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How shall my feeble pen describe to you the beauty
of the scenery of the Lower Mississippi! If the northern
portion of this mighty flood, as it rolls forever and ever
amid its dark wildernesses, is gloomy and awe inspiring,
the southern arm is infinitely more beautiful. One or
two of my last letters have been devoted to a sketch of
our trip from Natchez towards New Orleans. It is at
Natchez that the wild forest-like character of the Mississippi
begins to assume the more cheerful features of
varied scenery, and cultivated savannahs.

Natchez itself sits like a queen crowning a fortress-looking
cliff, and extending her sceptre over the verdant
plains and smiling valleys of Louisiana. Then twenty
miles below this city frown down upon the voyager the
craggy peaks and tower-like walls of “Ellis Cliffs.”
From that point till Baton Rouge comes in sight, the
shores become more open, and the banks more interesting
with cliff, upland, and many a green spot of rustic loveliness,
where the blue smoke curling upwards amid deep
foliage, betrays the secluded home of the planter.

A few leagues above Baton Rouge, the cotton fields
cease, and for these snow-white acres is beheld the tall,
straight sugar-cane waving to the breeze for many a
league. Until I came in sight of the first sugar estate,

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I was not aware of the distinctness with which the lines
of climate that mark the locality of our country's different
staples can be discerned. In descending the
Upper Mississippi, the last wheat field was taken leave
of at the same moment the first cotton plantation was
pointed out to me; and after sailing eight degrees through
the cotton latitudes, the last cotton plantation and the
first sugar estate meet not far above Baton Rouge. Thus
the advance with majestic progression on one of these
mammoth steamers down through the latitudes, has in it
something of the sublime. But I regret to leave the
pure, white plains of spotless cotton fleece, than which
nothing can be more charming to the eye. I shall never
forget when one morning as I rose from breakfast, at Lake
Providence, the gentleman, at whose house we were
guests, cried,

“Come, Miss Kate, ride with me, and I will show you
a sight worth going across the ocean to see, and which
beats all John Bull has got in the Crystal Palace.”

After twenty minutes' gallop along the narrow shores
of the lake, we drew rein on the verge of a cotton-field.

“Now hold by that branch, and stand upright in your
saddle, Kate, and look before you,” he said.

I did so, and beheld a level expanse, containing eleven
hundred acres in cotton, without fence or ridge to break
the beautiful spectacle. The plant was in full boll, hanging
to the hand of the picker in the richest luxuriance.
A small army of slaves, whose black faces contrasted
oddly with the white fields, were marching onward
through it gathering the white wreaths, and heaping
therewith their baskets, while the loud musical chorus
of their leader's voice, to which their own kept tune,

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as he sang “the picker's song,” fell cheerfully on my
ears.

“That field alone,” said the major, with a sparkling
eye, “is worth $60,000.”

Oh, the wealth of these cotton-planters, Mr. —!

But if they are rich, what shall be said of the owners
of the sugar estates, which are far more profitable to
cultivate than cotton plantations! Our New England
farmers have no conception of the riches of these Southern
people. Let me give you an instance of the manner
in which money accumulates here. A young gentleman,
whom I know near Natchez, received, at twenty-one
years of age, thirty slaves from his father, and fourteen
hundred acres of wild forest land on the Mississippi.
He took his hands there, and commenced clearing.
Thirty axes do vast execution in a wood. As he cleared
he piled up the cloven timber into fire-wood length, and
sold it to passing steamers at $2 50 a cord. The first year
he took $12,000 in cash for wood alone. The second
year he raised 80 bales of cotton, which he sold at $50
a bale, and he also sold wood to the amount of $14,000
more. The third year he sold 150 bales of cotton, and
cleared by wood $10,000, which, with $8,000 his cotton
sold for, brought him an income of $18,000. Out of
this the expense for feeding and clothing his thirty slaves
per annum was less than $1,800. The young man, not
yet twenty-nine, is now a rich planter, with a hundred
slaves, and is making 500 bales of cotton at a crop.
Excuse these business-looking figures, Mr. —, but in
these days ladies are expected to know about such things,
you know, and if I have learned such facts it is no harm
for me to write them. If I were writing from Lapland,

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I should, perhaps, tell you how many reindeer's skins
went to make a young girl's marriage portion.

It was half an hour before sunset when we came in
sight of Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana. The
state-house, large and white, loomed grandly up, and
overtowering the town belittled it so that its best houses
seemed no bigger than cottages. The place is small,
but flanked by United States Barracks on one side, and
by the Capitol on the other. The star-spangled banner
was flying at the top of the government flag-staff, and
flaunted saucily in the breeze.

“There is General Taylor's house,” cried the captain
of our steamer, who, by-the-way, is a great lady's man,
and the civilest spoken gentleman to be a rough, weather-beaten
Mississippi commander I ever knew.

He directed my gaze to a small, white dwelling on the
verge of the parade-ground, with its garden descending
to the water-side. It was an humble home, and would
not have been too fine for the sergeant to live in. I
gazed upon the spot with those indescribable emotions
with which we always gaze upon localities with which
eminent men have once been associated.

“From that unpretending abode he went forth to the
conquest of Mexico,” said Colonel Peyton, addressing
Isabel and me, “and from it a second time he was called
to preside over the destinies of the Union.”

“His body lies buried beneath the trees there,” said
one of the passengers.

“No, answered our captain, “his remains were taken
to Kentucky.”

“There is old Whitey,” exclaimed a beautiful young
girl near me, one of those who had come on board at

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Natchez. “Dear old Whitey; he deserves that the girls
of Baton Rouge should every day crown him with flowers,
and interwreath his mane with the gayest ribbons.”

Sure enough I saw the ancient war-horse himself. He
was grazing quietly on the slope of the parade-ground;
but at the noise of our passing boat, he raised his aged
head to regard us philosophically! He looks venerable,
but has not lost his symmetry; and they say that at the
sound of the morning and evening gun he pricks up his
ears, tosses his head, flings his gray mane abroad, and
canters into the smoke, snuffing it up, and neighing like
a trumpet.

I walked through the four or five pretty streets that
constitute Baton Rouge. It is a French looking town yet,
though French manners with the language have given
way to a highly-polished American population. The
streets are prettily shaded; the houses have verandahs;
ladies were in the balconies; beautiful olive-cheeked
children, with hair dressed a la Suisse, promenaded the
sidewalks; servants were indolently occupying the doorsides,
and a few carriages drive through the streets. I
was on the whole agreeably impressed with Baton Rouge,
and think it would be a charming residence. It is one
hundred and thirty miles above New Orleans; and from
this point begins the superb scenery of that part of the
river called “the Coast.”* The moon was up when

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we left Baton Rouge, after an hour's delay, and with
the addition to our passengers of some forty members of
the Legislature, most of them with French physiognomies,
we resumed our voyage down the stream.

Wishing you, Mr. —, a safe voyage down the stream
of life, I remain,

p613-307

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