ful Mamelles these giant rivers merrily mingled their waters, and then rolled onward to the gulf. That ages have since elapsed, the amazing depth of the alluvial and vegetable mould, and the ancient monuments reposing upon some portions of the surface, leave no room for doubt.* By heavy and continued deposites of alluvion, the vast peninsula gradually rose up from the waters; the Missouri was forced back to the bluff La Charbonnière, and the rival stream to the Piasa cliffs of Illinois. St. Charles, Mo. XXIV. "Westward the star of empire holds its way." "Travellers entering here behold around BERKELEY. A large and spacious plain, on every side "The flowers, the fair young flowers." "Ye are the stars of earth." TEN years ago, and the pleasant little village of St. Charles was regarded as quite the frontier-post of civilized life; now it is a flourishing town, and an early stage in the traveller's route to the Far West. Its origin, with that of most of the early settlements in this section of the valley, is French, and * See Appendix. some few of the peculiar characteristics of its founders are yet retained, though hardly to the extent as in some other villages which date back to the same era. The ancient style of some of the buildings, the singular costume, the quick step, the dark complexion, dark eyes and dark hair, and the merry, fluent flow of a nondescript idiom, are, however, at once perceived by the stranger, and indicate a peculiar people. St. Charles was settled in 1769, and for upward of forty years retained its original name, Les Petites Cotes. For some time it was under the Spanish government with the rest of the territory, and from this circumstance and a variety of others its population is made up of a heterogeneous mass of people, from almost every nation under the sun. Quite a flood of German emigration has, within six or seven years past, poured into the county. That wizard spell, however, under which all these early French settlements seem to have been lying for more than a century, St. Charles has not, until within a few years past, possessed the energy to throw off, though now the inroads of American enterprise upon the ancient order of things is too palpable to be unobserved or mistaken. The site of the town is high and healthy, upon a bed of limestone extending along the stream, and upon a narrow plateau one or two miles in extent beneath the overhanging bluffs. Upon this interval are laid off five streets parallel with the river, only the first of which is lined with buildings. Below the village the alluvion stretches along the margin of the stream for three miles, until, reaching the termination of the highlands at the Mamelles, it spreads itself out to the north and west into the celebrated prairie I have described. St. Charles has long been a great thoroughfare to the vast region west of the Missouri, and must always continue so to be: a railroad from St. Louis in this direction must pass through the place, as well as the national road now in progress. These circumstances, together with its eligible site for commerce; the exhaustless fertility of the neighbouring region, and the quantities of coal and iron it is believed to contain, must render St. Charles, before many years have passed away, a place of considerable mercantile and manufacturing impor It has an extensive steam flouring-mill in constant operation; and to such an extent is the cultivation of wheat carried on in the surrounding country, for which the soil is pre-eminently suited, that in this respect alone the place must become important. About six miles south of St. Charles, upon the Booneslick road, is situated a considerable settlement, composed chiefly of gentlemen from the city of Baltimore. The country is exceedingly beautiful, healthy, and fertile; the farms are under high cultivation, and the tone of society is distinguished for its refinement and intelligence. The citizens of St. Charles are many of them Catholics; and a male and female seminary under their patronage are in successful operation, to say nothing of a nunnery, beneath the shade of which such institutions invariably repose. "St. Charles College," a Protestant institute of two or three years' standing, is well supported, having four pro. fessors and about a hundred students. Its principal building is a large and elegant structure of brick, and the seminary will doubtless, ere long, become an ornament to the place. At no distant day it may assume the character and standing of its elder brothers east of the Alleghanies; and the muse that ever delights to revel in college-hall may strike her lyre even upon the banks of the farwinding, wilderness Missouri. Among the heterogeneous population of St. Charles are still numbered a few of those wild, daring spirits, whose lives and exploits are so intimately identified with the early history of the country, and most of whose days are now passed beyond the border, upon the broad buffalo-plains at the base of the Rocky Mountains. Most of them are trappers, hunters, couriers du bois, traders to the distant post of Santa Fé, or engagés of the American Fur Company. Into the company of one of these remarkable men it was my fortune to fall during my visit at St. Charles; and not a little to my interest and edification did he recount many of his "hairbreadth 'scapes," his "most disastrous chances," "His moving accidents by flood and field." All of this, not to mention sundry sage items on the most approved method of capturing deer, bar, buffalo, and painters, I must be permitted to waive. I am no tale-teller, "but your mere traveller, believe me," as Ben Jonson has it. The proper home of the buffalo seems now to be the vast plains south and west of the Missouri border, called the Platte country, compared with which the prairies east of the Mississippi are mere meadows in miniature. The latter region was, doubtless, once a favourite resort of the animal, and the banks of the "beautiful river" were long his grazing-grounds; but the onward march of civilization has driven him, with the Indian, nearer the setting sun. Upon the plains they now inhabit they rove in herds of thousands; they regularly migrate with change of season, and, in crossing rivers, many are squeezed to death. Dead bodies are sometimes found floating upon the Missouri far down its course. With the village and county of St. Charles are connected most of the events attending the early settlement of the region west of the Mississippi; and during the late war with Great Britain, the atrocities of the savage tribes were chiefly perpetrated here. Early in that conflict the Sacs and Foxes, Miamis, Pottawattamies, Iowas, and Kickapoo Indians commenced a most savage warfare upon the advanced settlements, and the deeds of daring which distinguished the gallant "rangers" during the two years in which, unaided by government, they sustained, single-handed, the conflict against a crafty foe, are almost unequalled in the history of warfare. St. Charles county and the adjoining county of Booneslick were the principal scene of a conflict in which boldness and barbarity, courage and cruelty, contended long for the mastery. The latter county to which I have alluded |