The town of Natchez (for,
properly speaking, it is no more) consists of some three or four
thousand inhabitants, and has not increased to any considerable extent,
for many years.
Beyond the river, in Louisiana, is an alluvial plain extending for
fifty miles, through which meander many small streams, or bayous, as
they are termed in the language of the country. Upon most of these the
surface of the soil is slightly elevated above the plane of the swamp,
and is remarkably fertile. Most of these were, at the commencement of
the late war, in a high state of cultivation as cotton plantations. As
in many other places, the river here has changed its bed by cutting off
a large bend immediately opposite the town, creating what is known as
Lake Concordia. This lake was formerly the bed of the river, and
describes almost a complete circle of some twelve miles in diameter. On
both sides of this lake beautiful plantations, with splendid
improvements, presented a view from the bluff at Natchez extremely
picturesque when covered with luxuriant crops of corn and cotton. The
fertility of the soil is such that these crops are immensely heavy; and
when the cotton-plant has matured its fruit, and the pent-up lint in
the large conical balls has burst them open, exposing their white
treasure swelling out to meet the sun's warm rays, and the parent stock
to the first frost of autumn has thrown off her foliage, and all these
broad fields are one sheet of lovely white, as far as the eye can
view--the scene is lovely beyond description; and when the same rich
scene was presented extending along the banks of the great river, with
the magnificent steamers resting at the wharf below, and others
cleaving the current in proud defiance of the mighty volume of hurrying
waters--the splendor and magnificence of the whole sublimated the
feelings as we viewed it in wonder.
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