And
such humbleness! Only the earth for a floor! Only one room where all his
family ate and slept and lived!
In going to St. Louis I took the same stage that had brought me to
Jacksonville. This time I rode on the _City of Alton_, a better boat
than the one that had brought me from La Salle to Bath; but all the
conditions were the same. There was the same roistering and sprawling
crowd; the same loudness and profanity; the same abundance of whisky and
its intemperate indulgence; the same barbaric hilarity of negroes,
driven and cursed. And now many goatees, and much talk of politics, of
Whigs and Democrats.
St. Louis was languid, weary and old. The buildings had an air of decay.
The stream of life moved sluggishly, not swiftly as in New York or
Buffalo, or even in the village of Chicago. There were luxury here and
wealth. There were slaves and a slave market. I went to it, saw the
business of selling these creatures, saw a woman of thirty, no darker
than Zoe, sold to a man with a goatee, evidently from further south, who
took her and led her away submissively. Whatever the institution might
be of necessity and even of gentleness in good hands, here no less was
the vile business of the sale. What would become of Zoe, was constantly
in my thought. I turned away from the slave market to continue my
shopping; but I could not drive Zoe from my thoughts.
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