Tour to the Western Country

[274]  p300  Vol. IV
p300 Chapter XLVII
Grand lake — Seary's island — Extraordinary effect of the power of the current — Musquitoe island — Crow's nest island — Humorous anecdote of a Carolinean — A battle royal — New settlements — Fine situations — Cuming's island.

June 3d, after proceeding •three miles, the river was narrowed by a point of willows on the right to a quarter of a  p301 mile wide, and five miles after, it widens gradually to half a mile.

In the next nineteen miles we passed several islands, giving a relief to the eye, by their variety and some fine views.

We then passed on the right, the Grand lake, now grown up with willows, where the river formerly entered, and encircled a cotton tree island, which still rears itself predominant over the surrounding willow marsh. Two miles below, the old willow channel returns again, diagonally, to the present river bank, on the opposite side of which, on the left, the old channel seems to have been continued, there surrounding [275] another clump of cotton trees, called Seary's island, (No. 90) which is about a mile long, and which confines the present channel within a limit of •a quarter of a mile, which contraction shoots the river so strongly against the low willow bend of the old channel below, that not being able to bear the impetus of the torrent in the present flooded state of the river, the tall willows are undermined, and falling every moment, dash up the white foam in their fall, and sometimes spring up again, as the root reaches the bottom of the river, in such a manner as to impress the beholder with astonishment.

Fourteen miles more brought us to island No. 92, where we moored for the night. We found abundance of blackberries on this island, but in gathering them, we were attacked by such myriads of musquitoes, generated by a pond in the middle, that we named it Musquitoe island.

June 4th, in eleven miles we arrived at Crow's nest island, where invited by the beauty of its appearance, some of us landed in the skiff. It is a little narrow island, about a hundred and fifty paces long by forty broad. It is sufficiently raised above inundation, and is very dry and pleasant, with innumerable blackbirds, which have their nests amongst  p302 the thirty tall cotton wood trees it contains. It is covered with brush, through which is an old path from one end to the other. A quantity of drift wood lies on its upper end, which projecting, forms a fine boat harbour just below it, quite out of the current. There are but few musquitoes on the dry part, but a low, drowned point, covered with small poplars, and extending a hundred yards at the lower end swarms with them, and many of the largest size, called gannipers. These venemous and troublesome insects remind me of a humorous story I have heard, which I take the liberty of introducing here.

Some gentlemen in South Carolina had dined together, and while the wine circulated freely after dinner the conversation turned on the quantity of musquitoes generated in the rice swamps of that country. One of the gentlemen said that those insects never troubled him, and that he believed people in general complained more of them than they had occasion to do — that for his part he would not notice them, were he naked in a rice swamp. Another of the company (according to the custom of the country, where all arguments terminate in a wager) offered him a considerable bet that he would not lie quietly on his face, naked, in the swamp, a quarter of an hour. The other took him up, and all the party immediately adjourned to the place fixed on. The gentleman stripped, lay down, and bore with the most resolute fortitude the attack of the hostile foe. The time had almost expired, and his antagonist fearing he must lose his wager, seized a fire brand from one of the negro fires that happened to be near, and approaching slyly applied it to a fleshy part of his prostrate adversary, who, not able to bear the increased pain, clapped his hand on the part, jumped up, and cried out "A ganniper by G—." He then acknowledged he had lost his wager, by that "damned ganniper," and the party returned to the house  p303 to renew their libations to Bacchus, and to laugh over the comical termination of the bet.

Crow's nest island is a beautiful little spot, and is about a mile from the right bank, and half a mile from the left, and only a mile below the commencement of a noble reach of the river, which is perfectly straight for nine miles (therefore called the Nine mile reach) in a S. S. W. direction, and upwards of a mile wide.

Eighteen miles from the lower end of the Nine mile reach, we came to three new settlements on the left, within a mile of each other. The banks here [277] are not more than three feet above the present level of the river. Eleven miles farther, in an intricate pass between two islands captain Wells's inside boat was driven by the current against a quantity of drift wood, the shock of which parted her from his other boat and mine. She stuck fast, and we continued down the sound between the islands about two miles, when seeing a convenient place for stopping, we rowed in, and made fast in a fine eddy, among willows at the lower point of the right hand island, where we were soon after joined by Wells with his boat which he had got off again without damage.

Whiskey having been dealt liberally to the boatmen to induce them to exert themselves while the boat was in danger, it began to operate by the time they rejoined us, the consequence of which was a battle royal, in which some of the combatants attempted to gouge each other, but my boat's company interfering, separated them, and quelled the disturbance, after which I delivered them a long lecture on that shameful, unmanly, and inhuman practice, condemning it in such strong terms, as to almost provoke an attack against myself, but I at last succeeded, or thought I succeeded, in making them ashamed of themselves.

The two islands between which we had just floated, are  p304 mentioned improperly in the Navigator as one island, which is numbered 100. The channel between is very narrow, the ship channel in this stage of the water being evidently to the right of both, and a small willow island besides to the right of them. — The second of the islands is properly No. 100.196

The musquitoes were this night, as usual, insupportable, spite of smoke which we used almost to suffocation.

[278] June 5th, having lashed the boats together again, we cast them loose from their moorings at an early hour, and trusted them to the current, but after floating six miles we had to use our oars with the utmost exertion, to avoid some broken and hanging trees, with a whirling eddy just below them, occasioned by a point on the left projecting far into a bend on the right, and being rendered rapid by the channel above being narrowed by island 101. Inside of these broken trees, the canes were burnt, as if with intention to make a settlement. The canes or reeds, which grow to an immense size on the river banks, had now began to take the place of brush or copse wood, but they do not prevent the growth of the forest trees, which appear to gain in size the lower we descend.

A mile below the intricate pass, we came to a settlement commenced this spring by a Mr. Campbell from Bayau Pierre, who has made a good opening. The family which had commenced near the whirlpool above, were residing with him. The river in general at its greatest height never rises more than a foot higher than it was now. It is ten miles from hence to Yazoos river, and twenty to the Walnut hills, eighteen below the last three new settlements, and one hundred below Ville Aussipot.

•A mile and a half lower, is a beautiful situation on the right, partly cleared, with a cabin on it, but no inhabitants.  p305 The river trenches from hence E. S. E. and a mile lower is another new settlement on the right, from whence is a fine reach of the river downwards E. ½ S. In the next half league, are three more new settlements also on the right, all commenced this spring.

A mile lower is a charming situation for a settlement, at present unoccupied. It is opposite island No. 103, and continues •three miles to a point where the river resumes its S. S. W. direction, at the end [279] of that island, which is itself a delightful and most eligible situation for an industrious and tasty farmer.

There are some settlements opposite the end of the island on the right bank, and on the left, opposite, is discernible the bed of an old schute of the Mississippi, or rather a mouth of the Yazoos, as the low willows which mark this old bed join that river two miles above where it enters the Mississippi. From my admiration of No. 103, my fellow voyagers named it Cuming's island, and indeed I should have been tempted to have settled on it, had every thing been perfectly convenient for that purpose.

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The Editor's Note:

196 Noted in the seventh edition of the Navigator. — Cramer.

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