In this spot, which is called la Pointe Coupée, the Cut-point, was the Grant of M. de Meuse, at present one of the most considerable posts of the colony, with a fort, a garrison, and an officer to command there. The river is on each side lined with inhabitants, who make a great deal of tobacco. There an Inspector resides, who examines and receives it, in order to prevent the merchants being defrauded. The inhabitants of the west side have high lands behind them, which form a very fine country, as I have observed above. Twenty leagues above this Cut-point, and sixty leagues from New Orleans, we meet with the Red River. In an island formed by that river, stands a French post, with a fort, a garrison, its commandant and officers. The first inhabitants who settled there, were some soldiers of that post, discharged after their time of serving was expired, who set themselves to make tobacco in the island. But the fine sand, carried by the wind upon the leaves of the tobacco, made it of a bad quality, which obliged them to abandon the island and settle on the continent, where they found a good soil, on which they made better tobacco. This post is called the Nachitoches, from a nation of that name, settled in the neighbourhood. At this post M. de St. Denis commanded. Several inhabitants of Louisiana, allured thither by the hopes of making soon great fortunes, because distant only seven leagues from the Spaniards, imagined the abundant treasures of New Mexico would pour in upon them. But in this they happened to be mistaken; for the Spanish post, called the Adaïes less money in it than the poorest village in Europe: the Spaniards being ill clad, ill fed, and always ready to buy {55} goods of the French on credit: which may be said in general of all the Spaniards of New Mexico, amidst all their mines of gold and silver. This we are well informed of by our merchants, who have dealt with the Spaniards of this post, and found their habitations and way of living to be very mean, and more so than those of the French. From the confluence of this Red River, in going up the Missisippi, as we have hitherto done, we find, about thirty leagues higher up, the post of the Natchez. Let not the reader be displeased at my saying often, _nearly_, or _about so many leagues_: we can ascertain nothing justly as to the distances in a country where we travel only by water. Those who go up the Missisippi, having more trouble, and taking more time than those who go down, reckon the route more or less long, according to the time in which they make their voyage; besides, when the water is high, it covers passes, which often shorten the way a great deal.