THE MISSISSIPI'I. 101 



hwalluwcd uj) bv tlie Mi:?.si.ssippi, as if it j)0«scs.sod 

 within itself the very capacity of the ocean, and dis- 

 daiiR'd in its comprehensive limits, to acknowledge the 

 accession of strength. 



The color of this tremendous flood of water is always 

 turbid. There seems no rest for it, that will enable it 

 to become quiet or clear. In all seasons the same 

 muddy water meets the eye ; and this strange pecu- 

 liarity suggests to the mind that the banks of the river 

 itself are composed of this dark sediment which has in 

 the course of centuries confined the onward flood within 

 its present channel, and in this order of nature we find 

 one of the most original features of the river ; for on 

 the Mississippi we have no land sloping in gentle de- 

 clivities to the water's edge, but a bank just high 

 enough, where it is washed by the river, to protect the 

 back country from inundation, in the ordinary rises of 

 the stream; for whenever, from an extensive flood, it 

 rises above the top of this feeble barrier, the water runs 

 down into the country. 



This singular fact shows how all the land on the 

 Mississippi south of the thirty-fourth degree of latitude, 

 is liable to inundation, since nearly all the inhabitants 

 on the shores of the river, find its level, in ordinarily 

 high water, running above the land on which they re- 

 side. To prevent this easy, and app'arently natural in- 

 undation, there seems to be a power constantly exerted 

 to hold the flood in check, and bid it '' go so far and no 



