Minneapolis would well deserve a separate chapter to itself if I could give it. It is a "twin city," for St. Anthony is linked to it, and it boasts a university, an opera-house, an academy of music, fine public buildings, an Athenæum, a public library, many churches, and the broad streets are lined with shade-giving trees and fine shops and houses; and yet it was as late as 1837 that the United States obtained by treaty from the Sioux the right of settling in the country at all; and the city of St. Paul is partly built on the piece of land which was obtained by a Canadian named Pierre Parent in the same year, and which he sold for 16_l._! And now the hum of life, the thunder of machinery, the smoke of factories, fill the valley. The Mississippi groans under the masses of timber and innumerable keels. How much to admire! what energy! what enterprise! But how nature suffered from it all! The Falls of St. Anthony turned into the overflow of a canal lock! The great river converted into a sewer laden with manure and sawdust! The lovely landscape defaced by hideous mills, elevators, factories! How the poets should rage, and the plutocrats rejoice! An hour had been spent in the drive round the city, an hour and a half more in the excursion by road to the rival greatness of Minneapolis, another hour was devoted to taking a leisurely view of the Falls of St. Anthony (which were artificial and disappointing), and an inspection of Mr. Washburn's great mills worked by the captive river. On our way back the party made a halt to take a glance at Minnehaha, the "laughing water" (Oh, Mr. Longfellow! How could you?)--a pretty little cascade enough as we saw it--in a deep wooded dell, about half the height of the Fall at Powerscourt; beset, too, with photographers and harpies. Still, we did our duty. The Auditor and others descended to the bed of the rivulet, crossed it, and walked round behind the Falls in due course, and struggled up to the top triumphant. Then we went back by a different route to Minneapolis, feeling we had well filled up a very hot, dusty, and profitable day of honest labour, with many a pleasant incident to boot.