154 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



be the northern limit of oranges, and I saw here several 

 trees twenty or twenty-five feet high, loaded with fruit, 

 the most beautiful of all others, that grow upon trees. 

 Here, at this date, many garden vegetables are in quite 

 perfection, and roses fill the air with fragrant sweets. 

 Mr. Dufrocq informs me that the mistletoe is killing the 

 live oaks, in this town; the streets of which are orna- 

 mented with a great many of these most beautiful of all 

 the family of oaks. Query — is that the cause? This town, 

 now, or rather in 1850, is to be the state capital, contains 

 between 2,000 or 3,000 inhabitants, on a very handsome 

 site, fifty feet above high water, although just at present 

 the water well mixed with loamy earth is pretty high all 

 over town. The state house is to be one of the finest on 

 the Mississippi. It stands fronting the river as well as 

 three streets. It will cost, when complete, nearly half a 

 million of dollars. 



Immediately on leaving the town of Baton Rouge, 

 commences the great levee of the Mississippi, a dam of 

 earth extending to the mouth, and varying from one to 

 ten feet high, by which man hath said to the mighty 

 stream, "thus far shalt thou flow and no farther;" and 

 by which only can the great sugar plantations of Louisi- 

 ana be cultivated. But, before entering upon these, let 

 us have another month's rest; for I have a great deal to 

 write, some of which, I have every confidence in my 

 ability to make interesting to my readers. That the pres- 

 ent chapter is not more so, I am sure that they will ex- 

 cuse me when I tell them that it was written during my 

 confinement to my room with an attack of the epidemic 

 of the present winter, that has spread mourning along 

 the banks of the Mississippi, and had it not been for the 

 kindness of one of whom I shall speak by-and-by in com- 

 mensurate terms, I should not now have been in a con- 

 dition to say that I still remain your old friend 



Solon Robinson. 



Point Celeste, below Neiv Orleans, Jan. 12th, 1849. 



