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Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems 43
P. Nagabhushan
D. S. Guru
B. H. Shekar
Y. H. Sharath Kumar Editors
Data
Analytics and
Learning
Proceedings of DAL 2018
Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems
Volume 43
Series editor
Janusz Kacprzyk, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
e-mail: [email protected]
The series “Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems” publishes the latest
developments in Networks and Systems—quickly, informally and with high quality.
Original research reported in proceedings and post-proceedings represents the core
of LNNS.
Volumes published in LNNS embrace all aspects and subfields of, as well as
new challenges in, Networks and Systems.
The series contains proceedings and edited volumes in systems and networks,
spanning the areas of Cyber-Physical Systems, Autonomous Systems, Sensor
Networks, Control Systems, Energy Systems, Automotive Systems, Biological
Systems, Vehicular Networking and Connected Vehicles, Aerospace Systems,
Automation, Manufacturing, Smart Grids, Nonlinear Systems, Power Systems,
Robotics, Social Systems, Economic Systems and other. Of particular value to both
the contributors and the readership are the short publication timeframe and the
world-wide distribution and exposure which enable both a wide and rapid
dissemination of research output.
The series covers the theory, applications, and perspectives on the state of the art
and future developments relevant to systems and networks, decision making, control,
complex processes and related areas, as embedded in the fields of interdisciplinary
and applied sciences, engineering, computer science, physics, economics, social, and
life sciences, as well as the paradigms and methodologies behind them.
Advisory Board
Fernando Gomide, Department of Computer Engineering and Automation—DCA, School of
Electrical and Computer Engineering—FEEC, University of Campinas—UNICAMP,
São Paulo, Brazil
e-mail: [email protected]
Okyay Kaynak, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Bogazici University,
Istanbul, Turkey
e-mail: [email protected]
Derong Liu, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois
at Chicago, Chicago, USA and Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Beijing, China
e-mail: [email protected]
Witold Pedrycz, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta,
Alberta, Canada and Systems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw,
Poland
e-mail: [email protected]
Marios M. Polycarpou, KIOS Research Center for Intelligent Systems and Networks,
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus
e-mail: [email protected]
Imre J. Rudas, Óbuda University, Budapest Hungary
e-mail: [email protected]
Jun Wang, Department of Computer Science, City University of Hong Kong
Kowloon, Hong Kong
e-mail: [email protected]
Editors
123
Editors
P. Nagabhushan B. H. Shekar
Indian Institute of Information Technology Department of Studies in Computer Science
Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India Mangalore University
Mangalore, Karnataka, India
D. S. Guru
Department of Computer Science Y. H. Sharath Kumar
and Engineering, CBCS Education Department of Information Science
University of Mysore and Engineering
Mysuru, Karnataka, India Maharaja Institute of Technology
Belawadi, Karnataka, India
This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721,
Singapore
Preface
We write this message with deep satisfaction to the proceedings of the “First
International Conference on Data Analytics and Machine Learning 2018
(DAL 2018)” held on March 30 and 31, 2018, at Mysore, Karnataka, India, which
has the central theme “Data Analytics and its Application.” Our research experi-
ences in related areas for the last decade have inspired us to conduct DAL 2018.
This conference was planned to provide a platform for researchers from both
academia and industries where they can discuss and exchange their research
thoughts to have better future research plans, particularly in the fields of data
analytics and machine learning. Soon after we notified a call for original research
papers, there has been a tremendous response from the researchers. There were 150
papers submitted, out of which we could accommodate only 50 papers based on the
reports of the reviewers. Each paper was blindly reviewed by at least two experts
from the related areas. The overall acceptance rate is about 30 %. The conference is
aimed at image processing, signal processing, pattern recognition, document pro-
cessing, biomedical processing, computer vision, biometrics, data mining and
knowledge discovery, information retrieval and information coding. For all these
areas, we got a number of papers reflecting their right combinations. I hope that the
readers will appreciate and enjoy the papers published in the proceedings. We could
make this conference a successful one, though it was launched at a relatively short
notice. It was because of the good response from the research community and the
good effort put in by the reviewers to support us with timely reviews. The authors of
all the papers submitted deserve our acknowledgments. The proceedings are pub-
lished and indexed by Springer-LNEE, which is known for bringing out this type of
proceedings. Special thanks to them.
v
vi Preface
We would also like to thank the help of EasyChair in the submission, review,
and proceedings creation processes. We are very pleased to express our sincere
thanks to Springer, especially Jayanthi Narayanaswamy, Jayarani Premkumar,
Aninda Bose, and the editorial staff, for their support in publishing the proceedings
of DAL 2018.
vii
viii Contents
xi
xii Editors and Contributors
Contributors
Thotreingam Kasar
1 Introduction
The camera provides a great opportunity for input from the physical world. In recent
years, it has become hard to define the term document due to the blurring in the
distinction between documents and user interfaces. In addition to imaging hard
copy documents, cameras are now increasingly being used to capture text present
on 3-D real-world objects such as buildings, billboards, road signs, license plates,
black/whiteboards, household appliances, or even on a T-shirt which otherwise would
be inaccessible to conventional scanner-based optical character recognition (OCR)
systems. Pervasive use of handheld digital cameras has immense potential for newer
applications that go far beyond what traditional OCR has to offer [1]. Recognizing
T. Kasar (B)
Kaaya Tech Inc., Mysuru 570017, India
e-mail: [email protected]
Fig. 1 Typical images of seven-segment displays on digital energy meters exhibiting uneven light-
ing, shadows, poor contrast, blur, and presence of highlights occluding parts of a digit
While there are a lot of works on recognizing text from natural images [2–4], there
has been relatively less work that address the specific problem of recognizing seven-
segment displays on electronic devices. The Clearspeech system [5] requires special
markers to be affixed to the device to guide the system in localizing the display panel.
Shen and Coughlan [6] introduced a phone-based LED/LCD display reader, which
do not have such modification of the display. They employ horizontal and vertical
edge features in the image and extract the digits using a simple graphical model.
Tekim et al. [7] improvized the method in [6] by adopting a connected-component-
based approach to detect LED/LCD digits on a Nokia N95 mobile phone that can
process up to 5 frames/s allowing the user to overcome issues such as highlights,
glare, or saturation by simply varying the camera viewpoint. In [8], the authors
address a method to recognize seven-segment displays on multimeters using binary
edge and corner features. In this paper, a camera-based system is developed to detect
and recognize seven-segment displays in digital energy meters. The method can be
applied to images of several other electronic appliances such as calculators, digital
blood pressure monitors, digital thermometers, microwave ovens, media players, etc.
with minimal or no modification.
This section describes the proposed method designed for the recognition of seven-
segment displays from images of digital energy meters captured using mobile camera
phones. The method involves two sub-tasks, namely, (i) localization of the LCD
display area and (ii) recognition of the seven-segment digits in the localized area.
The LCD display area is localized based on attributes of horizontal and vertical line
segments and their intersection, while a support vector machine (SVM) is used for
the classification of the digits. A schematic block diagram of the proposed method
is shown in Fig. 2.
