the year, when
the water is at an unusually high stage. It is beautifully located, and
has a main street known as "The Avenue," which is between two and three
hundred feet in width. This avenue is a great business centre, and at
almost all times a scene of animated interest, while at its head stand
prominently a cathedral and a convent.

The swift passing panorama of the avenue is ofttimes varied by a
picturesque group of Chocktaws or Cherokees, with grotesque costume, this
place being their principal rendezvous. Just at the edge of the town is a
National Cemetery of great natural beauty, with but little of the stiff
regularity which usually characterizes such places.

We found a great lack of educational advantages throughout the entire
State of Arkansas, there being no public schools, and the private ones few
in number and poor in character; but it has never been my good fortune to
meet kinder hearts than were encountered among the masses.

At Arkadelphia we had a regular Arkansas deluge, and the first class hotel
of this flourishing town of two thousand souls would indeed have been a
poor ark for Father Noah and his family. Its walls were lathed but not
plastered, and from our apartment we had an extended view of the entire
floor.

Our furniture consisted of two wooden chairs, a box turned upside down for
a toilet-stand, a rickety bedstead, with unmusical creak, a tumble-down
lounge, and dismal, but genuine tallow dip. In these quarters we spent
four days, during which time the rain poured with unremitting constancy.

In the parlor of the same edifice was an elegant piano, and magnificently
dressed ladies, and our constant amazement was, how, in this strange
country, extremes could so amicably meet.

I found in Arkadelphia two blind gentlemen, who were prosperous merchants;
and to me, this spoke volumes for a community who would so generously
sustain the afflicted rather than allow them the condescension of beggary.

We next visited Hope, a town of three thousand inhabitants, yet having
numbered but three years of existence; and while these people are
considered so slow in progression, this fact indicated a considerable
degree of Yankee go-a-head activity. This town is one of the important
cotton markets of the State, which branch of trade imparts an additional
business activity.

We turned toward Hot Springs, the Baden of America, and when within twenty
miles of this wonderful place we encountered a throng