mentioned improperly in the Navigator as one island, which is numbered 100. The channel between is very narrow, the ship channel in this stage of the water being evidently to the right of both, and a small willow island besides to the right of them.—The second of the islands is properly No. 100.[196]
The musquitoes were this night, as usual, insupportable, spite of smoke which we used almost to suffocation.
{278} June 5th, having lashed the boats together again, we cast them loose from their moorings at an early hour, and trusted them to the current, but after floating six miles we had to use our oars with the utmost exertion, to avoid some broken and hanging trees, with a whirling eddy just below them, occasioned by a point on the left projecting far into a bend on the right, and being rendered rapid by the channel above being narrowed by island 101. Inside of these broken trees, the canes were burnt, as if with intention to make a settlement. The canes or reeds, which grow to an immense size on the river banks, had now began to take the place of brush or copse wood, but they do not prevent the growth of the forest trees, which appear to gain in size the lower we descend.
A mile below the intricate pass, we came to a settlement commenced this spring by a Mr. Campbell from Bayau Pierre, who has made a good opening. The family which had commenced near the whirlpool above, were residing with him. The river in general at its greatest height never rises more than a foot higher than it was now. It is ten miles from hence to Yazoos river, and twenty to the Walnut hills, eighteen below the last three new settlements, and one hundred below Ville Aussipot.
A mile and a half lower, is a beautiful situation on the right, partly cleared, with a cabin on it, but no inhabitants.
