Below the Ohio, the high banks are generally composed of a reddish clay. The river almost invariably, keeps the nearest to the eastern shore, leaving much the largest portion of its swamp on its west side; but, sometimes, on the east, the river is about twenty miles from the high bank on that side. It continually moves in a circle; alternately sweeping to the right, and then to the left. These sections of circles, measured from point to point, vary from six to twelve miles; but it sometimes makes almost a complete circle. In one instance, it sweeps round the distance of thirty miles, and comes within a mile of completing the circle, and meeting its own channel again. Although the stream hurries on with the speed of a giant, yet it does not seem to be really in earnest to "go ahead." It appears to be more disposed to gambol about, and display its power in its own ample bottom, than to pass directly on, to its destined port. Like an overgrown and froward child, its sportiveness is dangerous and destructive. It makes terrible havoc with every thing with which it comes in contact. It tears up large quantities of earth in one place, and deposites it in another. It undermines its own bank, and lets acres of stately forest trees slide into its deep channel—it wears away its deep bends, so as to make its course still more and more circuitous—and again, as if it were tired of its own sportiveness in harrassing the forest, it cuts through the small segment of a circle remaining, leaves a long bend of still water, and its jaded shores at rest. The river, in its serpentine course, hits the high bank at twelve different places, on the eastern shore. These are, at the Iron banks, Chalk banks, the three Chickasaw bluffs, Memphis, Walnut hills, Grand and Petit gulf, Natchez, Loftus heights, and Baton Rouge. At only one place, it comes in contact with the high bluff on the western side; and this is at the St. Francis hills.
Although the river is a mile in width, yet it is so serpentine in its course, that a person travelling upon it, can see but a few miles ahead. The strongest current is next the concave shore; and here also is the deepest water. A third part of the river measured in a direct line across it, would average eighty feet in depth, from thence it grows more and more shoal to the other shore.
In the spring flood, the Mississippi overflows the whole bottom, so that then, it becomes a stream fifty miles in width. It shows a breadth of a mile only, and the remainder is concealed from the eye, by the dense forest which broods over it. The mud and sand, brought down by the flood, deposites itself the most freely, near the river; so that the highest part of the bottom will be next the stream. In the time of the flood, the water barely covers the immediate shore of the river; from thence the water becomes deeper and deeper towards the bluff which bounds the bottom. The depth of the flood, then, may be thus stated—the channel, one hundred and thirty feet—its immediate bank barely covered with water, and next to the bluffs, which may be twenty miles from the channel, from twelve to twenty feet in depth. When the flood in a measure subsides, the sad havoc its waters have made begins to appear. Huge piles of flood wood, wrecks of flat boats, and occasionally, of animals, are thrown together in one promiscuous mass. The stream is filled with snags and sawyers. And the destruction of its immediate banks is still going on. The deep and solemn sound of land slips are often heard. Acres of the stately forest are precipitated into the river, new channels are made, many islands are formed; and the steamboat pilot, who had become a complete master of the intricate mazes of the channel, finds, that he must learn his lesson over again.
All of the hundred rivers that form the Mississippi, at the time of high water, are more or less turbid; but at low water some of them are clear.—The Upper Mississippi is quite transparent, but its waters are slightly of a blackish color. The Missouri is at all times turbid. It is of a whitish color, resembling water mixed with fresh ashes; and it gives its own color to the stream below its mouth. The Ohio is clear, but its waters have the appearance of being slightly tinged with green. The Arkansas and Red River are at all times as turbid as the Missouri, but their waters are of a bright redish color. After the Mississippi has received these two rivers, it loses something of its whiteness, and becomes slightly tinged with red.
The Mississippi, in show of surface, will hardly compare with the St. Lawrence; but, undoubtedly, it carries the greatest mass of water, according to its width, of any river on the face of the globe.—From the large quantity of earth it holds in suspension, and continually deposites along its banks, it will always be confined within a narrow and deep channel. Were it a clear stream, it would soon scoop out for itself a wide channel, from bluff to bluff. In common with most of its great tributaries, it widens as it ascends; being wider above the mouth of the Missouri, with a tenth part of its water, than it is in the region of New-Orleans. In the same manner, Arkansas and Red River are wider, a thousand miles up their streams, than they are at their mouths.
No thinking mind can view with indifference, the mighty Mississippi, as it sweeps round its bends from point to point, and rolls on its resistless wave, through dark forests, in lonely grandeur to the sea. The hundred shores laved by its waters—the long course of its tributaries; some of which are already the abodes of cultivation, and others pursuing an immense course without a solitary dwelling of civilized man—the numerous tribes of savages that now roam on their borders—the affecting and imperishable traces of generations that are gone, leaving no other memorials of their existence, but their stately mounds, which rise at frequent intervals along the valley—the dim, but glorious anticipations of the future—these are subjects of deep thought and contemplation, inseparably connected with a view of this wonderful river.
We were three days sailing down the river. Just at night the pilot came aboard, took us over the bar at the southwest pass, and we put out to sea, with a strong fair wind from the northwest. The muddy waters of the Mississippi are seen far out to sea, even after you lose sight of the land. There was another passenger besides myself; and the violent rolling of the vessel soon made us dreadfully seasick. This, with me, lasted but three days; but the other passenger was sick during the whole voyage, and suffered incalculable pain and distress.