As night drew on, the fire seemed to gather greater strength, rolling away to leeward a mighty ocean of flame; whilst nearer to us lines might be observed creeping close to the earth, devouring the dry grass, and marching right in the teeth of the wind, sheltered by the tall cane next doomed to fall.
Whilst viewed far off, the effect was exactly that of a great city delivered to the flames: the trees growing by the river's brink, and scattered here and there over the prairie, showed like some yet standing spires, whilst here and there a tall cedar might be caught just falling; the dwarf trees and withered shrubs in front, with the flames quivering through their branches, might readily be imagined a remnant of the population fleeing from the destruction pressing on their rear, with the sullen Mississippi for their only refuge.
We overtook and sailed down, side by side, with this mighty conflagration for an hour or more, through water made bright by the fiery reflection: at last, we outstripped its speed, but, for three hours after, I never withdrew my eyes from this the grandest sight it ever was given to me to contemplate; nor was the effect at all diminished though changed by distance. At one turn of our course we were presented with a coup d'œil of fearful grandeur; it seemed as though the flame had crossed the broad river, and formed a half circle, whose left extremity was lost in distance, and whose right pursued our path, rolling after us a lofty wall of fire, from behind which burst wreaths of smoke, of different degrees of darkness, as though shot up from some volcano's crater, whilst the more distant masses formed gradually into clouds of snow, whose lower edges were tinged with mingled lines of gold and jet.
The wind blew half a gale at about N.N.W., and it was calculated that our pace could not be less than twelve miles per hour; that of the fire, therefore, must have been seven or eight, since, despite the turns of the river, we were closely followed by it for three hours, and very soon after we anchored at the Balize it again overtook us, rushing on unchecked whilst it found a supply of food, until extinguished in the waters of the gulf.
I had before seen the prairie on fire, that is, small districts of mere dry grass in a blaze; but, although striking from its novelty, it had none of the grandeur belonging to this wild conflagration. The fuel here offered to the flame was of an enduring quality, and continued to burn a fiery red after the first rush of flame had passed over it and onward; and the next change it assumed was one of singular beauty: the reflection of the burnt cane, yet standing in perfect order as it grew, only made transparent by the action of fire, had the appearance of the harvest of an Eastern tale, composed of grain whose tall stalks were of burnished gold; whereas on the grass of the wide prairies the effect of the fire is lost as soon as passed, the bare and blackened soil alone being left behind.
We arrived at the bar by 10 P.M. and let go an anchor for the night: the water reported by our pilot to be about eleven feet; a comfortable hearing, when it is considered that the Shakspeare draws fourteen.
There is now here, hard and fast, an English ship called the Coromandel, which has been on the bar for the last forty days. Several vessels intend pushing over, we understand, at the same time we do in the morning.
Monday, 23rd.—On deck at six A.M. Our pilot, I find, declines crossing till the afternoon, when the tide will possibly, he says, be higher; the rise of water is, however, dependent upon the strength of the sea-breeze forcing the tide of the gulf up against the current of the great river. No rise of the Mississippi above, however high, affects the bar here in the least perceptible degree.
Heaven send us well into blue water! for any place having a more desolate aspect than this sight never lighted on: not a sign of vegetation is visible, except the brown rank-growing reeds upon our right, where no fire has yet been. To the north, all is blackness on land, and dull and dead at sea: along the course of the water-line, logs of timber of every size, and trees of every kind, lie strewn, sometimes scattered singly, and in other places accumulated into enormous beds or rafts.
On every side is presented a dead level, muddy water, or land barely showing above it. One might have imagined, looking around here, that the great Deluge was but now subsiding, and this, the ruined world, left for the remnant of humanity, gathered here, to weep over. Silence and solitude reigned absolute, and the only evidence of our not being alone was to be found in the three or four ships scattered within sight.