deserve a few days' rest, I remain till the Democratic Convention winds
up on the 13th.

Fifteen miles of good riding and three of tough trundling, through deep
sand, brings me into Indiana, which for the first thirty-five miles
around the southern shore of Lake Michigan is "simply and solely sand."
Finding it next to impossible to traverse the wagon-roads, I trundle
around the water's edge, where the sand is firmer because wet. After
twenty miles of this I have to shoulder the bicycle and scale the huge
sand-dunes that border the lake here, and after wandering for an hour
through a bewildering wilderness of swamps, sand-hills, and hickory
thickets, I finally reach Miller Station for the night. This place is
enough to give one the yellow-edged blues: nothing but swamps, sand,
sad-eyed turtles, and ruthless, relentless mosquitoes. At Chesterton the
roads improve, but still enough sand remains to break the force of
headers, which, notwithstanding my long experience on the road, I still
manage to execute with undesirable frequency. To-day I take one, and
while unravelling myself and congratulating my lucky stars at being in
a lonely spot where none can witness my discomfiture, a gruff, sarcastic
"haw-haw" falls like a funeral knell on my ear, and a lanky "Hoosier"
rides up on a diminutive pumpkin-colored mule that looks a veritable
pygmy between his hoop-pole legs. It is but justice to explain that this
latter incident did not occur in "Posey County."

At La Porte the roads improve for some distance, but once again I am
benighted, and sleep under a wheat-shock. Traversing several miles of
corduroy road, through huckleberry swamps, next morning, I reach Cram's
Point for breakfast. A remnant of some Indian tribe still lingers around
here and gathers huckleberries for the market, two squaws being in the
village purchasing supplies for their camp in the swamps. "What's the