n able-bodied slave engaged in the cultivation; and I have
conversed with many planters, holding places upon the bottom-lands of
the river, who assured me their crop was yearly ten bales of cotton for
each full-grown hand.

When it is considered that this season the value of cotton has been
ranging from sixpence-halfpenny to ninepence per pound, the enormous
receipts of some of these persons, who make from four hundred to three
thousand bales of 430 lbs. weight each, may be imagined.

These are the men who have been my companions on all my late steamboat
trips, for this is the season that affords them _relache_ and brings
them together; and in this city especially, as at Natchez, it is by this
singular class I am surrounded: they are not difficult to comprehend,
and a slight sketch of their condition and habits may not be
uninteresting, as they form the great mass now inhabiting this mighty
region, and it is from them a probable future population of one hundred
million of souls must receive language, habits, and laws.

We generally associate with the Southern planter ideas of indolence,
inertness of disposition, and a love of luxury and idle expense:
nothing, however, can be less characteristic of these frontier tamers of
the swamp and of the forest: they are hardy, indefatigable, and
enterprising to a degree; despising and contemning luxury and
refinement, courting labour, and even making a pride of the privations
which they, without any necessity, continue to endure with their
families. They are prudent without being at all mean or penurious, and
are fond of money without having a tittle of avarice. This may at first
sight appear stated from a love of paradox, yet nothing can be more
strictly and simply true; this is, in fact, a singular race, and they
seem especially endowed by Providence to forward the great work in which
they are engaged--to clear the wilderness and lay bare the wealth of
this rich country with herculean force and restless perseverance,
spurred by a spirit of acquisition no extent of possession can satiate.

Most men labour that they may, at some contemplated period, repose on
the fruits of their industry; adventurers in unhealthy regions,
generally, seek to amass wealth that they may escape from their
_penible_ abodes, and recompense themselves by after enjoyment for the
perils and privations they have endured. Not so the planters of this
south-western region; were their natures moulded after t