The South-West Volume Ii Part 4

When a negro dies, his remains are placed in a coffin and decently interred. Labour is often entirely suspended on the plantation, and the slaves are a.s.sembled in their Sunday clothes to attend the funeral.

Divine service is sometimes performed in the little chapel on the plantation, at which not only the slaves but the members of the white family are present. A Presbyterian clergyman recently informed me that he had been sent for by a native planter, to attend the funeral of one of his slaves and preach his funeral sermon. He went, though twelve miles distant from his residence, and remarked that he was never present on a more interesting occasion. On most plantations females are allowed a month's cessation from field labour, before and after confinement. But it cannot be denied that on some plantations nothing but actual confinement releases them from the field; to which the mother soon after returns, leaving an infant a few days old at the "quarters," which she is permitted to visit three or four times in the day. Sometimes, when a little older, infants are brought into the field, under the care of an old nurse, to save the time which the mothers would otherwise consume in walking to and from the "quarters." Once, on riding through a plantation, I noticed, under a China tree, which shaded the shelter-house--a rude building, in the centre of extensive cotton fields, in which negroes seek shelter on the approach of a storm--a group of infants and children, whose parents I discovered at work more than half a mile distant. Several little fellows, not two years old, and as naked as young frogs, were amusing themselves in rolling over the gra.s.s, heedless of the occasional warning of their _gouvernante_, "Take care de snake."--Slung from a limb in a blanket reposed two others, very snugly, side by side, mumbling corn bread; while, suspended from the tree, in a rude cradle, were three or four more of this band of nurslings, all in a pile, and fast asleep. I am indebted to this scene for a correct application of the nursery song, which I had never before been able exactly to understand, commencing--

"Rock a bye, baby, upon the tree top, When the wind blows the cradle will rock; When the bough breaks the cradle will fall, And down tumbles baby, cradle and all."

These little candidates for "field honours," are useless articles on a plantation during the first five or six years of their existence. They are then made to take the first lessons in the elementary part of their education. When they have learned their manual alphabet tolerably well, they are placed in the field to take a spell at cotton-picking. The first day in the field is their proudest day. The young negroes look forward to it, with as much restlessness and impatience as school-boys to a vacation. Black children are not put to work so young as many children of poor parents at the north. It is often the case that the children of the domestic servants become pets in the house, and the playmates of the white children of the family. No scene can be livelier or more interesting to a northerner, than that which the negro quarters of a well regulated plantation present, on a Sabbath morning, just before church hour. In every cabin the men are shaving and dressing--the women, arrayed in their gay muslins, are arranging their frizzly hair, in which they take no little pride, or investigating the condition of their children's heads--the old people neatly clothed are quietly conversing or smoking about their doors, and those of the younger portion, who are not undergoing the infliction of the wash-tub, are enjoying themselves in the shade of the trees or around some little pond, with as much zest as though "slavery" and "freedom" were synonymous terms. When all are dressed and the hour arrives for wors.h.i.+p, they lock up their cabins, and the whole population of the little village proceeds to the chapel, where divine wors.h.i.+p is performed, sometimes by an officiating clergyman, and often by the planter himself, if a church member. The whole plantation is also frequently formed into a Sabbath cla.s.s, which is instructed by the planter or some member of his family; and often such is the anxiety of masters that they should perfectly understand what they are taught--a hard matter in the present state of African intellect--that no means calculated to advance their progress are left untried. I was not long since shown a ma.n.u.script catechism, drawn up with great care and judgment by a distinguished planter, on a plan admirably adapted to the comprehension of negroes.

