In addition to the trade, commerce, and agricultural riches of Minnesota there is yet very good sporting to be found, and those among us who were given that way were much exercised by the accounts we heard of good shooting not far distant, and of unrivalled fishing--of woods filled with deer, of prairies swarming with "chickens," of rivers and lakes boiling with trout! However, one of the gentlemen with us goes away every year to Canada for his fishing, so it must be better there than in Minnesota. The cold in winter is admitted to be intense, but the people are healthy, and there are several resorts for invalids in much favour in the State. There is a considerable State debt, respecting which we heard and read discussions in which the word "repudiation" was mentioned but generally repudiated. After all it is only about 1,600,000_l._ for city, town, county, school, district, and State. These, however, are very risky subjects for those who are not well acquainted with every detail to dwell upon, and as far as I could learn the development of the State up to the present time may be taken as a measure of its future progress. Governor Sibley told me he recollected the time when the population was only 6000--he puts it down at 1,000,000 to-day. _May 25th._--We were, I find it recorded in my diary, up and "packed" at 7 o'clock and had an early, breakfast. "The party started from St. Paul at 8 A.M., and made a desperate attempt to leave Mr. Close, who was our very arch guide, and one of its members behind, but it was ignominiously defeated and the train brought to a standstill at five miles out from the city, where it had to wait till our special engine and car completed the journey and filled up the establishment." It was in this wise. I wanted to buy a candlestick, for in most American hotels there is only gaslight or petroleum lamps in the bedrooms, and Mr. Close, who had come to St. Paul to conduct us over his farm, set out with me to find an ironmonger's shop. "Don't lose your way," said the good-natured landlord as we left the hotel. No danger of that! Was I not in the hands of a local expert? We turned into a shop, where the gentleman behind the counter let us have the run of the establishment till I found what I wanted, 10 cents = 5_d._, so Protection does not render tin candlesticks very expensive, any way. And then we sauntered to the station. A number of people were coming up from it as though they had been looking at something. We walked down to the platform and inquired for the special. The porter, pointing with his finger to a bridge far away across the river down below, said slowly, "I guess she'll be about there. She went off five minutes ago." Mr. Close tackled the occasion at once--the station master was hunted down, the telegraph set to work, an engine and a carriage were prepared, and amid much objurgation from our friends, connected with imaginary dangers from collision, &c., we were delivered over to the conductors,