want to fight that pretend to; you can tell this by their
blustering. Now, when you find one of these, and they are mighty
common, just stand right up to him, and always appear to get madder
than he does--look him right in the eye all the time; but remember to
keep cool, for sometimes a blusterer will fight; so keep cool, and be
ready for anything. But, Alick, the best way of all is to fight the
first man that offers, and do it in such a way as to let everybody
know you will fight, and you will not be much bothered after that.
Now, Alick, you will hear a great deal of preaching against
fighting--well, that is all right; but I tell you the best preacher
among them all loves a man who will fight, a thousand times more than
he does a coward who won't. All the world respects a brave man,
because all the better qualities of human nature accompany courage. A
brave man is an honest man; he is a good husband, a good neighbor, and
a true friend. You never saw a true woman who did not love a brave
man. And now do you be off at once, look for a good place, and when
you stop, stop to stay; and let all you say and all you do look to
your advantage in the future."

Long years after this parting scene, and when Porter had become a
national man, he used to love to recount this conversation to his
friends, and the impression it created upon his mind of the wonderful
man who had so freely advised him.

When Porter came, he explored the entire country, and selected for his
home Opelousas, the seat of justice for the parish of St. Landry. To
reach this point from New Orleans, at that time, required no ordinary
exertion. He came first to Donaldsonville, where he hired a man to
bring him in a small skiff to the courthouse of the parish of
Assumption. There he employed another to transport him through the
Verret Canal to the lakes, and on through these to Marie Jose's
landing, in Attakapas; then another was engaged to take him up the
Teche to St. Martinsville, and from there he went by land to
Opelousas. This route is nearly three hundred miles.

The banks of the Teche he found densely populated with a people
altogether different in appearance, and speaking a language scarcely
one word of which he understood, and in everything different from
anything he had ever before seen: added to this, he found them
distrustful, inhospitable, and hating the Americans, to whose dominion
they had been so recently transferred.

He used to relate an ane