The same gentleman, in conjunction with two or three neighbouring planters, employs a Presbyterian clergyman, formerly a missionary among the Choctaws at the Elliott station before their dispersion, to preach to the slaves, paying him a salary for his services. On those plantations which have no chapel, and no regular wors.h.i.+p on the Sabbath, negroes are permitted to go to the nearest town to church; a privilege they seldom know how to appreciate, and prefer converting their liberty into an opportunity for marketing or visiting. Experience, however, has convinced planters that no indulgence to their slaves is so detrimental as this, both to the moral condition of the slave, and the good order of the plantation, for there is no vice in which many of them will not become adepts, if allowed a temporary freedom from restraint, one day in seven. Hence this liberty, except in particular instances, is denied them on some estates; to which they are confined under easy discipline during the day, pa.s.sing the time in strolling through the woods, sleeping, eating, and idling about the quarters. The evenings of the Sabbath are pa.s.sed in little gossipping circles in some of the cabins, or beneath the shade of some tree in front of their dwellings, or at weddings. The negroes are usually married by the planter, who reads the service from the gallery--the couple with their attendants standing upon the steps or on the green in front. These marriages, in the eye of the slave, are binding. Clergymen are sometimes invited to officiate by those planters who feel that respect for the marriage covenant, which leads them to desire its strict observance, where human legislation has not provided for it. On nuptial occasions the negroes partake of fine suppers, to which the ladies add many little delicacies, and handsome presents of wearing apparel to the married pair. When the negroes desire a clergyman to perform the ceremony for them, planters seldom refuse to comply with their request.

When negroes leave the plantation, for whatever purpose, whether to attend church, cla.s.s meeting or market, visit their husbands, wives, or sweethearts, or are sent on errands, they must carry with them a written permission of absence from their master, stating the object for which his slave leaves his plantation, the place or places to which he is going, and the time to which his absence is limited. This written authority is called a "pa.s.s," and is usually written somewhat after this form:

"Oakland--June--18--

"Pa.s.s J---- to Natchez and back again by sunset," or "E---- has permission to visit his wife on Mr. C----'s plantation, to be absent till 9 o'clock."

In such fluctuating property as slaves, it often happens that husband, wife, and children may all belong to different owners; and as negroes belonging to different plantations intermarry, such a provision, which is a state law, is necessary to preserve discipline, and embrace within the eye or knowledge of the master, every movement of his slave. Were slaves allowed to leave the estates without the knowledge of their masters, during a certain portion of every week, an immense body of men in the aggregate, consisting of a few from every plantation in the state, would be moving among the plantations, at liberty to plan and execute any mischief they might choose to set on foot. If negroes leave the plantation without a "pa.s.s," they are liable to be taken up by any white person who suspects them to be runaways, and punishment is the consequence. The law allows every white man in town or country this kind of supervision over negroes; and as there are always men who are on the lookout for runaways, for the purpose of obtaining the reward of several dollars for each they can bring back to his master, the slave, should he leave the plantation without his "pa.s.s"--the want of which generally denotes the runaway--is soon apprehended. You will see that this regulation is a wise legal provision for the preservation both of private and public security. An anecdote connected with this subject was recently related to me by a planter whose slave was the hero. "A gentleman," said he, "met one of my negroes mounted on horseback, with a jug in his hand, riding toward Natchez." Suspecting him from appearances to be a runaway, he stopped him and asked for his "pa.s.s." The slave unrolled first one old rag--an old rag is a negro's subst.i.tute for a pocket--and then another without success. "I 'spec' me loss me pa.s.s, master." "Whom do you belong to?" "Mr. ----," giving the wrong person.

"Where are you going?" "To Natchez, get whiskey, master." At the moment, my brand upon the horse struck the eye of the gentleman; "You are a runaway, boy--you belong to Mr. D----." Instantly the negro leaped from his horse, cleared the fence, and fled through the woods like a deer toward home. The gentleman on arriving at his own house, sent a servant to me with the horse which the runaway had deserted. I immediately a.s.sembled the whole force of the plantation and not one of the negroes was missing; the culprit having managed to arrive at the plantation before I could receive any intimation of his absence. I tried a long time to make the guilty one confess, but in vain. So at last, I tried the effect of a _ruse_. "Well, boys, I know it is one of you, and though I am not able to point out the rogue, my friend who detected him will recognize him at once. So you must walk over to his house. Fall in there--march!"

