perceptible at sea, and we gazed with pleasure on the muddy ocean
that met us, for it told us we were arrived, and seven weeks of
sailing had wearied us; yet it was not without a feeling like
regret that we passed from the bright blue waves, whose varying
aspect had so long furnished our chief amusement, into the murky
stream which now received us.

Large flights of pelicans were seen standing upon the long masses
of mud which rose above the surface of the waters, and a pilot
came to guide us over the bar, long before any other indication
of land was visible.

I never beheld a scene so utterly desolate as this entrance of
the Mississippi. Had Dante seen it, he might have drawn images
of another Bolgia from its horrors. One only object rears itself
above the eddying waters; this is the mast of a vessel long since
wrecked in attempting to cross the bar, and it still stands, a
dismal witness of the destruction that has been, and a boding
prophet of that which is to come.

By degrees bulrushes of enormous growth become visible, and a few
more miles of mud brought us within sight of a cluster of huts
called the Balize, by far the most miserable station that I ever
saw made the dwelling of man, but I was told that many families
of pilots and fishermen lived there.

For several miles above its mouth, the Mississippi presents no
objects more interesting than mud banks, monstrous bulrushes, and
now and then a huge crocodile luxuriating in the slime. Another
circumstance that gives to this dreary scene an aspect of