Thomas Mayne Reid 
Hunters’ Feast, Conversations Around the Camp Fire [EPUB ebook] 

Excerpt: "On the western bank of the Mississippi, twelve miles below the embouchure of the Missouri, stands the large town of Saint Louis, poetically known as the "Mound City." Although there are many other large towns throughout the Mississippi Valley, Saint Louis is the true metropolis of the "far west"-of that semi-civilised, ever-changing belt of territory known as the "Frontier."