130 THE COAST FLAT BOATS. [CHAP. XXX. 



of disembarkation, the approach to which is announced by ringing 

 a large bell. 



A great proportion of the trees are still leafless, the willows, 

 cypresses, and red maples being no more advanced than I had 

 seen them at Mobile in the third week of February. The gar 

 dens continue to be gay with the blossoms of the peach and plum- 

 trees. As our vessel wound its way round one great bend after 

 another, we often saw directly before us the dome of the St. Charles 

 and the tower of St. Patrick s, and were sailing toward them after 

 I thought we had already taken a last look at them far astern. 

 In the first seven hours we made sixty miles, including stoppages. 

 We were passing along what is called &quot; the coast,&quot; or that part 

 of the Mississippi which is protected by a levee above the metrop 

 olis. A great many handsome country houses, belonging to the 

 proprietors of sugar plantations, give a cultivated aspect to this 

 region, and the scenery is enlivened by a prodigious number of 

 schooners and large steamers sailing down from the Ohio arid Red 

 rivers, heavily laden with cotton. This cotton has already been 

 much compressed when made up into bales ; but it undergoes, at 

 New Orleans, still greater pressure, by steam power, to diminish 

 its bulk before embarkation for Liverpool. 



The captain calculated that within the first seven hours after 

 we left the wharf, in the Second Municipality, we had passed no 

 less than ten thousand bales going down the river, each bale 

 worth thirty-five dollars at present prices, and the value of the 

 whole, therefore, amounting to 350.000 dollars, or 73,500/. 

 sterling. All this merchandize would reach the great emporium 

 within twenty hours of the time of our passing it. Before we 

 lost sight of the city, we saw a large flat boat drifting down in 

 the middle of the current, steered by means of a large oar at the 

 stern. It was laden with farm produce, and had come about 

 two thousand miles, from near Pittsburg, on the Ohio. I had 

 first observed this kind of craft on my way to the Balize, meet 

 ing near Fort Jackson a boat without a single inmate, thirty-five 

 feet long, and built of stout planks, with a good roof. It was 

 drifting along on its way to the Gulf of Mexico, the owner hav 

 ing abandoned it after selling his corn and other stores at the 



