256 MISSISSIPPI LUXURIANT VEGETATION. 



of a massy flag-staff. I had difficulty in accounting for the 

 form which the vine presented. Both plants may be con 

 sidered coeval, and their boughs to have extended in unison. 

 Some tender twigs of a vine were observed climbing and 

 twining around its aged stems, leading to the supporting tree, 

 which seemed to me illustrative of maternal affection, and of 

 the hackneyed phrase, &quot; teaching the young idea how to 

 shoot.&quot; There were some trees of diminutive growth over 

 hanging the river, from the tops of which the tendrils of the 

 vine hung in graceful festoons, as if wooing the water. From 

 such I collected fruit, and discriminated several varieties by 

 the form and flavour of the grape. 



At first the clear and wide-spreading prairies delighted me 

 from their novelty, and the contrast with the dense and inter 

 minable forests of Upper Canada, and I now enjoyed the 

 umbrageous vegetation of the Mississippi bottom, after having 

 become familiar with the nakedness of the prairie. All the 

 rivers of magnitude in the valley of the Mississippi seem to 

 have occupied, at a remote period, higher elevations and wider 

 channels than they now do, called first and second banks, and 

 the flat space on the margins of their present channels passes 

 by the name of bottom, which generally consists of alluvial 

 depositions, annually augmented by the overflowing of the 

 waters at the melting of the snow. This bottom of the 

 Mississippi was undescribably rich, and I was so engrossed by 

 the wonders of its shadowy vegetation, as to be insensible of 

 the approach of rain and thunder, until torrents fell around me. 

 Shelter was obtained from the inclining trunk of a large tree, 

 and the foliage of many of the climbing plants formed vege 

 table umbrellas. 



The soil of the bottom is of considerable tenacity, and the 

 rain rendered it unpleasant and fatiguing to walk on. The 

 road diverged from the river at an uninhabited brick house, 

 and I did not see a human being for eight or ten miles. Some 

 of the houses seemed to have been deserted, and no recent 

 settlement made. In one situation there was a large and 

 well-grown orchard, from which I gathered most excellent 

 apples. There were few traces of cultivation, and Indian 

 corn was the only agricultural production on the soil. 



