re few
field-hands living in the south but have, at some time or other,
witnessed the barbarities used at a negro execution, sudden death by
pistol or bowie knife being far preferable to the brutal sneers and
indignities heaped upon the victim by the cowardly assassins who
superintend such operations.

The monotony of the scenes which had for a thousand miles rendered the
passage irksome, began to break as we approached Natchez. This place
takes its name from the Natch-i-toches, or Red River, which falls into
the Mississippi, the abbreviation being a corruption of the original
Indian name, which is as above stated. The town stands on a declivity or
bluff, and is of considerable extent. I did not visit it, although the
boat halted for a considerable time, to land letter-bags and passengers.
I was informed by a fellow-passenger of gentlemanly bearing, who
resided in the vicinity, that it was a dissipated place, and gambling
the chief occupation of its inhabitants. The locality has been
remarkable for landslips, owing to the siliceous nature of the soil; I
saw traces of a fearful catastrophe of the kind which had, some time
before, buried or destroyed many of the houses and their occupants, the
enormous mass having also sunk several steam-boats and other vessels
which were moored at the foot of the bluff under the town.

After leaving Natchez, we steamed away with renewed vigour towards that
centre of slavery and dissipation, New Orleans, and were in due course
moored to the levee, which extends the whole river-length of the city,
and is about a mile in extent. The first news I heard, and which alarmed
me not a little, was that the yellow fever was at this time raging in
the city. New Orleans is just fifty-four miles from the mouth of the
Mississippi, and being built at the time of the Orleans Regency,
contains many ancient structures. Its inhabitants, even to this day, are
to a great extent either French or of Gaelic origin. It lies exceedingly
flat, which causes the locality to be unhealthy and ill-suited to
European constitutions; the soil is, however, fertile and rich; this is,
perhaps, to be accounted for by the constant irrigation it undergoes
from the overflowing of the Mississippi, which, like another Nile,
periodically submerges the country around its banks. The town is
situated on the east side of the river.

The vast quantity of shipping of all classes in the harbour is a very
striking feature in this extensi