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Since I last wrote I have removed to the beautiful home, and into the beautiful family of Senator A. A pretty young girl, the sister of the master of the house, has given me her room, with its splendid view over the Mississippi and Missouri Valley. But the beautiful weather has now changed into cold and autumnal fog, so that I can see nothing of all the glory. The air is very thick. But such days are of rare occurrence in this sunbright America,   [p. 90]   and the sun will soon make a way for itself again. Mr. A. has calculated the number of sunny days in a year for three several years, and he has found them to be about three hundred and fifteen; the remainder were thunderstorms and rainy days, and of the latter the number was the smaller.

Mr. A. is an interesting and well-informed young man, well acquainted with every movement in the state, of which he is a senator, as well as an active participator in its development. Thus, during the past summer, he has delivered no less than five hundred "stump-speeches"^[1*] (I hope I have not made a mistake of a couple of hundred in the number), traveling about in Missouri advocating the laying down of a rail-way from St. Louis through Missouri to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, and exhorting them to give in their adherence to the scheme. And he has been extremely successful. In St. Louis alone names are given in to the amount of two millions of dollars for the carrying out of the undertaking. It is true that they will have to tunnel through and to blast the solid walls of the Rocky Mountains, but what does that signify to an American?

The city of St. Louis was founded by rich traders. Dealers in furs and Catholic priests were the first who penetrated the wildernesses of the West, and ventured life to win, the former wealth, the latter souls.

Trade and religion are still, at this moment, the pioneers of civilization in the Western country.

One of the most important branches of speculation and   [p. 91]   trade in and around St. Louis is, at the present time, the sale of land. The earlier emigrants hither who purchased land, now sell it by the foot at several thousand dollars a square foot. The exorbitant prices at which I have been told land sells here seem almost incredible to me. Certain it is that many people are now making great fortunes merely by the sale of their plots of ground: One German, formerly in low circumstances, has lately sold his plot, and has now returned to his native land with wealth to the amount of one hundred thousand dollars.

Mr. A., who is one of the "self-made men" of the Great West, and who began his career at Morton by publishing a Penny Magazine, is now a land proprietor, and sells also plots or pieces of ground for large sums. He, like Mr. Downing (with whom he has also, in appearance, a certain resemblance), unite at the same time the practical man and the poetical temperament, in particular for natural objects.

There are a great number of Germans in St. Louis. They have music and dancing parties, which are zealously attended. There are also here both French and Spaniards. At the hotels all is in French style, with French names for dishes and wines. The Irish here, as every where else throughout the United States, constitute the laboring population; excepting negro slaves, the greater portion of servants are Irish.

Spite of the greatly increasing trade of the city, it is still extremely difficult, nay, almost impossible for a young emigrant to obtain a situation in any place of business. If, on the contrary, however, he will begin by doing coarse hand-labor, as a miller's man, for instance, or a worker in a manufactory, he can easily find employment and get good wages. And if he lives carefully, he may soon gain sufficient to undertake higher employment. Better still are his prospects if he can superintend some handcraft trade; he is then in a fair way to become the artificer of his own fortune.

November 11th. Again summer and sunshine, and a glorious view over the Mississippi and the expanse of country! The heavens are light blue, the earth is light green, every thing is bathed in light. I have walked with my young friend over the hills around this place, and Mr. A. has driven me out to see the whole neighborhood. That which always strikes me most in the Great West is the vast extent of landscape. It produces upon me a peculiarly cheerful and expansive feeling. I can not but involuntarily smile as I seem to long to stretch out my arms and fly over the earth. It feels to me very stupid and strange not being able to do so. Mr. A. drove me to part of the neighborhood where the wealthy citizens of St. Louis built their villas. There are already upon the hills (though they can hardly be called hills, but merely terraces or plateaux) and in the valleys whole streets and groups of pretty country houses, many of them really splendid, surrounded by trees, and flowers, and vines, and other creepers. How life increases here, how rapidly and how joyously! But do not tares spring up with the wheat? I have still hope, although I have lost my faith in the Millennium of the Great West.

