The Indian Inhabitants
There is one thing more to be brought to mind in order to complete the picture, and that is, the presence of many wandering tribes of Indians roaming over the country. The smokes from their scattered wigwams rise among the trees both in summer and in winter. They build their habitations of the bark of trees. They hunt and trap the land animals, and snare the fish. They eat the flesh for food, and clothe themselves with the skins and furs. Each tribe preserves in a measure its own range, and yet sometimes they become involved in dreadful quarrels, in which the ordinary repose of the silent and solitary forests is broken by the frightful yells of a troop of maddened savages breaking at midnight into the encampment of their foes, or by the piercing cries of women and children whom they massacre in their fury.
Influence of the Moral Instincts
These scenes of war and devastation are, however, only incidental and occasional interruptions to the ordinarily peaceful flow with which the current of life here, as in all other countries and climes, flows on. The Creator has implanted in the human mind a natural sense of justice, a love of what is right in the dealings between man and man, and a disapproval of what is wrong, the influence of which, in all human communities, is ordinarily sufficient to preserve peace, even in the most rude and savage states of society. Thus, in picturing to our imaginations the scenes that were presented in this lake country, while in its aboriginal condition, we must conceive of the inhabitants as ordinarily employed in their various industrial pursuits of hunting and fishing, of fabricating implements and clothing, of building wigwams and making encampments, and of rearing their children. The scenes of violence and war that occurred to disturb the usual quite of their lives, through very serious in their results, were exceptional, and comparatively rare. It is very doubtful, indeed, whether they were more frequent, or more destructive, in proportion to the numbers affected by them, than the similar quarrels which have occurred among Christian and civilized nations, as shown by the history of Europe during the last five hundred years.
The Great Central Valley
South of the lake country, and occupying a very large portion of the whole interior of the continent, is a broad though shallow valley, bounded both on the east and on the west by ranges of mountains. The extent of the valley is marked on the map, not only by the mountains which bound it on the east and on the west, but also by the ramifications of the great river which drains, it. These ramifications are seen spreading in every direction, like the branches of a mighty tree, and terminating in the south in one great trunk, through which the united volume of waters is poured out into the great gulf which is seen delineated there. This is the great river Mississippi, with its thousand tributaries. If is were the real scene, instead of a mere map that we were looking upon, we should see all the branches of this immense system glistening in the sun between banks loaded with luxuriant forests, and adorned with fruits and flowers of every conceivable character and form.
The Soil of the Great Valley
The soil of the whole valley, which, however, is so broad and so shallow that, seen as we have imagined from above, it would have more the appearance of an extended plain than of a valley, is extremely fertile. It is what is called an alluvial formation; that is, a very large portion of the territory has been covered with deposits from the rivers themselves, left after overflows and inundations. These deposits have accumulated, in the course of ages, to a great depth, and they form an exceedingly rich and fertile soil. The rivers twist and turn this way and that in meandering through these plains; and when swollen by rain or by the melting snows, they undermine the banks, and bring down great masses of earth, and great numbers of immense trees into the water. The earth thus washed in is carried down by the flood, and after being mingled with a great variety of animal and vegetable remains, is distributed over widely extended districts below, when the water has overflowed the banks, and thus adds, throughout all the country so covered, a new layer of fertility to the soil.
Formation of Islands in the River
The trees float on, too, upon the current. Some drag by the roots and get lodged along the banks or upon shoals, in the bed of the stream. In this latter case they intercept others coming down, and so create an obstruction, around which sand and sediment collect, until an island is formed. When this new formation becomes consolidated, it turns the current of the steam, and perhaps in the end is the means of deflecting the river into a new channel.
There is another way by which islands are formed. The river wearing continually upon its banks, and making immense convolutions in its course, sometimes cuts through a narrow neck, where previously it flowed around in a great circuit. A new channel is thus made for a part of the water, while the rest flows on round the circuit in the old course. By this means an island is formed, which may, perhaps, continue for centuries to divide the stream.
Swamps
At length, perhaps in the case of such an island, the old channel becomes choked up and closed at the opening, having previously become half filled with the floating trunks of trees, and all manner of brush and rubbish. Henceforward it remains a stagnant pool, a mile perhaps wide, and fifty miles long, filled with aquatic plants of every kind, and with decaying and half sunken trunks of trees, all covered and adorned, where they emerge into the atmosphere, with rich mosses, green and brown, and with graceful ferns, which hang drooping like tufts of feathers along the bands, or clinging, wherever they can get a foothold, to the trunks of the decaying trees.
The lagoons and morasses formed in this manner, in ancient times, became the peaceful and happy abode of vast numbers of animals adapted to such a habitation. Alligators, lizards, serpents, and reptiles of all kinds, crawled along the banks or slept in the sun upon the logs that line the shore; while long-legged birds waded in the water fishing for their food among the sedges, and flocks of ducks and other wild fowl, some of them resplendent in plumage, and adorned with the most gorgeous hues or orange, crimson, blue and gold, lay floating on the surface, or flew in flocks hither and thither through the air. The lagoons and morasses were inhabited by these animals in millions.
the Old Forsaken Channels
In other parts of this great valley swamps and morasses were formed in another way. The river, when it overflowed its banks, carried over with it, upon the land, immense quantities of sand, gravel, and driftwood, and other such substances, whether floating upon the water or suspended in it. These substances would, of course, be caught and retained, or, if heavier than the water, would subside in greater quantities near the bank than further inland; that is, the largest and heaviest would become lodged, while the water itself, carrying with it the finer sediment, would flow further into the interior. Thus the land would become built up, so to speak, faster near the river than further inland, and consequently would rise higher; and the water which was carried over into the plains beyond could not flow back into the river again. Instead of this, it would find its way into every
Forsaken Channels
low and sunken tract, which would, of course, in this way become half submerged, and long before the water could be evaporated by the sun a new supply would come in from another inundation.
The result is, that throughout the whole extent of the valley, especially in the southern and lower portions of it, great tracts of land have become half submerged, and continue permanently in that condition, and thus, though teeming with animal and vegetable life, are wholly unfit, in their present state, for the abode of man.
The Mouth of the Mississippi