BOOKS.

LYELL'S SECOND VISIT TO THE UNITED STATES.*

THE route of Sir Charles Lyell in his second journey to the United States extended from the frontiers of Maine to the Valley of the Missis- sippi. The older or New England States lying to the North of New York city were pretty well explored ; the author's scientific objects taking him to remote districts and out-of-the-way places, rarely visited by tourists or natives either. He next travelled to Washington, and then, on his way to New Orleans, passed through the Southern States —Virginia, the two Carolinas, Georgia, and Alabama ; closely examining the geology of the country, especially on the sea-coast and the rivers. The Father of Waters received a thorough exploration, from the junction of the Ohio to the pilot station of Balize, erected on piles at the extreme mouth of the river, where the Mississippi merges in the Gulf of Mexico. He also explored the country on its banks ; and finally ascended the Ohio to Cincinnati; whence he returned by Pittsburg to Philadelphia.

Notwithstanding the great merit of the author's previous Travels in America, we think the present superior. The narrative, it strikes us, is less interrupted by the introduction of geological topics, and the interest of the geology is greater. The country visited has more at- traction. The valley of the Mississippi and the primitive places in New England, though so opposite in character, are alike fresh and inte- resting. The Southern States are not altogether new to Sir Charles Lyell, as he visited them before ; but his explorations are more exten- sive, and we think more thorough on this occasion. He also travelled at the exciting time of the Oregon dispute, and when the Mexican war was impending. Another point that impresses itself on the reader is the rapid advances that America is yearly making in material prosperity. Brief as was the lapse of time between the two visits, Sir Charles con- tinually observed remarkable changes ; though perhaps not more in any one place titan may be observed in some outskirts of London, when prosperity and a full money-market has stimulated building speculations. Possibly there is this substantial difference, that the American improve- ments are the result of a more efficient demand, and pay better. It is less as a book of travels that the Visit is to be regarded than as an account of remarkable scenery and natural phmnomena, and a picture of manners and society. In both these points of view Sir Charles Lyell possessed great advantages. He looks at Nature with learned as well as pictorial eyes. He not only sees her wonders and her beauties, but he knows their sources and consequences ; so that he informs as well as pleases the mind ; and we think this is done more agreeably than on his first journey. His reputation and his objects naturally took him into the best and best-informed society ; and he is thus able to derive his social data from persons to whom the mass of tourists can gain no access. He is besides too old a traveller, and too accustomed to rough it in geological researches, to be put out by mere manners where no offence is meant; so that he is a tolerant if not a favourable judge of American manners and character—can see " Othello's visage in his mind." Sir Charles, how- ever, is rather an optimist in Transatlantic affairs; and though his repre- sentation of particular facts and his correction of European prejudices are evidently true, his general conclusions should perhaps be taken with some allowance.

Passing so rapidly as our author did from one extremity of the Union to the other—from the primitive, grave, old-fashioned piety and respect- ability of New England, to some of the new Slave-bolding States, where adventurers of all nations, with Negroes of the worst kind and subjected to the worst treatment, meet together, his narrative impresses more dis- tinctly than anything we have yet seen the wide differences, or rather the striking contrasts, that prevail in the mighty empire of the United States. These differences too are suggestive of curious speculations as to the future condition of the republic. As long, indeed, as there is unoccupied territory to fill up, subsistence being rendered easy for all, and an outlet afforded for the restless and enterprising, it would seem that the different States may jog on without collision until the clash of hostile interests, such as would arise from a war, cause an angry division But opinions or principles are often stronger than interest : " the lurking principle of death " appears to have been infused into the United States at the very moment of their formation, when, promulgating the dogma of the equality of man, with all its democratic consequences, the authors of the Declaration of Independence left the Negro enslaved. The danger to be dreaded from this question is not merely the fanatical zeal of Abolitionists, met by a fanatical pride on the part of the slave- holders, no less removed from true policy and wisdom. Two substantial evils are infused into the very constitution of society. From the slovenly nature of slave-cultivation, the soil soon becomes exhausted, or rather the exhaustion is not counterbalanced by artificial means. In part from this cause, and in part from the sandy, swampy, or barren nature of much soil in the South, extensive emigration is con- tinually going on. Hence the necessity for new territory; and hence, too, slave-breeding in those older States whose soils are exhausted, and whose proprietors do not choose to emigrate. The annexation of Texas, and the territorial war with Mexico, had, we conceive, first and funda- mentally this object—more land was wanted, and must be had. Connected with this economical necessity, is a political reason, perhaps more ob- vious than the economical stimulus, and therefore more dwelt upon —the desire of Slave States to counterbalance the power of the Abolitionists of the North. To that political object, Mr. Jay, in his Review of the Mexican War, traces all the conduct in connexion with Texas and Mexico systematically pursued for years past. This effort of the South has produced conduct on the part of the North not much more defensible. Oregon was looked to as a means of counterbalancing Texas ; but the * A Second Visit to the United States of North America. By Sir Charles Lyell, F.E.S., President of the Geological Society of London ; Author of "The Principles of Geology," and " Travels in North America." In two volumes. Pnbilebea by Murray.

