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Show 106 Early Western Travels [ VoL 26 mounds in the vicinity are literally composed of the same materials. Mammoth bones, such as those discovered on the Ohio and in the state of New- York, are said also to have been found at a salt- lick near this stream. It was a bright morning, on the fifth day of an exceedingly long passage, that we found ourselves approaching St. Louis. At about noon we were gliding beneath the broad ensign floating from the flagstaff of Jefferson Barracks. 71 The sun was gloriously bright; the soft summer wind was rippling the waters, and the clear cerulean of the heavens was imaged in their depths. The site of the quadrangle of the barracks enclosing the parade is the broad summit of a noble bluff, swelling up from the water, while the outbuildings are scattered picturesquely along the interval beneath; the view from the steamer cannot but strike the traveller as one of much scenic beauty. Passing the venerable village of Carondelet, with its whitewashed cottages crumbling with years, and old Cahokia buried in the forests on the opposite bank, the gray walls of the Arsenal next stood out before us in the rear of its beautiful esplanade. 73 A fine quay is erected upon the river in front, and the extensive grounds [ 77] are enclosed by a wall of stone. Sweeping onward, the lofty spire and dusky walls of St. Louis Cathedral, on rounding a river bend, opened upon the eye, the gilded cru-n For an account of Jefferson Barracks, see Townsend's Narrative, in our volume xxi, p. 122, note a.- ED. n For the history of Carondelet, see Maximilian's Travels, in our volume jorii, p. 215, note 134. For reference to Cahokia, see A. Michaux's Travels, in our volume iii, p. 70, note 135. On May 20, 1826, Congress made an appropriation of fifteen thousand dollars to the secretary of war, for the purpose of purchasing the site for the erection of an arsenal in the vicinity of St Louis. Lands now far within the southeastern limits of the city were purchased, and the buildings erected which were used for arsenals until January 16, 1871, when they were occupied as a depot for the general mounted recruiting service.- ED. |
