Voyage Down The Mississippi River

Taken From: Brief Accounts of Journeys in the Western Country

By: Quarterly Publication of the Historical and Philosophical Society Of Ohio

Mississippi River, April 1, 1812

Dear Aunt –

About the First of March last I received a letter from you, and omitted answering it until now, which was, not occasioned, or owing to negligence, but because I thought the intelligence I would have to give, if I wrote truly, would occasion you some little uneasiness, as at that time I was engaged in making preparations to make a voyage to New Orleans and am now so far on my way. Last winter I entered into a co-partnership with Joseph Hough, of Hamilton, [Ohio] with the intention of carrying on the business of merchandizing; we purchased a quantity of flour and whisk in the Miami Country and located two flat boats on the Miami river which we have brought out of that stream and are thus far on our voyage. When we go to New Orleans we shall sell our cargo, go round by sea to Philadelphia and purchase goods and return with them to Hamilton.

As you had no doubt heard very alarming accounts about the earthquake and other dangers of descending the Mississippi river, I suppose you would have looked upon me as going to certain destruction. Thank kind Providence, I think we have now passed those dangers, and if some untoward accident does not overtake us shall pass safely to New Orleans and if flour bears the price, which I understand it does, we shall make something very handsome. Our cargoes consist of seven hundred barrels of flour and some whisky and pork which we purchased in the Miami country on very reasonable terms, as the reports prevailing of the dangers to be encountered from the Indians and the Earthquakes had so much frightened the people that none would venture to encounter them. These stories I considered improbable, but have since found too much reality to exist in them, particularly those relating to the Earthquakes.

I shall give you some little account of what I saw and experienced although it must be a very cursory account, as I was only on shore at certain points, and then but a short distance from the river. The following is extracted from the Journal which I kept.

Soon after entering the Mississippi river we began to discover the effects of the Earthquake — the region of which we were now approaching. Above New Madrid [Missouri] on the west side of the river is a grove of Cotton wood and willow trees two or three miles long; these were all bent up stream and stripped of their leaves and branches in a singular manner. It is said that at the time of the violent shock the river at this place for some time ran up stream with great velocity, and from the appearance I have no doubt of the fact, as I know of nothing else that could have produced the appearance here exhibited — we were now experiencing considerable shocks every few hours.

We passed New Madrid [Missouri] in the afternoon, intending to land before night. Mr. Hough had command of one boat and myself of the other, we each steered our own boat and had only two other hands on each boat to row. Mr. Hough, who was rowing to shore to land on the west side of the river, discovering that the landing place would be a critical situation, by signs motioned me to keep out. I immediately turned my boat and rowed for the middle of the river again; I made every effort to land on the other shore but was unable; at dark I made a Willow-Island in the river and fastened to the willows, where we remained all night in a very exposed situation. The Island was all overflowed, but barely sufficient where we lay to float our boat which drew somewhat over three feet of water. The river was falling and myself and hands were obliged frequently during the night to jump overboard into the water, cold as it was, to push off the boat and prevent her getting fast aground. As soon as day dawned we put off from our dangerous harbor, in a dull rainy morning and at ten O'Clock landed at the Little Prairie about . . . miles below New Madrid. Here had been a small village of some twenty houses and a settlement extending back six or eight miles from the river, principally French & Spaniards. On landing we soon discovered that the place where we were moored had been part of the town, now the bed of the Mississippi river. A considerable portion, several acres, on which part of the town had stood, had sunk down with the buildings and the river flowed over the place. The place where we made fast our boat was a burying ground, part had sunk into the river, and coffins were exposed along the bank. The tenants had been Roman Catholics, as the cross was erected at the head of each grave. A large cross made of strong Cyprus wood placed, no doubt, at the grave of some pious Christian, was broken and prostrated to the earth. Although it rained considerably, after securing our boat I wrapped myself in my great coat and went on shore to see what discoveries I could make. Of about a dozen houses and cabins which I saw, not one was standing, all was either entirely prostrated or nearly overturned, and wrecked in a miserable manner; the surface of the ground cracked and fractured in every direction. At the back part of the village I found three Frenchmen who were sheltering themselves in a temporary booth of boards taken from some of the desolate houses. They informed me in broken English that the late beautiful village and settlement was now wholly destroyed. The inhabitants had fled with what property they could take with them. They, and only they, were left to tell the passing stranger of the melancholy fate of the place. I continued my excursion about two miles back from the river, although it was with considerable difficulty, and at every step witnessed some new phenomena of the desolating effects of the Earthquakes.

