BOUNDARIES, SURFACE, &C.--BOOK II. CS3 
The Tensa, which enters from the eastern side, forms, with 
the Washita and bayou Long, another island of an oval shape, 
and about fifty miles in circumference. On this there are no 
settlers, though it is not commonly subject to be overflown; it 
is a level of rich soil; in 1811 , it was pretty generally covered 
with water to the depth of about one foot. Trifling levees would 
secure this tract, as indeed all those islands, if it were not for 
the numerous bayoux of a smaller size which every where inter¬ 
sect the country; entirely to close up thfeir entrances, would 
be attended with great labor. Immediately above this island, 
there is another called Siciily island, a greater part of which, is 
rich upland, and supports a considerable settlement. It is about 
thirty miles in circumference. At the lower end of Siciily island 
the bayou Tensa spreads into a lake of fifteen or twenty miles 
in length, and nearly parallel with the Mississippi; at one place 
near the settlement of Palmyra, it approaches within two or 
three miles of the Mississippi, and is at length connected with 
that river, it is supposed somewhere near Stack island, and form¬ 
ing one of its out-lets. Besides the Tensa lake, this bayou forms 
several others, of which lake Providence is the most considera¬ 
ble. Their banks are high, and rarely, if ever, subject to the ef¬ 
fects of the floods of the Mississippi. The Tensa lake receives 
two very considerable streams; the riviere aux Boeufs, and the 
bayou Masson: both are supposed to have their sources partly 
in the pine woods, between the Washita and the Arkansas, and 
partly in some lakes, formed by out-lets from the Arkansas and 
Mississippi: but from the clearness of their streams it is proba¬ 
ble that they receive the greater part of their waters from the 
upland springs and rivulets. The bayou Masson, may be con* 
sidered the boundary of the Mississippi swamp, and seldom re¬ 
cedes to a greater distance than fifteen miles from the river. The 
land between it and the riviere aux Boeufs is generally high prai¬ 
rie, the lower part rises in bluffs of fifty or sixty feet high. There 
are several connecting bayoux between it and the bayou Masson. 
The strip of land, perhaps on an average ten or fifteen miles ip 
width, between those two bayoux, is generally above the reach of 
inundation. Between the riviere aux Boeuft and the Washita, the 
land is low, and the overflowing of either river is sometime^ 
