STEAMERS ON THE MISSISSIPPI. Lil 
The banks of the “dry outlet” were very low and very 
swampy, and were disfigured occasionally by wretched 
cabins, in which lived human beings, who, the captain 
of the ‘‘ Emperor” informed us, lived, as far as he could 
judge, by sitting upon the head of a barrel and looking 
out on the landscape, and at his boat as it passed. From 
the fact that they had no arable land, and looked like 
creatures fed on unhealthy air, we presume that was 
their only occupation. 
In time we arrived at the “small village,” the des- 
tination of the “mail pouch;” “the passengers” landed 
and visited the town. It was one of the ruins of a 
great city, dreamed of by land speculators in “ glorious 
times.”” Several splendidly-conceived mansions were 
decaying about in the half-finished frames that were 
strewn upon the ground. A barrel of whiskey was 
rolled ashore, the mail delivered, the fat man got out, 
and the steamer was again under way. 
The “dry outlet”? immerged into a broad inland 
lake, which itself, with a peculiarity of the tributaries 
of the Mississippi, emptied into that river. Our little 
boat plunged on, keeping up with untiring consistency 
all its original pretensions and puffing, and the same 
clanking of tiny machinery, scaring the wild ducks and 
geese, scattering the white cranes over our heads, and 
making the cormorant screech with astonishment in 
hoarser tones than the engine itself. 
Occasionally we would land at a “ squatter’s settle- 
