WE passed through the Plum Point region, turned Craighead's Point,and glided unchallenged by what was once the formidable Fort Pillow,memorable because of the massacre perpetrated there during the war.

Massacres are sprinkled with some frequency through the historiesof several Christian nations, but this is almost the only onethat can be found in American history; perhaps it is the only onewhich rises to a size correspondent to that huge and somber title.

We have the 'Boston Massacre,' where two or three people were killed;but we must bunch Anglo-Saxon history together to find the fellowto the Fort Pillow tragedy; and doubtless even then we must travelback to the days and the performances of Coeur de Lion, that fine'hero,' before we accomplish it.

More of the river's freaks. In times past, the channel usedto strike above Island 37, by Brandywine Bar, and down towardsIsland 39. Afterward, changed its course and went fromBrandywine down through Vogelman's chute in the Devil's Elbow,to Island 39--part of this course reversing the old order;the river running UP four or five miles, instead of down,and cutting off, throughout, some fifteen miles of distance.

This in 1876. All that region is now called Centennial Island.

There is a tradition that Island 37 was one of the principal abidingplaces of the once celebrated 'Murel's Gang.' This was a colossalcombination of robbers, horse-thieves, negro-stealers, and counterfeiters,engaged in business along the river some fifty or sixty years ago.

While our journey across the country towards St. Louis was inprogress we had had no end of Jesse James and his stirring history;for he had just been assassinated by an agent of the Governor of Missouri,and was in consequence occupying a good deal of space in the newspapers.

Cheap histories of him were for sale by train boys. According to these,he was the most marvelous creature of his kind that had ever existed.

It was a mistake. Murel was his equal in boldness; in pluck; in rapacity;in cruelty, brutality, heartlessness, treachery, and in general andcomprehensive vileness and shamelessness; and very much his superiorin some larger aspects. James was a retail rascal; Murel, wholesale.

James's modest genius dreamed of no loftier flight than the planningof raids upon cars, coaches, and country banks; Murel projectednegro insurrections and the capture of New Orleans; and furthermore,on occasion, this Murel could go into a pulpit and edify the congregation.

What are James and his half-dozen vulgar rascals compared with thisstately old-time criminal, with his sermons, his meditated insurrectionsand city-captures, and his majestic following of ten hundred men,sworn to do his evil will!

Here is a paragraph or two concerning this big operator,from a now forgotten book which was published half a century ago--He appears to have been a most dexterous as well as consummate villain.

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