Part 15

Oakland college, twenty-five miles from Natchez, near Rodney, is a flourishing institution under Presbyterian patronage. It is of recent foundation, and has yet no permanent buildings; but handsome college edifices are about to be erected for the accommodation of the students. Its situation is rural and very healthy. Its funds are respectable, and under the presidency of the Rev. J. Chamberlin, a gentleman of learning and piety, it is rapidly rising into eminence. It already has about one hundred students, and its professors are men of talent and industry, one of whom is a son of the late Dr. Payson of Portland. It is thus that young northerners work their way to distinction in the south and west. There is another college at Clinton, of which I have before spoken, and also an academy at Natchez, ranking as high as a south-western college, under the superintendence of J. H. B. Black, Esq. of New-Jersey. Jefferson college, in the village of Washington, six miles from Natchez, is the oldest and best endowed institution in the state. It was founded by private subscription in 1802, and subsequently received a grant of a township of unsaleable land from Congress, exchanged two years since for a more eligible tract, which sold for a very large sum. The income of the college is now about eight thousand dollars, arising from a fund of more than one hundred and fifty thousand. The building is a large, three-story brick edifice, handsomely finished, and capable of containing one hundred students. The location is highly beautiful, in a grove of majestic oaks, and at the head of a fine green parade, which lies, with a magnificent oak in its centre, between it and the village. A primary department is connected with it; and a pleasant brick building, half surrounded with galleries, on the opposite side of the "green," is appropriated to this branch of the institution. The primary department, which includes a moiety of the students, is under the able superintendence of professor Crane, a native of New-Jersey, and recently from West Point. The history of this institution will confirm what I have stated in my remarks upon education. Since its organization until very recently, it has laboured under pecuniary difficulties, with which it was unable to contend; for a great part of the time it has been without pupils or teachers; and its halls have occasionally been used for private schools. It obtained no celebrity as a college until 1829-30, when Mr. Williston, the author of "Eloquence in the United States," and "Williston's Tacitus," was chosen its president, and the institution was placed under military organization, after the plan adopted by capt. Alden Partridge. The novelty of this mode drew a great number of pupils within its walls. The following year ill health compelled president Williston to resign, and he was succeeded by major Holbrook, formerly principal of the seminary in Georgetown, D. C. During his presidency there were above one hundred and fifty cadets connected with the institution, and it was more flourishing in every respect than any other in the south-west. But the new president, seized with the mania for cotton-planting, which infects all who reside here for any length of time, devoted a portion of his attention to agricultural pursuits, and the patrons of the college, perhaps regarding this additional vocation as incompatible with that of instructing, withdrew their sons, one after another, the novelty of a military education having worn off, and fell into the old mode of keeping them at home on their plantations, or sending them to Kentucky, the great academy for Mississippi youth, to complete their education. During the summer the president died, and the institution again became disorganized. In 1833, capt. Alden Partridge was invited by the board of trustees to assume the presidency, but after remaining a few months, returned to the north, unable to restore it to its former flourishing condition. The college halls became again, and for the sixth time since their foundation, nearly deserted. In the spring of 1834, the board invited two professors to take charge of the college until they could decide upon the choice of a president. The present year, C. B. Dubuisson, Esq. of Philadelphia, one of these professors, was unanimously elected president, and was inaugurated on the 6th of July, 1835. Under the new president, who is a finished scholar and a very amiable and energetic man, the college has become very flourishing, and is rapidly advancing to permanent literary distinction. Professor Symmes, a graduate of the University of Virginia, and an able scholar, is professor of mathematics. Under these two gentlemen, and the professor in the primary department, planters may now have their sons as well educated as at the north. They are beginning to think so. But if they would more generally adopt the opinion, that their sons can be educated at the south by northern professors as well as at the north, the literary institutions of this country would not have to struggle for existence, scarcely able to rise above the rank of an academy. In connexion with the disinclination which southerners have to educating their sons at home, and their disposition to depreciate their native institutions, there exists another cause, with a direct tendency to check their advancement. It is the system of education pursued in their colleges, which, in a great degree, is the result of necessity. Until within a few years, there have been no good preparatory schools in this state, where youth could fit themselves for admission into college. Now, to form the lowest class in a college, it is necessary that those who are to compose it--however large or small their number--should have gone through a prescribed series of preparatory studies. But where there has been no opportunity for pursuing this preparatory course, as here in the south-west, the college must open its doors to unprepared youth, to the great injury of its classes, or, in the absence of other means, provide measures for fitting them for admission. These measures all colleges here are at present taking, by the establishment of primary departments; until the pupils of these departments are qualified for promotion, the college classes remain vacant; and thus, though nominally a college, the institution is, for the time being, an academy, or preparatory school for _itself_. This is the present state of the colleges here, and none of them have advanced so far as to open the junior class. Jefferson College indeed has been, with the exception of its condition under military discipline a few years since, no more than a preparatory department since its organization. It is now rising into the dignity of a college, although the quadrennial course, which in our notions is inseparable from a collegiate education, is not intended by the board to form a part of their system. The method adopted in the University of Virginia, in relation to the routine of studies and succession of classes, will be partially pursued. In the present state of things, this is no doubt the preferable course to follow; but it is to be feared that the college will never be eminent or very permanent, until established on the good old basis of our northern institutions. If this system were adopted, and a professor appointed to fill the chair in each department of science, whether there were students or not--and the freshman class opened, even by the admission of a single scholar--the institution, with its immense fund, would stand upon an immovable foundation. The classes would increase every year in size, and at the end of the fifth series, or in twenty years, a class of seniors would receive their degrees, whom even aristocratic Harvard would not disdain to acknowledge as her foster children.

