History of Louisisana | Page 6

Had these sandy desarts indeed been in such a climate as
Canada, they would have been of as little value, as many would make
them here. It might be difficult indeed to settle colonies merely for
these or any other {v} productions of those poor lands: but to the
westward of the Missisippi, the coast is much more fruitful all along
the bay of Mexico; being watered with a great number of rivers, the
banks of which are very fertile, and are covered with forests of the
tallest oaks, &c. as far as to New Mexico, a thing not to be seen any
where else on these coasts. The coast alone will supply all the products
of North America, and is as convenient to navigation as any part of it,
without going nigh the Missisippi; so that it is with good reason our
author says, "That country promises great riches to such as shall inhabit
it, from the excellent quality of its lands," [Footnote: See p. 163.] in
such a climate.
These are the productions of the dry (we cannot call them high)
grounds: the swamps, with which this coast abounds, are still more
fruitful, and abundantly compensate the avidity and barrenness of the
soil around them. They bear rice in such plenty, especially the marsh
about New Orleans, "That the inhabitants reap the greatest advantage
from it, and reckon it the manna of the land." [Footnote: _Dumont_, I.
15.] It was such marshes on the Nile, in the same climate, that were the
granary of the Roman empire. And from a few such marshes in
Carolina, not to be compared to those on the Missisippi, either in extent
or fertility, Britain receives at least two or three hundred thousand
pounds a year, and might vend twice that value of their products.
But however barren or noxious these low lands on the sea coast may be,
they extend but a little way about the Missisippi, not above thirty or
forty miles in a straight line, on the east side of that river, and about
twice as far on the west side; in which last, the lands are, in
recompence, much more fruitful. To follow the course of the river
indeed, which runs very obliquely south-east and north-west, as well as
crooked, they reckon it eighty-two leagues from the mouth of the river
to the Cut-Point, where the high lands begin.
II. By the Lower Louisiana, our author means only the Delta of the

Missisippi, or the drowned lands made by the overflowing of the river.
But we may more properly give {vi} that appellation to the whole
country, from the low and flat sea coast above described, to the
mountains, which begin about the latitude 35°, a little above the river St.
Francis; that is, five degrees of latitude, or three hundred and fifty
statute miles from the coast; which they reckon to be six hundred and
sixty miles up the Missisippi. About that latitude a continued ridge of
mountains runs westward from the Apalachean mountains nigh to the
banks of the Missisippi, which are thereabouts very high, at what we
have called the Chicasaw Cliffs. Opposite to these on the west side of
the Missisippi, the country is mountainous, and continues to be so here
and there, as far as we have any accounts of it, westward to the
mountains of New Mexico; which run in a chain of continued ridges
from north to south, and are reckoned to divide that country from
Louisiana, about 900 miles west from the Missisippi.
This is one entire level champaign country; the part of which that lies
west of the Missisippi is 900 miles (of sixty to a degree) by 300, and
contains 270,000 square miles, as much as both France and Spain put
together. This country lies in the latitude of those fruitful regions of
Barbary, Syria, Persia, India, and the middle of China, and is alone
sufficient to supply the world with all the products of North America. It
is very fertile in every thing, both in lands and metals, by all the
accounts we have of it; and is watered by several large navigable rivers,
that spread over the whole country from the Missisippi to New Mexico;
besides several smaller rivers on the coast west of the Missisippi, that
fall into the bay of Mexico; of which we have no good accounts, if it be
not that Mr. Coxe tells us of one, the river of the Cenis, which, he says,
"is broad, deep, and navigable almost to its heads, which chiefly
proceed from the ridge of hills that separate this province from New
Mexico," [Footnote: Description of Carolina, p. 37] and runs through
the rich and fertile country on the coast above mentioned.
The western part of this country