in the interior, passing through these hills to their debouchment
into the river. The entire formation is a rich compost, and in great
part soluble in water; this causes them to wash, and when not
cultivated with care, they cut into immense gullies and ravines. They
are in some places almost mountainous in height and exceedingly
precipitous. They are designated at different localities by peculiar
names--as the Walnut Hills, Grand Hills, Petit Gulf Hills, Natchez
Hills, and St. Catherine Hills. In primitive forest they presented a
most imposing appearance.

Large and lofty timber covered from base to summit these hills,
increasing their grandeur by lifting to their height the immense vines
found in great abundance all over them. The dense wild cane, clothing
as a garment the surface of every acre, went to the very tops of the
highest hills, adding a strange feature to hill scenery. The river only
approaches these hills in a few places and always at right angles, and
is by them deflected, leaving them always on the outer curve of the
semicircle or bend in the stream. From these points and from the summit
of these cliffs the view is very fine, stretching often in many places
far up and down the river and away over the plain west of the river,
which seems to repose upon its lap as far as the eye can view. The
scene is sombre, but grand, especially when lighted by the evening's
declining sun. The plain is unbroken by any elevation: the immense
trees rise to a great height, and all apparently to the same level--the
green foliage in summer strangely commingling with the long gray moss
which festoons from the upper to the lower limbs, waving as a garland
in the fitful wind; and the dead gray of the entire scene in winter is
sad and melancholy as a vast cemetery. There is a gloomy grandeur in
this, which is only rivalled by that of the sea, when viewed from a
towering height, lazily lolling in the quiet of a summer evening's
calm.

To encounter the perils of a pioneer to such a country required men of
iron nerve. Such, with women who dared to follow them, to meet and to
share every danger and fearlessly to overcome every obstacle to their
enterprise, coming from every section of the United States, formed
communities and introduced the arts and industry of civilization, to
subdue these forests and compel the soil to yield its riches for the
use of man. From these had grown a population, fifty years ago,
combining the daring an