When the Sieur de la Salle made his voyage of exploration down the
great Father of Waters from the Falls of St. Anthony to the Gulf of
Mexico, he found in the spring of 1682 an interesting Indian
settlement on the eastern bank a hundred miles below Vicksburg. This
settlement was under a bluff rising a hundred and fifty feet above the
river. Later, in 1699, Commander d'Iberville examined the Mississippi
delta, and having founded Fort St. Louis at Biloxi, heard of these
Indians, sought their friendship, and in 1700 came up and established
a trading-post at their village under the bluff. He described them as
numbering twelve hundred warriors, living in nine contiguous villages,
ruled by a chief of the "family of the suns," their highest caste, and
called the Natchez Indians, the word meaning "the hurrying men,
running as in war." The French kept up communication with them, and
regarded the tribe as the noblest of the many with whom they had been
brought in contact in America. These Indians had a religious creed and
ceremonies not unlike the "Fire Worshippers" of Persia. In their
"Temple of the Sun," the priests kept the sacred fire constantly
burning on the altar, their tradition being that the fire came
originally from heaven and had always been maintained. In 1713 the
Sieur de Bienville, who had succeeded his brother, d'Iberville, built
Fort Rosalie alongside the landing, and around it grew a town which
was the beginning of the city of Natchez. Unfortunately, just about
this time the Indians' sacred fire accidentally went out, and
attributing this to the coming of the white men, they became
dissatisfied and conflicts arose. There were repeated fights, and in
1729 they swooped down upon the settlement and massacred the French.
The following year troops came up from New Orleans, attacked and
scattered them, burning their villages, and the tribe ultimately
disappeared, the last small remnant of half-breed descendants
remaining in Texas until recently, when they joined the Creeks and
Cherokees. Now the city of Natchez has its business portion along the
narrow stretch of river-bank in front of the bluff, where some traces
yet remain of the earthworks of the old French fort. The greater part
of the city, however, is on the bluff, where the brow of the hill is a
wide-spreading park giving a splendid outlook. Also on the bluff is a
National Cemetery filled with soldiers' graves, the sad memorial of
the War. There is a large river-trade at Natchez, and twelve thousand
population, and in the cotton-shipping season, business along the
levee is very active.
About seventy miles below, the Red River flows in, the last of the
great tributaries of the Mississippi. This stream is over fifteen
hundred miles long, draining a region of a hundred thousand square
miles, and gets its name from the red-colored sediment its waters
bring down. It originates in the extensive "Staked Plain" of northern
Texas, the "Lone Star State," its sources being at twenty-five hundred
feet elevation. Its flow is eastward, forming the Texan northern
boundary on the border of Oklahoma and the Indian Territory, and then
it turns south near the twin city of Texarkana, which stands on both
sides of the line between Texas and Arkansas. Coming into Louisiana it
passes Shreveport, a city of fifteen thousand people, with a large
trade in cotton and cattle, and then crosses the state to the
Mississippi. The special and curious feature of the Red River is the
formation of rafts. Its upper shores are heavily timbered, and vast
numbers of trees are engulfed by the current washing out the banks in
times of freshet, and they accumulate lower down, where the speed of
the water slackens. These rafts are formed many miles long, growing by
additions to the up-stream side, while the logs decay and are
gradually floated off and broken up on the lower extremity. This makes
the obstruction steadily move up-stream. In 1854, the great raft fifty
miles above Shreveport extended thirteen miles up the river and was
accumulating at the rate of nearly two miles annually. In colonial
times this raft was said to have been two hundred miles lower down the
river. Vegetation had taken root on the older portions, thus making a
floating forest, and the retardation of the waters above made a lake
over twenty miles long. In 1873, when the Government attacked it and
opened a navigable channel, this raft had grown to thirty-two miles
length, and the opening of the channel lowered the upper retarded
waters fifteen feet. Snag-boats have since patrolled the Red River,
pulling out thousands of trees every year, and breaking up the rafts,
to maintain navigation. The lower course of Red River is very crooked
and sluggish, through swamps and lowlands, and near its mouth part of
the current, particularly in times of freshet, is diverted into
Atchafalaya River, which flows for about two hundred miles southward
directly to the Gulf of Mexico. This stream is said to have originally
been the outlet of Red River to the Gulf, and such it seems again
coming to be, the Government having a very serious problem in dealing
with it. The Mississippi River in its earlier vagaries developed a
bend towards the west, which struck Red River, thus making it a
tributary, the former channel silting up. It was then named
Atchafalaya, meaning the "lost river." To improve navigation, some
time ago this old channel was opened, when to the general
astonishment, the Atchafalaya began absorbing the Red River waters and
developing a large river, which now carries a current more than
one-third the volume of the Mississippi, and as they all run together
at high-water stages, there is a fear that the whole Mississippi may
at some time conclude to go into the Atchafalaya, thus leaving New
Orleans on an arm of the sea. Extensive Government works are in
progress to prevent this diversion and maintain the old conditions.
Below Red River, the Mississippi is all in Louisiana, its width barely
a half-mile, and its depth very great, in many places one to two
hundred feet, necessary to carry the vast flow of water. The banks are
throughout protected by levees, and on the last bluff rising alongside
the river, on the eastern bank, is the Louisiana state capital, Baton
Rouge, a quaint old city with ancient French and Spanish houses,
spreading over the bluff fifty feet above the water. There is a
population of about ten thousand, and overlooking the river are the
State House and the buildings of the Louisiana State University.
Below Baton Rouge, both banks of the Mississippi are bordered by
attractive gardens and extensive plantations, with sections of forest,
sombre moss-draped trees and rich vegetation, the whole of the
"coast," as the lower river banks are familiarly called, being lavish
in the display of semi-tropical luxuriance. The voyage down, skirting
the low shores and levees for a hundred and twenty miles, is most
picturesque, as the windings of the river make pleasant views.
Finally, a grand sweeping bend is rounded, where the city of New
Orleans is spread out upon both banks, the streets and buildings
stretching far inland upon the lowlands behind the great protective
embankments.