THE "OLBERS" FOR BREMEN. 389 



business would permit ; and many an hour passed in 

 agreeable conversation. 



At length, after a space of three weeks, the " Olbers " 

 was cleared, and ready to start. My effects were em- 

 barked, leave taken of all my friends, a most hearty 

 one of Kean, whom I loved as a brother, and who 

 had always behaved like one, and at ten at night the 

 steamer " PorjDoise " made herself fast alongside, having 

 besides a French brig, three schooners in tow, and 

 we started like a small fleet down the dark stream. 

 We reached the mouth of the Mississippi about noon 

 the next day, and anchored. In all directions thin 

 green reeds were growing out of the water, giving only 

 a representation of land, the yellow river flowing 

 through them, and not a foot of solid ground anywhere 

 visible. The Mississippi is here a river but without 

 any banks, though looking as if still enclosed in its 

 bed. To my great astonishment, houses were seen 

 above this waste of reeds and water, with livins; beino-s 

 moving about them. As the pilot said that we must 

 wait till tomorrow for broad daylight and the flood 

 tide, to cross the bar, and we had nothing to do this 

 afternoon, the captain took two other passengers and 

 myself to the row of houses, to see if we could get 

 oysters, or any thing else eatable. After half an hour's 

 sharp rowing, we reached a platform resting on piles. 

 A more uninviting place to live in, I never saw. The 

 water flows under the houses of this outpost of American 

 felicity, leaving at low-water a loose slimy mud, which 

 would engulf any one attempting to tread on it, and which 

 swarms with creeping things innumerable. I recollect 

 an American saying that Louisiana was not fit for the 

 33* 