The surface of the ground was cracked in almost every direction and stood like yawning gulphs, so wide that I could scarcely leap over them, at other places I came to spaces of ground several poles in width, sunk down two or three feet below the common level of the ground. But what particularly attracted my attention were circular holes in the earth from five or six to thirty feet in diameter, the depth corresponding with the diameter so as to be about half as deep as wide, and surrounded with a circle of sand two or three feet deep, and a black substance like stone coal but lighter, probably carbonized wood, I took some pieces of this to the boat, and putting them on the fire I found they would burn, at the same time producing a strong and disagreeable sulphurous smell. These holes I presume must have been produced by a strong current of air issuing from the bowels of the earth, throwing up sand and water and this black substance which was perhaps wood, long imbeded in the earth prostrating the trees and everything else where they happened and producing the most horrible disorder. I observed in several instances where small explosions had occurred under large trees, that the trunk of the tree was split up ten or twelve feet and separated two or three feet wide at the ground and thus remained standing. The day was dark and gloomy with [little?] light; I heard and felt from time to time the rumbling noise of these explosions; all nature around me had the most melancholy appearance. A sudden dread came over me all at once and I returned to the boat. I lay at Little Prairie until the afternoon of the next day during which time we experienced eight or ten shocks, some of them so severe as to shake from their places loose articles in the boat. Each shock continued about two minutes and was preceded by a rumbling noise like distant thunder or the discharge of a cannon at a great distance. We experienced slight shocks at intervals for the distance of one hundred miles above and below Little Prairie. The shores of the river in this region presented a most melancholy spectacle, the banks cracked and fractured, trees broken off and fractured, and in many places acres of ground sunk down so that the tops of the trees just appeared above the surface of the water. All nature appeared in ruins, and seemed to mourn in solitude over her melancholy fate.

In the afternoon of the next day, Mr Hough, with the other boat, made his appearance. The place where he had to land was in the head of an out-let so far down that he was unable to put out and gain the channel of the river again from that place, but the next day with great labor and the aid of some friendly Indians, who came along, they towed the boat some twenty or thirty rods up stream, from whence they were able to regain the channel. I am now lying at shore on the bank of the Mississippi river, I suppose about one hundred miles above Natchez. Yesterday a violent storm compelled us to land here, it continued all night so violent as to require us to be up to prevent the waves from dashing our boats on shore. The high wind still continues today and the river so rough that we cannot pursue our voyage. I therefore devote the day to writing you this letter intending to put it in the Post-Office when I arrive at Natchez. You may suppose that I am not in a very comfortable situation for writing, nor do I feel in a mood for writing after the fatigue I have undergone. I have brought a boat loaded with 350 barrels of flour from the Miami to this place with only two hands; labor, watching and anxiety have at times reduced me to almost exhaustion. Dear Aunt, your affectionate Nephew

James McBride

[Miss Mary Roberts

Green Castle, PA]

Recollections Of The Last Ten Years Passed in Occasional Residences and Journeys In The Valley Of The Mississippi From Pittsburg And The Missouri To The Gulf Of Mexico And From Florida To The Spanish Frontier In A Series Of Letters To The Rev. James Flint, Of Salem, Massachusetts

