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Show 1836- 1837I Flagg's Far West 107 cifix gleaming in the sunlight from its lofty summit; and then the glittering cupolas and church domes, and the fresh aspect of private residences, mingling with the bright foliage of forest- trees interspersed, all swelling gently from the water's edge, recalled vividly the beautiful " Mistress of the North," as my eye has often lingered upon her from her magnificent bay. A few more spires, and the illusion would be perfect. For beauty of outline in distant view, St. Louis is deservedly famed. The extended range of limestone warehouses circling the shore give to the city a grandeur of aspect, as approached from the water, not often beheld; while the dense- rolling forest- tops stretching away in the rear, the sharp outline of the towers and roofs against the western sky, and the funereal grove of steamboat- pipes lining the quay, altogether make up a combination of features novel and picturesque. As we approached the landing all the uproar and confusion of a steamboat port was before us, and our own arrival added to the bustle. And now, perchance, having escaped the manifold perils of sawyer and snag, planter, wreck- heap, and sand- bar, it may not be unbecoming in me, like an hundred other tourists, to gather up a votive offering, and - if classic allusion be permissible on the waters of the wilderness West - hang it up before the shrine of the " Father of Floods." [ 78] It is surely no misnomer that this giant stream has been styled the " eternal river," the " terrible Mississippi; " w for we may find none other imbodying so many elements of the fearful and the sublime. In the wild rice- lakes of the far frozen north, amid a solitude broken only by the shrill clang of the myriad water- fowls, is its home. Gushing out from its fountains clear as the air- bell, it sparkles over the white pebbly sand- beds, and, breaking over the " A name of Algonquin origin- Missi signifying great, and sepe a river.- FLAOO. |