as various, and their number as great, as on the Ohio. The usual passage of barks, and barges, from New-Orleans to the mouth of the Cumberland, on the Ohio, is ninety days; sometimes, however, they are six months in getting up thus far, and sometimes lose all their hands on the way, by sickness. These boats generally carry from sixty to seventy men each, whose compensation is from fifty to eighty dollars a trip. Many old sailors prefer this inland navigation to that of the ocean. Here they spend their second childhood; and venture only on those little seas which met the earliest efforts of their boisterous career. The vessels of which I have been speaking, are from eighty to one hundred tons burthen. The freight from New-Orleans to the Cumberland is about five dollars a hundred weight. Down the river the price is fifty per cent less.
The cotton-wood tree abounds near the Mississippi, and is said to be the New-England poplar; I think, however, that this is not the case.[153] Here too are bulrushes;, such, probably, as concealed the child Moses on the Nile. There is a very interesting connexion between the scenes and productions of {208} nature, and the simple stories of inspiration. In view of it the enlightened agriculturalist is charmed. The situation of our first parents, the patriarchal days, and the history of the Judean Shepherds, furnish him, whilst he is tilling his ground and tending his flocks, with sources of reflection, which at once delight his mind, improve his heart, and prepare him for that state of innocence and love, which awaits the good beyond the scenes of time.
The animal and vegetable worlds furnish an inexhaustible source of illustration and imagery; and in the scrip-*
