says,

POLICY OF UNITED STATES.

Public opinion on this subject in America, as we may gather from the President's last message, which may generally be regarded as an echo of the popular voice, is widely different from the policy above described. In speaking of the financial condition of the country, he "We ought never to forget that true public economy consists, not in withholding the means necessary to accomplish important national objects confided to us by the constitution, but in taking care that the money appropriated for these purposes, shall be faithfully and frugally expended." In practice, these maxims are usually effectuated as follows:

In the States, until the population of a territory is sufficient to justify its admission into the Union, a government is provided for it by the parent state. The President, with the concurrence of the Senate, appoints all the principal officers, under whose direction the roads at first most required are made, customs and postal arrangements established, the necessary public buildings erected-even lunatic asylums and libraries are not forgotten-at the sole expense of the Federal Government. A local legislature is formed with limited powers to tax, the application of the proceeds being controlled by the officers of the Federal Government, which is kept well informed by a delegate to Congress, who is allowed to speak in the House of Representatives, but not to vote. The Federal Govern ́ment usually cedes to the territory some small tracts of wild land to practise upon, under certain restrictions as to sale. When the territory is admitted into the

* It is said that Iowa for a considerable time after her population was sufficient to secure her admission as a state into the Union, evaded the distinction so as to reap the full benefit of immaturity.

POLICY OF UNITED STATES.

83

Union as a state these grants are increased in all to 500,000 acres for internal improvements, but even then the Federal Government continues to retain the principal appointments and reimburses itself for the previous outlay by continuing to receive the proceeds of customs, post office, and land sales, in the latter case less ten per cent. per annum of the net proceeds or balance which remains after paying the civil lists, which percentage or balance becomes the property of the state.

The system appears in many respects inferior to our own, especially as many of the principal officers are liable to be removed by a change of the ministry at Washington, but it has this advantage in a remarkable degree, that by rapidly opening up communications and removing the most formidable impediments to the first settlers, a sudden impetus is given to emigration, the wilderness is quickly converted into a territory, and the territory into a state.

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CHAP. VI.

ROUTES TO THE PACIFIC. BY LONG SEA. BY ROYAL MAIL LINE,

OR

via NEW YORK, ACROSS THE ISTHMUS OF PANAMA, TO SAN FRANCISCO, AND THENCE TO THE BRITISH COLONIES. LAND AMERICAN ROUTES. POSTAL.

THE FOUR OVER

THERE are at present seven routes open to the traveller, by any one of which he can reach the colonies on the Pacific. Of these, three are by water or chiefly so, and the others across the continent. In the order mentioned, I shall shortly describe each of these routes.

The only direct way to reach Vancouver Island and British Columbia at present, is to take advantage of any vessel sailing from London or Liverpool that may offer. Exceeding 17,000 miles, this passage is the longest that can be taken from England to any known port rounding either cape, unless it be to some place in the neighbourhood of Sitka, or Petrapaulouski; little short of five months*, it occupies a considerable fraction of a man's life time: let us cherish the idea that it will be superseded, before the surface gold of British Columbia begins to be exhausted, or the country converted into a succession of distorted ridges and unsightly mounds, by a North Pacific British Emigrant and Postal route,

*Sir E. B. Lytton to Gov. Douglas, Sept. 2, 1858: “I may further observe, that a ship has been chartered, and is in course of preparation for the conveyance of the larger portion of this detachment by the Horn; but as the passage will consume nearly four months, and it is desirable that you should have the " &c. (This should have read five months.)

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which, as is elsewhere shown, could be opened at an expenditure of about 250,000l. and by which the colonies could be reached at least a week sooner than now by Panama, the quickest route, and at a fraction of the expense of the latter.

All long sea voyages are monotonous, and in this case remarkably so, as land is seldom seen or visited from port to port; the only variety, and that not an agreeable one, being met with in coming round the Horn.* For any one who can go aloft and work his passage through, such a voyage seems sensible enough; but, for an unoccupied passenger to vegetate for five months at sea is a matter of much greater difficulty.

In short, if the reader will take up any published account of a very long sea voyage and read it two or three times over, he will have read what I must have written, had I described in detail the only British route existing to Her Majesty's colonies in the North Pacific. This voyage is very nearly as expensive as that by Panama, without taking into account the value of the passenger's time.

In addition to this, supposing an emigrant bound to British Columbia to have arrived by sea at Esquimalt Harbour, he is obliged to retrace his steps eastward a considerable way in order to reach his destination. This countermarch, as it were, will cost him as much as it would have cost him, in the first instance, to have crossed the Atlantic.

The difficulties and even dangers which the traveller had to encounter in crossing the isthmus, previous to the partial opening of the railway in 1852, or its completion at a cost exceeding a million sterling, in 1855, are still fresh in the recollection of many.

* See Appendix, page 154.

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BY NEW YORK AND PANAMA.

Who that crossed it then can forget the heat and filth of Chagres, the packs of curs and flocks of buzzards, the struggle in bungos and with boatmen up the river, the scenes of riot and debauchery at the villages, jungle fever, and the bones that marked the mule tracks through the plains of Panama, and stamped that short but fatal route of fifty miles, as the Golgotha of the West?

All this is changed now: after an interesting voyage of seven or eight days from New York, in a first-class steamer, supplied with every comfort and luxury that can be desired, Aspinwall is reached. During the voyage, the traveller will have seen the low coral islands of the Bahamas, and coasted along the shores of Cuba, in colour and elevation contrasting happily with the hills of San Domingo and the blue mountains of Jamaica. Luckily there is no detention at the town of Aspinwall, where all the inconveniences of Chagres are met with in a milder and mitigated form. Once in the cars -the railway passes through a deep marsh which it quits at Gatun on the Chagres: thence traversing a dense tropical forest, with occasional clearances and haciendas, and arriving at Barbacoas, it crosses the river, and the summit from which Balboa discovered the Pacific is seen. As the traveller advances, he obtains views of the river, reflecting from its bright surface the deep rich greens of the tropical jungle or forest, or the blossoming parasites which hang in festoons above the banks. Having passed the summit level, the scene changes, and at a distance the level savannahs and the spires of Panama are descried.

In the meantime the telegraph has done its work, and the Pacific steamer is in readiness to convey the passengers to San Francisco. So that the whole time