and returned by the
longer route of Southern California, the Desert of Arizona, the Plains
of Texas, through the sugar and cotton districts of the Southern States,
and thence, via New Orleans and Washington, back to New York.

Thus, after remaining eight days at Merced, where I was fully engaged
each day in inspecting the lands for sale and the country around for
many miles, and after allowing for stoppages on the return journey over
Sundays, and waiting three days at New York for the Cunard steamer
"Servia," I reached Liverpool on January 4th, and was back again in my
office on Monday, January 5th, being six weeks, one day and 22 hours
from the time I rose from my chair in my office to the time I was
sitting in it again.

=Across America.=

LONDON TO CHICAGO.

Travelling in generations past was an important event in one's life, but
now a journey across an ocean and a continent is a very commonplace
affair. Books of travel used to be read with avidity, but now that so
many persons travel, and the wires keep us in touch with all the world
every day, the history of a journey is a small event, and one which to
those not specially interested would scarcely perhaps be read;
nevertheless, as some of my readers may have to go over some of the
ground I have recently traversed, I have no doubt that a reference to my
journey to California and back would be of interest to them, and
therefore I will give up some time and space to the subject.

This little record of my journey may perhaps be better received if I
state that I am not a novice in travel, and that before I had turned
twenty-one years of age I had been to Australia (calling _en route_ at
Pernambuco in South America), and that while in Australia I visited
Melbourne, Sydney, Geelong, King George's Sound, besides various inland
towns and gold fields, including Bendigo, Castlemaine, Tarrangower,
Fryer's Creek, Forest Creek, Campbell's Creek, Tarradale, Maryborough,
etc., and various other places, and sheep and cattle stations. From
Australia I went to Aden (the inland town) and up the Red Sea to Suez,
returning to Australia, and thence to England. Since I commenced
business in England, in 1859, I went in 1862 to St. Thomas' in the West
Indies, thence to Aspinwall, across the Isthmus to Panama, thence to
Acapulco in Mexico, on to San Francisco in California, and thence to
Vancouver Island, returning by the same route as far as Aspinwall,
whence I went to New Yor