Friday, 8th. The face of the country presents the same appearance with that we passed over yesterday, offering in the arrangement of forest and fertile prairie, many advantageous sites for plantations, of which one is already established at the confluence of Big Skin Bayou.
During the afternoon's ride, the country was observed to be more hilly. Soon after the occurrence of the greatest heat of the day, which was 91 degrees, several showers of rain fell, accompanied with distant thunder.
On a naked part of the soil, gullied out by the action of torrents of water, we beheld a hymenopterous or wasp-like insect (sphex) triumphantly, but laboriously, dragging the body of the gigantic spider, [122] its prey, to furnish food to its future progeny. We cannot but admire the prowess of this comparatively pigmy victor, and the wonderful influence of a maternal emotion, which thus impels it to a hazardous encounter, for the sake of a posterity which it can never know. Distance, nineteen miles.
Saturday, 9th. Pursued our journey, with every hope of reaching the place of rendezvous appointed by Major Long before noon. Since passing Bayou Viande, we have observed the country on either side of our path to be distinguished by extremely numerous natural elevations of earth, of some considerable degree of regularity. They are of a more or less oval outline, and their general dimensions may be stated at one hundred feet long, by from two to five feet in greatest height. Their existence is doubtless due to the action of water. Should the rivers Platte and Arkansa be deprived of their waters, the sand islands of their beds would probably present a somewhat similar appearance.
An Indian, who observed us passing, hallooed to us from a distance, and expecting some important communication, we waited some time until he came up. He proved to be a Cherokee, dressed much in the manner of the whites, and not a little infected with the spirit of an interrogator, common, no doubt, to those with whom he has been accustomed to associate, and therefore probably regarded by him as a concomitant of civilization. We left him to his own surmises respecting our object and destination, and soon arrived at the path which strikes off for the river. After passing a distance of two miles through a cane brake, we passed a hut and small farm belonging to a soldier of the garrison, and were shortly on the strand of the river, with the long-sought Belle Point before us. We were soon ferried over, and were kindly received on the wharf by Captain Ballard and Mr. Glenn. The former gentleman was at present invested with the command, in consequence of [123] the temporary absence of Major Bradford, on a visit to St. Louis. His politeness and attention soon rendered our situation comfortable, after a houseless exposure in the wilderness of ninety-three days. The greatest heat of the day was 91 degrees, and distance travelled nine miles.
The Arkansa, below the great bend, becomes more serpentine than it is above, and very much obstructed by sand-bars and islands, either naked or clothed with a recent vegetation; they are but little elevated above the water, and are covered to some depth during the prevalence of floods in the river. At Belle Point, and some distance above, these islands almost wholly disappear, but the sandy shores still continue, and are, as above, alternately situated on either side of the river, as the stream approaches or recedes from the opposite river bottoms. The colour of the water was now olive green. All the red colouring matter, with which it is sometimes imbued, is contributed by streams entering on the southern side. The current of the Arkansa is much less rapid than that of the Platte, but the character of these two rivers, in a great degree, corresponds in their widely spreading waters of but little depth, running over a bed of yielding sand. The rise of the waters at Belle Point takes place in the months of March and early in April, with a less considerable freshet in July and August. But to this place navigation is seldom practicable, for keel-boats, from the month of August to February inclusive, though the autumnal freshet of October and November frequently admits their passage.
[FOOTNOTES:]
[1] Chapter viii of volume ii of the original London edition.—Ed.
[2] It is well known that water, in which carbonic acid is dissolved, has the power of holding in solution a portion of lime, somewhat proportioned in quantity to the acid. In this instance, the water no sooner comes in contact with the atmosphere than it parts with a portion of its fixed air, consequently loses the power of holding in solution the lime which is immediately deposited. The lime may perhaps, in this instance, be derived from the cement of the sand-rock.—James.