Following image acquisition, the first task is to locate the LCD display area among
substantial amounts of background clutter. To this end, Canny edge detection [9] is
performed on each color channel of the captured image I . The overall edge map is
obtained by taking the union of the individual edge images as follows:
E = E R ∪ EG ∪ E B (1)
where ∪ denotes the union operation. Following the method in [10], run-length
count is performed on the resulting edge image E along the rows and columns
to obtain the horizontal and vertical lines, respectively. If the number of runs of
the edges starting at a pixel location exceeds a threshold value L, the segment is
accepted as a line. Short line segments and other spurious lines with run-lengths
less than the specified threshold value are not considered for further processing.
The threshold L decides the shortest line that can be detected by the method. This
parameter is adaptively set to a fractional proportion of the height of the image. It may
be mentioned that the performance of the method is not sensitive to the choice of this
parameter since the LCD display panel normally occupies a significant proportion of
the image area. The union of the set of validated horizontal and vertical line segments
obtained from the two directions yields a composite image I L . Based on the positions
of intersection of horizontal and vertical lines, their heights, and aspect ratios, the
rectangular-shaped LCD display area is identified. This step of identifying the region
of interest (ROI), i.e., the LCD display region, is an important processing module
that removes the background clutter and returns only the relevant display region for
further processing. The performance of this module is critical since it serves as the
input for the subsequent digit recognition task and affects the overall performance of
the system. It may be noted that the run-length method for horizontal and vertical line
detection implicitly assumes that orientation of the image is not skewed. However,
the method can tolerate a moderate skew angle of up to θ which is given by
θ = arctan(1/L) (2)
For instance, if the minimum detectable line length L is set to eight pixels, the skew
tolerance of the method is about ±7.125◦ . Thus, there is no strict requirement on the
orientation of the camera viewpoint during image capture.
Once the ROI is located as described above, the area defined by the ROI is cropped
off from the image. Since seven-segment LCD displays are represented in a darker
shade with respect to that of the background, the strategy is to look for thin dark
Recognition of Seven-Segment Displays from Images of Digital Energy Meters 5
structures in the detected ROI. To enhance dark and thin line-like structures, the
grayscale morphological bottom-hat operation is performed on the smoothed image
obtained by Gaussian filtering the ROI.
I p = (Iσ • S N ) − Iσ (3)
The window of size is set to h/5 × w/5 where h and w denote the height and
width of the detected ROI, respectively, and the parameter k is set to 0.2. Since
the segments of a seven-segment character are not connected, we need to group
the individual segments to form the digits before feature extraction and recognition.
An eight connected component (CC) labeling is performed on the resulting binary
image. Components that touch the image boundary are discarded since it is generally
a part of the background. The stroke widths of the remaining CCs are computed
using a combination of the distance transform and the skeleton of the CC obtained
using a fast thinning algorithm proposed by Zhang and Suen [13]. The maximum
stroke width Dmax is then determined which is used to group the CCs into digits by
performing a closing operation with square structuring of size 2Dmax × 2Dmax . One
further step of CC labeling is performed on the resulting image and the bounding box
attributes are computed. Since the digits in LCD displays are of similar heights and
located horizontally next to each other, the candidate digits are obtained by imposing
the height similarity and spatial regularity of the CCs. These filtered CCs are then
passed onto the recognition module.
6 T. Kasar
Figure 3 depicts a typical seven-segment display unit, where any digit can be repre-
sented by a 7-bit code depending on the ON or OFF state of the individual segments
a, b, ..., g. Since seven-segment displays have a fixed font style, a simple digit rec-
ognizer may be formulated based on syntactic rules to recognize the 10 digits [0 1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9]. However, such deterministic rules may not work well in practice
due to segmentation errors and noise. Here, in this work, an SVM classifier trained
on a collection of 500 digits is used. For each segmented CC, the proportion of ON
pixels within an area defined by each of individual segments is measured. From
seven such measurements over each of the areas defined by the seven segments, a
seven-dimensional feature vector is obtained from each candidate CC which is then
classified using the trained SVM classifier. While the aspect ratio (width/height) for
each digit is around 0.5, the same parameter is much smaller for the digit 1 and hence
it can be easily identified. Whenever the aspect ratio of the test CC is less the 0.4,
feature extraction is done only for the segments b and c and assign 0 for all the other
segments.
As a post-processing step, the area within the recognized digits is examined in the
presence of dots. Identification of a dot is based on the size and aspect ratio of the
CCs. Any small CCs that lie between two segmented digits are separately processed
to determine if it is a dot or not. If the size of such a CC is less than t1 times π Dmax 2
(t1 is a scalar, set to 1.5 in this work) and its aspect ratio is close to 1, it is considered
as a dot.
To test the performance of the system, 175 images of energy meters are captured
using Apple iPhone 4S and Tinno S4700. These images are captured from a distance
Recognition of Seven-Segment Displays from Images of Digital Energy Meters 7
Fig. 4 Intermediate results of the proposed method on a sample test image a Detection of horizontal
and vertical line segments b Localization of the LCD display area c Segmentation of the digits d
Final results of recognition. Note that the decimal point indicated by the cyan rectangle is also
identified thereby achieving a correct recognition of the value of the reading on the device
of about 15 to 30 cms from the device and ensuring that the orientation of the captured
image is roughly horizontal. However, there is no strict requirement for the position
and orientation of the camera viewpoint during image capture. The low and high
threshold parameters of the Canny edge detection are set to 0.1 and 0.2, respectively,
while the variance of the associated Gaussian function is set to 2. The parameter L
for horizontal and vertical line segment detection is adaptively set to 1/30 times the
height of the image. Since the LCD display panel of the device is rectangular with
a fixed aspect ratio (between 3 to 4), the display area can be identified by subject-
ing each pair of intersecting horizontal and vertical lines to an aspect ratio test and
additionally a lower bound on the length of the vertical line segment to filter out
small candidate regions. Whenever there is a detection of nested regions, the overall
bounding rectangle of all the detected regions is considered to be the ROI. Following
the localization of LCD display area, a preprocessing step of Gaussian smoothing
and grayscale morphological black-hat operation is performed to enhance the seg-
ments of the seven-segment characters. While conventional thresholding techniques
fail to accurately extract the digits, the black-hat operation enables reliable digit
8 T. Kasar
2 1 9 4
6 9
0 3 0 6 1 6
1 1
6 9 8
2 8 2 0
2 3 2 3
Fig. 5 Representative results of the proposed method. The segmented digits are represented in
terms of the bounding boxes and the corresponding recognized results are overlaid above each
digit. The method can handle images exhibiting uneven illumination, the presence of shadows, poor
contrast, and blur
Recognition of Seven-Segment Displays from Images of Digital Energy Meters 9
segmentation even under poor contrast and uneven lighting. Because of the fixed
structure of seven-segment font, the SVM classifier can reliably recognize the seg-
mented digits, even when there are instances of one segment segmentation error.
Figure 4 shows the intermediate results of various processing stages on a sample test
image. It may be noted that the presence of the dot between the first digit 1 and the
second digit 4 is also identified that is necessary to infer the correct reading of the
display.
Figure 5 illustrates the robustness of the proposed method to uneven lighting, the
presence of shadows, low contrast, and blur. The method works well for most images
captured under typical imaging conditions. It can also tolerate moderate skew as is
evident from the last image of the figure. An overall recognition accuracy of 97% is
achieved on a collection of 175 test images. Glare, highlights, and poor contrast are
the main sources of recognition error while excessive blur can affect the accuracy of
edge detection and consequently the localization of the ROI.
