THE scenery, from St. Louis to Cairo--two hundred miles--is variedand beautiful. The hills were clothed in the fresh foliage of spring now,and were a gracious and worthy setting for the broad river flowing between.

Our trip began auspiciously, with a perfect day, as to breeze and sunshine,and our boat threw the miles out behind her with satisfactory despatch.

We found a railway intruding at Chester, Illinois; Chester hasalso a penitentiary now, and is otherwise marching on. At GrandTower, too, there was a railway; and another at Cape Girardeau.

The former town gets its name from a huge, squat pillar of rock,which stands up out of the water on the Missouri side of the river--a piece of nature's fanciful handiwork--and is one of themost picturesque features of the scenery of that region.

For nearer or remoter neighbors, the Tower has the Devil'sBake Oven--so called, perhaps, because it does not powerfullyresemble anybody else's bake oven; and the Devil's Tea Table--this latter a great smooth-surfaced mass of rock, with diminishingwine-glass stem, perched some fifty or sixty feet above the river,beside a beflowered and garlanded precipice, and sufficientlylike a tea-table to answer for anybody, Devil or Christian.

Away down the river we have the Devil's Elbow and the Devil'sRace-course, and lots of other property of his which I cannot nowcall to mind.

The Town of Grand Tower was evidently a busier place than ithad been in old times, but it seemed to need some repairshere and there, and a new coat of whitewash all over.

Still, it was pleasant to me to see the old coat once more.

'Uncle' Mumford, our second officer, said the place had beensuffering from high water, and consequently was not lookingits best now. But he said it was not strange that it didn'twaste white-wash on itself, for more lime was made there,and of a better quality, than anywhere in the West;and added--'On a dairy farm you never can get any milkfor your coffee, nor any sugar for it on a sugar plantation;and it is against sense to go to a lime town to hunt for white-wash.'

In my own experience I knew the first two items to be true;and also that people who sell candy don't care for candy;therefore there was plausibility in Uncle Mumford's final observationthat 'people who make lime run more to religion than whitewash.'

Uncle Mumford said, further, that Grand Tower was a great coalingcenter and a prospering place.

Cape Girardeau is situated on a hillside, and makes a handsome appearance.

There is a great Jesuit school for boys at the foot of the town by the river.

Uncle Mumford said it had as high a reputation for thoroughness as anysimilar institution in Missouri ' There was another college higher up onan airy summit--a bright new edifice, picturesquely and peculiarly toweredand pinnacled--a sort of gigantic casters, with the cruets all complete.

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