ed the Balize, by far the most miserable station that I ever
saw made the dwelling of man, but I was told that many families
of pilots and fishermen lived there.

For several miles above its mouth, the Mississippi presents no
objects more interesting than mud banks, monstrous bulrushes, and
now and then a huge crocodile luxuriating in the slime. Another
circumstance that gives to this dreary scene an aspect of
desolation, is the incessant appearance of vast quantities of
drift wood, which is ever finding its way to the different mouths
of the Mississippi. Trees of enormous length, sometimes still
bearing their branches, and still oftener their uptorn roots
entire, the victims of the frequent hurricane, come floating down
the stream. Sometimes several of these, entangled together,
collect among their boughs a quantity of floating rubbish, that
gives the mass the appearance of a moving island, bearing a
forest, with its roots mocking the heavens; while the dishonoured
branches lash the tide in idle vengeance: this, as it approaches
the vessel, and glides swiftly past, looks like the fragment of a
world in ruins.

As we advanced, however, we were cheered, notwithstanding the
season, by the bright tints of southern vegetation. The banks
continue invariably flat, but a succession of planless villas,
sometimes merely a residence, and sometimes surrounded by their
sugar grounds and negro huts, varied the scene. At no one point
was there an inch of what painters call a second distance; and
for the length of one hundred and twenty miles, from the Balize
to New Orleans, and one hundred miles above the town, the land is
defended from the encroachments of the river by a high embankment
which is called the Levee; without which the dwellings would
speedily disappear, as the river is evidently higher than the
banks would be without it. When we arrived, there had been
constant rains, and of long continuance, and this appearance was,
therefore, unusually striking, giving to "this great natural
feature" the most unnatural appearance imaginable; and making
evident, not only that man had been busy there, but that even the
mightiest works of nature might be made to bear his impress; it
recalled, literally, Swift's mock heroic,

"Nature must give way to art;"

yet, she was looking so mighty, and so unsubdued all the time,
that I could not help fancying she would some day take the matter
into her own hands again, and if so, farew