UNDER

253

Valley; but they and all other peoples may justly be required to
refrain from knowingly and purposely debauching their grammar.

I found the river greatly changed at Island No, 10. The island
which I remembered was some three miles long and a quarter of a
mile wide, heavily timbered, and lay near the Kentucky shore—
within two hundred yards of it, I should say. Now, however, one
had to hunt for it with a spy-glass. Nothing was left of it but an
iHsignificant little tuft, and this was no longer near the Kentucky
shore ; it was clear over against the opposite shore, a mile away. In
war times the island had been an important place, for it commanded

IVLOOD OK THE BIVEB.
the situation; and, being heavily fortified, there was no getting by
it. It lay between the upper and lower divisions of the Union
forces, and kept them separate, until a junction was finally effected
across the Missouri neck of land; but the island being itself joined
to that neck now, the wide river is without obstruction.
In this region the river passes from Kentucky into Tennessee,
back into Missouri, then back into Kentucky, and thence into
Tennessee again. So a mile or two of Missouri sticks over into
Tennessee.
The town of New Madrid was looking very unwell; but otherwise
unchanged from its former condition and. aspect. Its blocks of