Identifier: picturesqueameri01brya (find matches)
Title: Picturesque America; or, The land we live in. A delineation by pen and pencil of the mountains, rivers, lakes, forests, water-falls, shores, cañons, valleys, cities, and other picturesque features of our country
Year: 1872 (1870s)
Authors: Bryant, William Cullen, 1794-1878, editor Bunce, Oliver Bell, 1828-1890
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, D. Appleton
Contributing Library: University Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Digitizing Sponsor: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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rance, are only discernibleto the practised eye of the pilot by what appears a regular current flowing on in theuniversal waste. As you ascend, if on board of a swiftly-moving steamer, you perceive that coarse grass finally appears in consecutive lines, and then crop out here and there 34 i66 PICTURESQUE AMERICA. great lumps of mud, around which seethes and boils what now has become a rushing cur-rent. It is apparent that the sediment of the river has obtained a foothold. Steadilymoving onward, the shore at last becomes defined, and water-soaked shrubs are noticeable,ever moving and fretting from the lashings of the deflecting waves. When some fifteenor twenty miles have been made, you ask, possibly, with some surprise, Is this, indeed,the great Mississippi ? when you learn that you are in one of the four entrances ofthe river; anon, you reach the head of the passes, and the broad - flowing stream, inits full volume, opens to your gaze. If the day is bright and the sun well toward the
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Sunset in the Mississippi Swamp. horizon, as the swelling tide moves grandly onward, its surface glistens with the hues oibrass and bronze. Vegetation now rapidly asserts its supremacy; the low banks are covered withferns, and here and there is an ill-shapen tree; while, landward, a dark line indicatesthe perfectly-developed forest. Naught but the sameness and monotony of the river now impresses you, save theconsciousness that you are borne upon a mighty, sweeping flood. Mile after mile, andstill the same. The bittern screams, the wild-fowl start in upward flight; and, if nightsets in, you seem to be moving through an unvaried waste. The low and scarcely- THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI, 267 perceptible walls of Forts Jackson and St. Philip are just discernible, when lights dancingahead give the first signs of intelligible settlement. The quarantine is reached, theofficial visit is made, and again you commence your monotonous upward trip. If the morning sun greets you within fifty miles of New

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