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IMPROVEMENTS IN THE NAVIGATION OF THE 



MISSISSIPPI. 



I HAVE SO frequently spoken of the Mississippi, that an account of the 

 progress of navigation on that extraordinary stream may be interesting 

 even to the student of nature. I shall commence with the year 1808, at 

 which time a great portion of the western country, and the banks of the 

 Mississippi River, from above the City of Natchez particularly, were lit- 

 tle more than a waste, or, to use words better suited to my feelings, re- 

 mained in their natural state. To ascend the great stream against a 

 powerful current, rendered still stronger wherever islands occurred, toge- 

 gether with the thousands of sand-banks, as liable to changes and shift- 

 ings as the alluvial shores themselves, which at every deep curve or bend 

 were seen giving way, as if crushed down by the weight of the great 

 forests that everywhere reached to the very edge of the water, and faUing 

 and sinking in the muddy stream, by acres at a time, was an adventure 

 of no small difficulty and risk, and which was rendered more so by the 

 innumerable logs, called sazoyers and planters, that everywhere raised 

 their heads above the water, as if bidding defiance to all intruders. Few 

 white inhabitants had yet marched towards its shores, and these few were 

 of a class little able to assist the navigator. Here and there a solitary 

 encampment of native Indians might be seen, but its inmates were as 

 likely to prove foes as friends, having from their birth been made keenly 

 sensible of the encroachments of the white men upon their lands. 



Such was then the nature of the Mississippi' and its shores. That 

 river was navigated principally in the direction of the current, in small 

 canoes, pirogues, keel-boats, some flat-boats, and a few barges. The canoes 

 and pirogues being generally laden with furs from the different heads of 

 streams that feed the great river, were of little worth after reaching the mar- 

 ket of New Orleans, and seldom reascended, the owners making their way 

 home through the woods, amidst innumerable difficulties. The flat-boats 

 were demolished and used as fire- wood. The keel-boats and barges were em- 

 ployed in conveying produce of different kinds besides furs, such as lead, 

 flour, pork, and other articles. These returned laden with sugar, coffee, 

 and dry goods suited for the markets of St Genevieve and St Louis on 

 the Upper Mississippi, or branched off and ascended the Ohio to the 