XLI.

Indian mounds--Their origin and object--Tumuli near Natchez --Skulls and other remains--Visit to the fortifications or mounds at Seltzertown--Appearance and description of the mounds--Their age--Reflections--History of the Natchez.

The Indian mounds, those gigantic mausolea of unhistoried nations, will ever present a subject of absorbing interest to the reflecting mind. Elevating their green summits amid the great forests of the west--mysterious links of the unknown past--they will stand imperishable through time, encircled by the cities and palaces of men, silent but impressive monitors of their grasping ambition. These sepulchres are scattered every where throughout the valley of the Mississippi--itself a mighty cemetery of mighty tombs. In the pathless forests, and on the banks of the rivers of the south-west, they are still more thickly strewed than in the north valley, indicating a denser population. It was recently suggested to me, by a gentleman of antiquarian tastes, that the Indians of the southern valley, by whom these mounds were constructed, and who were a mild and inoffensive people, far advanced in civilization, were, in remote ages, invaded by a horde of northern tribes from the Atlantic shores--as were the effeminate states of southern Europe by the Goths and Vandals--who drove out the original possessors, and took possession of their delightful country; while the fugitive inhabitants crossed the Mississippi, and, moving to the west and south, laid the foundation of the empire of Mexico. This theory is not improbable, and it is supported by many established facts. It is certain that the rude tribes found in this country, by De Soto and his followers, remnants of which still exist, cannot be identified with those by whom these tumuli were erected. Among them there exists not even a tradition of the formation of these mounds.

There have been many curious hypotheses advanced in reference to their object. Some have supposed that they were constructed, after a great battle, of the numerous bodies of the slain; others, that they were the customary burial-places of the Indians, gradually accumulating in a series of years, until, terminating in a cone, they were covered with earth, and deserted for new cemeteries, to be in like manner abandoned in their turn. Others, by a train of analogous reasoning, founded upon the prevailing custom of other aboriginal tribes, have supposed them to be fortifications; and others again believe them temples; or, like the pyramids of Egypt, structures connected with the mysteries of the religion of their builders. But their true origin, like that of their grander prototypes on the plains of Memphis, must for ever be lost in conjecture.

In the vicinity of Natchez, and within three hours' ride of the city, in various directions, are twelve or fifteen of these mounds. Some of them have been partially excavated; and besides many vessels, weapons of war, and ordinary human remains, skeletons of men of a large size have been found in them. On the estate of a gentleman two miles from Natchez, and in the loveliest vale in this region, there are three, situated equidistant from each other, along the bank of the St. Catharine. One of these was recently excavated by Dr. Powell, a distinguished phrenologist of the west; from which he obtained several earthen vessels, neatly made, various fragments, and besides other bones, three perfect skulls--one the most beautiful head I ever beheld, of a young Choctaw girl; another, the skull of a man of the same tribe; and the third, a massive and remarkably formed skull of a Natchez. I have since examined two of these mounds, but was not able to add any thing important to the discoveries of Dr. Powell. The perfect decomposition which has taken place in one of them, would indicate a much greater age than is generally attributed to them. I laid bare a perpendicular face of this mound, ten feet square, and the spade struck but one hard substance, which proved to be the lower jaw, containing seven or eight teeth, of some wild animal, and a few splinters of corroded human bones that crumbled between the fingers. I could easily discern several strata, in this exposed surface, alternately of common earth and a black friable loam, resembling powder to the eye, but soft like paste in the fingers. These black strata were veined with light brown or dingy white streaks, of a firmer consistence. The location of this mound, its height, not exceeding twenty feet, the uniform decomposition, and the regular series of strata, lead to the conclusion, that it was constructed at one time, probably after a battle, of the bodies of men whose deaths took place at the same period, laid in layers, one above another, as the modern slain are buried, by only reversing the process, in deep pits.

