rushed with a velocity that threatened to carry everything before it.  The worst effect was its perpetual tendency to undermine its banks.  Often heavy portions of the banks plunged into the river, endangering boats and men.  The banks consisted of dark alluvion ten to fifteen feet above the water, bearing a dense growth of trees and shrubbery.  The plunging of these banks into the stream often sounded like thunder.  With every exertion, we advanced but five miles the first day, and it was a long July day.  As evening came on, the mosquitos were in hordes.  It was impossible to perform the offices of eating or drinking, without suffering the keenest torture from their stings.

The second day we ascended six miles, the third day seven miles, the fourth day six miles, and the fifth eight miles, which brought us to the first settlement on the Missouri shore, called Tyawapaty Bottom.  The banks in this distance became more elevated, and we appeared to be quitting the more nascent region.  We noticed the wild turkey and gray squirrel ashore.  The following day we went but three miles, when the severe labor caused some of the hands to give out.  Ensminger was a man not easily discouraged.  He lay by during the day, and the next morning found means to move ahead.  At an early hour we reached the head of the settlement, and came to at a spot called the Little Chain of Rocks.  The fast lands of the Missouri shore here jut into the river, and I examined, at this point, a remarkable bed of white clay, which is extensively employed by the local mechanics for chalk, but which is wholly destitute of carbonic acid.  We ascended, this day, ten miles; and the next day five miles, which carried us to Cape Girardeau—­a town estimated to be fifty miles above the mouth of the Ohio.  Here were about fifty houses, situated on a commanding eminence.  We had been landed but a short time, when one of the principal merchants of the place sent me word that he had just received some drugs and medicines which he wished me to examine.  I went up directly to his store, when it turned out that he was no druggist at all, nor wished my skill in this way, but, having heard there was a doctor aboard, he had taken this facetious mode of inviting me to partake of some refreshments.  I regret that I have forgotten his name.

The next day we ascended seven miles, and next the same distance, and stopped at the Moccason Spring, a basin of limpid water occupying a crevice in the limestone rock.  The day following we ascended but five miles, and the next day seven miles, in which distance we passed the Grand Tower, a geological monument rising from the bed of the river, which stands to tell of some great revolution in the ancient face of the country.  The Mississippi River probably broke through one of its ancient barriers at this place.  We made three unsuccessful attempts to pass Garlic Point, where we encountered a very strong current, and finally dropped down and came to, for the night,