Insects #c. 703 



Notes on a Voyage up the Alabama River. By P. H. Gosse, Esq. 



The first impressions of a country remotely separated from any we 

 have before visited, are always curious and interesting to the traveller 

 himself, however commonplace they may be to others. The novelty 

 of the scene (to myself at least) which I am about to describe, must 

 be my apology for offering these sketches to your readers, although 

 they contain no new facts of any importance in science. I had hither- 

 to known and loved Nature only in the inhospitable regions of New- 

 foundland and Canada ; and the desire of seeing her in sunnier lands 

 was one great part of my inducement to visit the South. Accordingly 

 it was with a peculiar feeling of gratulation, and no low-wrought ex- 

 pectation, that in the middle of May I found myself on the shore of the 

 Gulf of Mexico. As I had no acquaintance in Mobile, and as the city 

 presented little to tempt my stay, I hastened to proceed to the moun- 

 tainous part of the State, to which I had introductions. I immediately 

 therefore took passage on board one of the fine high-pressure steam- 

 ers that throng the Mobile wharfs, to go up the river Alabama. It 

 was evening when we left the city ; from which the course of the river 

 winds for many miles through a flat marshy country, and is bordered 

 on each side by a broad belt of reeds, which grow thick and strong- 

 out of the very water. By day I suppose this appearance would be 

 unpleasing, but the gloom of night, limiting the view to a few yards 

 around us, and making visible the beautiful fireflies, which danced 

 and crawled about the reeds in myriads, or made interrupted lines of 

 radiance as they flew like shooting stars through the air, made the 

 scene one of romantic and high gratification. By and bye, we come 

 into more uneven ground, where the high banks reflect a black sha- 

 dow on the smooth water, seeming to contract the broad river to a 

 brook ; the calm mirror-like surface, unruffled by a zephyr, gives back 

 the light of each individual star, and now and then, as we round some 

 point, a bright red glare, with its watery reflection, suddenly and un- 

 expectedly bursts upon our gaze from the beacon-fire of some wood- 

 yard, casting a broad illumination on the opposite bank, which has a 

 startling and poetic effect : while the hoarse and hollow booming of 

 the steam, occurring at regularly measured intervals, seems not out of 

 keeping with the general solemnity of the scene. The busy hum and 

 bustle of the vessel gradually subsided into quietness, but long after 

 all the rest of the passengers had retired to rest, to whom I suppose 

 the scene presented not the charm of novelty, I continued on deck 

 with unabated delight : and even when I retired, it was not to sleep, 



