Sunday evening we got to Kansas City, Missouri. I laid over here the next day Monday, in order to see the place and find out something about its resources and prospects. While here I visited Wyandot on the North side of Kansas River, the same side as Kansas City on the Missouri. This is a very new free state settlement and although but of recent origin has many fine houses, stores and hotels. Possessing a very good site for a city with a good landing, it will be in time, when the resources of Kansas are developed, a thriving place. Kansas City is built on a bluff rising from the river bank and expensive grading was necessary to secure an area for houses. From here streets are made by excavating through the bluffs to the best part of the city which lies back of the bluffs. This addition is quite new but springing up now very fast and will become in time a large city.

I left Kansas City on Monday afternoon for Leavenworth and St. Joseph and reached the latter place on the twenty-fourth instant. I had been here in eighteen fifty-two, on my way to California. I remembered well enough its site but the town has changed very much since that time, having at least four times increased in its size and population. It is laid out in rectangular streets having on Second street an open place for the market house. There are already many fine buildings here and many more going up. Property has greatly enhanced in value on account of its unrivalled location. I stayed here several days making enquiry and gaining information as to the resources of the place and its adaptability to my business. The prospects held out to me were fair enough and I partly decided if I could not find a place suiting still better to return here and establish myself in business.

I left this town for Leavenworth, seventy miles South of St. Joseph on the Missouri River. This is in Kansas and although only three years old has already attained a size and enjoys a large and growing commerce which rivals many a town of ten times its age. It is at present the key port to Kansas Territory. Most of the business for the Territory is transacted here. Its location on the Missouri River secures it the connection with St. Louis and through it by the Grand Central Web of Railroads with all parts of the United States. The site for the town is good and back some distance from the river and right above the business part of the town, up the River, beautiful.

This town holds out the same inducements to me to start business here as St. Joseph. It does now and I think always will lead St. Joseph in commercial importance and the fact of being in a free State will probably turn the scale in its favor in my decision between the two places. Leavenworth City at present is yet only three years old and grown as sudden as it has, everyone putting up buildings only studying to make the least outlay practicable for present purposes, the sanitary arrangements have of consequence been neglected and this I am satisfied in my mind will be the cause of severe sickness during this and the still coming scorching heat of Summer. This fact will probably keep me off till Fall, when colder winds will purify the air from putrid exhalations.

I started on a short trip inland, to see somewhat more of the Territory than its outskirts, on the last day of June. This is certainly a lovely country to survey, bound to attract the admiration of any one in whose heart the least drop of human kindness is not forever dried up. A living sea is the truest picture I can give of its appearance, the whole is a vast expanse of land, undulating, shifting, like the eternal throwings of the Ocean. Here and there streams meandering along through some of its shallow curves, fringed with trees, add to the sublimity of the scene. But for me to portray this part of nature's face is a useless task. I can feel the grandeurs of it easier than to describe them.

After passing through the reservation of the Delaware, we crossed the Kansas River and arrived at Lawrence, the first town this side of Leavenworth. I arrived just in time to hear of the acquittal of Jim Lame for the murder of Jennings. After a stay of an hour during which I promenaded once or twice through the only street which makes the present town, I took the stage for Topeka, twenty-five miles distance. I had the pleasure of enjoying a right good thorough jolting, making the trip one of punishment instead of pleasure. After a long and tedious ride of nine hours, passing through Tecompton and Tecomseh, we arrived at two o'clock in the morning of the first of July in Topeka. I came here principally to buy hides, but could not find any here. This, like all the places here is quiet and at present very dull, being in fact at the lowest stage of commercial stagnation. I shall take the stage tomorrow at two A.M. for Leavenworth City.

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