After three miles on the last reach the river turns gradually with a bend, to its general southerly direction, the bend being encircled by a low bank covered with tall cypresses, which keep the traveller in constant dread of falling on his boat, which in spite of his utmost exertion is forced by an irresistible current close into the bend. The two other boats stopped here among some willows on account of a breaking short sea raised by a fresh southerly wind.
Nine miles from the Devil’s Race-ground, we came to the Devil’s Elbow, which is a low point on the left, round which the river turns suddenly, from S. W. to S. and from that to E. an island being in front to the southward, which intercepts the drifts, and fills the river above half channel over with snags and sawyers. There was a very large flock of swans {265} on the low sandy point of the Elbow. These were the first swans we had seen on the river, although they are said to abound throughout this long tract which is destitute of inhabitants. We had been long accustomed to see numbers of bitterns and cranes, mostly white as snow, and a few grey ones, and some duck and teal sometimes shewed themselves, but took care to keep out of gun shot. Travellers descending the river have but little chance of obtaining any game, as its having become so great a thoroughfare, has rendered both the four footed, and feathered tribes fit for the table so wild, that it is rare that any of them, even when seen can be shot, and if one lands for the purpose of hunting, the boat must stop, or else he is in danger of being left behind, as the current runs never or in no place slower than three miles an hour, and mostly four or five.
The easterly bend is six miles long, and about a mile wide, gradually inclining to the south, and on the right are eight creeks or outlets of the river, five of them divided from each other by narrow slips of land about fifty paces wide each, and the other three by slips of one hundred and fifty paces. Their general direction from the river is S. S. W. and a point rounds the whole way from E. to S. E.—This is one of the most remarkable situations on the river.
Two miles lower we stopped at island No. 40, for the night, and moored by some willows at a sand beach, near a drift tree, the trunk of which was one hundred and twenty-five feet long, and from its thickness where broken towards the top, it must have been at least fifty feet more to the extremity of the branches, making in the whole the astonishing length of one hundred and seventy-five feet. Capt. Wells with two boats from Steubenville, passed and stopped a little below us.
The Musquitoes as usual plagued us all night, and hastened our departure at four o’clock in the morning. {266} Wells’s boats were in company, and after floating six miles, we overtook two other boats from Steubenville under the direction of captain Bell.—The four boats had twelve hundred barrels of flour for the New Orleans market.
This accession to our company served to enliven a little the remainder of this dreary and solitary part of the river, the sameness of which had began to be irksome.
In a league more Bell’s boats took the right hand channel round an archipelago of islands, while we kept to the left through Mansfield’s channel, which is very narrow and meanders among several small islands and willow bars.
This archipelago which is designated by No. 41 in the Navigator, is three miles long. At the end of it we rejoined Bell’s boats, and passed a settlement pleasantly situated on the right, which was the first habitation since Little Prairie (one hundred and thirty-two miles.) Here we observed a fine stock of horses, cows, and oxen, and half a mile farther we landed in the skiff at Mr. Foy’s handsome settlement and good frame house. Foy was the first settler fourteen years ago on the Fourth Chickasaw Bluffs, which are opposite his present residence, to which he removed eleven years ago; since when five families more have settled near him, and about half a dozen on the Chickasaw side, just below Wolf river. Soon after Foy’s first settlement, and very near it, the Americans erected a small stoccado fort, named Fort Pike, from the major commandant. After the purchase of Louisiana by the United States from the Spaniards, Fort Pickering was erected two miles lower down at the end of the bluffs, and Fort Pike was abandoned. There are two stores on each side the river, one of which is kept by Mr. Foy, who owns a small barge which he sends occasionally for goods to New Orleans, from whence she returns {267} generally in forty days, and did so once in thirty. Mrs. Foy was very friendly, amongst other civilities, sparing us some butter, for which she would accept no payment. This was the first instance of disinterestedness we had experienced on the banks of the rivers.[189]
Wolf river is the boundary between the state of Tennessee and the Mississippi territory. It is not more than about forty yards wide. The bank of the Ohio and the Mississippi, the whole way from Tennessee river is still owned by the Chickasaw nation, who have not yet sold the territorial right.[190]
On the point immediately below Mr. Foy’s (whose negro quarter gives his pleasantly situated settlement the appearance of a village or hamlet) was formerly a Spanish fort no vestige of which now remains.[191]