The skulls found by Dr. Powell in the mound opened by him, were very perfect specimens. The head of the Choctaw differs not materially from those of Europeans, when considered phrenologically, although its developements of the organs of animal feelings are more prominent than those of the intellectual faculties. The head is generally smaller than that of the European, but the general contour is nearly the same. The skull of the Natchez is remarkable in every respect. It is large, like the German head, very angular, with bold developements. It is shaped artificially in infancy,--a peculiarity only of the skulls of the males--so that the top of the forehead forms the apex of a cone. The compressure necessary to produce this shape has entirely destroyed the organs of veneration, of benevolence, and of the reasoning powers. My examination of this skull was for a moment only, and very superficial, so that I did not ascertain the particular deficiency or developement of any special organ. The heads of the females of this extinct tribe, I am informed by those who have examined them, are very fine, displaying in their graceful, undulating outline, the _beau ideal_ of the human cranium.

There is a mound about five miles from Natchez, upon the plantation of a gentleman, whose taste or ambition has influenced him to erect his dwelling upon its summit. A strange dwelling-place for the living, over the sepulchres of the dead! Eleven miles from the city there is another mound, or a collection of mounds, which, in the beauty of its location, the elevation of its summit, and the ingenuity displayed in its construction, either as a fortress or a temple, is entitled to an important rank among these mysterious structures of the western valley. A few days since I left Natchez with a northern gentleman, for the purpose of visiting this mound. Three miles from town we passed the race-course, situated in a delightful intervale. This is the finest "course" in the south, passing round a perfectly level plain in a circle of one mile, whose centre is slightly convex, so that the spectators can obtain a full view of the horses while running. Ladies, on extraordinary occasions, attend the races, although it is not customary. But to south-western gentlemen the race-course is a place of resort of the most alluring character. On the St. Catharine race-course, now alluded to, on great race days, the chivalry of Mississippi will be found assembled in high spirits, and full of the peculiar excitement incident to the occasion. Home is, perhaps, the proper scene for studying the planter's character; but it will never be perfectly understood until he is seen, booted and spurred, with his pocket-book in one hand, and bank bills fluttering in the other, moving about upon the turf.

Three miles from the race-ground, about which is gathered a little village, sometimes called St. Catharinesville, we entered the pretty and rural town of Washington. The whole village was embowered in the foliage of China trees, which thickly lined both sides of the main street. Turning down a street to the left, which led to the college, we alighted there after a short ride over the green, as it was the intention of the president and one or two of the professors to accompany us to the mound. We were shown the college library, comprised in a few shelves filled with volumes of the statutes; and the cabinet, where, besides a few interesting geological specimens, were some bones of a mammoth, or mastodon, found in the neighbourhood.

In the course of an hour we all mounted our horses, and, entering the village, rode down its quiet and shaded streets, and emerged on the brow of the hill or ridge on which the town is built; and shortly after crossed the pebbly bed of the St. Catharine's, which, in its serpentine windings, crosses nearly every road in the neighbourhood of Natchez. Beyond this stream, from an eminence over which the road wound, we had a fine view of the village on the opposite hill, with its college, lifting its roof among the towering oaks; its dwellings, with their light galleries and balconies, half hidden among the shade trees; the female academy, with its green lawn, a high colonnaded private edifice, overtopping the trees, and its neat unassuming churches.

