100 
KANSAS. 
pore, and blood at fever heat. He plunged into the river for a 
cooling bath, remaining some time. A pleasant coolness was in¬ 
duced ; but the blood was driven back from the extremities, to 
course madly about the internal organs. Soon after eating a 
hearty supper, he retired. The awaking, after a short, restless 
sleep, came with bitter pains, and life-crushing agonies. Heath 
in a few hours closed the scene. The stricken wife, coming to 
gladden his home, heard of this sudden blighting of her hopes, as 
she reached Kansas city. On the Missouri river, too, sickness 
has ruled the hour; and some who bade their friends good-by in 
the old, dearly loved home, to seek a new one beneath the sunny 
skies of Kansas, found a grave on those dreary Missouri shores. 
They call the sickness such as the water produces; we call it the 
result of their ungoverned appetites. The tables upon the boats 
are loaded with every delicacy that man can invent. Meats with 
rich gravies, the richest of pastries and cakes, jellies, ices, fruit 
and nuts, tempt the palate. Can any stomach bear a mingling 
together of all these, and give no sign of ill usage, no cry for a 
reprieve? Yet many are the instances where such overtasking 
of life’s energies has resulted in a brief sickness, and a burial in 
the waters. Others have lived to reach the territory in time to 
die there. 
One man went on to one of the boats with a large bunch of rad¬ 
ishes in his hand. The captain warned him, it being the cholera 
season, but he said he “ could eat them, or anything else, without 
danger.” But ere the morning sun arose, the death damps were 
heavy on his brow, and the eye recognized no longer the friends, 
though strangers, who administered to his fast-failing necessities. 
Another man, who was ill upon the boat, reached Kansas city, 
and there drank very freely of ice-water, not heeding the sugges¬ 
tions of others who thought it unsafe. The same afternoon he 
walked out eight miles, and back into the country. The next day 
he walked out again. He was taken most violently ill. The next 
evening, at the sunset hour, the tall trees in the leafy wood were 
waving over his western grave, and the moaning winds sang his 
requiem. 
The poor, homesick youth, whose vision has been bounded by 
