Steve, There are at least two reasons why Twain--who was a careful student of history--would have had Jim take the Mississippi River around to the Ohio River instead of the land route through Illinois. As a matter of established fact in the novel, those pursuing Jim simply expected him to escape to/through Illinois. Remember, in chapter eleven Mrs. Judith Loftus tells Huck that Pap Finn (who blamed Jim for Huck's "murder") had appealed "to Judge Thatcher to get money to hunt for the nigger all over Illinois with." Of course Pap never set out to hunt for Jim and instead got drunk with the money. My point here is that even Pap thought an escaped slave would run to Illinois. Loftus, by the way, along with several of her Illinois neighbors suspect that Jim is in the neighborhood, too. It's obviously very likely that Jim and Huck uderstand the danger of running to Illinois. A second reason for Twain's selection of the the river route is a matter of historical fact. Illinois of course was a free state. However, many border states like Illinois, especially in those areas along the border with slave states like Missouri, were notoriously (and paradoxically) sympathetic to the property rights of slave owners in slave states. And even if the residents of free states were not so philosophically motivated, the prospect of making $200-$400 bounty for returning an escaped slave to a slave state proved powerful motivation to these individuals. (Loftus's husband--an Illinois resident--in chapter eleven is out searching for Jim, we are told, because of a $300 reward.) Where would you set up business if you were an ambitious individual looking to make good money as a bounty hunter in the 1840s? Along the border of a slave state makes a lot of sense doesn't it? In the end, the escape route Jim and Huck select down the Mississippi should not be viewed as an "ideal choice" for flight as much as it ought to be considered a pragmatic reaction to the realities of 1840s Mississippi River Valley. I might agree that at the surface, the notion of drifting down the Mississippi to the Ohio seems "ridiculous." But if one considers further the cultral/historical phenomena of the American 1840s, this particular feature of Twain's plot begins to expose itself as both logical and practical. One last word: these two rationales for Jim's escape down the river (there are several others) are documented fact in academic criticism. Credentialed historians and literary scholars (who may or may not have "loved" Twain) have argued these points in numerous books and articles, all meticulously supported by solid scholarly research. (I happen to enjoy Twain's work a great deal myself, and I've never really understood the argument that logic and scholarly objectivity are necessarily impossible if one possesses affection for one's subject.) There may or may not be "historical problems" with HF, but Jim's escape route is not one of them. (With every piece of new information we learn about Twain and the nineteenth century, however, there seem to be fewer and fewer cases of "historical problems" with HF!) Sure, many slaves escaped from Missouri to Illinois, but Jim's escape route is not as fundamentally "Romantic" as many would have it. Feel free to write back if you have additional questions. Good luck. All best, Joseph Csicsila Eastern Michigan University