176 
LOUIS CREEK. 
yards, having mangrove trees on either side, with sound- 
ings from eleven to twenty-three feet. 
After vainly striving to get the vessel’s head up the 
stream, we were obliged to come out of the creek to make 
another start “ reculer pour mieux sauterJ^ In this 
we were successful, find we proceeded up the river 
followed by the ‘ Soudan’. 
Having passed thi'ough the narrow channel named 
Louis Creek,* it expands to a wide sheet of water, 
with many islets and several broad and more promising 
channels on the right and left, than the one we had 
just come through. They are, however, all nearly dry 
at low water ; while Louis Creek, with the “ young” 
flood, had depth enough for our little ‘ Amelia,’ drawing 
ten feet. 
Nothing at this part was to be seen indicative of 
anything like teTra-firuiu. The visible boundaries of the 
river in all these branches being an endless confusion of 
the arching roots of the mangrove, Rhyzophora, the 
only occupant of this swamp. At low water, their roots 
are covered by slimy and stinking mud, with decayed 
vegetable matter ; to which may, not unreasonably, be 
attributed the deadly character of the locality. 
* So named after Lander’s pilot, who strenuously asserted this to 
be the best channel to find the “ big water,” in opposition to the 
advice of his treacherous master. King Boy, who, wished us to take 
another branch, in the hope that the vessels might be lost, when he 
proposed to enrich himself by the spoil. For his faithful service to 
us, poor Louis was afterwards put to death by King Boy. 
