Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/106

 *siderable than any preceding bends, but had the disappointment to spend the night only a single mile below Madame Gordon's, the place of our destination with the boat, and only 16 miles above the bayou, by which we entered the Arkansa. This house is the first which is met with in ascending the river. Nearly opposite to the foot of the last bar {67} but one which we passed, a vast pile of drift wood marks the outlet of a bayou, which is open in high water, and communicates with the Mississippi.

The three last bends of the river, like the four first, tending by half circles to the north-west, are each about two and three miles in circuit. As in the Mississippi, the current sets with the greatest force against the centre of the curves; the banks of which are nearly perpendicular, and subject to a perpetual state of dislocation. In such situations we frequently see brakes of cane; while, on the opposite side, a naked beach of sand, thinly strewed with succulent and maritime plants, considerably wider than the river, appears to imitate the aridity of a desert, though contrasted at a little distance by skirting groves of willows and poplars.

No other kind of soil appears than a friable loam, and the beds of red clay, which so strongly tinge the water at particular periods of inundation. The sand of the river appears to be in perpetual motion, drifting along at the beck of the current; its instability is indeed often dangerous to the cattle that happen to venture into the river, either to drink or traverse the stream.

The land, although neglected, appears in several places, below Madame Gordon's, high enough to be susceptible of cultivation, and secure from inundation, at least for some distance from the immediate bank of the river.