This paper describes a new method to recognize seven-segment displays from images
of energy meters captured using a mobile camera. The LCD panel area is determined
based on the properties of intersecting horizontal and vertical lines. The morpho-
logical black-hat operation enables robust segmentation of the digits even under
poor contrast and uneven lighting. The proposed method yields a high performance
for images captured under typical imaging conditions and even though the size of
dataset used for the evaluation is small, the method is expected to yield a consistent
performance on larger test sets too. However, like any other method, it is sensitive to
specular highlights, severe blurring, and saturation. The quality of images of LCD
displays varies greatly depending on the ambient environment and on the position of
the acquisition camera relative to the display. It was observed that glare and reflec-
tions that may occlude the digits in the display can be avoided by changing the camera
viewpoint. Thus, to address these challenges, the method may be augmented with
a continuous feedback system to update the result of recognition to the user in real
time. Based on this visual feedback, the user can vary the position the acquisition
camera till a perfect recognition is achieved. Such an approach will make it possible
to read displays on modern electronic appliances in real time and can lead to a host
of new applications.
References
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Conference on Computer Vision, pp. 1457–1464 (2011)
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3. Neumann, L., Matas, J.: Real-Time Scene Text Localization and Recognition. In: International
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4. Wang, T., David J. W., Coates, A., Andrew Y. Ng.: End-to-End Text Recognition with Convo-
lutional Neural Networks In: International Conference on Pattern Recognition, pp. 3304–3308
(2012)
5. Morris, T., Blenkhorn, P., Crossey, L., Ngo, Q., Ross, M., Werner, D., Wong, C.: Clearspeech:
a display reader for the visually handicapped. IEEE Trans. Neural Syst. Rehabil. Eng. 14(4),
492–500 (2006)
6. Shen, H., Coughlan, J.: Reading LCD/LED displays with a camera cell phone. In: Conference
on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshop (2006)
7. Tekim, E., Coughlan, J. M., Shen, H.: Real-Time Detection and Reading of LED/LCD Displays
for Visually Impaired Persons. In: Workshop Applications of Computer Vision, pp. 181–184
(2011)
8. Rakhi, P. G., Sandip P. N., Mukherji, P., Prathamesh M. K.: Optical character recognition system
for seven segment display images of measuring instruments. In: IEEE Region 10 Conference
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9. Canny, J.: computational approach to edge detection. IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell.
8(6), 679–698 (1986)
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document images using line information. In: International Conference on Document Analysis
and Recognition, pp. 1185–1189 (2013)
11. Niblack W.: An Introduction to Digital Image Processing. Prentice Hall (1986)
12. Shafait, F., Keysers, D., Breuel, T.M.: Efficient implementation of local adaptive thresholding
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13. Zhang, T.Y., Suen, C.Y.: A fast parallel algorithm for thinning digital patterns. Commun. ACM
27(3), 236–239 (1984)
An Enhanced Task Scheduling in Cloud
Computing Based on Hybrid Approach
Abstract Quality of Services (QoS) has become a more interested research point in
cloud computing from the perspectives of cloud users and cloud service providers.
QoS mainly concerns minimizing the total completion time of tasks (i.e., makespan),
response time, and increasing the efficiency of resource utilization. One of the most
investigated techniques to meet QoS requirements in the cloud environment is adopt-
ing novel task scheduling strategies. Based on our studies, we found that existing
solutions neglect the difference in efficiency of resource performance or the starved
processes, which can strongly affect the scheduling solution outcome. In this paper,
we consider this difference and propose a Hybrid-SJF-LJF (HSLJF) algorithm, which
combines Shortest Job First (SJF) and Longest Job First (LJF) algorithms, while con-
sidering the load on resources. To start with, the algorithm sorts the submitted tasks
in ascending order. Next, it selects one task according to SJF and another according
to LSF. Finally, it selects a VM that has minimum completion time to execute the
selected task. The experimental results indicate the superiority of HSLJF in mini-
mizing the makespan, response time, and actual execution time while increasing the
resource utilization and throughput when compared to the existing algorithms.
1 Introduction
Cloud computing is the computing paradigm built above many former computing
models, such as distributed computing, cluster computing, utility computing, and
autonomic computing, which is considered as an advanced step to grid computing
model. Cloud computing allows accessing of a wide range of shared resources which
exists in data centers. The benefit of such resources is achieved via virtualization [1],
which is the backbone of cloud computing. A Virtual Machine (VM) is created with
the resources required for each user’s tasks where these tasks will be implemented
on this VM [2]. The resources of the cloud computing environment can be shared
among the VMs (like processing cores and memory). These resources are offered for
each VM based on total available processing power in the cloud [3]. These resources
receive a huge amount of demand for tasks coming from different places in the
world. So, each cloud needs a scheduling strategy in order to determine and process
the execution order of the tasks [4]. Therefore, such a huge conglomeration of tasks
and resources, shared among users on subscription basis [5], generates one of the
main challenges and a hot scope for research called scheduling issue [6]. Scheduling
is the process responsible for assigning tasks submitted to suitable resource provi-
sion. There are several objectives related to task scheduling algorithms which can
be considered in designing the scheduling algorithm such as minimizing fairness,
makespan, reducing energy consumption, minimizing cost, minimizing response
time, and so on [2]. In general, there are various task scheduling algorithms utilized
in cloud, such as Round Robin, which is a simple algorithm depending on the quan-
tum time concept, meaning the time is portioned into intervals and each VM is given
a time interval. The VM will execute its tasks based on this quantum. This algorithm
does not consider the load and it selects the resources randomly [7]. Shortest Job
First (SJF) is another algorithm in cloud computing, which takes into account the
length of task where the tasks are sorted in ascending order, whereas Longest Job
First (LJF), the opposite of SJF algorithm orders the tasks in descending order [8].
But both algorithms suffer from the starvation problem, which is one of the main
problems that face task scheduling in cloud computing where the task may have to
wait for a very long time to get its requested resources served [9].
None of the above algorithms is perfect. Some of these algorithms do not consider
the length of the task or the load on resources, while others suffer from starvation.
Hence, in this paper, we try to overcome these issues by proposing a Hybrid-SJF-LJF
(HSLJF) scheduling algorithm. It fulfills the gaps formed in previous scheduling
algorithms. In our proposed HSLJF algorithm, we consider the length of the task
and the load on each resource. It will first assign the shortest task followed by the
longest. For each task, the load on available resources is calculated and the task
will be assigned to resource which has less completion time, and when there is
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difficulties, and wish to try a new place. We have met many upon the road,
who have nearly equalled the old woman on the prairie, who had begun the
world seven times.
