The State of Michigan having been the place of my preparation for College, and the Michigan University the scene of my brilliant though premature graduation, I was not wholly unacquainted with occidental geography. As I entered the Institution just mentioned, broke the rules, was tried, convicted, sentenced, punished, fined, suspended, and expelled in an unprecedented short space of time, no one was more fully prepared than I to admit that "this is a great country."

I was somewhat familiar with the entire country known as "out west;" had rode over it, walked over it, and been shot through it by steam; had stopped at all sorts of public-houses from the stylish hotel where you can get your liquor in glass tumblers, have stairs to get to your room with, and can repose on a bedstead, to the unostentatious tavern where the whiskey is served out in a tin dipper, and you have to climb into the garret by a ladder, and sleep on a bundle of straw, under the populous protection of a horse-blanket. But I never so thoroughly understood the discomforts of living at a hotel, as when on one occasion I strayed into the state of Kentucky, the land of good horses, poor jackasses, glorious corn-bread, and lazy darkies, and stopped at the best house of entertainment I could discover.

Having been thoroughly cooked by the broiling sun, which had unremittingly paid me his ardent devotions during the whole day—having been alternately melted and blistered—having had my skin peeled by the sun like a wet shirt from a little boy's back—having made a perfect aqueduct of myself for twelve hours in the fruitless attempt to keep cool, and having swallowed so much dust that I had a large sand-bar in my stomach, I sat down to write in as enviable a state of mind as can perhaps be imagined. I soon found that this was one of those stranger-traps into which unwary travellers are decoyed, and made to pay enormous prices for being rendered supremely unhappy—a place where comfort is mercilessly sacrificed to show—where the furniture is too nice to use, the landlord of too much consequential importance to treat people decently, and where there are so many dishes on the table that there is not room for anything to eat—where the waiters run in multitudinous directions at the tap of the bell, and seem to occupy most of their time stepping on each other's heels, and spilling soup into the laps of the ladies. Every one of these woolly-headed nuisances expects to be handsomely fed before he will condescend to pay the slightest attention to a guest, and a stranger must disburse an avalanche of "bits," "pics," and "levys," before he can get even a plate of cold victuals.

My experience at the house of entertainment at present under consideration is somewhat as follows:

I endure the inconveniences of the day with what philosophy I may, and retire, to "sleep, perchance." During the night I endeavor to bear without complaining the savage onslaught of ferocious fleas, the odoriferous attacks of bloodthirsty bed-bugs, and the insatiable and impetuous assaults of musically murderous mosquitoes, and eventually fall into a troubled doze, in which, like a modern Macbeth, who is doomed to "sleep no more," I tumble about until I am roused by the infernal clang of that most diabolical of all human contrivances—a gong, a dire invention of the enemy, a metallic triumph of the adversary, compounded of copper, and hammered upon with an "overgrown" drumstick, by a perspiring darkey who does not "waste his sweetness in the desert air" (more's the pity). After an abortive attempt to wash my face in what is truly living water, with a piece of marbleized soap, and hastily drying it upon three inches of towel with a ragged edge and iron rust in the corners, I proceed to dress.

Button off my shirt neck, which, being a matter of course, does not affect my equanimity half as much as finding that one of the sleeves is torn nearly across, and is only connected with the main body by a narrow isthmus of seam, which is momentarily growing "small by degrees and beautifully less."

Begin to grow impatient; second gong for breakfast; everything on but boots—open the door and find the porter has brought the wrong ones—he always does—ring the bell indignantly and sulkily wait (breakfast disappearing the meanwhile), until the blundering darkey explores his subterranean dominions and eventually returns with the missing articles.

Breakfast at last; waiter sets before me a mass of bones, sinews, and tendons, which he denominates chicken, and then brings me something which he calls steak, although but for the timely information I should have supposed it gutta-percha. Pours out a lukewarm muddy mixture supposed to have been originally coffee, which I sweeten with niggery brown sugar, and swallow at a gulp, ignoring the milk pitcher entirely on account of the variety of bugs which have found a "watery grave" therein; bread hard and greasy, butter oily and full of little ditches where the flies have meandered, knife with an edge like a saw, and fork with a revolving handle, table cloth splotchy, eggs hard as pebbles; rest of bill of fare consists of salt ham, red flannel sausages, hash with hairs in it, dip-toast made with sour milk, burned biscuit, peppery codfish, cold potatoes, mutton chops all bones, and mackerel with head, fins, and tail complete. Stay my stomach with half a glass of equivocal looking water, and exit.

Go to the office and order my room regulated immediately; go up in an hour and find two inches of dust over everything, my portfolios untied, books open at the wrong place, tooth-brush out and wet, and several long red hairs in my comb. Considerate, cleanly chambermaid!

Sit down on my carpet-bag and reflect—resolve to go back to Michigan.

Pack trunks, pay landlord, fee porter, hurry to the cars, tumble baggage on board, only too happy if by the diabolical ingenuity of the baggage-man it does not get put off at the wrong station. So ends my experience of the "Uncle Tom" State, which is probably the only place in the world where they hitch two jackasses before a dray, and get a big nigger with a red shirt on, up behind to drive 'em tandem.