pound of tallow in it, for supper. Yet this is better than the common fare; but we were about to make an extraordinary voyage, and the additional expense was not regarded.
During the night we were completely drenched with the rain; the bark itself in a bad condition in the morning. Weather somewhat cloudy—clearing up. A short distance from our encampment, the hills approach the river {12} N. E. side; they are not high, but rocky, and do not continue more than a mile, when the alluvion again commences. About eight a fine breeze S. E. sailed until twelve—passed several plantations S. W. side. The bottoms are very extensive on the lower part of this river, the banks high, far above the reach of inundation. Timber, principally cotton wood; a few of the trees intermixed with it are beginning to vegetate. The red-bud, the tree which blooms earliest in our woods, and so much admired by those who descend the Ohio, early in the spring, appear, in a few places. Passed an island, where the river widens considerably; the current rapid, obliged to abandon oars and poles, and take the towing line. Above the island the bluffs again approach the river; there is a brownish colored rock, with a few dwarf cedars growing on the top and in the clefts. In going too near the shore, we had the misfortune to have our top-mast broken by the projecting limb of a tree. Encamped some distance above.
This evening one of the most serene and beautiful I ever beheld, and the calmness of the water in unison with the cloudless sky. Several {13} deer, which I descried at a great distance, stepping through the shoals which separated the smooth sand bars, seemed to move across this stilly scene, like the shadows of the phantasmagoria, or Ossian's deer made of mist. I now felt that we had entered on our voyage in earnest. He that has not experienced something of these solitary voyages, far removed from the haunts of civilization,
