In New Orleans, the company "took one of the best steamboats (the "General Pratt"), and for 11 shillings English each, and luggage, sailed to St. Louis, 800 or 1000 miles. "The country is seldom much above the river. There are many slave settlements; these often reminded us of the factory lords in England, in their mansions surrounded with cottages occupied by the poor oppressed laborer: it is much the same with the slaves and their masters, but the slaves pay no rent… It is a truly interesting scene to pass up this river; we often thought of the crowded population of England, who cannot get a foot of land in all their lifetime, and here we travel many hundred miles and see little but forests and no one to occupy it, and the best of land."