This work is a series of 21 letters that Bossu wrote to the Marquis de L’Estrade describing his life and travels in the vast Louisiana country from 1751 to 1762. His ventures ranged from Fort Chartres, in present-day Illinois, to Mobile, and along the Mississippi. His visit to New Orleans took place only thirty years after its founding, and he was able to gather considerable information from the memories of locals. “Bossu wrote well and his letters not only give an interesting picture of life in the Mississippi Valley and the Mobile Country to the east at the beginning of the second half of the eighteenth century, but incorporated also are many sketches of events in preceding years” – Streeter. “The first volume is almost entirely filled with historical and personal sketches of the Southern Indian Tribes of the present United States” – Field. Forster devoted nearly of all of the second volume to the catalogue of plants. This catalogue, based on specimens that Forster saw in England, and on the work of the Swedish botanist Pehr Loefling, did not appear in the original French edition of 1768.

Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.