in Lake Providence, and runs in a devious three feet higher than the slough. I way, like the Mississippi, which it resem- have heard of no minerals of any sort bles. At one point it is not more than in this parish. For water, cisterns seven or eight miles from that river. It are preferred. Wells are used where drains the parish-every bayou in the these cannot be attained. The water is parish communicating with it, and with healthy, slightly therapeutical. Upon others which lead to it. It receives its analysis a small quantity of iron has waters from the Mississippi at one point at been found in it, and some magnesia. New Carthage. Its banks are rough and The land recedes as you go back from irregular, like the Mississippi. It is na- the Mississippi at about three inches in a vigable to Roundaway Bayou, Madison mile. I gather this from an estimate parish, whence steamboats ply regularly taken by engineers who surveyed the during business season. The difference route from Providence to Munroe. It is between high water and low water is seventy-five or seventy-six feet at Waabout thirty feet. The first steamboat terproof above the level of the sea. which ascended the river was in '40 or may as well mention another fact in this 242. Most of the boats which ascend connection-that the river opposite the it act the part of pioneers. The accumu- parish, near Hard Times, is deeper than lation of drift is such as needs a yearly it is any where else on the river. removal. The greater part of the country which flanks the Tensas is newly settled, or at least within the last ten years. This accounts for the number of trees still standing between the banks, not in the channel, which, if removed, would produce a depression in high water of some considerable extent. BAYOUS.-Bayou Mason lies on the western part of the parish, and runs into the Tensas. It separates the parish from Franklin, and is navigable for steamboats to near the Arkansas line. There are also Derosset Bayou, Shackleford Bayou, Mill Bayou, Mound Bayou, Saddletree Bayou, Big Chacta, Little Chacta, Clark's Bayou, Van Buren Bayou, Little Tensas, Water Hole Bayou, Roaring Bayou, Cross Bayou, Dickard Bayou, Green's Bayou, Black Bayou, and Hunter's Bayou. Besides these there are innumerable small bayous everywhere which drain the land. They do not serve the use of ditches, for the land lying level every where, to make the yield commensurate with the fertility of the soil, ditches are positively necessary. The appearance of the land is everywhere the same, but the color of the soil is different in different localities, owing to the time which it has been in cultivation. The soil has a hard surface, and from the constant necessity imposed on it, in the course of time it loses its rich loamy appearance, and assumes a brownish color. Though there is very little of this worn-out land, where so much rich virgin land can be attained, yet on the front in some places it has very much the appearance of age and poverty. The land lies rolling, that is, a ridge and a slough, the ridges about I It is 200 feet deep. The growth of the forest is the same every where on the low-lands on the Mississippi. Gum, oak of every variety, cotton wood, hackberry, pecan, which grows large and yields abundant fruit, locust, dogwood, cypress, mulberry, willow, elm, haw, swamp piney, persimmon, and occasionally is found a small pine. I have found some while hunting in the woods for trees to adorn a yard. A good deal of attention is paid in this parish to stock, though the overflow of 1850 was very injurious in this particular, $68,000 worth of various kinds having perished in that eventful year. Mules are generally used for farming purposes; oxen for hauling. The range renders them almost without expense, except when on the road. Many planters raise their own meat. The range is good for cattle, and mast for hogs. The There are numbers of wild animals in the parish. In many places there are large tracts uninhabited, where the thick cane-brakes and dense undergrowth afford layers for the wild beast, and refuge when pursued-deer, bear, panther, wild-cat, catamount, wolf, raccoon, opossum. A great many deer and bear have been and are still killed. bear fights with spirit, and but few bear hunts terminate without injury to some one or more valuable dogs. They are great depredators. I understand that Mr. James Gordon, on Lake St. Joseph, generally plants twenty-five acres of corn yearly for the bear. Whether you plant it or not, but few escape their nightly visitations, and they soon lay waste, if not checked, the fairest prospects. They are very destructive to Productions-Shipping Ports-Religion, Education, &c. hogs, always selecting the fattest of the drove. They are frequently killed while going into the cornfield, by persons who take stands for them at their usual place of getting over, or when they return from the field. An overseer on Lake St. Joseph informed me that he shot one just after he had reached the ground in get ting into the field; and in his efforts to get out of the field, he made a complete gap in the rail fence, and scattered the things about as if they were but playthings. 