a-mile to two miles back, at each side, the land is planted with
sugar-canes, and highly cultivated. The planters' houses are tastefully
built, surrounded by gardens full of orange-trees, flowers, and
evergreens, presenting the idea of perpetual spring, which here is indeed
the case. The winters are seldom more severe than a mild spring in
England. I first came in on this region at night, at the season of
planting, when the cast or used canes are burned in heaps on each
plantation. The dark turgid waters--the distant fires, surrounded by
clouds of white smoke ascending in winding columns to the skies--the
stillness of the night, interrupted only by the occasional cry of the
pelican or the crane, and the monotonous thumping of the steam-boat
paddles, formed a strange combination; and had the days of witches and
warlocks not long since passed away, one would have sworn that these
gentry were performing incantations over the mystic cauldrons, casting
"seven bullets," or "raising spirits from the vasty deep."

The Mississippi is in few places more than from half-a-mile to a mile
wide; and were one to judge of its magnitude by its breadth alone, a very
erroneous estimate would be formed. It is only by contemplating the many
vast rivers which empty themselves into the Mississippi that you can form
a correct idea of the immense volume of water that flows through this
channel into the Gulf of Mexico. Many of its larger tributary streams
have the appearance of being as great as itself--the depth alone
indicating the superiority of this mighty river over every other in
America; and, considering its length, perhaps over any other in the world.

The great valley of the Mississippi extends, in length, from the Gulf of
Mexico to a distance of nearly 3000 miles; and is in breadth, from the
base of the Alleghanies to the foot of the Rocky mountains, about 2,500
miles. The soil is composed of alluvial deposits, to a depth of from
twenty to fifty feet; and I have myself seen, near New Orleans, trees
lying in the horizontal position six or seven feet below the surface. This
valley has been frequently visited by earthquakes, which have sometimes
changed part of the channel of the river, and at others formed lakes.
Those which occurred between the years 1811 and 1813, did serious injury,
particularly in the neighbourhood of New Madrid, near the west bank,
below the mouth of the Ohio. At several points the bank is sunk eight or
ten feet belo