started, and ran aground! It commenced raining and sleeting, and a very
interesting time we had on that barren sandbar for the next four hours,
when the boat got off and took us aboard. The next day was terribly
cold. We sounded Hat Island, warped up around a bar and sounded again
--but in order to understand our situation you will have to read Dr. Kane.
It would have been impossible to get back to the boat. But the Maria
Denning was aground at the head of the island--they hailed us--we ran
alongside and they hoisted us in and thawed us out. We had then been out
in the yawl from 4 o'clock in the morning till half past 9 without being
near a fire. There was a thick coating of ice over men, yawl, ropes and
everything else, and we looked like rock-candy statuary. We got to Saint
Louis this morning, after an absence of 3 weeks--that boat generally
makes the trip in 2.

Henry was doing little or nothing here, and I sent him to our clerk to
work his way for a trip, by measuring wood piles, counting coal boxes,
and other clerkly duties, which he performed satisfactorily. He may go
down with us again, for I expect he likes our bill of fare better than
that of his boarding house.

I got your letter at Memphis as I went down. That is the best place to
write me at. The post office here is always out of my route, somehow or
other. Remember the direction: "S.L.C., Steamer Pennsylvania Care Duval
& Algeo, Wharfboat, Memphis." I cannot correspond with a paper, because
when one is learning the river, he is not allowed to do or think about
anything else.

I am glad to see you in such high spirits about the land, and I hope you
will remain so, if you never get richer. I seldom venture to think about
our landed wealth, for "hope deferred maketh the heart sick."