ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

In the morning the chief and six hundred of his tribesmen escorted
the SVenchmen to the river and bade them a friendly farewell.

On the rocks above the present city of Alton they found some rude
and fantastic Indian paintings, which they describe. A short distance
below ' a torrent of yellow mud rushed furiously athwart the calm
blue current of the Mississippi, boiling and surging and sweeping in
its course logs, branches, and uprooted trees.' This
was the mouth of the Missouri,' that savage river/
which * descending from its mad career through a

vast unknown of barbarism, poured
its turbid floods into the bosom of
its gentle sister.'
By-and-bye they passed the mouth of the Ohio; they passed cane-
brakes; they fought mosquitoes; they floated along, day after day,
through the deep silence and loneliness of the river, drowsing in the
scant shade of makeshift awnings, and broiling with the heat; they
encountered and exchanged civilities with another party of Indians;
and at last they reached the mouth of the Arkansas (about a month