By: Timothy Flint

Principal Of The Seminary Of Rapids, Louisiana © 1826

Letter XX Jackson

The county of New Madrid is the southern limit of the state of Missouri, which here bounds upon the territory of Arkansas. I expected to have found this little village a most abandoned and disagreeable place, and it was my object to have made my way with my family by land to St. Charles. But we were still feeble from sickness. We arrived about the middle of December, 1819. The winter was commencing with severity, and the Mississippi was so low, that the boat which brought my family from Arkansas,— although it drew only thirty inches of water, — was continually striking on the shoal sand-bars. And to add to the difficulty, the ice was beginning to run in the Mississippi, so as to preclude any possibility of going up safely. We concluded to spend the winter at New Madrid, and we were delighted to find a few amiable and well-informed families, with whom we passed a few months very pleasantly, in the interchange of kind and affectionate offices. A congregation attended divine service on the Sabbath with perseverance and attention. A venerable lady of the name of Gray, who was as well-informed as she was devout, a part of whose house my family occupied, assisted me in my labours, and formed herself a Sabbath school, which she has continued some years with uninterrupted success. The winter passed pleasantly. The region is interesting in many points of view. It is a fine tract of country, principally alluvial, very rich and pleasant, and chiefly timbered land. In this respect, the country south of the Missouri, and west of the Mississippi, differs essentially from the country north of the Missouri. From the Mississippi, for two hundred miles west it is almost entirely woodland. A few small alluvial prairies make the only exceptions. There is much land covered with shrubs and very poor, which differs much from prairie land. And then, beyond that, there are vast tracts of country covered with flint- knobs. With the exception of what is called the Great Prairie, near New Madrid, the country, for many miles on all sides, is covered with heavy timber of all the descriptions common to that country; and in addition there is the yellow poplar, — tulipifera liriodendron, — one of the grandest and loftiest trees of the forest.

You first begin to discern in new species of trees, – in new classes of licuies, or creeping vines in the bottoms, and in a few classes of most beautiful shrubs, approaches to a new and more southern climate. This region also is interesting from the singularly romantic project of colonizing a great town and country under the Spanish regime. In listening to the details of this singular attempt, under a certain General Morgan, of New Jersey, I have heard particulars alternately ludicrous and terrible, exciting laughter and shuddering, which if they were narrated without any colouring, would emulate the stories of romance. A hundred and a hundred scenes have been exhibited in these regions, which are now incapable of being rescued from oblivion, which possessed, to me at least, a harrowing degree of interest, in the disappointments and sufferings of these original adventurers, enticed away by coloured descriptions, which represented these countries as terrestrial paradises. Many of the families were respectable, and had been reared in all the tenderness of opulence and plenty. There were highly cultivated and distinguished French families, – and here, among the bears and Indians, and in a sickly climate, and in a boundless forest, surrounded by a swamp, dotted with a hundred dead lakes, and of four hundred miles extent, they found the difference between an Arcadian residence in the descriptions of romance, and actual existence in the wild woods. There were a few aged chroniclers of these days still surviving, when I was there, particularly two French families, from whom I obtained many of these details. The settlement had almost expired, had been resuscitated, and had again exhibited symptoms of languishment, a number of times.

But up to the melancholy period of the earthquakes, it had advanced with the slow but certain progress of everything that feels the influence of American laws and habits. By these terrible phenomena, the settlement again received a shock which portended at first entire desertion, but from which, as the earthquakes have lessened in frequency and violence, it is again slowly recovering. From all the accounts, corrected one by another, and compared with the very imperfect narratives which were published, I infer that the shock of these earthquakes in the immediate vicinity of the center of their force, must have equalled in their terrible heavings of the earth, any thing of the kind that has been recorded. I do not believe that the public have ever yet had any adequate idea of the violence of the concussions. We are accustomed to measure this by the buildings overturned, and the mortality that results. Here the country was thinly settled. The houses, fortunately, were frail and of logs, the most difficult to overturn that could be constructed. Yet, as it was, whole tracts were plunged into the bed of the river. The grave-yard at New Madrid, with all its sleeping tenants, was precipitated into the bend of the stream. Most of the houses were thrown down. Large lakes of twenty miles in extent were made in an hour. Other lakes were drained. The whole country, to the mouth of the Ohio in one direction, and to the St. Francis in the other, including a front of three hundred miles, was convulsed to such a degree as to create lakes and islands, the number of which is not yet known, — to cover a tract of many miles in extent, near the Little Prairie, with water three or four feet deep; and when the water disappeared, a stratum of sand of the same thickness was left in its place. The trees split in the midst, lashed one with another, and are still visible over great tracts of country, inclining in every direction and in every angle to the earth and the horizon. They described the undulation of the earth as resembling waves, increasing in elevation as they advanced, and when they had attained a certain fearful height, the earth would burst, and vast volumes of water, and sand, and pit-coal were discharged, as high as the tops of the trees. I have seen a hundred of these chasms, which remained fearfully deep, although in a very tender alluvial soil, and after a lapse of seven years. Whole districts were covered with white sand, so as to become uninhabitable. The water at first covered the whole country, particularly at the Little Prairie; and it must have been, indeed, a scene of horror, in these deep forests and in the gloom of the darkest night, and by wading in the water to the middle, to fly from these concussions, which were occurring every few hours, with a noise equally terrible to the beasts and birds, as to men. The birds themselves lost all power and disposition to fly, and retreated to the bosoms of men, their fellow sufferers in this general convulsion. A few persons sunk in these chasms, and were providentially extricated. One person died of affright. One perished miserably on an island, which retained its original level in the midst of a wide lake created by the earthquake. The hat and clothes of this man were found. A number perished, who sunk with their boats in the river. A bursting of the earth just below the village of New Madrid, arrested this mighty stream in its course, and caused a reflux of its waves, by which in a little time a great number of boats were swept by the ascending current into the mouth of the Bayou, carried out and left upon the dry earth, when the accumulating waters of the river had again cleared their current.

