About sixty miles up Steele's Bayou we came to the gunboat Price, Lieutenant Woodworth, United States Navy; commanding, and then turned into Black Bayou, a narrow, crooked channel, obstructed by overhanging oaks, and filled with cypress and cotton-wood trees.

The gunboats had forced their way through, pushing aside trees a foot in diameter.

In about four miles we overtook the gunboat fleet just as it was emerging into Deer Creek.

Along Deer Creek the alluvium was higher, and there was a large cotton-plantation belonging to a Mr.Hill, who was absent, and the negroes were in charge of the place.

Here I overtook Admiral Porter, and accompanied him a couple of miles up Deer Creek, which was much wider and more free of trees, with plantations on both sides at intervals.