THE MISSISSIPPI. 99 
cay like the trees of a “ raft:” and do all this with the 
politeness of a “ sawyer’—and with principles unyield- 
ing as a “snag.” 
The forests that line the banks of the Mississippi, 
and supply, without any apparent decrease, the vast 
masses of timber that in such varied combinations 
every where meet the eye, are themselves worthy of the 
river which they adorn. 
Go into the primitive forests at noonday, and how- 
ever fiercely the sun may shine, you will find yourself 
enveloped in gloom. Gigantic trees obstruct your path- 
way, and as you cast your eyes upward, your head grows 
dizzy with their height. Here, too, are to be seen dead 
trunks, shorn of their limbs, and whitening in the blasts, 
that are as mighty in their size as the pillars of Hercu- 
les. Grape-vines larger than your body will, for some 
distance, creep along the ground, and then suddenly 
spring a hundred feet into the air, grasp some patriarch 
of the forest in its folds, crush, mutilate, and destroy it ; 
and then, as if to make amends for the injury, throw over 
its deadening work the brightest green, the richest fo- 
liage, filled with fragrance, and the clustering grape. 
On the top of these aspiring trees, the squirrel is beyond 
the gunshot reach of the hunter. 
Upon the ground are long piles of crumbling mould, 
distinguished from the earth around them by their nu- 
merous and variegated flowers. These immense piles, 
higher in places than your head, are but the remains of 
