43 
Vl£WS OF LOUISIANA; 
The lands on this river for six or eight hundred miles Up* 
are described as very fine and capable of affording settlements^ 
though principally untimbered. For a long distance up, the flat 
lands on either side are intersected with numerous bayoux.—. 
There is a remarkable communication between the Arkansas 
and White river, by a channel or bayou connecting the two ri¬ 
vers with a current setting alternately into the one or the other^ 
as the flood in either happens to predominate* 
RED RIVER 
Takes its source in the Cordilleras, at no great distance 
north of Sta. Fe. In length it is about the same with the Arkan¬ 
sas. It is navigable six or eight hundred miles, with scarcely any 
obstruction. There^is at that point a curious raft, formed of logs 
and earth, which entirely covers its channel; trees are growing 
Upon it, and one might pass Over without perceiving the river. 
Red river runs in a valley on an average fifteen miles wide, for 
at least eight hundred miles, which is every where intersected 
with bayoux, and large lakes. The navigation meets with the 
first impediment one hundred and fifty miles up. The falls 
or rapids are about two miles in length, the breadth of the 
river two hundred and fifty yards. They are occasioned by a soft 
rock of free stone: the greatest pitch in low water, notbeingmore 
than eight or nine inches. This river might with much more jus¬ 
tice than the Mississippi, be called the American Nile. A country 
lies on its borders more extensive than Egypt, and of a soil the 
richest perhaps in the world. Its waters, which are not potable, are 
very red, impregnated with some mineral. The river is remark¬ 
ably narrow; it seldom spreads to the width of two hundred and 
fifty yards, and is more generally contracted to one hundred; it 
is also exceedingly crooked. The annual swell, which is early 
in the spring of the year, raises the water fifty or sixty feet, when 
it flows with great rapidity: but during the summer and season 
of low water, it is sunk within deep and ragged clay banks, of an 
unsightly appearance, and has not more than eight or ten feet of 
water. The out-lets from this river are more numerous than 
even from the Mississippi, and joined by streams which flow 
from the uplands, or pine woods. The course of the river is con- 
