Page:A Physical and Topographical Sketch of the Mississippi Territory, Lower Louisiana, and a Part of West Florida.djvu/19

 to its parent stream; but discharges itself on the west into the bay of St. Bernard, and on the east into lake Ponchantran and the bay of Pensacola. However, the quantity which passes by these routs is much less now than it formerly was; on account of the embankments which the inhabitants have thrown up to protect their farms from the encroachments of the floods. A circumstance much to be lamented by the succeeding generations that are to inhabit these shores, at some remote future period; for, doubtless, had these embankments never been thrown up, and the river suffered to continue its progress of inundation and deposition, in a few centuries a sufficient quantity of acreted sediment would have been accumulated to have elevated the adjacent country beyond the reach of inundation; and a few years of vegetation would have been adequate to render it dry and healthful. But the present method which is practised of restraining it within its banks, appears to involve consequences sufficiently powerful to break the shackles which the Louisianians impose at the expense of the lives and happiness of so many of Africa's injured sons, and once more emancipate this great river from the control of its present masters. Is it not reasonable to suppose, that the bed of the river must become more filled than it otherwise would, were its waters and sediment suffered to escape; and that in time these banks will, though annually increased, be insufficient to withstand the superiour pressure of the water, and that nature will accomplish by her means what the Louisianians have so long been striving to execute by artificial? Nor do I conceive