238 LIFE OZV T&B MISSISSIPPI.
Tower, too, there was a railway; and another at Cape Girardeatu
The former town gets its name from a huge, squat pillar of rock,
which stands up out of the water on the Missouri side of the river
—a piece of nature's fanciful handiwork—and is one of the most
picturesque features of the scenery of that region. For nearer or
remoter neighbours, the Tower has the Devil's Bake Oven—so called,
perhaps, because it does not powerfully resemble anybody else's bake
oven; and the Devil's Tea Table—this latter a great smooth-surfaced
mass of rock, with diminishing wine-glass stem, perched some fifty or
sixty feet above the river, beside a Deflowered and garlanded precipice,
and sufficiently like a tea-table to answer for anybody, Devil or
Christian. Away down the river we have the Devil's Elbow and the
Devil's Bace-course, and lots of other property of his which I cannot
now call to mind.
The Town of Grand Tower was evidently a busier place than it
had been in old times, but it seemed to need some repairs here and
there, and a new coat of whitewash all over. Still, it was pleasant
to me to see the old coat once more. * Uncle * Mumford, our second
officer, said the place had been suffering from high water, and conse-
quently was not looking its best now* But he said it was not strange
that it didn't waste whitewash on itself, for more lime was made
there, and of a better quality, than anywhere in the West; and
added—* On a dairy farm you never can get any -millr for your coffee,
nor any sugar for it on a sugar plantation; and it is against sense to
go to a lime town to hunt for whitewash,' In my own experience I
knew the first two items to be true; and also that people who sell
candy don't care for candy; therefore there was plausibility in
Uncle Mumford'a final observation that * people who make lime run
more to religion than whitewash.* Uncle Mumford said, further,
that Grand Tower was a great coaling centre and a prospering
place,
Gape Girardeau is situated on a hillside, and makes a handsome
appearance. There is a great Jesuit school for boys at the foot of the
town by the river. Uncle Mumfbrd said it had as high a reputation
lor thoroughness as any «imilAT> institution in Missouri. There
was another collage higher up on an airy summit—a bright new
edifice, paoteireeqnely and peculiarly towered and pinnacled—a sort of