There were several old steamboatmen along, and I learned from them a great deal of what had been happening to my former river friends during my long absence.

I learned that a pilot whom I used to steer for is become a spiritualist, and for more than fifteen years has been receiving a letter every week from a deceased relative, through a New York spiritualist medium named Manchester--postage graduated by distance: from the local post-office in Paradise to New York, five dollars; from New York to St.Louis, three cents.

I remember Mr.
Manchester very well.

I called on him once, ten years ago, with a couple of friends, one of whom wished to inquire after a deceased uncle.

This uncle had lost his life in a peculiarly violent and unusual way, half a dozen years before: a cyclone blew him some three miles and knocked a tree down with him which was four feet through at the butt and sixty- five feet high.