In fact, the Americans have but one town, and in the nomenclature of the streets of this one town they have done everything the perverse ingenuity of man could desire to render it confusing. CHAPTER XIII. THE VALLEY OF THE OHIO—MUCH OF THE UNITED STATES WILL PRODUCE WINE—ILLINOIS AT NIGHT—FIRST VIEW OF LAKE MICHIGAN—CHICAGO—A SIGN OF OUTWARD RELIGION—‘SMALL-POX HERE’—FIRE ALARM—LIBERALITY OF CHICAGO MERCHANTS—THE DOLLAR NOT ALL IN ALL—A CHURCH LIGHTED FROM THE ROOF—A HANDSOME AMERICAN—AMERICA HAS DEVELOPED A NEW TYPE OF FEATURES—CHICAGO SCHOOLS—AN EXCEPTION TO THE AMERICAN WAY OF DENOUNCING THE OFFICIAL CLASS—CHICAGO SUNDAY SCHOOLS—PROGRAMME OF ONE I ATTENDED—EXCELLENCE OF WATER AT CHICAGO—HOW SUPPLIED—LIFTING UP THE CITY—POST OFFICE ARRANGEMENTS—A DISADVANTAGE OF FREQUENT CHANGE OF CLERKS—AMERICANS ON ARISTOCRACY—HOW THE GERMANS, THE MASSES OF THE PEOPLE, AND THE UPPER CLASS FEEL TOWARDS IT. The valley of the Ohio pleased me—all things considered—more than any other district I saw in the United States. The land was generally very fertile, and much diversified with riverside levels and contiguous hills; with cultivated land, and woodland; with apple and peach orchards, and with wheat and maize. Its most novel feature was the space devoted to the culture of the vine. [Sidenote: _Lake Michigan._] In many parts of the Union, as in this State, California, and several others, a great deal of wine is already made; and the planting of vineyards is yearly extending. I tasted two wines, sparkling Catawba, and a red Californian wine, which are really good now, and which no doubt in course of time will become still better. The former was a little too sweet; but that is a fault, if it be regarded as a fault in America, which can easily be remedied by carrying the process of fermentation a little further. There is every prospect of a larger proportion of America, than of Europe, producing wine; in that case the same proportion of its inhabitants will become a wine, and not a beer, or spirit-drinking population. In Europe we attribute certain differences of national character to this difference in the beverage of a people. It appears as if, in this highly-favoured region, upon which Nature has heaped all her gifts, that nothing in the way of climate, occupation, or even food, which can diversify life and character, will be wanting. America will contain within herself all that other people, less bountifully provided, have to seek all over the world. On passing through almost any part of Illinois after sunset, there are so many lights seen in every direction, glancing from the innumerable farm houses, that I could hardly help thinking, at one time, that the train was entering a large town, while at another, I was reminded of the gleaming on all sides from the shutterless windows of a scattered English village, during the first hour or two of darkness. And this is the way in which all these fertile North-western States are filling up.