fectly fair, taper, and of a fine colour, as large as a man's leg, and weighing seven pounds. The fields are made at once, and are the second year in their highest state of productiveness. For sickness, more can he done in this country by way of preventive, than by way of remedy. Every family ought to have a good author upon domestic medicine, if such can be found, and a medicine chest. People who take this precaution suffer, perhaps, as little from sickness here, as elsewhere. For, as I have remarked in another place, the disorders are more manageable than at the North. With respect to society, all that the emigrant has to do is to bridle his tongue and his temper, cultivate good feelings and kind affections, and meet every advance of his neighbours with an honest disposition to reorganize in the deserts, — where they have met from distant regions and countries,— an harmonious and affectionate interchange of mutual kind offices.

As it respects that nationality, which forms so striking a feature in the people of the western country, men of education and enlargement of mind are every day operating upon the community to lay aside their prejudices, such as judging of men by their country, or being prepossessed for or against them on account of the place of their birth. One of the first things that a man, who is capable of learning any thing iu this country, learns, is the folly of selecting his associates according to their country, or of having his friends and companions of the same country with himself. He sees good and bad, promiscuously, from all countries, and soon learns to try and weigh men hy their character, and not by the place of birth. During the ten years of my acquaintance with the

country, I have discovered these feelings lessening in every place. Educated men and women are alike, and have many feelings and thoughts in common, come from what country they may. The time will come and is rapidly approaching, when all local partialities will be merged in the pride of being a citizen of our great and free country, a country which is destined shortly to make a most distinguished figure among the nations.

For myself, the western country is endeared to me by a thousand recollections. Its beautiful scenery has left iraces in my memory, which will never be effaced. The hospitality of its inhabitants to me, and to those who are most dear to me, has marked on my heart deep impressions of gratitude. I hail the anticipation, that in a century to come it will be a great and populous country, as great in a moral point of view, as it is at present rich in natural resource and beauty. And taking leave of the upper country, where I have suffered and enjoyed so much, I might say w salve, magna parens/5 or, in a still higher phrase, " peace be within thy walls."

May 5, 1819. We were swept round by the strong current of the Mississippi in our keel-boat between two green islands covered with rushes and cottonwood trees, into a small bay which receives the waters of White River. This is all a region of deep and universal inundation. There was from six to ten feet water over all the bottoms ; and we had a wide

display of that spectacle so common in the spring on the Mississippi,— a dense forest of the largest trees, vocal with the song of birds, matted with every species of tangled vegetation, and harbouring in great numbers the turkey buzzard, and some species of eagles ; and all this vegetation apparently rising from the bosom of dark and discoloured waters. I have never seen a deeper forest except of evergreens. The channel of White River was distinguished by its current, the green colour of its waters, compared with the Whitewaters of the Mississippi, and by an open channel, marked by willows in full foliage, which so nearly resembled the leaves of the peach -tree, that I asked one of the boatmen who was familiar with the country, what kind of tree it was, who answered with much solemnity, that it was the wild peach. It was a new order of things to stem the current, and go up stream, after floating five hundred miles before the heavy current of the Missouri and Mississippi. The current came down the river at the rate of three miles an hour. It seemed about three hundred and fifty yards in width, and at this time had fifty feet of water in depth. In ascending we were struck with the grandeur of the forest, the immense size of the trees, and their dark green foliage. The inundation extends itself almost indefinitely on all sides. It is late in the season before the floods recede : and fever, musquitoes, alligators, serpents, bears, and now and then parties of hunting Indians, are the only tenants of these woods.

The river received its name from the Indians, on account of its pellucid waters. They are in appearance rather green than white ; and we could see the huge cat-fish gamboling in the waters, among multi-

tudes of fishes of all classes. We eagerly threw them the hook and line ; but the flooded streams and swamps offered them such an abundance of food, that we tried to tempt them with our bait in vain We made our way up this opening in the dark forest between five and six miles, when we discovered a lateral opening to the left. We rowed into it, and at its mouth were whirled round by an eddy. Presently, to our astonishment, the current took us through the lateral opening, which was nearly at right angles with the course of the river, and had nearly the same width and appearance with the river itself. We continued to float on through this deep and inundated forest six or seven miles, wThen at right angles to our course we discovered another opening. It was the Arkansas, moving on with a majestic current of waters of the colour of Arnotto die.

