Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/302

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which sentenced Clary to receive a number of lashes from the crew of each boat, and the two other delinquents were condemned to confinement, and to work the boat in the place of two of the boatmen who were wounded. These men, on arriving at Natchez, were committed to prison, but no one appearing against them, they were of course acquitted. Clary confessed, that he and his crew had, within the week previous to his apprehension, bought and transmitted up the Arkansa, with counterfeit money, 1800 dollars worth of produce. It was also known that he had been a murderer, and had fled to the banks of the Mississippi from justice. The Stack island banditti have never been routed, and some of their character were still found skulking around Point Chicot and the neighbouring island, always well supplied with counterfeit money.

22d.] This morning we were visited by three Choctaws in quest of whiskey. Their complexions were much fairer than most of the Indians we meet with on the Mississippi. Two of them were boys of about 18 or 19, and possessed the handsomest features I have ever seen among the natives, though rather too effeminate. About 20 miles below the Arkansa, in the Cypress bend, we saw the first appearance of Tillandsia or Long moss.

On the 24th, we arrived at Point Chicot,[217] which is included in the Arkansa territory; the boundary being the Big Lake, about 20 miles below. From one of the settlers, living a few miles below Point Chicot, I learn, that on the eastern side of the Mississippi, the high lands are here from 15 to 20 miles distant. {229} The reaches and bends, in this part of the river, are hardly less than six miles in length. Toward the centre of the bends consid-*