WE used to plow past the lofty hill-city, Vicksburg, down-stream;but we cannot do that now. A cut-off has made a country town of it,like Osceola, St. Genevieve, and several others. There iscurrentless water--also a big island--in front of Vicksburg now.

You come down the river the other side of the island,then turn and come up to the town; that is, in high water:

in low water you can't come up, but must land some distance below it.

Signs and scars still remain, as reminders of Vicksburg'stremendous war experiences; earthworks, trees crippled bythe cannon balls, cave-refuges in the clay precipices, etc.

The caves did good service during the six weeks'

bombardment of the city--May 8 to July 4, 1863. They wereused by the non-combatants--mainly by the women and children;not to live in constantly, but to fly to for safety on occasion.

They were mere holes, tunnels, driven into the perpendicularclay bank, then branched Y shape, within the hill.

Life in Vicksburg, during the six weeks was perhaps--but wait;here are some materials out of which to reproduce it:--Population, twenty-seven thousand soldiers and threethousand non-combatants; the city utterly cut off from the world--walled solidly in, the frontage by gunboats, the rear by soldiersand batteries; hence, no buying and selling with the outside;no passing to and fro; no God-speeding a parting guest,no welcoming a coming one; no printed acres of world-wide newsto be read at breakfast, mornings--a tedious dull absence ofsuch matter, instead; hence, also, no running to see steamboatssmoking into view in the distance up or down, and plowing towardthe town--for none came, the river lay vacant and undisturbed;no rush and turmoil around the railway station, no strugglingover bewildered swarms of passengers by noisy mobs of hackmen--all quiet there; flour two hundred dollars a barrel, sugar thirty,corn ten dollars a bushel, bacon five dollars a pound,rum a hundred dollars a gallon; other things in proportion:

consequently, no roar and racket of drays and carriages tearingalong the streets; nothing for them to do, among that handfulof non-combatants of exhausted means; at three o'clock inthe morning, silence; silence so dead that the measured trampof a sentinel can be heard a seemingly impossible distance; out ofhearing of this lonely sound, perhaps the stillness is absolute:

all in a moment come ground-shaking thunder-crashes of artillery,the sky is cobwebbed with the crisscrossing red lines streamingfrom soaring bomb-shells, and a rain of iron fragmentsdescends upon the city; descends upon the empty streets:

streets which are not empty a moment later, but mottled with dimfigures of frantic women and children scurrying from home and bedtoward the cave dungeons--encouraged by the humorous grim soldiery,who shout 'Rats, to your holes!' and laugh.

The cannon-thunder rages, shells scream and crash overhead, the ironrain pours down, one hour, two hours, three, possibly six, then stops;silence follows, but the streets are still empty; the silence continues;by-and-bye a head projects from a cave here and there and yonder,and reconnoitres, cautiously; the silence still continuing,bodies follow heads, and jaded, half smothered creatures groupthemselves about, stretch their cramped limbs, draw in deep draughtsof the grateful fresh air, gossip with the neighbors from the next cave;maybe straggle off home presently, or take a lounge through the town,if the stillness continues; and will scurry to the holes again,by-and-bye, when the war-tempest breaks forth once more.

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