“Darby's Louisiana”

Date

8-28-1816

Newspaper

The Georgia Journal

Page and Column

Page 1, Column 6, Page 2, Column 1-2

Newspaper Location

Milledgeville, Georgia

Serial Number

623

Abstract

Topographical description of Lower Louisiana done by a Mr. Darby. A map was done to accompany the description. Source was Niles Register.

Transcript

DARBY'S LOUISIANA. We have just now received Mr. Darby's map of Louisiana accompanied by a topographical description of that interesting and important member of the American union. A good map of the state, was a great desideratum, and happily it appears that in the present we have all we could wish. It is so strongly marked with evidence of the zeal, industry and fidelity of its indefatigable author, that we were prepared to hear of the years of toil and travel it cost him- and of the hardships he suffered personally to make certain the facts he would treat of -. We recommend this map most heartily to all who declare correct information of Louisiana; and it is with great pleasure we learn, that the talents and care of the delineator are duly esteemed by an enlightened public-may they be rewarded as they ought! But as such works, generally, are only locally distributed, or by their price, naturally confined to the hands of the few, we have thought it might be useful to our readers to give a brief outline of all the most important information contained in his Topographical account. The population of the Atlantic states, already "---o'erflowing, yet not full"-- pouring its thousand streams into the west-gives peculiar important to all new knowledge relative to this new member of the great union-the most varied, the most fertile, the most interesting, and the least known. For a classifying idea of the face of the country we may take the following principal features, such as they would present themselves to the eye of a spectator, could the whole be comprehended at one view. On the east side of the Mississippi would appear a long strip of rich land, near the shore covered with various species of oak, hickory, sweetgum, sasafras,popular, and other trees indicative of fertility, but broken into hills, though none are of great elevation. The very margin of the river would present a line of lakes, interrupted here and there by the protrusion of the bluffs. Eastwardly would be seen a line of pine woods, of irregular breadth, gradually sinking into the low lands of the Mobile. Further sunk in the space between these two great rivers, would appear the river Amite, Tickish, Tougipan, Peurland, Pascagoula, entering the chain of lakes Maruepas, Ponchatrain, the Rigolets, Bergos &c. that winds from the mouth of the Amite, near the Mississippi, southeastwardly to the mouth of the Mobile: a region of swamps and high places[unreadable text]infinite interlocking of lagoons and bayous, that chequer the mouths of all these rivers. Keeping the eye still south along the winding of the Mississippi, and passing onwards to the Gulf of Mexico, there would appear the same variety of intermingled, and infinitely complicated bayous, lakes, woods, morasses, barren pine hills, flats, and tracts of exuberantly rich alluvion. Northward, along the western side of the Mississippi, there is little change to be seen; except the gradual disappearance of the morasses Rivers running in and running out of the great father of North-American rivers--uniting With each other, separating, and winding into a thousand masses. Amongst them would appear the deep forests of cotton wood, willow, elm, maple, and other trees that belong to a sod of the first quality-and those mixed with the great cane and palmetto. The most conspicous objects with the limits of lower Louisiana would be, the Atchafalaya, the Red river, and the Tenasaw: Further west, a new and astonishing scene would open to the view-first, the wide green plains of Attacappas and Opelousas varied by irregular chains of woods, narrow and indented, running along the rivers. Beyond those seas of grass, another forest of pine would be seen commencing and leaving the Red-river on the right, would at a great distance melt into immense prairie towards the Panis villages. The Red river, like its great rival, the Mississippi, would present an inexplicable network of bayous and lakes, and the space between those two would exhibit the elongation of the above mentioned pine forest, reaching from above lat. 33 deg. to the heads of the former river, but becoming thinner, imperceptible towards the north. Out of this great forest, the Ouathitta would appear surendering until lost in the delta of the Mississippi. Beyond lat 34 deg. [unreadable] the country would for the first time in this vast range as seen elevated into mountains. The Mississippi, extending from west to east two hundred miles, may be considered the great natural outline between what was called Lower and Upper Louisiana. Beyond these rugged but not high mountains would be seen [unreadable] that occupy