126 
with Mr. Riley to Major Dunn’s store, where we told stories 
about steam-boats to keep off ennui as well as we could, but in 
vain. In the evening I heard much concerning Rapp’s society, 
from a German mechanic, who had belonged to it, and who had 
left it as he said, because Rapp refused to let him have the inheri¬ 
tance of his father-in-law. We heard psalmody in the court¬ 
house, for the religious inhabitants of the place, mostly methodists, 
hold Sunday evening prayer meetings without a clergyman. 
The day was upon the whole quite warm, and towards evening 
we had to contend with numbers of mosquetoes. To prevent in 
some measure their coming from the woods, where they har¬ 
boured, fires were kindled about the place, and likewise before 
the houses. The situation here must be an unhealthy one, for 
not only was I annoyed during the night with head-ache and 
fever, but Messrs. Huygens, Riley, and Johnson, complained of 
being unwell. With the exception of some miserable, filthy 
lodgings in Canada, I do not recollect in any part of the United 
States, even among the Creek Indians, to have found myself so 
wretchedly situated in every respect, as here. The food, fur¬ 
nished in small quantity as it was, was hardly fit to be eaten; 
the only beverage was water, which it was necessary to mix with 
ordinary whiskey; the beds very bad; and the whole house in 
a state of the most revolting filthiness. 
On the morning of the 24th of April, came the hour of our 
deliverance. The steam-boat General Neville came up the river 
after seven o’clock. We dispatched a boat to tell them that 
several cabin passengers waited for them in Mount Vernon. 
Immediately the vessel steered for our shore, and took us in. 
We were extremely rejoiced at our escape from this disagree¬ 
able place. The boat had come from St. Louis, and was bound 
for Louisville. She was but small, containing sixteen births in 
her cabin, and had a high-pressure engine. Lucidly, however, we 
found but three cabin passengers on board. We started imme¬ 
diately, and the banks of the river here and there low and sub¬ 
ject to inundation, gratified us very much by the fresh green of the 
trees. We passed by some considerable islands. One of them, 
Diamond Island, is about three miles and a half long and above a 
mile broad, and must contain several thousand acres of excellent 
land. Afterwards we saw upon the left bank, here pretty high, 
the little town of Henderson, in Kentucky. Eleven miles and 
a half higher, we saw Evansville upon an eminence on the right 
shore, still an inconsiderable place, but busy; it being the prin¬ 
cipal place in the county of Vandeburg, in the state of Indiana, 
lying in the neighbourhood of a body of fertile land, and is a con¬ 
venient landing place for emigrants, who go to the Wabash country. 
Upon the same shore are seen several dwellings upon the fresh 
