XXXV.
Preparation for a deer hunt—A sailor, a planter, and an author—A deer driver—"Stands" for deer—The hunting ground—The hunt—Ellis's cliff—Silver mine—An hypothesis—Alluvial formation of the lower valley of the Mississippi—Geological descriptions of the south-west.
The morning after my arrival at the plantation, which suggested the subject of my last letter, two gentlemen, with their guns and dogs, arrived at the house, to proceed from thence, according to a previous arrangement, on a deer hunt. This noble and attractive game abounds in the "bottoms" and river hills in this region; though the planters, who are in general passionately fond of hunting, are fast thinning their numbers. The branching antlers of a stag, as in the old oaken halls of England, are found fixed, in some conspicuous station, in almost every planter's habitation—trophies of his skill, and testimonials of his attachment to the chase.
Having prepared our hunting apparatus, and assembled the dogs, which, from their impatient movements, evidently needed no intimation of our design, we mounted our horses, and, winding through the cotton fields, entered a forest to the south, and proceeded, in fine spirits, toward the "drive," four or five miles below, as the hunting station is technically termed by deer hunters. There were, exclusive of a servant, four in our party. One of them, my host, formerly an officer in the navy, having, some years since, left the service, and settled himself down as a cotton planter, presented in his person the anomalous union, in Mississippi, of the sailor and farmer: for in this state, which has little intercourse directly with the sea, sailors are rare birds. Till recently a ship could not be seen by a Mississippian without going to New-Orleans, or elsewhere out of the state: but since Natchez became a port of entry, and ships have ascended here, the citizens who flocked in from all the country round, to gaze upon them, are a little more au fait to this branch of nautical knowledge. It would be difficult to say which predominates in this gentleman, the bluff and frank bearing of the sailor, or the easy and independent manner of the planter. In the management of his plantation, the result of his peculiar economy has shown, that the discipline with which he was familiar in the navy, with suitable modifications, has not been applied unsuccessfully to the government of his slaves. What a strange inclination sailors have for farming! Inquire of any New-England sea-captain the ultimatum of his wishes, after leaving the sea—for sailors in general follow the sea as the means of securing them a snug berth on shore—and he will almost invariably reply—"a farm." Another of our party was a planter, a native of Mississippi, and the son of a gentleman whose philosophic researches have greatly contributed to the advancement of science. He was a model of a southern planter—gentlemanly, companionable, and a keen hunter. The government of his plantation, which is one of the finest in the state, is of a parental rather than an imperious character. He rules rather by kindness than severity, and his slaves obey from the principle of a desire to please, rather than from fear. And the result of his discipline has fully overthrown the sweeping assertion, which it is the fashion to repeat and believe, that "the more kindly slaves are treated the worse they are." A favourite theory of philanthropists, in relation to master and slave, is more practically illustrated on the estate of this gentleman, than the most sanguine of its framers could have anticipated. As I have, in a former letter, alluded to that branch of the domestic economy of this plantation, relating to the religious privileges of the slaves, and shall again have occasion to refer to its discipline, I will pursue the subject here no farther.
