Part 11

In the neighbourhood of these streams, on the hills, and in the vales throughout the state, springs of clear cold water abound. There is a deep spring on the grounds attached to Jefferson College in this state, whose water is so transparent, that to the eye, the bottom appears to be reflected through no other medium than the air. The water is of a very mild temperature in the winter, and of an icy coolness in the summer. The spring is in a deep glen, surrounded by lofty trees, one of which, from its shape, branching from the root into two trunks, and uniting again in an extraordinary manner by a transverse limb, thirty feet from the ground, is called "St. Catharine's Harp," and is one among the natural curiosities of that vicinity. In the interior of the state are several mineral springs, which of late years have become very fashionable resorts for those who do not choose, like the majority of Mississippians, to spend their summers and money at the Kentucky, Virginian, or New-York springs. The waters of most of these springs are chalybeate, with a large proportion of sulphuric acid combined with the iron. The most celebrated are the Brandywine, romantically situated in a deep glen in the interior of the state, and the Bankston springs, two hour's ride from the capital. The constituent qualities of the waters, as ascertained by a recent chemical analysis, are sulphate of magnesia, sulphate of soda and sulphur, which exist in such a state of combination as to render the waters not disagreeable to the taste, yet sufficiently beneficial to the patient. They are said to act favourably upon most of the diseases of the climate, such as affections of the liver, bowels, cutaneous and chronic diseases, congestive and bilious fevers, debility, and numerous other ills "that flesh is heir to." The location is highly romantic and healthy. In the words of another--"the circumjacent country is for several miles covered with forests, of which pine is the principal growth; its surface is elevated and undulating, entirely free from stagnant waters, and other local causes of disease. The site of the springs is not inferior in beauty to any spot in the southern country. They are situated in a narrow plane, surrounded, on one side by an almost perpendicular bluff from which they flow, on the other, by a gentle declivity, dividing itself into two twin ridges; which, after describing a graceful curve, unite again at a point on which stands the principal building, one hundred feet in length, and on either of these ridges, is built a row of new and comfortable apartments. Through the centre of the grove, a path leads from the principal building to the spring, forming at all hours of the day, a delightful promenade. The water at the fountain, is exceedingly cool and exhilarating. A dome supported by neat columns, rises above the fountain, which, with the aid of the surrounding hills and overhanging forest, renders it at all times impervious to the sun. The roads, which during the summer season are always good, communicate in various directions with Port Gibson, Vicksburg, Jackson, Clinton, and Raymond, affording at all times good society. The forest abounds with deer and other game, the chase of which will afford a healthy amusement to those who may be tempted to join in it."

The mineral waters in the state are chiefly sulphurous and chalybeate, with the exception, I believe, of one or two of the saline class.

In the vicinity of these springs, and also on most of the water courses in the state, and, with but an exception or two, in these places alone, are found the only stones in the state. Rock is almost unknown. I have not seen even a stone, within fifteen miles of Natchez, larger than the third part of a brick, and those that I have seen were found in the pebbly bed of some stream. There is a stratum of pebbles from one to three feet thick extending through this state. It is variously waved, sometimes in a plane, and at others forming various angles of inclination, and at an irregular depth from the surface, according to the thickness of the superimposed masses of earth which are composed of clay, loam, and sand. This stratum is penetrated and torn up by the torrents, which strew their beds with the pebbles. There is no rock except a species of soft sand-stone south of latitude 32 deg. north, in this state, except in Bayou Pierre, (the stony bayou) and a cliff at Grand Gulf, forty miles above Natchez. This last is composed of common carbonate of lime and silex, but the quantity of each has not been accurately determined.

