“I arrived at Bayou Goula on the ‘Bismarck,’ about six o’clock on Thursday morning; and, after considerable delay, succeeded in obtaining quarters at the Buena Vista Hotel in that village.  At that point I engaged the services of a colored man named Brown, to pilot me down the river.  At ten o’clock I took a breakfast, consisting of five eggs, bread, and a glass of beer, and ate nothing else during the day.  At five o’clock precisely I took to the water and began my trip down to the city of New Orleans—­a trip which proved to be a much more arduous one than I had anticipated, in consequence of the want of buoyancy in the water, the terrible counter-currents, and the large amount of drift-wood.  It was some time before I could master the difficulty about the drift-wood, and at one time I was so annoyed and bruised by the floating debris, that I became somewhat apprehensive about the success of my enterprise.  In some of the strong eddies particularly the logs played such fantastic tricks, rolling over and over with their jagged limbs and again standing upon their ends, that I feared I must either be carried under, or have my dress stripped completely off.  By constant watching, however, I was enabled to steer out of harm’s way and to keep steadily moving down the stream.

“Above Donaldsonville I was met by a fleet of boats filled with spectators, who accompanied me down to that point, which I reached about eight o’clock in the evening.  The town was illuminated, and the citizens tendered me a polite invitation to land and take supper; but of course I was obliged to decline, accepting in lieu a drink and a sandwich.  Of the sandwich I ate only the bread.

[Boyton descending the Mississippi.]

“Below Donaldsonville I was caught in the great eddy.  It was about four o’clock in the morning when I got into it, and it was good daylight before I succeeded in getting out again into the down-stream current.  It was a singular sensation, this going round and round over the same ground, so to speak, and for the life of me I could not understand how I seemed now and then to be passing the same plantation-houses and familiar landmarks.  The skiff which accompanied me was also in the same predicament, sometimes pulling up and sometimes pulling down stream.  I tried to guide myself by the north star, but before I was aware of it that luminary, which ought to have kept directly in my front, would pop up, as it were, behind me, and destroy all my calculations.  When daylight came, however, and the fog lifted sufficiently, I was able to paddle out into the middle of the stream, and keep down it once again.