The Place Is Situated Exactly At The
Point At Which The Ohio And The Mississippi Meet, And Is, I Should
Say - Merely Guessing On The Matter - Some Ten Or Twelve Feet Lower
Than The Winter Level Of The Two Rivers.
This gives it naturally a
depressed appearance, which must have much aided Mark Tapley in his
endeavors.
Who were the founders of Cairo I have never ascertained.
They are probably buried fathoms deep in the mud, and their names
will no doubt remain a mystery to the latest ages. They were
brought thither, I presume, by the apparent water privileges of the
place; but the water privileges have been too much for them, and by
the excess of their powers have succeeded in drowning all the
capital of the early Cairovians, and in throwing a wet blanket of
thick, moist, glutinous dirt over all their energies.
The free State of Illinois runs down far south between the slave
States of Kentucky to the east, and of Missouri to the west, and is
the most southern point of the continuous free-soil territory of the
Northern States. This point of it is a part of a district called
Egypt, which is as fertile as the old country from whence it has
borrowed a name; but it suffers under those afflictions which are
common to all newly-settled lands which owe their fertility to the
vicinity of great rivers. Fever and ague universally prevail. Men
and women grow up with their lantern faces like specters.
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