The sand-stone alluded to above, is in the intermediate state between clay and stone, in which the process of petrifaction is still in progress. In the north-east portion of the state, this species of stone, whose basis is clay, is found in a more matured state of petrifaction. Perfect gravel is seldom met with here, even in the stratum of pebbles before mentioned. These resemble in properties and colour, the clay so abundant in this region; a great proportion of the gravel is composed of a petrifaction of clay and minute shells, of the mollusca tribe. I have found in the dry bed of the St. Catharine's, pebbles, entirely composed of thousands of the most delicately formed shells, some of which, of singularly beautiful figures, I have not before met with. Concave spiral cones, the regular discoid volute, cylinders, a circular shell, a tenth of an inch in diameter, formed by several concentric circles, and a delicate shell formed by spiral whorls, with fragments of various other minute shells, principally compose them. The variety of shells in this state is very limited. All that have been found here have their surfaces covered with the smooth olive-green epidermis, characteristic of fresh water shells, and are all very much eroded. Agates of singular beauty have also been discovered, and minute quartz crystals are found imbedded in the cavities of pebbles composed of alumina and grains of quartz. Mica and feldspar I have not met with. About two years ago, on the plantation of Robert Field, Esq. in the vicinity of the white cliffs, a gentleman picked up from the ground a large colourless rock crystal, with six sided prisms and a pyramidal termination of three faces. Curiosity led him to examine the spot, and after digging a few minutes beneath the surface, he found three more, of different sizes, two of them nearly perfect crystals, but the third was an irregular mass of colourless transparent quartz. This is the only instance of the discovery of this mineral in the state, and how these came to be on that spot, which is entirely argillaceous and at a great distance from any rocks or pebbles, is a problem. Pure flint is not found in this state, yet the plough-share turns up on some plantations, numerous arrow-heads, formed of this material, and there is also a species of stone, artificially formed, in size and shape precisely resembling the common wedge for cleaving wood, with the angles smoothly rounded. They are found all over the south-western country, and the negroes term them "thunder bolts;" but wiser heads have sagely determined their origin from the moon. Planters call them spear-heads, for which they were probably constructed by the aborigines. The stone of which they are made is not found in this country. Some of them I believe are composed of mica and quartz. Many of them are a variety of the mica and of a brown colour, sometimes inclining to green, and highly polished. I have seen some on a plantation near Natchez, of an iron black colour resembling polished pieces of black marble.

The several strata which compose this state are an upper layer of rich black loam from one to three feet thick, the accumulation of centuries, and a second stratum of clay several feet in thickness, beneath which are various substrata of loam and sand, similar to that which constitutes the islands and "bottoms" of the Mississippi. With the exception of the Yazoo, which flows through a delightful country rich in soil and magnificent with forests, along whose banks the Mississippians are opening a new theatre for the accumulation of wealth, and where villages spring up annually with the yearly harvest--and the Pearl--a turbid and rapid torrent whose banks are lined with fine plantations and beautiful villages--this state boasts no rivers of any magnitude; and these, when compared with the great Mississippi, are but streams; and in their chief characteristics they nearly resemble it.

But I have gone as far into geology as the limits of a letter writer will permit. A volume might be written upon the physical features of this country, without exhausting a subject prolific in uncommon interest, or half surveying a field, scarcely yet examined by the geologist.[13]

FOOTNOTES:

[10] It has been said that cotton will thrive as well in a sandy soil, with a _sea_ exposure, as in a rich loam in the interior.

[11] The alligator is found on the shores of the lower Mississippi, in bayous and at the mouths of creeks. It is seldom seen far above 32 deg. north latitude. There has been much dispute as to the identity of the crocodile and alligator, nor are naturalists yet united in their opinions upon this point. The opinion that they belong to the same species is supported by the systema natura, as it came from the hand of Linneus, but it is positively contradicted in the last edition of this work, published by Professor Gmelin.

[12] "The experienced savage or solitary voyager, descending the Mississippi for a thousand miles, paddles his canoe through the deep forests from one bluff to the other. He moves, perhaps, along the inundated forests of the vast interval through which the Mississippi flows, into the mouth of White river. He ascends that river a few miles, and by the Grand Cut-off moves down the flooded forest into Arkansas. From that river he finds many _bayous_, which communicate readily with Washita and Red river; and from that river, by some one of its hundred bayous, he finds his way into the Atchafalaya and the Teche; and by this stream to the Gulf of Mexico, reaching it more than twenty leagues west of the Mississippi. At that time this is a river from thirty to a hundred miles wide, all overshaded with forests, except an interior strip of little more than a mile in width, where the eye reposes upon the open expanse of waters visible between the forests, which is the Mississippi proper."

[13] A bed of lime-stone has been recently discovered on the shore at Natchez below high water mark, two hundred feet lower than the summit level of the state of Mississippi. There are some extraordinary petrifactions in the north part of this state, among which is the fallen trunk of a tree twenty feet in length, converted into solid rock. The outer surface of the bark, which is in contact with the soil, is covered as thickly as they can be set, with brilliant brown crystals resembling garnets in size and beauty.

Thin flakes of the purest enamel, the size of a guinea and irregularly shaded, have been found in the ravines near Natchez. In the same ravines mammoth bones are found in great numbers, on the caving in of the sides after a heavy rain.

XXXVII.

Topography--Natchez--Washington--Seltzertown--Greenville--Port Gibson--Raymond--Clinton--Southern villages--Vicksburg--Yeomen of Mississippi--Jackson--Vernon--Satartia--Benton--Amsterdam-- Brandon and other towns--Monticello--Manchester--Rankin--Grand Gulf--Rodney--Warrenton--Woodville--Pinckneyville--White Apple village.

