Part 23

Monday, March 16th.--During the last three days the weather has been warm, but not oppressively so: last evening a light shower of rain was followed by a lovely night. I am leading a dissipated life here, and engaged for every day I can yet count upon--must prepare for flight from this Capua, but how? that's the question! since up the Mississippi I won't steam again, that's poz!

Visited a noble packet called the Shakspeare, in which I feel hugely tempted to take passage, although by the route newly opened through Florida there is greater certainty, albeit with a good deal of hard work to calculate upon.

17th.--St. Phaudrig's day. Engaged to dine with the sons of the saint. Rain falling in torrents, no stirring out; by the afternoon a deluge threatens us, the streets are turned to rivers, and our neighbour swamp is become a lake, above which the naked cypress-trees, hung with their sombre drapery of moss, tower like the masts of some goodly navy whose hulls lie sunk beneath. Boats will soon be required, for every gutter is become a branch of mother Mississippi.

About three o'clock P.M. it subsided a little, and we were able to get through in a well-horsed carriage to the French Theatre, in the ball-room of which our rendezvous was appointed, dinner being laid in another of the suite of apartments appropriated to public purposes. We mustered about a hundred strong, and a more creditable set of children no saint ever had to his back. About midnight the party broke up, and, despite the rain, the shamrog had never presided over a gayer table.

18th.--A glorious morning; paid my visits, made adieus; and after, rode out to the lake by the canal and Bayou St. John. But what a change had taken place since my last ride here, just three days back! then all was torpid, decayed, and dead; the forest was voiceless, and the waters oily and stagnant as though never intended for the use of living thing. On this day all nature appears awakened, as if by magic, and vegetation actually seems to proceed before our eyes; in every dyke the water-snakes are gliding about with their graceful crests reared above the surface, and on lake and lagoon bask shoals of mullet, rejoicing in the warm waters of the swamp. The lazy alligator is dragging himself across the path, newly roused from his winter lair. The cardinal, the mocking-bird, and the gaudy red-bird, are all darting to and fro, in pursuit of the various insects that flutter about the air. The very swamp is putting on a face of beauty, and all nature appears to hail the arrival of spring. Never was change so complete, so sudden, and so attractive.

Returning, halted by a camp of Choctaws, consisting of a dozen huts, about which crawled or ran as many children of all ages, looking remarkably healthy and well-formed. In a hut, larger and better made than any other, sat the chief and his squaw, upon whose lap lay numberless strings of blue and white beads, which she was admiring and arranging with as much delight as a London girl would her first suite of pearl.

The chief himself was a stout, honest-faced fellow, and I suppose an active hunter, for the sides of the hut, which was open in front, were hung with various skins, and the earth was closely carpeted with the like trophies: several clean-looking baskets were hanging about the back of the hut; over the fire, in front, was suspended an iron pot, and to attend to this seemed the present business of the chief.

This was a portion of a tribe or nation, once very powerful and numerous in the South; it is now, however, scattered and broken up; many families under their several chiefs have departed for the Western wilderness, many more for the tomb. They begged for money as the natives usually do, but receive with equal indifference the coin or a refusal.

Friday, 20th.--The ship Shakspeare, according to the owners' promise, was to sail this day, but sail she did not. Passed an uncomfortable morning from being kept the best part of it in uncertainty. Almost wish I had proceeded two days ago by the route through Florida. H----s gravely assures me it is all for the best, and J. H----n coolly echoes his philosophy, although both one and the other of the villains are "as hot Jacks" in their mood "as any in all Italy," Day very sultry, or, as a countryman of mine here, calls this sort of muggy heat, "Vile mucilaginous weather."

21st.--Again a delay, and a put-off till to-morrow; three of our passengers now deserted, taking the steamer up the river for Louisville; was half tempted to follow their example, but don't like to cut my Shakspeare. I verily think, were the ship called by any other name, I would quit the mess. The bard was wrong when he made Juliet say "what's in a name?"

The city is hot and humid, as though it were washing-day above, and the sun's rays intercepted by wet blankets. In the evening, strong symptoms of a refreshing thunder burst: sat till after midnight sans coat or cravat, striving to keep cool; about that time the rain began to descend, and soon after up came a breeze, under whose influence I crept beneath my musquito curtain to fall sound asleep in five minutes.

Sunday.--Called up early. Shakspeare about to quit the Levee: find out that I have slept through a regular tornado, for to that complexion am I informed the night breeze came at last. Day clear, fresh, and pure, like a fine June morning at home; a difference of twenty-eight degrees between to-day and yesterday; got a hasty breakfast, and learned that the wind "sits in the shoulder of our sail," or rather of our steam, since under such convoy do we seek the sea.

At eight A.M. got on to the Levee, and found the Shakspeare already linked to her fiery mate; bade farewell to the many friends who have daily attended to add a last link to the chain of kind recollections in which they have bound my memory.

