86 
and may contain about twelve hundred inhabitants. It was the 
first town we had noticed. In passing, I remarked upon the 
eminence two brick barracks, two stories high, and good looking, 
which are inhabited during the summer by the garrison of New 
Orleans, on account of their healthy situation. Baton Rouge is 
one hundred and thirty-one miles distant from New Orleans, and 
owes its name to an ancient Indian trunk of a tree, which was 
so denominated by the first French settlers. We did not stop here, 
but made our first halt after sunset, at Bayou Sara, one hundred 
and sixty-three miles from New Orleans, for an hour, to take in 
wood for the engine. Above Baton Rouge the banks were steep, 
especially the left. Such solitary elevations are termed here 
bluffs. The islands in the Mississippi are numbered as they 
occur from the junction of the Ohio down. The last is No. 
£7, we came this day up above No. 94, and found all these 
intermediate islands low and covered with wood. Towards 
the rising of the sun, we had passed by at the mouth of the Bayou 
la Fourche, the little town of Donaldsonville, where as it is said, 
the seat of government of Louisiana will be established.* We 
saw three large alligators lying on the shore sunning themselves, 
the largest must have been from six to eight feet long. The 
weather was fine the whole day. 
We did not lie by again in the evening, but went on through 
the night, and still received several blows from the drift wood. 
The next morning produced nothing novel; some tortoises 
only passed us, sailing on pieces of wood. The river made 
many and considerable windings. The banks are every where 
woody, and for the most part so low, that from the water-marks 
on the trees, they must be inundated at high freshes. There were 
several high bluffs on the left bank, of which those called Loftus 
Heights, appear to be the most remarkable. There is a small 
settlement there called Fort Adams, from a fort that formerly 
stood here. Scattered, but considerable plantations, are situated 
on the shores. The sugar plantations have ceased, and the cot¬ 
ton fields have taken their place. We stopped at one of these 
plantations to take in wood; I embraced this opportunity to 
land, and look round about me in the neighbourhood of 
the plantation. The soil appeared to be of a dark colour, 
and very productive. The trees were chiefly of ash and pop¬ 
lar, of which one was sixteen feet in circumference. Upon 
* [Our author has somehow been confused in his diary here: the mouth of La 
Fourche is generally called seventy-five miles above New Orleans, Stoddart makes 
it eighty-one. At any rate it is about half way between Bayou Sara or Point 
Coupee and the city of New Orleans,* and of course the Duke must have pass¬ 
ed Donaldsonville, which is at the junction of La Fourche with the Mississippi? 
hi the morning of the day he passed Baton Rouge.]—T rans. 