bolder Democrats took the game out of their opponents' hands, and the Union had nearly been involved in a war for a purpose really originating with slavery. In like manner, it is said that the pious Northerns are violating the tenth commandment and looking to Canada as a counterpoise to California and New Mexico. But if they had it, the South would eventually overbalance them ; for it is not in experience or the nature of

things that the Rio Grande shall for long (long in the life of a nation) con- tinue the Southern boundary of the States. Hence has arisen, oppo-

sition of principles, of interests, and what is more than all, of character ; and they will inevitably clash in time, without the artificial precipitation that an external shock would produce. Even as it is, there seems in America a set of restless " bad subjects," the " cankers of a calm world and a long peace," to whom the chances and changes of the frontiers are not excitement enough ; though the outlet furnished by the wild borders of the South and West prevents them from greatly troubling the peace of

settled society. And here is another necessity for land : shut these men up in a country where equality is a cardinal point of opinion, and

America would have in her bosom a party as mischievous as the Red Republicans of Paris. To realize, from Sir Charles Lyell, or any single author, the points we have touched upon, would not be easy ; but a few extracts will indicate the contrasts spoken of. The following primitive sketch is taken from Maine, within a little distance of the British border.

" One evening, as we were drawing near to a straggling village in the twilight, we were recommended by a traveller whom we had met on the road to take up our quarters at a Temperance hotel, where, he said, 'there would be no loafers lounging and drinking drams in the bar-room.' We looked out for the sign, and BOOR saw it, surmounted by a martin-house of four stories, each diminishing in

size from the bottom to the top, but all the apartments now empty, the birds having taken flight, warned by the late frost. We had, indeed, been struck with the dearth of the feathered tribe in Maine at this season, the greater number of birds being migratory. As soon as our carriage stopped at the door, we were ushered by the host and his wife into a small parlour; where we found a blazing wood fire. It was their private sitting-room at times, when they had no guests; and on the table were books on a variety of subjects, but most of them of a re- ligious or serious character,—as Bishop Watson's Apology in reply to Tom Paine. We saw also a treatise on Phrenology, styled The only True Philosophy,' and

Shakspeare, and the poems of Cowper and Walter Scott. In each window were placed two chairs, not ready to be occupied, as they would be in most countries, but placed face to face, or with their fronts touching each other, the usual fashion in New England. •• • • • " We happened to be the only strangers in the tavern; and, when supper was brought in by the landlord and his wife, they sat down beside us, begged us to feel at home, pressed us to eat, and evidently considered us more in the light of guests whom they must entertain hospitably, than as customers. Our hostess in particular, who bad a number of young children and no nurse to help her, was

willing to put herself to some inconvenience rather than run the risk of our feel- ing lonely. Their manners were pleasing ; and when they learnt that we were from England, they asked many questions about the Free Kirk movement in Scot- land, and how far the system of national education there differed from that in Prussia, on which the landlord had been reading an article in a magazine. They were greatly amused when I told them that some of the patriots of their State

had betrayed to me no slight sensitiveness and indignation about an expression imputed to Lord Palmerston in a recent debate on the Canadian border-feud, when he spoke of the wild people of Maine.'