The other female passenger was a young girl who had come down the
river in the boat, her home being on the prairie, back of Peru. She was a
pretty innocent country lassie about sixteen, travelling alone, on a visit to a
brother living on the river, whose wife was ill and required her services. Her
travelling dress was a muslin striped with pink; and her hat one of that
description we call Dutch bonnets, made of pasteboard covered with pink
glazed gingham. She was rejoiced to examine my wardrobe, and cut new
patterns, as she lives far from the haunts of men and mantua-makers. My
Mosaic brooch pleased her much, and she asked me if I had bought it of the
pedlar who she heard had lately arrived in that part of the country with a lot
of new goods, and whom she was eager to see. I was obliged to say I had
not purchased it from that fashionable depositary. She then proposed to
show me her clothes; mine being new to her, she supposed her’s must be
new and desirable to me. At her request the chamber-maid drew from the
state-room a huge chest of black walnut, which she opened, and, among
other things, displayed a pretty straw bonnet trimmed with gay ribbons and
flowers. That was her Sunday bonnet. She also drew forth a topaz pin which
had reached here in a pedlar’s cart, and was a present to her by her brother.
‘This pin has lasted wonderfully,’ she said, ‘considering how much it has
been borrowed. At every dance or party when I do not go, some of the girls
borrow and wear it. It has been lent for ten miles around.’ This young lady
had been brought when quite young, by her family, from Ohio, whence they
emigrated here. They had all suffered much from the fever and ague, but
were now acclimated, or rather had corrected the causes of their agues, and
she had become fat and rosy. I have remarked in several instances, that the
children born here, or brought here young, grow up strong and ruddy, and
their parents suffer the most. It is only the first generation who lose their
health, as the land improves and diseases vanish about their homes by the
time their children are grown. This family live upon a large and productive
farm which yields, among other things, according to her account, four
hundred bushels of peaches. In the season of this delicious fruit her mother
gives a peach feast, inviting all their friends and acquaintances, who, after
eating as much as they like, carry away each a basket full. Her family sell
several barrels of dried peaches every year.
Twelve miles below Peoria we stopped at the town of Pekin, built upon a
bank elevated fifteen feet above the water during high tide; but now, all
these places are much higher. The captain told us he should be here some
time taking in merchandize, and we employed the interval in seeing the
lions of the town. I told the little country girl our intention. ‘Lions!’ she
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Pekin is a small place and only contains eight or nine hundred
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articles, all of which I found much more expensive than in our Atlantic
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new currency here, my shillings and sixpences being transformed into bits
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important personage who, in a storm, always determines if there has been
ever a greater one or no. He might very well be the oldest, as the town is but
ten years in existence. ‘Pekin,’ he said, ‘would have been ere this far ahead
of any town upon the river, were it not that there were two parties among
the commissioners who were to lay it out; these pulling different ways the
town was nearly lost between them. The rich country behind, and the river
in front, had befriended them, and they soon expected to have their branch
of the railroad finished to Mackinaw river, whose water power and timber
bluffs were very valuable.’ We remarked as we walked, a large hotel nearly
finished; a presbyterian, methodist, and several other meeting-houses; office
of the ‘Tazewell Telegraph’; academy, and some dwellings. We lay here
four hours with a hot sun reflecting from the sandy bank, impatiently
watching the barrels of flour which seemed as they would never cease
rolling from the large store-house upon the bank, down to our vessel. These
barrels are from the steam flour mills, which turn out two hundred barrels a
day. Beside these, we took in a hundred sacks of corn, and some other
merchandize. The captain seemed well pleased with his morning’s work,
saying he had a streak of luck that day. Three miles below this he had
another ‘streak.’ At the mouth of Mackinaw river scows were waiting him,
loaded with bundles of laths and staves, and long dark boards, which I took
for mahogany, but which proved to be black-walnut. The Mackinaw is a
clear stream, having rich bottom land, bounded by bluffs covered with
white oak and cedar. The prairies through which it flows, are rolling and
tolerable land with several mill seats.
The Illinois looked beautiful this afternoon. Its glassy waters scarcely
moved, and it seemed so content with its sweet resting place, and at the
silent admiration of those stately trees, which were sending their cool
flickering shadows over her and gazing down at loveliness, that it would
fain linger upon its course, as some young languid beauty, conscious of a
graceful position which is winning admiring glances from every beholder.
Among the trees, beside the usual elm, oak and maple, we observed
several enormous wild cherry trees, nearly one hundred feet in height, and
at least fifteen feet in circumference, and the paw paw, the coffee nut, the
red ash, American nettle, a tall, slender tree, with pretty red berries, and
many unknown to us, or to those around us. The islands in this river are
small but covered with soft, luxurious herbage. The birds and wild fowl
were out, enjoying themselves, chattering, pluming their wings, and visiting
each other from tree to tree. Among the wild fowl, we observed teal and
brant, and wild ducks, skimming over the water, or wheeling in flocks over
our heads. One, apparently in a spirit of daring, would set out to cross our
path—leaving his little cove, he would glide with the utmost rapidity over
the river in front of us, leaving a silver line on the smooth surface of the
stream, and after we had passed, glide back, bobbing up and down upon the
waves in our wake. When he arrived at home, what a quacking and
chattering and fluttering was heard! In one little cove, or bayou, was a little
island, covered with rich grass, and shaded from the sun by the dense grove
whose branches met over it—this seemed to be quite a colony of ducks,
who were going and coming in rapid but graceful evolutions from the main
land. A young man who stood near us named the place Quackville, and
declared when he returned home he would publish a map, and sell off the
lots. We passed several towns to day, as Liverpool, Havanna, Beardstown—
the former a small settlement, but which its inhabitants intend to make
larger, as they have already a railroad in contemplation across the
Mississippi. Beardstown is a place of some importance. It is a county town,
and its commerce greater than any upon the river. Mechanics of all
descriptions are to be found here, as bakers, shoe makers, tailors,
blacksmiths, cabinet makers, silver smiths, carpenters, joiners, coopers,
painters &c. &c. see Peck. There are also here steam flour mills, saw mills,
breweries, distilleries, &c. A canal is projected here, to connect the Illinois
with the Wabash, (which divides the state of Illinois from Indiana,) by
means of the Sangamon and Vermillion forks. While passing these towns
one is surprised at their rapid growth, for when Schoolcraft rowed his canoe
up this river twenty years since, it was a wilderness only inhabited by
Indians. Opposite Havanna, the Spoon river enters the Illinois. Its Indian
name is Amequeon, which means ladle, and is much prettier than its present
name. It is one hundred and forty miles in length, navigable most of the
way, and capable of being cleared further. The soil is dry undulating prairie,
with considerable timber—and some of it upon the forks of the Spoon is the
richest in the state—its forks and tributaries affording good mill seats. It is
in the military bounty land, which commences just above it, and terminates
at the junction of the Illinois with the Mississippi, making a triangle of five
million three hundred and sixty thousand acres, about ninety miles along
the Illinois, and the base of the triangle, ninety miles across to the
Mississippi, near Quincy. This is appropriated by Congress to the soldiers
of the regular army in the war between the United States and Great Britain.
