Perth Amboy evening news., 1919-12-29

7 the other are sometimes overgrown
with forests and sometimes great,
rich cornfields, with here and there
a house, here and there villages and
now and her a little town. At every
such place all the people OF the neigh
borhood have gathered to greet me.
The waterfront of the towns would
be filled with a dense packed mass
of men, women n children, waving
flags. The little villages have not
only their WI population, but also
the farmers who have driven in in
children from a dozen miles back
just such farmers as came to see you
and the cavalry on your march
through Iowa last summer.
1t IS my first trip on the Mississippi
and I am greatly Interested in 1t. How
wonderful in its rapidity of move
ment has been the history Of our
country, compared with the history
Of the old world. For untold ages
this river had been flowing through
the lonely continent, not very greatly
changed since the close Of the Pleito-
eel During all these myriads Of
years the prairie and the forest came
down to it's banks. The immense herds
Of the buffalo and the elk wandered
along them season after season, and
the indian hunters on foot or in ca
o trudged along the banks or
skinned the water. Probably a
thousand years saw no change that
would have been noticeable to our
eyes. Then three centuries ago began
the work of change. For a century
its effects were not p~erceptible. Just
nothing but an occasional French fleet
or wild, ~half-Savage French-Canadian
explorer passing up or down h river
or one OF it's branches in an Indian
canoe; then the first faint changes,
the building of one or two little
French fur traders hamlets, the
passing of one or two British officers
boats, and tho very rare appearance
of the uncouth American backwoods-
man.
Then the change came with a rush.
Our settlers reached h head-waters
of the Ohio, and %lat-boats and keel
boats began to go down to the mouth
of the Mississippi, and the Indians
and thu game they followed began
their last great march to the west.
For ages they had marched back and
forth, but from this march there was
never to be a return. Then the day
of steamboat traffic began, and the
growth of the first American cities
and states along the river with their
strength and their squalor and their
raw pride. Then this mighty steam
boat traffic passed its zenith and coll
lapsed, and for a generation the river
towns have dwlndled compared with
the towns which took their import
ance from the growth of the rail-
roads. I think of 1t all as I pas
down the river.
October Ave are steaming down
the river now between Tennessee and
Arkansas. The forest comes down a
little denser to the bank, the houses
do not look quite so we'll kept; other
wise there is not much change. There
are a dozen steamers accompanying
us, filed with delegates from various
river cities. The people are all out
ON the banks to greet us still. More
hour is that we pass a town, 1t is gen.
orally Illuminated, and sometimes
whistles and noisy greetings, while
our steamboats, whistle in equally
noisy response, so that our sleep is
apt to be broken. Seventeen COVER
nors of different states are along, In a
boat by themselves. l I'VE seen a
good deal Of them, however, and 1t
has been Of real use to me, especially
as regards two or three problems
that are up. At st. Louis there was
an enormous multitude of people out
to see us. The procession was in a
drenching rain, in which 7 stood
bareheaded, smiling affably and wav-
ing my drowned hat to those hardy
members of tho crowd who declined
to go to shelter. AT Cairo I was also
I was interested to find that there
was still extreme bitterness felt over
Dickens description Of the town and
the people in Martin Chuzzlewit"
sixty-flve years ago.
ITO be continued)
Copyright, 1919, Charles Scribner's
Sons)