IN traveling up the Mississippi river, I could not help remarking that the Illinois shore was, with but few exceptions, very low—in many places not more than a foot or two above ordinary water, and, in some places, even submerged; while the western shore—that of Missouri and Iowa—was, with some exceptions, reasonably high.
Illinois is a low, swampy State, nearly all over. I have visited all portions of it, both the borders and the interior; and, excepting the vicinity of Peoria, and some few bluffs along the Mississippi river, the ground is low, flat, marshy, and evidently anything but salubrious. The soil, however, is as rich as any in the world; and things grow there in a way that would be quite novel to an eastern man. By and by, it will be drained, grow more healthy, and, perhaps, become the richest and most desirable State of the Mississippi Valley.
The most beautiful land I ever saw any where, was in Iowa, between Davenport, on the Mississippi shore, and Iowa City, in the interior. It is difficult to look upon that garden-like land, when clothed in its dress of summer, without actually breaking forth in words of admiration. It is slightly rolling—just enough so to relieve it from excess of water—the view is little obstructed by timber; and one can stand on a somewhat elevated point, and see for eight or ten miles in any direction—see the smooth green fields spread out before him, like the face of the ocean, till they fade in dimness and kiss the blue sky at the distant horizon!
But, in winter, stay away from these regions, with all their beauty, unless you are fond of being frozen; for the winter winds there can split a tough white-oak into rails, in no time, and fire itself couldn’t stand it long out-of-doors, without being frozen into icicles. Even their thermometers cannot stand it out-of-doors. They are obliged to hang them by the stove or fireplace—where they make it a point to keep the temperature of the air as high as twenty-five or thirty degrees below zero.
But this is a digression I did not intend.
At Keokuk, I stayed all night, and, next morning, took an early train for Fort Madison, a flourishing town situated at the head of the Rapids, twenty-five miles above Keokuk. Not every one is aware that the navigation of the Mississippi is obstructed for some miles above Keokuk, by extensive rapids, in the course of which the water falls considerably. Yet such is the case. To obviate the difficulty, a railroad has been constructed from Keokuk to Fort Madison, where the traveler takes another boat up the river. When the water is high, however, boats of any size go over the rapids, as they do over the Falls of the Ohio at Louisville.
In the car, a gentleman, who was a native of Iowa, occupied the same seat with me. Noticing that I had a checker-board in my hand, which I had taken out of my trunk while on board the boat, the previous day, he said:
“Do you play checkers?”
“A little,” I replied. “Do you?”
“I don’t often get beat,” was his modest (?) rejoinder.