and is fearfully prevalent through every portion of this western region, is _the free and unrestrained use of ardent spirits as a drink_; usually on board these western steamboats whiskey is used just as freely as water. All drink. The pilot--the engineer--the fireman--all drink. The whiskey bottle is passed around several times a day, and then the dinner table is loaded with decanters. I am satisfied that more than two-thirds of the disasters that occur on board these steamboats, are attributable to this free use of ardent spirits. I know it will be natural to ask, can nothing be done to arrest the progress of these mighty evils? A gentleman at St. Louis, Captain S----, has embarked in a noble effort to do this. Last summer he ran a boat from Galena to St. Louis, with these avowed principles--that the Sabbath should be sanctified--that wherever the Lord's day found them, there they would tie up their boat and remain till Monday--that no ardent spirits should be brought on board the boat--that no profane swearing should be allowed, and no card-playing permitted. He remarked to me that the exclusion of ardent spirits removed the whole difficulty--that where there was no intoxicating drink, there was very little disposition to indulge in profanity or gambling. This gentleman has now raised forty thousand dollars, and hopes to bring it up to one hundred thousand in order to establish a line of boats on the same principle from Pittsburg to New Orleans. I do believe that this is one of the most important enterprises of the present day, and that the religious interests of the west are vitally connected with it. Captain S---- remarked to me, that no class of men, after the clergy, could exert such a prodigious influence for good or for evil, in the western valley, as the captains of steamboats. If they were only pious men, there is no telling how much they might do, every trip they made, to promote the cause of the Redeemer. If something be not speedily done at the west to prevent the profanation of the Lord's day, there will soon be no Sabbath. At the principal landing places along the rivers, business appears to go forward on the Sabbath just as upon any other day. Professors of religion are deeply involved in this sin. Goods are carried to and from their ware-houses at noon-day, and their clerks are busy in the counting-room while they are at church. Facts of this kind I do not guess at, but _know_. Will not God visit for such things? Oh what will become of our land when God riseth up to judge the earth? The whole character of the scenery, since we entered the Mississippi has become changed; the banks of this great stream are low and marshy. They are generally covered with dense forests and tangled underwood, and present the appearance of nature in its untrodden wildness. _Friday, June 30th._