27 



hit at the tender point, and they generally escape the murderous 

 aim of their assailants by diving into deep water, where no ball can 

 reach them. "When the water is low, a sand bank, about two miles 

 beyond the mouth of the bayou, prevents the New Orleans packets 

 from ascending any higher, and passengers and freight are trans- 

 ported in ihii boats over the bars to a small steamboat constructed 

 for that purpose, which travels along slowly a distance of forty-two 

 miles, until Washington is reached, which is at the head of navigation, 

 and wheiuv passengers are conveyed in hacks to Opelousas, which 



I i miles distant. 



The land on the banks of the Cortableau is mostly low willow and 

 cypress swamp until within a few miles of Port Barre, where the 

 Teche takes its rise, dividing off from the bayou. Tuere the land 

 becomes hilly, and is composed of the same sandy red loam which 

 constitutes the red clay ridge in which the Teche has its bed, rising 

 above high water mark, and not extending more than a quarter of a 

 mile on either side. This red sandy clay, which at the outskirts of 

 Opelousas is covered by the prairie soil, again crops out beyond Ville 

 Platte, and extends a few miles beyond Chicotville, where the pine 

 prairies and the pine woods begin. This kind of soil, where it does 

 not wash, is quite fertile for a few years, and the timber trees near 

 the water courses, composed of willow, oak, sycamore, locust, post 

 oak, red oak and hickory, are quite heavy. The bitter weed (Hele- 

 uiuni tenuifolium) grows here in the greatest abundance. Sometimes 

 stripe of this red loamy soil are covered by black prairie soil for a 

 short distance, and then the red clay makes again its appearance on 

 the surface. The pine prairie land is as productive as the other prairie 

 soil, but this being the boundary line which the waters of the Gulf 

 only reached at very high tide, the surface soil forms only a thin 

 crust, and wears out in a few years. The pine woods, at the edge of 

 the prairies, are intermixed with oak, which really constitutes the 

 principal growth, but the lands are low, and during rainy weather 

 they are covered with water, and the country becomes for miles one 

 continuous swamp. Beyond the edge of the prairie, about a mile 

 and a half to the right of the Alexandria road, the land is very poor, 

 and on both sides of the road, which runs on an elevated ridge, there 

 are seen a series of ravines, some of them from fifty to sixty feet 

 deep. 



During the summer months the prairies are destitute of flowers, 



