Cairo lay in my route.  I found it greatly changed from the Cairo of the previous autumn.  Six months before, it had been the rendezvous of the forces watching the Lower Mississippi.  The basin in which the town stood, was a vast military encampment.  Officers of all rank thronged the hotels, and made themselves as comfortable as men could be in Cairo.  All the leading journals of the country were represented, and the dispatches from Cairo were everywhere perused with interest, though they were not always entirety accurate.

March and April witnessed a material change.  Where there had been twenty thousand soldiers in December, there were less than one thousand in April.  Where a fleet of gun-boats, mortar-rafts, and transports had been tied to the levees during the winter months, the opening spring showed but a half-dozen steamers of all classes.  The transports and the soldiers were up the Tennessee, the mortars were bombarding Island Number Ten, and the gun-boats were on duty where their services were most needed.  The journalists had become war correspondents in earnest, and were scattered to the points of greatest interest.

Cairo had become a vast depot of supplies for the armies operating on the Mississippi and its tributaries.  The commander of the post was more a forwarding agent than a military officer.  The only steamers at the levee were loading for the armies.  Cairo was a map of busy, muddy life.

The opening year found Cairo exulting in its deep and all-pervading mud.  There was mud everywhere.

Levee, sidewalks, floors, windows, tables, bed-clothing, all were covered with it.  On the levee it varied from six to thirty inches in depth.  The luckless individual whose duties obliged him to make frequent journeys from the steamboat landing to the principal hotel, became intimately acquainted with its character.

Sad, unfortunate, derided Cairo!  Your visitors depart with unpleasant memories.  Only your inhabitants, who hold titles to corner lots, speak loudly in your praise.  When it rains, and sometimes when it does not, your levee is unpleasant to walk upon.  Your sidewalks are dangerous, and your streets are unclean.  John Phenix declared you destitute of honesty.  Dickens asserted that your physical and moral foundations were insecurely laid.  Russell did not praise you, and Trollope uttered much to your discredit.  Your musquitos are large, numerous, and hungry.  Your atmosphere does not resemble the spicy breezes that blow soft o’er Ceylon’s isle.  Your energy and enterprise are commendable, and your geographical location is excellent, but you can never become a rival to Saratoga or Newport.