ing people with the refreshment afforded by its accumulated fluid. When the storm was over, I found I had sufficient to do without investigating meteorological appearances. My boat was water logged, and so sunk in the mud, that I despaired for a long time of ever righting her. I at length succeeded, but not without a labor which rendered us incapable to depart: independent of fatigue we had abundance to do to dry and clean our clothes and provisions, great part of which was entirely spoiled. Fortunately the gum-tree and cotton-tree are inflammable, and soon made an excellent fire, notwithstanding the late drenching wet. I found the storm productive of one good consequence; it annihilated the mosquitoes within its range, and allowed me to pass the remainder of the day in comfort and ease. LETTER XXXVII. River St. Francis-Mule River-effects of thunder storms-attack of an alligatorOrkansas river-Ozark village-Indians their adoration to the sun-their hymns. Mouth of the Ozark, or Orkansas River. FROM the situation in which I was last left, I made a run of one hundred miles without meeting any remarkable event. The whole course was destitute, nor had it on either side as much dry ground as was eligible for the safe and comfortable residence of a single individual. At the conclusion of this dismal range I passed the mouth of the river St. Francis, and came to a beautiful prairie a little below it, on which I found one solitary dwelling, inbabited by a family who traded with the Indians up the river, and occasionally dealt with the boats which descended the Mississippi. The St. Francis enters on the right or Louisiana side; is about three hundred yards wide at its mouth, and is navigable two hundred miles upwards. Near its confluence with the Mississippi, it is subject to inundations, but towards the head of its navigation, it has high and fertile banks, which are thickly occupied by Indian nations, of whom nothing is known, as there are no white settlers among them, and as they have never been visited by any person disposed to discover their character and history. I purchased some dried venison, and a few fowls, at half a dollar a piece, from the solitary settler at the prairie, four miles below St. Francis, and proceeded for three days more without objects to amuse or interrupt, to the mouth of the White River, which is one hundred and twenty-two miles from that of the St. Francis. The whole of that run is also destitute of man, and exhibits nature in disorder, on a large and gloomy scale. It appears to be the favorite theatre for the exhibition of hurricanes and storms. The woods are perforated in a hundred places by their destructive career, and present avenues whose termination is far beyond the sight. The avenues made by such sweeping currents of air are so very direct, perfect, and narrow, that they appear the effect of art, and made as a road of communication from town to town, or state to state. Some are so narrow as twenty yards, and others as broad as two hundred. They are very magnificent, and produce sensations of astonishment and terror. The long portion of water to which I allude, also exhibits certain characteristics which distinguish it from the river above the Chickasaw Bluffs, and particularly from the Ohio, and all its tributary streams. The trees, plants, and shrubs are for the most part different, and consequently present a figure, foliage, and coup d'œil which not merely strike the sense as a change of decoration and scene, but as another theatre and country. Cypress-swamps of several miles extent, oak of great beauty and magnitude; cotton trees embellished with their rich produce festooned from bough to bough, floating in the air, or drooping to the ground; quinces, hazels, bending under a profusion of fruit, and catalpas, cedars and magnolias, diffusing perfume over immense wastes, are common to the Mississippi |
