The voyage down this stream was an exciting one, and replete with novel
scenes and incidents. The portion of the river above the mouth of the
Ohio, which it had taken me twenty days to ascend in a barge, we were
not forty-eight hours in descending. Trees, points of land, islands,
every physical object on shore, we rushed by with a velocity that left
but vague and indistinct impressions. We seemed floating, as it were, on
the waters of chaos, where mud, trees, boats, were carried along swiftly
by the current, without any additional impulse of a steam-engine,
puffing itself off at every stroke of the piston. The whole voyage to
New Orleans had some analogy to the recollection of a gay dream, in
which objects were recollected as a long line of loosely-connected
panoramic fragments.
At New Orleans, where I remained several days, I took passage in the
brig Arethusa, Captain H. Leslie, for New York.
While at anchor at the Balize, we were one night under apprehensions
from pirates, but the night passed away without any attack.
Pages:
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146