s Effect upon
Titles to Real Estate.--A Story of Napoleon.--A Steamboat Thirty-five
Years under Water.--The Current and its Variations.--Navigating Cotton
and Corn Fields.--Reminiscences of the Islands.

As railways are to the East, so are the rivers to the West. The
Mississippi, with its tributaries, drains an immense region, traversed
in all directions by steamboats. From the Gulf of Mexico one can
travel, by water to the Rocky Mountains, or to the Alleghanies, at
pleasure. It is estimated there are twenty thousand miles of navigable
streams which find an outlet past the city of New Orleans. The
Mississippi Valley contains nearly a million and a quarter square
miles, and is one of the most fertile regions on the globe.

To a person born and reared in the East, the Mississippi presents many
striking features. Above its junction with the Missouri, its water
is clear and its banks are broken and picturesque. After it joins the
Missouri the scene changes. The latter stream is of a chocolate hue,
and its current is very rapid. All its characteristics are imparted
to the combined stream. The Mississippi becomes a rapid, tortuous,
seething torrent. It loses its blue, transparent water, and takes the
complexion of the Missouri. Thus "it goes unvexed to the sea."

There is a story concerning the origin of the name given to the source
of the Mississippi, which I do not remember to have seen in print.
A certain lake, which had long been considered the head of the Great
River, was ascertained by an exploring party to have no claim to that
honor. A new and smaller lake was discovered, in which the Mississippi
took its rise. The explorers wished to give it an appropriate name. An
old _voyageur_ suggested that they make a name, by coining a word.

"Will some of you learned ones tell me," said he, "what is the Latin
word for _true_?"

"_Veritas_," was the response.

"Well, now, what is the Latin for _head_"

"_Caput_, of course."

"Now," suggested the _voyageur_, "write the two words together, by
syllables."

A strip of birch bark was the tablet on which "_ver-i-tas-ca-put_" was
traced.

"Read it out," was his next request.

The five syllables were read.

"Now, drop the first and last syllables, and you have a name for this
lake."

In the Indian vernacular, "Mississippi" is said to signify "Great
Water." "Missouri," according to some authorities, is the Indian for
"Mud River," a most felicitous appellation. It sho