ion, I can truthfully say, nowhere have I ever met so truthful, so
generous, and so hospitable a people as the planters and gentlemen of
the river counties of Mississippi, fifty years ago--nowhere women more
refined, yet affable; so modest, yet frank and open in their social
intercourse; so dignified, without austerity; so chaste and pure in
sentiment and action, without prudery or affectation, as the mothers,
wives, and daughters of those planters.

The Bench and the Bar were distinguished for ability and purity; many
of these have left national reputations--all of them honorable names to
their families and profession. Nor were the physicians less
distinguished. The names of Provan, McPheters, Cartwright, Ogden,
Parker, Cox, and Dennie will be remembered when all who were their
compeers shall have passed away, as ornaments to their profession.
There is one other, still living at a very advanced age, who was
perhaps the superior of any I have mentioned--James Metcalf, who not
only was and is an ornament to his profession, but to human nature. He
is one of the few surviving monuments of the men of fifty years ago.
His life has been eminently useful and eminently pure. He has lived to
see his children emulating his example as virtuous and useful citizens,
above reproach, and an honor to their parents.

There was not, perhaps, in the Union, a stronger Bar in any four
counties than here--Childs, Gibbs, Worley, George Adams, (the father of
Generals Daniel and Wirt Adams,) Robert H. Adams, (who died a Senator
in the United States Congress when it was an honor to fill the
position,) Lyman Harding, W.B. Griffith, John A. Quitman, Joseph E.
Davis, (the elder brother of Jefferson Davis,) Thomas B. Reid, Robert
J. and Duncan Walker. Time has swept on, and but one of all these
remains in life--Robert J. Walker. Edward Tuner, then the presiding
judge of the District Court, was a Kentuckian. Four brothers immigrated
to the country about the same time. Two remained at Natchez, one at
Bayou Sara, in Louisiana, and the fourth went to New Orleans. All
became distinguished: three as lawyers, who honored the Bench in their
respective localities, and the fourth as a merchant and planter
accumulated an immense fortune.

The planters almost universally resided upon their plantations, and
their habits were rural and temperate. Their residences were
unostentatious, but capacious and comfortable, with every attachment
which could secure comfo