rural districts. On the river above the city were the plantations of the
so-called Upper Coast, inhabited mostly by slaves whose Creole masters
lived in town; then, as one journeyed upstream appeared the first and
second German Coasts, where dwelt the descendants of those Germans who
had been brought to the province by John Law's Mississippi Bubble, an
industrious folk making their livelihood as purveyors to the city. Every
Friday night they loaded their small craft with produce and held market
next day on the river front at New Orleans, adding another touch to the
picturesque groups which frequented the levees. Above the German Coasts
were the first and second Acadian Coasts, populated by the numerous
progeny of those unhappy refugees who were expelled from Nova Scotia in
1755. Acadian settlements were scattered also along the backwaters west
of the great river: Bayou Lafourche was lined with farms which were
already producing cotton; near Bayou Teche and Bayou Vermilion--the
Attakapas country--were cattle ranges; and to the north was the richer
grazing country known as Opelousas.

Passing beyond the Iberville River, which was indeed no river at all but
only an overflow of the Mississippi, the traveler up-stream saw on
his right hand "the government of Baton Rouge" with its scattered
settlements and mixed population of French, Spanish, and
Anglo-Americans; and still farther on, the Spanish parish of West
Feliciana, accounted a part of West Florida and described by President
Jefferson as the garden of the cotton-growing region. Beyond this point
the President's description of Louisiana became less confident, as
reliable sources of information failed him. His credulity, however, led
him to make one amazing statement, which provoked the ridicule of his
political opponents, always ready to pounce upon the slips of this
philosopher-president. "One extraordinary fact relative to salt must
not be omitted," he wrote in all seriousness. "There exists, about one
thousand miles up the Missouri, and not far from that river, a salt
mountain! The existence of such a mountain might well be questioned,
were it not for the testimony of several respectable and enterprising
traders who have visited it, and who have exhibited several bushels of
the salt to the curiosity of the people of St. Louis, where some of it
still remains. A specimen of the salt has been sent to Marietta. This
mountain is said to be 180 miles long and 45 in width, c