After a pleasant ride of five miles, through forest and plantation scenery, over a country pleasantly undulating, we arrived at the summit of a hill, just after passing a neat brick cottage, surrounded by a parterre, and half hidden in the woods; so that it would not have been observed, but for the wide gate on the road-side--often the only indication, as I have before remarked, of the vicinage of a planter's residence. From this hill we were gratified with an extensive prospect of a richly wooded and partially cultivated extent of country, occasionally rising into precipitous hills, crowned with forest trees. About a mile to the north, on our left, in the centre of a large cotton plantation, surrounded by an amphitheatre of hills, stood a singular cluster of eminences, isolated from those encircling them, whose summits were destitute of verdure or trees. These were the goal of our excursion--the celebrated tumuli of Mississippi. Descending the hill, we passed through a gate, opening into a narrow lane, bordered on either side with thick clumps of trees, and the luxuriant wild shrubbery which grows by the streams and along the roads throughout the south; and after winding through ravines and crossing bayous, we arrived at the "gin" of the plantation; a large building resembling a northern hay-press, where some negroes were at work; one of whom, with a readiness always characteristic of the negro slave, immediately came out to take charge of our horses. Declining his aid, as we had no authority for appropriating his services--a liberty as to which some planters are very punctilious--we hitched our horses to the rail fence. Had the proprietor of the estate been present, we should have solicited the aid of some of his slaves in excavating: but since then I have met with the venerable planter, who, with great politeness, has offered me every facility for making whatever researches or excavations curiosity might suggest.

We ascended the steep sides of the mound with some difficulty, as they were inclined but a few degrees from the perpendicular. On gaining the summit, thirty-five feet from the base, we saw, extended before us, an elliptical area, whose plane was three or four feet lower than the verge of the mound. To the right, at the eastern extremity of the area, rose a super-mound, fifteen feet high; and on the opposite extremity, to the east, stood another, rising thirty feet from the floor of the area or summit of the great mound we had just ascended, and sixty feet from the level of the surrounding plantation. From the summit of this second mound the eye embraced an irregular amphitheatre, confined by elevated forests, half a league in diameter, whose centre was the mound, from which, on nearly every side, the ground descended, almost imperceptibly, with a few obstructions, to the foot of the surrounding hills.

This peculiarity of its location, so favourable for a military position, would indicate such to have been the object of its constructors. The whole structure, so far as an opinion can be formed from a careful survey of its general features, was originally a conical hill, now changed to its present shape by human labour; which nature, in a wayward mood, placed, like Joseph's sheaf, conspicuous, and aloof from the hills that surround it on every side. From its present aspect, the mound, if originally a natural hill, must have been forty or fifty feet high, of an oblong form, its greatest diameter being from east to west, with very precipitous sides. It consists now of a single conspicuous elevation, oval in shape, and presenting, on every side, indentations and projections, not unlike the salient angles of military works, serving to strengthen the opinion that it was a fortification. Its summit is perfectly flat, comprising an area of four acres, surrounded by a kind of balustrade, formed by the projection of the sides of the mound two or three feet higher than the area. The two super-mounds before mentioned stand at either extremity of the summit, in a direction east and west; a position indicating design, and confirming the views of those who believe the structure to be a temple. The Indians, by whom the mound is supposed to have been erected, were, like the Peruvians, worshippers of the sun and of fire, and maintained a perpetual sacrifice of the latter upon their altars. If this was a temple, the two super-mounds were its altars; on one of which, toward the east, burned the sacrifice of fire, to welcome the rising sun, of which it was a pure and beautiful emblem; while the bright flame upon the altar toward the west, mingled with his last expiring beams. Between these two superior mounds are four others of inferior height, two of which border the northern verge of the area, and two the southern, although not exactly opposite to the former. Thus the area upon the summit is surrounded by six tumuli, of various elevations. The largest of them, to the west, before mentioned, is flat on the top, which contains about one-fourth of an acre. Its external sides slope, as do the outside surfaces of the other five, gradually down to the base of the great mound upon which it is constructed.

The whole work is surrounded by the remains of a ditch; from which, and from the sides of the chief mound, the earth must have been taken to form those upon the summit. The material of which the whole is constructed, is the same alluvial earth as that composing the sides of the ditch and the surrounding plain. Neither stone nor brick forms any portion of the material of the work, nor is the former found any where in the vicinity. In the centre of the elevated area is the mouth of a subterranean passage, leading, with an easy inclination, to a spring without the mound, on the north side of the plain. It is now fallen in, and choked with briers, vines, and young trees. There are traces also of another avenue, conducting to the south side, and opening into the country. Against the two eastern angles of the mound, at its base, are two smaller mounds, ten feet high, which might be taken for bastions by one who regarded the work as a fortification. In the early settlement of this country, the mound was covered with fruit-trees of a large size, whose age indicated uninterrupted possession of their places for centuries. It is now divested of its trees, and under cultivation. It is to be regretted that the axe or plough should ever have desecrated a monument so sacred to the antiquary.