Down this noble stream we journeyed for four days and nights; in clear weather making tolerably good way, but often compelled by thick fogs and drift timber to lay our ship alongside the forest, and make fast to some large tree. Occasionally the stream would cant our head suddenly, and, before the helm could be shifted, rush we went right stem on into the nearest grove of willows, with such a crashing and rattling as made one wonder at first what the deuce was the row. In one instance, whilst at dinner, a huge branch burst open a side door, and nearly impaled a French conjurer of celebrity on his way to New Orleans. We were nearly a hundred souls on board, and each day our limits grew more and more circumscribed; for the side galleries were filled in with bales of cotton, the windows blocked up, at last the very doorways, all but one: lights were burned in the cabin day and night: the Carolina became, in fact, a floating mass of cotton, which, had the season been dry, one unlucky spark might have set in a blaze--an accident by no means unknown; luckily, the rain continued to fall more or less daily, as is usual at this season. Our passengers were principally composed of the planters whose cotton had already been shipped; they were a rough but merry set of fellows, and many of them exceedingly intelligent; kinder or better-disposed men I never met: for their own health's sake I could have desired to see the bar less prosperous; their visits to that quarter were over frequent: not that an instance of inebriety occurred on board, but the stimulant, together with the quantity of tobacco they use, must, I am sure, be ruinous to both health and enjoyment. I found most of them complaining of dyspepsia, but had much difficulty to induce them to admit the possibility of their own habits being at least as much the cause as the climate. The cotton-grounds along the whole cultivated line of this river are rich beyond conception; fields of a mile square were here just picked, and yet white as snow from the after-growth. Many of them would have been worth re-picking had hands been procurable; on every side fresh clearings are going on, and the produce next season will be greatly increased in consequence of the stimulus derived from the high prices of this year.