Page:Six months in Kansas.djvu/35

Rh table, the wants of every person are noticed by him, at a glance. He has passed the most of his life upon this river ; and makes one at the wheel of his boat, passing most of his time there. He invites us up to pass an hour with him, after the sun is down. The view is really beautiful at times. The shores are thickly wooded, with the general appearance of an uninhabited country. Occasionally, there are grand columns of sand-stone, giving a good idea of ivy covered towers in the old world. The channel of the river is never in the same place twice ; and as the water is muddy, it is a continued wonder how a way is ciphered out by the Captain, at the wheel.

It is just a week since we left home, and we are three hundred and fifty miles up this river. It seems endless, and the immensity just begins to dawn upon me, as well as the distance from home. No place have I seen yet where I could make a home. Everything seems a world too wide for the home emotion to root in. Crack goes the boat, with a prolonged grate beneath her, as though she was scraped in pieces! Mother, we are on a sand-bar, and perhaps may pass a week here.