CHAPTER III. 



A FEW days after his departure, La Bontd found him- 

 self at St Louis, the emporium of the fur trade, and the 

 fast-rising metropolis of the precocious settlements of 

 the West. Here, a prey to the agony of mind which 

 jealousy, remorse, and blighted love mix into a very 

 puchero of misery, he got into the company of certain 

 " rowdies," a class that every western oity particularly 

 abounds in ; and, anxious to drown his sorrows in any 

 way, and quite unscrupulous as to the means, he 

 plunged into all the vicious excitements of drinking, 

 gambling, and fighting; which form the every-day 

 amusements of the rising generation of St Louis. 



Perhaps in no other part of the United States, where 

 indeed humanity is frequently to be seen in many 

 curious and unusual phases, is there a population so 

 marked in its general character, and at the same time 

 divided into such distinct classes, as in the above-named 

 city. Dating, as it does, its foundation from yesterday, 

 for what are thirty years in the growth of a metro- 

 polis ? its founders are now scarcely passed middle life, 

 regarding with astonishment the growing works of their 

 hands ; and whilst gazing upon its busy quays, piled with 

 grain and other produce of the West, its fleets of huge 