"They were most curious to learn the names of the rocks and plants we had collected; and told us that at the free school they had been taught the elements

of geology and botany. They informed us that in these rural districts, many who teach in the winter months spend the money they receive for their salary in educating themselves in some college during the remainder of the year; so that

a clever youth may in this way rise from the humblest station to the bar or pulpit, or become a teacher in a large town. Farm labourers in the State, besides being boarded and found in clothes, receive ten dollars or two guineas a month wages, out of which they may save and 'go West,'—an expression everywhere equivalent to bettering one's condition. The prospect of Heaven itself,' says Cooper, in one of his novels, ' would have no charms for an American of the back-woods, it he thought there was auy place further West.' "I remarked that moat of the farmers and labourers had pale complexions and a careworn look. This was owing partly,' said the landlord, 'to the climate, for many were consumptive, and the changes from intense heat to great cold are excessive here; and partly to the ambitious, striving character of the natives, who are not content to avoid poverty, but expect, and not without reason, to end their days in a station far above that from which they start.' • * *

"Resuming our journey, we stopped at an inn where a great many mechanics boarded, taking three meals a day at the ordinary. They were well-dressed, but their coarse (though clean) hands announced their ordinary occupation. After dinner several of them went into the drawing-room, where some 'ladies' of their own class were playing on a pianoforte; other mechanics were reading news-

papers and books; but after a short stay they all returned to their work. On looking at the books they had laid down, I found that one was Dist aeli's Co- ningaby,' another Burns's Poems, and a third an article jest reprinted from Frazer's Magazine, on • the Policy of Sir Robert Peel.'" We will now jump to the wild banks of the Mississippi.

" As I was pacing the deck, one passenger after another eyed my short-sight glass, suspended by a riband round my neck, with much curioany. Some of them

asked me to read for them the name inscribed on the stern of a steamer, so far off

that I doubted whether a good telescope would have enabled me to do more than discern the exact place where the name was written. Others, abruptly seizing the glass without leave or apology, brought their heads into close contact with mine, and, looking through it, exclaimed, in a disappointed and half reproachful tone, that they could see nothing. Meanwhile, the wives and daughters of pas- sengers of the same class were sitting idle in the ladies' cabin, occasionally taking

my wife's embroidery out of her hand without asking leave, and examining it with many comments; usually, however, in a complimentary strain. To one who is

studying the geology of the valley of the Mississippi, the society of such compa-

nions may be endurable for a few weeks. He ought to recollect that they form the great majority of those who support these noble steamers, without which such

researches could not be pursued except by an indefinite sacrifice of time. But we sometimes doubted how far an English party travelling for mere amusement would enjoy themselves. If they venture on the experiment, they had better not take

with them an English maid-servant unless they are prepared for her being trans- formed into an equal. It would be safer to engage some one of that too numerous class commonly called humble companions,' who might occasionally enter into society with them. Ladies who can dispense with such assistance will find the

maids in the inns, whether White or Coloured, most attentive. •

" When my wife first entered the ladies' cabin, she found every one of the nu- merous rocking-chairs filled with a mother suckling an infant. As none of them had nurses or servants, all their other children were at large, and might have been a great resource to passengers suffering from ennui had they been under tolerable control: as it was, they were so riotona and undisciplined as to be the torment of all who approached them. ' How fortunate you are,' said one of the mothers to my wife, to be without children: they are so ungovernable, and if you switch them, they sulk or go into hysterics.' The threat of I'll switch you' is for ever vociferated in an angry tone, but never carried into execution. One genteel and pleasing young lady sat down by my wife, and began conversation by saying, You hate children, don't you.?' intimating that such were her own feel- iogs. A medical man, in large practice in one of the Southern States, told us be often lost young patients in fevers, and other cases where excitement of the nerves was dangerous, by the habitual inability of the parents to exert the least com- mand over their children. We saw an instance, where a young girl, in consider- able danger, threw the medicine into the physician's face, and heaped most abu- sive epithets upon him. " The director of the State Penitentiary in Georgia told me that he had been at some pains to trace out the history of the most desperate characters under his charge, and found that they had been invariably spoilt children; and he added, if young Americans were not called upon to act for themselves at so early an age, and undergo the rubs and discipline of the world, they would be more vicious and immoral than the people of any other nation. Yet there is no country where children ought to be so great a blessing, or where they can be so easily provided for. • • • • • • " Many young Americans have been sent to school in Switzerland; and I have heard their teachers, who found them less manageable than English or Swiss boys, maintain that they must all of them have some dash of wild Indian blood in their veins. Englishmen, on the other hand, sometimes attribute the same character to republican institutions; but in fact they are spoilt long before they are old enough to know that they are not born under an absolute monarchy."

The following passages indicate the emigration that is taking place from old States to new,—though Alabama is young enough. Part of the " moving " may be attributed to the American restlessness ; but there are evidently real economical reasons at the bottom, some of which might be pondered over with advantage by contributors to State loans.

