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Show 100 springs and lake, the stone quarries, and coal; and a .field of about :fiye hundred acres of the. best low g1 ounds, on the opposite side.. ..~fter l avu~g Grand Ecorc, about a 1nile, ?n the left s~cl~ con1cs 111 a large bayau, from the Spamsh lake, ;~ ~t 1s cal~cd, ?o·1table the greater part o{ the year. I hts lake t.s smcl to be about fifty miles in cir.cumi~rcllcc, m~cl nses and falls " ·ith the river, into "l11ch, 1rmn the nver, the largest boats may ascend, an? fr?m i~, up the n1ou.ths of several large bay a us that iallmto 1t, for son1e chst~mcc, one in particular called bayau Dupong, up "Inch bo:tts n1ay ascend within one and a half mile o.f old f?rt Adaize. Leaving this bayau about t" o miles, arnve at a fork or division of the river; the left hand branch bears westwardly for sixty or eighty miles; rhe t~ eastwardly meetino- the branch it left, after form1ng an island o' f about bo ne hundred miles long, and , .m ~orne places, nearly thirty miles wide. _Six or seve.n y:ars ago, boats used to pass this way Into t~1e mam nver again; its com1ntmication 'rith v<hich bemg above the great raft or obstruction; but it is now choaked, and requires a portage of three miles; but at _any sc:a~on, boats can go from Natchitoches, about eighty miles, to the place called the point, where the French had a factory, and a small station of soldiers to gnm:d. the Indian trade, and is now undoubtedly a very eltg1ble situation for a similar establishment. The country bounded to the east and north, by this branch or division of the river, is called the bay au Pierre settlement, which was begun, and son1e of the lands granted before Louisiana was ceded to Spain by France, and con~ tinued under the jurisdiction of the co1nn1andant of Natchitoches until about t\venty years ago, when, by an agreement between a ~'Ir. Vogone, then commandant of this place, and a Mr. Elibarbe, commm:clant at Natchitoches, the settlement called bayau Pierre, was placed under the jurisdiction of the latter, an~ has so continued ever since. The settle:n1ent, I behcve, contains about forty fa1nilics, and generally they have 101 hrge stocks of cattle: they supply us with our cheese . entirely, and of a tolerable quality, and we get from them some excellent bacon hams. The country is interspersed with prairies, resetnbling, as to richness, the river bottoms, and, in size, from five to five thousand acres. 'I'he hills are a good grey soil, and produce Yery well, and afford beautiful situations. The creek called Bayau Pierre, (stony creek) passes through the settle1nent, and affords a number of good n:ill seats,. m:d its bed and bank~ lined with a good kmcl of bmldwg stone, but no mills are erected on it. Some of the inhabitants have tried the uplands in wh~at, which. succeeded well. They are high, gently rollmg, and ncb enough; produce good corn, cotton, and tobacco. I \ras through the settlement in July last, and found good water, either from a spring or well, at every house. The inhabitants are all French one f~1mily excepted. A few miles to the westward: to\\'ards s,,bine, there is a Saline where the inhabitants go and make their salt. On the whole, for health goo(~ water, good living, plenty of food for every kind ofammal, general conven.iency, and handsome surface, I have seen few parts of the world more inviting to settlers. Returning back again to the fork of the main river we left, for theynrpose of exploring the Bayau Pierre branch, we find Ir.r~gular settlements, including Campti, whl r~ a few fan11lies are settled too-ether on a hill near t~1e nv'er, north east side. For ~bout 20 1niles the nver l~ncl is much the same every where, but the Campti settlement is more broken with bayaus and !~goons than any place I am acquainted with on the nve.r, and for want of about a dozen bridges is inconvem~~ t to get to,. or travel through. ,.fhe upper end ~ftlus set~lement 1~ the last on th<:> main branch of Red l~er, wh1ch, strmght by land does not exceed 25 Iniles above .Natchitoches. At the upper house the reat ra.ft or Jam of timber begins; this raft choaks he mam channel for upwards of 100 miles, by the |