noon
`` We crossed that swamp , '' said Gaudylock , `` with the canes rattling above our heads , and a panther screaming in a cypress tree , and we came to a village of the Chickasaws -- '' `` In the night-time ? '' `` In the night-time , and a mockingbird singing like mad from a china tree , and the woods all level before us like a floor , -- no brush at all , just fine grass , with flowers in it like pinks in a garden . So we smoked the peace pipe with the Chickasaws , and I hung a wampum belt with fine words , and we went on , the next day , walking over strawberries so thick that our moccasins were stained red . At noon we overtook a party of boatmen from the Ohio , -- tall men they were , with beards , and dark and dirty as Indians , -- and we kept company with them through the country of the Chickasaws and the Choctaws until we came to a high bluff , and saw the Mississippi before us , brown and full and marked with drifting trees , and up the river the white houses of Natchez . There we camped until we made out the flat-boat , -- General Wilkinson 's boat , all laden with tobacco and flour and bacon , and just a few Kentucks with muskets , -- that the Spaniards at Natchez had been fools enough to let pass ! We hailed that boat , and it came up beneath the cottonwoods , and I went aboard with the letters from Louisville , and on we went , down the river , past the great woods and the strange little towns , and the cotton-fields and the sugar-canes , and the moss hanging like banners from taller trees than this gum , to New Orleans . And there the Intendant would have laid hands on our cargo and sent every mother 's son of us packing , but Miro , that was governor , stood our friend , being frightened indeed of what Kentucky might do if put to it !