At our hotel I encountered a gentleman who, a few weeks before, had been a fellow-passenger with me from New York to Charleston; but his advance had been less prosperous than mine: indeed, a brief relation of what he had endured sufficed to reconcile me to any little fatigue that fell to my lot. It appeared that, three weeks previous to this meeting of ours, he had quitted Columbus in a steamer going down to Appalachicola: they had proceeded some three hundred miles on their way, when, in the night, the passengers were roused from sleep by the alarm of "fire!" The boat was, in fact, a mass of flame by the time the first persons reached the deck. My informant, with many others, immediately jumped overboard: the steamer was run on the bank; and, with the exception of two persons drowned, the rest of her passengers and crew were landed in the forest; most of them with nothing in the shape of covering excepting their night-clothes. Luckily, there were only two ladies of the party; and their condition may be imagined, living for four days in the forest swamp without other than temporary huts for shelter, and in all other respects most scantily provided for, as the suddenness of the fire prevented any saving of stores or provisions.
At the end of four days the up-river steamer was hailed on its passing, and, getting on board of this, they were in a few days after landed where I found my informant waiting for the next boat. It appeared that the fire was attributed to a slave who had been the day before flogged for mutiny, and who, according to the evidence of his fellows, had threatened some such revenge.
During the afternoon I walked about this thriving frontier town, despite a smart shower: the stores were well supplied, the warehouses filled with cotton, and in all quarters were groups of the neighbouring planters busied in looking after the sale of their produce, and making such purchases as their families required.
Numerous parties of Indians,—Creeks and Choctaws,—roamed about from place to place, mostly drunk, or seeking to become so as quickly as possible: with each party of the natives I observed a negro-man, the slave of some one present, but commonly well dressed in the European manner, having an air of superior intelligence to his masters, and evidently exercising over them the power and influence derived from superior knowledge: the negroes, in fact, appeared the masters, and the red-men the slaves.
Along the river-front of the town, a situation wildly beautiful, I observed several dwellings of mansion-like proportions, and others of a similar character in progress. I should say, that nowhere in this South country have I yet seen a place which promises more of the prosperity increasing wealth can bestow than this; or one that, from all I learned, is more wanting in all that men usually consider most worth possessing,—personal security, reasonable comfort, and well-executed law. In place of these, affrays ending in blood are said to be frequent, apprehensions few, acquittal next to certain even in the event of trial, and the execution of a white man a thing unknown.
In the midst of all this, be it understood, I do not consider that a traveller runs the least risk; robbery, or murder for the sake of mere plunder, never occurs; and to a stranger the rudest of these frontier spirits are usually exceedingly civil; but idleness, hot blood, and frequent stimulants make gambling or politics ready subjects for quarrels, and, as the parties always go armed, an affray is commonly fatal to some of those concerned.
As the population steadily advances, these wild spirits melt away before it, some becoming good citizens, others clearing out before the onward march of civilization: their sway is therefore yearly decreasing in force within the States, their sphere becoming limited in proportion as persons interested in the support of law increase; already, each season, numbers seek freedom from restraint within the Mexican territory, where an infusion of such blood will be productive of strange events in Texas; and if this fine territory be not, within a very short period, rendered over-hot a berth for its Mexican proprietors, "coming events cast their shadows before" to very little purpose.