499
with grounds which occupy a square. The population of the catv is
thirty thousand. There are some large factories here, and manufac-
turing, of many sorts, is done on a great scale.
La Grange and Canton are growing towns, but I missed Alexan-
dria ; was told it was under water, but would come up to blow in
the summer.
Keokuk was easily recognisable. I lived there in 1857—an
extraordinary year there in real-estate matters. The 'boom* was
something wonderful. Everybody bought, everybody sold—except
widows and preachers; they always hold on; and when the tide ebbs,
they get left. Anything in the semblance of a town lot, no matter
how situated, was saleable, and at a figure which would still have been
high if the ground had been sodded with greenbacks.
The town has a population of fifteen thousand now, and is pro-
gressing with a healthy growth. It was night, and we could net see
details, for which we were sorry, for Keokuk has the reputation of
being a beautiful city. It was a pleasant one to live in long ago, and
doubtless has advanced, not retrograded, in that respect.
A mighty work which was in progress there in my day is finished
now. This is tne canal over the Bapids. It is eight miles long,
three hundred feet wide, and is in no place less than six feet deep.
fts masonry is of the majestic kind which the War Department
usually deals in, and will endure like a Roman aqueduct. The work
cost four or five millions.
After an hour or two spent with former Mends, we started up
the xiver again. Keoknk, a long time ago, was an occasional loafing-
place of that erratic genius, Henry Clay Dean. I believe I never
saw T-n-rn but once; but he was much talked of when I lived there.
This is what was said of fr™—
He began life poor and without education. But he educated
fcimself—on the kerb-stones of Keokuk. He would sit down oa a
kerb-stone with his book, careless or unconscious of the clatter of
commerce and the tramp of the passing crowds, and bury himself in
his studies by the hour, never changing his position except to draw
in his knees now and then to let a dray pass unobstructed -9 and wheo
his book was finished, its contents, however abstruse, had beea burnt
into his memory, and were his permanent possession. la th» way