The market, close by which we lay, was, being Sunday morning, crowded by a chequered assemblage of European, Quadroon, Negro, and Indian, all gabbling, pushing, and purchasing in company. We unmoored in very capital style, though pretty closely jammed, for a ship of seven hundred tons, and in one minute after were whirled into the mid current of the Mississippi: the vast crescent of the water-front of the city showing through a curtain of thick masts, the hulls belonging to which floated level with the roofs of the highest houses: for the river, at this period, ran in its course far raised above the city.

The wind blows hard, but a clearer or more bracing day heart could not desire; and, contrasted with the horrid yesterday, it is indeed most welcome.

We found some difficulty, owing to the violence of the breeze, in getting into that extraordinary bend called the "English turn;" but afterwards we rushed past the fine sugar plantations lying along our course with great velocity: we had a powerful steam-boat, and wind and current with us.

About sunset passed Fort Jackson, occupying a well-selected bend of the river, and commanding a long reach either way. This is one of the works projected and finished by French engineers, and is said to be of a first-rate description.

Shortly after passing this fort, a sight of unparalleled grandeur broke upon us. The western horizon was yet ruddy with the last light of sunset, and was attracting my attention, contrasted as it was with the dull stream and dismal jungle around us. Suddenly I observed a bright flame rush, as it were, over the distant surface of the swamp: at the same moment we opened a noble reach of the river, and a vast fire was perceived, steadily advancing over the prairie land on our left, which character of surface is continued from here to the Balize, covered by a rank growth of lofty cane or reeds.

As night drew on, the fire seemed to gather greater strength, rolling away to leeward a mighty ocean of flame; whilst nearer to us lines might be observed creeping close to the earth, devouring the dry grass, and marching right in the teeth of the wind, sheltered by the tall cane next doomed to fall.

Whilst viewed far off, the effect was exactly that of a great city delivered to the flames: the trees growing by the river's brink, and scattered here and there over the prairie, showed like some yet standing spires, whilst here and there a tall cedar might be caught just falling; the dwarf trees and withered shrubs in front, with the flames quivering through their branches, might readily be imagined a remnant of the population fleeing from the destruction pressing on their rear, with the sullen Mississippi for their only refuge.

We overtook and sailed down, side by side, with this mighty conflagration for an hour or more, through water made bright by the fiery reflection: at last, we outstripped its speed, but, for three hours after, I never withdrew my eyes from this the grandest sight it ever was given to me to contemplate; nor was the effect at all diminished though changed by distance. At one turn of our course we were presented with a coup d'oeil of fearful grandeur; it seemed as though the flame had crossed the broad river, and formed a half circle, whose left extremity was lost in distance, and whose right pursued our path, rolling after us a lofty wall of fire, from behind which burst wreaths of smoke, of different degrees of darkness, as though shot up from some volcano's crater, whilst the more distant masses formed gradually into clouds of snow, whose lower edges were tinged with mingled lines of gold and jet.

The wind blew half a gale at about N.N.W., and it was calculated that our pace could not be less than twelve miles per hour; that of the fire, therefore, must have been seven or eight, since, despite the turns of the river, we were closely followed by it for three hours, and very soon after we anchored at the Balize it again overtook us, rushing on unchecked whilst it found a supply of food, until extinguished in the waters of the gulf.

I had before seen the prairie on fire, that is, small districts of mere dry grass in a blaze; but, although striking from its novelty, it had none of the grandeur belonging to this wild conflagration. The fuel here offered to the flame was of an enduring quality, and continued to burn a fiery red after the first rush of flame had passed over it and onward; and the next change it assumed was one of singular beauty: the reflection of the burnt cane, yet standing in perfect order as it grew, only made transparent by the action of fire, had the appearance of the harvest of an Eastern tale, composed of grain whose tall stalks were of burnished gold; whereas on the grass of the wide prairies the effect of the fire is lost as soon as passed, the bare and blackened soil alone being left behind.

We arrived at the bar by 10 P.M. and let go an anchor for the night: the water reported by our pilot to be about eleven feet; a comfortable hearing, when it is considered that the Shakspeare draws fourteen.

There is now here, hard and fast, an English ship called the Coromandel, which has been on the bar for the last forty days. Several vessels intend pushing over, we understand, at the same time we do in the morning.

Monday, 23rd.--On deck at six A.M. Our pilot, I find, declines crossing till the afternoon, when the tide will possibly, he says, be higher; the rise of water is, however, dependent upon the strength of the sea-breeze forcing the tide of the gulf up against the current of the great river. No rise of the Mississippi above, however high, affects the bar here in the least perceptible degree.

Heaven send us well into blue water! for any place having a more desolate aspect than this sight never lighted on: not a sign of vegetation is visible, except the brown rank-growing reeds upon our right, where no fire has yet been. To the north, all is blackness on land, and dull and dead at sea: along the course of the water-line, logs of timber of every size, and trees of every kind, lie strewn, sometimes scattered singly, and in other places accumulated into enormous beds or rafts.

On every side is presented a dead level, muddy water, or land barely showing above it. One might have imagined, looking around here, that the great Deluge was but now subsiding, and this, the ruined world, left for the remnant of humanity, gathered here, to weep over. Silence and solitude reigned absolute, and the only evidence of our not being alone was to be found in the three or four ships scattered within sight.