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plantations around Massae who furnish the inhabitants with corn, poultry, and hogs, and at a much dearer rate than I have as yet heard, on the river banks. This is owing to there being such few settlements, and also to the number of boats who put in for refreshment, causing a greater demand than the supply can at all times meet.

I left Massae with the sentiments which ought ever to occupy the mind of a stranger after experiencing a generous and courteous reception from persons on whose hospitality and kindness he had no manner of claim, and gained this position in a short day's run of twenty-five miles, which afforded me no matter fit to advance your information or entertainment. I had to be sure to observe that the river encreased in width and beauty, and that the current, though entirely contrary to my expectations, became so sluggish, that I was forced to

have recourse to my oars to make any kind of way. On approaching within a few miles of the Louisiana shore, I discovered this strange effect: it was the Mississippi, which, in awful grandeur crossed the mouth of the Ohio, and backed the water up against the stream. The contention of the floods, the dreadful accounts I had heard of the navigation of the Mississippi, the magnificence of the objects around me, and the general impression created an inexpressible sensation of a view of nature on a scale of such sublimity, diversity, and magnitude.

Under these influences I lay by here under the point of land formed by the intersection of the two rivers, and sprang ashore, on the right bank of the Ohio.

No river in the world can vie with the Mississippi for magnificence and utility. Its source is ascertained to be three thousand miles from the sea, fol

lowing its windings. From nearly opposite the Illinois river, the western bank of the Mississippi is generally higher than the eastern. From Miner-a-fu

to the Iberville, the eastern, is the highest. It is so remarkably crooked, that from the mouth of the Ohio to New Orleans, in a direct line, which does not exceed six hundred miles, the distance by water is more than one thousand miles. In common seasons it generally affords fifteen feet of water from the mouth of the Messauri to that of the Ohio. In time of flushes a first rate man of war may descend with safety. The mean velocity of its current may be computed to be four miles an hour. Its length is various, from one and a half to two miles. Its mouth, is divided into several channels which continually change their direction and depth.

From the mouth of the Ohio to that of the Messauri is two hundred and thir→ VOL. III.

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ty miles by water, and one hundred and forty by land. The Mississippi below the Messauri is always muddy. The current is so rapid, that it never can be stemmed by the force of the wind alone acting on sails. A bateau passes from the mouth of the Ohio to the mouth of the Mississippi in three weeks, and takes three months to return with the help of the wind and the constant labor of sixteen oars. During its floods, which are as periodical as those of the Nile, the largest vessels may descend. The inundations extend farther, and rather on the western than on the eastern side, covering the lands in some places for more than one hundred miles from its banks. These floods begin in April, and da not entirely subside till the end of August. Above the mouth of the Messauri, the Mississippi is as clear and gentle as the Ohio, and nearly as wide: the period of its floods are nearly the same, but not rising to so great a height.

The Mississippi yields turtle of a peculiar sort, perch, trout, gar, pike, mullets, herrings, carp, spatula, a fish of fifty-six pounds weight, cat-fish of one hundred pound weight, buffalo fish and sturgeon. Allegators abound, and have been seen as high up as the Acansas. It also has a prodigious quantity of herons, cranes, ducks, brants, geese, swans, and water-pelicans swimming on its surface, and breeding in its vicinity.

The Messauri is in fact the principal river, contributing more to the common stream than does the Mississippi, even after its junction with the Illinois. It is remarkably cold, muddy, and rapid. Its overflowings are considerable. They happen during the months of June and July. Six miles above the mouth it is brought to the compass of a quarter of a mile's width, and yet it is navigable two thousand miles upwards. It heads far westward of the Rio Norte. The mouth of

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