The rich and luxuriant character of the scenery, which charms and attracts the eye of the traveller as he ascends the Mississippi from New-Orleans to Baton Rouge, is now changed. A broad, turbid flood, rolling through a land of vast forests, alone meets the eye, giving sublime yet wild and gloomy features to the scene. On looking from the cabin window, I see only a long, unbroken line of cotton trees, with their pale green foliage, as dull and void of interest as a fog-bank. The opposite shore presents the same appearance; and so it is, with the occasional relief of a plantation and a "landing place," comprising a few buildings, the whole distance to Natchez. A wretched cabin, now and then, varies the wild appearance of the banks—the home of some solitary wood-cutter. Therefore, as I cannot give you descriptions of things abroad, I must give you an account of persons on board.
There are in the cabin about forty passengers, of both sexes. Two of the most genteel-looking among them, so far as dress goes, I am told, are professed "black-legs;" or, as they more courteously style themselves, "sporting gentlemen."—There is an organized body of these ci-devant gentry upon the river, who have local agents in every town, and travelling agents on board the principal steamboats. In the guise of gentlemen, they "take in" the unwary passenger and unskilful player, from whom they often obtain large sums of money. I might relate many anecdotes illustrative of their mode of operating upon their victims; but I defer them to some future occasion. As the same sportsmen do not go twice in the same boat, the captains do not become so familiar with their persons as to refuse them passage, were they so inclined. It is very seldom, however, when they are known, that they are denied a passage, as gambling is not only permitted but encouraged on most of the boats, by carrying a supply of cards in the bar, for the use of the passengers. Even the sanctity of the Sabbath is no check to this amusement: all day yesterday the tables were surrounded with players, at two of which they were dealing "faro;" at the third playing "brag." And this was on the Sabbath! Indeed the day was utterly disregarded by nearly every individual on board. Travelling is a sad demoralizer. My fellow-passengers seemed to have adopted the sailors' maxim, "no Sunday off soundings." Their religion was laid by for shore use. One good, clever-looking old lady, was busily engaged all the morning hemming a handkerchief; when some one remarked near her, "This time last Sunday we made the Balize."—"Sunday! to-day Sunday!" she exclaimed, in the utmost consternation, "Is to-day Sunday, sir?"
"It is indeed, madam."
"Oh, me! what a wicked sinner I am! O dear, that I should sew on Sunday!"—and away she tottered to her state-room, amidst the pitiless laughter of the passengers, with both hands elevated in horror, and ejaculating, "Oh me! what a wicked sinner! How could I forget!" In a short time she returned with a Bible; and I verily believe that she did not take her eyes from it the remainder of the day, unless it might be to wipe her spectacles.—Good old soul! she was leaven to the whole lump of our ungodly company.
There are several French gentlemen; one important looking personage, who bears the title of general, and seems amply to feel the dignity it confers; three or four Mississippi cotton planters, in large, low-crowned, broad-brimmed, white fur hats, wearing their clothes in a careless, half sailor-like, half gentleman-like air, dashed with a small touch of the farmer, which style of dressing is peculiar to the Mississippi country gentleman. They are talking about negroes, rail-roads, and towing shipping. There is also a travelling Yankee lawyer, in a plain, stiff, black coat, closely buttoned up to his chin, strait trowsers, narrow hat, and gloves—the very antipodes, in appearance, to the non chalant, easy, care-for-nothing air of his southern neighbours. A Methodist minister, in a bottle-green frock coat, fancy vest, black stock, white pantaloons and white hat, is sitting apart by the stove, deeply engaged upon the pages of a little volume, like a hymn-book. Any other dress than uniform black for a minister, would, at the north, be deemed highly improper, custom having thus so decided; but here they wear just what Providence sends them or their own taste dictates. There are two or three fat men, in gray and blue—a brace of bluff, manly-looking Germans—a lynx-eyed, sharp-nosed New-York speculator—four old French Jews, with those noble foreheads, arched brows, and strange-expressioned eyes, that look as though always weeping—the well-known and never to be mistaken characteristics of this remarkable people. The remainder of our passengers present no peculiarities worth remarking. So I throw them in, tall and short, little and big, and all sorts and sizes, to complete the motley "ensemble" of my fellow-travellers.
