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2 M... rocky bluffs many hundred feet in height and covered with the bright green color of spring. It was indeed a beautiful scene and one that I shall never forget the great father f water was clothed in all its splendor and granduer. On the following morning we embarked on its broad boosom on board the steamer Pike, a splendid specimen of a Mississippi River boat large as the huge leviatians that plow furrows in the broad Atlantic her cabins a magnificent palace altogether one of those boats can compare favorably with the floating craft of any country. And now all being ready we steamed up the noble river passing? by fairy looking islands that it would not take a great stretch of the imagination to suppose they were inhabited by the spirits of the red men who lived for ages on its shores. Passing by rapidly all these scenes the steamer suddenly rounded to came up to the leevee and we were at the landing of the City of Hanibal, Missouri. We disembarked and proceeded to view the town & we found it to be a nicely situated town containing about four thousand inhabitants. It is situated on the river bottoms parallel with the river and between its banks and the bluffs which are here many hundred feet in height. The city has an appearance of buisiness there are a number of quite respectable looking stores which seem to be doing quite a thriving buisiness. Here I first seen slavery there are a few niggers in the city its proximity to the Illinois shore prevents the holding of slaves to any great extent. We stopped in this town only a very short time and once more started on the iron horse bound for the far off shores of the Missouri. I must here make some remarks about the interior of Missouri it is a splendid looking farming country yet? between Hanibal? and St Joe about two hundred and fifty miles