OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. IN the calendar of life, while recalling memories of certain impressions and events, we are at liberty to carve out our own complete space of twelvemonths without being bound to the rigid tables of the almanac; and, availing myself of this privilege, I mark exactly one year, dating back from my now taking up my pen for recording my experiences during that period. It was the 10th of June, 1886, when, with many others, I sailed from Liverpool in the S.S. Parisian (Captain J. Wylie), of the Allan Line, bound for Quebec, with the intention of taking a long course, to and fro, in the States, beginning with a visit to the Dominion; and though, when we sailed out of port to the distant West, I was very far from making my first voyage at sea, yet I must confess to have felt a striking sense of novelty and strangeness in the idea that I was at last going to realize great North America and the great States, across the great North Atlantic. "You ought to have visited the States long ago," B I have had said to me; but I nevertheless feel that I was not a day too late, and, moreover, that in a very short space of time, unless I can go there again, I shall believe that I have been too soon. Every hour, as it seems, makes a step towards surprising developments in this still young, though vastly grown country. I had at first thought of a journey round the world, continuing from San Francisco in our west through our colonies to our east, but I soon found that I had plenty to compass by remaining on the great continent where I found myself; and, moreover, I felt there would be a strange mixture of confused impressions, incongruously mingled in the mind, had I combined the old peoples and majesties of India and China with the newest development of imported mankind in North America. It is true, however, that from San Francisco I managed a passage to the Sandwich, or more properly Hawaiian Islands, where I spent the month of September, visiting their large active, and their still larger extinct, volcanoes. These islands, however, with now only one week's sail from the western coast, belong almost geographically, as indeed almost sympathetically, to the States themselves. When the wanderer's round is completed, and he is at home again, it is not an ungrateful occupation to open the map and trace out the whole course of his journey, while sitting at ease and released from all the toil that his curiosity entailed on him for its satisfaction. This I am now tempted to do. First, then, I landed in Quebec; visited Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto. Thence I crossed Lake Ontario to Niagara Falls; and from the Falls I went on to the States, entering at Detroit, in Michigan, and stopping at Chicago. Thence I struck upwards to the two already flourishing and still growing rival cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, and on my way to Portland, Oregon, stopped at Cinnabar for a visit. to the Yellow Stone Park. From Portland I travelled northwards to Victoria, in Vancouver's Island, going over the mountain ranges of the Canadian Pacific railway to Calgari, in British Columbia, and returning. Once again at Portland, I took steamer for San Francisco, whence I visited the Yo Semite Valley, and on my return sailed for the Hawaiian Islands. Once again at San Francisco I started for Salt Lake City, and continued through the gorges of the Rio Grande and Delver railway, stopping at Manitou to see Colorado Springs and to make the ascent of Pike's Peak in the Rockies. Hence I made the best of my way by the Burlington Route to Chicago, towards the New England States, a visit which I had purposely delayed till now, in order that I might realize the surpassing beauties of their autumn tints. Having seen the two cities Albany and Boston, I came down the beautiful Hudson to New York, and, after a due sojourn in that city, continued southwards to Philadelphia and Washington, passing through Florida, after visiting on my way the Mammoth Caves of Kentucky. Eventually, I left the States at |