American farmer.

At Akron, Ohio, the energetic and successful Rector of St. Paul's
Church, the Rev. James H.W. Blake, accompanied by his wife and Miss
Graham, his parishioner, boarded the train; and I found them most
agreeable travelling companions to San Francisco. In Chicago, in the
Rock Island Station, I was met by tourist agent Donaldson, in the
employ of the Rock Island Railway Company, and during all the journey
he was most courteous and helpful. Here also I found my old classmate
in the General Theological Seminary, Rev. Dr. Alfred Brittin Baker,
Rector of Trinity Church, Princeton, N.J., Rev. Dr. Henry L. Jones,
of Wilkesbarre, Pa., Rev. Dr. A.S. Woodle, of Altoona, Pa., the Rev.
Henry S. Foster, of Green Bay, Wis., and the Rev. Wm. B. Thorne, of
Marinette, Wis., all journeying to San Francisco. It was a pleasure to
see these friends, and to have their delightful companionship.

Many interesting chapters might be written about this journey; and to
give all the incidents by the way and descriptions of places visited
and pen pictures of persons met would detain you, dear reader, too
long, as you are hastening on to the City by the Golden Gate. Some
things, however, we may not omit as we travel over great prairies and
cross rivers and plains and mountains and valleys. At Rock Island our
train crossed the Mississippi, reaching Davenport by one of the finest
railway bridges in the country; and as the "Father of Waters" sped on
in its course to the Gulf of Mexico, it made one think of the Nile and
the long stretches of country through which that ancient river wends
its way; but the teeming populations on the banks of the Mississippi
have a more noble destiny than the subjects of the Pharaohs who sleep
in the necropolis of Sakkarah and among the hills of Thebes and in
innumerable tombs elsewhere. They have the splendid civilisation of