In my last letter I alluded to the geological features of Mississippi, the peculiarities of its soil and rivers, or streams, and the characteristics of its scenery. In this I will give you a brief topographical description of the state, embracing its principal towns and villages. Were I confined to the details of the tourist, in my sketches, you might follow me step by step over hill and dale, through forest and "bottom," to the several places which may form the subject of the first part of this letter. But a short view of them, only, comes within my limits as a letter-writer. For the more minute information I possess upon this subject I am indebted to a gentleman,[14] whose scientific and historical researches have greatly contributed to the slender stock of information upon this state--its resources, statistics, and general peculiarities.

Although I have said a great deal of Natchez, under this head something may be communicated upon which I have not touched in my remarks upon that city. Natchez is one hundred and fifty-five miles from New-Orleans by land, and two hundred and ninety-two by water. It contains a population of about three thousand, the majority of whom are coloured. The influx of strangers--young merchants from the north, who have within the last four years, bought out nearly all the old standing merchants--numerous mechanics, and foreign emigrants--is rapidly increasing the number, and in five years, if the rail-road already surveyed from this city to the capital, a distance of one hundred and nine miles, is brought into operation, it will probably contain twice the present number of souls. Under the Spanish government vessels came up to Natchez; and in 1803 there was, as appears by a publication of Col. Andrew Marschalk, of Mississippi, a brisk trade kept up between this and foreign and American ports which suddenly ceased, after a few years' continuance, on account of the obstacles interposed by the Spaniards. In 1833, this trade was revived by some enterprising gentlemen of Natchez, and cotton is now shipped directly to the northern states and Europe, from this port, instead of being conveyed by steamboats to New-Orleans and there reshipped. There are two oil mills in this city worked by steam. The oil is manufactured from cotton-seed, which heretofore was used as manure. This oil is said to be superior to sperm oil, and the finest paint oil. Similar manufactories are established in New-Orleans, and I think, also, in Mobile. The material of which this oil is made is so abundant that it will in all probability in a very few years supersede the other oils almost entirely. The "cake" is in consistency very much like that of flax-seed. It is used, in equal parts with coal, for fuel, and burns with a clear flame, and a fire so made is equally warm as one entirely of coal.

A Bethel church is to be erected this year under the hill, the erection of which on this noted spot, will be the boldest and most important step Christianity has taken in the valley of the Mississippi. There are four occasionally officiating Methodist ministers here, one of the Presbyterian, and one of the Episcopalian denominations. There are eighteen physicians and surgeons, and sixteen lawyers, the majority of whom are young men. There is a weekly paper, with extensive circulation, and three others are about to be established. There are five schools or seminaries of learning--three private, and two public--a flourishing academy for males, and a boarding-school for young ladies, under the care of very able teachers. There are also a hospital and poor-house, and a highly useful orphan asylum. There are no circulating libraries in the city, nor I believe in the state. There are three banks one of which--the Planter's bank--has branches in seven different towns in the state. Steamboats were first known at Natchez in 1811-12.

Washington, six miles north-east from Natchez, with a charming country between, through which winds one of the worst carriage-roads in the west, not even excepting the delightful rail-roads from Sandusky to Columbus, in Ohio, is a corporation one mile square, containing about four hundred inhabitants, of all sizes and colours. It contains a fine brick hospital and poor-house in one building, two brick churches, one of the Baptist, and the other of the Methodist denomination. The first has recently settled a preacher, the other has long had a stationed minister, who regularly officiates in the desk. There is a Presbyterian clergyman residing in the place, whose church is five miles distant in the country, in a fine grove on one of the highest elevations in the state. The inhabitants of the village are principally Methodists, a majority of which sect will be found in nearly every village in the south-west.

Jefferson College, the oldest and best endowed collegiate institution in the state, is pleasantly situated at the head of a green on the borders of the village. It is now flourishing; but has for several years been labouring under pecuniary embarrassments, which are now, by a generous provision of Congress, entirely removed, and with a fund of nearly two hundred thousand dollars, it bids fair to become a useful and distinguished institution. There is also a female seminary in a retired part of this village, which was handsomely endowed by Miss Elizabeth Greenfield, of Philadelphia, a member of the society of Friends, from whom it is denominated the Elizabeth Academy. It is one of the first female institutions in this state, and under the patronage of the Methodist society.

