rously as at once to satisfy the mind that the richness of the soil
is supreme--and this scene extending for one hundred and fifty miles,
makes it unapproachable by any other cultivated region on the face of
the globe. Along the Ganges and the Nile, the plain is extensive. The
desolate appearance it presents--the miserable homes of the population,
devoid of every ornament, without comfort or plenty in their
appearance--the stinted and sparse crops, the intervening deserts of
sand, the waste of desolation, spreading away far as the eye can
reach--the streams contemptible in comparison, and the squalid,
degraded, thriftless people along their banks, make it painful to the
beholder, who is borne on his way in some dirty little craft,
contrasting so strangely with the Mississippi steamer. Yet, in
admirable keeping with everything else, all these present a grand
contrast to the valley of the Mississippi, and only prove the latter
has no equal in all that pertains to grandeur, beauty, and abundance,
on the globe. To appreciate all these, you must know and mingle with
the population who have thus ornamented, with labor and taste, the
margin of this stream of streams.

As this great expanse of beauty is a fairy-land to the eye, so is the
hospitality of its homes a delight to the soul. In this population, if
nowhere else in America, is seen a contented and happy people--a people
whose pursuit is happiness, and not the almighty dollar. Unambitious of
that distinction which only wealth bestows, they are content with an
abundance for all their comforts, and for the comfort of those who, as
friends or neighbors, come to share it with them. Unambitious of
political distinction, despising the noisy tumult of the excited
populace, they love their homes, and cultivate the ease of quiet in
these delicious retreats, enjoying life as it passes, in social and
elegant intercourse with each other, nor envying those who rush into
the busy world and hunt gain or distinction from the masses, through
the shrewdness of a wit cultivated and debased by trade, or a fawning,
insincere sycophancy toward the dirty multitude they despise. By such,
these people are considered anomalous, devoid of energy or enterprise,
contented with what they have, nor ambitious for more--which, to an
American, with whom, if the earth is obtained, the moon must be striven
for, is stranger than all else--living indolently at their ease,
regardless of ephemeral worldly dist