It was near the close of a day of withering sultriness that we reached Peoria. Passing the Kickapoo, or Red Bud Creek,[95] a sweep in the stream opened before the eye a panorama of that magnificent water-sheet of which I have spoken, so calm and motionless that its mirror surface seemed suspended in the golden mistiness of the summer atmosphere which floated over it. As we were approaching the village a few sweet notes of a bugle struck the ear; and in a few moments a lengthened troop of cavalry, with baggage-cars and military paraphernalia, was beheld winding over a distant roll of the prairie, their arms glittering gayly in the horizontal beams of the sinking sun as the ranks appeared, were lost, reappeared, and then, by an inequality in the route, were concealed from the view. The steamer "Helen Mar" was lying at the landing as we rounded up, most terribly shattered by the collapsing of the flue of one of her boilers a few days before in the vicinity. She had been swept by the death-blast from one extremity {109} to the other, and everything was remaining just as when the accident occurred, even to the pallets upon which had been stretched the mangled bodies, and the remedies applied for their relief. The disasters of steam have become, till of late, of such ordinary occurrence upon the waters of the West, that they have been thought of comparatively but little; yet in no aspect does the angel of death perform his bidding more fearfully. Misery's own pencil can delineate no scene of horror more revolting; humanity knows no visitation more terrible! The atmosphere of hell envelops the victim and sweeps him from the earth!