The public buildings of Louisville are few, and the streets are laid out in the usual style, crossing each other at right angles. It contains a few good brick dwelling-houses, and a number of excellent hack-carriages are stationed near the steam-boat landing. A canal round the Falls, from Beargrass-creek to Shippingsport, is being constructed, which will enable steam-boats of the largest tonnage to pass through; and thus it will open an uninterrupted intercourse between the Upper and Lower Ohio, and the Mississippi. The length of this canal is about two and a half miles, and the original estimate was 200,000 dollars, but this sum has been found insufficient.
At Louisville I took a berth on board a boat for New Orleans. The steam-boats on the Mississippi are large, and splendidly appointed; the interior has more the appearance of a well fitted up dining-room than the cabin of a boat. The charge is twenty-five dollars, for which you are found in every thing except liquors. Meats, fowls, vegetables, fruits, preserves, &c., are served in abundance, and of the very best quality. Here you may see tradesmen, "nigger traders," farmers, "congress men," captains, generals, and judges, all seated at the same table, in true republican simplicity. There is no appearance of awkwardness in the behaviour of the humblest person you see seated at those tables; and indeed their general good conduct is remarkable—I mean when contrasted with that of the same class in England. The truth is, the tradesman here finds himself of some importance in the scale of society, and endeavours to show that he is fully qualified to be seated at the same table, en passant, with the most wealthy citizen. No doubt the higher classes have some of that high polish rubbed off by these occasional contacts with their less-civilized fellow citizens; but the humbler classes decidedly gain what they lose. All dress well, and are American gentlemen.
The Ohio is formed by the junction of the Alleghany and Monongahela rivers at Pittsburg, that town being seated in the fork—its breadth there, is between eight and nine hundred yards. From the mouths of those two rivers it narrows and deepens for some distance; but afterwards, from the accession of the many tributary streams by which it is supplied, gradually becomes wider and deeper, until it empties itself into the Mississippi. The length of the Ohio, following its meanders, is about 950 miles, and it may be said to be navigable almost the entire year, as the water must be unusually low when the smaller steam-boats cannot ply to Pittsburg. The character of this river is somewhat peculiar. But for the improvements on the banks, when you have seen six or eight miles of this stream, you are acquainted with the remainder as far as the Falls—that is to say, any variety that may be in the scenery will occur in any given six miles from Pittsburg to that point. Below Louisville there are one or two rocky bluffs, and the face of the country is somewhat different. The channel of the Upper Ohio lies between hills, which frequently approach the mamélle form, and are covered with a heavy growth of timber. Where the hills or bluffs do not rise immediately from the river, but recede some distance, the space between the river and the hill is called bottom land, from the circumstance of its being overflown annually; or having at some former period formed part of the river's bed, which is indicated by the nature of the soil. The bluffs and bottoms invariably alternate; and when you have bluffs on one side, you are sure to have bottom on the other. The windings are extremely uniform, with few exceptions, curving in a serpentine form in so regular a manner, that the Indians always calculated the distance by the number of bends.
"The Falls" are improperly so termed, as this obstruction is nothing more than a gradual descent for a distance of about a mile and a half, where the water, forcing its way over a rugged rocky bottom, presents the appearance of a rapid. Below this the country is of various aspects—hills, bottom-land, and high rocky bluffs; and towards the mouth, cotton-wood trees, (populus angulata), and cane brakes, are interspersed along the banks. The junction of these two noble rivers, the Ohio and Mississippi, is really a splendid sight—the scenery is picturesque, and the water at the point of union is fully two miles broad.
The Mississippi[[10]] is in length, from its head waters to the balize in the gulf of Mexico, about two thousand three hundred miles, and flows through an immense variety of country. The section through which it passes, before its junction with the Missouri, is represented as being elegantly diversified with woodlands, prairies, and rich bottoms, and the banks are lined with a luxuriant growth of plants and flowers. Before reaching the Missouri, the water of the Mississippi is perfectly limpid; but, from the mouth of that river it becomes turgid and muddy—flows through a flat, inundated country, and seems more like an immense flood, than an old and deep-channelled river. As far as great things can be compared to small, it much resembles, within its banks, the Rhone when flooded, as it sweeps through the department of Vaucluse, after its junction with the Saone.
