ected, is slowly sinking beneath the surface. Piles will not stand up,
and, however deep they are driven, sink still deeper. The present
business of the place, consisting of selling supplies to steamboats, and
transferring passengers from the down- to the up-river boats, is done on
floating store-boats, made fast to the shore. Cairo has since been built
into a considerable town by dyking out the rivers, and was an important
naval and military point during the Civil War....

This is my thirteenth day of steamboating,--the usual time across the
Atlantic,--and I have four days more at least. You may well suppose that
a hundred passengers are put to their trumps for amusement. The
"Wandering Jew" did very well as long as it lasted. Some keep on reading
novels, having laid in a stock or exchanged with other passengers, but
cards are the resource of the majority. The centre-tables, as soon as
breakfast is over, are occupied with parties playing poker or loo, and
are covered with bank-notes and silver. Many who do not play look on to
see the frolics of fortune. Several of these players are professional
gamesters, and quite cool, as men who hope to win by chance or skill
ought to be. Others, in their flushing cheeks and trembling hands and
voices, show how the passion is fastening upon them. These are driven
by weariness and tempted by the smallness of the game to commence
playing. The passion increases day by day, and so do the stakes, until,
before reaching New Orleans, the verdant ones have lost all their money,
and with it their self-respect and their confidence in the future.
Depressed by shame, disheartened at being in a strange city without
money, they are in a miserable condition, and ready to throw themselves
away. They become dependent upon the blacklegs who have led them on, are
instructed in their evil courses, made their tools and catspaws, and
perhaps induced to enter upon courses of crime of a more dangerous
character. All this comes of playing cards to kill time on the
Mississippi.

While those who need the excitement of betting play at games of bluff
and poker, some amuse themselves with whist, and old-fashioned fellows
get into a corner and have a bout at old sledge; and now at eleven
o'clock the great cabin of our boat presents a curious appearance.
Playing around the tables, with noisy, joyous laughter, are half a dozen
merry little boys and girls. These have all got well acquainted with
each other, and see