ports--and all this
quite anonymous, so as not to have the slightest official character;
and, finally, I wrote, I had a right to feel myself entitled to
protection against such imputations as the newspaper paragraph in
question contained.

My first impulse was to resign my mission at once and return home. But
then I considered that the duty to the public which I had assumed
obliged me to finish my work as well as I could, unless I were
expressly recalled by the President. I would, therefore, at any rate,
go on with my inquiries, in expectation of an answer from him to my
letter. I was outraged at the treatment I was receiving. I had
undertaken the journey in obedience to an urgent request of the
President and at serious sacrifice, for I was on the point of
returning to my Western home when the President called me. My journey
in the South during the hottest part of the year was in the highest
degree laborious and fatiguing, but it was hardly worse than the
sweltering nights in the wretched country taverns of those
days--nights spent in desperate fights with ravenous swarms of
mosquitos. The upshot of it was that, when I arrived at New Orleans,
the limits of my endurance were well-nigh reached, and a few days
later I had a severe attack of the "break-bone fever," an illness
which by the sensations it caused me did full justice to its
ill-boding name. I thought I might fight the distemper by leaving New
Orleans and visiting other parts in pursuit of my inquiries. I went to
Mobile for the purpose of looking into the conditions of southern
Alabama, returned to New Orleans, and then ran up Bayou Teche in a
government tug-boat as far as New Iberia, where I was literally driven
back by clouds of mosquitos of unusual ferocity. At New Orleans I
despatched an additional report to the President, and then,
relentlessly harassed by the break-bone fever, which a physician
advised me I should not get rid of as long as I remained in that
climate, I set my face northward, stopping at Natchez and Vicksburg to
gather some important information.

_The End of an Aristocracy_

At Natchez I witnessed a significant spectacle. I was shown some large
dwelling-houses which before the Civil War had at certain seasons been
occupied by families of the planting aristocracy of that region. Most
of those houses now looked deserted and uncared for, shutters
unhinged, window-panes broken, yards and gardens covered with a rank
growth of grass and we