, and the captain, to keep us off the steamer, cast us loose, and
we floated off with the current, and were safely blown ashore on the
Kentucky side, about a mile below, leaving the two steamers above to get
off as soon as they were able.

When our flat-boat touched the Kentucky bank of the river, her ninety
passengers jumped joyfully ashore, and with noisy hilarity scattered
along the beach. The morning was beautiful. The clear sunlight glittered
upon the river and lighted up the forest with golden radiance. The sky
was blue, and the air cool and bracing. The land was high, well wooded,
and fertile. Seeing a substantial-looking double log house a short
distance from the river, about a dozen of us went up to warm our fingers
at its fire....

In a few moments our lucky boat swung round and came down for us,
leaving the less fortunate "Louis Philippe" to get off as she could, and
her passengers to learn not to halloo before they got out of the wood.
And now--now, by the first light of the morning for this grand, this
terrible Mississippi!

It was a misty moonlight night when we came to the confluence of the
Ohio with the Mississippi. We had come down a tedious, and in some
degree a perilous, course of one thousand miles; we had still a thousand
miles to go before arriving at New Orleans, which is the next stage of
our Southern journey.

The Mississippi and the Ohio come together at an acute angle, and their
waters flow down in unmingled currents, differing in color, for a long
distance. Even at night we could distinguish the line which divides
them. The Ohio water is filled with fine sand and loam; the Mississippi
is discolored with clay besides, and the water looks like a tub of
soapsuds after a hard day's washing.

Whoever looks upon the map with a utilitarian eye sees at the confluence
of these great rivers a favorable point for a great city. A few years
since an English company took possession of or purchased this site, and,
with a capital of nearly a million of pounds sterling, commenced
operations. They lithographed plans of the city and views of the public
buildings. There were domes, spires, and cupolas, hotels, warehouses,
and lines of steamboats along both rivers. How fair, how magnificent it
all looked on the India paper! You should see the result as I saw it in
the misty miasma, by the pale moonlight. Cairo is a swamp, overflowed by
every rise of either river. The large hotel, one of the two buildings
er