alked up and down, chewing and smoking, and
spitting with as much exactness of aim as if their throats had been
rifle-barrels.

We were just coming in sight of a large clump of foliage. It was the
mouth of the Red River, which is half overarched by the huge trees that
incline forward over its waters from either bank. What a contrast to the
Mississippi, which flows along, broad, powerful, and majestic, like some
barbarian conqueror bursting forth at the head of his stinking hordes to
overrun half a world! The Red River on the other hand, which we are
accustomed to call the Nile of Louisiana--with about as much right and
propriety as the Massachusetts cobbler who christened his son Alexander
Caesar Napoleon--sneaks stealthily along through forest and plain, like
some lurking and venomous copper-snake. Cocytus would be a far better
name for it. Here we are at the entrance of the first swamp, out of
which the infernal scarlet ditch flows. It is any thing but a pleasant
sight, that swamp, which is formed by the junction of the Tensaw, the
White and Red Rivers, and at the first glance appears like a huge mirror
of vivid green, apparently affording solid footing, and scattered over
with trees, from which rank creepers and a greasy slime hang in long
festoons. One would swear it was a huge meadow, until, on looking rather
longer, one sees the dark-green swamp lilies gently moving, while from
amongst them are protruded numerous snouts or jaws, of a sickly
greyish-brown, discoursing music which is any thing but sweet to a
stranger's ears. These are thousands of alligators, darting out from
amongst the rank luxuriance of their marshy abode. It is their breeding
time, and the horrible bellowing they make is really hideous to listen
to. One might fancy this swamp the headquarters of death, whence he
shoots forth his envenomed darts in the thousand varied forms of fever
and pestilence.

We had proceeded some distance up the Red River, when the friendly old
Creole came to summon me to the tea-table. We found one of his daughters
reading Bernardin de St Pierre's novel, a favourite study with Creole
ladies; while the other was chatting with her black-skinned,
ivory-toothed waiting-maid, with a degree of familiarity that would have
thrown a New York _elegante_ into a swoon. They were on their way home,
their father told me, from the Ursuline Convent at New Orleans, where
they had been educated. It can hardly have been from the holy sist