435 The improvements consist generally of very neat residences, and gin-houses and out-buildings of a very substantial character. There is an air of neatness and comfort in the dwellings which is very attractive. Hospitality is proverbial though the untiring ambition to make money prevents much sociable intercourse. It The principal shipping points in the parish are Ashwood, Hard Times, St. Joseph, and Waterproof. St. Joseph is the parish site, and has a court-house and jail, a tavern and two stores. contains the residence of the marshal of the southern district of Louisiana, as well as several very able members of the bar. The population cannot contain more than fifty. St. Joseph, on a court day, or animating interest-lawyers of high standing from a distance, the important interests at stake, citizens crowding into the little town, and all partaking of the bounties of life at the same table, as if they were all of one family, and needed only the name of brotherhood to make them so. The productions of this parish are the same as in all the southern country, corn and cotton. The corn crop in last year (1851) was far below the usual average, on account of an unprecedented drought, and an insect which infested the roots, while very young, called the chinck on some court days, presents a scene of bug. It has puzzled many how to circumvent the little creatures, and to make corn notwithstanding. This year the insects were not so bad, and pleasant rains produced an abundant harvest, sometimes to the extent of fifty bushels to the acre. There were in 1851, 16,381 acres cultivated in corn. The culture of cotton is persevered in, and attended with great success. There were raised, in 1851, 46,223 bales of cotton, and there were 45,823 acres planted in cotton. The largest crop known to have been made was raised on Mrs. Ogden's place in 1839, which was nineteen bales to the hand. The overseer was grieved that he could not make twenty. It is useless to detail the manner in which corn and cotton are cultivated, but merely to say, that the most approved instruments are used in the cultivation, and cultivated in a way which experience has sanctioned to be the best, and carried on with a spirit and energy which neither slackens nor slumbers. There is but one new place opened this year, that of Mr. Daniel's, on Van Buren Bayou. Lands are estimated at from 10 to 30 dollars per acre. RELIGION AND EDUCATION.-Religious services are performed every Sabbath in various parts of the parish by the Methodists and Presbyterians. There are one hundred and twenty white members of the Methodist Church, and one hundred and three colored. What the number of the Presbyterians is I have not been informed. I do not believe that there is as yet any organized society. There are four Methodist preachers residing in the parish, and one Presbyteri an. There are three Methodist churches the one at Waterproof is a beautiful edifice, and will cost $4,000. There are schools in nearly every neighborhood, supported partially by the school-fund. The salaries of teachers are from five hundred to a thousand dollars. There are 232 persons between the ages of six and sixteen; also lawyers, and doctors, and planters, of great intelligence, but I know of no one whose profession is purely literary. Planters living back are, of necessity, compelled to keep their roads in good condition. There has been of late years great improvements in this respect. Some haul the cotton to the Mississippi, others With a brief statement of the progress wait a rise in the back streams to take of population from the settlement of this it out this way. If the numerous bayous country to this time, and a brief history which intersect the parish were properly of the parish judges who have conductcleansed, no country could exceed it in internal navigation. Nature has placed them as drains, and man's labor could make them highly auxiliary to the end for which his labor has been appropriated. ed the business of the people through the trying emergencies which characterized its settlement, I will conclude. In 1810, the parish of Concordia, which embraced all the country lying from the mouth of Red River to the Arkansas There were no regular packet-boats in line, contained 2,895 souls. In 1815, those days, passing and repassing; and if the whole state did not exceed 90,000 the parish judge sometimes took an ocsouls-but few Americans arrived be- casional steamboat, ten chances to one fore the purchase of Louisiana. After he would have to float back on a flat1815 was the greatest influx of popula- boat. But the dignity of the office was tion. Concordia is now divided into four not compromised, for their duties were parishes, and constitutes a very import- important, and their discomforts were in ant fragment of the cotton region. keeping with the state of the country. Tensas parish contains 902 free persons, Judge Ogden was the father of three and 8,673 negroes. There was paid in distinguished lawyers of that name, now three years quite a large sum for levee residents of this state-two of whom purposes.. live in New-Orleans, and one in the parish of Rapides. The first parish judge who acted under the territorial government, was a gentleHe was followed by Judge George S. man by the name of Ross. He was Guion, who administered the office from succeeded by Dr. David Lattimore, who 1828 to 1836, and was highly esteemed still lives in Concordia at the extreme and respected for the mildness of his old age of about ninety years. He was manners, and his clear characteristics as followed by Edward Broughton, Esq., judge. Parts of the country, however, who, not being a lawyer, and leaving were in a state of rudeness, morally as the administration of affairs to