Year: 1863

Dear Ctronicle:-If there is any more
pleasant mode of travelling than on fine
large steamboat ON the smooth, broad up
per Mississippi, gliding along now be-
tween high rocky bluffs, now among beau
tiful islands, or by sloping hill-sides COW
cred with waving grain, or the wild prai-
rie grass the shores now dotted with
farmhouses, now as uncultiyated and wild
as when the Indian was sole lord of the soil,
now passing towns and cities bearing all
the marks of thrift and enterprise, while
the cool, bracing air blowing down from
the northern wilderness brings vigor and
strength, and one can either gaze at the
scenery from the deck, or enjoy intelIi-
gent society in the cabin, we should like
to know where and how it is to be found.


Yet there are shadows here to dim the
brightness, as there are ever in each hour
of this earthly life, to remind US of its
transitory nature. In the cabin are two
invalids upon whom that, dread disease,
consumption, has fastened its fangs, and
is slowly but surely sapping the founda-
tions of their life citidels. They are
seeking health in the pure air of Mime
sofa, but the racking cough that sounds
almost incessantly through the night,
their painting breath and swollen feet tell
how useless will be the journey An
Iowa soldier, stricken down at Vicksburg
with the lung fever, discharged from hos
pital, as incurable, is returning to his
home to die. He says he knows he can
not live, but he wishes to be where his
wife and children are, before he takes
his final leave of earth. His tall, stately
form, bowed though it is by sickness,
shows that he once possessed a giants
strength; and his fine face lights up when
he says, she will last awhile yet, until he
crosses his own threshold" In the steer
age below lies another, shot through the
lungs at the battle of Corinth, some nine
months ago. Around him are the kind
but rough and dirty steerage passengers,
the smoke from their short pipes, the
steam of their cookery, and the oil of the
engine mingling their odors with the sta
ble-like smell of a dozen horses which
stand outside the open door of the steer
age. He cannot be more than twenty
years of age, and the heavy masses of
dark hair fall over a forehead as white as
snow, and his large dark eyes look up be-
seechingly at every visitor, as if he hoped
they could assuage his pain and give him
back the youthful strength that had de-
parted forever. An army surgeon on
board the steamer, who examined him,
says there are some particles of bone or
clothing remaining in the wound which
cannot be removed, and he must die. As
l write tonight, the younger portion of
the passengers are dancing at one end of
the cabin, while at the other are the Dale
faces of the inyalids, and beneath lies the
wounded soldier. So mingle pleasure
and pain, health and disease, life and
death.


Below the mouth of the Missouri. whose
fretful waters during its long course of
three thousand miles have been wearing
away its banks and mingling the soil
with the stream, the waters of the Mis-
sissippi are yellow and turbid, but above
they become clearer; and one is not sup
posed to swallow more than one tea
spoonful of clay with each glass of water.
The banks of the stream are low, towns
upon them small and there is little to in
terest the traveller on the Mississippi .af-
ter leaving st Louis until he reaches
Keokuk. This is thriving town, situ-
ated at the foot of the lower rapids of the