Fourche-au-Cadeau (now contracted to Caddo Creek) heads in Montgomery County, and flowing south-east meets the Ouachita on the northern line of Clark County. Cadeau is a corruption of Cadaux. Both words are French, the former meaning a gift, the latter being the plural of the name of an Indian tribe (Caddo in English) whose range included southwestern Arkansas. The stream is called Fourche des Cadaux (Fork of the Caddos) in Dunbar and Hunter's "Description of the Washita River" (American State Papers, "Indian Affairs," i, p. 731).
At the south-east corner of Clark County is the mouth of the Little Missouri, which rises on the Polk-Montgomery county line, traverses Pike, and forms the southern line of Clark.—Ed.
[45] The permanent occupation of this region, outside of the village at the Hot Springs, hardly began before the middle of the nineteenth century; earlier comers were mostly hunters and trappers, who "squatted" for a time and then passed on. It is uncertain whether the individuals mentioned were of this class or were permanent settlers; their names are not in local histories. Any spot containing even a single habitation was by courtesy styled a "settlement."—Ed.
[46] The village of Cove Creek, on the line between Garland and Hot Springs counties, marks the entrance to this valley.—Ed.
[47] James did not base this description of watercourses in Louisiana on personal observation, yet it is fairly accurate. A few comments may be added. Macon River is a tributary of the Tensas; their confluence is several miles from the Ouachita, east of the hill called Sicily Island. Opposite the mouth of the Tensas is that of the Ocatahoola (Little River); below this point the Ouachita is called Black River (Rivière Noire), a name given by the French on account of the dark appearance, due to depth, overshadowing forests, and a black sand bottom. The expansion of Little River is Catahoula Lake, in the county of the same name; its depth fluctuates from mere marsh to about fifteen feet. The Derbane is now Bayou Corney, a branch of which is still Bayou D'Arbonne; its mouth is nearly opposite that of the Barthelemi (Bartholomew). The Saluder is apparently Bayou Loutre (Otter), a short distance above Bayou Corney. Lake Atchafalaya (Grand Lake), an expansion of the river of the same name, is a few miles from the Gulf coast, north of Atchafalaya Bay. Recently an effort has been made to force all of the current of Red River into the Mississippi, by damming the Atchafalaya.—Ed.
CHAPTER III {XI}[48]
Red River—Exploring Expedition of 1806—Return to the Arkansa—Earthquakes
The Red river of Louisiana enters the Mississippi from the west, in north latitude 31° 5´,[49] and in 16° 35´ west longitude from Philadelphia. From the Mississippi to the mouth of Black river (as the Washita is called below the confluence of the Ocatahoola and Tensa) is twenty-six miles by water. The aggregate width of Red river, for this distance, is from three hundred to three hundred and fifty yards. The depth of the water in summer varies, according to the actual measurement of Messrs. Freeman and Humphrey, from eighty-four to forty-two feet, the range from extreme high to low-water is from twenty-five to thirty feet, and the banks are elevated from fourteen to twenty-five feet above the surface of the river at low-water. At no great distance, on each side, is a second alluvial bank, rising a few feet higher than the immediate bank of the river. Back of this the surface is elevated nearly to high-water mark, but descends gradually towards the lakes and swamps, which occur along both sides of the valley of the river. In the wet season the lower part of Red and Black rivers are lost in an extensive lake, covering the country from the Mississippi westward near one hundred miles to the settlement of the Avoyelles.[50]
The distinction made by Du Pratz, between the country on the south and that on the north side of Red river, appears to be strictly applicable only to {164} the part lying below the point where Red river enters the immediate valley of the Mississippi.[51]