The third individual of our party was a gentleman originally from New-Jersey; a state which has contributed many valuable citizens to Mississippi. But he had been too long in the south to preserve his identity as a Jersey man. The son of a distinguished barrister, he had been a lawyer himself; but, like all professional men, who have remained here a short time, he had taken his third degree as a cotton planter. He is a gentleman of fine taste and a chastened imagination; and besides some beautiful tales, contributed to the periodicals, he is the author of that delightful story, the "Fawn's leap," published in the Atlantic Souvenir of 1830. The literary world will have reason to feel regret, in which the subject of my remark will, no doubt, be far from sympathising, that fortune has placed him among her protegés. He possesses an independent property, and resides on an estate called "Woodbourne," eight or nine miles from Natchez. With true Mississippi taste, he has placed his handsome villa in the midst of a forest; but the majestic beauty of the lofty trees, as surveyed from the gallery, and the solemn grandeur of the primeval forests which inclose his dwelling on all sides, struck me, at the moment, as far superior to any display of art in ornamental grounds, and nearly unhinged my predilection for artificial scenery. In this charming retirement, and in the quiet enjoyment of private life, he has laid aside the gown of the author to assume the capote of the planter, and become an indefatigable devotee to the lordly pleasures of the chase. Few men, who hunt merely en amateur, and especially, few literary men, can boast that they have killed twenty-seven deer, and been at the death of fifty-two—yet this gentleman can do so with truth: and a row of notches, cut in his hunting-horn, which I found suspended from an antler in the gallery of the house we had just left, recorded the fact. Besides this gentleman, there are but few individuals who are known out of this state as cultivators of literature. Mississippi is yet too young to boast of her authors, although she is not deficient in men of talent and learning. But the members of the learned professions are too much involved in schemes of wealth to have leisure or inclination for the cultivation of general literature.
Half way through the forest into which we entered on leaving the plantation, we came to a rude dwelling, inhabited by a ruder old hunter, who was to officiate as "driver." He accompanied us with his dogs for a while, and then turned aside into the woods to surround the deer in their place of resort and drive them toward the river, between which and them we were to take our "stands," for the purpose of intercepting them, as they dashed by to the water. For if alarmed while feeding upon the high grounds back front the Mississippi, they at once bound off to the shelter of the swamps or bottoms near the river—and the skilful hunter, whose experience teaches him by what paths they will seek to gain the lowlands where the hounds cannot follow them, takes his stand with his rifle behind some tree by which he is tolerably sure the deer will pass, and as the noble and terrified animal bounds past him, he levels the deadly rifle with unerring aim, and buries a bullet in his heart.
Emerging from the forest a mile or two above our hunting ground, we came suddenly upon an amphitheatre of naked hills nearly surrounded by forests of dark pine. Winding through romantic defiles thickly bordered with cedars, we gradually ascended to the summit of the highest of this cluster of treeless hills, when all at once the Mississippi, rolling onward to the sea, burst upon our sight in all its majesty. There is a grand and desolate character in those naked cliffs which hang in huge terraces over the river, to the perpendicular height of three hundred feet. The view from their summits is one of the most sublime and extensive in the south-west. To the north and south the broad river spreads away like a long serpentine lake, its western shore presenting a plain, clothed even to the horizon with a boundless forest, with a plantation here and there breaking the uniformity of its outlines, near the water's edge.
After a farther ride of a mile, over a hilly road through woods alternately exposing and hiding the river, we arrived at the "deer-stand,"—a long ridge nearly parallel with the river, and covered with a very open forest with a low "bottom," between the ridge and the water, and an extensive "drive," or forest frequented by deer, extending two miles inland. Our "driver" with the whole pack, had turned off into the "drive" some time before, and having examined the ground, we took our "stands" about a hundred yards apart, each behind a large tree commanding an opening, or avenue, through which the deer were expected to pass. Several of these "stands," and many more than we could occupy, were on the ridge, all of which should have been occupied to insure a successful issue to our sport. A few moments after we had taken our stands, and while listening for the least token of the "driver's" presence in the depths of the forest—the distant baying of dogs, in that peculiar note with which they open when they have roused their game, fell faintly upon our ears. The chorus of canine voices, however, soon grew louder and more violent—and as they awoke the echoes of the forests, and came down upon us like a storm—my heart leaped and the blood coursed merrily in my veins. All at once the deep voices of the hounds ceased as though they were at fault; but after a few moments' pause, a staunch old hunter opened again far to the right, and again the whole pack were in pursuit in full cry, and the crashing of trees and underbrush directly in front of us about a quarter of a mile in the wood, with the increased roar of the pack, warned us to be ready. The next moment the noise moved away to the right, and all at once, with a crash and a bound, a noble stag, with his head laid back upon his shoulders, crossed our line at the remotest stand, and disappeared in the thick woods along the river. The dogs followed like meteors. Away to the left another crashing was heard, and a beautiful doe leaped across the open space on the ridge, and was lost in the thicket. The sounds of affrighted deer, passing through the forest at a great distance, were occasionally heard, but these soon died away and we only heard the wild clamour of the dogs, which the driver, who was close at their heels, in vain essayed to recall by sounding his horn long and loud, and sending its hoarse notes into the deepest recesses of the wood.
