Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/287

 *ful view down the river, in a S. S. E. direction five miles to the Mississippi.

First on the right just below the mouth of Cash river, M'Mullin's pleasant settlement, and a little lower a cabin occupied by a tenant who labours for him. A ship at anchor close to the right shore, three miles lower down, enlivened the view, which was closed below by colonel Bird's flourishing settlement on the south bank of the Mississippi.[183]

We soon passed and spoke the ship, which was the Rufus King, captain Clarke, receiving a cargo of tobacco, &c. by boats down the river from Kentucky, and intended to proceed in about a week, on a voyage {254} to Baltimore. It was now a year since she was built at Marietta, and she had got no farther yet.

At noon we entered the Mississippi flowing from E. above, to E. by S. below the conflux of the Ohio, which differs considerably from its general course of from north to south.

CHAPTER XLIII

River Mississippi—Iron banks—Chalk bank—Remarkable melody of birds—Bayou St. Jean—New Madrid—Delightful morning—Little Prairie—An Indian camp—Mansfield's island.

We had thought the water of the Ohio very turbid, but it was clear in comparison of the Mississippi, the two rivers being distinctly marked three or four miles after their junction. The Ohio carried us out almost into the middle of the Mississippi, so that I was almost deceived into thinking that the latter river ran to the westward instead of to the