travel together, the kine first, the man after, the whole plain is heard
singing with cicadae. This is a pause, as you may see from the writing.
What happened to the old pedestrian emigrants; what was the tedium
suffered by the Indians and trappers of our youth, the imagination
trembles to conceive. This is now Saturday, 23rd, and I have been
steadily travelling since I parted from you at St. Pancras. It is a
strange vicissitude from the Savile Club to this; I sleep with a man
from Pennsylvania who has been in the Navy Yard, and mess with him and
the Missouri bird already alluded to. We have a tin wash-bowl among
four, I wear nothing but a shirt and a pair of trousers and never button
my shirt. When I land for a meal, I pass my coat and feel dressed. This
life is to last until Friday, Saturday or Sunday next. It is a strange
affair to be an emigrant, as I hope you shall see in a future work. I
wonder if this will be legible; my present station on the wagon roof,
though airy, compared to the cars, is both dirty and insecure. I can see
the track straight before and straight behind me to either horizon....
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