After a great deal of trouble, by whipping, coaxing, and driving, nearly all the dogs were again collected, as it was in vain to pursue the deer to their retreats. Some of the old hunters slowly coming in at the last, laid themselves down by us panting and half dead with fatigue. By and by the driver again started into the "drive" with the dogs; but an engagement for the evening, precluding my participation in a renewal of the spirit-stirring scene, I reluctantly left my agreeable party who were out for the day, and proceeded homeward. They returned late at night with, I believe, a single deer as the reward of their patience and unwearied spirits, two most important virtues in a thorough-bred deer hunter. Uncommon nerve and great presence of mind are also indispensable qualifications. "Once," remarked a hunting gentleman to me, "while waiting at my stand the approach of a buck, which some time before seeing him I had heard leaping along in immense bounds through the thicket—his sudden appearance in an open space about a hundred yards in front, bearing down directly toward me at fearful speed, so awed and unnerved me for the moment, that although my rifle was levelled at his broad breast, I had not the power to pull the trigger, and before I could recover myself the noble creature passed me like the wind." Yet this gentleman was a tried hunter, and on other occasions had brought down deer as they came toward him at full speed, at the distance of from sixty to a hundred yards.
On my return from the hunting ground, I lingered on the romantic cliff we had crossed in the morning, delighted at once more beholding scenery that reminded me of the rude features of my native state. Dismounting from my horse, which I secured to the only tree upon the cliff, I descended, after many hair-breadth escapes a ravine nearly two hundred feet in depth, which conducted me to the water side and near the mouth of the beautiful St. Catharine, which, after a winding course of more than eighty miles, empties itself into the Mississippi through an embouchure ten yards wide, and as accurately defined as the mouth of a canal. Near this spot is a silver mine lately re-discovered, after the lapse of a third of a century. Its history, I believe, is this. Some thirty or forty years ago, a Spaniard who had been a miner in Mexico, passing down the Mississippi, discovered ore which he supposed to be silver. He took a quantity of it into his pirogue, and on arriving at a planter's house on the banks of the river in Louisiana, tested it as correctly as circumstances would admit, and was satisfied that it was pure silver. He communicated the discovery to his host, gave him a few ingots of the metal and took his departure. What became of him is not known. The host from year to year resolved to visit the spot, but neglected it, or was prevented by the intrusion of more pressing employments, till four or five years since. He then communicated the discovery to a Mexican miner, an American or an Englishman, who stopped at his house, and to whom, on hearing him speak of mines, he showed the masses he had received so many years before from the Spaniard. The man on examining them and ascertaining the metal to be pure silver, became at once interested in the discovery, obtained the necessary information to enable him to find the spot, and immediately ascended the river. On arriving at the cliffs he commenced his search, and after a few days discovered the vein, in one of the lowest strata of the cliffs. He found it difficult, however, to engage the neighbouring planters in his scheme of working it, for what planter would exchange his cotton fields for a silver mine? Yet they treated him with attention, and seconded his efforts by lending him slaves. More than a hundred weight of the ore was obtained, and sent on to Philadelphia to undergo the process of fusion. It probably is not rich enough for amalgamation, as it contains a superior bulk of iron pyrites, blende, lead and earthy matter. The amount of pure silver procured from the ore has not been ascertained, the result of the process not having yet been made known. I obtained several pieces, which make a very pretty show in a cabinet, and this is probably the highest honour to which it will be exalted, at least till the surface of the earth refuses longer to bear ingots of silver, in the shape of the snowy cotton boll.
