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Updated: June 2, 2025
That part of the continent of North America known as Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas, is in my judgment the key to the whole interior. The valley of the Mississippi is America, and, although railroads have changed the economy of intercommunication, yet the water-channels still mark the lines of fertile land, and afford cheap carriage to the heavy products of it.
As the wind set toward us, we soon became aware of an evil smell petroleum and sulphuretted hydrogen at once which gave some of us a headache. The pitch here is yellow and white with sulphur foam; so are the water-channels; and out of both water and pitch innumerable bubbles of gas arise, loathsome to the smell. We became aware also that the pitch was soft under our feet.
There are greenhouses and forcing-houses, where flowers are grown under glass. There are fish-ponds, fountains, and water-channels, with artificial cascades and a general suggestion of babbling streams. Out beyond lie the orchards and the vegetable gardens, where are grown most of the modern fruits, including peaches, apricots, and almonds, but not yet including either the orange or the lemon.
The men lay down as usual, with piled arms in front and camels in rear; the order for perfect silence was hardly needed; the sandy water-channels made a comfortable couch for wearied limbs; and the tired warriors were glad enough to wrap themselves in their blankets, and enjoy a few hours of well-earned repose.
That part of the continent of North America known as Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas, is in my judgment the key to the whole interior. The valley of the Mississippi is America, and, although railroads have changed the economy of intercommunication, yet the water-channels still mark the lines of fertile land, and afford cheap carriage to the heavy products of it.
Some, not noticing the three encircling walls and the well-cut water-channels, and thinking that the round buildings far exceeded the rectangular in number, have thought that they might have been intended for granaries where corn might be stored against a time of war. But it seems far more likely that Citania was a town placed on this high hill for safety.
Pomegranates and fig-trees are sometimes planted in the water-channels. Presents of slaves are frequently made, and fines levied. Each town pays a certain sum, which is small; but as the towns are numerous, it may be averaged to produce 4,000 dollars.
The chains of the conscripts clanked in the river villages; the wailing of the women affrighted the pigeons in a thousand dovecotes on the Nile; the dust of despair was heaped upon the heads of the old, who knew that their young would no more return, and that the fields of dourha would go ungathered, the water-channels go unattended, and the onion-fields be bare. War! War! War!
On every hand are inaccessible mountains, steep, yellow slopes scored by water-channels, and reddish rocks draped with green ivy and crowned with clusters of plane-trees. Yonder, at an immense height, is the golden fringe of the snow.
The old Mogul style of gardening is a lost art, and one misses in the Ram Bagh the stately rows of cypress, interspersed with flowering trees, the formal flower-beds glowing with colour like a living carpet, which were planted by Babar; but the terraces, the fountain, the water-channels, and the little stone water-shoots cunningly carved so that the water breaks over them with a pleasant gurgling sound which may have recalled to him the murmurings of his native mountain-streams the old well from which the water of the Jumna is lifted into the channels, can still be seen, as well as the pavilions on the river-bank, now modernized with modern bad taste.
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