Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 19.djvu/666

 the evidence of the fact, that the river, which now appears so insignificant, sometimes creeps up that steep, wide Levee, and fills all that broad "American Bottom" miles back to the "bluffs," he begins to suspect that the Father of Waters may, after all, be equal to its reputation. Such ferries as those by which we cross the Hudson and the Delaware are impossible upon a river so swift and so capricious as this. The ferry-boat is built like other steamboats, except that it is wider and stronger. With its head up the stream, it lies alongside of a barge to receive its enormous freight of coal-wagons, omnibuses, express-wagons, mail-wagons, carts, and loose mules enough to fill the interstices. Being let go, the boat, always headed to the impetuous flood, swings across,—the engine merely keeping the huge mass from being carried away down the stream.

Seen from the top of the ferry-boat, St. Louis is a curved line of steamboats, a mile and a half long, without a single mast or sail among them. The whole number of steamboats plying between this city and other river towns is two hundred and sixty-five, of which one hundred may frequently be seen in port at once, ranged along the Levee in close order, with their sterns slanting down the stream, and their bows thrust against the treacherous sand of the shore, each boat presenting a scene of the third act of "The Octoroon." Any one who has witnessed Mr. Bourcicault's excellent play of that name has only to imagine the steamboat scene stretched out a mile and a half, and throw in a few hundred mules and colored men,—the latter driving the former by means of the voice and whip,—and he will have before him a correct view of the St. Louis Levee. Chicago smiles at the necessity under which St. Louis labors of carrying its merchandise up and down that very wide, rough, and steep bank, and contemplates with fine complacency its own convenient river, which brings the grain, the cattle, the boards, and every box and bale to the precise spot where it is wanted, from which it is hoisted to the warehouse without the agency of human muscle. Chicago laughs at the idea of such at town competing for the trade of the prairies with a city of seventeen elevators. But let Chicago take note: St. Louis, which for many years supposed an elevator impossible on the banks of the Mississippi, now has an elevator in most successful operation. The difficulty caused by the ever-changing height of the river is overcome in the simplest manner. When the river is low, the huge spout which connects the elevator with the boat is lengthened, and as the river rises it is shortened. Such success had the elevator, that, during the first forty days of its existence, it received six hundred thousand bushels of grain. It only needs a few more Yankees along the St. Louis Levee to apply similar devices to the "handling" of other merchandise, and abolish the mules and their noisy drivers.

Twenty-five years ago, Charles Dickens landed upon this Levee, and was driven up to the summit of it into the oldest part of the city, which he thus described:—

"In the old French portion of the town, the thoroughfares are narrow and crooked, and some of the houses are very quaint and picturesque,—being built of wood, with tumble-down galleries before the windows, approachable by stairs, or rather ladders, from the street. There are queer little barbers' shops, and drinking-houses too, in this quarter; and abundance of crazy old tenements with blinking casements, such as may be seen in Flanders. Some of these ancient habitations, with high garret gable-windows perking into the roofs, have a kind of French shrug about them; and, being lop-sided with age, appear to hold their heads askew besides, as if they were grimacing in astonishment at the American improvements."

There is nothing of this now to be seen in St Louis, except that the ancient streets along the river are narrower than the rest. All is modern,