An appropriate sobriquet for Chicago, I think, would be “City of Boards”—because it is built chiefly of boards. Most of the houses are frame buildings, weather-boarded; the sidewalks are nearly all composed of thick pine boards; and the streets are paved with the “Nicholson pavement.” The sidewalks are raised some feet above what was once the original height of the ground, leaving many dirty caverns beneath—an arrangement highly gratifying to the rats. The rat population of Chicago is supposed to amount to about one hundred to each inhabitant of the _genus homo_, which would make their whole number about twenty-one millions. As Josh Billings remarks, “This shows at a glance how many waste rats there is.” They are very playful, especially about eleven o’clock, when one is going home from the theater. One night, returning from Crosby’s Opera House, I counted all I saw on my way to my lodging-house. I had but three or four squares to go, however, and therefore only counted eighteen. Of these, I succeeded in knocking only two over with my cane, by way of amusement. As I had done in Cincinnati and Saint Louis, I hired a lodging-room, and took my meals at a restaurant. The room was a very good one, in a house on Dearborn street, opposite the Post office. I spent some weeks quite pleasantly in the “Garden City,” during which, the only very funny thing that happened to me, was my nearly getting drowned in Lake Michigan. My love of rowing led to this. On a beautiful moonlight evening, two young ladies, and a young gentleman who lived in the same house, went down with me to the lake, and we hired a row-boat. We seated ourselves comfortably in the boat—I taking the oars—glided away from the shore, and were soon outside of the breakwater, where the full moon, rising in the eastern sky, made an endless path of quivering and shining silver over the limpid waves. The air was still, balmy and pleasant on the water. But the wind had been blowing that day, the waters were agitated, and the waves rolled considerably. When we were two miles from shore, we lay-to for a time; and while the waves rocked us about, in a playful manner, the two young ladies and the gentleman—I never sing—sung a beautiful song, which, the murmuring of the lake blending with it, and the beauty of the evening, rendered quite enchanting. When they ceased singing, one of the young ladies said: “I wonder if I could row?” “I have no doubt of it,” I responded; “did you ever try it?” “No, never.” “Then,” I rejoined, “it is possible you are an excellent rower, and have never given yourself an opportunity to discover it. Will you try it?” “I’m afraid,” she said, timidly. “Nothing to fear,” I urged; “the oars are stationary in the row-locks, and you cannot lose them. Moreover, there is no wind or tide, and the boat cannot run away with you.” Thus encouraged, she said, “I believe I’ll try it.” “Then let us exchange seats,” said I. “Well.”