So long as the Mississippi River washes the levee in front of the city, the citizens of St. Louis are in little danger of long remaining dull, for want of excitement. That river, one of the uneasiest of water courses, constantly furnishes fresh themes of interest, and even of anxiety. It has a singular penchant for a frequent change of channels, and occasionally threatens to desert to Illinois and leave St. Louis an inland town, with its high levee a sort of rampart to receive the mocking assaults of Chicago. Then, every spring, there is the annual freshet, which, once in ten or fifteen years, creeps up over the top of the levee, and finds its way into cellars and first floors of stores and warehouses. Occasionally there is a severe winter, when ice is formed upon the river as far south even as St. Louis; and when it breaks up in the spring, mischief is sure to ensue. A hundred steamboats are in winter quarters along the levee, their noses in the sand, and their hulls extending riverward, fixed in the ice. At last the great mass of congealed water, extending up the river hundreds of miles, begins to move down stream. The motion is at first scarcely perceptible; but, suddenly, the ice cracks and breaks, and fragments begin to glide swiftly with the current of the river. The various masses create conflicting currents, and, presently, the surface of the stream is like a whirlpool. Some boats are crushed like egg shells between the floes; cables snap, and others are drawn out into the midst of the whirling waters and are fortunate indeed if they are not overwhelmed or forced upon the ice. Meantime, consternation reigns upon the levee. The multitudes are powerless to prevent, yet make frantic and futile efforts while they watch, the disaster. At the breaking up of the ice in 1866, seventeen steamboats were crushed and sunk in a few minutes. Then there are other river disasters; steamboats burned; others struck on snags and sunk; and now and then a boiler explosion makes up the tale of horrors and prevents the Mississippi from ever becoming monotonous or uninteresting.
St. Louis was most unfavorably affected by the war, and made to expiate her political sin of 1820. On the border land between the North and the South, the conflict was carried on in her very midst. Sectional strife was most bitter and keen. There was no neutrality, and there could be none. All were either for or against; families were divided in deadly strife; and while the city suffered to a terrible degree from this condition of affairs, in back counties whole sections were depopulated. The population being largely southern, either by birth or descent, its sympathies were with the South. The class truly loyal was the Germans, who numbered about 60,000 of the population, and who were characterized by the Secessionists as the "D—— Dutch." The blockade of the river reduced the whole business of the city to about a third of its former amount. Yet, when the war was ended, St. Louis was quick to recover her prostrated energies. In 1866, and but two years after the war, the city did more business than in any preceding year; and, relieved from the incubus of slavery, which had retarded its progress, it aroused itself to new life.
With the Quaker-like simplicity of its outward appearance, its absence of business rush, and its general tranquillity, St. Louis' resemblance to the Quaker City ceases. It is a town of composite character, but from its earliest existence has been under Roman Catholic domination. Even now the Roman Catholic element predominates in its population. And its French and Spanish founders, though their quaint buildings are torn down and replaced by more modern ones, and their very streets re-named, have left their impress upon the city. Its many places of amusement, compared to its population, its general gayety, its stores closed by sunset in winter, and before sunset in summer, its billiard rooms open on Sunday, and its ball-playing on the same day, all give indication of its being the home of a people whose ancestors had no New England prejudices against worldly amusements, and in favor of sobriety, decorum, industry, and the observance of the Sabbath.
St. Louis presents a pleasing contrast to many other western cities. Its prosperity is substantial—not a sham. The capital which has paid for these costly places of business and elegant residences, and is invested in these gigantic enterprises, has been created out of the immense material wealth of the State—not borrowed on a factitious credit. Its merchants do not make princely fortunes in a day, but what they acquire they keep. With so satisfactory a past, the errors of its youth atoned for, the future of St. Louis cannot fail to be a brilliant one.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
SYRACUSE.
Glimpses on the Rail.—Schenectady.—Valley of the Mohawk.—"Lover's Leap."—Rome and its Doctor.—Oneida Stone—-The Lo Race.—Oneida Community.—The City of Salt.—The Six Nations.—The Onondagas.—Traditions of Red Americans.—Hiawatha.—Sacrifice of White Dogs.—Ceremonies.—The Lost Tribes of Israel.—Witches and Wizards.—A Jules Verne Story.—The Salt Wells of Salina.—Lake Onondaga.—Indian Knowledge of Salt Wells.—"Over the Hills and Far Away."—A Castle.—Steam Canal Boats.—Adieux.—Westward Ho!
The distance from Albany to Syracuse by rail, on the line of the New York Central, is about one hundred and forty-two miles, or reckoned by language on the dial, between six and seven hours.