The foregoing are among the most common features in the general character of the western Indians. Although in a region so extensive as that inhabited by them, and amongst so great a variety of tribes and nations, a considerable diversity of character is to be expected and admitted, yet it is believed that the traits above considered are common to the whole, as a race of barbarians. And although the shades of barbarism in which they are enveloped uniformly exclude the light of civilization, yet it is not to be presumed that they are equally dark and malignant in all cases. OF THE MISSISSIPPI, MISSOURI, AND OHIO RIVERS I trust it will not be deemed improper on this occasion, to offer a few remarks upon the character of these rivers, embracing more particularly the condition of their navigation. The causes heretofore alleged as giving occasion to a diversity of soil within the valleys of the western rivers, have an effect also in giving character to their channels or beds. For example: the banks near the mouths of the rivers, being composed of a fine unctuous and adhesive alluvion, are less liable to crumble and wash away, and constitute a more permanent barrier to resist the force of the current, than those {258} higher up, that are composed of coarser materials. In consequence, the beds of the rivers are rendered narrower and deeper towards their mouths than at greater distances above them. This is more particularly the case with the Mississippi, Red, Arkansa, and some others, whose beds or channels gradually dilate, and become more shoal on ascending from their mouths. Thus it happens also, that the navigation of the Mississippi has fewer obstructions between Natches and its mouth than above this part of the river, having so great a depth of water, that mags, bars, &c. are sunk below the reach of any kind of water-craft employed in its navigation. From Natches upward to its confluence with the Missouri, the river presents impediments that become more and more numerous and difficult to pass. Still, however, the main channel, though intricate in many places, affords a sufficient depth of water in all stages for boats of five or six feet draft to ascend to the mouth of the Ohio. From this point to the Missouri, a distance of more than two hundred and twenty miles, the navigation is partially obstructed, during a very low stage of the water, by shoals, so that it is navigable only for boats of moderate burthen, requiring but about three feet of water. At the distance of about thirty miles above the mouth of the Ohio there are two rocky bars extending across the Mississippi, called the Big and Little Chains, which in the deepest channel across them afford no more than five or six feet of water in a low stage, and occasion a great rapidity of current. The Mississippi is usually at its lowest stage about the middle of August, the summer freshet of the Missouri having subsided previously to that time. It usually continues in this stage till it is