Two thirds of this land is prairie, and the rest timbered, crossed by a variety
of rivers and creeks. The soil is generally a black vegetable mould from
fifteen to thirty inches deep. Much of the best of this land has been bought
up by a company who have opened an office at Quincy, where they sell it
from three to ten dollars an acre, while other parts are sold at the price
government established for its lands all over the States, one dollar and
twenty-five cents an acre. Government has given to the State of Illinois
every other section. Sangamon river comes gliding down over its pebbly
floor, a pure transparent stream, between Liverpool and Havanna. It runs
through Sangamon county, of whose fertility, beautiful scenery, crowded
population, rich prairies, numerous streams, and valuable timber groves, we
have heard such flourishing accounts. By the way, I can never get
reconciled to the western custom of calling woods timber, woodland, or
groves, or forest, timberland. My young country girl, Maria, in relating an
interesting romantic event which had occurred in her region of country,
instead of speaking of a ramble in the woods said ‘we had gone to walk in
the timber.’ In this famed county is Springfield, the capital of the State. The
Sangamon river is one hundred and eighty miles long, and navigable nearly
to the capitol, seventy-five miles, by small steamboats. With a small
expense it can be cleared. We do not see the Illinois in all its grandeur, as
the water is low. It falls, our captain says, one and a half inches a day, and
has fallen eight feet since June. It will arise in the autumn, and when its
present channel is full overflows the bottom land to the bluffs. This makes
the river shore, unless very elevated, rather unhealthy, and consequently
uninhabited. Soon after passing the Sangamon, we stopped to take in wood,
and we embraced the opportunity to take a sunset stroll in the forest. A
small cottage embowered among woodpiles, inhabited by a woodman and
his family, were the only signs of human life we saw. These sylvan
solitudes however, are not without their denizens, for the birds were
skipping from bough to bough, the turtle were romantically reclining upon
the logs beside the water, the wild fowls, and the paroquets were chattering
in concert with the mocking bird. There the squirrel also
July 10.—Off Meredosia. This is a thriving town, built upon one of those
elevated terraces which occur frequently along the river as if on purpose to
raise the settlements above the damp alluvion, and to give them a pretty
effect. It is in a good situation to rise, as it is a sort of business port to
Jacksonville, to which a railroad of twenty-three miles is in operation; and
Morgan county, upon which it is situated, is a thickly peopled district,
having good timbered lands, mill streams, quarries of lime and free stone;
and is watered by many streams. Jacksonville is a large town where there
are several churches, a court house, mills and shops. The Quincy and
Danville railroad passes through Meredosia, to the Wabash river, two
hundred and twenty miles. Through this river, communication is held with
the lakes. Their exports are between two and three hundred thousand
dollars, and imports five hundred thousand dollars. Here we took in several
passengers. Six miles below Meredosia is Naples, a small collection of
shops and dwellings, situated upon a high bank. Upon one house, larger
than the rest, I read the name ‘Napoleon Coffee House.’ I looked around for
Vesuvious, but saw it not, nor any other Neopolitan traces. The names upon
this river are very ludicrous, and striking monuments of the want of taste in
those who bestowed them. One would imagine, from reading my last letter,
I had been travelling in seven league boats, or in a balloon, as I have
touched at Peru, Pekin, Havanna, Liverpool, Naples, Brussels, Rome, (part
in the night,) &c. While the Indian names are so pretty, why are they
neglected for such worn out European designations. Peoria, and Illinois, and
Ottowa are very pretty; Hennipen is very well, as given in honor of one of
the early discoverers of this county from France, and it might be thought a
debt of gratitude, but every pioneer has not so good a name, and if this
custom is followed, it saddles us with such names as already abound, viz: Jo
Davies’ County, Pike, Cook, Higgonbottom, Hancock, Buggsville,
Toddtown, Dodgeville. Moreover, the Indians were the first explorers, and
if any, they are entitled to this honor. To obviate this it has been proposed to
take something local, but unless persons of taste are consulted, we shall
hear of more Bigbonelicks, Bloodyruns, Mud Lakes or Crab Orchard’s. I
wish Congress would take the matter in hand, and form a committee of
nomanclature to name every new settlement.
We are constantly passing steamboats. In 1836, at Beardstown, there
were four hundred and fifty arrivals and departures, and at Naples their
account was the first year, 1828, nine; from March to June, 1832, one
hundred and eight, and now, of course all these figures must be doubled.
Among our passengers we have an old Kentucky woman, who has been
living several years upon this river. She was so rejoiced to see a slave again,
that soon she and Violette, our chambermaid, became quite intimate friends.
She frequently borrowed her pipe to have a comfortable smoke out upon the
guards, where, with Violette beside her, she would smoke and chat for
hours. A lady on board, who had lately become a convert to temperance
cause, was extremely offended at the sight of spirits upon the dining table.
Her husband argued for their use upon the ground of frequent impure water,
and fever and ague, from which the stomach is fortified. The wife, however,
was not convinced; when, in the midst of a high argument, our old woman
put her head in at the door, and taking out her pipe, after slowly puffing off
her smoke, uttered this oracular sentence: ‘For my part, I think there are lots
of gnats strained at, and lots of camels swallowed,’—and disappeared. The
husband left the argument for the card table, whence he arose sometime
after, grumbling at his losses, and galled by the discovery that the winner
was a well known black legg, whose practice was to live in steamboats
during summer, to fleece such silly sheep as himself. In the winter he
returned upon his laurels, to New Orleans or St. Louis, to revel upon his
winnings.
This morning we passed one of those machines employed by
government, during low water for the purpose of clearing away the
sandbars. It is a large wooden ark, worked by steam. A great shovel takes
up the mud, brings it up, and throws it into the scow at the other side which
is emptied upon the shores. The State has appropriated $100,000 to
improvements upon this river. There are several sandbars, and below
Ottowa ledges of sandstone which, if removed, would render the navigation
unimpeded at all seasons of the year quite to Ottowa, two hundred and ten
miles above the mouth of the river. We stopped so often to take in freight
and passengers, that we began to be fearful we should not reach the mouth
of the river and behold its junction with the stately Mississippi before dark
—however, ‘we came a good jog’ this morning, to use our old Kentucky
lady’s phrase, and now after tea we are sitting upon the guards watching for
it. We are continually passing streams which run into this river—Crooked
creek, comes down about one hundred miles through a very fertile region of
country with a soil of argillaceous mould from one to four feet deep.[20] Its
banks are lined with oak, maple, hickory, black walnut and much other
valuable timber. Bituminous coal, and free stone quarries are also found
there. Apple creek, at whose mouth is a small settlement; Macoupin creek,
its name taken from the Indian Maquapin, a water plant, whose smooth leaf
floats upon the bayous and lakes in this region; its esculent root, after being
baked under heated stones is a favorite food with the native tribes. There is
a settlement upon this last named stream commenced in eighteen hundred
and sixteen, which then was the most northern white settlement of Illinois.
The population of the State four years after, in eighteen hundred and twenty,
was fifty-five thousand two hundred and eleven, and now, eighteen hundred
and forty, it is four hundred and twenty three thousand nine hundred and
thirty four, a great increase in twenty years. We have now upon each hand,
the two last counties which border the Illinois. Green, on the east, contains
excellent land, well settled by eastern families, many from Vermont. It is
one of the richest portions of land in the State, traversed by fine water
courses and bounded by two large rivers,—containing beautiful prairies,
and excellent timber. In the cliffs which border the Mississippi on this
county, bituminous coal is found among the sandstone and limestone strata,
and crystal springs flow from their sides. Calhoun county on our right is the
southern point of the triangle containing the military bounty lands. The
point where the Mississippi and Illinois meet is low prairie subjected to
inundation and consequently unhealthy; coal has been found here, and the
large trees are famous for their honey. As we were near the mouth of the
river, and my little fellow voyager, Maria, had not yet landed, I asked her
how far we were from her brother’s residence. She said she had been
looking out for it, but every place had a different name from that of her
brother. I recommended her to ask the captain; he sent her word we had
passed it twenty miles back. Poor Maria seemed overwhelmed with
consternation. The town, we found upon enquiry, was in the interior, the
passengers landing at an old tree upon the shore and we all now
remembered a plain country-man, upon the bank who made numerous signs
to the steamboat, flourishing his arms frantically. Maria with the rest
supposed he was in jest, or a madman, but now remembered he was like her
brother, who must have seen her and motioned her to stop. Maria had
expected a town, and did not imagine that her stopping place. As our boat
was so uncertain in its movements the poor man must have spent the day
upon the shore, and was now doubtless very anxious about his young sister.
