THE big towns drop in, thick and fast, now: and between stretchprocessions of thrifty farms, not desolate solitude. Hour by hour,the boat plows deeper and deeper into the great and populous North-west;and with each successive section of it which is revealed,one's surprise and respect gather emphasis and increase.

Such a people, and such achievements as theirs, compel homage.

This is an independent race who think for themselves, and who arecompetent to do it, because they are educated and enlightened;they read, they keep abreast of the best and newest thought,they fortify every weak place in their land with a school,a college, a library, and a newspaper; and they live under law.

Solicitude for the future of a race like this is not in order.

This region is new; so new that it may be said to be still in its babyhood.

By what it has accomplished while still teething, one may forecastwhat marvels it will do in the strength of its maturity. It is so newthat the foreign tourist has not heard of it yet; and has not visited it.

For sixty years, the foreign tourist has steamed up and down the riverbetween St. Louis and New Orleans, and then gone home and written his book,believing he had seen all of the river that was worth seeing or thathad anything to see. In not six of all these books is there mentionof these Upper River towns--for the reason that the five or six touristswho penetrated this region did it before these towns were projected.

The latest tourist of them all (1878) made the same old regulation trip--he had not heard that there was anything north of St. Louis.

Yet there was. There was this amazing region, bristling with great towns,projected day before yesterday, so to speak, and built next morning.

A score of them number from fifteen hundred to five thousand people.

Then we have Muscatine, ten thousand; Winona, ten thousand; Moline,ten thousand; Rock Island, twelve thousand; La Crosse, twelve thousand;Burlington, twenty-five thousand; Dubuque, twenty-five thousand;Davenport, thirty thousand; St. Paul, fifty-eight thousand, Minneapolis,sixty thousand and upward.

The foreign tourist has never heard of these; there is no note of themin his books. They have sprung up in the night, while he slept.

So new is this region, that I, who am comparatively young,am yet older than it is. When I was born, St. Paul had a populationof three persons, Minneapolis had just a third as many.

The then population of Minneapolis died two years ago; and whenhe died he had seen himself undergo an increase, in forty years,of fifty-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine persons.

He had a frog's fertility.

I must explain that the figures set down above, as the population of St. Pauland Minneapolis, are several months old. These towns are far larger now.

In fact, I have just seen a newspaper estimate which gives the formerseventy-one thousand, and the latter seventy-eight thousand.

This book will not reach the public for six or seven months yet;none of the figures will be worth much then.

We had a glimpse of Davenport, which is another beautiful city,crowning a hill--a phrase which applies to all these towns; for theyare all comely, all well built, clean, orderly, pleasant to the eye,and cheering to the spirit; and they are all situated upon hills.

Therefore we will give that phrase a rest. The Indians have a traditionthat Marquette and Joliet camped where Davenport now stands, in 1673.

The next white man who camped there, did it about a hundred and seventyyears later--in 1834. Davenport has gathered its thirty thousandpeople within the past thirty years. She sends more children to herschools now, than her whole population numbered twenty-three years ago.

She has the usual Upper River quota of factories, newspapers,and institutions of learning; she has telephones, local telegraphs,an electric alarm, and an admirable paid fire department,consisting of six hook and ladder companies, four steam fire engines,and thirty churches. Davenport is the official residence of two bishops--Episcopal and Catholic.

Opposite Davenport is the flourishing town of Rock Island,which lies at the foot of the Upper Rapids. A great railroadbridge connects the two towns--one of the thirteen which fretthe Mississippi and the pilots, between St. Louis and St. Paul.

The charming island of Rock Island, three miles long and halfa mile wide, belongs to the United States, and the Government hasturned it into a wonderful park, enhancing its natural attractionsby art, and threading its fine forests with many miles of drives.

Near the center of the island one catches glimpses, through the trees,of ten vast stone four-story buildings, each of which covers an acreof ground. These are the Government workshops; for the Rock Islandestablishment is a national armory and arsenal.

We move up the river--always through enchanting scenery,there being no other kind on the Upper Mississippi--and pass Moline, a center of vast manufacturing industries;and Clinton and Lyons, great lumber centers; and presentlyreach Dubuque, which is situated in a rich mineral region.

The lead mines are very productive, and of wide extent.

Dubuque has a great number of manufacturing establishments; among thema plow factory which has for customers all Christendom in general.

At least so I was told by an agent of the concern who was onthe boat. He said--'You show me any country under the sun where they really know how to plow,and if I don't show you our mark on the plow they use, I'll eat that plow;and I won't ask for any Woostershyre sauce to flavor it up with, either.'

All this part of the river is rich in Indian history and traditions.

Black Hawk's was once a puissant name hereabouts; as was Keokuk's,further down. A few miles below Dubuque is the Tete de Mort--Death's-head rock, or bluff--to the top of which the French drovea band of Indians, in early times, and cooped them up there,with death for a certainty, and o............