"They proceeded a short distance, when I ordered a halt. "Mind, boys, the guilty one shall not only be punished by me, but I will give every 'hand' on the plantation the liberty of taking personal satisfaction, for compelling them to take a walk of three miles.--So, march!" They moved on again for about a quarter of a mile, when they came to a full stop--deliberated a few moments and then retraced their steps. "Hie!

what now?" "Why, master, Bob say he de one." Bob, who it seems had confessed to his fellow-slaves as the best policy, now stepped forward, and acknowledged himself to be the runaway."

FOOTNOTES:

[6] The weeping willow is less luxuriant in this climate than in lat.i.tude 40. It is not however cultivated in this state as it is in Pennsylvania, where it arrives at the greatest perfection. There is a willow which grows on the banks of the Mississippi, whose roots become as dry as tinder, after the periodical swell has subsided, but which vegetates afresh as soon as it is watered by the next inundation. This property of dying and returning again to vegetative existence, is not peculiar to this willow; other plants possess the same singular property, though this exceeds all others in magnitude. The plants of that description known to botanists, are all water mosses except two species of ducksmeat--the "lemna minor" and the "lemna gibba." These are but minute vegetables floating on the surface of stagnant water, without taking root in the pond. They may be dried in the hot sun and then kept in a deal box for two or three years, after which they will revive, if placed in spring, river or rain water. There is at the north a kind of natural paper, resembling the coats or strata of a wasp's nest in colour and consistency, which is formed of the sediment of ponds, that become dry in hot weather. If a piece of this paper-like substance be put in a gla.s.s of fresh water and exposed to light, it loses its dirty-white colour in a few minutes and a.s.sumes a lively green. This sudden and unexpected change is occasioned by a number of aquatic mosses, const.i.tuting a part of the materials of the paper or sediment in question, and belonging to the genus "Conferra;" for these minute vegetables may be said to be in the state of suspended animation, while they remain dry; but the presence of water restores them to their natural functions by its animating virtue.

So long retaining the principle of life, these curious plants, as well as the two species above mentioned, may be transported to any distant country in a torpid condition, where they might again be animated. The same remark will apply to the Mississippi willow which suggested these observations.

[7] The negro seldom is heard to say "ma.s.sa;" they generally say _master_, distinctly.

x.x.xV.

Preparation for a deer hunt--A sailor, a planter, and an author--A deer driver--"Stands" for deer--The hunting ground --The hunt--Ellis's cliff--Silver mine--An hypothesis-- Alluvial formation of the lower valley of the Mississippi-- Geological descriptions of the south-west.

The morning after my arrival at the plantation, which suggested the subject of my last letter, two gentlemen, with their guns and dogs, arrived at the house, to proceed from thence, according to a previous arrangement, on a deer hunt. This n.o.ble and attractive game abounds in the "bottoms" and river hills in this region; though the planters, who are in general pa.s.sionately fond of hunting, are fast thinning their numbers. The branching antlers of a stag, as in the old oaken halls of England, are found fixed, in some conspicuous station, in almost every planter's habitation--trophies of his skill, and testimonials of his attachment to the chase.

Having prepared our hunting apparatus, and a.s.sembled the dogs, which, from their impatient movements, evidently needed no intimation of our design, we mounted our horses, and, winding through the cotton fields, entered a forest to the south, and proceeded, in fine spirits, toward the "drive," four or five miles below, as the hunting station is technically termed by deer hunters. There were, exclusive of a servant, four in our party. One of them, my host, formerly an officer in the navy, having, some years since, left the service, and settled himself down as a cotton planter, presented in his person the anomalous union, in Mississippi, of the sailor and farmer: for in this state, which has little intercourse directly with the sea, sailors are rare birds. Till recently a s.h.i.+p could not be seen by a Mississippian without going to New-Orleans, or elsewhere out of the state: but since Natchez became a port of entry, and s.h.i.+ps have ascended here, the citizens who flocked in from all the country round, to gaze upon them, are a little more _au fait_ to this branch of nautical knowledge. It would be difficult to say which predominates in this gentleman, the bluff and frank bearing of the sailor, or the easy and independent manner of the planter. In the management of his plantation, the result of his peculiar economy has shown, that the discipline with which he was familiar in the navy, with suitable modifications, has not been applied unsuccessfully to the government of his slaves. What a strange inclination sailors have for farming! Inquire of any New-England sea-captain the ultimatum of his wishes, after leaving the sea--for sailors in general follow the sea as the means of securing them a snug berth on sh.o.r.e--and he will almost invariably reply--"a farm." Another of our party was a planter, a native of Mississippi, and the son of a gentleman whose philosophic researches have greatly contributed to the advancement of science. He was a model of a southern planter--gentlemanly, companionable, and a keen hunter.

