built with quays or wharves, as would be the case with us, but with
a sloping bank running down to the water. In the good days of peace
a hundred vessels were to be seen here, each with its double
funnels. The line of them seemed to be never ending even when I was
there, but then a very large proportion of them were lying idle.
They resemble huge, wooden houses, apparently of frail architecture,
floating upon the water. Each has its double row of balconies
running round it, and the lower or ground floor is open throughout.
The upper stories are propped and supported on ugly sticks and
rickety-looking beams; so that the first appearance does not convey
any great idea of security to a stranger. They are always painted
white, and the paint is always very dirty. When they begin to move,
they moan and groan in melancholy tones which are subversive of all
comfort; and as they continue on their courses they puff and
bluster, and are forever threatening to burst and shatter themselves
to pieces. There they lie, in a continuous line nearly a mile in
length, along the levee of St. Louis, dirty, dingy, and now, alas!
mute. They have ceased to groan and puff, and, if this war be
continued for six months longer, will become rotten and useless as
they lie.

They boast at St. Louis that they command 46,000 miles of navigable
river water, counting the great rivers up and down from that place.
These rivers are chiefly the Mississippi; the Missouri and Ohio,
which fall into the Mississippi near St. Louis; the Platte and
Kansas Rivers, tributaries of the Missouri; the Illinois, and the
Wisconsin. All these are open to steamers, and all of them traverse
regions rich in corn, in coal, in metals, or in timber. These
ready-made highways of the world center, as it were, at St. Louis,
and make it the depot of the carrying trade of all that vast