CHAPTER XXX. 



Voyage from New Orleans to Port Hudson. The Coast. Villas, and Gar 

 dens. Cotton Steamers. Flat Boats. Crevasses and Inundations. 

 Decrease of Steamboat Accidents. Snag-Boat. Musquitoes. Natural 

 Rafts. Bartram on buried Trees at Port Hudson. Dr. Carpenter s Ob 

 servations. Landslip described. Ancient Subsidence in the Delta fol 

 lowed bv an upward Movement, deducible from the buried Forest at 

 Port Hudson. 



March 10, 1846. ON leaving New Orleans, I made ar 

 rangements for stopping to examine the bluff at Port Hudson, 

 160 miles up the river, where I was to land in the night, from 

 the Rainbow steamer, while my wife started in another boat, 

 the Magnolia, to go direct to the more distant port of Nat 

 chez. If a lady is recommended to the captain of one of these 

 vessels she feels herself under good protection, and needs no other 



escort ; but Mr. Wilde introduced my wife to Judge , who 



kindly undertook to take charge of her, and see her to the hotel 

 at Natchez. The Rainbow ascended the river at the rate of 

 eleven miles an hour, keeping near the bank, where the force of 

 the current was broken by eddies, or where the backwater was 

 sometimes running in our favor. Occasionally her speed waa 

 suddenly checked, when it became necessary to cross the stream 

 on reaching a point where the current was setting with its full 

 force against the bank along which we had been sailing. In 

 spite of such delays, the rate of going up is only one-third less 

 than going down the stream. The recent introduction of sep 

 arate engines to work each of the wheels greatly economizes 

 the time spent in the landing of passengers. The boat may be 

 turned round or kept stationary with more facility, when each 

 wheel can be moved in an opposite direction. In this part of 

 the Mississippi, and at this season, the points where passengers 

 can be set ashore are very numerous, the water being often forty 

 feet deep close to the banks But there are certain regular places 