There was a great number of severe shocks, but two series of concussions were particularly terrible; far more so than the rest. And they remark that the shocks were clearly distinguishable into two classes; those in which the motion was horizontal, and those in which it was perpendicular. The latter were attended with the explosions, and the terrible mixture of noises, that preceded and accompanied the earthquakes, in a louder degree, but were by no means so desolating and destructive as the other. When they were felt, the houses crumbled, the trees waved together, the ground sunk, and all the destructive phenomena were more conspicuous. In the interval of the earthquakes there was one evening, and that a brilliant and cloudless one, in which the western sky was a continued glare of vivid flashes of lightning, and of repeated peals of subterranean thunder, seeming to proceed, as the flashes did, from below the horizon. They remark that the night, so conspicuous for subterranean thunder, was the same period in which the fatal earthquakes at Carraccas occurred, and they seem to suppose these flashes and that event parts of the same scene.

One result from these terrific phenomena was very obvious. The people of this village had been noted for their profligacy and impiety. In the midst of these scenes of terror, all, Catholics and Protestants, praying and profane, became of one religion, and partook of one feeling. Two hundred people, speaking English, French, and Spanish, crowded together, their visages pale, the mothers embracing their children, – as soon as the omen that preceded the earthquakes became visible, as soon as the air became a little obscured, as though a sudden mist arose from the east, – all, in their different languages and forms, but all deeply in earnest, betook themselves to the voice of prayer. The cattle, as much terrified as the rational creation, crowded about the assemblage of men, and seemed to demand protection, or community of danger. One lady ran as far as her strength would permit, and then fell exhausted and fainting, from which she never recovered. The general impulse, when the shocks commenced, was to run; and yet when they were at the severest point of their motion, the people were thrown on the ground at almost every step. A French gentleman told me that in escaping from his house, the largest in the village, he found he had left an infant behind, and he attempted to mount up the raised piazza to recover the child, and was thrown down a dozen times in succession. The venerable lady in whose house we lodged was extricated from the ruins of her house, having lost every thing that appertained to her establishment, which could be broken or destroyed. The people at the Little Prairie, who suffered most, had their settlement, — which consisted of a hundred families, and which was located in a wide and very deep and fertile bottom, — broken up. When I passed it, and stopped to contemplate the traces of the catastrophe which remained after seven years, the crevices where the earth had burst were sufficiently manifest, and the whole region was covered with sand to the depth of two or three feet. The surface was red with oxided pyrites of iron, and the sand-blows, as they were called, were abundantly mixed with this kind of earth, and with pieces of pit-coal. But two families remained of the whole settlement. The object seems to have been in the first paroxysms of alarm to escape to the hills at the distance of twenty-five miles. The depth of the water that covered the surface soon precluded escape.