This is, next to the Missouri, the largest and most interesting tributary of the Mississippi, and from its mouth by its meanders to the mountains, is commonly computed about two thousand miles. Its course as been traced in these mountains at least five hundred miles, and it is believed that the sources of the Arkansas have not yet been explored by our people. One singularity distinguishes this river from any other of the United States. Where it winds along among the mountains, all agree that it is a broad and deep river, and carries a great volume of water. But no sooner does it emerge from the shelter of woods and mountains, into a boundless and arid plain, — composed to a great depth of quicksands, — than it begins to disappear ; and in a hundred miles from the very elevated mountain, near which it enters upon the plain, it is fordable during the summer. Still

lower down it is a stream, according to the wellknown phrase of this country, " sunk in the sand ; v that is, ir trickles amidst the banks of sand and pebbles, so as in many places to exhibit a dry channel of burning sand from bank to bank. Here, on these vast sandy plains, which will for ages be the Syrtes of America, the home of elks and buffaloes, are the wide fields of those rich native grapes, that all travellers in these regions have spoken of in terms of such admiration. They are said to be conical in shape, large, of a beautiful blue, and transparent. The driving sands rise round the stem that advances still above the sand. This sand performs the best office of pruning, covering the superfluous growth and foliage, inflicting no wounds, and affording a most admirable method of ripening the clusters in the highest perfection by the reflection of the sun from the sand. In the Expedition of Major Long, the extreme sweetness of these grapes is recorded, and other travellers have borne the same testimony. They speak of vast tracts covered with these rich clusters. I shall have occasion elsewhere to speak of the classes of this native grape, which are so much extolled in the internal provinces of Spain. They are common through the pine-woods of Louisiana, and known by the name of the pine-woods grape.

Another peculiarity of the Arkansas is, that it traverses the immense extent of country through which it passes, receiving fewer tributaries than any other stream that has so long a course. The upper regions of this river are remarkably sterile, containing great tracts of moving sands, and in the islands of verdure, a rich, short, and fine grass, very different from the coarse prairie-grass of the prairies of Missouri, and

of the country of the Arkansas lower down. This grass seems to be peculiarly adapted to be the food of ruminating and grazing animals; and there are vast droves of buffaloes and other wild animals, and in the regions a little more south, and in the Spanish country, countless numbers of wild horses. Providence seems to have provided that man can hardly subsist among them, and that these shall continue to be their retreats for ages. The river itself is generally skirted with a timbered bottom, which widens, as the river descends. Over the whole of these vast plains salt seems to be distributed, even on the surface. In fact, one of the peculiar features of the w hole country west of the Mississippi, is these licks, — places where the wild and domestic cattle have beaten firm roads in all directions round them ; and by continually licking for the salt, intermixed with the clay, which they swallow with the salt, there are often wide cavities, sometimes to a considerable depth, occasioned by the consumption by. this continual licking. There are said to be, and there are, doubtless, on the waters of the Arkansas, wide plains, where this saline matter, dissolved by moisture, rains, or dews, sublimes and rises on the surface in appearance like hoar frost, or mountain snow. There seems to be a kind provision in this order of things, for the support of the numberless animals that feed upon these plains.

This river seems to mark the distinct outline of another climate. About the latitude of thirty-three, and from that to thirty-four degrees, seems to be the outline of the region of the profitable raising and growing of cotton. It is equally marked by new classes of vegetables, and different species of sensitive plants ; the running vine, which bears a beautiful species of

passion-flower ; and among the robuster vegetable tribes, the Muscadine grape ; and among trees the singular and beautiful tree called yellow-wood, or " bois d?arc.n But for an accurate view of the tribes of plants and trees that are peculiar to this interesting river, it will be necessary to consult Nuttall, who treats the subject with the precision of a natural historian.

The soil of the alluvions of this river is much like that of the valley of Red River, which has become so extensively known as the finest cotton country. This river, when it is high, is very turbid, and carries along a great quantity of extremely fine sand and loam of a reddish colour, a little fainter than Spanish brown. The valley of this river is all composed of a soil of this colour, and it is well known that such is the colour of the soil of the valley through which Red River runs.

This river, too, is the first, in advancing south, that is never frozen quite over, though ice is often formed on its shores. The winters are, indeed, very cold, as measured by the sensations. But it is well known that in a moist and relaxing climate, where the summer heats are high, and long continued, the sensations indicate a very different temperature from the thermometer. They require, during a considerable part of the winter, much the same amount of fuel, and thickness of clothing here, as at the North. And the northern man finds himself astonished, as late in autumn he looks round, and sees every thing in the gardens and in the woods untouched by frost, and in all the freshness of summer verdure, while his feelings indicate a very uncomfortable degree of cold. But the vegetable creation clearly designates this to be a