Eight days in New Orleans in February, 1847

Excerpt

CHAPTER I.

A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.—DESOTO'S EXPEDITION,—HIS DEATH,—THE FATE OF HIS PARTY, ETC.

On a recent excursion to the Crescent City, I collected some facts and statistics which are respectfully submitted to the public. In attempting a description of this magnificent emporium of commerce, as it exists at the present day, I will briefly allude to its early history, commencing with the great "drain" of the western world, which is destined to bear upon its turbid bosom half the commerce of the American Union.

Three hundred and thirty years ago the noble Mississippi rolled its waters to its ocean home in native silence and grandeur, hitherto seen by no European eye, when suddenly one morning Hernandez De Soto stood upon its banks. How awfully sublime must have been the contemplations of that man. He had discovered it a thousand miles from its mouth, two thousand from its source. No one had ever seen its rise,—no one its exit into the ocean. But it was reserved for the Governor of Cuba to find it through a wilderness, at a place and under circumstances the most thrilling and romantic. Four years previous to this discovery, he embarked for Florida with an outfit of a thousand men, with arms, munitions, priests and chains. His object, the conquest of a country teeming with wealth and splendour, like that which his former Captain found in the conquest of Peru. He penetrated Florida, Georgia and Alabama, finding no gold—no splendid Montezuma—nothing but savages breathing out an innocent and monotonous existence, inhabiting a country in a state of nature alone. After hardships the most unheard of, disappointments the most mortifying, the proud and enterprising De Soto threw his troops into Mauville, a large town near the confluence of the Bigby and Alabama. Here a most disastrous battle attended him, for although he routed the enemy in the death of thousands, he lost all his baggage and most of his horses. His fleet then lay at the bay of Pensacola, awaiting his arrival, and by reaching it in a few days he could have terminated his disastrous campaign. But the proud Castilian was not to be subdued by misfortunes and disappointments. He determined to find just such a country as he had constantly sought. Fired with fresh intelligence of the magnificence of the people who lived near the "Father of Waters," we find him pursuing his expedition in a sun-set direction in company with his jaded, reduced and dispirited force, with a fortitude and courage which none but a Spaniard knows. He surmounted innumerable difficulties, which both nature and man interposed to arrest his progress; and finally, through a dense and almost endless forest, he suddenly gratified his vision with the majestic Mississippi. Crossing over the great river, he toiled in the prairies and swamps of Arkansas and Missouri, until wants and vicissitudes of the most trying character impelled his return. Arrived once more upon its virgin banks, his lofty spirit fell, and brooding over his fallen fortunes, a fever terminated his existence far from home, in the American wilds!

Just before he passed from life, he caused his officers to surround his bed, appointed Luis de Muscoso his successor in command, and bid them an affectionate farewell....