At early dawn, on Monday last, we crossed Fevre river, and started for Chicago in an open lumber wagon, 'ycleped a stage. Taking our trunks for seats, we determined we would make the best of every thing, and if possible keep up good spirits, while we learned the manner in which people travel through new countries. Our journey, though attended with no little fatigue, was like a walk over the rosied path of pleasure, compared with a jaunt of which Bishop Kemper gave me an account. He had made an appointment somewhere in the interior of Indiana, where it was necessary for him to be at a given day, and had undertaken to pass over Illinois from St. Louis to that point by land. He was overtaken by rain which continued a day or two: the streams became swollen, and the roads, often for miles, completely overflown. All this time he was obliged to ride in an open wagon, the bottom boards of which were loose, and often slipping out, rendering it necessary for him every now and then to get out, and stand in the mud and water, till the rickety wagon could be again brought into a state of temporary order. During the last part of his journey he rode all night with the rain pouring down upon him, and the horses sometimes fording deep creeks--sometimes plunging into sloughs, and then wading for miles through the water which had overflowed the road. The office of a missionary Bishop at the west, if he does his duty, and throws himself with all his heart into the work, is no sinecure. Our course from Galena, for the first thirty miles, was through beautiful oak openings, and over a rolling prairie. After this, on nearly to Chicago, our path lay through a magnificent, level prairie country. The wide sea of grass around us was now and then broken by a grove, springing up with luxuriance and beauty amid the treeless tract of country that stretched around on every side. These groves are points of great interest, and are spoken of by the sparsely scattered inhabitants of northern Illinois, as we speak of cities and towns. The most beautiful of those which we passed were Buffalo, Inlet, and Paw Paw groves, around or near which were scenes of massacre and slaughter during the Black Hawk war.