Trollope begins by explaining his long-standing ambition to visit and write about the United States and sets out for North America in 1861 despite the Civil War, traveling through Newport and the New England states while observing local society, transportation, manners, and everyday conditions before crossing into Lower and Upper Canada, where he considers their differing characters, political institutions, and continuing relationship with Great Britain, and after encountering the extraordinary landscape of Niagara he moves westward through rapidly expanding settlements, agricultural country, and the Great Lakes region toward the Upper Mississippi, repeatedly expressing admiration for the enormous scale and energy of North American development while also noting the roughness, instability, and social imperfections of communities still undergoing rapid growth.
