32 
LETTERS FROM ALABAMA. 
at them; these stations are called wood-yards. 
The moment the steamer stops, the crew begin to* 
bring the wood on board on their shoulders, and it 
is astonishing to observe how quickly the great 
piles are transferred, and we are again on our roar- 
ing and rushing course. Here and there we open 
on some large cleared estate, and fields planted 
with corn or cotton, as yet scarcely appearing 
above ground, and perhaps a single negro-hut; 
but the planters’ houses and the general buildings 
of the farm do not appear, they being situated at 
a considerable distance from the margin. Every 
spring the river overflows its banks, and inundates 
the surrounding country to a wide extent. Of 
this I saw sufficient traces, though the water had 
now returned to its wonted channel : high up, on 
the trees which overhung the water, the branches 
were incumbered with rubbish that had been left 
there by the spring flood, and which showed the 
great extent to which the river had been swollen. 
In one tree was the carcase of a cow that had pro- 
bably been drowned in the freshets, and having 
become entangled among the forked boughs, had 
been deposited in the odd situation in which I saw 
it. In general the banks are clothed with tall 
forests to the water’s edge ; trees arrayed in all 
shades of green, of various height and form, some 
covered with glorious flowers, suddenly appeared 
and as swiftly vanished, a constantly shifting 
panorama. Many trees had their tangled roots all 
exposed by the washing away of the soil from 
beneath them, others were prostrate in the stream 
from the operation of the same cause ; sometimes 
a pretty wooded island appeared, cleaving the 
stream with its shore of bright yellow sand ; now 