Among the ladies, besides the aged sinner of the pocket-handkerchief, are a beautiful, dark-eyed, dark-haired Virginian, and an intelligent, young married lady from Vermont, accompanied by her only child, a handsome, spirited boy, between four and five years of age. The little fellow and I soon became great friends; in testimony whereof, he is now teasing me to allow him to scrawl his enormous pot-hooks over my sheet, by way of assisting me in my letter. An apology for his rudeness, by his mother, opened the way for a conversation; during which I discovered that she possessed a highly cultivated mind, great curiosity, as a stranger in a strange land, and her full share of Yankee inquisitiveness. She was always upon the "guard," resolved that nothing worthy of observation should escape her inquiring eye. She was a pure New-England interrogative. So far as it was in my power, it afforded me pleasure to reply to her questions, which, as a stranger to southern scenery, manners and customs, it was very natural she should put to any one. With a southerner I might have journeyed from Montreal to Mexico, without being questioned so often as I have been in this short passage from New-Orleans. But unless we can answer their innumerable questions, (which, by the way, are most usually of a strongly intelligent cast), travelling Yankee ladies are certainly, unless young and pretty, a little annoying. I mean, always, the inquisitive ones; for there are some who are far from being so. When a northerner is not inquisitive, the fact may generally be ascribed to intellectual dullness, or an uncultivated mind: in a southerner, to constitutional indolence and love of quiet, which are enemies to one jot more corporeal or mental exertion than is absolutely requisite to enable them to glide through existence. I do not rank my fellow-traveller in the class of the troublesome inquisitives—though full of curiosity, compared with the "daughters of the sun,"—but she is no more so than any intelligent person should be in a strange, and by no means uninteresting country.
"The general" is quite the lion on board. It would amuse you to observe the gaping mouths, fixed eyes, and attentive looks around, when the general speaks. He is the oracle—the ne plus ultra of excellence—the phoenix of generals!
By this time you must be wearied with my prosing about persons of whom you know nothing, and are probably waiting for more interesting subjects for description. Thus far, with the exception of one bluff, with a few buildings perched upon its summit, there has been no variety in the monotony of the gloomy forests which overhang the river.
Ellis's cliffs, which present the wildest and most romantic scenery upon the Mississippi below St. Louis, are now in sight. They rise proudly from the river, and compared with the tame features of the country, are invested with the dignity of mountains. They exhibit a white perpendicular face to the river, and are about one hundred and fifty feet in height. Gold and silver ore have been lately found in the strata of the cliffs; but not in sufficient purity and quantity to induce the proprietors to excavate in search of them. Here are discovered the first stones—small pebbles of recent formation—that are seen on ascending the river. The surrounding country, which is nearly on a level with the summit of the cliffs, recedes pleasantly undulating from the river, rich with highly cultivated cotton plantations, and ornamented with the elegant residences of the planters. It is said that few countries in the world possess a more beautifully diversified surface—or one more pleasantly distributed in hills and valleys. In the vicinity also, of this romantic spot, Chateaubriand has laid some of the scenes of his wild and splendid fiction "Atala."
We are now within twenty miles of Natchez. The river is here very circuitous, making the distance much greater than by land. The shores continue to exhibit the peculiarly gloomy and inhospitable features which, with the occasional exception of a high bluff, plantation or village, they present nearly to the mouth of the Ohio. The loud and startling report of a cannon in the bows of the boat, making her stagger and tremble through every beam, is the signal that our port is in sight—a pile of gray and white cliffs with here and there a church steeple, a roof elevated above its summit, and a light-house hanging on the verge! At the foot of the bluffs are long straggling lines of wooden buildings, principally stores and store-houses; the Levée is fringed with flat boats and steamers, and above all, tower majestically the masts of two or three ships. The whole prospect from the deck presents an interesting scene of commercial life and bustle. But this is not Natchez! The city proper is built upon the summit level, the tops of whose buildings and trees can be seen from the boat, rising higher than the cliff. The ascent from the lower town, or as it is commonly designated, "under the hill", is by an excavated road, of moderate elevation. The whole appearance of the place from the deck is highly romantic. On our left, opposite Natchez, is Vidalia, in Louisiana, a pleasant village of a few houses, built on one street parallel with the river. Here, in a pleasant grove above the town, is the "field of honour," where gentlemen from Mississippi occasionally exchange leaden cards—all in the way of friendship.