At this time it was very easy to agree with the theory of the fatalist that "whatever is, is right," for by an accident I was enabled to meet more agreeable people, to enjoy their hospitality, and to see more, which was my chief purpose in crossing the continent. A philosopher never worries about little hindrances, for he soon learns that a delay often proves to be an advantage. Such was my case. [Illustration: A MILL IN THE FOREST.] Ninety-eighth Day. _72 West Main Street_, BATTLE CREEK, MICHIGAN, _August Seventeenth_. Soon after breakfast I left Marshall for Battle Creek on a freight train, as there were no passenger coaches over the road until the afternoon. This mode of travel, if not the most luxurious, was at least novel, and we made very good time. Between the two places the face of the country hardly changed in appearance. There were the same fields of wheat and corn, and at Battle Creek evidently as much business in the flour mills as at Marshall. The creek, uniting here with the Kalamazoo, after a serpentine course of forty miles, supplies the water-power and gives the necessary impetus to trade. I have heard that the tributary won its bellicose name through a little difficulty between the first surveyors of public land who came to mark this section and some Indians. The quarrel ended seriously, and, as the tradition goes, two of the Indians were killed. It may have been that the latter were making an attempt to hold the ground, and that it was but one of the many similar occurrences which were to convince the red man that he was superfluous. Calhoun County was certainly worth making a stand for. Its soil was rich, providing abundantly for the simple wants of the savage, and in the clear waters of the St. Joseph and the Kalamazoo tributaries many a paddle had descended with a deft stroke, upon the gleaming back of pike and pickerel. Ninety-ninth Day. _32 Portage Street_, KALAMAZOO, MICHIGAN, _August Eighteenth_.