178 OF THE MISSISSIPPI, 



it not introduced by strangers; and instances of the stone and 

 gravel are extremely rare. The Creoles who drink this water are 

 a comely race, both male and female, of middle stature, and 

 handsome persons; the males are ingenious, active, bold and 

 enterprising; fond of hunting and other laborious amusements, 

 and capable of enduring great fatigue: the gracefulness and 

 beauty of the ladies are universally acknowleged. 



The water of the Mississippi is drunk in great purity by the 

 first class of French planters, and inhabitants of New-Orleans; it 

 is suffered to deposit by repose (in large earthen jars containing 

 a hundred or more gallons) its sediment and feculencics; the 

 precipitation is some times accelerated by bruised peach stones 

 and kernels. Volney says that in Egypt bruised bitter almonds 

 are applied to the same purpose; certainly the process of the 

 Chinese is much neater by means of allum. The inhabitants ge- 

 nerally employ two jars, in order that one may be filled while 

 the other is in use, by which means they always drink the purest 

 water: those who are long in the habit of drinking the Missis- 

 sippi water, cannot immediately reconcile themselves to the taste 

 of any other. 



When the river is low and the current extremely gentle, the 

 water possesses but a very slight degree of turbidness; the cur- 

 rent is however at all times sufficiently strong to roll an immense 

 body of water into the ocean, in which respect the diminutive 

 Nile cannot bear a comparison ; the waters of the latter being 

 frequently in a state of *corruption immediately before the com- 

 mencement of the inundation ; the Nile becomes also shallow 

 in many places, whereas a ship of the line might find, at all times, 

 sufficient water 6 or 700 miles up the Mississippi, were the im- 

 pediment on the bar removed. 



There is a very striking difference in the momentum of the 

 waters of the two rivers at their entrance into the sea; that of 

 the Mississippi is at all times sufficient to preserve 17 feet of water 

 upon the bar of the principal branch, whereas the mouths of 

 the great branches of the Nile are so choaked up with mud 

 and sand, that small coasting vessels can scarcely enter, and 

 this is practicable only through a very narrow winding channel, 



* Volney. 



