It fuses northern and southern qualities, perhaps native and
foreign ones, to perfection, rendezvous the whole stretch of the
Mississippi and Missouri rivers, and its American electricity goes
well with its German phlegm. Fourth, Fifth and Third streets are
store-streets, showy, modern, metropolitan, with hurrying crowds,
vehicles, horse-cars, hubbub, plenty of people, rich goods,
plate-glass windows, iron fronts often five or six stories high. You
can purchase anything in St. Louis (in most of the big western cities
for the matter of that) just as readily and cheaply as in the Atlantic
marts. Often in going about the town you see reminders of old, even
decay'd civilization. The water of the west, in some places, is not
good, but they make it up here by plenty of very fair wine, and
inexhaustible quantities of the best beer in the world. There are
immense establishments for slaughtering beef and pork--and I saw
flocks of sheep, 5000 in a flock. (In Kansas City I had visited a
packing establishment that kills and packs an average of 2500 hogs a
day the whole year round, for export. Another in Atchison, Kansas,
same extent; others nearly equal elsewhere. And just as big ones
here.)
NIGHTS ON THE MISSISSIPPI
_Oct. 29th, 30th, and 31st_.--Wonderfully fine, with the full harvest
moon, dazzling and silvery. I have haunted the river every night
lately, where I could get a look at the bridge by moonlight. It is
indeed a structure of perfection and beauty unsurpassable, and I never
tire of it.
Pages:
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266