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The family house, though old and rude, is really in a a nest of trees and vines; and children and hounds were playing about in its door-yard and garden. A spacious lawn, shaded by lordly oaks, lay before its door—a cluster of negro cabins was some distance from the house, beneath the shade of the China trees, in which negro boys and girls were frolicking about. Horses were grazing in a pasture of Bermuda grass; carriages were in their houses; everything had the air of an undisturbed old English. manorial life.

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This was the Southern residence of my friend-Miss E. M. P., who had lately been governess in Mrs. C.'s family. Life here, surely had enough attraction and romance about it to make the teacher's vocation a pleasant

one.

From this plantation I went out into the main road and was, just as night-fall fell across my path, at the residence of Mr. D.'s, where I had stayed the night before, and beneath whose hospitable roof I remained another night.

In the morning I rode back to Mechanicsburgh, where I consulted with several of its leading men, whose names Mr. H. had given me, about their school.

They thought the present teacher would leave soon; that I had better bide my time, and they would pledge me the school on the event that he did leave.

Mr. H. of this place, whose acquaintance and his brother's I afterwards formed, and esteemed much, was the frankest Southron I had yet met.

He said the only objection-which he courteously waved -he had to my teaching their school, was, "I came from Michigan-that bitter abolition State!"

He was more frank than severe. I liked his honesty. On reaching Major W.'s I was a tired cavalier—had been in the saddle two days-a longer and more prolix

sitting than that of the "Rump Parliament," to me-besides, I had traveled over a route, rough, obscure and lonely.

I met Mrs. Dr. J. at the "Ridge House."

She was so pretty, and seemed so much like a Northern lady, that I felt as if I had met an old friend.

To her I presented my letter of introduction. And in the evening I gave the family this story of my first adventures in the South, in search of a school.

CHAPTER VII.

"While far from home, my narrower ken
Somewhat of manners saw, and men."

Major W. came home soon after my return. He is one of South Carolina's chivalrous sons; a courteous gentleman, of fine intellect, much reading, and good literary taste.

He is six feet high, though not a heavy man, has light brown hair, bluish grey eyes, and, were it not for the browning of this clime, would have a fair complexion.

His plantation, as I before noticed, is in the valley. He has selected this spot among the hills, for his home, some two miles from it, on account of its healthier locality.

From the "sunny memories" of my sojourn in this pleasant land, that cluster about the Ridge House,-my first

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home in the South-it deserves a description in these Jottings.

It is about mid-way, on the "Big Road" between Vicksburgh and Yazoo City. The house, though it is now being finished inside and out, like a frame building, is built of oak logs hewn square. It is some thirty feet wide by sixty feet long, and a story-and-a-half high, while the roof extending out, like a planter's broad rimmed hat, over its sides, and, resting on posts, forms wide porches, a cool and pleasant shade in the warm summer weather. An open hall connects these two porches.

It is situated on a gentle eminence that slopes down gradually to the road. You approach it, in front, through a carriage gate that opens from the road into a broad lawn of several acres, graced with many a sylvan honor of the forest.

Riding across this lawn, you come to a little gate, in the palings of cypress boards that enclose the inner grounds about the house. To the left of the yard, running to the rear of the house, are three fine rows of locust trees; a tall hickory stands at the right, and a few others are standing in the rear-yard, while in the back-ground, the primeval forest rises up against the sky.

Major W. usually orders his horse in the morning, and rides along a fine, high, carriage road, that winds through an interval of beautiful wood-land, to his plantation, "down in the valley."

Here, from the porch of the old plantation-house, or riding out over the plantation, he can see how affairs are daily managed, over his whole domain.

Some thirty slaves, under command of his "field-marshal" work his large and beautiful prairie-farm; and the fruit of their labor is an "argosy" of cotton, which is annually shipped to New Orleans.

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My first conversation with him, was about the panic among the Northern banks. He discoursed at some length on the banking system. Old JOHN LAW had, years a-gone, founded a bank, for the French people, on the El Dorado treasures of the Mississippi valley. His scheme had since been known as "The Mississippi bubble." This "bubble" burst, and its explosion was more fatal to the French than all the "infernal machines" in BONAPARTE's time. But they had no more bubbles to burst, their banks were as enduring, as—

"These rich vales that feed the marts of the world."

He spoke of our Congress as if it were a chess-board, and he clearly understood the games that were being and had been played on it, by those men in Congress.

In speaking about their schools to him, he told me that there were good situations for teachers, but I must "bide my time," get better acquainted, and I would not have any trouble in securing a pleasant place. Schools among them, were mostly got up by individual effort. Of this, I had had a little experience.

To-night, the sky was all aglow with a roseate hue. Never did I see the stars shining out from so lovely a setting. Sand-hill cranes were flying South-an indication of cold weather.

The frost, that great chamberlain of old "Dame Earth," is now spreading her carpet throughout the wood-lands, before winter sets in.

But to another theme.

The main road running through Yazoo and Warren counties, is as crooked as an Indian trail, save where it is sometimes straightened, running between plantations, but as soon as it leaves them, off it goes again, as wild and wandering as ever; following the wayward freak of some

ridge. A short rain makes the soil, of clay loam, as tenacious as tar to the foot or carriage wheel. But you find no stone, not even the slightest indications of gravel in the country.

A telegraph line, between Vicksburgh and Yazoo city, once followed the windings of this road, the wires being attached to trees, instead of posts. But it was so often broken by the falling of trees across it, that it was soon abandoned.

One meets, in traveling here on the road, throughout the country, the negro, driving fine carriages or costly coaches, with his beautiful "proteges" in them-the planter's wife and her daughters; also ladies on their palfreys galloping through the woods; the planter and his sons, ever on horse-back, with a large portmanteau swung across their saddles, for carrying sundries; or, if he is on the hunt, he is equipped for it, followed by his hounds; and, if returning from the chase, the most of them will have a deer swung across their horses, behind the saddle, and negroes mounted, carrying others. Or you may meet this sable cavalier, and his dulcena, riding their favorite steed, the mule; or perhaps you may find the solitary gin-stand agent, or traveler, wending his way, a-horse-back, through the State; or now and then, a German-Jew peddler, seated on his well-filled box, making his transit across the country, attended by his black satellite as a "whip;" and lastly, especially in the ditching season, wandering "Exiles of Erin," straggling along the road.

This is about all the travel you see. The stranger finds no welcome sign-post, an index to a "Way-side Inn," where he can pause and refresh himself and his weary beast. Neither does the thirsty traveler hail, near the road-side, by the planter's home, the accustomed wellsweep, so common in the country North, poised like an an

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