cattle, hides, tallow, cheese, beef, and pork. It has been disputed which of the two former yields the highest revenue on the same labour and capital. This question must remain without solution; so much depends upon local position, that no decisive data exists to reuder the contrast satisfactory. It is no doubt, however, much more facile for new settlers to commence a pastoral than an agricultural establishment. The land suitable to the former being of much less value than that necessary for the latter. There are few persons, whose capital puts it in their power, but will prefer the certainty of agriculture to all other pursuits whatever. Perhaps some individuals could however be found in Opelousas, who unite more than ever was done elsewhere; the three natural stages of man's progress, hunting, tending their flocks, and ploughing the glebe. may I terminate these remarks upon Opelousas, by pronouncing it deserving, in a high degree, the eulogy pronounced in the motto to this work upon all Louisiana. STATISTICS OF THE STATE OF LOUISIANA. CHAP. V. NORTH-WEST SECTION OF THE STATE; GENERAL VIEW; SOIL; CLIMATE; PRODUCTIONS; PAROCHIAL DIVISIONS. THE Sabine river* has obtained more attention from becoming the temporary boundary between the United States and the Spanish internal provinces, and part of the permanent western limit of the state of Louisiana, than it would be entitled to claim from the magnitude of its column, or the fertility of its shores. This river discharges itself into the gulph of Mexico, in 29° 23′ N. lat. and in 93° 57′ west from Greenwich, 16° 57′ W. from Washington city. The depth of water at the mouth of the Sabine, is not more than four feet on the bar, at ordinary tides. The mouth of the river is wider than could be expected from the quantity of water it discharges into the gulph of Mexico. No prospect can be more awfully solitary, than that from the mouth of the Sabine. A few trunks of trees * The Sabine river, as described in this chapter, includes matter not connected with the N. W. section of the state of Louisiana; but I considered that it would render the subject more perspicuous, to give an entire picture of the Sabine under one point of view. thrown on shore by the surf of the sea, and scattered clumps of myrtle, are the only objects that arrest the eye, from the boundless expanse of the gulph, and the equally unlimited waste of prairie. No habitation of man appears in view to cheer the voyager. No herds grazing on the green plain, recall his domestic sensations. The deep solemn break of the surge, the scream of the sea-fowl, the wind sighing mournfully through the myrtle, and a lone deer bounding along the shore, are the only objects that vary the monotony of the scene; the only sounds that interrupt the awful silence of this remote region. In the language of an elegant and interesting writer, it is one of those "unbounded prospects, where the imagination is not "less oppressed than surprised by the greatness of "the spectacle. The mind, distressed, seeks on every "side in vain for an object on which to repose, finds only a solitude that saddens, an immensity that con"founds*" Ascending the Sabine, about twelve miles from its mouth, the river expands into a wide shallow lake, of ten or twelve miles wide and twenty-five long, with a bearing N. E. and S. W. At the northern extremity of this lake, enters both the Sabine and Nétchez. At their junction with the lake, these two rivers are nearly of the same width, about 300 yards. A line of seashell banks are found along the shore of the lake, between the Sabine and Nétchez. On the point on the left shore of the Sabine, an immense mound of those shells are found, covered with dwarf trees, which serve as a land-mark in coming up the lake, to point out the real entrance into the river. Except a few scatter * Abbe Barthelemy.-Travels of Anacharsis. ed trees on the margin of the lake, the prospect continues to present an expanse of marsh prairie, not more than four feet above common high water. Ascending fifteen or twenty miles above the lake, timber begins to appear in larger bodies, the land rising by a slow gradation. The first wood found is pine along a creek coming in from the N. W. which enters Sabine at 30° 3' N. lat. A very wide range of high prairie stretches to the N. W. from the mouth of the above creek, terminating the prairies on Sabine. The woods now enclose the river on both banks. The stream becomes contracted to 150 yards wide, which dimensions it preserves, with not much variation, as high as the Quachatta villages, where it shrinks to not more than 70 or 80 yards in breadth, and continues nearly the same size as high as 32° of N. lat. A few miles below the Indian villages, the Sabine is encumbered with a raft of timber of a mile and an half in length. When the waters are high, an outlet from the right bank, leaving the river at the higher extremity of the raft, conducts into a small creek that enters the river below. Canoes only can pass this outlet, its channel being at all times too small and shallow for large boats. Fifteen or sixteen miles below the raft, the Wau-ca hatcha, or Cow Tail river, falls in from the west, the last stream of any consequence that enters Sabine from either bank. Ledges of rocks and hills of considerable elevation now present themselves frequently along the right bank. Those hills rest on a basis of blue friable sandstone, arranged in very regular strata*; their apex and slopes are generally clothed with pine, beech, various species of oak, ash and hickory; dogwood abounds, and dwarf cane often mingles itself amongst the most *The floetz formation of Werner. gigantic vegetables. The soil is thin, and almost universally of a yellow ochreous tinge The left or east bank is uniformly lower than the right or western, the high land but seldom reaching the river. The great range of pine forest, that occupies the space from the prairies of Opelousas to Red river, winds along the Sabine. The general surface of this region rises by very gradual elevation from the prairies into hills of considerable height. The principal range of those hills pursues nearly the same course with the Sabine. Twenty or twenty-five miles distant, it divides the waters that flow into Red river and the Calcasiu, from those that flow into Sabine. The creeks that are formed from the western slope of these hills, lose themselves in the latter river before coming to any considerable size, whilst those flowing from the eastern declivity below 31° 30′ N. lat. quickly intermingle and form the Calcasiu river. This ridge of hills now becomes extremely broken, occupies nearly a medium distance between Red and Sabine rivers. Some spots of good productive soil, but not of great extent, are found on the creeks that enter the Sabine on the east. Pine and oak compose the prevailing timber.-The surface of the earth is clothed in spring and summer with an abundant herbage, that renders the country excellent for pasturage. Though springs are found within the region above noticed, they by no means abound. In general, the creeks are produced by the rains that fall in such abundance in Louisiana during the winter. In summer and autumn these creeks cease to flow. Many of the creeks, however, that fall into the Calcasiu, some of those that enter Red river, particularly in the settlement of Bayou Pierre, and many creeks of the |