nd
feeding, like the hungry dogs of a "Dotheboys Hall" kennel.

It may be useful information for the traveller, and is only fair to the
Mississippi boat proprietors, to observe, that if you succeed in getting
a passage in a perfectly new boat, there is always more care, more
safety, better living, and better company. In all the boats there is one
brush and comb for the use of the passengers.

By the aid of steam and stream, we at last reached Cairo, which is on
the southern bank of the Ohio and the eastern of the Mississippi; its
advantageous position has not passed unnoticed, but much money has been
thrown away upon it, owing to the company's not sitting down and
counting the cost before they began. There can be no question that,
geographically, it is _par excellence_ the site for the largest inland
town of America, situated as it is at the confluence of the two giant
arteries; and not merely is its position so excellent but mountains of
coal are in its neighbourhood. The difficulty which has to be contended
against is the inundation of these rivers. Former speculators built up
levees; but either from want of pluck or purse, they were inefficiently
constructed; the Mississippi overflowed them and overwhelmed the
speculators. Latterly, however, another company has taken the task in
hand, and having sufficient capital, it embraces the coal mines as well
as the site, &c., of the new town, to which the coal will of course be
brought by rail, and thus be enabled to supply the steamers on both
rivers at the cheapest rate, and considerably less than one-third the
price of wood; and if the indefatigable Swede's calorie-engine should
ever become practicable, every steamer will easily carry sufficient coal
from Cairo to last till her return; in short, I think it requires no
prophetic eye to foresee that Cairo in fifty years, if the Union
continues, will be one of the greatest, most important, and most
flourishing inland towns in America; and curiously enough, this effect
will be essentially brought about by the British capital embarked in the
enterprise.

A few hours' run up the river brought us to St. Louis, whose nose, I
prophesy, is to be put out of joint by Cairo some future day.
Nevertheless, what a wonderful place is this same St. Louis; its rapid
increase is almost as extraordinary as that of Cincinnati, and perhaps
more so, when you consider, not only that it is further west by hundreds
of miles, but that it has to co