The roof is first put on, and the floors laid.  When this mud dries thoroughly it is white-washed; the house is then complete, and presents quite a neat appearance.  It will continue to do so if the white-washing is annually continued.  If, however, this is neglected, the lime falls off in spots, and the primitive mud comes out to view:  then the appearance is anything but pleasant.  No pains are taken to ornament their yards, or gather about them comforts.  There is a pig or two in a pen in the corner of the yard, a hen-roost immediately at the house, a calf or two at large, and numerous half-starved, mangy dogs—­and innumerable ragged, half-naked children, with little, black, piercing eyes, and dishevelled, uncombed hair falling about sallow, gaunt faces, are commingling in the yard with chickens, dogs, and calves.  A sallow-faced, slatternly woman, bareheaded, with uncared-for hair, long, tangled, and black, with her dress tucked up to her knees, bare-footed and bare-legged, is wading through the mud from the bayou, with a dirty pail full of muddy Mississippi water.

A diminutive specimen of a man, clad in blue cottonade pants and hickory shirt, barefooted, with a palm-leaf hat upon his head, and an old rusty shot-gun in his hands, stands upon the levee, casting an inquiring look, first up and then down the bayou, deeply desiring and most ardently expecting a wandering duck or crane, as they fly along the course of the bayou.  If unfortunately they come within reach of his fusee, he almost invariably brings them down.  Then there is a shout from the children, a yelp from the dogs, and all run to secure the game; for too often, “No duck, no dinner.”  Such a home and such inhabitants were to be seen on Bayou La Fourche forty years ago, and even now specimens of the genuine breed may there be found, as primitive as were their ancestors who first ventured a home in the Mississippi swamps.

The stream known as Bayou La Fourche, or The Fork, is a large stream, some one hundred yards wide, leaving the Mississippi at the town of Donaldsonville, eighty miles above the city of New Orleans, running south-southeast, emptying into the Gulf, through Timbalier Bay, and may properly be termed one of the mouths of the Mississippi.  Its current movement does not in high water exceed three miles an hour, and when the Mississippi is at low water, it is almost imperceptible.  Large steamers, brigs, and schooners come into it when the river is at flood, and carry out three or four hundred tons of freight each at a time.

The lands upon the banks of this stream are remarkably fertile, entirely alluvial, and decline from the bank to the swamp, generally some one or two miles distant.  This Acadian population was sent here during the Spanish domination, and with a view to opening up to cultivation this important tract of country.  It was supposed they would become—­under the favorable auspices of their emigration to the country, and with such