r and more spacious.

The Indians of this town have large and handsome canoes, which they form
out of the trunks of cypress-trees: some of them are sufficiently
commodious to accommodate twenty or thirty persons. In these canoes they
descend the river, on trading and hunting excursions, as far as the
sea-coast, to the neighbouring islands and shores; and they sometimes
even cross the Gulf of Florida to the West India Islands.

In this neighbourhood are seen many singular and unaccountable cavities.
These are funnel-shaped; and some of them are from twenty to forty yards
across at the rim. Their perpendicular depth is, in many instances,
upwards of twenty feet.

At this time, nearly the whole of East Florida, and a great portion of
West Florida, were in the possession of Indians; and these chiefly a
tribe called _Siminoles_, an apparently contented and happy race of
people, who enjoyed, in superabundance, the necessaries and the
conveniences of life. With the skins of deer, bears, tigers, and wolves,
together with honey, wax, and other productions of their country, this
people purchased, from Europeans, clothing, equipage, and domestic
utensils. They seemed to be free from want or desires: they had no enemy
to dread; and, apparently, nothing to occasion disquietude, except the
gradual encroachments of the white people.

Mr. Bartram returned to the trading-store, on the bank of the river St.
John; and, about the end of September, he reached the place from which
he had commenced his voyage.

* * * * *

We must now proceed, across the southern states, to the mouth of the
Mississippi, for the purpose of tracing the course of that astonishing
river, and describing the most important places in its vicinity.

Fourteen Day's Instruction.

UNITED STATES CONTINUED.

_The River Mississippi._

The Mississippi has its source in about forty-six degrees thirty minutes
of north latitude; and terminates in the Gulf of Mexico, at some
distance below the town of New Orleans. Its length, in a direct line,
exceeds one thousand seven hundred miles; and it falls into the sea, by
many mouths, most of which, like those of the Nile, are too shallow to
be navigable. For a considerable distance, its banks are low, marshy,
and covered with reeds; and are annually overflowed, from the melting
of the snows in the interior of the country. The inundation usually
commences in March, and continues about t