"_Red River_ rises in the mountainous country of Mexico, north of Texas, in north latitude 34°; and west longitude 28° from Washington, and falls into the Mississippi in latitude 31°. They are both remarkable rivers for their extent, the number of their branches, the volume of their waters, the quantity of alluvion they carry down to the parent stream, and the color of their waters. Impregnated by saline particles, and colored with ocherous earth, the waters of these two rivers are at once brackish and nauseous to the taste, particularly near their mouths; that of Red river is so much so at Natchitoches at low water that it cannot be used for culinary purposes. "At a short distance below the mouth of the Red river, a large bayou, (as it is called,) or outlet, breaks from the Mississippi on the west; by which, it is believed, that as large a volume of water as the Red river brings to the parent river, is drained off, and runs to the gulf of Mexico, fifty miles from the mouth of the Mississippi. The name of this bayou is Atchafalaya, or as it is commonly called, _Chaffalio_. Below this bayou, another of large dimensions breaks forth on the same side, and finally falls into the Atchafalaya. This is the Placquemine. Still lower, at Donaldsonville, ninety miles above New Orleans, on the same side, the Lafourche bayou breaks out, and pursues a course parallel to the Mississippi, fifty miles west of the mouth of that river. On the east side, the Ibberville bayou drains off a portion of the waters of the Mississippi, into lakes Maurepas, Ponchartrain, Borgnes, and the gulf of Mexico, and thus forms the long and narrow island of Orleans. "In the lower Valley of the Mississippi there is a great extent of land of the very richest kind. There is also much that is almost always overflown with waters, and is a perpetual swamp. There are extensive prairies in this Valley; and towards the Rocky mountains; on the upper waters of the Arkansas and Red rivers, there are vast barren steppes or plains of sand, dreary and barren, like the central steppes of Asia. On the east of the Mississippi, are extensive regions of the densest forests, which form a striking contrast with the prairies which stretch on the west of that great river.