We landed at a fine well opened farm on the right, a mile below the mouth of St. Francois, where a handsome two story cabin with a piazza, seemed to promise plenty and comfort. This is the first settlement below the Chickasaw Bluffs, a computed distance of sixty-five miles. It is owned by one Philips from North Carolina, who has lived here six years.[194] Notwithstanding {271} favourable appearances, we could obtain no kind of refreshments here, not even milk, they having made cheese in the morning, so we rowed down three miles and a half, to Wm. Basset’s delightful situation on the Big Prairie, where was a large stock of cattle, yet we were still disappointed in milk, so we kept on four miles and a half to Anthony’s, where we obtained milk, sallad, and eggs, and spent a pleasant night in a fine harbour, very little troubled by musquitoes.
We had passed Well’s and Bell’s boats at moorings at the Big Prairie, and about an hour after we stopped at Anthony’s, the South Carolina and Pittsburgh boats arrived and made fast a little above us.
The Big Prairie is a natural savanna of about sixty acres open to the river on the right bank. It is covered with a fine, rich, short herbage, very proper for sheep. Immediately behind it at less than half a mile from the river, is a small lake eight or nine miles in circumference, formed in the spring and summer by the Mississippi, which in that season rising, flows up a small canal or (in the language of the country) bayau, and spreads itself over a low prairie. As the river falls, the lake discharges its water again by the bayau, and becomes a luxuriant meadow, covered with a tall but nutritive and tender grass. While a lake, it abounds in fish of every species natural to the Mississippi, and when a meadow, it is capable of feeding innumerable herds of cattle. It is then watered by a rivulet which descends from some low hills about three miles to the westward of the river bank. From its regular annual inundation, this appears to be a fine situation for rice grounds, if the water goes off soon enough to allow the rice to ripen.
There are two settlements joining to Anthony’s fronting the river, and five or six others at some little distance behind, there being in the whole about a dozen families between Philips’s and a new settlement, {272} three miles below Anthony’s, a distance of about twelve miles. The inhabitants are all from Kentucky, except Basset, who is from Natchez, and one family from Georgia. The soil here is good and the situation pleasant and healthy. The settlers have abundance of fine looking cattle, but they raise neither grain nor cotton, except for their own consumption. They would go largely into the latter, which succeeds here equal to any other part of the United States, but they want machinery to clean it, and none of them are sufficiently wealthy to procure and erect a cotton gin.
From hence to Arkansas is seventy miles, the road crossing White river at thirty-five.[195] At the former (Arkansas) is a good settlement of French, Americans, and Spaniards, who before the cession to the United States, kept there a small garrison, and on the banks of White river, some wealthy settlers had fixed themselves, one of whom had thirty negroes, but they were all forced off by general Wilkinson a few years ago, as they had no titles from the United States. This was bad policy, as the White river lands were in such repute, that a great settlement would have been formed there ere now.
May 31st, we proceeded in company with Bell and Wells, and to the latter’s boats lashed ours, that we might drift the faster, from his loaded boats drawing more water, and being of course more commanded by the current than our light one.
Seventeen miles below Anthony’s, the river banks begin to be very low, generally overflowed; the islands also are mostly willow islands, of which we passed several in forty miles farther, which distance we floated down until sunset, when we moored at a low point of willows, and were devoured by musquitoes all night.
June 1st, after floating fourteen miles, and passing several islands and sand bars, we passed the mouth {273} of White river on the right, which appears more inconsiderable than it actually is, by its mouth being almost concealed by willows. Seven miles lower down we met a small barge with seven hands rowing up; she had come down Arkansas river, from the settlement of Arkansas, and was about returning by the channel of White river, which communicates with the Arkansas by a natural canal, so that we were puzzled to understand the steersman, who said he was from Arkansas and bound to Arkansas, until he explained it. Eleven miles from hence, we had Arkansas river, two hundred yards wide, on the right, and Ozark island two miles and a half in front below, the Mississippi being about a mile wide.
The settlement of Arkansas or Ozark is about fifty miles above the junction of that river with the Mississippi. It consists chiefly of hunters and Indian traders, of course is a poor place, as settlers of this description, never look for any thing beyond the mere necessaries of life, except whiskey. Had the White river settlement been fostered, instead of being broken up, Arkansas would have followed its example in the cultivation of the lands, and would have become very soon of considerable importance.
Having passed Ozark island (No. 75) two miles long, on the right, we came to a mooring eight miles below, where we had our usual torment of musquitoes all night.