17 



Iu the outskirts of the town, along the banks of Bayou Bojuf, 

 miles ol' abandoned lands can be seen, as level as a prairie, which 

 were cultivated before the war, but are now permitted to lie idle for 

 want of capital, and which would be productive of line crops of 

 sugar, cotton or corn, if properly managed. The prevailing timber 

 trees in this region are the live oak, the water oak, the sweet gum 

 and locust. But the trees are all thickly overhung with the funereal 

 long moss, winch, it' it were not an air plant, might be supposed to 

 prey upon the vital sap of these trees, and eat out their substance, 

 for the greatest number of them are of a stunted and scrubby 

 growth, and many old trees, being in a state of decay, are rapidly 

 dying out. This sickly appearance of the timber trees is probably 

 owing to former periodical overliows, to which these forests were 

 exposed from the Mississippi waters. Elder bushes and Trumpet 

 rlowers, the Four-toothed Helenium and the Burdock — the two latter 

 familiar Baton Rouge acquaintances — constitute the rank vegetation 

 during summer, which covers the face of the land. My excursions 

 were principally contined to within two or three miles in the vicinity 

 of the town, on both sides of the bay. I found several specimens 

 here which I had never seen before, nor have as yet met with in any 

 other part of the State. The Grass-leafed Schollera grows abun- 

 dantly on the edge of Berwick's Bay, and its long wiry stems, grass- 

 like leaves and small yellow flowers cover large patches on the 

 shallow waters of the bay, which, in the distance, appear like floating 

 garden spots in the midst of the waters. On the banks of the 

 Atchafalayal found the long-dowered tobacco(Nicotiana Longiilora,) 

 which is hardly indiginous in that part of the country, and must 

 have been introduced from other parts of the world. 



I remained in Brashear City but one day, and availing myself of 

 the daily steamboat line up the Teche, I proceeded to Franklin, the 

 parish site of St. Mar} T , a distance of thirty miles, which I reached 

 in the evening, after six hours travel. The Teche empties into the 

 Atchafalaya river, about twelve miles above Brashear City, and the 

 country a short distance beyond its banks, may be considered the 

 garden spot of Louisiana. The sugar plantations of the lower 

 Teche are perhaps, with the exception of Cuba, the finest in the 

 rid. The country residences are for the most part neat cottage 

 h -uses, commodious and well constructed, but not as elegant as the 

 fine mansions of the coast plantations. The sugar houses are sub- 