so much of our [unreadable text] while the imagination would [unreadable] in the wide extent. Westward, beyond the boundary of Louisiana that is from the Sabine river are immense plains, resembling the steppes of Asia north of the Caspian and Aral seas except that they are not so barren. This character continues to the Californian mountains, where the soil presents only sand and beds of rock. Where the rocks are naked, plenty of water is found, but very little where the surface is vegetable earth. Over this place the Hietans wander like the Nomadic tribes of Tartars and Arabs, following the herds of buffalo, that change their pasture with the seasons. No prospects can be more awfully solidary than that from the mouth of the Sabine. A few trunks of trees, thrown on the shore by the surf of the sea, and the scattered clumps of myrtles, are the only objects that arrest the eve, from the bundles expanse of gulf, and equally admitted waste of prairie. About twelve miles from the mouth of the Sabine,[unreadable] the Sabine lake, which is about 22 miles wide & twenty-five long. It is at the head of this lake that the Natchez and Sabine river unite. The great range of pine forests that occupy the space from the prairies of Opelousas to the Red-river, wind along the Sabine. The general surface of this region rises gradually from prairies into hills; the principal range of which pursues nearly the same course as the Sabine, at the distance of twenty or twenty-five miles from the river, and divide the waters that flow into. It from those that flow into the Red river and Calesus. Along the Creeks, through this tract of country, are found spots of productive soil. Pine and oak are the prevailing timber on such situations; [unreadable] pastorage is abundant during the mouths of spring and summer; but want of water during the dry seasons is the greatest defect of that country. No settlement of civilased people has been made on the Sabine, except one family where the road from Texas to Natchitoches crosses it, and on some of the creeks, a few Americans and Spanish refugees from St. Antonio and Nacogdoches. Red river rises in the low sandy hills, called Cacus mountains, near Santa Fe. The Dacheet and Saline are the most remarkable branches of this great stream, which has been hitherto known to geographers only near its mouth. The Dacheet waters a great range of rich soil, which forms the northwest angle of the Louisiana state. The Saline is a valuable salt flat, from which any quantity of that mineral might be procured that the population of the state could require.-Lake Bistineau is the mouth of the Dacheet, where it communicates with Red river. It affords a curious picture of recent changes on the face of nature. The medium depth of the lake is from fifteen to twenty feet, and at the lowest never less than ten or twelve, through the remains of cypress trees of all sizes now dead, and most of them with the tops broken off, remain standing, in the deepest parts. No tree in Louisiana will live with its roots constantly under water-even the cypress perishes when submerged during the whole year. The same phenomenon was observed by Clark and Lewis in the Columbia river. The largest tributary stream of the Red river is the Black River, as it is generally called the Ouhchitta. The valley of the river is nearly in the form of a semi-ellipsis 350 miles long and from 70 to 80 wide, comprehending 2500 square miles of surface. It has immense tracts of fine arable soil, while some places indicate great mineral wealth; and all of it enjoys a [unreadable] climate. All changes of situations of alluvial deposition, annual inundation prairies hints of a thousand forms and appearances, mountains of no mean elevation or extent, successively open their varieties on the eye of the delighted traveler. The Tensaw falls into the Ouhchitta on the east, and the Ocatahoula on the west at same place, from thence the stream is called the Black river, which, after a winding course of about thirty miles, unites with the Red river. About thirty miles below this junction, the Red river falls into the Mississippi. It seems to be a peculiarity of the lakes, near the mouth of the Red river, that they are merely reservoirs, to receive and regorge the surplus waters of the rivers. For instance, it is observed at Spanish lake and at the Natchioches lakes, when the Red river begins its annual rise, the water runs with a strong current into the lakes, and when the summer heat occasions the river to fall the lake return a rapid current into the river. The Atchafalaya flows out of the Mississippi three miles below the mouth of the Red river, and is considered by Mr. Darby as having been originally only the continuation of that stream. During the spring freshes, the water that runs out of the Mississippi, by the numerous lagoons of outlets, is received by the bayou [unreadable] and Tensaw river, and thrown, first into the Black river, then into the Red river, and