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PAGES embarked at St. Domingo for New Orleans, went a little way up the Miffifippi, and then turned weftward across Red River, and feems to have kept nearly the direction of the fhores of the gulph of Mexico, in its western curvature at near 150 miles diftance from the shore, till he arrived at Mexico. From thence he went to Acapulco, and in the annual ship to the Manillas, to Batavia, Bombay, and Surat. From Surat he went to the island Salfet, and returned through the country of the Mahrattas; he embarked at Surat for the Perfian Gulph, and vifiting different places in the Gulph, he went to Baffora, and croffed the defart to Damafcus. He made fome stay, and various excurfions in Syria, and returned through the Mediterrancan to Marseilles.

The first part of this journey is very interefting. Charlevoix only purfued the course of the Miffifippi, and his meagre uninterefting account has had few readers. M. Pages, to a robust conftitution joined a fondnefs for a wild independent ftate; but without the enthufiafm of modern refiners, he looked up to a life of active independence, and the robuft liberty of the old inhabitants of the Herycinian foreft. We could have wifhed that it had fuited his plan to have gone a little to the north and the weft of his prefent tract. It is a

country totally unknown, and the va rious large rivers that direct their courfe from it, and fall into the Gulph of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean, fhow that it must be diverfified with mountains and probably with lakes. Bounding on the south-weft, our new Canadian government, fome difcoveries may perhaps be made of importance in this district, though these expectations are leffened, by confidering it as totally out of the act of trade, and in the Spanish dominions. At prefent it contains fome names of miffions invented by the priest or the geographer, perhaps intended to be occupled, but in reality little known.

As we have given the outline of our author's tract, we need not follow him minutely; but we shall sketch a few of the most important obfervations and defcriptions on the route:

The country about New Orleans has been defcribed by other travellers, and the low fwampy embouchure of the Miffifippi does not afford any thing very interefting. The favagea have the ufual customs of thefe uncivilized races, and are contended with adding by hunting to the fpontaneous produce of the earth, or the little which they can obtain by their imperfect modes of cultivation. They are brave, humame, and laborious.

The majefty of the Miffifippi never for a moment efcaped my attention; which, continuing nearly of the fame

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magnitude at this great height, may be properly claffed with the largeft and most beautiful rivers in the univerfe. Nay, after having afcended to the vast diftance of eight hundred leagues from the fea, the change in its dimenfions is ftill fo little perceived, that it is impoffible for the traveller thence to fuppofe that he is approaching it fources. The water of the Miffifippi is the fweeteft and moft palatable I ever tafted; and its lofty banks are fringed with trees, efpecially cypreffes, of prodigious height.

Here the canoe grazed along large tracts of fand and gravel, on which lay extended trees of enormous fize, whofe dusky and mouldery appearance fhewed their depofition by the current to be an event of high antiquity. These were fucceeded by a low and marshy beach, where the crocodile or alligator crept fluggishly among the reeds, an animal equally offenfive to the fight and fmell. Rifing ftill on the ample bofom of the Miffifippi, at leaft half a mile in breadth, we were prefented on each fide with fmooth banks and ftately cypreffes, garnifhed in the luxuriance of the liane, a plant which, after twisting round them to a vaft height, falls dangling to the ground. By means of fmall openings the eye might pierce into a thick wood, and perceive, under a perpetual fhade, fpaces of meadow or morafs, or the foil ftrewed with the maffy ruins of the venerable oak. Trees which, judging by their colour and bark, one would have deemed fresh and found in their fubftance, crumbled into duft the moment they were fnbmitted to the touch. We now rowed under its more elevated banks, where the foil tumbling into the river, difcovers to the view enormous roots, which announce the fudden and approaching fall of their impending trunks. In fine, the earth, fapped by the current, and yielding to the incumbent weight, fhoots with all its trees into the river, occafioning an awful noife, which is

often heard at a great distance. In the progrefs of this curious navigation I was fortunate enongh, though at a league's distance, to hear two of thofe difmal convulfions. The crash, augmented and continued by echoes, propagated in that vaft foreft, which extends all along the borders of the Miffifippi, excited dreary but folemn emotions in my mind.