" The movers, who were going to Texas, had come down 200 miles from the upper country of Alabama, and were waiting for some others of their kindred who were to follow with their heavy waggons. One of these families is carrying away no less than forty Negroes ; and the cheerfulness with which these slaves are going they know not where with their owners, notwithstanding their usual dislike to quit the place they have been. brought up in, shows a strong bond of union between the master and his people.' In the last fifteen months, 1,300 Whites, and twice that number of slaves, have quitted Alabama for Texas and Arkansas; and they tell me that Monroe county has lost 1,500 inhabitants. 'Much capital,' said one of my informants, 'is leaving this State: and no wonder; for if we remain here, we are reduced to the alternative of high taxes to pay the interest of money so improvi- dently borrowed from England, or to suffer the disgrace of repudiation, which would be doubly shameful, because the money was received in hard cash, and lent out, often rashly, by the State, to farmers for agricultural improvements. Be- sides,' he added, 'all the expenses of Government were in reality defrayed during several years by borrowed money, and the burden of the debt thrown on posterity. The facility with which your English capitalists, in 1821, lent their cash to a State from which the Indians were not yet expelled, without reflecting on the mi- gratory nature of the White population, is astonishing! The planters who got grants of your money, and spent it, have nearly all of them moved off and settled beyond the Mississippi. 'First, our Legislature negotiates a loan; then borrows to pay the interest of it; then discovers, after some years, that five out of the sixteen millions lent to us have evaporated. Our Democrats then stigmatize those who vote for direct taxes to redeem their pledges, as 'the high taxation men.' Possibly the capital and in terest may eventually be made good, but there is some risk at least of a suspen sion of payment. At this moment the State is selling land forfeited by those to whom portions of the borrowed money were lent on mortgage; but the value of pro- perty thus forced into the market is greatly depreciated.' "Although, since my departure in 1846, Alabama has not repudiated, I was struck with the warning here conveyed against lending money to a new and half- formed community, where everything is fluctuating and on the move—a State from which the Indians are only just retreating, and where few Whites ever continue to reside three years in one place—where thousands are going with their Negroes to Louisiana, Texas, or Arkansas—where even the County Court Houses mid State Capitol are on the move—the Court Houses of Clarke county, for example, just shifted from Clarkesville to Macon, and the seat of Legislature about to be trans- ferred from Tuscaloosa to Montgomery." "On board were many movers going to Texas with their slaves. One of them confessed to me that he had been eaten out of Alabama by his Negroes. He had no idea where he was going; but, after settling his family at Houston, he said he should look out for a square league of good land to be had cheap. Another pas- senger had, a few weeks before, returned from Texas, much disappointed, aid was holding forth in disparagement of the country for its want of weed and water, de- claring that none could thrive there unless they came from the prairies of Illinois, and were inured to such privations. 'Cotton,' he said • could only be raised on a few narrow strips of alluvial land near the rivers; and, as these were not navigable by steamers, the crop when raised could not be carried to a market.' He also comforted the mover with the assurance, that there were swarms of buffalo-tiles to torment his horses, and sand-flies to sting him and his family.' To this the undismayed emigrant replied, that when he first settled in Alabama, before the long grass and canes had been eaten down by his cattle, the insect pests were as great as they could be in Texas.' He was, 1 found, one of those resolute pioneers of the wilderness, who, after building a log-house, clearing the forest, sad im- proving some hundred acres of wild ground by years of labour, sells the farm and migrates again to another part of the uncleared forest ; repeating this operation three or four times in the course of his life, and, though constantly growing richer, never disposed to take his ease. In pursuing this singular vocation, they who go Southwards front Virginia to North and South Carolina, and thence to Georgia and Alabama, follow, as if by instinct, the corresponding zones of country. The inhabitants of the red soil of the granitic region keep to their oak and hiecory, the ' crackers' uf the tertiary pine-barrens to their light-wood, and they of the new- est geological formations in the sea-islands to their fish and oysters. On reaching Texas, they are all of them at fault; which will surprise no geologist who has read Ferdinand Roemer's account of the form which the cretaceous strata assume in that country, consisting of a hard, compact, siliceous limestone, which defies the decomposing action of the atmosphere, and forms table-lands of bare rock, so en- tirely unlike the marls, clays, and sands of the same age in Alabama. " On going down from the cabin to the lower deck, I found a slave dealer with sixteen Negroes to sell, most of them Virginians. I heard him decline an offer of 500 dollars for one of them, a price which he said he could have got for the man before he left his own State."