The government of his plantation, which is one of the finest in the state, is of a parental rather than an imperious character. He rules rather by kindness than severity, and his slaves obey from the principle of a desire to please, rather than from fear. And the result of his discipline has fully overthrown the sweeping a.s.sertion, which it is the fas.h.i.+on to repeat and believe, that "the more kindly slaves are treated the worse they are." A favourite theory of philanthropists, in relation to master and slave, is more practically ill.u.s.trated on the estate of this gentleman, than the most sanguine of its framers could have antic.i.p.ated. As I have, in a former letter, alluded to that branch of the domestic economy of this plantation, relating to the religious privileges of the slaves, and shall again have occasion to refer to its discipline, I will pursue the subject here no farther.

The third individual of our party was a gentleman originally from New-Jersey; a state which has contributed many valuable citizens to Mississippi. But he had been too long in the south to preserve his ident.i.ty as a Jersey man. The son of a distinguished barrister, he had been a lawyer himself; but, like all professional men, who have remained here a short time, he had taken his third degree as a cotton planter. He is a gentleman of fine taste and a chastened imagination; and besides some beautiful tales, contributed to the periodicals, he is the author of that delightful story, the "Fawn's leap," published in the Atlantic Souvenir of 1830. The literary world will have reason to feel regret, in which the subject of my remark will, no doubt, be far from sympathising, that fortune has placed him among her _proteges_. He possesses an independent property, and resides on an estate called "Woodbourne,"

eight or nine miles from Natchez. With true Mississippi taste, he has placed his handsome villa in the midst of a forest; but the majestic beauty of the lofty trees, as surveyed from the gallery, and the solemn grandeur of the primeval forests which inclose his dwelling on all sides, struck me, at the moment, as far superior to any display of art in ornamental grounds, and nearly unhinged my predilection for artificial scenery. In this charming retirement, and in the quiet enjoyment of private life, he has laid aside the gown of the author to a.s.sume the capote of the planter, and become an indefatigable devotee to the lordly pleasures of the chase. Few men, who hunt merely _en amateur_, and especially, few literary men, can boast that they have killed twenty-seven deer, and been at the death of fifty-two--yet this gentleman can do so with truth: and a row of notches, cut in his hunting-horn, which I found suspended from an antler in the gallery of the house we had just left, recorded the fact. Besides this gentleman, there are but few individuals who are known out of this state as cultivators of literature. Mississippi is yet too young to boast of her authors, although she is not deficient in men of talent and learning.

But the members of the learned professions are too much involved in schemes of wealth to have leisure or inclination for the cultivation of general literature.

Half way through the forest into which we entered on leaving the plantation, we came to a rude dwelling, inhabited by a ruder old hunter, who was to officiate as "driver." He accompanied us with his dogs for a while, and then turned aside into the woods to surround the deer in their place of resort and drive them toward the river, between which and them we were to take our "stands," for the purpose of intercepting them, as they dashed by to the water. For if alarmed while feeding upon the high grounds back front the Mississippi, they at once bound off to the shelter of the swamps or bottoms near the river--and the skilful hunter, whose experience teaches him by what paths they will seek to gain the lowlands where the hounds cannot follow them, takes his stand with his rifle behind some tree by which he is tolerably sure the deer will pa.s.s, and as the n.o.ble and terrified animal bounds past him, he levels the deadly rifle with unerring aim, and buries a bullet in his heart.

