The Illinois river is a wide, sluggish stream; clear water, but generally, hardly any perceivable current. It is a very shoal river, having many sand bars.--Our boat did not draw more than two feet of water, yet was continually running aground. I should think the lead was thrown a quarter part of the time; and it used to amuse me, sometimes, to hear the leadsman sing out "_two feet and a half_"--"_two feet large_"--"_two feet_"--"_two feet scant_,"--and then aground; and perhaps it would be half a day before we could get afloat again. We were seven days going to St. Louis--rather slow travelling, and somewhat vexatious; we thought, however, we might as well be merry as sad, so we made the best of it. The captain had as much reason as any of us to complain; for we took a cabin passage, and he had to board us, however long the passage might be. All along down, the country is rather low, except some bluffs on the river--and where we found a bluff on one side, there would be either a low marsh or a lake on the other. Probably, there are twenty lakes below Peoria, on one side or the other of the river. They were all long and narrow, and often had an outlet into the river. They appeared more like former beds of the stream, than any thing else. Pekin is twenty miles below Peoria, on a high bluff, the east side of the river, having two taverns, thirty houses, and a large steam flour mill. Sixty miles below this, on the same side of the river, is a large village called Beardstown. Here are large flour mills, saw mill, &c. all carried by steam.--Twenty miles below this, is a small village called Naples. As we approached the Mississippi, we saw a good many stately bluffs on the right hand bank, composed of limestone, and rising almost perpendicular, from two to three hundred feet high. Some of them are really grand and beautiful. At length, with no small degree of pleasure, we came in full view of the majestic Mississippi river. The moment our boat entered the stream, it felt its power, and started off with new life and vigor. It seemed something like travelling, after leaving the sand bars and sluggish current of the Illinois, to be hurried down the Mississippi at the rate of eight or ten miles an hour. We soon reached Upper Alton, a large flourishing village of recent origin. Here, are large steam flour mills, and large warehouses; and in the centre of business is located the State Prison! There is no accounting for taste; but it appeared to me rather singular, to see a prison of convicts brought forward into the centre of a village to be exhibited as its most prominent feature. The reason may have been, to keep it constantly in _view_ as a "terror to evil doers." This is the last town we stopped at in Illinois--and on taking leave of the State, I may be allowed to add a few words respecting it. CHAPTER IX.