about 4 o'clock P. M., a distance of some three hundred and fifty miles. What should we have done by the way but for the bottled consolation sent us by a Louisville lady of blessed memory? I have sometimes been sacrilegious enough to moisten my profane lips with a wine bearing the sacred name of "Lachrymæ Christi," but it does not compare in the quality of inspiration with the Smiles of Christy, which have kept my spirits from sinking into my gaiters during the long, sleepless, and perilous nights of this monotonous journey.

A good room, with a good fire, at the Planters' Hotel, a warm bath, and ten blessed hours of most oblivious sleep, and I am again reconciled, and ready to receive agreeable impressions, and to reciprocate as best I may. How pretty the chambermaid looked, who came to my room before I was dressed, with a handful of letters from home. Blessings on that great and glorious institution, the post-office, which bridges over the long chasm of twelve hundred miles between me and Without communication,

absence would be death.

I have said that St. Louis is bound to be a big city. It cannot be otherwise. It is manifest destiny. The people of the place feel that it must be so, and are governing themselves accordingly.

Everything is projected on a large scale, as if the men who are laying out the streets, and the architects who are planning the public buildings, were inspired by the vastness of the mighty river, the richness of the surrounding country, and the multiplicity of railroads, all converging here as to a common centre of commerce, to conceive plans commensurate with the future magnificence of the great metropolis of the West. The population of the city is now about one hundred and fifty thousand. I don't hesitate to put the prediction on record that it will be double in five years. It shows, therefore, that all who own real estate in and around St. Louis have only to sit still, with the blessed sensation of growing rich. The late financial crisis has caused a temporary check. Two immense hotels, commenced last year, are waiting in the embryo for the tide of returning prosperity. But neither these nor other great enterprises will have to wait long.

The resources of Missouri, which have scarcely begun to be developed, are inexhaustible; the Iron Mountain alone, which will be reached by railroad on the 1st of March next, is worth more to the State and to the world than all the gold fields in California. It contains iron enough—and that, too, almost in a state of purity-to supply all the building material

and railroad tracks of both hemispheres for a thousand years. The Iron Mountain is one of the wonders of the world. I regret I have not time to visit it. This vast lump of metal may have fallen from some other sphere millions of years ago. Who knows to the contrary? Will our scientific geologists please take a look at the anomaly, and tell us what it means?

Among the public buildings of St. Louis, the Custom-house, the Merchants' Exchange, the Courthouse, and the Mercantile Library Building are all worthy of a visit. The latter institution has the finest rooms for lecturing and library purposes I have seen. The reading-room, adorned with paintings and statuary, is admirably arranged and conducted; and to the pleasant-faced President of the Association, a good-looking young bachelor merchant, your "fair correspondent" is particularly indebted for most assiduous and acceptable attentions. The newspapers of the city seem to be expanding with the place. They are all of the blanket-sheet dimensions; and the Republican, whose proprietors are coining money, is quite equal, superficially, if not editorially, to the New-York Courier and Enquirer.

The society of St. Louis, judging from what I saw at a wedding jam, is decidedly metropolitan, almost cosmopolitan. Many of the young ladies have been

educated in New-York, and at the bridal gathering, at which I had the pleasure of "assisting," I met three or four opening flowers who had just graduated from M'me Oakhill's and M'me Canda's, with all the airs and graces of those "model institutions." One of these was pointed out as the greatest heiress of Missouri, worth more than her weight in gold, and pretty and accomplished besides. Her temporal as well as her eternal charms, (by the natural law of gravitation,) surrounded her with admirers. The mode of entertainment struck me as somewhat novel, as well as liberal and expansive. The bride is the only daughter of a distinguished lawyer; and, although his house is a very good-sized one, yet, wishing to accommodate the multitude of his friends, he borrowed the use of the adjoining house, and gave his guests the freedom of both. Still, as I have said, the party was a jam-a caution to crinoline—and the dancing was kept up vigorously until five o'clock in the morning. The bride was not beautiful, but bright-eyed and intelligent, and she went through her rôle with as much self-possession as though she had been married a dozen times. Many of the ladies. were pretty, two or three were handsome. Nearly all, old and young, mothers and maidens, marred the effect of their symmetries, and hid the beauty of their

hair, by most elaborate and unartistic devices called "head dresses." Take a look at Grecian statuary, ladies, and unartificialize yourselves in this particular. There is no ornament for the head of woman like the "natural glory" of a clean, soft, simply arranged head of hair. If I were a man, I' should always feel as if I would like to put my hand on such a head, smooth it, pet it, kiss it, and ask a blessing on it. But a huge mass of braided conceits, stuck full of pins, ribbons, and artificial flowers, looking like a spread eagle in front, and a spread peacock behind, smelling of grease and curling-tongs—ugh!

But I must drop the subject, or I shall have my fair sisters pulling my own hair. So, with a good word for mine host of the "Planters" and their gentlemanly assistant, (whose kindness is Felt and acknowledged,) I betake myself to the Father of Rivers, (why not the Mother, the majestic receiver, and a Missis too?) and remain,

Amphibiously yours,