The average direction of Red river, as far as it has been hitherto explored, from the confluence of the Kiamesha, in latitude 33° 30´, to its junction with the Mississippi in 31° 5´, is from north-west to south-east. Above the Kiamesha it is supposed to flow more directly from west to east. The streams tributary {175} to Red river are comparatively small and few in number. Above the Washita the principal are the Little river of the south and the Little river of the north,[68] both entering near the north-western angle of the state of Louisiana, and both hitherto little known. The next in order is the Kiamesha, rising in the Ozark mountains, opposite the Poteau, and entering Red river about one thousand miles from the Mississippi. The Kiamesha has been explored from its sources to its confluence by Major Long, who first visited it in 1817. The country about the sources of this river is mountainous, being broken into numerous irregular peaks and ridges, of an old ferruginous sandstone, with its stratifications highly inclined towards the south. The timber in the mountainous country is the yellow pine, intermixed with red, white, and mountain oak, the small chesnut, the American box or hop hornbeam (ostrya virginica), the red cedar, &c. In the low lands, towards Red river, all the forest trees common to the valley of the Arkansa are found, with the addition of the maclura, which is now so rare about the Arkansa that it can scarcely be said to make a part of the forests there. Extensive prairies exist on the lower part of the Kiamesha, some of which command delightful views of the surrounding country. Before you lies the great valley of Red river, exhibiting a pleasing variety of forests and lawns; beyond rises the gentle slope of the Ozark mountains, imprinting the broad outline of their azure summits upon the margin of the sky. At the mouth of the Kiamesha, Red river is about two hundred yards wide. Its course is meandering, forming points alternately on the right and left, terminating in sand-bars, covered with red mud or clay, deposited from the water of the river. In its lowest stage the river may be forded at any place, so that a person may pass along the bed, as in the Canadian, by travelling on the sand-bars, and occasionally crossing the water {176} between them. The soil and climate of Red river are said to be peculiarly adapted to the culture of cotton. The crop sometimes yields twenty-five hundred pounds of seed-cotton per acre, and this of a quality inferior to none, except the Sea island.