by it returned to the Mississippi to be immediately discharged into the Atchafalaya. From the head of the Atchafalaya to the mouth, following the windings, it is 190 miles, through which extent of country a great part of the lands are subject to the annual overflow. The Prairie Grand Cherrenil begins between the overflown lands of the Atchafalaya and the Teche rivers on the west of the former, following the direction of the Teche, nearly north--sometimes North west, [unreadable] eight miles east of Opelausas. Most of the prairie is extremely rich, particularly on the [unreadable] of the Teche. The timberconsists of several species of hickory, sycamore, sweet gum, black oak, willow oak, [unreadable] elm, magnolia, sasafras & c. with some live oak below [unreadable]. The soil is a rich, friable, [unreadable], from a foot to eighteen inches deep-and the [unreadable], though the place is surrounded with swamps and lagoons, a mild and health [unreadable]. The rivers that fall into the Gulf of Mexico, west of the Atchafalaya the [unreadable], the Vetmillion,[unreadable text] and lastly, the Calesus, each of which has a large lake [unreadable text]. The [unreadable text] and about 90 north, is called the Attacapala. Within this area is a great prairie, bearing the same name. Considerable tracts are subject in [unreadable], but many parts posses the highest degree of [unreadable]. North and east of this lies the Opelausas extending to the Sabine and forming the south-western corner of the state-It has several large prairies-the Opelausas prairie-on the north of that the Grand prairie, the prairie Mamon, prairie Calcase, and the Sabine prairie-The first of these contains upwards of 1,120,000 acres. Rich coal and good timber are found among the southern and eastern parts of the ditrict; and the rest is wild, and most of it is barren-occupied only by great herds of cattle and buffaloe. Sixty or seventy miles above Orleans, at Donaldsville, there is an outlet from the Mississippi, called Lafourche river, which, like the Atchafalaya, loses almost all its current in the fall season, when the parent streams become low. The margin of the Lafourche is peopled, and the shores defended by [unreadable] below tide water. From the rise of the rivers to its mouth on the Gulf of Mexico, is upwards of sixty miles, through the parts of Lafourche. This is an important portion of the state, as it lives within the sugar climate, and has a great proportion of its area capable of culture. Along the Mississippi river there is a range of smaller parrishes, the names, extent and population of which will be found on our tables of the population, &c. Of these, beginning at the mouth of the river, the first is [unreadable], bounded on the west and north-west by the parish of Orleans, south by the Gulf of Mexico, east by Chanceleur bay, and north by Lake Bargue. There are some settlements above fort St. Philip,but confined to the banks of the Mississippi, where they raise cotton, rice, indigo, maize, &c. just particularly sugar. Below this point the land is at the level of high tide. It is untimbered, barren, and an irreclaimiable morass. The parish of Orleans is bounded on the north by lake Ponchattrain and the [unreadable], east by lake Bargue, west by the parrish of St. Barnard's and the interior of Lafourche. The greatest part of the surface of this district is morass, covered with different kinds of grasses. Continuing up the river, we pass the parish of St. Bernard, or German coast; the parish of St. Charles, or [unreadable]; St. John Baptiste or Cantrell's parish, and St. James, or the parish of the Acadian coast. Though the New River runs through, and the Amite forms part of the outline of this parish, there is little or no land cultivated within it, except on the margin of the Mississippi. For the first time, on the island of Orleans, appears the [unreadable] pine, black and Spanish oak. The latter, all through Louisiana, indicates the transition from recent or more ancient allusions. Sugar may be considered the staple of the Acadian coast. Next are the parishes of [unreadable], East and West Baton Rouge, Point Coupee, New Felician, Avoyelics and Concordia. On the eastern side of the Mississippi, from opposite the mouth of the Red River, or or rather from the head of the Atchafalaya, extends the part of Louisiana called Mississippi territory, being bounded on the south by the 31st degree, on latitude. In many parts of this tract, near the Mississippi, there is a deficiency of fresh water springs. There are many extensive swamps and irreclaimable deserts of pine; but a considerable portion of the territory posseses tolerable fertility. It abounds with cane, and is well suited for raising cattle. The general features have been already sketched, and Mr. Darby's work adds little or nothing to the stack of information already on hand relative to the eastern portion of the state.

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