too uniform to have beauty. The girdle of trees would be pretty,
doubtless, if seen near, but in the distance and in winter it is only a
black border to a brown plain.

"The State of Illinois must be capitally adapted to railroads on account
of this level, and but little danger can threaten a train from running
off of the track, as it might run on the soil nearly as well as on the
rails.

"Our engine was uncoupled, and had gone on for nearly half a mile
without the cars before the conductor perceived it.

"The time from Chicago to St. Louis is called fifteen hours and a
quarter; we made it twenty-three.

"If the prairie land is good farming-land, Illinois is destined to be a
great State. If its people will think less of the dollar and more of the
refinements of social life and the culture of the mind, it may become
the great State of the Union yet.

"March 12. Planter's Hotel, St. Louis. We visited Mercantile Hall and
the Library. The lecture-room is very spacious and very pretty. No
gallery hides the frescoed walls, and no painful economy has been made
of the space on the floor.

"13th. I begin to perceive the commerce of St. Louis. We went upon the
levee this morning, and for miles the edge was bordered with the pipes
of steamboats, standing like a picket-fence. Then we came to the
wholesale streets, and saw the immense stores for dry-goods and
crockery.