CHAP. XXXIL] MONOTONY OF SCENERY. 215 



to take astronomical observations, in order to discover 

 what progress one has made, as if the voyage were in 

 mid-Atlantic. That our course is northward, is 

 indicated by the willows on the banks growing less 

 green, and a diminishing quantity of grey moss hang 

 ing from the trees. The red maple has also disap 

 peared. When I landed at wooding stations, I saw, 

 on the damp ground beneath the trees, abundance of 

 mosses, with scarcely a blade of grass, while the only 

 wild flowers were a few violets and a white bramble. 

 The young leaves of the poplars are most fragrant in 

 the night air. We were now in latitude 34 north, 

 passing the mouths of the Arkansas and White 

 rivers. 



The village of Xapoleon, 212 miles above Vicks- 

 burg, at the mouth of the Arkansas, had suffered 

 much by the floods of 1844. Its red, muddy waters 

 are hardly mixed up thoroughly with the Mississippi 

 till they reach Vicksburg. They often bring down 

 much ice into the Mississippi. The White river is 

 said to be navigable for about six hundred miles 

 above its mouth. 



Our steamer, the Andrew Jackson, bound for Cin 

 cinnati, carrying a heavy cargo of molasses, was eight 

 feet deep in the water. To avoid the drift wood, 

 which impeded her progress, the captain, on arriving 

 at Island Eighty-four ( for they are all numbered, 

 beginning from the mouth of the Ohio), determined 

 to take a short cut between that island and the left 

 river bank. The lead was heaved, and the decreas 

 ing depth, from ten feet to eight and a half, was 

 called oat ; our vessel then grazed the bottom for a 



