146 WILLOWS ON EIVER BANK. [CHAP. XXIX. 



miles into the Gulf of Mexico. Each bank, includ 

 ing the swamps behind it, are about 200 or 300 yards 

 wide, covered with dead reeds, among which we saw 

 many tall, white cranes feeding, as in a flooded mea 

 dow, and as conspicuous as sheep. The landscape on 

 either side was precisely similar, and most singular, 

 consisting of blue sky, below which were the dark- 

 green waters of the Gulf, lighted up by a brilliant 

 sun ; then the narrow band of swamp, covered with 

 dead reeds, and, in the foreground, a row of pale-green 

 willows, scarcely reflected in the yellow turbid water 

 of the river. Occasionally large merchant vessels, 

 some three-masted, were towed up by steam- tugs, 

 through the slack water, near the bank. How the 

 river can thus go to sea as it were, and yet continue 

 for centuries to preserve the same channel, in spite 

 of storms and hurricanes, which have more than once 

 in the last hundred years caused the waters of the 

 Gulf to break over its banks, seems, at first, incom 

 prehensible, till we remember that we have here a 

 powerful body of fresh water flowing in a valley 

 more than a hundred feet deep, with vast mounds of 

 mud and sand on each side, and that the sea imme 

 diately adjoining is comparatively shallow. 



The growth of willows on that side of the stream 

 where the land is gaining on the water, is often so 

 formal and regular, that they look like an artificial 

 plantation. In the front row are young saplings just 

 rising out of the ground, which is formed of silt, 

 thrown down within the last two or three years. 

 Behind them is an older growth from four to eight feet 

 high. Still farther back is seen a third row twenty- 

 five feet high, and sometimes in this manner five 