Washington is one of the oldest towns in the state, was formerly the seat of government, under the territorial administration, and once contained many more inhabitants than any other place except Natchez, in the territory. It was nearly depopulated by the yellow fever in 1825, from the effects of which it has never recovered. The public offices, with the exception of the Register's and Receiver's offices, are removed to Jackson. The town possesses no resources, and is now only remarkable for its quiet beauty, the sabbath-like repose of its streets, and its pure water, and healthy location, upon the plane of an elevated table land, rising abruptly from the St. Catharine's, which winds pleasantly along by one side of the village with many romantic haunts for the student and "walks" for the villagers, upon its banks. There is a post office in the village, through which a triweekly mail passes to and from Natchez. The route of the rail-road will be through this place, when it will again lift its head among the thriving villages of the Great Valley.

Seltzertown, containing a tavern and a blacksmith's shop (which always form the nucleus of an American village) is six miles from Washington and twelve from Natchez. It is remarkable only for the extensive scenery around it, and the remarkable Indian fortifications or temples in its vicinity. These will form the subject of another letter.

Greenville, on the road from Natchez, passing through the two former places, is twenty-one miles from that city. It is delightfully situated in a little green vale, through which winds a small stream. The plain is crossed by the rail-road, which here becomes a street, bordered by two rows of dilapidated houses, overgrown with grass and half buried in venerable shade trees. From the prison with its dungeons fallen in, and its walls lifting themselves sullenly above the ruins by which they are enclosed, to the tavern with its sunken galleries, and the cobbler's shop with its doorless threshold, all were in ruins, a picture of rural desolation exhibiting the beau ideal of the "deserted village." Greenville was formerly a place of some importance, but other towns have grown up in more eligible spots, for which this has been deserted by its inhabitants. One does not meet with a lovelier prospect in this state, than that presented to the eye on descending from the hill south and west of the valley, into the quiet little vale beneath, just before the going down of the sun. The air of peace and quiet which reigns around the traveller, will perhaps remind him of the valley whose description has so delighted him while lingering over the elegant pages of Rasselas.

Forty-two miles from Natchez is Port Gibson, one of the most flourishing and beautiful towns in the south. It is only second to Natchez in the beauty of its location, the regularity of its streets, the neatness of its dwellings, and the number and excellence of its public buildings. It is but seven miles by land from the Mississippi, with which it communicates by a stream, called Bayou Pierre, navigable for keel and flat boats, and, in high floods, for steamboats, quite to the village. It is very healthy, and has seldom been visited by epidemics. It contains about one thousand souls. The citizens were once distinguished for their dissipation, if not profligacy; but they are now more distinguished for their intelligence and morality as a community. There is no town in the south which possesses so high a standard of morals as Port Gibson. This reformation is the result of the evangelical labours of the Presbyterian clergyman of that place; who, with untiring industry and uncommon energy, combined with sterling piety, in a very few years performed the work and produced the effect of an age.

There are a Presbyterian and a Methodist church in the town, with their respective clergymen. It contains also a branch bank, court-house, gaol, post-office, and one of the finest hotels in the state. A weekly paper, called the "Correspondent," and very ably edited, is published here. The society of the village and neighbourhood is not surpassed by any in the state. There are some very pretty country seats in the vicinity, the abodes of planters of intelligence and wealth; and the country around is thickly wooded, with fine plantations interspersed; and the general features of the scenery, though tame, are beautiful. The road from Natchez to Port Gibson is through a rich planting country, pleasantly undulating, with alternate forest and field scenery on either hand. But beyond Port Gibson the country assumes a more rugged aspect, and is less beautiful. The road, for the first few miles, winds among woods and cotton fields; but, after crossing Bayou Pierre, at a ford, called "Grindstone Ford," where the first rock is seen, in coming north from the Mexican Gulf, the forest is for many miles unbroken. I cannot express the strange delight I experienced as the iron heels of my horse first rung upon the broad rocky pavement, when ascending the bank of this stream from the water. No one but a northerner, the bases and crests of whose native hills are of granite, and who has passed two years or more in the stoneless soil of this region, can duly appreciate such emotions from such a cause.

For forty-seven miles from Port Gibson, the road winds through a "rolling" country, two-thirds of which is enveloped in the gloom of the primeval forests, and then enters the little village of Raymond, situated in an open space among the lofty forest trees which enclose it on all sides. Raymond has been planted and matured to a handsome village, with a fine court-house, several hotels, and neat private dwellings, within five years. The society, like that of most new towns in this state, is composed of young men, merchants, lawyers, and physicians, the majority of whom are bachelors. The village is built around a pleasant square, in the centre of which is the court-house, one of the finest public buildings in this part of the state. It contains about four hundred inhabitants, not one fifth of whom are females.