riflemen.* But the British colonel, to whom the duty had been assigned of seeing that the scaling implements were brought up, had forgotten it. Yet, without these, three times did the British advance to the works; and three times were the first ranks swept away to a man by the fire of an unseen foe. At length they retired unpursued; their commander-in-chief being killed, and two of their generals wounded, one mortally, and about 2000, officers and men, having been killed or wounded. On burying the dead, nearly a thousand bodies in British uniforms, without one American corpse among them, were found within the space of a few hundred yards. One soldier succeeded in getting to the top of the innermost works, and he expired of his wounds the next day. His dying request was that his colonel might be informed that he had mounted the rampart. It was complied with by the Americans, by whom, indeed, the wounded were very kindly treated. I endeavoured in vain to learn his name. And now a word to the people of New Orleans. I had rather lie with the slaughtered in the dank swamp below your city, than-as a son of those who took their aim from behind a rampart of cotton bales with the cool deliberation of perfect safety-be the man to insult and trample upon the graves of heroes. Siste! Heroes calcas! If not, let the Persians exult in Thermopyla! The battle of New Orleans was the last of those conflicts—may it ever continue to be the last-in which we were engaged with our American kindred. The impulses of the heart, and the reasonings of the head, alike call for our fraternal union; and on that, perhaps, under Providence, may hang for untold ages the constitutional liberties of the human race. If the tourist should desire to proceed from New Orleans to New York by "the western waters," he may ascend the Mississippi and Ohio rivers to Pittsburg, in magnificent steam-boats, with an uninterrupted navigation of 2025 miles; and then, from Pittsburg may proceed, in a journey of about two days and nights, partly by coaches and partly by railroad-cars, to the great commercial city of "the Empire State." The traveller, according to this route, leaving the sugar plantations of. Louisiana, with their adjacent orange groves, and their evergreen oaks, the branches of which are laden with a long grey moss, resembling at a distance the nets of fishermen hung to dry, soon arrives at "the bluff," or high bank, of Natches; where fields of cotton take the place of those of sugar-cane, and where are country houses, with grounds kept in as good order as those around an English gentleman's seat. He has been told of the snags, and sandbanks, and double-pressure engine-boilers, which endanger him who confides himself to the Mississippi; but has disregarded the warnings. Yet at Natches he remembers with a sigh, that he is near the spot, where, worn out by disease, fatigue, and disappointment, died, on the 21st of May, 1542, Ferdinand de Soto; and that, ominously for his race, the discoverer of the Mississippi was buried beneath its waters. The most wonderful characteristic of this great river is, that, for much more than a thousand miles, it continues, in its progress, to swallow up *The facts connected with General Adair I was told by his son-in-law, a distinguished judge of one of the United States' courts. + Idem. immense rivers without disclosing on its surface the slightest accession to its mighty bulk. Along the banks of its southern portion, grows, selfplanted, in the greatest abundance, a tree, called the cotton-wood, something resembling our lime-tree. It is a regular business to cut and stack this wood, and then to sell it at so much a cord to the steam-boats to burn in their furnaces. Fortunately it is of most rapid growth, or the supply could not equal the demand. I was assured (however paradoxical it may seem) that a steamer makes her journey more rapidly up than down this river; for every time that, in descending, she has to stop, she must make a wide sweep in order to bring her head up against the stream.. The water is muddy, and of a leaden colour, but is considered very wholesome. And the paternal duties of "the father of waters" seem to be more extended than his name denotes, as the beverage (if it may be whispered without scandal) is said also to be very prolific. After leaving the southern Mississippi, with its generally low banks of rich alluvial soil, ten or twelve feet in thickness, and entering the hilly, yet not mountainous, district watered by the beautiful Ohio, we lose sight of cotton-fields, but a fine maize-growing and grazing country presents itself to the view. Space forbids me to describe the three great cities of the Ohio, Louisville, Cincinnati, and Pittsburg; the last of which, being in a neighbourhood