his clerk, well as physically, and some of the newcaused great confusion and irregularity ly settled neighborhoods were wild and in the office. There were many amus- lawless, and not disposed to look upon the ing stories related of the judge; among parish judge with favor or treat him others, there was one-which, of course, with much courtesy. Indeed, the office must have been apocryphal, as intend- was in such bad odor among some of ing to disparage the office, being con- the frontier people, owing either to persidered by some as having all the honors sonal prejudice against those who had and emoluments concentrated in it-to preceded him, or some more substantial this effect, that having settled a small cause, that for the purpose of protecting estate of five hundred dollars belonging himself from personal violence whilst to a Kentuckian, who had died in Con- among them, he was compelled to cordia, he wrote to the friends of the wear a brace of pistols openly belted deceased in Kentucky to remit one hun- around him. This state of things did dred dollars, to pay the balance due him not last long, and before he resigned, a for fees. He was followed by John Per- complete change was manifest. Judge kins, Esq., the venerable and respected Guion is now a resident of the parish of citizen and model planter, now and for Lafourche Interior, a planter, and holds a many years residing at Somerset, in the distinguished place in the affections of parish of Madison. Judge P. has a son, his fellow-citizens. He was elected a John Perkins, Jr., who wears the judicial member of the convention in 1845, assistermine with distinguished honor, and ed in framing that constitution, and was who has presided in this district. The elected to the same office in 1852 as next was Robert Ogden, Esq., who ad- member of the convention, when it beministered the office little more than came expedient to change the economy two years, from 1826 to 1828. He was which prevailed in 1845, and to engraft a very worthy man, and possessed of some new features which were agreeaconsiderable learning, but being ad- ble to the age in which we live. The vanced in years, and of feeble constitu- next was Judge Keeton, who was killed tion, he was not able to undergo the by the falling of a house during the great fatigue, and surmount the difficulties at- tornado of 1840. Judge Dunlap suctendant upon the discharge of the duties ceeded him, and he was followed by of parish judge of the extensive district George C. McWhorter, at present State of Concordia. In order to make inven- Treasurer. tories and sales of succession property in remote parts of the parish, it was frequently necessary to undertake journeys of more than a hundred miles, subject to many inconveniences and annoyances. In Tensas Parish, Judge Montgomery was judge after the organization, who, having served a year or two, was followed by Judge Bradstreet, who held the reins till the office was abolished in 1845. Alabama Direct Trade and Exchange Company. 437 ART. IV.-DIRECT TRADE OF THE SOUTH. [IN addition to the very able and valuable papers we have from time to time published in the Review upon the subject of the Direct Trade of the South, we recommend to the attention of our readers the following, which, though strained and speculative in many respects, embodies some sound and wholesome truths. There is a propriety in referring to such papers on the eve of another Convention at Memphis for the promotion of southern trade, and our only regret is that we cannot be present and take part in its deliberations, as we have made it a point hitherto to do.] The Committee of Ways and Means, to whom was referred the bill incorporating the Alabama Direct Trade and Exchange Company, have duly considered the same, and believing that there is no one subject in which all our citizens have a deeper or more lasting interest than a speedy and radical change in our import trade, beg leave to make the following report: stances, that they should be confined, restrained, punished, and, at times, even destroyed. They, too, like individuals, in obtaining or making locations on the earth's surface, have advantages or disadvantages more or less suited to their peculiar mental, moral or physical organization, propensities, habits and occupations. The country we now occupy, before it was discovered by the EuroThe skilful and prudent merchant, in pean race, was admirably suited in all selecting a site for extensive, profitable respects to the wild, savage, roving, deand durable commerce, will examine structive propensities of the Indian. carefully the whole surrounding country, By nature free and idle, he could neithconsider well its climates, soils and er be civilized nor enslaved, without deseasons; its valleys, hills and mountains; its vegetable, animal and mineral productions; its lakes, rivers and roads; its bays, seas, gulfs and oceans, with their peculiar currents, tides and winds; look well to the natural disposition, capacity, occupation, wealth, habits and customs, opinions, political, religious and moral, of the whole surrounding population. His interest is identical with the greatest prosperity and tranquillity of all his customers. He is, therefore, the natural ally of the best and most stable government. Civilization, the arts and sciences, first appeared in the East. Their course has been westward; as the world is but a great national race-ground, in process of time they will again reach