Travels in North America in the Years 1841-2 Volume 1; With Geological Observations on the United States, Canada and Nova Scotia (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1845 Excerpt: ...forty miles down the great river, which usually flows in a broad alluvial plain, with an average fall of about one foot per mile, or 250 feet between Augusta and the sea. Like the Mississippi and all large rivers, which, in the flood season, are densely charged with sediment, the Savannah has its immediate banks higher than the plain intervening between them and the high grounds beyond, which usually, however distant from the river, present a steep cliff or " bluff" towards it. The low flat alluvial plain, overflowed in great part at this rainy season, is covered with aquatic trees, and an ornamental growth of tall canes, some of them reaching a height of twenty feet, being from one to two inches in diameter, and with their leaves still green. The lofty cedar (Cupressus disticha), now leafless, towers above them, and is remarkable for the angular bends of the top boughs, and the large thick roots which swell out near the base. I landed first at a cliff about 120 feet high, called Shell Bluff, from the large fossil oysters which are conspicuous there. About forty miles below Augusta, at Demery's Ferry, the place where we disembarked, the waters were so high that we were carried on shore by two stout negroes. In the absence of the proprietor to whom I had letters, we were hospitably received by his Chap. Viii. SLAVE LABOUR. 125 overseer, who came down to the river bank, with two led horses, on one of which was a lady's saddle. He conducted us through a beautiful wood, where the verdure of the evergreen oaks, the pines, and hollies, and the mildness of the air, made it difficult for us to believe that it was mid-winter, and that we had been the month before in a region of snow storms and sledges. We crossed two creeks, and after riding several miles ...