The State of Missouri seems to be one of the richest states of the Union as regards natural beauty and natural resources, as well as one of the largest. They speak of its northern portion as of the natural garden of the West; it possesses, westward, lofty mountains, rich in metals, interspersed with immense prairies and forest; southward, toward Arkansas, it becomes boggy, and abounds in morasses. To the west of the state lies the Indian Territory, the people of which have embraced Christianity and civilization. The Cherokees are the principal, but many other tribes have united themselves to this in smaller associations, as the family of Choctaws, Chickasaws, Fox, and Sac Indians. Whether this Indian territory stands in the same relationship to the government of the   [p. 93]   United States as other territory during its period of gradation and preparation, and whether at some future time it will become an independent Indian state in the great Union, I do not know decidedly, though I regard it as probable.

Missouri is a slave state. But it seems at this moment to maintain the institution of slavery rather out of bravado than from any belief in its necessity. It has no products which might not be cultivated by white laborers, as its climate does not belong to the hot South. Missouri also sells its slaves assiduously "down South."

"Are you a Christian?" inquired I from a young handsome mulatto woman who waited on me here.

"No, Missis, I am not."

"Have you not been baptized? Have you not been taught about Christ?"

"Yes, Missis, I have a godmother, a negro woman, who was very religious, and who instructed me."

"Do you not believe what she told you about Christ?"

"Yes, Missis; but I don't feel it here, Missis," and she laid her hand on her breast.

"Where were you brought up?"

"A long way from here, up the Missouri, Missis; a long way off!"

"Were your owners good to you?"

"Yes, Missis; they never gave me a bad word."

"Are you married?"

"Yes, Missis; but my husband is a long way off with his master."

"Have you any children?"

"I have had six, Missis, but have not a single one left. Three are dead, and they have sold the other three away from me. When they took from me the last little girl, oh, I believed I never should have got over it! It almost broke my heart!"

And they were so-called Christians who did that! It   [p. 94]   was not wonderful that she, the negro slave, had a difficulty in feeling Christianity, that she could not feel herself a Christian. What a life! Bereaved of husband, children, of all that she had, without any prospect of an independent existence; possessed of nothing on the face of the earth; condemned to toil, toil, toil, without hope of reward or day of rest; why should it be strange if she became stupid or indifferent, nay, even hostile and bitter in her feelings toward those in whose power she is--they who call themselves her protectors, and yet who robbed her of her all? Even of that last little girl, that youngest, dearest, only child!

This pagan institution of slavery leads to transactions so inconsistent, so inhuman, that sometimes in this country, this Christian, liberal America, it is a difficult thing for me to believe them possible, difficult to comprehend how it can be a reality, and not a dream! it is so difficult for me to realize it.

The topic of interest at this moment in St. Louis is the return of Senator Benton from Washington, and his great speech in the State House, to give an account of his conduct in Congress as regards the great and momentous question between the Northern and the Southern States. Such speeches, explanatory or in justification of their line of conduct, are customary in all the states or the return of the senator to the state which he represents in Congress. I read Colonel Benton's speech last evening. The bold representative of the slave state, who alike openly vindicated its rights as such, while he condemned slavery, is here also like himself bold, candid, unabashed, half man and half beast of prey, rending to pieces with beak and claws, and full of enjoyment in so doing.

I remember the last words of his speech, which are really manly and excellent.

"I value a good popularity, that is to say, the applause of good men. That of all others I shall ever disregard;   [p. 95]   and I shall welcome censure which is hurled at me by the illiberal and the mean."

Missouri, as well as Arkansas, has a deal of heathenism and a deal of wild, uncultivated land still. Civilization is as yet at its commencement in these states, and slavery retards its progress as with strong fetters. Fights and bloody duels are of frequent occurrence among the white population. Bowie-knives and pistols belong to the wardrobe of a man, especially when traveling in the state. Besides, he must be continually prepared to meet with those unprincipled fortune-hunters who hasten from Europe and the Eastern States (the prodigal sons of those countries) into the West to find there a freer scope for their savage passions.

To-morrow, or the day after, I steer my course to Cincinnati, whence I shall write to you again.