LIVE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

CHAPTEB XXXVIIL
THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL.
WE took passage in a Cincinnati boat for New Orleans; or on a
Cincinnati boat—either is correct y the former is the eastern form of
putting it, the latter the western.
Mr. Dickens declined to agree that the Mississippi steamboats
were 'magnificent/ or that they were * floating palaces/—terms which
had always been applied to them; terms which did not over-express
the admiration with which the people viewed them.
Mr. u >ickens's position was unassailable, possibly; the people's
position ~v?as certainly unassailable. If Mr. Dickens was comparing
these boats with the crown jewels; or with the Taj, or with the
Matterhcrn; or with some other priceless or wonderful thing which
he had seen, they were not magnificent—he was right. The people
compared them with what they had seen; and, thus measured, thus
judged, the boats were magnificent—the term was the correct one. it
was not at all too strong. The people were as right as was Mr.
Dickens. The steamboats were finer than anything on shore. Com-
pared with superior dwelling-houses and first-class hotels in the
Yalley> they were indubitably magnificent, they were ' palaces.* To
a few people living in New Orleans and St. Louis, they were not
magnificent, perhaps; not palaces; but to the great majority of those
populations, and to the entire populations spread over both banks
between Baton Bouge and St. Louis, they were palaces; they tallied
with the citizen's dream of what magnificence was, and satisfied it.
Every town and village along that vast stretch of double river-
frontage had a best dwelling, finest dwelling, mansion,—the home of
its wealthiest and most conspicuous citizen. It is easy to describe