short, and without ostentation; and then the happy and expectant
pair, often on the same horse, would return with the party as they had
come, with two or three musicians playing the violin in merry tunes on
horseback, as they joyfully galloped home, where a ball awaited them at
night, and all went merry with the married belle.

These people are Iberian in race, are small in stature, of dark
complexion, with black eyes, and lank black hair; their hands and feet
are small, and beautifully formed, and their features regular and
handsome; many of their females are extremely beautiful. These attain
maturity very early, and are frequently married at thirteen years of
age. In more than one instance, I have known a grandmother at thirty.
As in all warm countries, this precocious maturity is followed with
rapid decay. Here, persons at forty wear the appearance of those in
colder climates of sixty years. Notwithstanding this apparent early
loss of vigor, the instances of great longevity are perhaps more
frequent in Louisiana than in any other State of the Union. This,
however, can hardly be said of her native population: emigrants from
high latitudes, who come after maturity, once acclimated, seem to
endure the effects of climate here with more impunity than those native
to the soil.

The Bayou Plaquemine formerly discharged an immense amount of water
into the lakes intervening between the La Fourche and the Teche. These
lakes have but a narrow strip of cultivable land. Along the right
margin of the La Fourche, and the left of the Teche, they serve as a
receptacle for the waters thrown from the plantations and those
discharged by the Atchafalayah and the Plaquemine, which ultimately
find their way to the Gulf through Berwick's Bay. They are interspersed
with small islands: these have narrow strips of tillable land, but are
generally too low for cultivation; and when the Mississippi is at
flood, they are all under water, and most of them many feet. The La
Fourche goes immediately to the Gulf, between Lake Barataria and these
lakes, affording land high enough, when protected as they now are, for
settlement, and cultivation to a very great extent. Its length is some
one hundred miles, and the settlements extend along it for eighty
miles. These are continuous, and nowhere does the forest intervene.

At irregular distances between these Acadian settlements, large sugar
plantations are found. These have been extending for years, and