lost among islands, that its course can with difficulty be traced. It is well known that in the lower part of its course it is so obstructed by a large raft, as not to admit the passage of the smallest boats. Its confluence with the Mississippi is about three hundred and five miles below the Ohio, and eighty above the mouth of White {145} river. Running parallel both to the Mississippi and White river, and at no great distance from either, the St. Francis can have no very large tributaries; indeed we know of none on either side which deserve the name of rivers. We have no very definite information respecting the great swamp in which the St. Francis is said to lose itself soon after leaving the hills; the accounts of the hunters, and of some settlers who have seen it, agree in representing it as almost impassable, covered with heavy forests of cypress, and wholly unfit to become the residence of men. This swamp, and the country about the sources of Black river and the St. Francis, appear to be near the centre of the region so powerfully affected by earthquakes in the year 1811. The fertile lands, on the upper branches of the St. Francis, are not very extensive, and are all more or less subject to inundation by the sudden overflowing of the streams. On this account they cannot be considered as of great value for agriculture; but the wealth which this region possesses in its mines, renders it one of the most important parts of ancient Louisiana. On the 8th October we arrived at Jackson, the seat of justice for the county of Cape Girardeau, and, after St. Louis and St. Charles, one of the largest towns in Missouri.[30] It lies about eleven or twelve miles north-west of the old town of Cape Girardeau, on the Mississippi, and is surrounded by a hilly and fertile tract of country, at this time rapidly increasing in wealth and population. Jackson is what is called a thriving village, and contains at present more than fifty houses, which, though built of logs, seem to aspire to a degree of importance unknown to the humble dwellings of the scattered and solitary settlers, assuming an appearance of consequence and superiority similar to that we immediately distinguished in the appearance and manners of the people. Our horses, having never been accustomed to such displays of magnificence, signified great reluctance to enter the {146} village. Whips and heels were exercised with unusual animation, but in a great measure without effect, until we dismounted; when by dint of coaxing, pushing, kicking, and whipping, we at length urged our clownish animals up to the door of the inn.