Emerging from the forest a mile or two above our hunting ground, we came suddenly upon an amphitheatre of naked hills nearly surrounded by forests of dark pine. Winding through romantic defiles thickly bordered with cedars, we gradually ascended to the summit of the highest of this cl.u.s.ter of treeless hills, when all at once the Mississippi, rolling onward to the sea, burst upon our sight in all its majesty. There is a grand and desolate character in those naked cliffs which hang in huge terraces over the river, to the perpendicular height of three hundred feet. The view from their summits is one of the most sublime and extensive in the south-west. To the north and south the broad river spreads away like a long serpentine lake, its western sh.o.r.e presenting a plain, clothed even to the horizon with a boundless forest, with a plantation here and there breaking the uniformity of its outlines, near the water's edge.

After a farther ride of a mile, over a hilly road through woods alternately exposing and hiding the river, we arrived at the "deer-stand,"--a long ridge nearly parallel with the river, and covered with a very open forest with a low "bottom," between the ridge and the water, and an extensive "drive," or forest frequented by deer, extending two miles inland. Our "driver" with the whole pack, had turned off into the "drive" some time before, and having examined the ground, we took our "stands" about a hundred yards apart, each behind a large tree commanding an opening, or avenue, through which the deer were expected to pa.s.s. Several of these "stands," and many more than we could occupy, were on the ridge, all of which should have been occupied to insure a successful issue to our sport. A few moments after we had taken our stands, and while listening for the least token of the "driver's"

presence in the depths of the forest--the distant baying of dogs, in that peculiar note with which they open when they have roused their game, fell faintly upon our ears. The chorus of canine voices, however, soon grew louder and more violent--and as they awoke the echoes of the forests, and came down upon us like a storm--my heart leaped and the blood coursed merrily in my veins. All at once the deep voices of the hounds ceased as though they were at fault; but after a few moments'

pause, a staunch old hunter opened again far to the right, and again the whole pack were in pursuit in full cry, and the cras.h.i.+ng of trees and underbrush directly in front of us about a quarter of a mile in the wood, with the increased roar of the pack, warned us to be ready. The next moment the noise moved away to the right, and all at once, with a crash and a bound, a n.o.ble stag, with his head laid back upon his shoulders, crossed our line at the remotest stand, and disappeared in the thick woods along the river. The dogs followed like meteors. Away to the left another cras.h.i.+ng was heard, and a beautiful doe leaped across the open s.p.a.ce on the ridge, and was lost in the thicket. The sounds of affrighted deer, pa.s.sing through the forest at a great distance, were occasionally heard, but these soon died away and we only heard the wild clamour of the dogs, which the driver, who was close at their heels, in vain essayed to recall by sounding his horn long and loud, and sending its hoa.r.s.e notes into the deepest recesses of the wood.

After a great deal of trouble, by whipping, coaxing, and driving, nearly all the dogs were again collected, as it was in vain to pursue the deer to their retreats. Some of the old hunters slowly coming in at the last, laid themselves down by us panting and half dead with fatigue. By and by the driver again started into the "drive" with the dogs; but an engagement for the evening, precluding my partic.i.p.ation in a renewal of the spirit-stirring scene, I reluctantly left my agreeable party who were out for the day, and proceeded homeward. They returned late at night with, I believe, a single deer as the reward of their patience and unwearied spirits, two most important virtues in a thorough-bred deer hunter. Uncommon nerve and great presence of mind are also indispensable qualifications. "Once," remarked a hunting gentleman to me, "while waiting at my stand the approach of a buck, which some time before seeing him I had heard leaping along in immense bounds through the thicket--his sudden appearance in an open s.p.a.ce about a hundred yards in front, bearing down directly toward me at fearful speed, so awed and unnerved me for the moment, that although my rifle was levelled at his broad breast, I had not the power to pull the trigger, and before I could recover myself the n.o.ble creature pa.s.sed me like the wind." Yet this gentleman was a tried hunter, and on other occasions had brought down deer as they came toward him at full speed, at the distance of from sixty to a hundred yards.

