...wanderers who are tempted hither droop and die and lay their bones; the hateful Mississippi circling and eddying before it, and turning off upon its southern...monster hideous to behold; a hotbed of disease, an ugly sepulchure, a grave uncheered by any gleam of promise; a place without one single quality, in each...

...large rats." Charles Dickens. who visited Cairo in 1842. remembered "the hateful Mississippi. circling and eddying before it. and turning off upon its southern...sepulchre. a grave uncheered by any gleam of promise: such is dismal Cair0." ' Cairo remained "essentially a frontier town on the very borders of Secessia."2...

...wanderers \\lio are tempted hither, droop, and die, and lay their hones: the baleful Mississippi circling and eddying before it, and turning off upon its southern course a slimy monster Cairo, Illinois. Color lithograph by Henry Lewis, Dus ilhtttrirtc Missisxipi>iili<il. 1857. Courtesy...

...wanderers who are tempted hither, droop, and die, and lay their bones; the hateful Mississippi circling and eddying before it, and turning off upon its southern course, a slimy monster hideous to behold. * * * * 51 "The decline of day here was very gorgeous; tingeing the firmament deeply with red and gold,...

...Traveling from Cincinnati downstream to Cairo, Illinois, he wrote of "the hateful Mississippi circling and eddying before it, and turning off upon its southern...monster hideous to behold; a hotbed of disease, an ugly sepulcher, a grave uncheered by any gleam of promise: a place without one single quality, in earth...

...his humor. How could people possibly choose to live here, he fumed? A wetland was nothing less than "a hotbed of disease, an ugly sepulchre, a grave uncheered...quality, in earth or air or water to commend it." Not until 1900 did scientists prove that ague was a form of malaria, a disease carried by a specific...