Silverland | Page 6

than when I looked on it last under a July sun.
The stunted woodlands were all a-glitter, and rime lay thick on the hungry tilths, but not a deep drift appeared anywhere; and one or two of our party, arguing from the average of Canadian winters, began to hope that rumour had exaggerated the difficulties farther west. At Detroit, however, which we reached about midnight, I fancy the last of these illusions vanished.
The passage of the St. Clair river the strait betwixt the inland seas of Huron and Erie w T as decidedly sensational. By dint of incessant driving to and fro at the top of her thousand horse-power, the steam-ferry had maintained her right of way; but, before our train had been run aboard in a double section, the floes had closed in; and, as her mighty bows grided through, there arose an angry roar of tormented ice; whilst great splinters and fragments leapt up against her sides, like prairie wolves besetting a buffalo bull.
A faulty axle the first of many such disasterscaused us to miss the Western train at Chicago; so that we were constrained to abide there the third night. The delay was easy to endure; for what we saw that afternoon was worth a greater sacrifice.
On one side of the picture was the sorry image of a fair city, lying in a ruinous heap; but on the other was such a presentment of commercial courage and energy, as, I believe, lacks parallel in this world of ours. From amongst hillocks of shivered stones, from amongst tottering walls riven and distorted by the strange fantasies of fire, from ghastly hollows of foundations laid bare, went up the diligent sound of trowel and hammer; nor was the frost, that keeps most masons at home, any hindrance to these sturdy craftsmen. We saw one six-storied block of good substantial brickwork, that was roofed within eleven weeks of the digging of its foundations. One of the proprietors of the Sherman House a hostel which has few superiors in the West averred to us that his old home was still blazing, when he completed the purchase of the building in which we found good entertainment; and, on the first night after the flames abated, he was able to shelter therein some three hundred homeless heads.
I was told not by a native, but by one of the few strangers who watched Chicago throughout her terrible ordeal that, for just one day after the actual panic had subsided, people sat down, sullenly, face to face with the utter ruin. Thenceforward, a healthy elasticity was almost universal each man setting his hand to his appointed work, in the spirit of the steadfast Consul who 'never despaired of the Republic.' Assuredly, ere long, the Queen of the West will lift up her brow, vauntingly as heretofore; though, for years to come, it mus bear seams and scars.
There was pointed out to us one strange caprice of the Destroyer. In the very centre of the quarter that suffered most severely, stands a dwelling of fair proportions, built entirely of wood, with a tiny grove around it meant rather for ornament than shelter. When the flames came near, the family fled, like their fellows; and returned, when the tyranny was overpast, to look upon the ashes of their homestead. It bore neither scorch nor scathe; the foliage of the limes was scarce more shrivelled than is usual in arid autumn; and there the house still abides opposite a stately stone church, riven and blasted from spire to threshold, such a wonder as, perchance, has not been matched since the time of the Three Children.
When time is of such vital importance, it is unfair to criticise too severely builders' handiwork; yet one would have thought that people, still half crushed by such a disaster, would have been more careful to avert its recurrence. If pitch and asphalte are excluded, there is still too much of flimsy brickwork, too little of iron and stone; and, were I director of an insurance office, I should not, even now, be over-anxious for business in Chicago. The waterworks, however, which, with great damage, barely escaped min, have been greatly strengthened and enlarged; the supplies, drawn through a tunnel running far out into Lake Michigan, are quite inexhaustible; and, after such a warning, even supine officials are not likely to be taken unawares.
Amongst other signs of reviving commerce, is a tolerably brisk trade in relics. No stranger is suffered to depart without investing in one or more of the miniature bells made, nominally, out of the metal of that one which went on tolling in the Court House, till it was half molten. In almost every Western town and hamlet, you hear their tinkling; and the original must have multiplied itself, in the miraculous