on to New York, to New England, and to Canada; then, crossing the line of
the Great Lakes, followed that other highway of the northern continent,
the Mississippi, to St. Louis. Here he met with Mr. Hepworth Dixon, then
editor of the _Athenaeum_, and the character of his journey changed: he
travelled in company, and he travelled for the first time under privations
and in real danger. Together they crossed the plains from the eastern head
of the Pacific Railway at a period of Indian war, and parted at Salt Lake
City.

This is a marking-point in the experience. Before Charles Dilke set out to
cross a land still debatable, where travel still was what travel had been
for the pioneers, he wrote home two letters. Both are dated August 26th,
1866, from Leavenworth in Kansas, now a sober town of twenty thousand
inhabitants, then carrying recent memories of the days "when the Southern
'Border Ruffians' were in the habit of parading its streets, bearing the
scalps of Abolitionists stuck on poles," and even after the war basing its
repute for health on the story that, when it became necessary to
"inaugurate" the new graveyard, "they had to shoot a man on purpose."

The first of these letters is to his father:

"MY DEAR FATHER,

"I have been for some days considering whether I would write to you
upon my present theme before or after my journey across the plains,
but I have come to the conclusion that it is in every way better that
I should do it now. Before leaving you, I had prepared, with the
knowledge only of Casswell" (one of his Trinity Hall set), "elaborate
plans for my long-thought-of visit to Australia.