Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/108

 last summer was, I understand, very indifferent, for want of rain. The first sold here, at five to six dollars per hundred weight, in the seed; and flour at 10 dollars per barrel.

The climate is said to be too warm for apples, but quite suitable for peaches. The land on which this gentleman and his neighbours resided, in tolerable independence, is very considerably elevated and open, bearing a resemblance to the lands about the Chicasaw {69} Bluffs, and at first view, I thought I discovered a considerable hill, but it was, in fact, an enormous mound, not less than 40 feet high, situated towards the centre of a circle of other lesser mounds, and elevated platforms of earth. The usual vestiges of earthenware, and weapons of hornstone flint, are here also met with, scattered over the surrounding soil.

In any other direction from this settlement, the lands are totally overflowed in freshets as far as the Mississippi. On this side of the Arkansa, the floods cover the whole intermediate space to White river, a distance of 30 miles. Within this tract, cultivation can never take place without recourse to the same industry, which has redeemed Holland from the ocean. The singular caprice of the river, as it accidentally seeks its way to the sea, meandering through its alluvial valley, is truly remarkable. The variation of its channel is almost incredible, and the action which it exercises over the destiny of the soil, can scarcely be conceived. After pursuing a given course for many ages, and slowly encroaching, it has, at length, in many instances cut through an isthmus, and thus abandoned perhaps a course of six or eight miles, in which the water stagnating, at length becomes totally insulated, and thus presents a lagoon or lake. One of these insulated channels, termed a lake, commences about two miles