American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1875-04-03

dense, untouched forest overhang-
ing both banks of the crooked little
crack-and one could believe that human
creatures had never intruded there be-
fore. The swinging grape-vines, the
grassy hooks and vistas glimpsed as we
swept by, the Towering creepers waving
their red blossoms from the tops of dead
trunks, and all the spendthrift richness
OF the forest foliage, were wasted and
thrown away there. The chutes were
lovely places TO steer in; they were deep
except at the head; the current was gen
tie; under the "points" the water was
absolutely dead, and the invisible banks
so bluff that where the tender willow
thickets projected you could bury your
boats broadside in them as you tore
along, and then you seemed fairly to fly.
Once, in one of these lovely island
chutes, we found our course completely
bridged by great fallen tree. This will
serve to show how narrow some of the
chutes were. The passengers had an
hours recreation in virgin wilderness,
while the boat-hands chopped the bridge
away; but there was no such thing as
turning back, you comprehend.
From Cairo to Baton Rouge, when the
river is over its banks, you have no par
ticular trouble in the night, for the
thousand mile wall of dense forest that
guards the two banks all the way is
only capped with a farm or woodward
opening at intervals, and SO you can't
"get out of the river" much easier than
you could get out of fenced lane; but
from Baton Rouge to New Orleans it is
a different matter. The river is more
than mile wide and very deep, as much
as 200 feet in places. Both banks, for a
good deal over 100 miles, are shorn of
their timber, and bordered by continu-
Gus sugar plantations, with only here and
there a scattering sapling or row of or
namental Chins-trees. The timber is
shorn off clear to the rear of the planta-
tons, from two to four miles. When the
first frost threatens to come the plant
ers snatch off their crops in a hurry.
When they have finished grinding their
cane they form the refuse of the stacks
(Which they call bagasse) into great piles
and set fire to them, though in other
sugar countries the bagasse is used for
fuel in the furnaces of the sugar mills.
Now the piles of damp bagasse burn
slowly, and smoke like Satan's own
kitchen.
An embankment ten or fifteen feet high
guards both banks of the Mississippi all
the way down that lower end of the
river, and this embankment is set back
from the edge of the shore from ten to
perhaps 100 feet, according to circum-
stances-say thirty to forty feet, as a
general thing. Fill that whole region
with an impenetrable gloom of smoke
from a hundred miles of burning bagasse
piles, when the river is over the banks,
and turn steamboat loose along there
at midnight and see how she will feel.
And see how you will feel, too! You
find yourself away out in the midst of a
vague, dim sea that is shoreless, that
fades out and loses itself In the murky
distance; for you cannot discern the rib
of embankment and you are always mag
lining you see a struggling tree when you
don't The plantations themselves are
transformed by the smoke and look like
part of the sea. All through your
watch you are tortured with the ex-
quisite misery of uncertainty. You hope
you are keeping in the river, but you do
not know. All that you are sure about
is that you are likely to be within six
feet OF the bank and destruction when
you think you are good half mile from
snore. And you are sure, also, that if
you chance suddenly to fetch up against
the embankment and topple your Chin
neys overheard you will have the small
comfort of knowing that it is about what
you were expecting to do. One of the
great Vlcksburg packets darted out into
sugar plantation one night at such a
time and had to stay there week. But
there was no novelty about it; it had
often been done before.