where coal and iron are to be procured, has become the Birmingham of America. Neither may I dilate upon the warm true hearts and open hands of Kentucky; nor the hospitable roofs of its sweet inland town of Lexington, surrounded by the straightest and tallest oaks and the richest grass that I ever saw, and honoured by having its neighbourhood selected for his residence by the venerable statesman Mr. Clay. I will, however, just add a few remarks on a business to which we have nothing parallel in England, and turn one lingering retrospect to my impressions of the Mammoth Cave. In the rich lands of the state of Kentucky and the State of Ohio, great quantities of Indian corn, called by the Americans simply "corn". par excellence, are raised; and, in order to save the expense of drawing it in waggons a great distance over indifferent roads to Louisville and Cincinnati for exportation, the inhabitants keep large droves of pigs, called by the Americans "hogs," in their woods during the spring and summer, and at the end of autumn turn them for a month into the fields of Indian corn, to tread down and eat up the crop. This they call "giving the crop legs." They then, as soon as the first frost of winter sets in, drive the fattened animals to their river ports, where they are killed, salted, put in barrels, and shipped off. On the 5th of September, 1850, I went over the pork-house of Messrs. Jackson, Owsley, and Co., in Louisville. They were then killing 1400 pigs a day, but they had been killing as many as 2000 pigs, and can kill as many as 2500, a day. The pigs were driven up to a narrow point, where they were let into a raised slaughter-house one by one. There This grass, from its tint, is commonly spoken of as "the blue grass of Kentucky." It rises spontaneously when the undergrowth of cane has been cleared away from the woods. I have been told that after a time it dies or changes its qualities; but this curious statement I had not an opportunity of satisfactorily authenticating. they immediately received a violent blow on the head (just behind the ear, I believe) from a hammer, having a circular iron or leaden head, when-how unlike, alas! the killing of a pig with us—they "died, and made no sign." As soon as they fell, a knife was stuck into their necks to make them bleed. They were then pushed forward into a large trough of hot water, and deprived of their bristles by scraping; then taken out at the other end, disembowelled, passed on to another portion of the building, and hung up to cool. The next day they were in a minute cut up, and packed with salt in barrels, for exportation to New Orleans and New York-thence to be distributed over the world. From Louisville, a sixteen or eighteen hours' journey takes the tourist to "the mammoth cave of Kentucky." It is situated in a hilly district of limestone rock; and has waters where swim fish, in which, through the reasonable thriftfulness of nature, that bestows nothing in vain, the eye has never been developed, but is entirely covered beneath the skin.-Would their descendants, if removed into the light, obtain their sight? Ay! and would the foot, the skin, the hair, the skull, and the intellect of the negro, if his race were for countless ages engrafted on Europe, develop the European peculiarities ?-Well, in the mammoth cave I proceeded by torchlight nine miles under ground, occasionally in boats across rivers, but mostly on dry land. It was sometimes rising to the height of hundreds of feet, sometimes so low that I had to stoop in walking; at one time awful with solemn aisles filled with stalactite pillars, at another time terrible with rocky roofs which had fallen, or were threatening to fall; it was one while black with manganese, another while resplendent with gypsum spars. Now Tartarus-now Elysium-now Pandemonium -now fairyland-it gives the traveller new ideas, and illustrates old ones. In my expedition I was accompanied by a negro slave of considerable intelligence, who acts as guide; and who, according to the will of his late master, Dr. Croghan, is shortly to be emancipated and sent to Liberia. He had been one of an exploring party that had discovered in the cave a river, which has been named the Echo River. His voice is good; and, as we crossed that river, he sang a song, which was exquisitely reverberated. I asked him if he should not, when in Africa, often think of the mammoth cave; he answered, in a voice of much feeling, "Often." Suggested by these incidents, the few following lines were written by me, as Stephen's Adieu to the Echo of the Mammoth Cave." They have been published by the editor of the Washington National Intelligencer, to whom they were given by one of my friends 66 : The silent darkness of the grave When first I waked thee in thy