their starting point. The Israelites, Grecians, Romans and Spaniards have exerted a powerful influence on the destinies of mankind. They were all extensive slaveholding countries in their days of progress and power. Nations, like individuals, have their birth, infancy, manhood and old age; like them, they have their peculiarities, their inferior or superior mental, moral and physical power and physical or ganization; like them, they have their fevers, consumptions, epidemics, and chronic infections, and the good of mankind requires, under certain circum stroying his existence or happiness. In selecting a place of residence, all he desired was a wilderness to rove in, and game to gratify his destructive propensities and furnish him food and raiment. The African, when left to himself, can only exist and be happy under a tropical sun, where summer is continual, clothing not a necessity, and food can be obtained by little effort from the spontaneous productions of the country. Freedom to him, in a cold climate, is a curse, compared to slavery under an intelligent master, in a mild one. In their native country they are a nation of human beings at rest, and likely to continue so, until highly stimulated by some race different in physical organization. If, by pestilence, the whole race in their own country were suddenly cut off, Europe and America would only feel it in an advance on ivory and a few spices. The energetic white European or American requires for the full development of his capacity and disposition, a country possessing all the natural elements of the three great pursuits of civilized man, agriculture, commerce, and manufactures. That country combining all these in the most extensive and compact form, in the most convenient location, is, above all others, the best calculated to promote his own happiness, and enable him to be useful to surrounding nations. The white European, in the course of terial and government skill, to hers. his progress and enterprise, discovered She has a home population of twentythe American continent, on parts of seven millions on a territory about the which the attempt has been made by size of Georgia and Florida, with adlegislation to bring the Indian and Afri- vantages in position, soil, climate, mincan up to a political equality with the eral and vegetable productions, of not white man. Political equality neces- more than one half of theirs. Her sarily brings about social equality; social colonial dominions are scattered over equality produces amalgamation. This every quarter of the globe in all latipolitical and social equality, with the tudes. Within them she has large posconsequent amalgamation, has brought sessions, devoted to the culture of coton premature consumption and rapid decay in the whole political and social mass, which threatens to bring about premature dissolution and lasting imbecility. In our portion of the continent we have, so far, followed a different course. We expelled from amongst us the Indian, and kept the African entirely under our control and direction. We, although in infancy as to the ordinary age of a government, are already a giant in physical power, with strides so long and rapid as to strike with wonder and admiration all surrounding nations. ton, rice, sugar and indigo. Every ef fort within her skill and power has been exerted to excel our country in the production of cotton. Notwithstanding her cotton region contains a population of more than one hundred millions of free laborers, which she calls her subjects, who are employed at mere nominal wages, so far, all her efforts have proved abortive, and must, regardless of soil or climate, unless she establishes our system of African slave labor. The consequence is, that she is dependent on our slaveholding states for a supply of cotton, on which, to a great extent, depends There exists in our system of African her commercial and manufacturing slavery a powerful tendency to elevate, prosperity. In order to obtain commerand keep free and independent, the cial preference in the markets of Europe white race. Every citizen within these and America, in favor of her colonial states sees slavery by color, by name, commodities, she calls them free-labor and nature, and from the time he can productions, and, by this device, has reflect, sets himself above a slave. So succeeded in humbugging a numerous long as lands are low and labor profita- class of short-sighted customers in both ble, there is no necessity for the poor countries. She has a company called white man to become dependent or a slave. The poor white man and the slave owner are alike interested in cheap lands and high wages; their interests are, therefore, identical. There is a powerful tendency in all republican states like our free states, to run into the European system of high taxes to favor particular classes. As population becomes dense, capital puts down the wages of labor, and can enslave the laborer. Great Britain is the first commercial nation of the age, unless we may except our own country. Her commercial power, for many years, enabled her to be mistress of the seas. She is now the first manufacturing country of the world. On commerce and manufactures, all her present political power and greatness depend. Any power capable of striking a death-blow at her commerce and manufactures, must necessarily be her superior in any military contest waged with equal campaign ma the "East India Company," who rule To |