when they arrived. Almost heart-broken, yet submissive to the dreadful stroke, they returned to New Orleans, but instead of accompanying us in our western journey, they decided to return to Charleston.
“In a short time we also embarked in a steamer for St. Louis, where we remained for a month or six weeks. We then ascended the Mississippi as far as Bloomington, Iowa; at which place we landed, and we were so much pleased with the appearance of the place, that we decided on spending the summer there. The place had been settled about three years, and contained nearly or quite three hundred inhabitants, and had, so far, proved quite healthy. But the summer of 1839 was a very sickly one. There was a long-continued drought; the Mississippi river was unusually low, and the consequence was the prevalence of congestive fevers in all that region. Indeed, throughout the whole West and South, it was a summer long to be remembered.
“I was the first to take the fever, and had scarcely recovered, when our little Charlie, our only child, became alarmingly ill. The only experienced physician in the village was likewise ill, so that we laboured under a serious disadvantage. After lingering for a fortnight the dear little fellow died. Two days before his death, my husband was taken with the same fever, and also died, after an illness of only four days. Nothing but the consolations of religion could have supported me under this double bereavement. Left entirely alone, thousands of miles away from every relative I had on earth, there was no human arm on which I could lean, and I was to rely on God alone. It was well, perhaps, for me, that I was just so situated. It has taught me a lesson that I have never forgotten, that our heavenly Father will never lay upon us a heavier burthen than he will give us strength to bear. And here I must record my warm and grateful tribute to the genuine kindness and sympathy of Western hearts. If I had been among my own kindred, I could not have received more earnest and affectionate attention.
“As soon as I could settle my affairs, and find suitable protection, I started for my distant home, longing to lay my aching head on the bosom of my own dear mother, and to be encircled in my father’s arms.
“I was received in St. Louis with the greatest kindness, and remained there for a week. Placed under the charge of a kind physician, we took a steamer for Cincinnati, but found the river so low, it would be next to impossible to reach there. After sticking fast upon every sand-bar we encountered for a day or two, the captain all the while assuring us that we should soon arrive at Cincinnati, we determined to take advantage of the first boat that passed us, and return to the Mississippi. Nor was it long before we were enabled to put this design into execution.
“In New Orleans the fever was raging to an alarming degree. My kind protector had now reached his home, and could accompany me no