The people without an exception were unlettered backwoodsmen, of the class least addicted to reasoning. And yet it is remarkable how ingeniously, and conclusively they reasoned from apprehension sharpened by fear. They remarked that the chasms in the earth were in direction from southwest to northeast, and they were of an extent to swallow up not only men, but houses, which slipped down quick into the pit." And these chasms occurred frequently within intervals of half a mile. They felled the tallest trees at right angles to the chasms, and stationed themselves upon the felled trees. By this invention all were saved. For the chasms occurred more than once under these felled trees. Meantime their cattle and their harvests, both here and at New Madrid, principally perished. The people no longer dared to dwell in houses. They passed this winter, and the succeeding one in bark booths and camps, like those of the Indians, of so light a texture as not to expose the inhabitants to danger in case of their being thrown down. Such numbers of laden boats were wrecked above, and the lading driven by the eddy into the mouth of the Bayou, at the village, which makes the harbour, that the people were ampiy supplied with every article of provision. Flour, beef, pork, bacon, butter, cheese, apples, in short, everything that is carried down the river, was in such abundance, as scarcely to be matters of sale. Many boats, that came safely into the Bayou, were disposed of by their affrighted owners for a trifle. For the shocks still continued every day; and the owners deeming the whole country below to be sunk, were glad to return to the upper country, as fast as possible. In effect, a great many islands were sunk, new ones raised, and the bed of the river wry much changed in every respect.

After the earthquake had moderated in violence, the country exhibited a melancholy aspect of chasms of sand covering the earth, of trees thrown down, or lying at an angle of forty-five degrees, or split in the middle. The earthquakes still recurred at short intervals, so that the people had no confidence to rebuild good houses, or chimnies of brick. The Little Prairie settlement was broken up. The Great Prairie settlement, one of the most flourishing before on the west bank of the Mississippi, was much diminished. New Madrid again dwindled to insignificance and decay; the people trembling in their miserable hovels at the distant and melancholy rumbling of the approaching shocks. The general government passed an act, allowing the inhabitants of this country to locate the same quantity of lands, that they possessed here, in any part of the territory, where the lands were not yet covered by any claim. These claims passed into the hands of speculators, and were never of any substantial benefit to the possessors. When I resided there, this district, formerly so level, rich, and beautiful, had the most melancholy of all aspects of decay, the tokens of former cultivation and habitancy, which were now mementos of desolation and desertion. Large and beautiful orchards, left uninclosed, houses uninhabited, deep chasms in the earth, obvious at frequent intervals, – such was the face of the country, although the people had for years become so accustomed to frequent and small shocks, which did no essential injury, that the lands were gradually rising again in value, and New Madrid was slowly rebuilding, with frail buildings, adapted to the apprehensions of the people.

From The Mouth Of The Ohio To Fort Pickering

Taken From: Original Contributions to the American Pioneer

The Mississippi, New Madrid, Jefferson – The great earthquake of 1811 – Graphic account of it by an eye–witness – Rapid movement – Southern birds – Fort Pickering

As the Nonpariel passed from the smooth waters of the Ohio into the turbulent current of the " father of rivers," the wind freshened, and spreading their broad sail to the breeze, the little vessel glided swiftly along over the boiling eddies of the Mississippi. The transit from the quiet Ohio to the hurried motion of the former river is always an interesting period in a voyage to New Orleans, and especially so to those who witness it for the first time. Such was now the situation of Charles Devoll and Graham, (the captain had navigated it two or three times before,) who viewed the contrast with wonder and admiration. Eight or ten hours' sail served to transport them to the cheerful looking little town of New Madrid, a distance of sixty miles. It stood on a high bank, in a broad bend of the river. Many of the houses were painted white, with wide verandas or piazzas; and coming as they did from a wilderness region, where no town had greeted their eyes since leaving the falls, the first view of this smiling village was animating and delightful. The inhabitants were a mixed people of French, Spanish and American. Under the Spanish government it had been a town of considerable importance, and the residence of a military commandant. It was the site of a small fort, and required all boats descending the river to stop and pay a duty on their load; but now being in the hands of the Americans, this custom, so annoying to the republicans of the valley of the Ohio, had ceased. When the duty was paid the boat or vessel received a clearance or license, by which they might sell their load at any of the ports or towns on the Mississippi. Of these exactions loud complaints were made by the western boatmen, and no doubt were greatly influential in hastening the purchase of Louisiana by the United States. At one time the people had serious thoughts of taking the country by force of arms and driving out these hard hearted exacters. A much wiser course was however taken by the cautious Jefferson; by which he not only secured the quiet possession of the country, but also the payment of several millions of dollars of debts due to his countrymen.

