because of the redman's
dislike to exert himself except when hunting or on the warpath.

Though we had come so well through this adventure, the accident of our
escape from attack did not lessen my fear of visits from Indians
belonging to other tribes. To my vast relief, the following day brought
us safely in the approach of a great flotilla of flour-laden flats,
whose draught of water gave them better headway than our boat. The drift
of our craft, which sat so much higher in the water, was at times more
retarded by the head winds. The difference was so slight that we were
able to keep the others in sight until another flotilla overtook us. In
fact, so vast was the extent of the river traffic that from this point
until our landing at Natchez, we were never beyond view of one or more
descending vessels, while even keelboats, ascending under sail or poles,
were not uncommon.

Though far from as swift as the flooded Ohio, the Mississippi bore us
rapidly on our way. Divided by island after island and contorted this
way and that by out-jutting points, its mighty current, swollen to vast
width, yet swept on in majestic grandeur past towering bluffs and
inundated lowlands and wildernesses as virgin as in the remote days of
De Soto the Spaniard, and La Salle the Frenchman, other than for an
occasional plantation and, at longer intervals, the log cabins of the
little settlements.

I will not speak of our difficulties from snags and sawyers and delaying
eddies, or of the extreme difficulty of shooting the waterfowl, which,
though abundant, had long since been taught wariness by the guns aboard
the swarming river craft. I shot a swan and now and then a duck, but for
the most part was held too close to the navigation of our awkward flat
to hunt such shy game.

On the other hand, our well-stocked larder supplied us with all else
than fresh meat and milk, and to obtain fish we had only to trail a line
over the stern. The season was favorable to the avoidance of fevers and
agues; the high water obviated in a measure the danger of shoals and
sawyers, and I had had the forethought to provide nettings, which saved
us when within the cabin the torments which at night we would otherwise
have suffered from mosquitoes and gnats, even out in midchannel.

So, on the whole, our days would have passed pleasantly, even without
those joys of companionship of which I have written. Aside from an
occasional fierce thunder storm, our May days on t