2 KANSAS CITY.

 

in any land so favorably situated for the development
of transcendent commercial power. It is built on high
bluffs, in the great bend of the Missouri river, just
below the mouth of the Kaw (or Kansas), on the south
bank, and is in a geographical location so central as
to make tributary to it the produce of the fertile South-
lands and the pastoral wealth of the Plains, while it
garners the sheaves of the North-West; and all their
gigantic and ever-increasing traffic becomes an element
in its growth and joins in building up its power. It is
the nearest and most accessible distributing center of
the South-West, whose teeming millions of cattle find
their market through its railway system. Everywhere,
as I pass through, do I see improvements and building
going on; and while this gives a somewhat crude
appearance to the city, its street railways, water and
gas works, fine hotels, handsome stores, and elegant
residences, bear testimony to its being possessed of all
the accessories of metropolitan refinement, and show
that the augury of the prescient Benton is about to be
realized—when in 1831 he pointed to her present loca-
tion as the future seat of empire for the West.

But, like time and tide, the trains of the Kansas
Pacific Railway wait for no man, so I secure a lower
berth for Denver, and take my seat again in a Pullman
Palace Car—only the second change I have made on
my journey from New York. This one is indeed the
acme of elegance and comfort, and I find that the
farther West I get the more complete and comfortable
is the rolling stock of the railways, and the more polite