On my return from the hunting ground, I lingered on the romantic cliff we had crossed in the morning, delighted at once more beholding scenery that reminded me of the rude features of my native state. Dismounting from my horse, which I secured to the only tree upon the cliff, I descended, after many hair-breadth escapes a ravine nearly two hundred feet in depth, which conducted me to the water side and near the mouth of the beautiful St. Catharine, which, after a winding course of more than eighty miles, empties itself into the Mississippi through an embouchure ten yards wide, and as accurately defined as the mouth of a ca.n.a.l. Near this spot is a silver mine lately re-discovered, after the lapse of a third of a century. Its history, I believe, is this. Some thirty or forty years ago, a Spaniard who had been a miner in Mexico, pa.s.sing down the Mississippi, discovered ore which he supposed to be silver. He took a quant.i.ty of it into his pirogue, and on arriving at a planter's house on the banks of the river in Louisiana, tested it as correctly as circ.u.mstances would admit, and was satisfied that it was pure silver. He communicated the discovery to his host, gave him a few ingots of the metal and took his departure. What became of him is not known. The host from year to year resolved to visit the spot, but neglected it, or was prevented by the intrusion of more pressing employments, till four or five years since. He then communicated the discovery to a Mexican miner, an American or an Englishman, who stopped at his house, and to whom, on hearing him speak of mines, he showed the ma.s.ses he had received so many years before from the Spaniard. The man on examining them and ascertaining the metal to be pure silver, became at once interested in the discovery, obtained the necessary information to enable him to find the spot, and immediately ascended the river. On arriving at the cliffs he commenced his search, and after a few days discovered the vein, in one of the lowest strata of the cliffs. He found it difficult, however, to engage the neighbouring planters in his scheme of working it, for what planter would exchange his cotton fields for a silver mine? Yet they treated him with attention, and seconded his efforts by lending him slaves. More than a hundred weight of the ore was obtained, and sent on to Philadelphia to undergo the process of fusion.

It probably is not rich enough for amalgamation, as it contains a superior bulk of iron pyrites, blende, lead and earthy matter. The amount of pure silver procured from the ore has not been ascertained, the result of the process not having yet been made known. I obtained several pieces, which make a very pretty show in a cabinet, and this is probably the highest honour to which it will be exalted, at least till the surface of the earth refuses longer to bear ingots of silver, in the shape of the snowy cotton boll.

The peculiar features of these cliffs are a series of vast concavities, or inverted hollow cones, connected with each other by narrow gorges, whose bottoms are level with the river, and surrounded by perpendicular and overhanging walls of earth, often detached, like huge pyramids, and nearly three hundred feet in height. There are five cl.u.s.ters of these cliffs in this state, all situated on the eastern sh.o.r.e of the Mississippi, from forty to one hundred miles apart, of which this is the most important in height and magnitude, as well as in grandeur and variety of scenery. They are properly the heads or terminations of the high grounds of the United States--the _antennae_ of the Alleghanies.[8]

The hypothesis that they were promontories in past ages, with the waves of the Mexican Gulf breaking at their bases, has had the support of many scientific men. This opinion carries with it great probability, when the peculiar qualities of the Mississippi are considered in relation to its "forming effects." These effects are a consequence of the general truth of the proposition, that every mechanical destruction will be followed by a mechanical formation; hence the ma.s.ses separated by the waters of the Mississippi, will be again deposited on the surface of the land, or its sh.o.r.es, about its mouth, and on the bottom of the sea. You are aware that one twelfth of the bulk of this vast volume of water is earth, as ascertained by its depositing that proportion in the bottom of a gla.s.s filled with the water. During the flood the proportion is greater, and the earthy particles are as dense as the water can hold in suspension.

The average velocity of the current below the Missouri, is between one and two miles an hour, and it is calculated that it would require four months to discharge the column of water embraced between this point and its delta. Bearing constantly within its flood a ma.s.s of earth equal to one twelfth of its whole bulk, it follows that it must bear toward the sea, every four years, more than its cubical bulk of solid earth. Now where is this great column of earth deposited? Has it been rolling onward for centuries, without any visible effects? This will not be affirmed, and experience proves the contrary in the hourly mechanical depositions of the ochreous particles of this river, in its n.o.ble convexities, its extensive bottoms, and the growing capes at its mouth.

