66 Expedition to the 



it will be regarded as highly corroborative of that popular 

 belief. 



In the prairies of Illinois, opposite St Louis, are numbers 

 of large mounds. We counted seventy-five in the course of a 

 walk of about five miles, which brought us to the hill a few 

 years since occupied by the monks of La Trappe. This enor- 

 mous mound lies nearly from north to south, but it is o over- 

 grown with bushes and weeds, interlaced with briers and 

 vines, that we were unable to obtain an accurate account of 

 its dimensions. 



The survey of these productions of human industry, these 

 monuments without inscription, commemorating the exist- 

 ence of a people once numerous and powerful, but no lon- 

 ger known or remembered, never fails, though often repeated, 

 to produce an impression of sadness. As we stand upon 

 these mouldering piles, many of them now nearly oblitera- 

 ted, we cannot but compare their aspect of decay, with the 

 freshness of the wide field of nature, which we see reviving 

 around us : their insignificance, with the majestic and impe- 

 rishable features of the landscape. We feel the insignificance 

 and the want of permanence in every thing human; we are 

 reminded of what has been so often said of the pyramids of 

 Eg\ pt, and may with equal propriety be applied to all the 

 works of men, " these monuments must perish, but the grass 

 that grows between their die jointed fragments, shall be re- 

 newed from year to year."* 



June 21st. After completing our arrangements at St. 

 Louis, we left that place at noon, and at 10 o'clock on the 

 following day, entered the mouth of the Missouri. From St. 

 Louis upward to the Missouri, the water of the Mississippi, 

 for a part of the year, is observed to be clear and of a green- 

 ish colour on the Illinois side, while it is turbid and yellow 

 along the western bank. But at the time of our ascent every 



* Maturin. 



