Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/365

Rh Mr. A. drove me to part of the neighbourhood where the wealthy citizens of St. Louis built their villas. There are already upon the hills, (though they can hardly be called hills, but merely terraces or plateaux,) and in the valleys, whole streets and groups of pretty country-houses, many of them really splendid, surrounded by trees, and flowers, and vines, and other creepers. How life increases here, how rapidly and how joyously! But do no tares spring up with the wheat? I have still hope, although I have lost my faith in the Millennium of the great West.

The State of Missouri seems to be not only one of the largest States of the Union, but one of the richest also, as regards natural beauty and natural resources. They speak of its northern portion as of the natural garden of the West; it possesses westward, lofty mountains, rich in metals, interspersed with immense prairies and forest; southward, towards Arkansas, it becomes boggy, and abounds in morasses. To the west of the State lies the Indian Territory, the people of which have embraced Christianity and civilisation. The Cherokees are the principal, but many other tribes have united themselves to this in smaller associations, as the family of Choctaws, Chickasaws, Fox and Sacs Indians. Whether this Indian territory stands in the same relationship to the government of the United States as other territory during its period of gradation and preparation, and whether at some future time it will become an independent Indian State in the great Union, I do not know decidedly, though I regard it as probable.

Missouri is a Slave State. But it seems at this moment to maintain the institution of slavery rather out of bravado than from any belief in its necessity. It has no products which might not be cultivated by white labourers, as its climate does not belong to the hot south. Missouri also sells its slaves assiduously “down south.”