In such a stateroom and over smooth rails you sleep--sleep as a child sleeps until Lemuel, the porter, comes and tears you forth by entreaties, persuading you that you are almost upon the brink of--not St. Peter but of St. Paul. Of course, Lemuel has let his enthusiasm carry away his accuracy--even a porter upon a yellow train is apt to do that--but you have full chance to arise and dress leisurely before your train stops in the ancient ark of a Union station[E] upon the river level at the capital of the state of Minnesota. For at St. Paul you have come to the Mississippi--the Father of Waters of legendary lore. If you have only seen the stream at St. Louis or at New Orleans, polluted by the muddy waters of the Missouri or the Ohio or a dozen sluggish southern streams, you will not recognize the clear northern river flowing turbulently through a high-walled gorge, as the Mississippi. There are a few of the flat-bottomed, gaily caparisoned steamboats at the St. Paul to heighten the resemblance between the lower river and the upper, but that is all. [E] Since the above was written word has come of the destruction of the Union station by fire, an event which will not be regretted by travelers or by residents of the place. E. H. St. Paul owes her birth to the river-trade nevertheless. For she was, and still is, at the real head of navigation on the Mississippi and in other days that meant very much indeed. A few miles above her levee were the falls of St. Anthony and a thriving little town called Minneapolis--of which very much more in a moment. From that levee at St. Paul began the first railroad building into the then unknown country of the Northwest. The first locomotive--the _William Crooks_--which ran into the virgin territory is still carefully preserved. And the man who made railroading from St. Paul into a great trunk line system still lives in the town. He began by being assistant wharfmaster--in the days when there was something to do in such a job. Today they know him as the Empire Builder. The Swedes, who form so important a factor in the population of the Twin Cities, call him "Yem Hill" and he loves it. But he is entered in all records as James J. Hill.