Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/447

Rh I am weary and dejected. The air is pleasant, the water bright and blue; heaven also is bright. Does the deer find no peaceful meadows beyond the river of death, where he may rest after the wild chase?

The steamer, Belle Key, is of the family of river-giants. I call it Noah's Ark, because it has more than a thousand animals on board, on the deck below us and above us. Immense oxen, really mammoth oxen, so fat that they can scarcely walk,—cows, calves, horses, mules, sheep and pigs, whole herds of them send forth the sound of their gruntings from the lower deck, and send up to us between times, anything but agreeable odours; and on the deck above us turkeys gobble,—geese, ducks, hens and cocks, crow and fight, and little pigs go rushing wildly about, and among the poultry-pens.

On the middle deck, where we, the sons and daughters of Adam are bestowed, everything in the meantime is remarkably comfortable. The ladies' saloon is large and handsome, and the passengers few, and of an excellent class. I have my state-room to myself. I am like a princess in a fairy-tale. My cavalier for the journey, Mr. Lerner H., is one of the energetic and warm-hearted class of American men, and add to this a very agreeable fellow also, who in his behaviour to “a lady entrusted to his care,” has that blending of brotherly cordiality and chivalric politeness, which makes the man of the New World the most agreeable companion that a lady can desire. No screaming children disturb the quietness on board; and we do not allow the grunting of the swine, and other animal sounds in our Noah's Ark to trouble us. All these animals are destined to the Christmas market of New Orleans.

December 17th.—The Mississippi-Missouri flows turbidly and broad with its increasing waters, full of drift-wood, trees, branches and stumps, which give us sometimes no inconsiderable shocks. The shores are low and swampy,