On the day after my departure, I fell in with a number of planks; they had probably been washed away from some village on the banks. They had floated against a tree, that was stuck fast in the bed of the river. Intending to take them with me, in the hope of making something by their sale, I paddled to the tree, and in attempting to secure the planks I overreached myself; the current carried away the canoe from under me, and in an instant I was in the water, holding on to the bough of the tree, and close to an alligator. Luckily the beast was as much afraid of me as I of him, and he disappeared under the water. I quickly swung myself on the bough to reach my canoe, but too late, it was already in the full strength of the current, leaving me hanging on the waving bough, with canoe, gun, powder, and all that I possessed, a prey to the waves. I saw perfectly well at once that I must either regain my canoe or perish miserably of starvation, so I let go the bough, and swam with all my might towards the fugitive. It cost a quarter of an hour’s desperate exertion before I reached it, and then I had to push her to the bank, in order to get on board, for any attempt to do so in the middle of the stream would have upset her. In regaining the canoe I had saved my life.
When my store of provisions was exhausted I shot wild-fowl, and got them cooked at the nearest plantation, for now, as I approached Louisiana, the land was more occupied.
Several hundred miles above its junction with the Mississippi, the Great Red river is blocked up by numbers of trees that have been carried down and become fixed, and although the United States Government has caused a passage for steamers to be cut through them, yet I was advised not to attempt it with my canoe, because the current ran through it with such force, that the least obstacle I might encounter would infallibly overset the canoe. I was therefore obliged to traverse two lakes, called Clear Lake and Soda Lake, which are connected with the river above and below the Raft, as the collection of matted trees is called.
I saw a great number of alligators sunning themselves on the warm sands. I shot ten or eleven of them, but could never prevail on myself to touch them. They were from three to twelve feet long, and sometimes even eighteen feet. Not far from the mouth of the river, on the fifth day, just about dusk, seeing something white in the water ahead of me, I paddled to it, and laid hold of it, but drew my hand back with a shudder, and the blood ran cold in my veins; it was a corpse—the naked white back alone floated above the surface, head, arms, and legs hanging down; a wound several inches long was visible on the left side, just under the ribs. I paddled hastily away in sickening disgust, and left the horrid object behind me.
On the following morning I entered the Mississippi, the excessively dirty “Father of Waters.” The scenery assumed a more tropical character, and the long waving moss hanging from the gigantic trees gave it a peculiarly strange aspect. After entering this magnificent river I took on board fresh provender, not far from the junction, and directed my course towards that “New Orleans,” now some 240 miles distant, about which I had heard so much. But on the second day, when I was still some hundred miles from it, a little above Baton Rouge, it came on to blow fresh, and the wind caused such a swell in the river, that I could no longer keep my little craft free of water; indeed it was not without great effort and difficulty that I was able to reach the shore.
There was a farm near the place where I landed, whose owner had a quantity of wood for sale, ready cut, and piled up for the use of steamers. A steamer, bound for New Orleans, was in the act of wooding at the time. It would have been folly to have attempted to continue the voyage in such a swell in so frail a craft as mine, and as I found the farmer willing to buy her we soon agreed as to terms. I transferred my effects to the steamer, and late on the same evening arrived at New Orleans.
For the night I slept on board, but early the next morning went to a German tavern to refresh myself after all the hardships I had undergone, and to sleep in a regular bed. Oh, how comfortably I stretched myself on the soft mattress! I got up very early to have a look at the place, having no wish to show myself in the costume of a savage when the streets were thronged. For nine months my hair had been uncut, and during five no razor had approached my chin; then what with my old woollen hunting-shirt, my embroidered belt, and the high waterproof boots, which had faithfully held out to the last, people would have thought me more like a scarecrow than a human being: my first visit was to a barber.