leasure of rushing down this stream by night (as we did
last night) at the rate of fifteen miles an hour; striking against
floating blocks of timber every instant; and dreading some infernal blow
at every bump. The helmsman in these boats is in a little glass house
upon the roof. In the Mississippi, another man stands in the very head
of the vessel, listening and watching intently; listening, because they
can tell in dark nights by the noise when any great obstruction is at
hand. This man holds the rope of a large bell which hangs close to the
wheel-house, and whenever he pulls it the engine is to stop directly,
and not to stir until he rings again. Last night, this bell rang at
least once in every five minutes; and at each alarm there was a
concussion which nearly flung one out of bed. . . . While I have been
writing this account, we have shot out of that hideous river, thanks be
to God; never to see it again, I hope, but in a nightmare. We are now on
the smooth Ohio, and the change is like the transition from pain to
perfect ease.

"We had a very crowded levee in St. Louis. Of course the paper had an
account of it. If I were to drop a letter in the street, it would be in
the newspaper next day, and nobody would think its publication an
outrage. The editor objected to my hair, as not curling sufficiently. He
admitted an eye; but objected again to dress, as being somewhat foppish,
'and indeed perhaps rather flash.' 'But such,' he benevolently adds,
'are the differences between American and English taste--rendered more
apparent, perhaps, by all the other gentlemen present being dressed in
black.' Oh that you could have seen the other gentlemen! . . .

"A St. Louis lady complimented Kate upon her voice and manner of
speaking, assuring her that she should never have suspected her of being
Scotch, or even English. She was so obliging as to add that she would
have taken her for an American, anywhere: which she (Kate) was no doubt
aware was a very great compliment, as the Americans were admitted on all
hands to have greatly refined upon the English language! I need not tell
you that out of Boston and New York a nasal drawl is universal, but I
may as well hint that the prevailing grammar is also more than doubtful;
that the oddest vulgarisms are received idioms; that all the women who
have been bred in slave-States speak more or less like negroes, from
having been constantly in their childhood with black nurses; and that
the