ving off through the woods, to the sparse rustic settlement lying
some two miles in the interior--on higher ground than this wooded
bottom, which is annually overflowed. Now and then the blustering
little steam-ferry comes across to land Kentucky farm-folk and
their mules, going home from a Saturday's shopping in Metropolis.
Occasionally a fisherman passes, lagging on his oars to scan us and
our quarters; and from one of them, we purchased a fish. As the
still, cool night crept on, Metropolis was astir; across the mile of
intervening water, darted tremulous shafts of light; we heard voices
singing and laughing, a fiddle in its highest notes, the puffing of
a stationary engine, and the bay and yelp of countless dogs. Later,
a packet swooped down with smothered roar, and threw its electric
search-light on the city wharf, revealing a crowd of negroes gathered
there, like moths in the radiance of a candle; there were gay shouts,
and a mad scampering--we could see it all, as plainly as if in
ordinary light it had been but a third of the distance; and then the
roustabouts struck up a weird song as they ran out the gang-plank,
and, laden with boxes and bales, began swarming ashore, like a
procession of black ants carrying pupa cases.

* * * * *

Mound City Towhead, Sunday, 10th.--During the night, burglarious
pigs would have raided our larder, but the crash of a falling kettle
wakened us suddenly, as did geese the ancient Romans. The Doctor and I
sallied forth in our pajamas, with clods of clay in hand, to send the
enemy flying back into the forest, snorting and squealing with baffled
rage.

We were afloat at half-past seven, under an unclouded sky, with the
sun sharply reflected from the smooth surface of the river, and the
temperature rapidly mounting.

The Fort Massac ridge extends down stream as far as Mound City,
but soon degenerates into a ridge of clay varying in height from
twenty-five to fifty feet above the water level. Upon the low-lying
bottom of the Kentucky shore, is still an interminable dark line of
forest. The settlements are meager, and now wholly in Illinois:
For instance, Joppa (936 miles), a row of a half-dozen unpainted,
dilapidated buildings, chiefly stores and abandoned warehouses,
bespeaking a river traffic of the olden time, that has gone to decay;
a hot, dreary, baking spot, this Joppa, as it lies sprawling upon
the clay ridge, flanked by a low, wide gravel beach, on which g