The practice of collecting custom from the boats and vessels of strangers, who sail on the waters within the territory of another tribe or nation, is of ancient usage, and still in fashion amongst the petty sovereigns along the borders of the Rhine, and other large rivers of Europe. New Madrid was founded by colonel George Morgan, of Pennsylvania, with the permission of the Spanish government, soon after the war of independence. The site was considered to be a very judicious one for a town, and at the time of this voyage contained a population of three or four hundred inhabitants, amongst which were a number of genteel families, noted for their hospitality.

A few years after this, New Madrid was overwhelmed by the most violent earthquake that ever was known in the United States, and the town in a manner depopulated. The reason why so few of the inhabitants were destroyed, was owing to the materials of their dwellings being of wood, instead of brick or stone. At Caraccas, where an earthquake took place near the same time, thousands of the people were crushed beneath the ruins of their stone houses; although it is not probable the concussions were more violent than they were on the Mississippi. A brief description of that event may not be uninteresting to readers of the present day. The centre of its violence was thought to be near the Little Prairie, twenty -five or thirty miles below New Madrid; the vibrations from which were felt all over the valley of the Ohio, as high up as Pittsburgh. The first shock was felt in the night of the 16th of December, 1811, and was repeated at intervals, with decreasing violence, into February following. New Madrid, having suffered more than any other town on the Mississippi from its effects, was considered as situated near the focus from whence the undulations proceeded.

From an eye-witness, who was then about forty miles below that town, in a flat boat, on his way to New Orleans with a load of produce, and who narrated the scene to me, the agitation which convulsed the earth and the waters of the mighty Mississippi filled every living creature with horror. The first shock took place in the night, while the boat was lying at the shore in company with several others. At this period there was danger apprehended from the southern Indians, it being soon after the battle of Tippecanoe, and for safety several boats kept in company, for mutual defense in case of an attack. In the middle of the night there was a terrible shock and jarring of the boats, so that the crews were all awakened and hurried on deck with their weapons of defense in their hands, thinking the Indians were rushing on board. The ducks, geese, swans, and various other aquatic birds, whose numberless flocks were quietly resting in the eddies of the river, were thrown into the greatest tumult, and with loud screams expressed their alarm in accents of terror. The noise and commotion soon became hushed, and nothing could be discovered to excite apprehension, so that the boatmen concluded that the shock was occasioned by the falling in of a large mass of the bank of the river near them. As soon as it was light enough to distinguish objects, the crews were all up making ready to depart. Directly a loud roaring and hissing was heard, like the escape of steam from a boiler, accompanied by the most violent agitation of the shores and tremendous boiling up of the waters of the Mississippi in huge swells, rolling the waters below back on the descending stream, and tossing the boats about so violently that the men with difficulty could keep on their feet. The sandbars and points of the islands gave way, swallowed up in the tumultuous bosom of the river; carrying down with them the cottonwood trees, cracking and crashing, tossing their arms to and fro, as if sensible of their danger, while they disappeared beneath the flood. The water of the river, which the day before was tolerably clear, being rather low, changed to a reddish hue, and became thick with mud thrown up from its bottom; while the surface, lashed violently by the agitation of the earth beneath, was covered with foam, which, gathering into masses the size of a barrel, floated along on the trembling surface. The earth on the shores opened in wide fissures, and closing again, threw the water, sand and mud, in huge jets, higher than the tops of the trees. The atmosphere was filled with a thick vapor or gas, to which the light imparted a purple tinge, altogether different in appearance from the autumnal haze of Indian summer, or that of smoke. From the temporary check to the current, by the heaving up of the bottom, the sinking of the banks and sandbars into the bed of the stream, the river rose in a few minutes five or six feet; and, impatient of the restraint, again rushed forward with redoubled impetuosity, hurrying along the boats, now set loose by the horror-struck boatmen, as in less danger on the water than at the shore, where the banks threatened every moment to destroy them by the falling earth, or carry them down in the vortices of the sinking masses. Many boats were overwhelmed in this manner, and their crews perished with them. It required the utmost exertions of the men to keep the boat, of which my informant was the owner, in the middle of the river, as far from the shores, sandbars and islands, as they could. Numerous boats were wrecked on the snags and old trees thrown up from the bottom of the Mississippi, where they had quietly rested for ages, while others were sunk or stranded on the sandbars and islands. At New Madrid several boats were carried by the reflux of the current into a small stream that puts into the river just above the town, and left on the ground by the returning water a considerable distance from the Mississippi. A man who belonged to one of the company boats was left for several hours on the upright trunk of an old snag in the middle of the river, against which his boat was wrecked and sunk. It stood with the roots a few feet above the water, and to these he contrived to attach himself, while every fresh shock threw the agitated waves against him, and kept gradually settling the tree deeper into the mud at the bottom, bringing him nearer and nearer to the deep muddy waters, which, to his terrified imagination, seemed desirous of swallowing him up. While hanging here, calling with piteous shouts for aid, several boats passed by without being able to relieve him, until finally a skiff was well manned, rowed a short distance above him, and dropped down stream close to the snag, from which he tumbled into the boat as she floated by. The scenes which occurred for several days, during the repeated shocks, were horrible. The most destructive took place in the beginning, although they were repeated for many weeks, becoming lighter and lighter until they died away in slight vibrations, like the jarring of steam in an immense boiler. The sulphurated gases that were discharged during the shocks tainted the air with their noxious effluvia, and so strongly impregnated the water of the river, to the distance of one hundred and fifty miles below, that it could hardly be used for any purpose for a number of days. New Madrid, which stood on a bluff bank, fifteen or twenty feet above the summer floods, sunk so low that the next rise covered it to the depth of five feet. The bottoms of several fine lakes in the vicinity were elevated so as to become dry land, and have since been planted with corn!

