Passing over the suspension bridge, the traveler may let the sun go down upon his itinerary as he stands upon the bank of the Licking, made memorable by the vigilant canoe cruises of Daniel Boone. Near by is the cottage home of the Grants. Passing a Shawnee effigy in front of a tobacconist's stand, the visitor sees the illumination of the city beginning to twinkle against the shadowy background. The multi-colored lights of myriad street-cars flash over bridges and up the steep streets of the hill-built metropolis. The headlights of locomotives on nineteen railroads, representing over twenty thousand miles of track, gleam in and out of the city. It is a moving picture, a perpetual memorial and celebration of the valiant labors of those paladins of pioneer conquest who on that Christmas week, 113 years ago, struck their flint and started their fires in the primeval woods, kindling thereby a light which though flaring at times before the whirlwinds of savage war, and all but quenched with baptisms of fraternal bloodshed, now burns with a steadiness and brilliancy that shall last as long as time. [Illustration] [Illustration] DETROIT THE QUEEN CITY "Here, beside the broad, blue river builded, I am Queen City of the Lakes." BY SILAS FARMER A stream of crystal clearness, wide and swiftly flowing, the waters of silver and blue alive with fins and scales, a course dotted with islands large and small, wild ducks in myriads diving and dining along shores bordered with pond lilies and flags, stretches of yellow sand and bluffs of yellow clay peopled with buffalo, bear and deer, with wide leagues of grassy pastures and pleasing vistas beyond, walnuts, oaks and maples sentinelling the scene, and skies and sunsets of unrivalled azure and gold adding the final touch of beauty--such was Nature's invitation to the first visitors to the Detroit. The earliest of the French travellers to this region was the Sieur Joliet, who came in 1670, and was followed the same year by the Sulpician priests, Galinee and Dollier. Eight years later La Salle in _Le Griffon_, the first sail-vessel on the Great Lakes, passed through the "strait of Lake Erie," and July 24, 1701, Cadillac and his company landed at the present site of Detroit to establish a fort and permanent settlement.