No obstacle, though there were many, prevented us from reaching the house, where we arrived wet and hungry, and half dead with fatigue.
The Merrimack, in whose valley we were thus entangled, is the prime outlet of the various streams of the mine country, where Renault, and Arnault, and other French explorers, expended their researches during the exciting era of the celebrated illusory Mississippi scheme.
The next day we crossed an elevated arid tract for twelve miles to the village of Carondalet, without encountering a house, or an acre of land in cultivation.

On this tract, which formed a sort of oak orchard, with high grass, and was a range for wild deer, Jefferson Barracks have since been located.

Six miles further brought us to the town of St.Louis, over an elevated brushy plain, in which the soil assumed a decidedly fertile aspect.

We arrived about four o'clock in the afternoon, and had a pleasant evening to view its fine site, based as it is on solid limestone rock, where no encroachment of the headlong Mississippi can ever endanger its safety.

I was delighted with the site, and its capacity for expansion, and cannot conceive of one in America, situated in the interior, which appears destined to rival it in population, wealth, power, and resources.