There was nothing for her to do now but stop in the steamboat at St. Louis
until its return trip. I felt sorry for the poor girl, only fifteen, and thus left to
the tender mercy of the world. We spoke to the captain and chambermaid,
who both promised to take charge of her and land her at her brothers when
he returned next week. The afternoon is beautiful; we are peeping up the
forest glades, as the channel runs near the shore, or inhaling the rich
perfume which the summer breeze shakes out from the trees. Suddenly the
forest is passed and we gaze over the low prairie which lies between the
two rivers, bounded by a line of round green hills which range across the
country. ‘The bluffs of the Mississippi!’ exclaimed my companion, ‘and we
soon shall see its famous waters.’ We hastened up to the hurricane deck,
and placed ourselves in a good situation for beholding the scenery; a little
excited at the thought of looking upon the grand and celebrated stream. The
Illinois flowed as straight and still as a canal, about four hundred yards
wide, we glided over its waters and soon found ourselves in a broad
majestic stream which came rolling down between a range of bluffs; here, a
mile broad, upon whose bosom some lonely islands stretched across from
the mouth of the Illinois. The view was delightful upon each side; the fair
plains of Missouri at our right, and upon the Illinois side, bold beautiful
cliffs, or green cone like hills, covered with a soft carpet of verdure, sinking
down upon the east side into lovely green dells. This style of hill is called
by the French, Mamelle. In one of these pretty nooks, nestled at the foot of
a bluff, is the town of Grafton, from whose balconies the inhabitants obtain
a fine view up the Mississippi. This town is only a few years old, but
expects soon to rival Alton, as most of the travelling from the interior to the
Missouri towns opposite, is through it. It has already laid out upon paper a
railroad to Springfield, the capitol. The rapid tide of the ‘father of waters,’
presented a great contrast to the languid Illinois. The color is brown, but of
a different tint from the Illinois, being a dark coffee brown, but clear and
sparkling. We looked a last farewell to the fair Illinois, upon whose banks,
or on whose water we had travelled for four days and four nights, a distance
of nearly four hundred and fifty miles, if we include the Des Plaines. The
loveliness of the scenery all this distance merits the encomiums made upon
it by the early French writers. This was a favorite river with the French, and
La Salle, Charlevoix, and Marquette, describe the beauty of its shores in
glowing terms.
The bluffs upon the Illinois shore, as we descend the Mississippi,
become more bare and precipitous, and have a waterworn appearance as if
the water had once flowed along their summits. The regular stratification of
the sandstone and limestone of these cliffs, present the appearance of mason
work, crowning the heights with castellated resemblances, so that we might
imagine we were passing beneath some mountain fastness, with its
frowning walls, dungeon keep, and warder’s tower. Occasionally masses of
white limestone are strewed along the shore, or grouped upon the green
sloping bank, as if some large city had there arisen upon the river’s side.
Turning a sharp angle of one of those bluffs we found ourselves before a
large imposing looking town, built upon the bank of the river, which came
sloping down from the bluffs behind. This we learned was Alton. While our
crew were mooring our boat upon the steep bank, we gazed with great
curiosity and interest upon this place, larger than any we had seen since
leaving Detroit fourteen hundred miles behind. To the left the rocks were
crowned by a large solid looking building which we were told was the
penitentiary. In front was a row of high ware-houses made of limestone,
filled with goods and men; while a mass of houses and steeples at our right
were brightly reflecting the rays of the sinking sun. The shore presented a
busy scene; men and carts and horses were transporting goods or luggage,
or busily employed Macadamizing the bank—a great improvement upon
the wharves we had passed. A large brick building at our right hand, with a
white porch and steps, bearing the sign of ‘Alton House,’ being our place of
destination, we directed our course towards it. The keeper of the house
being absent, and it being no one’s business to take care of us, we spent
some time wandering about the well furnished parlors, and staring at the
waiters who were washing up the tea things in the dining-room, ere we
could find any one to listen to our wants. We had left behind us the land
where a living is only to be obtained by effort, and where the landlord and
porters are on the alert in order to catch the stranger and take him in. Here,
the cool American manner obtains; and although to the hungry, tired
traveller rather annoying, yet, when we reflect upon the peace, and
independence, and plenty, which produces this indifference, he will do as
we did, throw himself upon a sofa, keep cool, and quietly await the arrival
of somebody.
While amusing ourselves looking around at the furniture, we observed a
portrait of, as we afterwards learned, the master of the house. As much as
we had heard of the wild independence, the devil-me-care manners of our
western brethren, we were here taken by surprise. He was without his coat
—actually painted in his shirt sleeves—having upon his head an old straw
hat! It was probably a warm day, or he was in too much of a hurry to put on
his coat when he went to sit; and besides, it was nobody’s business but his
own how he was dressed, or if he were dressed at all, and I suppose we may
be thankful he retained his white robe ‘any way.’ Luxury, refinement, and
conventual forms may be carried to excess; but I am not prepared to say the
other extreme is better. A boarder in the house happening to stray in, we
told our wants, and he kindly sent a waiter for the master of the house. He
came instantly and with the greatest alacrity and wish to oblige, took us up
stairs. All the rooms proving full or engaged, except one too small, we were
directed to another house, which, after a short moonlight walk, we reached.
The Eagle tavern, a favorite name for hotels, I think, in our country, was a
comfortable house, although not pretending to the style and fashion of the
Alton House. And now having finished these last few lines, while our
supper was preparing, I hasten to bid you good-night.
LETTER VIII.
Alton, July 11th.
My dear E.—Harassed by no compunctious visitings for the enormous
package which I dismissed to you this morning through the Alton post-
office, I have seated myself deliberately before my little desk to prepare you
another. We have spent a delightful day among our friends here, and are
very much pleased with the towns of Alton, for there are two of them. We
are now, four o’clock, waiting for the steamboat to take us to St. Louis, and
I employ the time in making a few sketches of the place for you. Alton is
built as I told you, upon a sloping bank. This ground is very uneven, and
upon some of the elevated portions are the public buildings. The churches
here are well built and numerous, I think seven or eight; the streets wide
and airy; places reserved for public squares, and several handsome private
dwellings. The town has arisen rapidly, and from a small town in 1832, it
has now fine streets, and houses, two hundred being built last year;
merchants who transact business to the amount of several hundred thousand
dollars, and even half a million in some instances. Eight or ten steamboats
are owned here, and two railroads in contemplation, and the great national
road it is thought will be conducted through this place. There are several
religious societies here, each having houses of worship; among them the
baptist church is spoken of as being nicely fitted up in the interior; it is built
of stone. Every convenience and comfort of life is at hand; coal in profusion
in the vicinity of the town, which is sold very cheap; limestone, freestone,
and water lime, besides other mineral productions abound. The markets are
stored with wild game—deer, partridges, prairie hen, and water-fowl; fruits
both wild and cultivated; various sorts of fish; corn, beef, pork, and
vegetables of the finest order. Madison county, in which it stands, is one of
the richest in the State, being most of it upon the American bottom. It
contains seven hundred and ninety square miles, and the value of its
productions, exclusive of capital invested, and cost of buildings, amounts to
two millions three hundred and sixty-nine thousand one hundred and fifty-
one dollars and eighty cents. Of bushels of wheat, they have raised one
hundred and sixty-five thousand five hundred and twenty. Corn one million
three hundred and four thousand three hundred and thirty-five bushels.
