We reached St. Louis Tuesday morning, the fifteenth instant. St. Louis is a stirring place, made so by its favourable location on the Mississippi river. This river connects it with the State of Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Kansas, and with all the country on the lower Mississippi—principally New Orleans. This place will in a short time rival any inland town in the Union and eventually become the next largest city to New York. I stopped here almost two days, left it on the seventeenth of June for the Northern part of Missouri and Kansas. The trip up the Missouri is very tedious, the scenery being all the same all the way. Bluffs of little beauty and bottom lands covered with cottonwood. The river is very crooked and very rapid in its course. On both these accounts we made slow headway up narrow chutes, around innumerable bends, past ever so many towns and villages. 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.