So sail to Baltimore. At Chesapeake City you are done with the canal, just when it may have begun to tire you ever and ever so slightly. Your vessel drops through a deep lock into the Back creek, an estuary of the Elk river. The Elk river in turn is an estuary of Chesapeake bay and you are upon one of the remote tendons of that really marvelous system of waterways that has its focal point in Hampton Roads and reaches for thousands of miles into Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina. You sweep through the Elk river and then through the upper waters of the Chesapeake bay, just born from the yellow flood of the Susquehanna, as the day dies. As the sun is nearly down, your ship turns sharply, leaves the Bay and begins the ascent of the Patapsco river. Signs of a nearby city, a great city if you please, multiply. There are shipbuilding plants upon distant shores, the glares of foundry cupolas, multiplying commerce--Baltimore is close at hand. And so you sail into Baltimore--into that lagoon-like harbor at the very heart of the town. The steamboats that go sailing further down the Chesapeake that poke their inquisitive noses into the reaches of the Pocomoke, the Pianatank, the Nanticoke, the Rappahannock, the Cocohannock, the Big Wicomico and the Little Wicomico--all of these water highways of a land of milk and honey and only rivaling one another in their quiet lordly beauty--sail in and out of Baltimore. There are many of these steamers as you come into the inner harbor of the city, tightly tethered together with noses against the pier just as we used to see horses tied closely to one another at the hitching-rails, at fair-time in the home town years ago. And they speak the strength of the manorial city of Lord Baltimore. For the city that sits upon the hills above her landlocked little harbor draws her strength from a rich country for many miles roundabout. For many years she has set there, confident in her strength, leading in progress, firm in resource. For well you may call Baltimore--quite as much as Philadelphia--a city of first things. There are almost too many of these to be recounted here. It is worthy of note, however, that in Baltimore came the first use in America of illuminating gas, which drove out the candle and the oil lamp as relics of a past age. Baltimore's historic playhouse, Peale's Museum, was the first in all the land to be set aglow by the new illuminant. And one may well imagine the glow of pride also that dwelt that memorable evening upon the faces of all the folk who were gathered in that ancient temple of the drama.