Tobacco, eleven thousand two hundred and eighty pounds. Capital invested
in manufactures, two hundred and ten thousand four hundred and thirty-five
dollars. But I suppose you do not care for these details. If I should come
here again in a few years, I expect to see Alton three times its size, for
although it may not rival St. Louis, as the inhabitants imagine, it must be
the most considerable place after it, west of Cincinnati. The Illinois brings
to it the produce of the northern lakes and States—the Mississippi waft to
its doors the exports of the west, and takes it over to the Ohio, and to the
gulf of Mexico, from which last it is only four or five days distant. The
interests of religion and education employ the benevolent inhabitants to a
remarkable degree and many thousands are expended every year for the
furtherance of these objects. Among these are Shurtliff College, Alton
Theological Seminary, Alton Female Seminary. But enough of statistics,
you will say, and I hasten to our own personal adventures. We ordered a
carriage to-day to take us to Upper Alton, to visit our friends there, and
were quite pleased to see as nice a coach and pair of horses as we could see
in our own Broadway. After leaving the town we drove through some rich
prairie land, interspersed with trees, through which we obtained fine views
of the swift rolling Mississippi, and across it the verdant plains of Missouri,
with green swelling hills beyond. A drive of two miles brought us to Upper
Alton, a pretty small looking village, with spires and neat dwellings peeping
through the trees. This place is very pleasantly situated upon an elevated
plateau of ground about two miles from the lower town. Families here enjoy
great advantages, in regard to the education of their children, as colleges
and schools abound in its neighborhood. The society of this place is very
superior, and its situation healthy.
We found our friends in a large picturesque house in the cottage style,
surrounded by piazzas, whose pillars were wreathed with the clustering
Michigan rose, and shaded by the graceful cotton wood, and pretty red bud
and locust. Here indeed was a western paradise! upon the Mississippi banks
we found realized, those visions so many have sighed after, a lodge in the
vast wilderness, a secluded retreat from the haunts of men, where the
confusions and follies of the world are only remembered as a troubled
dream. A charming young family, and a well selected library, render this
retirement most delightful. A seminary upon a new plan had been lately
erected near their abode, and with a view of showing us every thing of
interest around them, our friends drove us in their carriage through a
pleasant road in an oak forest, to the Monticello Female Seminary. The
building is of limestone of that region, four stories in height. It stands
within a lawn ornamented with groups of trees, and a fine garden is laid out
in the rear. This extensive establishment was founded by Benjamin
Godfrey, Esq., a gentleman of Alton, who, to this benevolent purpose
devoted a large share of his property. While a resident of the west, many
examples had come before his eyes, of the miseries arising from the
imperfect education of the young women who settle here. The dearth of
servants rendered it necessary for the young wives around him to
superintend, if not assist in household labor, and he saw how much better it
was they should come prepared for these duties, and quite able to perform
them, instead of wearing themselves out, and pining away over tasks,
which, by being new, appear much more arduous than they are in reality. As
the evil lay in a defective system of education, this generous individual at
once saw how great a desideratum an institution would be, uniting useful
with ornamental accomplishments. With a public spirit to be much
applauded, Mr. Godfrey erected this spacious building, for educating ‘wives
for the west.’ Eighty young ladies is the limited number, all to be over
fourteen years of age. With the course of scientific study usual in female
seminaries, the pupils are taught music, instructed in religion, and in
various household duties. Among other lessons, they are taught to set a
table, arrange their rooms, even sweep and scrub them; wash, starch and
iron all their clothes. Some young ladies, who had been bred in idleness, or
who had come from the indulgent homes of Alton, or luxurious mansions of
St. Louis, where slaves await their nod, were very reluctant at first to
undertake these menial employments; but the advantage which so good a
school presented in its other departments, rendered their mothers deaf to
their complaints. They were soon, however, broken in, and sing as merrily
over their wash tubs, as the other pupils. As gain is not the object of its
generous founder, the price of admission is placed low, still there are some,
whose means are too straightened for even this, and these are allowed to
pay for their instruction, by labor in the house. The eagerness to get
admittance for young persons, is very great, and many thus receive
instruction who are of high respectability, and are enabled to attend to the
younger branches of the family, or even, if required, teach others. Some of
these young persons are beneficiaries of a benevolent society, called the
‘Ladies’ Association for Educating Females.’ The object of this society is to
‘encourage and assist young females to qualify themselves for teaching, and
to aid in supporting teachers in those places where they cannot otherwise be
sustained.’ Young females of all ages are selected from poor families and
placed in schools, where they are watched over by these benevolent ladies,
their tuition paid, and to each, every year, is addressed a circular letter of
advice, with the donation of an appropriate, instructive book. When
prepared, they are placed in situations where they can support themselves.
Several have become missionaries, and at this school are two of the
Cherokee tribe who are preparing to be teachers among their people. The
great amount of good performed by these ladies entitle them to the hearty
wishes of the benevolent and patriotic. The Rev. J. Spalding, in his address
before the seventh annual meeting at Jacksonville, says: ‘Since its
commencement it has aided one hundred and forty-seven young ladies in
their preparation for usefulness and heaven, thirty-one of whom are
professed followers of the Lamb.’ Now that I have thoroughly described the
institution, we will leave the carriage and enter the house. We were shown
into a neatly furnished parlor, where we were soon joined by the principal
of Monticello, the Rev. Theron Baldwin, a gentleman of great information
and piety. He kindly explained to us the principle upon which the seminary
was conducted, and then offered to show us the house. Every thing was
arranged with the greatest order and neatness. The dining, school, and
recitation rooms, were large, clean and airy, and the bed rooms
commodious. Upon the ground floor was a chapel fitted up with the
beautiful black walnut of their woods; here divine service is performed, by
the Rev. Mr. Baldwin, to the school and people of the neighborhood, who
assemble there every Sunday. You see the Illinois people are determined
their people shall enjoy the blessings of education; and when we reflect
how much the destiny of our nation depends upon the next generation, we
cannot devote our time or our money to a better purpose, than furthering
such institutions. We left the seminary, pleased with its arrangements, and
wishing all success to the generous individual who originated the
establishment. It is delightful to see wealth so well employed, to behold the
‘just steward’ thus ably disposing of his master’s property. Such
disinterestedness shone out in bold relief from the selfish and reckless waste
of fortune which we had beheld in our pilgrimage, like one of his own ‘oak
islands,’ upon a sunny and treeless prairie.
