I have already intimated that this part of Illinois is as yet but thinly populated. It is rapidly filling up but for some years the first settlers will have to endure many hardships, and submit to many privations and sacrifices, of which we can scarcely form an idea. The following fact will serve to illustrate this remark. While on our way to Chicago, as we stopped on one occasion to change horses, I went in and sat down in the only house in the place. It was a comfortable log-cabin, and all nature looked so bright and sunny without, I was hardly prepared for demure and melancholy looks within: and yet the moment I entered, I saw in the countenance of the good lady of the cabin that her heart was ill at ease. She looked so forlorn and full of gloom, I determined to enter into conversation with her and if possible elicit the cause of her depression. After a variety of inquiries, she was drawn out to give the following sketch of herself, which I will put down as nearly as possible in her own words. "We came into this country from western New York several years since. We have never failed to be amply remunerated for our cultivation of the soil. In a temporal point of view we have increased in goods. But our children have never been to school a day since we have been here. We used to go to meeting every Sabbath, but here often for months there is no such thing known as public worship. A while ago, there was a minister that used to come once in three weeks, and preach about four miles from this. But now he is dead, and we have no preaching at all. We have no ministers and no physicians. What made me more contented to reside here, was that my oldest daughter was married and lived my nearest neighbour, about two miles from this. She had three lovely and promising children, in whom all our hearts were bound up. But the grave now covers them! They were all cut down one after another about six months ago by the scarlet fever. We could'nt get any physician to see them, and they all died within ten days of each other. And then we had to carry them ourselves to the grave. We put them into the ground in silence. There was no one to lift up the voice of prayer." Here the good woman seemed choked in her utterance. She wiped her eyes and ceased speaking for a moment. I remained silent, and soon she proceeded. "My daughter laid her loss very much to heart. She never after the death of her babes wore a bright countenance. About ten days ago she was confined. Herself and her infant are dead! We buried them about three days since. She had no physician to attend upon her, for there was none within _thirty_ miles. She had no minister to speak to her words of heavenly consolation, for there are none near here. Her husband has a good farm, and the crops look well; but what is all this to him, now that his wife and children are all gone? He appears desolate and broken-hearted."