But a study of American habits and opinions, however interesting in itself, was not calculated to facilitate in any way the solving of the problem which now beset me, namely, the further progress of my journey to the Northwest. The accounts which I daily received were not encouraging. Sometimes there came news that M. Riel had grown tired of his pre-eminence and was anxious to lay down his authority; at other times I heard of preparation made and making to oppose the Expedition by force, and of strict watch being maintained along the Pembina frontier to arrest and turn back all persons except such as were friendly to the Provisional Government. Nor was my own position in St. Paul at all a pleasant one. The inquiries I had to make on subjects connected with the supply of the troops in Red River had made so many persons acquainted with my identity, that it soon became known that there was a British officer in the place--a knowledge which did not tend in any manner to make the days pleasant in themselves nor hopeful in the anticipation of a successful prosecution of my journey in the time to come. About the first week in July I left St. Paul for St. Cloud, seventy miles higher up on the Mississippi, having decided to wait no longer'` for instructions, but to trust to chance for further progress towards the North-west. "You will meet with no obstacle at this side of the line," said an American gentleman who was acquainted with the object of my journey, "but I won't answer for the other side;" and so, not knowing exactly how I was to get through to join the Expedition, but' determined to try it some way or other, I set out for Sauk Rapids and St. Cloud. Sauk Rapids, on the Mississippi River, is a city which has neither burst up nor gone on. It has thought fit to remain, without monument of any kind, where it originally located itself-on the left bank of the Mississippi, opposite the confluence of the Sauk River with the "Father of Waters." It takes its name partly from the Sauk River and partly from the rapids of the Mississippi which lie abreast of the town. Like many other cities, it had nourished feelings of the most deadly enmity. against its neighbours, and was to "kill creation" on every side; but these ideas of animosity have decreased considerably in lapse of time: Of course it possessed a newspaper--I believe it also possessed a church, but I did not see that edifice; the paper, however, I did see, and was much struck by the fact that the greater portion of the first page--the paper had only two-was taken up with a pictorial delineation of what Sauk Rapids would attain to in the future, when it had sufficiently developed its immense water-power; In the mean time previous to the development of said water-power-Sauk Rapids was not a bad sort of place: a bath at an hotel in St. Paul was a more expensive luxury than a dinner; but the Mississippi flowing by the door of the hotel at Sauk Rapids permitted free bathing in its waters.