The History of Louisiana, Or of the Western Parts of Virginia and Carolina / Containing a Description of the Countries That Lie on Both Sides of the River Missisippi

by Le Page du Pratz

[Description of the Lower Louisiana, and the Mouths of the Missisippi.]

I return to Manchac, where I quitted the Missisippi. At a little distance from Manchac we meet the river of the Plaqumines; it lies to the west, and is rather a creek than a river. Three or four leagues lower down is the Fork, which is channel running to the west of the Missisippi, through which part of the inundations of that river run off. These waters pass through several lakes, and from thence to the sea, by Ascension Bay. As to the other rivers to the west of this bay, their names are unknown.

The waters which fall into those lakes consist not only of such as pass through this channel, but also of those that come out of the Missisippi, when overflowing its banks on each side: for, of all the water which comes out of the Missisippi over its banks, not a drop ever returns into its bed; but this is only to be understood of the low lands, that is, between fifty and sixty leagues from the sea eastward, and upwards of a hundred leagues westward.

It will, doubtless, seem strange, that a river which overflows its banks, should never after recover its waters again, either in whole or in part; and this will appear so much the more singular, as every where else it happens otherwise in the like circumstances.

It appeared no less strange to myself; and I have on all occasions endeavoured to the utmost, to find out what could produce an effect, which really appeared to me very extraordinary, and, I imagine, not without success.

From Manchac down to the sea, it is probable, and even in some degree certain, that all the lands thereabouts are brought down and accumulated by means of the ooze which the Missisippi carries along with it in its annual inundations; which begin in the month of March, by the melting of the snow to the north, and last for about three months. Those oozy or muddy lands easily produce herbs and reeds; and when the Missisippi happens to overflow the following year, these herbs and reeds intercept a part of this ooze, so that those at a distance from the river cannot retain so large a quantity of it, since those that grow next the river have stopt the greatest part; and by a necessary consequence, the others farther off, and in proportion as they are distant from the Missisippi, can retain a much less quantity of the mud. In this manner the land rising higher along the river, in process of time the banks of the Missisippi became higher than the lands about it. In like manner also these neighbouring lakes on each side of the river are remains of the sea, which are not yet filled up. Other rivers have firm banks, formed by the lands of Nature, a land of the same nature with the continent, and always adhering thereto: these sorts of banks, instead of augmenting, do daily diminish, either by sinking, or tumbling down into the bed of the river. The banks of the Missisippi, on the contrary, increase, and cannot diminish in the low and accumulated lands; because the ooze, alone deposited on its banks, increase them; which, besides, is the reason that the Missisippi becomes narrower, in place of washing away the earth, and enlarging its bed, as all other known rivers do. If we consider these facts, therefore, we ought no longer to be surprised that the waters of the Missisippi, when once they have left their bed, can never return thither again.

In order to prove this augmentation of lands, I shall relate what happened near Orleans: one of the inhabitants caused a well to be sunk at a little distance from the Missisippi, in order to procure a clearer water. At twenty feet deep there was found a tree laid flat, three feet in diameter: the height of the earth was therefore augmented twenty feet since the fall or lodging of that tree, as well by the accumulated mud, as by the rotting of the leaves, which fall every winter, and which the Missisippi carries down in vast quantities. In effect, it sweeps down a great deal of mud, because it runs for twelve hundred leagues at least across a country which is nothing else but earth, which the depth of the river sufficiently proves. It carries down vast quantities of leaves, canes and trees, upon its waters, the breadth of which is always above half a league, and sometimes a league and a quarter. Its banks are covered with much wood, sometimes for the breadth of a league on each side, from its source to its mouth. There is nothing therefore more easy to be conceived, than that this river carries down with its waters a prodigious quantity of ooze, leaves, canes and trees, which it continually tears up by the roots, and that the sea throwing back again all these things, they should necessarily produce the lands in question, and which are sensibly increasing. At the entrance of the pass or channel to the south-east, there was built a small fort, still called Balise. This fort was built on a little island, without the mouth of the river. In 1734 it stood on the same spot, and I have been told that at present it is half a league within the river: the land therefore hath in twenty years gained this space on the sea. Let us now resume the sequel of the Geographical Description of Louisiana.

The coast is bounded to the west by St. Bernard's Bay, where M. de la Salle landed; into this bay a small river falls, and there are some others which discharge their waters between this bay and Ascension bay; the planters seldom frequent that coast. On the east the coast is bounded by Rio Perdido, which the French corruptedly call aux Perdrix; Rio Perdido signifying Lost River, aptly so called by the Spaniards, because it loses itself under ground, and afterwards appears again, and discharges itself into the sea, a little to the East of Mobile, on which the first French planters settled.

From the Fork down to the sea, there is no river; nor is it possible there should be any, after what I have related: on the contrary, we find at a small distance from the Fork, another channel to the east, called the Bayoue of le Sueur: it is full of a soft ooze or mud, and communicates with the lakes which lie to the east.

On coming nearer to the sea, we meet, at about eight leagues from the principal mouth of the Missisippi, the first Pass; and a league lower down, the Otter Pass. These two passes or channels are only for pettyaugres. From this place there is no land fit to tread on, it being all a quagmire down to the sea. There also we find a point, which parts the mouths of the Missisippi: that to the right is called the South-Pass, or Channel; the west point of which runs two leagues farther into the sea than the point of the South-east Pass, which is to the left of that of the South Pass. At first vessels entered by the South-east Pass, but before we go down to it, we find to the left the East-Pass, which is that by which ships enter at present.