Following down the great river, its winding and varying channel south
of Memphis becomes the boundary between the States of Mississippi and
Arkansas. To the westward the Arkansas shore is a lowland and the
interior largely swamps, with many bayous and lakes, the tributaries
of St. Francis River, which, rising in the Iron Mountain district of
Missouri, flows four hundred and fifty miles, generally southward, to
fall into the Mississippi just above Helena. This river passes through
a continuous swamp after entering Arkansas, spreads into numerous
lakes, and its extensive basin is one of the great reservoirs of
overflow relieving the Mississippi in time of flood. Its port of
Helena has a trade in timber brought out of the neighboring swamps and
forests. About one hundred miles below, the White River and the
Arkansas River flow in upon the western shore. Very curiously, these
rivers, having mouths about fifteen miles apart, join some distance
above, their waters commingling in the alluvial bottom land. The White
River is nine hundred miles long, rises in the Ozark Mountains of
Northern Arkansas, makes a long circuit through Missouri and then
comes southward, being navigable some four hundred miles to
Batesville, the seat of Arkansas College. The Arkansas River, next to
the Missouri, is the greatest Mississippi tributary, being nearly
twenty-two hundred miles long and having its sources in the Rockies in
Colorado, out of which it flows in a magnificent canyon. It comes for
five hundred miles eastward through plains that are largely sterile,
enters Kansas, turns southeast in the Indian Territory, and crosses
the State of Arkansas to its mouth, being navigable for eight hundred
miles. At the western border of the State the river is guarded by Fort
Smith, where an active town has grown around the former frontier post
on the verge of the Indian Territory, having large trade and a
population of fifteen thousand.
In the centre of Arkansas, this great river, being about four hundred
yards wide, passes the State capital Little Rock, having thirty
thousand people, its largest city, with railways radiating in all
directions, and conducting an extensive cotton trade. Its State House
is attractive, and spreading magnolias pleasantly shade many of the
streets. A spur of the Ozark Mountains comes down to the westward of
Little Rock, and its foothills are thrust out towards the Arkansas
River. In ascending it through the lowlands from the Mississippi, the
original explorers met here the only elevations of land they had seen,
the first being a rocky cliff rising about fifty feet above the water,
which they called the "Little Rock," and on it the city has been
built, while two miles above another cliff, rising five hundred feet,
is called the "Big Rock." Southwest of Little Rock, in this spur of
the Ozark Mountains, is the famous Arkansas town of Hot Springs,
having ten thousand inhabitants and many visitors. It is located in a
narrow gorge between the Hot Springs Mountain on the east and West
Mountain, the wide Main Street being flanked on one side by
bath-houses and on the other by hotels and shops. There are over
seventy springs, rising on the western slope of the Hot Springs
Mountain above the town, and discharging daily five hundred thousand
gallons of clear, tasteless and odorless waters, of varying
temperatures, the highest 158°. They contain a little silica and
carbonate of lime, but their beneficial effects in rheumatism, gout,
costiveness and other troubles are ascribed mainly to their heat and
purity. There is a large Government Hospital here for the army and
navy, the Springs being United States property. The waters flow into
the Washita River, which passes through a pleasant valley to the
southward and then goes off nearly six hundred miles down into
Louisiana to the Red River. At the mouth of Arkansas River on the
Mississippi is the town of Napoleon.
The vast current of the Mississippi River, constantly augmented by
capacious tributaries, naturally finds outlets in times of flood
through the banks, and thus overspreads the extensive adjacent
lowlands. To the eastward, south of Memphis, and extending down almost
to Vicksburg, is the enormous Yazoo Basin, a lowland of many bayous
and lakes, making a region of excessive fertility, and its Choctaw
name has thus been naturally acquired, meaning "leafy." The river
originates in the bayous and sloughs springing from the eastern
Mississippi bank, which form the Tallahatchie River, and that stream,
uniting with the Yallabusha and the Sunflower, make the deep, winding
and very sluggish Yazoo, flowing nearly three hundred miles down to
the Mississippi, twelve miles above Vicksburg. The extensive bottom
lands of this Yazoo Delta compose about one-sixth of the State of
Mississippi, its entire northwestern portion, and being a rich
agricultural region are traversed by railways and have many
flourishing towns and villages. There is a perfect network of
waterways throughout this fertile delta, over thirty of the streams
being navigable for large steamboats, and it also has extensive
forests of valuable timber. The entire region is alluvial, the soil
having been deposited by the overflows of the Mississippi during past
ages, and now that this extensive basin is protected by an elaborate
system of levees from further overflows, almost the whole of it is
available for cultivation. There are nearly five millions of acres of
reclaimed lands here, and though less than one-fifth of this surface
is devoted to cotton, it is said to grow more of that great staple
than any other single district in the world. The malaria, often
prevalent along the Yazoo, led the Choctaws to call it the "river of
death."
Both banks of the Mississippi below the Arkansas River are lined with
cotton plantations, giving a most interesting scene during the
harvesting of the fleecy crop in the autumn. The broad plantations
disclose the comfortable and often quaint planters' houses of the
olden time embosomed in trees, and as one progresses southward the
trees become more and more draped with the dark and sombre Spanish
moss, giving a weird appearance to the shores. The Yazoo flows in, and
the long and imposing range of the Walnut Hills rises on the eastern
bank to five hundred feet elevation. Here a planter named Vick made
the first settlement in 1836, and the city of Vicksburg has grown on
the summit and slopes of the hills, the lucrative traffic of the Yazoo
delta providing a chief source of its prosperity, making it the
largest city in the state of Mississippi, there being fifteen thousand
people. It presents a picturesque view from the river, but is chiefly
known abroad from its famous siege and capture by General Grant in
July, 1863. The Confederates, having lost Memphis and New Orleans,
made their last desperate stand to hold the Mississippi River at
Vicksburg, surrounding it with vast fortifications, crowning the hills
with batteries, not only along the river front, but up the Yazoo River
to Haines' Bluff. Several attempts were made to capture it in 1862,
Farragut's fleet running past, and Grant began operations in the
spring of 1863. After several battles, he appeared before the city in
May, assaulting and being repulsed, and then began the siege which
resulted in the surrender on July 4th. General Pemberton, commanding
Vicksburg, surrendered thirty-one thousand men, his previous losses
exceeding ten thousand. General Grant had similar losses, his forces
engaged in the siege and preliminary battles approximating seventy
thousand men. This siege greatly damaged the city, while in 1876 the
Mississippi, in one of its peculiar freaks, cut through a neck of land
opposite, took an entirely new channel, and left Vicksburg isolated on
an inland lake. The Government has since, at heavy expense, diverted
the Yazoo outflow past the city and restored the harbor. There are
beautiful views and romantic glens in the Walnut Hills, with many
traces of the old fortifications, while a favorite drive is to the
extensive National Cemetery, where seventeen thousand soldiers' graves
recall the terrific conflicts of the Civil War.