Bodmer made a quick sketch of a steamer on the Mississippi from the deck of the Homer near the mouth of the Arkansas River. Curiously, the boat is not mentioned in the title, which was derived from a partial inscription on the sketch itself. Even more curious is the head of a man, apparently a slave, seen in profile at the extreme upper right of the drawing. Bodmer later mentioned to Maximilian that in New Orleans he had seen a packet of slaves bound for Mobile, Alabama, but aside from this sketch he made no studies of blacks.

Rising in Colorado and flowing through the states of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, the Arkansas River enters the Mississippi from the west, roughly halfway between the modern cities of Memphis, Tennessee, and Natchez, Mississippi. Maximilian reported in his journal that the Arkansas empties into the Mississippi at such an angle amid sandbanks and islands that "one does not even notice the river mouth."