we "sounded" our way along, dodging sand-bars, rafts, snags and sawyers. The current is wayward and impetuous, and so crooked that the "needle of the compass turns round and round, pointing East, West, North and South, as it marks the bearings of your craft," showing those tremendous bends in the stream, which nature appears to have formed to check the headlong current and keep it from rushing too madly to the Ocean. But in its impetuosity it frequently grows impatient of the "round-about course," and "ploughs" through the bend, making what is termed a "cut-off." The poetical name of the Mississippi is the Father-ofwaters. But the word is found in the Choctaw language, and is rendered thus: "Missa"-"old big," and "Sippah"-"strong." Hence, Mississippi means, "Old-bigstrong" a name eminently characteristic of the river. And he "That has been Where the wild will of the Mississipi tide will think the Choctaw was right when he called it the Old-big-strong." 66 The "Iron Mountains," on the Mississippi shore, where there lies embedded enough wealth in ore to supply the United States with iron for the next two or three centuries, are a wild, picturesque range of bluffs, looking like decayed old castles along the haunted Rhine, half hid by trailing shrubs and clambering vines, rich with many-colored leaves. "It was rugged, steep and wild, Where naked cliffs were rudely piled; And ever and anon between Lay velvet tufts of loveliest green; And the honeysuckle loved to crawl And still they seemed like shattered towers, The Illinois side is low and sandy, a forest rising up in the distance. Our passengers are from all places. Here we have the Marseillese, talking about Parisian life, Napoleon the Great, and Louis the XIV. One would think France had but two great men, and they were the two, to hear him talk. In fact, she has but two-Napoleon and Louis XIV are the only ones she has immortalized in painting and sculpture. "I speak very correct English, better that most 'Mericans themself," says he, showing the true Yankee dispatch in curtailing his sentences. Here we have the Mississippian and lady, whose accent on many words bespeak them Southrons; the Tenneseean, who never says Tennessee, as we of the North do, but accenting the first syllable, says, Tennessee. That young lady-a Southern blonde-has just returned from a four years' sojourn in Scotland, and is going home to Memphis. The one by her side, of stately figure, is an actress from Philadelphia, going to New Orleans. Here we have a young German of dress, a true child of the mist, who has made a tour of the United States and is now going to spend the winter in Cuba. There you see two or three gentlemen from Kentucky and Arkansas, listening to a Pennsylvania Dutchman's story about how he opposed the tariff in CLAY times, fearing "that if they got it into operation they'd run the darned old thing right through his barn." He was like many good honest farmers who had been bewildered with the fabulous accounts of the "locomotive," but have since seen it, and now the wonder ceases. That gentleman with the sandy whiskers and moustache, is the proprietor of the St. Charles Hotel in New Orleans. "And thereby hangs a tale." He was a poor Yankee boy, who left his home in New England to seek his fortune in the great West, and finally wandered off to New Orleans, and is now by sheer industry and economy, proprietor of one of the first hotels in America. Those nabobs in the old world, whose fortunes seek them, would be startled at the accounts of fortunes sought and made by the industry and thrift of young Americans. And many an American boy, now hawking his penny papers about the streets of our cities, may yet stand unshadowed by the side of the richly possessed nabobs of Europe. That little ragged urchin that offers his apples to our rich German at "two pennies apiece," may yet smoke a "meerschaum" with him sailing down his castled Rhine. Here is a Kentuckian, who has been telling me about the CLAY family. His father lived a neighbor to the "Sage of Ashland," and although opposed to him in politics all his life, yet he always loved him. It was true that the children were inclined to insanity. He met JOHN in St. Louis last Fall; he hated to go home, the old lady and the boys made such a "fuss" about that "affair of his horse-trainer." It is well known that JOHN CLAY shot his groom in the streets of Lexington. Mrs. CLAY was a very domestic lady; and JAMES B. had incurred the displeasure of the Kentuckians, and the ridicule and sarcastic wit of GEORGE D. PRENTICE, for rebuilding his father's house. It was the property of Kentucky on the death of her noblest son. As if to complete the variety of our passengers, we have that rare specimen of homo genus, who, whether on the banks of the Mississippi, Sacramento or Ganges, is noted for his industry and thrift—a live. Yankee. He is going South to teach school, or to "get up" a class in music, or peddle eight-day clocks; and should he fail in these he has a reserve in a large supply of "Prof. HASKELL's Electric Oil." We were entertained this evening by the singing and piano-playing, at the other end of the cabin, of our "SIDDONS," whom we have mentioned. We laid by last night, afraid to venture among the shallows. A rainy morning. We have stopped at Cape Girardeau to take in some flour. It is a small town lying on the slopes of the bluffs. It has some fine buildings-mills, a convent, and a grand University building, situated on the apex of a beautiful terraced eminence. Students were walking about the ground. In a talk with a planter from Kentucky, going to New Orleans to sell his tobacco, about our buying of England all our railroad iron, he remarked, pointing to the "Iron Mountains" on the Missouri side, "There we have inexhaustible treasures of it, and that which is better, too. We are fools, and the dupes of greater fools; our bargains are made for us by other men, and we've got to stand it." We are gradually approaching the region of perpetual summer; and I am getting acquainted with that class of people that live on the borders of it-the real Southrons. Here I am listening to a Louisiania planter and a Michigan farmer, talking about BUCHANAN, wheat and cotton; then to a bustling Eastern man, talking to a Western pio neer. The skies are clear again, and we have gone upon the hurricane deck "prospecting." Missouri walls up the Mississippi yet with castellated bluffs, but the monotonous sand-bars, and young growth of cotton-wood continues on the other side, while the great "Father-of-waters" goes rolling on in grand sweeps around the bends and islands, in his course South. Here sits the actress, our "SIDDONS," pensively musing with a book in her hand; a JULIET thinking of her ROMEO; or is she musing on the tale of romance told by these rude, ivy-covered rocks—these "Battled towers and donjon keeps!" Was not that HINDA's bower on that one peering above the rest? And is she not watching HAFED, as he climbs the steep ascent, leaping from rock to rock, till he gets on that jutting crag from which "When she saw him rashly spring, And midway there in danger cling, She threw him down her long black hair, Exclaiming breathless, There, love! there!" But I am seated now, and we are talking with our pretty tourist from Scotland. Who can think of that country and not of her SCOTT, the wizard of the North? She had visited Melrose Abbey, and following Sir WALTER's directions, she had gone at night. "If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright, Go visit it by pale moonlight; For the gay beams of lightsome day Gild but to flout the ruins gray." And she had seen Abbotsford, "that romance of stone and mortar," and Dryburgh, and had visited Sir WALTER's tomb, and MIADA'S, too. But, here we are on a sand-bar! Backing off, we take a turn and plough through in another direction. The |