We could easily extend these extracts by pictures of society from the Northern, Middle, and Southern States ; for the book abounds in social sketches, and anecdotes and incidents illustrative of society in all its various classes. Our further extracts will exhibit the author as a painter of nature. This picture of the singular effects of cold on vegetation is from the White Mountains in New Hampshire.

" When we had passed through this lowest belt of wood the clouds cleared away, tri that, on looking back to the Westward, we had a line view of the moun- tains of Vermont and the Camel's Hump, and were the more struck with the magnificent extent of the prospect as it had not opened upon us gradually dar- ing our ascent. We then began to enter the second region, or zone of evergreens, consisting of the black spruce and the Pima balsamea, which were at first mixed with other forest-trees, all dwarfed in height, till at length, after we had ascended a few hundred feet, these two kinds of fire monopolized the entire ground. They are extremely dense, rising to about the height of a man's head; having evidently bean prevented by the cold winds from continuing their upward growth beyond the level at which they are protected by the snow. All their vigour seems to have been exerted in throwing oat numerous strong horizontal or pendant branch- ea each tree covering a considerable area, and being closely interwoven with others, so that they surround the mountain with a formidable hedge about a quar- ter of a mile broad. The innumerable dead boughs, which, after growing for a time, during a series of milder seasons, to a greater height, have then been killed by the keen blast, present a singular appearance. They are forked and leafless, and look like the antlers of an enormous herd of deer or elk. This thicket op- posed a serious obstacle to those who first ascended the mountain thirty years ago. Dr. Francis Boots, among others, whose description of his ascent in 1816, given to use in London several years before, made me resolve one day to visit the scene, was compelled, with his companion, Dr. Bigelow, to climb over the tops and walk on the branches of these trees, until they came to the bald region. A traveller now passes so rapidly through the open pathway cut through this belt of firs, that he is in danger, while admiring the distant view, of overlooking its pecu- liarities. The trees became gradually lower and lower as you ascend, till at length they trail along the ground only two or three inches high; and I actually observed, at the upper margin of this zone, that the spruce was topped in its average height by the common reindeer moss."

The Mississippi has often been described, but never so completely ; for it has never, perhaps, been visited by one who possesses the same com- bination of scientific knowledge and descriptive power as Sir Charles Lyell. From the description being mixed up with the personal narra- tive, the reader does not indeed get the whole features placed so distinctly or impressively before him as he might do by what the Germans call a Monograph or the French a Study of the river ; but the features are all there,—the wonders of the delta's formation, which has origi- nated in successive deposits through thousands of centuries; the drier swamps growing forests that were submerged by earthquakes, to be again covered by deposits, and the stumps of the submerged forests remaining fresh though buried to this day : the various courses which at different epochs the mighty flood has taken to reach the ocean, as shown by its ancient channels, now forming swamps and lagoons of va- rious depths in various stages of filling up, sometimes isolated unless in times of flood, sometimes communicating with the main stream and with each other in a remarkable way.

" At Vidalia we were joined by Mr. Forshey, the engineer; who went with us to Lake Concordia, a fine example of an old bend of the Mississippi, recently de- tached and converted into a crescent-shaped lake, surrounded by wood. It is a fine sheet of water, fifteen miles long if measured by a curved line drawn through the middle. Tne old levee, or embankment, is still seen; but it is no longer ne- cessary to keep it in repair, for a few years ago the channel which once connected this bend with the main river was silted up. Opposite Natchez the depth of the Mississippi varies from 100 feet to 150 feet; but Lake Concordia has nowhere a greater depth than 40 feet. There are thirteen similar lakes between the mouth pf the Arkansas and Baton Rouge, all near the Mississippi, and produced by cut- offs; and so numerous are the channels which communicate from one to the other, that a canoe may pass during the flood season from Lake Concordia and reach the Gulf of Mexico without once entering the Mississippi."

The enormous depth of the river just noted- is another of its wonders. The great Father carries down his waters by deepening his channel, not by extending his surface. "The great river does not run," says Sir Charles Lyell, "as might be inferred from the description of some of the old geographers, on the top of a ridge in a level plain, but in a valley from one hundred to two hundred and fifty feet deep," which he himself has scooped out. In answer to the question that might be raised, why when the river has sometimes burst its banks and flowed into a lake, it does not take the nearest point to the ocean, Sir Charles replies—" It is probable that the Mississippi flows to the nearest point of the Gulf (of Mexico) where there is a sufficient depth or capacity in the bed of the sea to receive its vast burden of water and mud ; and if it went to Lake Pontchartrain, it would have to excavate a new valley many times deeper than the bottom of that lagoon." Unluckily, as we know from the last American arrivals, the body of water above the delta, confined by a sea-wall or " levee," is sufficiently deep to submerge the country, which it often does partially.

