ged rocky bottom, presents the
appearance of a rapid. Below this the country is of various
aspects--hills, bottom-land, and high rocky bluffs; and towards the mouth,
cotton-wood trees, (_populus angulata_), and cane brakes, are interspersed
along the banks. The junction of these two noble rivers, the Ohio and
Mississippi, is really a splendid sight--the scenery is picturesque, and
the water at the point of union is fully two miles broad.

The Mississippi[10] is in length, from its head waters to the _balize_ in
the gulf of Mexico, about two thousand three hundred miles, and flows
through an immense variety of country. The section through which it
passes, before its junction with the Missouri, is represented as being
elegantly diversified with woodlands, prairies, and rich bottoms, and the
banks are lined with a luxuriant growth of plants and flowers. Before
reaching the Missouri, the water of the Mississippi is perfectly limpid;
but, from the mouth of that river it becomes turgid and muddy--flows
through a flat, inundated country, and seems more like an immense flood,
than an old and deep-channelled river. As far as great things can be
compared to small, it much resembles, within its banks, the Rhone when
flooded, as it sweeps through the department of Vaucluse, after its
junction with the Saone.

From St. Louis to New Orleans, a distance of twelve hundred miles, there
are but six elevated points--the four Chickesaw bluffs, the Iron banks,
and the Walnut hills. Numerous islands are interspersed through this
river; and from the mouth of the Ohio, tall cotton-wood trees and
cane-brakes grow in immense quantities along the banks; the latter, being
evergreens, have a pleasing effect in the winter season. The windings of
the Mississippi are, like those of the Ohio, constant, but not so
serpentine, and some of them are of immense magnitude. You traverse every
point of the compass in your passage up or down: for example, there is a
bend near _Bayou Placquamine_, the length of which by the water is upwards
of sixty miles, and from one point to the other across the distance is but
three.

The town of "Baton Rouge" is situated about 190 miles above New Orleans,
and contains a small garrison;--the esplanade runs down to the
water's-edge, and the whole has a pretty effect. Here the sugar
plantations commence, and the face of the country is again changed--you
find yourself in the regions of the south. For a distance of from
half-