From St. Louis to New Orleans, a distance of twelve hundred miles, there are but six elevated points—the four Chickesaw bluffs, the Iron banks, and the Walnut hills. Numerous islands are interspersed through this river; and from the mouth of the Ohio, tall cotton-wood trees and cane-brakes grow in immense quantities along the banks; the latter, being evergreens, have a pleasing effect in the winter season. The windings of the Mississippi are, like those of the Ohio, constant, but not so serpentine, and some of them are of immense magnitude. You traverse every point of the compass in your passage up or down: for example, there is a bend near Bayou Placquamine, the length of which by the water is upwards of sixty miles, and from one point to the other across the distance is but three.
The town of "Baton Rouge" is situated about 190 miles above New Orleans, and contains a small garrison;—the esplanade runs down to the water's-edge, and the whole has a pretty effect. Here the sugar plantations commence, and the face of the country is again changed—you find yourself in the regions of the south. For a distance of from half-a-mile to two miles back, at each side, the land is planted with sugar-canes, and highly cultivated. The planters' houses are tastefully built, surrounded by gardens full of orange-trees, flowers, and evergreens, presenting the idea of perpetual spring, which here is indeed the case. The winters are seldom more severe than a mild spring in England. I first came in on this region at night, at the season of planting, when the cast or used canes are burned in heaps on each plantation. The dark turgid waters—the distant fires, surrounded by clouds of white smoke ascending in winding columns to the skies—the stillness of the night, interrupted only by the occasional cry of the pelican or the crane, and the monotonous thumping of the steam-boat paddles, formed a strange combination; and had the days of witches and warlocks not long since passed away, one would have sworn that these gentry were performing incantations over the mystic cauldrons, casting "seven bullets," or "raising spirits from the vasty deep."
The Mississippi is in few places more than from half-a-mile to a mile wide; and were one to judge of its magnitude by its breadth alone, a very erroneous estimate would be formed. It is only by contemplating the many vast rivers which empty themselves into the Mississippi that you can form a correct idea of the immense volume of water that flows through this channel into the Gulf of Mexico. Many of its larger tributary streams have the appearance of being as great as itself—the depth alone indicating the superiority of this mighty river over every other in America; and, considering its length, perhaps over any other in the world.
The great valley of the Mississippi extends, in length, from the Gulf of Mexico to a distance of nearly 3000 miles; and is in breadth, from the base of the Alleghanies to the foot of the Rocky mountains, about 2,500 miles. The soil is composed of alluvial deposits, to a depth of from twenty to fifty feet; and I have myself seen, near New Orleans, trees lying in the horizontal position six or seven feet below the surface. This valley has been frequently visited by earthquakes, which have sometimes changed part of the channel of the river, and at others formed lakes. Those which occurred between the years 1811 and 1813, did serious injury, particularly in the neighbourhood of New Madrid, near the west bank, below the mouth of the Ohio. At several points the bank is sunk eight or ten feet below the surface of the adjacent ground, with the trees remaining upright as before.
New Orleans is seated on the south-east bank of the Mississippi; and, following the sinuosities of the current, about 109 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. The river takes here a right-angular sweep, and the city proper is built on the exterior point of the bend, the fauxbourgs extending at each side along the banks. At high water the river rises three feet above any part of the city; consequently, were it not for levées that have been constructed here, and also along the banks of the river for more than a hundred miles, at both sides, above and below, the whole country would be periodically inundated. The fall from the levée to Bayou St. John, which communicates with Lac Pontchartrain, is about thirty feet, and the distance one mile. This fall is certainly inconsiderable; but I apprehend that it would be sufficient to drain the streets effectually, if proper attention were directed to that object.