THE scenery, from St. Louis to Cairo--two hundred miles--is variedand beautiful. The hills were clothed in the fresh foliage of spring now,and were a gracious and worthy setting for the broad river flowing between.

Our trip began auspiciously, with a perfect day, as to breeze and sunshine,and our boat threw the miles out behind her with satisfactory despatch.

We found a railway intruding at Chester, Illinois; Chester hasalso a penitentiary now, and is otherwise marching on. At GrandTower, too, there was a railway; and another at Cape Girardeau.

The former town gets its name from a huge, squat pillar of rock,which stands up out of the water on the Missouri side of the river--a piece of nature's fanciful handiwork--and is one of themost picturesque features of the scenery of that region.

For nearer or remoter neighbors, the Tower has the Devil'sBake Oven--so called, perhaps, because it does not powerfullyresemble anybody else's bake oven; and the Devil's Tea Table--this latter a great smooth-surfaced mass of rock, with diminishingwine-glass stem, perched some fifty or sixty feet above the river,beside a beflowered and garlanded precipice, and sufficientlylike a tea-table to answer for anybody, Devil or Christian.

Away down the river we have the Devil's Elbow and the Devil'sRace-course, and lots of other property of his which I cannot nowcall to mind.

The Town of Grand Tower was evidently a busier place than ithad been in old times, but it seemed to need some repairshere and there, and a new coat of whitewash all over.

Still, it was pleasant to me to see the old coat once more.

'Uncle' Mumford, our second officer, said the place had beensuffering from high water, and consequently was not lookingits best now. But he said it was not strange that it didn'twaste white-wash on itself, for more lime was made there,and of a better quality, than anywhere in the West;and added--'On a dairy farm you never can get any milkfor your coffee, nor any sugar for it on a sugar plantation;and it is against sense to go to a lime town to hunt for white-wash.'

In my own experience I knew the first two items to be true;and also that people who sell candy don't care for candy;therefore there was plausibility in Uncle Mumford's final observationthat 'people who make lime run more to religion than whitewash.'

Uncle Mumford said, further, that Grand Tower was a great coalingcenter and a prospering place.

Cape Girardeau is situated on a hillside, and makes a handsome appearance.

There is a great Jesuit school for boys at the foot of the town by the river.

Uncle Mumford said it had as high a reputation for thoroughness as anysimilar institution in Missouri ' There was another college higher up onan airy summit--a bright new edifice, picturesquely and peculiarly toweredand pinnacled--a sort of gigantic casters, with the cruets all complete.

Uncle Mumford said that Cape Girardeau was the Athens of Missouri,and contained several colleges besides those already mentioned; and all ofthem on a religious basis of one kind or another. He directed my attentionto what he called the 'strong and pervasive religious look of the town,'

but I could not see that it looked more religious than the other hilltowns with the same slope and built of the same kind of bricks.

Partialities often make people see more than really exists.

Uncle Mumford has been thirty years a mate on the river.

He is a man of practical sense and a level head; has observed;has had much experience of one sort and another; has opinions;has, also, just a perceptible dash of poetry in his composition,an easy gift of speech, a thick growl in his voice, and an oathor two where he can get at them when the exigencies of hisoffice require a spiritual lift. He is a mate of the blessedold-time kind; and goes gravely damning around, when thereis work to the fore, in a way to mellow the ex-steamboatman'sheart with sweet soft longings for the vanished days that shallcome no more. 'GIT up there you! Going to be all day?

Why d'n't you SAY you was petrified in your hind legs,before you shipped!'

He is a steady man with his crew; kind and just, but firm;so they like him, and stay with him. He is still in the slouchygarb of the old generation of mates; but next trip the AnchorLine will have him in uniform--a natty blue naval uniform,with brass buttons, along with all the officers of the line--and then he will be a totally different style of scenery from whathe is now.

Uniforms on the Mississippi! It beats all the other changesput together, for surprise. Still, there is another surprise--that it was not made fifty years ago. It is so manifestly sensible,that it might have been thought of earlier, one would suppose.

During fifty years, out there, the innocent passenger in needof help and information, has been mistaking the mate forthe cook, and the captain for the barber--and being roughlyentertained for it, too. But his troubles are ended now.

And the greatly improved aspect of the boat's staff is anotheradvantage achieved by the dress-reform period.

Steered down the bend below Cape Girardeau. They used to call it'Steersman's Bend;' plain sailing and plenty of water in it, always;about the only place in the Upper River that a new cub was allowedto take a boat through, in low water.

Thebes, at the head of the Grand Chain, and Commerce at the footof it, were towns easily rememberable, as they had not undergoneconspicuous alteration. Nor the Chain, either--in the natureof things; for it is a chain of sunken rocks admirablyarranged to capture and kill steamboats on bad nights.

A good many steamboat corpses lie buried there, out of sight;among the rest my first friend the 'Paul Jones;' she knocked he............