Boys in this country are “_peart_,” fever and ague renders one “_powerful weak_,” and sometimes it is almost impossible to get “_shet_” of it. Intelligence, hospitality, and good cheer reign under all of these humble roofs, and the traveller who knows how to appreciate those things, with a good cup of coffee, “_corn_[22] bread,” and fresh butter, can easily enjoy moments of bliss in converse with the humble pioneer. On the Upper Mississippi and Missouri, for the distance of seven or eight hundred miles above St. Louis, is one of the most beautiful champaigne countries in the world, continually alternating into timber and fields of the softest green, calculated, from its latitude, for the people of the northern and eastern states, and “Jonathan” is already here—and almost every body else from “down East”—with fences of white, drawn and drawing, like chalk lines, over the green prairie. “By gosh, this ere is the biggest clearin I ever see.” “I expect we had’nt ought to raise nothin but wheat and rye here.”—“I guess you’ve come arter land, ha’nt you?” Such is the character of this vast country, and such the manner in which it is filled up, with people from all parts, tracing their own latitudes, and carrying with them their local peculiarities and prejudices. The mighty Mississippi, however, the great and everlasting highway on which these people are for ever to intermingle their interests and manners, will effectually soften down those prejudices, and eventually result in an amalgamation of feelings and customs, from which this huge mass of population will take one new and general appellation. It is here that the true character of the _American_ is to be formed—here where the peculiarities and incongruities which detract from his true character are surrendered for the free, yet lofty principle that strikes between meanness and prodigality—between _literal democracy_ and _aristocracy_—between low cunning and self-engendered ingenuousness. Such will be found to be the true character of the Americans when jostled awhile together, until their local angles are worn off; and such may be found and already pretty well formed, in the genuine Kentuckian, the first brave and daring pioneer of the great West; he is the true model of an American—the nucleus around which the character must form, and from which it is to emanate to the world. This is the man who first relinquished the foibles and fashions of Eastern life, trailing his rifle into the forest of the Mississippi, taking simple Nature for his guide. From necessity (as well as by nature), bold and intrepid, with the fixed and unfaltering brow of integrity, and a hand whose very grip (without words) tells you welcome.