"Oh, the niggers is good enuf, ef you let 'em alone. The Carpet- baggers from up north has filled their heads with all kinds of stuff, so now they think, nat'rally enuf, that they ought to be office- holders, when they can't read or write no more than I can. I'd like to take a hand CIVILIZING some of them Carpet-baggers! They needs it more than the Chinamen or Injuns." During part of the evening, Mr. Sewall, the nephew of the owner of the plantation, was with us round our camp-fire. We spoke of Longfellow's Evangeline, the bay-tree, and Atchafalaya River, which he assured me was slowly widening its current, and would in time, perhaps, become the main river of the basin, and finally deprive the Mississippi of a large portion of its waters. From his boyhood he had watched the falling in of the banks with the widening and increasing of the strength of the current of the Atchafalaya Bayou. Once it was impassable for steamers; but a little dredging opened the way, while the Mississippi and Red rivers had both contributed to its volume of water until it had deepened sufficiently for United States gunboats to ascend it during the late war. It follows the shortest course from the mouth of Red River to the Gulf of Mexico. I left White Castle Plantation early on Monday morning, when I discovered a lot of fine sweet-potatoes stowed away in the hold of my boat. The northern cooper had purchased them during the night, and having too much delicacy to speak of his gift, secreted them in the boat. I fully appreciated this kind act, knowing it to be a mark of the poor man's sympathy for his northern countryman. The levee for miles was lined with negroes and white men gathering a harvest of firewood from the drift stuff. One old negro, catching sight of my boat, called out to his companion, "Randal, look at dat boat! De longer we libs, de mor you sees. What sort o' queer boat is she?"