Returning from this digression, we will resume the narrative of the voyage of the Nonpariel. After lying by a few hours, selling some articles of the load, and taking a view of the town, they put off into the current, making a much more rapid progress than while on the Ohio. The whole way from this place to the lower Chickasaw bluffs, or Fort Pickering, a distance of one hundred and forty miles, was a wilderness, occupied by the tribe of Indians whose name is given to the bluffs. These bluffs are ridges of high land, which rising in the interior of the country on the left bank, terminate abruptly on the river. At some remote period, there was probably a time when these ridges were continued across the space now occupied by the alluvions of the Mississippi. They are seated in the easterly bends of the river, with widely extended bottoms on the westerly shore, and are four in number. The state of Tennessee includes them within her boundaries.

As they sailed gaily along, the attention of Charles and Graham was constantly arrested by the noisy chattering of the paroquets. Their gay plumage and lively motions, as they hopped from branch to branch amongst the deep green foliage of the trees, several of which were in flower, afforded a constant theme for remark; while the more staid habits and quiet movements of the pelicans, swans and sand hill cranes added another charm to the picturesque scenery. The latter bird, so named from their attachment to sandbars and heads of islands, where they wade in the water and search for worms, snails and small shells, their favorite food, existed in thousands, and covered the heads of the islands with their numbers. At these they could not refrain from firing an occasional shot; although they appeared to be but little disturbed by the report of the rifle, merely raising their heads for a moment and returning again to dabbling in the sand. The swan is a majestic, beautiful bird, and celebrated from the earliest antiquity for its graceful form and movements on the water. The pelican is more plebeian in his manners and shape. Furnished with a long broad bill, the upper mandible of which terminates in a hook, he is enabled to carry on his occupation of fishing with success. Beneath the lower mandible, and extending to the breast, there is a membraneous sack, or bag, that will hold from a quart to half a gallon, in which he deposits the proceeds of his labor, after satisfying his own appetite, for the use of his family.

Occupied with such a variety of objects the time passed rapidly away, and the vessel reached Fort Pickering in forty-eight hours.

Fort Pickering was built by colonel Strong a few years before. It stood on elevated and commanding ground, and was quite an important station. The garrison consisted of one hundred men. The captain was acquainted with several of the officers, and they spent a few hours very sociably at the garrison. They did not sell many articles of their load, as they thought a better price might be obtained below. The spot where Fort Pickering was erected is now occupied by the town of Girard; while Memphis stands three miles above on the elevation of the lower Chickasaw bluff, and is quite a brisk town that has sprung up within a few years. In 1805 very few whites had ventured to settle along the shores of the Mississippi from New Madrid to the " Walnut hills," a distance of nearly five hundred miles, but the whole region was in the possession of the Indians. A considerable portion of this space, bordering the left bank of the river, remains to this day unsettled, being covered with water at every flood to the depth often or fifteen feet, and flowing back from twenty to thirty miles from the river.