Once more we experienced the pains of parting, and were forced to leave
our friends that afternoon. We returned to our hotel where we are awaiting
the arrival of our steamboat which is to take us to St. Louis. When I look
around in this interesting country, and upon such towns as Alton, I wonder
why our Atlantic cities are so full of people. How many young men do I
know there, and indeed, whole families, who are struggling for a living, and
denying themselves every comfort that their spare income may suffice, to
give them a showy appearance in public; crammed into crowded boarding
houses, narrow, hot, dusty streets, when there is here in this wide beautiful
land, room, fresh air, fine scenery, employment, everything to be enjoyed, at
half the expense they are forced to lay out among so many discomforts. The
steamboat bell warns me to put up my note book, and I will resume when
aboard.
We found ourselves in a small steam-boat, which makes regular trips
between this town and St. Louis, twenty-five miles. Alton looked very
pretty when we turned to bid a sorrowful adieu, and we regretted our time
would not allow us to remain in this interesting place. We are now all
eagerly looking out, for the giant Missouri, whose junction with the
Mississippi is but two miles below Alton. At length the point is in view, all
gather upon the guards, and bend our eyes towards the right shore,—we are
now before the mouth and behold an extraordinary scene. The Missouri
does not, as travellers tell us, come rushing, and bounding, and dashing
along, striking the Mississippi with such a concussion that volumes of mist
arise in the air,—we beheld nothing so wonderful—a broad stream rolled
down between its verdant banks, rapidly, and very like a torrent, but in quite
a decent and proper manner. Its color—alas, for our pellucid lakes—is a tint
not often recognized by artists, but generally called gruel or soap-suds hue.
It holds in solution such an extraordinary quantity of clay, that one wonders
how the steamboat can force its way through it. Its rapid current is
distinguished by the curls and little whirlpools among the mud. Where it
meets the Mississippi is a small ridge of clay, and thick masses push
themselves under the clear brown water, coloring it more and more with its
impurity, until at last, the unhappy Mississippi, after struggling for some
time, is completely lost in the clayey stream, as some pure young heart,
striving against temptation, but lost at last. The streams continue separate
for some miles below St. Louis, and there the river takes the Missouri
character. I looked up the vista of this grand stream, as we passed its mouth,
with sentiments of awe. A mighty mass of water—it came rolling down
nearly four thousand miles from its source in the wild recesses of the Rocky
Mountains, bearing upon its bosom, not a fleet of Argosies, but materials
for their construction in whole forests of gigantic trees.
Such an admirer of water as you know I am, you may be sure I regretted
the soiling of my bright brunette Mississippi. To watch the foam of our
vessel had been a favorite pastime, but alas, what a change from the
diamond and emerald of our lakes, the topaz of the Illinois, the Zircon of
the Mississippi to the soapsuds of the Missouri. I have called the
Mississippi coffee color; it is now coffee-au-lait, and indignant must the
father of waters be under so great an oppression. Several green islands
adorn the stream, and the shores are spotted with a few houses, and now
chimney, and roof, and tower, piled up against each other, proclaim a city,
and we are soon in sight of the city of St. Louis. An old castellated Spanish
mansion is the first relic we have seen of that brave Castilian race which
once reigned over these broad lands. It is, I think, their ultima thula, their
most northern point. The appearance of St. Louis, from the water, is very
much like Albany, as it is built upon rising ground, consisting of two
plateaus of land, the last elevated several feet above the other, but its water
craft gave it quite a different character. We are used in our cities to behold
the water front, bristling with masts, but here we saw steamboats alone,
there being about seventy moored at the wharves, which gave a novel and
western appearance, to the scene. The flat boat, is fast disappearing, and
steamboats, are the only style of boat, with few exceptions, which we see;
of these, five hundred and eighty-eight have been built upon the western
waters.[21] The city of St. Louis stretches a mile along the elevated shore,
and nearly the same distance back. We almost fancied ourselves in New
York again, so great was the stir upon the wharf. The ware-houses, of brick
or limestone, made of the rock upon which they stand, appeared filled with
goods and customers, boxes and bales, carts and barrows were floating
about, and every one seemed active except the negro slaves who were
plodding about their work with the usual nonchalant gait of this merry but
indolent nation. We missed our good wharves at home, and even the paved
bank of Alton, for a shower had rendered the shore muddy. Surely some
Yankee might contrive a more commodious landing; something that might
rise and fall with the river, or a long pier. We drove to the Missouri House,
where we arrived in time for tea, and at night were lulled to sleep by a
Spanish guitar, and chattering of French voices from the shops and cafes in
our neighborhood.
LETTER IX.
St. Louis, July 12.
My dear E.—The days we have spent here, we have been very busy,
except Sunday, in examining every thing in and about this place. It is a very
nice city, and one of much importance, has increased much lately, and will
continue to increase. Its population is twenty-four thousand five hundred
and fifty-five. In 1825 it was only six thousand. There are several good
churches here, some of which, we attended to-day, it being Sunday. There is
a pretty episcopal of the Gothic form, a baptist church, of brick, having a
neat white porch in front—an unitarian, of plaster—a methodist, and a large
cathedral belonging to the catholics. This is an odd picturesque building,
and is one hundred and thirty-six feet by eighty-four broad, built of grey
stone. You enter by a porch supported by four Doric columns. The body of
the church is divided by columns, lighted by elegant chandaliers; the
sacristy and altar are very handsome; the windows of painted glass; and
there is in the church a fine painting of St. Louis, presented by Louis XVIII.
The bells are from Normandy. We had penetrated two thousand miles in the
wilderness of the west, and were glad to find we had not yet ‘travelled
beyond the Sabbath.’
What nice resting spells these Sabbaths are! When whirled upon the
stream of life, our attention occupied in avoiding the snags and sawyers and
cross currents in our channel, how refreshing, how necessary is it for us to
anchor for a little while, and look about, and consider our future course.
The Sabbath is a precious anchor to the soul, giving it time to meditate upon
its future career, and consult those charts which a kind heaven has sent to
direct its route. The Sabbath is necessary to man, and was given in mercy.
Physicians tell us rest is required for the machinery of man; that the brain
and nerves, while forever upon the stretch will decay much sooner than if
sometimes relaxed. It was the opinion of the great Wilberforce, that the
suicide of Lord Londonderry and that of Sir Samuel Romilly was owing to
their neglect of this day of rest. Speaking of the death of the former he says,
‘he was certainly deranged—the effect probably of continued wear and tear
of the mind. But the strong impression of my mind is, that it is the effect of
the non-observance of the Sabbath, both as abstracting from politics, from
the continual recurrence of the same reflections, and as correcting the false
views of worldly things, and bringing them down to their own
indistinctness. He really was the last man in the world who appeared likely
to be carried away into the commission of such an act, so cool, so self
possessed! It is very curious to hear the newspapers speaking of incessant
application to business, forgetting that by a weekly admission of a day of
rest, which our Maker has graciously enjoined, our faculties would be
preserved from the effects of this constant strain. I am strongly impressed
with the recollection of your endeavors to prevail upon the lawyers to give
up Sunday consultations in which poor Romilly would not concur. If he had
suffered his mind to enjoy such occasional relaxations it is highly probable
the strings would never have snapped, as they did, from over extension.’