There were no emigrants direct from Europe - save one German family
and a knot of Cornish miners who kept grimly by themselves, one
reading the New Testament all day long through steel spectacles,
the rest discussing privately the secrets of their old-world,
mysterious race. Lady Hester Stanhope believed she could make
something great of the Cornish; for my part, I can make nothing of
them at all. A division of races, older and more original than
that of Babel, keeps this close, esoteric family apart from
neighbouring Englishmen. Not even a Red Indian seems more foreign
in my eyes. This is one of the lessons of travel - that some of
the strangest races dwell next door to you at home.
The rest were all American born, but they came from almost every
quarter of that Continent. All the States of the North had sent
out a fugitive to cross the plains with me. From Virginia, from
Pennsylvania, from New York, from far western Iowa and Kansas, from
Maime that borders on the Canadas, and from the Canadas themselves
- some one or two were fleeing in quest of a better land and better
wages. The talk in the train, like the talk I heard on the
steamer, ran upon hard times, short commons, and hope that moves
ever westward.
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