The crowd now became fully alive to the discussion of the geography of their locality. Each man who favored me with an opinion on the Manchac question contradicted his neighbor; which was only a renewal of old experiences, for I always found LOCAL knowledge of geography and distances of little value. As the debate ran high, I thought of D'Iberville, who had thoroughly explored the short bayou several generations before, and who might now have enlightened these people in regard to a stream that ran through their own lands. D'Iberville was, however, born in Canada, and probably had more time to look into such matters, or he would not have travelled several thousand miles to explore Louisiana.
I thanked the company for their interest in the discussion, which, like the questions before a debating society, had ended only in opinions. I promised to let them know the truth of the matter if I visited Baton Rouge again, and pushing out into the current, pulled towards Woodstock Plantation, where I arrived soon after dark; but fearing to land on account of the dogs, whose reception of a stranger in the dark was, to say the least, unceremonious, I tied up to a high bank, and "turned in" for the night.
Having left the wilderness and its protecting creeks and islands, I was destined to feel all the annoyances attending a camper in a cultivated and settled region. The steamboats tossed me about all night, so that morning was indeed welcome, and having refreshed myself with a dip and a djener, I climbed the bank, and was rewarded with the sight of a noble mansion, with its gardens of blooming roses, and lawns of bright green grass. This was the Woodstock Plantation, of which I had heard so much. I leisurely approached the large establishment, breathing an atmosphere laden with the fragrance of roses and orange-blossoms, which seemed to grow sweeter with every step. Finding an old negro, I sent my card to his master, with the request for information in regard to the Bayou Manchac. The young proprietor soon appeared with the "Report of the Secretary of War," 27th Congress, 3d session, page 21. December 30, 1842. This pamphlet informed me that the bayou was filled up at its mouth by order of the government, in answer to a petition from the planters of the lower country along the bayou and Amite River, to prevent the overflow of their cane-fields during freshets in the Mississippi River. We walked to a shallow depression near the house. It was dry, and carpeted with short grass. "This," said Mr. Walker, "is the Bayou Manchac which D'Iberville descended in his boat after having explored the Mississippi probably as far as Red River. The bed of the bayou is now fifteen feet above the present stage of water in the Mississippi." A field-hand was then called, who was said to be the best geographer in those parts, white or black.
"Tell this gentleman what you know of the Bayou Manchac," said Mr.
Walker, addressing the negro.
"Well, sah!" the darky replied, "I jus hab looked at yer boat. Four ob us can hf him ober de levee, an' put him on de cart. Den wees mus done cart him FOURTEEN miles 'long de Bayou Manchac to get to whar de warter is plenty fur him to float in. Dar is some places nearer dan dat, 'bout twelve miles off whar dar is SOME warter, but de warter am in little spots, an' den you go on furder, an' dar is no warter fur de boat. Den all de way dar is trees dat falls across de bayou. Boss, you mus go all de fourteen miles to get to de warter, sure sartin."
Mr. Walker informed me that for fourteen miles down the bayou the fall was six feet to the mile. At that distance from the Mississippi, sloop navigation commenced at a point called Hampton's Landing, from which it was about six miles to the Amite River. The Amite River was navigated by light-draught vessels from Lake Pontchartrain. The region about the Amite River possesses rich bottom-lands, and many of the descendants of the original French settlers of Louisiana own plantations along its banks.
Mr. Walker then pointed to a long point of land some miles down the river, upon which the fertile fields of a plantation lay like patches of bright green velvet in the morning sun, and said: "Below that point a neighbor of mine found one of your northern boatmen dying in his boat. He rowed all the way from Philadelphia on a bet, and if he had reached New Orleans would have won his five thousand dollars, but he died when only ninety-five miles from the city, and was buried by Adonis Le Blanc on that plantation."
I had heard the story before. It had been told me by the river boatmen, and the newspapers of the country had also repeated it. The common version of it was, that a poor man, desirous of supporting his large family of children, had undertaken to row on a bet from Philadelphia to New Orleans. If successful, he was to receive five thousand dollars. The kind-hearted people along the river had shown much sympathy for Mr. John C. Cloud in his praiseworthy attempts to support his suffering family, and at any time during his voyage quite a liberal sum of money might have been collected from these generous men and women to aid him in his endeavor. There was, however, something he preferred to money, and with which he was lavishly supplied, as we shall see hereafter.
So much for rumor. Now let us examine facts. A short time before Mr. Cloud's death, two reporters of a western paper attempted to row to New Orleans in a small boat, but met with an untimely end, being run down by a steamboat. Their fate and Mr. Cloud's were quoted as precedents to all canoeists and boatmen, and quite a feeling against this healthful exercise was growing among the people. Several editors of popular newspapers added to the excitement by warnings and forebodings. Believing that some imprudence had been the cause of Mr. Cloud's death, and forming my opinion of him from the fact of his undertaking such a voyage in August,—the season when the swamps are full of malaria,—I took the trouble to investigate the case, and made some discoveries which would have startled the sympathetic friends of this unfortunate man.
One of the first things that came to light was the fact that Mr. Cloud was not a married man. His family was a creation of his imagination, and a most successful means of securing the sympathy and ready aid of those he met during his voyage, though his daily progress shows that neither sympathy nor money were what he craved, but that WHISKEY alone would "fill the bill!"