TO MY MTTTTON& 217
of the diocese. If you will let your glass stand naif an hour, you
can separate the land from the water as easy as Genesis; and then
you will find them both good: the one good to eat, the other good
to drink. The land is very nourishing, the water is thoroughly
wholesome. The one appeases hunger; the other, thirst. But the
natives do not take them separately, but together, as nature mixed
them. When they find an inch of mud in the bottom of a glass,
they stir it up, and then take the draught as they would grueL It
is difficult for a stranger to get used to this batter, but once used to
it he will prefer it to water. This Is really the case. It is good for
steamboating, and good to drink; but it is worthless for all other
purposes, except baptizing.
Next morning, we drove around town in the rain. The city
seemed but little changed. It wa# greatly changed, but it did not
seem so; because in St. Louis, as in London and Pittsburgh, you
can't persuade a new thing to look new; the coal smoke turns it
into an antiquity the moment you take your hand off it. The place
had just about doubled its size, since I was a resident of it, and was
now become a city of 400,000 inhabitants; still, in the solid business
parts, it looked about as it had looked formerly. Yet I am sure
there is not as much smoke in St. Louis now as there used to be.
The smoke used to bank itself in a dense billowy black canopy over
the town, and hide the sky from view. This shelter is very much
thinner now; still, there is a siofficiency of smoke there, I think. I
heard no complaint.
However, on the outskirts changes were apparent enough;
notably in dwelling-house architecture. The fine new homes are
noble and beautiful and modern. They stand by themselves, too,
with green lawns around them; whereas the dwellings of a former
day are packed together in blocks, and are all of one pattern,
with windows all alike, set in an arched frame-work of twisted
stone; a sort of house which was handsome enough when it was
rarer.
There was another change—the Forest Park. This was new to
me. It is beautiful and very extensive, and has the excellent merit
of having been made mainly by nature. There are other parks, and
fine ones, notably Tower Grove and the Botanical Gardens; for