But a small portion of the turbid mixture has been deposited in the bed of the river, particularly in its southern section, as moving water will not deposit at any great depth.[9]

Now when the general appearance and geological features of the South-West, including the south part of Mississippi and nearly the whole of Louisiana, are observed with reference to the preceding statements, the irresistible conviction of the observer is, that the immense plain now rich with sugar and cotton fields, a great emporium, numerous villages and a thousand villas, was formed by the mechanical deposits of the Mississippi upon the bed of the ocean, precisely as they are now building up fields into the Mexican Gulf. Do not understand me that the present fertile surface of this region was the original bed of the ocean, but that it rose out of it, as the coral islands come up out of the sea, by the gradual acc.u.mulation of deposits. The appearance of these inland promontories or cliffs, which suggested these remarks, and the fact that the highlands of the south-west, all terminate along the southern border of this region, from fifty to one hundred miles from the sea, leaving a broad alluvial tract between, and presenting a well defined _inland_ sea-board, go far to strengthen the opinion I have adopted.

The chain of cliffs along the eastern sh.o.r.e of the Mississippi, have a parallel chain opposite to them on the other side of the great savana, skirted by the Mississippi, about forty miles distant. This savana or valley gradually widens to the south until near the mouth of the river, where it is increased to one hundred and forty or fifty miles in breadth. It is this great valley which is of mechanical formation, and its present site was in all probability covered by the waters of a bay similar to the Chesapeake, extending many leagues above Natchez to the nearest approximation of the cliffs on either side, where alone must have been an original mouth of this great river. Where the spectator, in looking westward from these bluffs; now beholds an extensive and level forest, in ages past rolled the waters of the Mexican sea--and where he now gazes upon a broad and placid river flowing onward to mingle with the distant ocean, the very waves of that ocean rolled in loud surges, dashed against the lofty cliffs, and kissed the pebbles at his feet.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] There are five more cliffs above this state, between it and the mouth of the Ohio; and one on the western sh.o.r.e of the Mississippi at Helena, Arkansas.

[9] The following extract from a private letter in the author's possession, bearing date New Orleans 28th April, 1804, contains some interesting facts, relative to the depth of the lower Mississippi, and other characteristics of this river, which were obtained by the writer from actual observation.

"In Nov. 1800, when there was scarcely any perceptible current, in company with Mr. Benj. Morgan and Capt. Roger Crane, I set off from just above the upper gate of this city and sounded the river, at every three or four boats' length, until we landed opposite to M. Bernody's house on the right bank of the river. The depth of water increased pretty regularly; viz. 10, 12, 13, 15, 17, 19, and 20 fathoms. The greatest depth was found at about 120 yards from Bernody's sh.o.r.e. This operation was accurately performed; and as the river rises about twelve feet on an average at this place, the depth at high water will be twenty two fathoms. A M. Dervenge, whose father was chief pilot in the time of the French, informed me that his father often told him that a little way below the English Turn there was fifty fathoms of water; and M. Laveau Trudo said that about the upper Plaquemine, there was sixty fathoms, or three hundred and sixty feet.

In the year 1791, during five days that I lay at the Balize, I learned from M. Demaron Trudo, who was then commandant of that place, that there was about three feet difference between the high and low waters. From the best information I have been able to collect, there is a declension of eight or nine feet from the natural banks of the river at this city, to the banks upon which is the site of the house where the Spanish commandant lived before they removed up to Plaquemine, at the distance of about three leagues from the sea. There is a gradual slope or descent of the whole southern region of the Mississippi river, from the river Yazoo, in lat. 32 30' N. to the ocean or Gulf of Mexico. The elevation of the bluff at Natchez is about 200 feet; at St. Francisville, seventy miles lower, it is a little more than 100 feet; at Baton Rouge, about thirty miles lower, it is less than 40 feet, at New Orleans, according to the above statement eight feet, and at the Balize less than two feet.

