256

LIFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI.

one can always borrow emotions from one's predecessors. And,
niind you, emotions are among the toughest things in the world to
manufacture out of whole cloth; it is easier to manufacture seven
facts than one emotion. Captain Basil Hall, R.IT., writing fifty-five
years ago, says—

* Here I caught the first glimpse of the object I had so long wished to
behold, and felt myself amply repaid at that moment for all the trouble I
had experienced ha coming so far; and stood looking at the river flowing
past till it was too dark to distinguish anything. But it was not till I had
visited the same spot a dozen times, that I came to a right comprehension
of the grandeur of the scene.'

*A DISMAL WITNESS.'
Following are Mrs, Trollope's emotions. She is writing a few
months later in the same year, 1827, and is coming in at the mouth
o€ the Mississippi—
* The first indication of our approach to land was the appearance of this
mighty river pouring forth its muddy mass of waters, and mingling with the
deep blue of the Mexican Gulf. I never beheld a scene so utterly desolate
as this entrance of the Mississippi. Had Dante seen it. he might have drawn
images of another Bolgia from its horrors. One only object rears itself
above t&e eddying waters; this is tie mast of a vessel long since wrecked in
attempting to cross the bar, and it still stands, a dismal witness of the de-
has been, and & boding prophet of that which is to