The peculiar features of these cliffs are a series of vast concavities, or inverted hollow cones, connected with each other by narrow gorges, whose bottoms are level with the river, and surrounded by perpendicular and overhanging walls of earth, often detached, like huge pyramids, and nearly three hundred feet in height. There are five clusters of these cliffs in this state, all situated on the eastern shore of the Mississippi, from forty to one hundred miles apart, of which this is the most important in height and magnitude, as well as in grandeur and variety of scenery. They are properly the heads or terminations of the high grounds of the United States—the antennæ of the Alleghanies.[8] The hypothesis that they were promontories in past ages, with the waves of the Mexican Gulf breaking at their bases, has had the support of many scientific men. This opinion carries with it great probability, when the peculiar qualities of the Mississippi are considered in relation to its "forming effects." These effects are a consequence of the general truth of the proposition, that every mechanical destruction will be followed by a mechanical formation; hence the masses separated by the waters of the Mississippi, will be again deposited on the surface of the land, or its shores, about its mouth, and on the bottom of the sea. You are aware that one twelfth of the bulk of this vast volume of water is earth, as ascertained by its depositing that proportion in the bottom of a glass filled with the water. During the flood the proportion is greater, and the earthy particles are as dense as the water can hold in suspension. The average velocity of the current below the Missouri, is between one and two miles an hour, and it is calculated that it would require four months to discharge the column of water embraced between this point and its delta. Bearing constantly within its flood a mass of earth equal to one twelfth of its whole bulk, it follows that it must bear toward the sea, every four years, more than its cubical bulk of solid earth. Now where is this great column of earth deposited? Has it been rolling onward for centuries, without any visible effects? This will not be affirmed, and experience proves the contrary in the hourly mechanical depositions of the ochreous particles of this river, in its noble convexities, its extensive bottoms, and the growing capes at its mouth. But a small portion of the turbid mixture has been deposited in the bed of the river, particularly in its southern section, as moving water will not deposit at any great depth.[9]
Now when the general appearance and geological features of the South-West, including the south part of Mississippi and nearly the whole of Louisiana, are observed with reference to the preceding statements, the irresistible conviction of the observer is, that the immense plain now rich with sugar and cotton fields, a great emporium, numerous villages and a thousand villas, was formed by the mechanical deposits of the Mississippi upon the bed of the ocean, precisely as they are now building up fields into the Mexican Gulf. Do not understand me that the present fertile surface of this region was the original bed of the ocean, but that it rose out of it, as the coral islands come up out of the sea, by the gradual accumulation of deposits. The appearance of these inland promontories or cliffs, which suggested these remarks, and the fact that the highlands of the south-west, all terminate along the southern border of this region, from fifty to one hundred miles from the sea, leaving a broad alluvial tract between, and presenting a well defined inland sea-board, go far to strengthen the opinion I have adopted.
The chain of cliffs along the eastern shore of the Mississippi, have a parallel chain opposite to them on the other side of the great savana, skirted by the Mississippi, about forty miles distant. This savana or valley gradually widens to the south until near the mouth of the river, where it is increased to one hundred and forty or fifty miles in breadth. It is this great valley which is of mechanical formation, and its present site was in all probability covered by the waters of a bay similar to the Chesapeake, extending many leagues above Natchez to the nearest approximation of the cliffs on either side, where alone must have been an original mouth of this great river. Where the spectator, in looking westward from these bluffs; now beholds an extensive and level forest, in ages past rolled the waters of the Mexican sea—and where he now gazes upon a broad and placid river flowing onward to mingle with the distant ocean, the very waves of that ocean rolled in loud surges, dashed against the lofty cliffs, and kissed the pebbles at his feet.