EPISODES 251 



own negligence, imagined the possible fate of the collec- 

 tion, and saw it in the hands of one of the numerous boat- 

 men lounging along the shores, who might paste the 

 drawings to the walls of his cabin, nail them to the steer- 

 ing-oars of his flatboat, or distribute them among his fel- 

 lows, I felt little less vexed than I did some years before 

 when the rats, as you know, devoured a much larger 

 collection. 



It was useless to fret myself, and so I began to devise 

 a scheme for recovering the drawings. I wrote to Mr. 

 Gamier and my venerable friend Charles Carr^. Mr. 

 Berthoud also wrote to a mercantile acquaintance. The 

 letters were forwarded to Natchez from the first landing- 

 place at which we stopped, and in the course of time we 

 reached the great eddy running by the levee, or artificial 

 embankment, at New Orleans. But before I present you 

 with the answers to the letters sent to our acquaintances 

 at Natchez, allow me to offer a statement of our adven- 

 tures upon the Mississippi. 



After leaving the eddy at Natchez, we passed a long 

 file of exquisitely beautiful bluffs. At the end of twenty 

 hours we reached Bayou Sara, where we found two brigs 

 at anchor, several steamers, and a number of fiatboats, 

 the place being of considerable mercantile importance. 

 Here the " Columbus " left us to shift for ourselves, her 

 commander being anxious to get to Baton Rouge by a 

 certain hour, in order to secure a good cargo of cotton. 

 We now proceeded along the great stream, sometimes 

 floating and sometimes rowing. The shores gradually 

 became lower and flatter, orange-trees began to make 

 their appearance around the dwellings of the wealthy 

 planters, and the verdure along the banks assumed a 

 brighter tint. The thermometer stood at 68° in the 

 shade at noon; Butterflies fluttered among the flowers, of 

 which many were in full blow ; and we expected to have 

 seen Alligators half awake floating on the numberless logs 



