mile wide, and five miles after, it widens gradually to half a mile.
In the next nineteen miles we passed several islands, giving a relief to the eye, by their variety and some fine views.
We then passed on the right, the Grand lake, now grown up with willows, where the river formerly entered, and encircled a cotton tree island, which still rears itself predominant over the surrounding willow marsh. Two miles below, the old willow channel returns again, diagonally, to the present river bank, on the opposite side of which, on the left, the old channel seems to have been continued, there surrounding {275} another clump of cotton trees, called Seary's island, (No. 90) which is about a mile long, and which confines the present channel within a limit of a quarter of a mile, which contraction shoots the river so strongly against the low willow bend of the old channel below, that not being able to bear the impetus of the torrent in the present flooded state of the river, the tall willows are undermined, and falling every moment, dash up the white foam in their fall, and sometimes spring up again, as the root reaches the bottom of the river, in such a manner as to impress the beholder with astonishment.
Fourteen miles more brought us to island No. 92, where we moored for the night. We found abundance of blackberries on this island, but in gathering them, we were attacked by such myriads of musquitoes, generated by a pond in the middle, that we named it Musquitoe island.
June 4th, in eleven miles we arrived at Crow's nest island, where invited by the beauty of its appearance, some of us landed in the skiff. It is a little narrow island, about a hundred and fifty paces long by forty broad. It is sufficiently raised above inundation, and is very dry and pleasant, with innumerable blackbirds, which have their nests amongst
