines from one settlement to another. The homes of the settlers were rude--were built principally of logs. In forest regions the farms consisted of clearings or square patches of open ground, well dotted with stumps and surrounded by a dense growth of timber. The prairies, except around the margins or along certain belts of timber following the course of streams, were without inhabitants. Hotels were few and far between, and, when found, not much superior to the cabins of the settlers; but the traveler was always and at all places hospitably entertained. DUBUQUE. Dubuque was a town of about three hundred inhabitants, attracted thither by the lead mines. The people were principally of the mining class. The prevailing elements amongst them were Catholic and Orange Irish. These two parties were antagonistic and would quarrel on the streets or wherever brought in contact. Sundays were especially days of strife, and Main street was generally the field of combat. Women even participated. There was no law, there were no police to enforce order. The fight went on, the participants pulling hair, gouging, biting, pummeling with fists or pounding with sticks, till one or the other party was victorious. These combats were also accompanied with volleys of profanity, and unlimited supplies of bad whisky served as fuel to the flame of discord. Dubuque was certainly the worst town in the West, and, in a small way, the worst in the whole country. The entire country west of the Mississippi was without law, the government of Wisconsin Territory not yet being extended to it. Justice, such as it was, was administered by Judge Lynch and the mob. My first employment was working a hand furnace for smelting lead ore for a man named Kelly, a miner and a miser. He lived alone in a miserable hovel, and on the scantiest fare. In January I contracted to deliver fifty cords of wood at Price's brickyard. I cut the wood from the island in front of the present city of Dubuque, and hired a team to deliver it.