inctions, but happy in the comforts
of home, and striving only to make this a place for the enjoyment of
themselves and those about them.

To the stranger they are open and kind, universally hospitable, never
scrutinizing his whole man to learn from his manner or dress whether he
comes as a gentleman or a sharper, or whether he promises from
appearance to be of value to them pecuniarily in a trade. There is
nothing of the huckster in their natures. They despise trade, because
it degrades; they have only their crops for sale, and this they trust
to their factors; they never scheme to build up chartered companies for
gain, by preying upon the public; never seek to overreach a neighbor or
a stranger, that they may increase their means by decreasing his; would
scorn the libation of generous wine, if they felt the tear of the widow
or the orphan mingled with it, and a thousand times would prefer to be
cheated than to cheat; despising the vicious, and cultivating only the
nobler attributes of the soul.

Such is the character of the educated French Creole planters of
Louisiana--a people freer from the vices of the age, and fuller of the
virtues which ennoble man, than any it has fallen to my lot to find in
the peregrinations of threescore years and ten. The Creoles, and
especially the Creole planters, have had little communication with any
save their own people. The chivalry of character, in them so
distinguishing a trait, they have preserved as a heritage from their
ancestors, whose history reads more like a romance than the lives and
adventures of men, whose nobility of soul and mind was theirs from a
long line of ancestors, and brought with them to be planted on the
Mississippi in the character of their posterity.

Is it the blood, the rearing, or the religion of these people which
makes them what they are? They are full of passion; yet they are gentle
and forbearing toward every one whom they suppose does not desire to
wrong or offend them; they are generous and unexacting, abounding in
the charity of the heart, philanthropic, and seemingly from instinct
practising toward all the world all the Christian virtues. They are
brave, and quick to resent insult or wrong, and prefer death to
dishonor; scrupulously just in all transactions with their fellow-men,
forbearing toward the foibles of others, without envy, and without
malice. In their family intercourse they are respectful and kind, and
particularly to their children: