s in a proper sense of the term; true, they
cultivated in some degree the soil, but it was not the prime pursuit of
these people, nor was the location sought for this purpose. They
desired an open, poor, pine country, which forbade a numerous
population.

Here they reared immense herds of cattle, which subsisted exclusively
upon the coarse grass and reeds which grew abundantly among the tall,
long-leafed pine, and along the small creeks and branches numerous in
this section. Through these almost interminable pine-forests the deer
were abundant, and the canebrakes full of bears. They combined the
pursuits of hunting and stock-minding, and derived support and revenue
almost exclusively from these. They were illiterate and careless of the
comforts of a better reared, better educated, and more intelligent
people. They were unable to employ for each family a teacher, and the
population was too sparse to collect the children in a neighborhood
school. These ran wild, half naked, unwashed and uncombed, hatless and
bonnetless through the woods and grass, followed by packs of lean and
hungry curs, hallooing and yelling in pursuit of rabbits and opossums,
and were as wild as the Indians they had supplanted, and whose
pine-bark camps were yet here and there to be seen, where temporarily
stayed a few strolling, degraded families of Choctaws.

Some of these pioneers had been in the country many years, were
surrounded with descendants, men and women, the growth of the country,
rude, illiterate, and independent. Along the margins of the streams
they found small strips of land of better quality than the pine-forests
afforded. Here they grew sufficient corn for bread and a few of the
coarser vegetables, and in blissful ignorance enjoyed life after the
manner they loved. The country gave character to the people: both were
wild and poor; both were _sui generis_ in appearance and production,
and both seeming to fall away from the richer soil and better people of
the western portion of the State.

Between them and the inhabitants of the river counties there was little
communication and less sympathy; and I fancy no country on earth of the
same extent presented a wider difference in soil and population,
especially one speaking the same language and professing the same
religion. Time, and the pushing a railroad through this eastern portion
of the State, have effected vast changes for the better, and among
these quaintly called piney-woods p