The native American. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1837-1840, 1839-08-03
LETTERS BY THE WAY.
BY REV. mr.. HUMPHREY.

Ii A. I'D - IA " AL.
BY REV. pR. HUMPHREY.
THE MISSISSIPPI ought TO have been
called Missouri, for reasons which are Just
as good as if had time to give them; but
the day has gone by, and you can no more
change the name of the /" Father Of rivers
than you can do justice to Columbus. The
father of rivers though! How the Father,
when the streams do not proceed from, but
fall into it But adhering to my old rule,
Of taking things as | find them, at home
as well as abroad, let that pass. | had
from my boyhood almost, felt great desire
to see the Mississippi; you may we'll sup
pose, that when was within twenty miles,
ten miles, five miles, wanted to give
wings to our steam wheel water craft.
AT length Cairo, (not get Grand Cairo
hove in sight. and in few moments, the
great Mediterranean OF the west, strewed
with flood wood, came rushing by, and
paying no more attention to the Ohio, on
which had sailed thousand miles, than
if it had been trout brook !; it might
come in or not, just as it pleased. By
thrusting our little bark into the mighty
current, how soon should we have been in
New Orleans, but we were bound to St.
Louis, and to stem the boiling torrent
swollen by the spring contributions of both
the far West and the far North, was quite
another matter.
And now, peradventure you will say,
let US have desert ption Of the Mississippi
but really, Mr.. Editor, you must excuse
me. cannot grasp it. 1t wants to be
studied; and after all any body can say
you must come and see for yourself, or
your conceptions of it will be very made
quate. Think of the most tur5ld creek
you ever saw, after smart thunder storm,
and then add twice as much clay to thick
en- it, and mark how your boat quivers, re-
coils, and almost shoulders. under you, as
the helsman brings her up into the swift
current; look first to your right upon the
low and apparently interminable wilder
ness of Illinois with scarcely cabin or
clearing in view for many a long hour.
Then cast your weary eye OF the Mis-
souri, wilderness, at first equally fat, but
gradually rising into undu!ations and rocky
bluffs. Examine and admire the beautiful
islands which are constantly in view from
the time You enter the river till you reach
ST. Louis. Trace the majestic wlndings of
this immense accumulation of waters,
sweeping away its alluvial banks by acres
and furlongs with all their towering forest
trees, like SO many bulrushcs. But this
will never do. | must 60 back to Cairo
and head up stream once more.
For thirty or forty miles after you enter
the Mississippi, the current is 50 strong,
that it requires powerful engine to make
six miles an hour, ours scarcely made four;
and there was now and then a sharp pitch,
as carman would say, when, for few
minutes, we could scarcely tell whether we
gained or lost. Almost the only impression
made upon the primitive wilderness on
either side, for the first fifty miles, is by
the squatters who supply the boats with
wood. They all live in miserable log
cabins with scarcely a ray Of comfort you
would think, in doors or out. But where
the wood costs them nothing, one would
think they might soon place themselves in
easy circumstances as the demand is very
great. They however, have so much
swearing and drinking and Sabbath break
ing to do, that doubt whether many of
them ever make any thing. TER child
rem are greatly to be pitied, growing up as
they must, as uneducated as the turkey
buzzards that fly over them.
don't like to call the Mississippi a
beautiful river, because the word does not
express half enough and yet, it IS beauty
on magnificent scale. The great bends,
the emerald islands, and the interminab!c
outlines of lofty forest trees. interest you
more and more, as you take time to con-
template them, and give your mind AM
Imagination " to their sweet enchantrncnt;
and the effect is exceedingly heightened
by the reflected crimson and gold of
glorious sunset 1t is astonishing to see
how fast the bed Of the river is shifting in
a hundred places; how the wilderness is
undermined and falling in on one side,
while the young poplars are springing up
upon new made land on the other; and
how islands, or large parts Of them are
formed one year and swept away the next.
Of course the sand bars are continually
shifting, and in low water the largest class
of beats cannot safely ascend the Missis-
sippi above the mouth Of the Ohio. But
the snags and sawyers are by far the most
formidable distractions to this vast inland
navigation; and do not see how it can be
made much safer on this score, so long as
thousands of trees are every year washed
away with the alluvial banks upon which
they have been growing for century, to
be anchored in the stream, and supply the
place Of those which are taken out or saw
ed off by the snag DO is.
AT small town partly French and part
ly American, our boat landed twenty bar
rels of whiskey on the American side of
the creek. The men and BOYS gathered