the Missouri, and the eastern the Mississippi: the western
branch, or the Missouri, is really the Mississippi, and should have been
so designated: it is the longest and farthest navigable of the two
branches, and therefore is the main river.

The Falls of St Anthony put an end to the navigation of the eastern
branch, or present upper Missouri, about nine hundred miles above St
Louis; while the western branch, or present Missouri, is navigable above
St Louis for more than one thousand two hundred miles.

The waters of the present upper Mississippi are clear and beautiful; it
is a swift, but not an angry stream, full of beauty and freshness, and
fertilising as it sweeps along; while the Missouri is the same
impetuous, discoloured, devastating current as the Mississippi continues
to be after its junction--like it, constantly sweeping down forests of
trees in its wild course, overflowing, inundating, and destroying, and
exciting awe and fear.

As soon as you arrive at St Louis, you feel that you are on the great
waters of Mississippi. St Louis is a well-built town, now containing
about twenty thousand inhabitants, and situated on a hill shelving down
to the river. The population increases daily; the river a-breast of the
town is crowded with steamboats, lying in two or three tiers, and ready
to start up or down, or to the many tributary navigable rivers which
pour their waters into the Mississippi.

In point of heat, St Louis certainly approaches the nearest to the
Black Hole of Calcutta of any city that I have sojourned in. The lower
part of the town is badly drained, and very filthy. The flies, on a
moderate calculation, are in many parts fifty to the square inch. I
wonder that they have not a contagious disease here during the whole
summer; it is, however, indebted to heavy rains for its occasional
purification. They have not the yellow-fever here; but during the
autumn they have one which, under another name, is almost as fatal--the
bilious congestive fever. I found sleep almost impossible from the
sultriness of the air, and used to remain at the open window for the
greater part of the night. I did not expect that the muddy Mississippi
would be able to reflect the silver light of the moon; yet it did, and
the effect was very beautiful. Truly it may be said of this river, as
it is of many ladies, that it is a candle-light beauty. There is
another serious evil to which strangers who sojourn here are subject-