y years.

Beyond the river, in Louisiana, is an alluvial plain extending for
fifty miles, through which meander many small streams, or bayous, as
they are termed in the language of the country. Upon most of these the
surface of the soil is slightly elevated above the plane of the swamp,
and is remarkably fertile. Most of these were, at the commencement of
the late war, in a high state of cultivation as cotton plantations. As
in many other places, the river here has changed its bed by cutting off
a large bend immediately opposite the town, creating what is known as
Lake Concordia. This lake was formerly the bed of the river, and
describes almost a complete circle of some twelve miles in diameter. On
both sides of this lake beautiful plantations, with splendid
improvements, presented a view from the bluff at Natchez extremely
picturesque when covered with luxuriant crops of corn and cotton. The
fertility of the soil is such that these crops are immensely heavy; and
when the cotton-plant has matured its fruit, and the pent-up lint in
the large conical balls has burst them open, exposing their white
treasure swelling out to meet the sun's warm rays, and the parent stock
to the first frost of autumn has thrown off her foliage, and all these
broad fields are one sheet of lovely white, as far as the eye can
view--the scene is lovely beyond description; and when the same rich
scene was presented extending along the banks of the great river, with
the magnificent steamers resting at the wharf below, and others
cleaving the current in proud defiance of the mighty volume of hurrying
waters--the splendor and magnificence of the whole sublimated the
feelings as we viewed it in wonder.

The river, the bluff, and the lake are there; but waste and desolation
frown on these, and the fat earth's rich fruits are yielded no more.
Fanaticism's hot breath has breathed upon it, and war's red hand (her
legitimate offspring) has stricken down the laborer; tillage has
ceased, and gaunt poverty and hungry want only are left in her train.

When the great La Salle moored his little fleet at the foot of this
bluff, ascended to its summit, and looked over this then forest-clad
plain, did he contemplate the coming future of this beautiful discovery
of his genius and enterprise? When he looked upon the blue smoke
curling above the tall tree-tops along the lake, in the far distance,
as it ascended from the wigwams of the Natchez, the wild denizens of