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On Lacasieu bayou, about twenty miles from Lake Charles, there 

 is a comparatively flourishing settlement, the only one that has come 

 under my observation on the whole route, and from there the 

 road becomes plain, leading directly to town. 



Lake Charles is situated on Calcasieu river, which forms here a 

 "broad and shallow lake about twelve feet deep, from which the town 

 takes its name. It is on the edge of the pine lands by which it is 

 surrounded. Its houses are scattered and old. Xo improvements of 

 any consequence are going on. The jail is the most substantial 

 building in the placer, but is a useless luxury; it has no occupant, 

 and is perhaps the only building " to let." The courthouse is an 

 old, dilapidated one-story frame house. The town can boast of a 

 telegraph office and a weekly steamboat line, connecting Lake 

 Charles with Galveston, Texas, which is the lumber market for the 

 disposal of the cypress lumber furnished by the numerous saw mills 

 on the banks of the Calcasieu river. The favorable position of the 

 town ought to make it a place of some note, and it would undoubt- 

 edly increase in importance if the back country were sufficiently 

 settled capable of supporting it. The orange tree is much culti- 

 vated in and around Like Charles, and whenever the season is fa- 

 vorable the orange crop of the neighborhood is of considerable 

 value. 



The Calcasieu river is a clear and beautiful stream. Its depth 

 above and below the lake is from thirty to fifty feet, and it would be 

 navigable to the gulf by the largest ships were it not that its chan- 

 nel, forming in several places wide and shallow lakes, interrupts the 

 continuous course of ocean navigation. Small steamboats run from 

 fifty to sixty miles above Lake Charles to bring down timber for the 

 saw mills, for there are very few settlements on its banks. With the 

 kind assistance of Dr. Gray I found many new specimens in the 

 vicinity of Lake Charles and at Gossport, one of the most extensive 

 lumber establishments in the neighborhood. 



Having traversed the prairies for a considerable distance, I in- 

 tended in my homeward journey to explore the pine flats and take 

 the pine hills of South Rapides in my route. 



The roads in the pine flats are no better marked than the prairie 

 roads, and sometimes the narrow beaten path entirely disappears 

 for some distance, and the pine logs which obstruct the road every 



