Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/107

 No change, that I can remark, yet exists in the vegetation, and the scenery is almost destitute of every thing which is agreeable to human nature; nothing yet appears but one vast trackless wilderness of trees, a dead solemnity, where the human voice is never heard to echo, where not even ruins of the humblest kind recal its history to mind, or prove the past dominion of man. All is rude nature as it sprang into {68} existence, still preserving its primeval type, its unreclaimed exuberance.

19th.] This morning we had extremely hard labour, to tow the only mile which remained of our tiresome voyage. I was obliged to plunge into the water up to the waist, and there work for some time, to disengage the boat from a hidden log upon which it was held; the men I had employed, being this morning scarcely willing to wet their feet, although I had to pay them exorbitant wages.

A mile and a half from Madame Gordon's, there was a settlement, consisting of four or five French families, situated upon an elevated tract of fertile land, which is occasionally insulated by the overflowings of the White and Arkansa rivers.

20th.] To-day, and indeed for more than a week past, the weather, except being cloudy, has felt to me like May; towards mid-day, the thermometer rose to 67°. The birds had commenced their melodies; and on the high and open bank of the river near to Madame Gordon's, I had already the gratification of finding flowers of the same natural family as many of the early plants of Europe; the Cruciferæ; but to me they were doubly interesting, as the first fruits of a harvest never before reaped by any botanist.

In the afternoon, I walked about a mile from the river to the house of Monsieur Tenass, an honest and industrious farmer. The crop of cotton, and of corn, here the