The country was claimed as part of West Florida and dominated by the Spanish Government. They were anxious to have the country populated, and donated certain quantities or tracts of land to any one who came to settle and remain in the country. These settlements at first were made on the bluffs projecting through the alluvial swamp to the river's brink, and at or near the mouths of the small streams debouching into the river from the eastern shore. The west bank was deemed uninhabitable in consequence of the spring floods sweeping over the alluvial formation, extending from forty to seventy miles west of the river; and there being no highlands or bluffs approaching the river from the west, below what is now known as Helena, in Arkansas, this vast territory was one interminable swamp, clothed with immense forest-trees, gigantic vines, and jungle-bushes. It was interspersed with lakes, and bayous as reservoirs and drains for the wonderful floods which annually visit this country. Around these were lands remarkable for their fertility--indeed, unsurpassed by any on the face of the earth; but worthless, however, for cultivation, as long as unprotected against these annual floods. The system of leveeing was too onerous and expensive to be undertaken by the people sparsedly populating the eastern bank throughout the hill-country. The levee system which had reclaimed so much of the low country in Louisiana, had not extended above Pointe Coupée, in 1826. Yet there were some settlements on several of the lakes above, especially on Lakes Concordia and St. Joseph. The immense country in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi in possession of the Indians, interposed a barrier to emigration. To think of leaving home and friends to go away beyond these savages, seemed an undertaking too gigantic for any but men of desperate fortunes, or of the most indomitable energy.