1G4 MONOTONY OF SCENERY. [CHAP. XXXII. 



other ; the successive growths of young trees rising to greater 

 heights, one tier above another, as before described, below New 

 Orleans. The water, at this season, is too turbid to reflect the 

 sky or the trees on its bank. The aspect of things, day after 

 day, is so exactly similar, that it might seem as necessary to take 

 astronomical observations, in order to discover what progress one 

 lias 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 gray moss 

 hanging from the trees. The red maple has also disappeared. 

 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 w^ere 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 Napoleon, 212 miles above Vicksburg, at the 

 mouth of the Arkansas, had suffered much by the floods of ] 844. 

 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 Cincinnati, car 

 rying 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 decreasing depth, from ten feet to 

 eight and a half, was called out ; our vessel then grazed the bot 

 tom for a moment, but fortunately got off again. There w r as so 

 much sameness in the navigation, that such an incident was 

 quite a relief. Soon afterward, March 23d, some variety was 

 afforded by a squall of wind, accompanied by lightning. I never 

 expected to see waves of such magnitude, and was surprised to 

 learn, that in some reaches, where the water extends ten miles 

 in a straight line, a strong wind blowing against the current will 



