ded of his bristles, and passed over to
be cleft and hung up. The trough holds about eight or ten thus lying
side by side, and the moment one is taken out at one end, another is put
in at the other, and they thus all float through the length of the
trough, and are taken out in order; but so rapid is the process, that no
one pig is long in; in fact, the whole business occupies only a very few
minutes per pig. Every part is turned to account, the mass of bristles
being converted into tooth brushes, &c. In the huge larder, in the story
next above the oxen, there were about 1500 unhappy pigs hung up to cool,
before being cut up, salted, packed, and sent off. There are several
establishments of this nature in Chicago, but only one of equal extent
to the one papa saw. About 400,000 pigs are shipped every year from
Chicago. I do not know the total number of cattle, but this house alone
slaughters and sends away 10,000. There were places on an enormous scale
for preparing tallow and lard, and there were many other details equally
surprising, which I have not now time to describe; but papa says that
the smells were most offensive, and that it was altogether a very
horrible sight, and it was one I was well pleased to escape.

Among the other wonders of Chicago, I must do honour to its hotel, which
I should say was as good as any we have yet seen in America. These
American hotels are certainly marvellous "institutions," though we were
getting beyond the limits of the good ones when we reached Jefferson
City. That, however, at St. Louis is a very fair sample of a good one.

_Indianapolis, Nov. 11th._--We arrived here late this afternoon, and
have not been able as yet to see anything of the town, I shall therefore
defer a description of it to my next. The road from Chicago was not
without its interest, though we are becoming very tired of the prairies.
At first starting we went for many miles along the borders of Lake
Michigan, which we again came upon at a very remarkable spot, Michigan
city, about sixty miles from Chicago. Along the first part of the lake,
in the neighbourhood of Chicago, the shore consists of fine sand, in
strips of considerable width, and flat like an ordinary sea beach; but
at Michigan city the deep sand reached to a considerable distance
inland, and then rose into high dunes, precisely like those on the
French coast. As we had to wait an hour there, papa and I scrambled up
one of these, and although below ther