When I turned out, in the morning, we had passed Columbus, Kentucky, and were approaching Hickman, a pretty town, perched on a handsome hill. Hickman is in a rich tobacco region, and formerly enjoyed a great and lucrative trade in that staple, collecting it there in her warehouses from a large area of country and shipping it by boat; but Uncle Mumford says she built a railway to facilitate this commerce a little more, and he thinks it facilitated it the wrong way—took the bulk of the trade out of her hands by 'collaring it along the line without gathering it at her doors.'

....

April 21 Friday – The Gold Dust finally got underway at 2 AM and at 6 AM paused at Menard, Ill. to let off passengers near St. Genevieve. Sam enjoyed the scenery, passing Chester, Ill., Grand Tower, Ill., and Cape Girareau, Mo., stopping at Cairo, Ill., some 200 miles from St. Louis. It was night when the Gold Dust made Cairo [Ch.

MY idea was, to tarry a while in every town between St. Louis and New Orleans. To do this, it would be necessary to go from place to place by the short packet lines. It was an easy plan to make, and would have been an easy one to follow, twenty years ago—but not now. There are wide intervals between boats, these days.

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Departing New York City:  April 18, 1882 (8 am) Sam Clemens departed New York City, with Hartford schoolteacher Roswell Phelps as stenographer and publisher James R. Osgood, on the Pennsylvania Railroad. His first observation notes the “grace and picturesqueness” of people as he gets further from New York City.

I find that among my notes. It makes no difference which direction you take, the fact remains the same.