. The gallery will contain
about ten persons and the house 200. No danger of fire. The water rises
in the pit and in case of emergency a tolerably brisk fellow might run
head foremost through any part of it. In ridiculously ugly and slight
appearance it surpasses all ever seen or heard of. It is not half so
large or half so good as the common horse-stables in Philadelphia.

Saturday, Nov. 13.--Left St. Louis at 6 o'clock a. m. Crossed the
Mississippi to Illinois on my way to Kaskaskia. Passed a small village
called Cahokia, a miserable, dirty little hole. But very few good
houses. Inhabitants half French, half Indian, retaining part of the
manners of both. The French language is generally spoken, but not in its
purity. For eight or ten miles we traveled on the American bottom,
which, in all probabilities, never was surpassed in fertility. After
leaving the bottom the country is rather hilly and barren. Traveled
twenty-two miles and lodged at Waterloo, a town without houses. Only two
families in the place. Every land speculator produces one or more of
these dirt-cabin villages. Indeed, two-thirds of the travelers met with
are land speculators. The inhabitants of this part of the country appear
to be a wretched set of beings. Their great-coats are made out of a
blanket, with a cap or hood out of the same piece. Then moccasins and
leggins complete the suit. Uncover a Frenchman's head and his friends
are immediately alarmed for his health. The pig pens in Pennsylvania are
generally as clean and much better built than the miserable huts
occupied by these lazy people. In a state of almost starvation they hold
their Gumbo balls twice a week. For nimbleness of foot and lightness of
heart the French have never been surpassed.

"Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, always to be, blest."

Excellent wages in this country for hired people, either black or white,
men or women. It is very common for a log cabin tavern without a door or
window (perhaps a log out to answer both purposes) to sup and lodge
twenty persons, men women and children. A living is so easily obtained
in this rich country that the most industrious of the inhabitants soon
grow indolent. Perhaps the ague and fever unfits them for exertion or
labor, but those things or something not accounted for produces
laziness.

Sunday, Nov. 14.--Left Waterloo and traveled twenty miles to breakfast
at Mrs. LaCount's in the little ancient French