THE MISSISSIPPI. 103 



a loop-holed barrack capable of lodging 400 men. It was 

 discontinued soon after the last fight with the Indians here in 

 1833, the frontier garrison having since that time moved many 

 hundred miles farther west. It is now abandoned and going 

 to ruin. The American system, as I was informed by an en- 

 gineer officer of the service, is to spend no money in keeping 

 up establishments after the object has been accomplished. 

 Their surveying officers on the frontier are allowed only nails 

 and glass, and with these they may erect quarters if they like. 

 If not, they may live in their tents, at all events, they are not 

 permitted to spend public money. 



We here embarked on the Mississippi for St. Paul's, a voy- 

 age up the river of 300 miles. The river at this place is about 

 as wide as the Ehine at Cologne, but with a less rapid current 

 and not so deep a stream. The west side is very picturesque ; 

 a series of limestone-bluffs, 200 feet high, covered on their face 

 and summit with autumn tinted woods, and broken into irregu- 

 lar forms by little valleys branching off from the main stream. 

 As we quietly proceed on our course, every new reach opens out 

 a fresh scene of beauty, and we are soon shut in on both sides 

 by lofty ridges of limestone rock. In many places this ridge 

 retires a short way from the water, its sharp edge disappears, 

 and a round grassy face, smooth and regular as a lawn, runs 

 up within twenty feet of the top of the sharp peak or frowning 

 rock which crowns the whole. Single trees are scattered like 

 ornamental timber over the green hill sides, which presents the 

 most charming natural sites for building. But houses there are 

 none, except here and there at a landing-place on the river, 

 where a wooden store and "office" invite the traveller to land 

 and become an unit in the incipient " city." There are also 

 huts on the edge of the water at convenient points for " wood- 

 ing," occupied by wood-cutters, who prepare fuel for the steam- 

 vessels. In summer the banks are infested with musquitoes, 



