River Mississippi—Iron banks—Chalk bank—Remarkable melody of birds—Bayou St. Jean—New Madrid—Delightful morning—Little Prairie—An Indian camp—Mansfield’s island.
We had thought the water of the Ohio very turbid, but it was clear in comparison of the Mississippi, the two rivers being distinctly marked three or four miles after their junction. The Ohio carried us out almost into the middle of the Mississippi, so that I was almost deceived into thinking that the latter river ran to the westward instead of to the eastward; by the time however that we were near midchannel the Mississippi had gained the ascendancy, and we were forced to eastward with encreased velocity, its current being more rapid than that of the Ohio. We soon lost sight of the labyrinth of waters formed by the conflux of the two rivers, and quickly got into a single channel, assuming gradually its usual southerly direction. We now began to look for Fort Jefferson, marked in Mr. Cramer’s Navigator as just above Mayfield creek on the left, but not seeing either we supposed they were concealed by island No. 1 acting as a screen to them.[184]
At fifteen miles from the Ohio, we observed a fine new settlement on the right, with the boats moored {255} at the landing which had brought the family down the river.
Five miles lower we passed the Iron banks on the left. These are very remarkable, being a red cliff near the top of a high ridge of hills about a mile long, where the river is narrowed to little more than a quarter of a mile wide.
From the Iron banks a fine bay of a mile in breadth is terminated by the Chalk bank, which is a whitish brown bluff cliff, rising from the water’s edge, surmounted by a forest of lofty trees. Having passed some other islands, we made a harbour for the night on Wolf island just opposite Chalk bank, about three miles below the Iron banks.
May 23d.—A steady rain did not prevent our proceeding this morning. We found the river generally from half to three quarters of a mile wide, and the navigation rather intricate on account of the number of islands and sand-bars, which gave us some trouble to keep clear of. The rain ceased about three o’clock, when it cleared up calm and hot. At 4 o’clock we passed Island No. 10, on the right. The singing of the birds on this island exceeded every thing of the kind I had ever before heard in America. Notes resembling the wild clear whistle of the European black birds, and others like the call of the quail, or American partridge, were particularly distinguishable among a wonderful variety of feathered songsters. The island probably bears some vegetable production peculiar to itself, which attracts such uncommon numbers of small birds.
At seven, P. M. we rowed into Bayou St. Jean, on the right, at the upper end of New Madrid, to which settlement it serves for a harbour,—having only advanced about fifty miles this whole day. We found here several boats bound down the river.
New Madrid contains about a hundred houses, much scattered, on a fine plain of two miles square, {256} on which however the river has so encroached during the twenty-two years since it was first settled, that the bank is now half a mile behind its old bounds, and the inhabitants have had to remove repeatedly farther back. They are a mixture of French Creoles from Illinois, United States Americans, and Germans. They have plenty of cattle, but seem in other respects to be very poor. There is some trade with the Indian hunters for furs and peltry, but of little consequence. Dry goods and groceries are enormously high, and the inhabitants charge travellers immensely for any common necessaries, such as milk, butter, fowls, eggs, &c. There is a militia, the officers of which wear cockades in common as a mark of distinction, although the rest of their dress should be only a dirty ragged hunting shirt and trowsers.—There is a church going to decay and no preacher, and there are courts of common pleas and quarter sessions, from which an appeal lies to the supreme court at St. Louis, the capital of the territory of Upper Louisiana, which is two hundred and forty miles to the northward, by a wagon road which passes through St. Genevieve at 180 miles distance.—On account of its distance from the capital, New Madrid has obtained a right to have all trials for felony held and adjudged here without appeal.
The inhabitants regret much the change of government from Spanish to American, but this I am not surprised at, as it is the nature of mankind to never be satisfied.[185]
We had observed no settlements between the Ohio and New Madrid except one new one before mentioned.