"Pointing to an old levee with a higher embankment newly made behind it, the captain told me that a breach bad been made there in 1844, through which the Mississippi burst, inundating the low cultivated lands between the highest part of the bank and the swamp. In this manner, thousands of valuable acres were injured. He had seen the water rush through the opening at the rate of ten miles an hour, sucking in several flat boats, and carrying them over a watery waste into a dense swamp forest. Here the voyagers might remain entangled among the trees unheard of and unheeded till they were starved, if canoes were not sent to traverse the swamps in every direction in the hope of rescuing such wanderers from destruction. When we consider how many hairbreadth escapee these fiat boats have experienced—how often they have been nearly run down in the night, or even in the day, during dense fogs, and sent to the bottom by colli- sion with a huge steamer—it is strange to reflect, that at length, when their owners have caught sight of the towers of New Orleans in the distance, they should be hurried into a wilderness, and perish there.

" I was shown the entrance of what is called the Carthage crevasse, formed in May 1840, and open for eight weeks, during which time it attained a breadth of eighty feet. Its waters were discharged into Lake Pontchartrain, when nothing was visible between that great lagoon and the Mississippi but the tops of tall cy- press trees growing in the morass, and a long, narrow, black stripe of earth, being the top of the levee, which marked the course of the river." There are still further wonders, more like Prospero's island than matter of fact, in "quaking prairies" with cattle around you and sea-fish below you, and floating islands that shrink under men's weight.

"After I had examined the bluff below Port Hudson, I went down the river in my boat to Fontania, a few miles to the South, to pay a visit to Mr. Falkner, a Proprietor to whom Dr. Carpenter had given me a letter of introduction. He re- ceived me with great politeness, and at my request accompanied me at once to see a crescent-shaped sheet of water on his estate, called Lake Solitude, evidently an ancient bed of the Mississippi now deserted. It is one of the few examples of old channels which occur to the East of the great river, the general tendency of which is always to move from West to East. Of this Eastward movement there is a striking monument on the other side of the Mississippi immediately opposite Port Hudson, called Fausse Riviire, a sheet of water of the usual horse-shoe form. One of my fellow passengers in the Rainbow bad urged me to visit Lake Solitude; because,' said he, there is a floating island in it, well wooded, on which a friend of mine once landed from a canoe, when, to his surprise, it began to sink with his weight. In great alarm, he climbed a cypress-tree, which also began immediately to go down with him as fast as he ascended. He mounted higher and higher into its boughs, until at length-it seemed to subside; and, looking round, he saw in every direction, for a distance of fifty yards, the whole wood in motion.' I wished much to know what foundation there could be for so marvellous a tale. It appears that there is always a bayou or channel, connecting, during floods, each deserted bend or lake with the main river, through which large floating logs may piss. These often form rafts, and become covered with soil supporting shrubs and trees. At first such green islands are blown from one part of the lake to another by the winds; but the deciduous cypress, if it springs up in such a soil, sends down strong roots, many feet or yards long, so as to cast anchor in the muddy bottom, render- ing the island stationary.

• • •

" After we had sailed up the river eighty miles, I was amused by the sight of the insignificant village of Donaldsonville, the future glories of which I had heard so eloquently depicted. Its position, however, is doubtless important; for here the right bank is intersected by that arm of the Mississippi called Bayou La Fourche. This arm has much the appearance of a canal ; and by it, I am told, our steamer, although it draws no less than ten feet water, might sail into the Gulf of Mexico, or traverse a large part of that wonderful inland navigation in the delta which contributes so largely to the wealth of Louisiana. A curious descrip- tion was given me by one of my fellow travellers of that same low country, espe- cially the region called Attakapas. It contains, he said, wide quaking prairies,' where cattle are pastured, and where you may fancy yourself far inland: yet if you pierce anywhere through the turf to the depth of two feet, you find sea-fish swimming about, which make their way in search of food uuder the superficial sward from the Gulf of Mexico through subterranean watery channels."