This vast glacis, at a similar angle of inclination, extends for some leagues into the Gulf of Mexico, till lost in the natural bed of the ocean.

The river, whose current is said to be the most rapid at the period when it is about to overflow its banks, runs in its swiftest vein or portion about five miles an hour. I allude to the line of upper current, and not to the ma.s.s, which moves much slower than the surface. The average velocity of the river when not in flood is not above two miles an hour.

This is easily ascertained, by the progression and regular motion of its swells, and not by its apparent motion.

In November, 1800, as before observed, the motion of the stream was so sluggish as to be scarcely perceptible. A vessel that then lay opposite the Government House, advanced against it with a light breeze. I was told by a respectable lady, Mdme. Robin, who lives about six leagues below the city, that the water of the river was so brackish that she was obliged to drink other water, and that there were an abundance of porpoises, sharks, mullet, and other sea-fish, even above her plantation, nearly one hundred miles from the Gulf. The citizens thought the water brackish opposite the town. It looked quite green like sea-water, and when held to the light was quite clear. Although I did not think it brackish, I found it vapid and disagreeable. This is a phenomenon of rare occurrence, and not satisfactorily accounted for."

x.x.xVI.

Geography of Mississippi--Ridges and bottoms--The Mississippi at its efflux--Pine and table lands--General features of the state--Bayous--Back-water of rivers--Springs--St. Catharine's harp--Bankston springs--Mineral waters of this state-- Petrifactions--Quartz crystals--"Thunderbolts"--Rivers--The Yazoo and Pearl.

Though not much given to theorising, I have been drawn into some undigested remarks in my last letter, upon a theory, which is beginning to command the attention of scientific men, to which the result of geological researches daily adds weight, and to which time, with correct observations and farther discoveries, must add the truth of demonstration.

This letter I will devote to a subject, naturally arising from the preceding, perhaps not entirely without interest--I mean the physical geography and geology of this state. In the limits of a letter it is impossible to treat this subject as the nature of it demands, yet I will endeavour to go so far into its detail, as to give you a tolerable idea of the general features of the region.

Besides the cliffs, or great head-lands, alluded to in my last letter, frowning, at long intervals, over the Mississippi, serrated ridges, formed of continuous hills projecting from these points, extend in various directions over the state. These again branch into lower ridges, which often terminate near the river, between the great bluffs, leaving a flat s.p.a.ce from their base to the water, from a third of a mile to a league in breadth. These flats, or "bottoms," as they are termed in western phraseology, are inundated at the periodical floods, increasing, at those places, the breadth of the river to the dimensions of a lake.

The forest-covered savana, nearly forty miles across, through which the Mississippi flows, and which is bordered by the mural high lands or cliffs alluded to in my last letter, is also overflowed at such seasons; so that the river then becomes, in reality, the breadth of its valley.

The grandeur of such a spectacle as a river, forty miles in breadth, descending to the ocean between banks of lofty cliffs, too far distant to be within each other's horizon, challenges a parallel. But, as this vast plain is covered with a forest, the lower half of which only is inundated, the width of the river remains as usual to the eye of the spectator on the cliffs, who will have to call in the aid of his imagination to realize, that in the bosom of the vast forest outspread beneath him rolls a river, to which, in breadth, the n.o.ble stream before him is but a rivulet. The interior hills, or ridges, mentioned above, are usually covered with pine; which is found only on such eminences, and in no other section of the south or west, except an isolated wood in Missouri, for more than fifteen hundred miles. The surface of the whole state is thus diversified with hills, with the exception of an occasional interval on the borders of a stream, or a few leagues of prairie in the north part of the state, covered with thin forests of stunted oaks. These hills rise and fall in regular undulations, clothed with forests of inconceivable majesty, springing from a rich, black loam, peculiarly fitted to the production of cotton; though, according to a late writer on this plant, "it flourishes with equal luxuriance in the black alluvial soil of Alatamaha and in the glowing sands of St.