Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/351

Rh when I look around me in these regions for that which is the most triumphant and the most overpowering element in the Mississippi States, and among the freebooters of California at the present time, I see clearly that it is the power and dominion of the peace-maker.

&emsp; We have lain still for several hours. The river has here a dangerous, sharp, rocky bottom, and as the water is low the passage is dangerous. They wait for the wind becoming perfectly still, that they may discern the places where the stream is rippled by the rocks. It is already so calm that I can scarcely imagine how it can be calmer. The Mississippi glances like a mirror in the sunshine, merely here and there furrowed by the stream. It is now quite as warm as summer, and I am impatient at lying quiet in the heat and the strong sunshine. The bed of the Mississippi has not been cleared, and it is a sign that the government of the United States has its deficiencies and its shallows, when it can tolerate such impediments on great river where there is such constant traffic. But it is not agreed as to whether the government or the people ought to do the work, and therefore it remains undone to the great detriment of the traffic of the river.

I have made two agreeable acquaintances on board, in two gentlemen from Connecticut, strong, downright Yankees; and the young daughter of one, a most charming girl of twenty,—a fresh flower, both body and soul,—a splendid specimen of the daughters of New England. We have also now a pair of giant-women on board, such as belong to the old mythological population of Utgård; and I have been particularly amused by the conflict between the wild and the cultivated races, in the persons of one these ladies and my lovely flower of New England. The former, in a steel-grey dress, with a grey, fierce countenance, stiff and middle-aged, sate