reside over their
billet.

This assemblage is compounded of men from every section of the
Union,--the quiet Yankee, cautiously picking his way to fortune, with
small means and large designs; the gay Virginian, seeking a new location
on the rich land of Mississippi or Alabama; the suddenly enriched
planter of Louisiana, full of spare cash, which can only be got rid of
in a frolic, having settled with his merchant and purchased the
contemplated addition to his slave stock, and resolute to enjoy his
holiday after his own fashion; the half-civilized borderers from the
banks of the Gazoo, or the prairies of Texas, come hither with the first
produce ever won by industry from the swamp or the forest, to see New
Orleans, form connexions, and arrange credit for future operations.

Numerous as are these classes, they are yet readily distinguished by one
who has seen and observed them in turns, and noted their
characteristics, which are indeed sufficiently distinct.

The Yankee, slow, observant, concentrated, with thin, close-compressed
lips, bilious complexion, and anxious countenance, may be picked out
amidst a hundred other men, edging cautiously from place to place,
scanning every group, and having, as it were, eyes and ears for all
present.

The Virginian, tall of stature, thin and flexile of form, of an easy
carriage, with an open up-look, and an expression at once reckless and
humorous, talking rapidly and swearing loudly, frank in his _abord_, of
engaging deportment, and assuming as though there were no country so
good as the "Old Dominion," and no better man than her son.

The Kentuck farmer--whose marked characteristics are pervading all the
States bordering on the Mississippi, and who, together with the Buck-eye
of Ohio, will ultimately give tone and manner to the dwellers on its
thousand streams--of a stronger outline and coarser stamp, as is fitted
to and well-becoming the pioneer of the grandest portion of the
continent, and of one who is putting forth the thew and sinew of a
giant, to benefit posterity; his only present recompense the possession
of a rude independence, and the consciousness of increasing wealth, to
add to which his energies are unceasingly devoted; his relaxation,
meantime, an occasional frolic or debauch, which he grapples with, as
his father did with fortune and the forest, closely and constantly, only
pausing for breath through sheer exhaustion, or prostration rather. His
person is square,