It must be remembered, that we are now nearly in the neighbourhood of the Indians, who have been fuppofed to originate from Wales, and whofe ancestors were a part of the crew of the enterprifing Madoc. But we can find no traces of people who were ever civilized: the Creoles are induftrious, laborious, and hardy ; the natives are active and intrepid. In their manners and their conduct, they feem to rife above the ufual acquifi tions of favages, but have neither the remains of even the rude arts of the religion of Europe at that period, and we could not have fuppofed them wholly forgotten: At Nachitoches, the manners are far from refinement. It is the moft nothern point of our author's excurfions in America.

I lived here with the proprietor of the canoe, but was miferably accom modated, both in diet and lodging. The houfe was finall, and dirty in the extreme; and our bread, made of rice,mixed with Indian corn, was of the very worst quality. In fpite of all their inconveniences, I would have preferred to my prefent fituation my former lodging on the banks of Red River, and the bread we fed пpert from New Orleans, though it too had been much fpoiled fince our quitting the Miffifippi. It is difficult for the reader to imagine how much the air on Red River is contaminated by the horrid ftench which arifes from the urine and excrements of the alligator. Our bifcuit was fo impregnated with this abominable effluvia, that it had acquired the naufeous taste of rotten mufk; but fupported my fpirits un

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der all thofe hardships with the profpect of making a short ftay in this country.

The fettlement of Nachitoches is computed to be a hundred and forty leagues N. W. from New Orleans; is of fmall extent, but tolerably populous; and the inhabitants, like all thofe of Louisiana, are lively, wellformed in their perfons, and inured to to fatigue. They often afcend their rivers with their familes to the distance of four or five hundred leagues, and spend one of those painful expeditions, eighteen, perhaps twenty months.

Hunting the bear is one of their favourite purfuits, but is chiefly practifed in the winter feafon, when he is particularly fat, and in condition to furnish them a larger quantity of oil. The nature of the chafe is briefly as follows: the bear generally chooses. for his retreat the hollow trunk of an old cyprefs, which he climbs, and defcends into the cavity from above; meanwhile it is the bufinefs of the hunter, who watches him on his return home, to mount by means of hooks, and feat himself on a neighbouring tree. Here, having a gun in one hand, and a firebrand in the other, the moment he discovers the hole he darts his torch into the trunk. Frantic with rage and terror, the bear makes a fpring from his den; but the hunter, with great dexterity, feizes the inftant he leaps from the tree, and fhoots him through the head or fhoulder. The animal drops on the ground and dies under the repeated wounds he receives from his enemy.

This defcription is well contrafted with the aukward and inconvenient finery of the Spaniard, who are unwilling to believe the natives are of a race equally diftinguished by the favours of providence; but thefe as well as the French have communicated the effects of their vices to the benevolent and induftrious Americans, and, not contented with rendering them their flaves, have undetermined every principle of morality and virtue. The following defcription of their perfons

is in a bold and animated ftyle: the picture is an excellent one.

Next day we were joined by a par ty of them on horfeback, who were eager to difplay with much oftentation the fwiftnefs and agility of their horfes, as well as their own fkill and dexterity in the art of riding; and it is but doing them juftice to say, that the most noble and graceful object I have ever feen was one of thofe favages mounted and running at full fpeed. The broad Herculean trunk of his body, his gun leaning over the left arm, and his plaid or blanket thrown carelessly across his naked fhoulders, and itreaming in the wind, was fuch an appearance as I could only compare to fome of the equef trian ftatutes of antiquity. The more elderly among them, of a less violent and impetuous character, rode quietly in our company, with their wives or daughters behind them. The women behaved in our prefence with the greatest decency, and ftudied to avoid our too inquifitive regards by fitting clofer to their conductors. It was their intention, I prefume, in this manner to pay their refpects to their former governor; but I could guefs by the fhortnefs of their vifits, that they were by no means flattered with our attention to the women.

The country appears agreeable and fertile, but interfected with numerous rivers, which made travelling inconvenient; and in fome places, the fcarcity of habitations made the sup ply of provifions uncertain. Our author fuffered from hunger, though often fed by the benevolence of the na tive American, who is more friendly than the Creole while the Spaniard is the leaft fociable and benevolent of the whole. Another confiderable impediment to the traveller was meeting frequently with the mefquitte or prickly currant, and on the mountains, various thorny fhrubs of a puny growth' curioufly diverfified in the fhape and fize of the prickle.

Sartillie is reprefented as a confiderable town, occupied by Spaniard● only,