By referring to the map of this State you will find that the Yazoo and Big Black run nearly parallel to the Mis between these, is a large From this there are ribs or sissippi. Mid-way, running ridge, or back-bone of land. ridges running out on either hand to the rivers. It is the same between the Mississippi and Yazoo. The rains dripping off these ridges, mingling with the soil as they go, turn torrents of muddy water into the gullies, which tumble it headlong into the rivers. Hence there are no clear streams here. They are all roily and of lazy current. How much of the beauty of the country is in the clear waters of its lakes and streams. I have seen no naiades sporting along the banks of Southern streams. Nor have I found here those playmates of my boyhood—bubbling runnels and whimpering brooks. I think that courtly old angler-IZAAK WALTON—would find the pleasure in angling along these streams half Such as he sings of in his "Angler's wish" "I in these flowry meads would be; 'I with my angle should rejoice." gone. But he that only feels the bite of the fish loses the better part of the sport. Let those politicians, who, disliking clearness, seek the troubled waters, fish here; give me clear streams. I have only described the uplands. The valley-land is along the rivers, and, is either timbered lands clear'd off, or natural prairie. It is the richest soil of the South. It is said that the earth is an old nurse, and that every thing shows that she is decrepid and wearing out. But these valleys that have produced a rich crop of cotton, year after year, for more than half a century, are as fertile to-day, and yield as large a crop of cotton, without fertilizing, as they did when first cultivated. Nothing is more beautiful than to view this long, winding valley from some high bluff of the uplands, that wall it in on both sides of the river. Far along, as far as the eye can reach, you see both up and down the stream, from a half to two miles wide, nothing but fields of "mimic snow," doted here and there with planters' residences, set in green trees and shrubs, which, with the neat, whitewashed, negro cabins, ranged in rows near them, look like trim villas scattered along the vale. Much of the valley is yet open forest-land. The upland is finely timbered, like the best oak openings of the North. The cypress grows in immense brakes, in the swamps, and is their most valuable building timber. It is floated down the Yazoo and the Mississipi, in large rafts, by lumbermen, to New Orleans. There are large pine forests in many parts of the State. That beautiful and richest leafed of all trees-the magnolia-you find here, standing among the gum, the oak, and the hickory, like a rich prince among his vassals. The holly too is here. The high leaves have no prickles on them, while the lower ones have. Hence SOUTHEY sings of it "Gentle among my friends I'd be, Like the high leaves of the holly tree." These evergreen hollies and magnolias standing among the common trees, seem like beautiful pledges of another spring, to the leafless forest, and one loves to catch the emblem and carry it out to an immortal spring time in the paradise of the blest. I have often rein'd my horse from the road up to these lovely trees and stood and admired them. The mistletoe rather took me by surprise. I had forgotten that I would find it here. This bough-for that is all there is of it-like the fabled account of the bird of paradise, never touches the earth. It grows upon the tops of trees. You can see their evergreen plumes, perched here and there all through the woods, upon the high and leafless branches of the trees. Where they are thick they often kill the tree. They are said to be propagated by the birds. The cane grows in luxuriance all through the woods; but the cattle and deer feed it down, save in the ravines, that are inaccessible to them. Here it shoots up into a rank, dense, deep-green growth. This cane affords pasturage for the cattle in the winter. The planter raises no grasses, no clovers. What little fodder he needs is supplied by the blades of corn his negroes pick from the corn stalks, and the corn "shucks" which he feeds his cows. Millet is raised in some places. The apple tree does not do well here. A worm troubles it much. Its fruit is coarser than ours. Pears are raised in some localities plentifully. The peaches, they tell me, rival the famed ones of Jersey. The planters' houses are mostly alike in style of building. They are long, log, story-and-a-half structures, verandaed in front and rear, with an open hall in the middle. They are elevated from the ground for coolness in summer, and retreat back from the road, like the old English cottage, spreading out broad lawns in front of them. They are generally surrounded with beautiful trees and shrubbery, much of it in evergreen, making even the rudest log building look romantic. In thus adorning their grounds about their dwellings, and in cultivating a rich variety of flowers in their gardens, the planters exhibit fine taste. But there is one plant he cultivates, which, if it does not exhibit his taste, does his wealth; and that, in common parlance, is called the cotton plant. Mississippi is a cotton growing State. She stands, among the other States, unrivaled in this field. This little plant is the wealth of the Ind to her. It has many enemies among the vermin, freshet and blight. But the season is kind to it; it is as tender over it as a lover over his mistress; not allowing the winds of March to visit it too roughly, nor the cold storms of December to hinder its being gathered in. They are the whole year attending to it. One crop is scarcely secured ere another is planted. It brings the planter about forty dollars per acre. Think of seven hundred acres that is not a large plantation-yielding him more than BUCHANAN'S salary. Planters make more money than Presidents. The modern adage-"Cotton is king" that one often hears in reference to the influence this little plant gives to the planter, in home and foreign trade, is, in the richest sense of the word, true. Finally, what strikes one as novel here, aside from the forest with its peculiar Southern trees-the plantation with its vast and almost interminable fields of cotton-is, you see no farm-land, no farm-home, with its orchards laden with fruit, with its small and well fenced fields of the various grains, grasses and clovers; you see nothing of the farming North, save the corn-field, and that, with a crop of such luxuriant growth that you would notice it as novel too. Place Michigan where she was twenty years ago, in the rude days of her pioneer life, with her log houses, scattered here and there, three or four, and sometimes seven or eight miles apart, over the Southern portion of her territory, and give each a farm of from one to ten thousand acres, with from three hundred to three thousand acres cultivated on it, and you have something of an idea how Mississippi is settled. I have thus given a crude sketch of this part of the South. I have only seen it in fall and winter. What it will be in full leaf and bloom, spring and summer will tell. It is said the South, like CALYPSO, has a smile and a charm for every one of her defects; and not only detains her guests seven years, but usually the threescore and ten. In regard to myself, after a sojourn of some months, I like her very much. I like her warm-heartedness and hospitality, which, though proverbial, is not all in the proverb. I like her beautiful climate, which has all the mildness of the temperate zone. I like her fine country, which has all the luxuriance of the tropics. I have drawn a sort of geographical map of the country over which my adventures were made in search of a school, previous to giving their narrative, that you may better understand it when given. CHAPTER V. "Half the ease and comfort he enjoys, Is when surrounded by slates, books and boys." CRABBE. There was a species of the homo genus that PLATO did not include when he defined man-"A biped without feathers ;" and which DIOGENES illustrated by stripping the plumes from a “rooster," and presenting it as PLATO'S man. |