An Excursion of Pleasure--A fine Afternoon--Our Party--The Bridal Pair--South St. Louis--Advantages for Manufactures-- Quarries--Farmhouses--The "Eagle Powder-works"--Explosion-- The Bride--A Steeple-chase--A Descent--The Arsenal--Grounds-- Structures--Esplanade--Ordnance--Warlike Aspect--Carondelet-- Sleepy-Hollow--River-reach {xiii}--Time Departed--Inhabitants-- Structures--Gardens--Orchards--_Cabarets_--The Catholic Church--Altar-piece--Paintings--Missal--Crucifix--Evergreens-- Deaf and Dumb Asylum--Distrust of Villagers--Jefferson Barracks--Site--Extent--Buildings--View from the Terrace--The Burial Grounds--The Cholera--Design of the Barracks--_Corps de Reserve_--A remarkable Cavern--Our Guide--Situation of Cave--Entrance--Exploration--Grotesque Shapes--A Foot--Boat-- Coffin in Stone--The Bats--_Rivière des Pères_--An Ancient Cemetery--Antiquities--The Jesuit Settlers--Sulphur Spring-- A Cavern--A Ruin 170 XIV City and Country at Midsummer--Cosmorama of St. Louis--The American Bottom--Cahokia Creek--A Pecan Grove--The Ancient Mounds--First Group--Number--Resemblance--Magnitude--Outline--Railroad to the Bluffs--Pittsburg--The Prairie--Landscape--The "Cantine Mounds"--"Monk Hill"--First Impressions--Origin--The Argument--Workmanship of Man--Reflections suggested--Our Memory--The Craving of the Heart--The Pyramid-builders--The Mound-builders--A hopeless Aspiration--"Keep the Soul embalmed" 180 XV The Antiquity of Monk Mound--Primitive Magnitude--Fortifications of the Revolution--The Ancient Population--Two Cities--Design of the Mounds--The "Cantine Mounds"--Number--Size--Position-- Outline--Features of Monk Mound--View from the Summit--Prairie-- Lakes--Groves--Bluffs--Cantine Creek--St. Louis in distance-- Neighbouring Earth-heaps--The Well--Interior of the Mound-- The Monastery of La Trappe--Abbé Armand Rance--The Vows--A Quotation--Reign of Terror--Immigration of the Trappists-- Their Buildings--Their Discipline--Diet--Health--Skill--Asylum Seminary--Worldly Charity--Palliation--A strange Spectacle 187 {xiv} XVI Edwardsville--Site and Buildings--Land Mania--A "Down-east" Incident--Human Nature--The first Land Speculator--Castor-oil Manufacture--Outlines of Edwardsville--Collinsville--Route to Alton--Sultriness--The Alton Bluffs--A Panorama--Earth-heaps-- Indian Graves--Upper Alton--Shurtliff College--_Baptized_ Intelligence--Knowledge not Conservative--Greece--Rome-- France--England--The Remedy 197 XVII