shanty, where fuel is not too plentiful, I am at a loss to understand, unless it be indeed true that the cold, no matter what the thermometer shows, is not so cold as it is in Europe. But, without jesting, there is concurrent testimony from settlers with whom we spoke, that they can go about without inconvenience when the thermometer marks twenty or thirty degrees of frost; and the same fact is reported in Manitoba of Western Canada. It is, they say, the dryness of the air which mitigates the severity of the cold. The names of places in Wisconsin are often of French or Indian origin, smacking of the old days of exploration and the chase--Prairie du Chien, Portage, Tomah, &c. We did not see much of the country between Milwaukee and La Crosse, but now we roused ourselves to make amends for our forced neglect by diligent observation from the windows. The iron horse has borne the travellers nearly 200 miles without a check, over canals, rivers, and rich fat lands, and we are now entering on a picturesque region. For many a long mile we ran by the side of the Father of Waters, which hereabouts has traits reminding one of the Rhine, doubled or trebled in breadth, it is true; its broad and turbid waters, now several feet above its ordinary level, are confined by high wooded banks and sharp bluffs. Winona, rich in timber-rafts and many masts--a little inland river port, with a show of steeples and public buildings, won our regards for a moment, and farther on the Mississippi opened out into a grand sheet called, I think, Lake Pepin. At the summit of the bluffs the great prairie lands begin, and after a run beneath these finely contoured natural battlements of two and a half hours along the bank of the stream, the line of cliff seemed to recede and open up, and we caught a glimpse of the green headlands, flattening out into rolling treeless plains--"There is the Prairie"! The River Division of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railway over which we travelled has not always to congratulate itself on its vicinity to the river, nor to think its lot has been cast in pleasant places. The great inundation in which the Mississippi and Missouri did so much mischief left plentiful and numerous traces of its power along our route. At 9 A.M. we crossed the river by a fine bridge to the left bank. In half an hour more the steeples, chimneys, and elevators of St. Paul, 409 miles from Chicago, were in sight, and at 10 A.M. the special stopped at the platform, where General Sibley, whilom governor and almost the father of the country hereabouts, the mayor elect, and a deputation, were waiting to receive the Duke, to whom they were introduced by Mr. Merrill, the manager of the railroad. We were always "taken charge of" by somebody or other--at least we were told so in the newspapers--but our friends do their spiriting so gently that we are not aware of the surveillance. At St. Paul the party was "in charge" of the Chamber of Commerce.