cave And taught thee love notes sound for sound. I now must seek far Afric's lands Across the broad Atlantic sea; Yet 'neath her palms, or 'mid her sands, Thou breathedst on thy first fond lover. YOUNG TOM HALL'S HEART-ACHES AND HORSES. CHAPTER XIV. THE County papers, after coming out blank, or as good as blank, all the summer, at length gave symptoms of returning animation, and Eureka Shirts, Parr's Pills, and Dental Surgery advertisements found themselves "slap by cheek," as Colonel Blunt called it, with "Hunting Appointments." Three varmint-looking short-tailed pinks that had long been ornamenting Scissors and Tape's window, disappeared; Felt, the hatter, had imported some best-made London caps; Corns, the bootmaker, exhibited rows of variously-tinted tops; while Gag, the saddler, placed a whole sheaf of highly-finished whips, and long lines of glittering spurs, in his bay-windowed shop. A few frosty nights had brought the leaves showering from the trees, while four-and-twenty hours' rain had saturated the ground, making it fit for that best of all sports, fox-hunting. Bigbreeched, knock-kneed, brandy-nosed caitiffs began to steal into towns from their summer starvings, offering themselves as grooms, or helpers, or clippers, or sinegars, or shavers, or anything-anything except honest work. All things bespoke the approaching campaign. Our military friends partook of the mania. "Let's give old Cheer a benefit," exclaimed Colonel Blunt, from the right of the president of the mess, on the evening the fixtures appeared -"let's give old Cheer a benefit at his Park meet. Let's cut a dash with the drag, and I'll drive," added he, the above being roared out in his usual stentorian strain, slightly impeded by the quantity of roast pig he had eaten, or rather devoured. "I vote we do," lisped Major Fibs, from the opposite side of the table, adding, "Who'll stand an orth?" 66 Goody Two-shoes is much at your service, sir," observed Captain Dazzler, who wanted a little leave of absence. "That's right!" exclaimed the colonel, with a thump of his fist on the table. "Cockatoo also," bowed Adjutant Collop, who was in strong competition with Fibs for the colonel's favour. "I'll stand Billy Roughun," observed Pippin, from the bottom of the table. "That's right!" repeated the colonel. "Goody Two-shoes, Cockatoo, and Billy Roughun, that's three-only want another to make up a team." "You are welcome to old Major Pendennis," squeaked little Jug, "if you don't mind his knuckling over knees." “Oh, hang his knees!" responded the colonel; "four horses are four horses, and if he does tumble down he'll get up again at his leisure; but when the weight's off their backs there's no great temptation to tumble. Well," continued he, "that'll do-Goody and Cock for wheelers, and the Major and Roughun for leaders; or s'pose we put Roughun at the wheel, and Cock and Pen leaders ?" "Nothing can be better," observed Fibs. "Nothing," ejaculated Collop. "We must have the drag overhauled," observed the colonel; "and I vote we have the ballet-girl-Taglioni, or whatever you call her-painted out, and a great rattling Fox with a tallyho' painted in. It'll please old Cheer, and p'r'aps get us invited to the Castle-they tell me the old man has an undeniable cook." "I'll tell you what we'll do!-I'll tell you what we'll do !" continued the colonel. "We'll go and breakfast with the old boy. He gives a spread-cold pies, pork-chops, pigeons, porter-all the delicacies of the season in short, at least he did the last time we were quartered here, and make no doubt he does still." "We'd better not go on speculation, I think," observed Captain Mattyfat, who was very fond of his food. "How would it do to have a jolly good breakfast here and lunch with his lordship?" "And have that fat Hall up and make him muzzy," suggested Jug, helping himself to an overflowing bumper of port. "Oh, Hall's a good fellow," growled the colonel; "I won't have him run down." "We don't want to run him down" squeaked Jug, "we only want to make him comfortable." "I'll make you comfortable," roared the colonel, his blood-shot eyes flashing with indignation-"I'll make you comfortable," repeated he, "with an extra drill on that day;" a threat that produced a hearty guffaw from the company. Jug bit his lips, for he saw that Hall was the favourite, as well with the colonel as with Angelena and mamma. "Well, but about the wrag," resumed the colonel, "how shall it be? Breakfast or no breakfast-that's the question," "Oh, breakfast by all means before you start," exclaimed several voices. "A man's good for nothing without his breakfast," observed Captain, Pippin. "Have your breakfast before you go, whatever you do, and what you get extra will be all so much gained," assented Matty fat. "True," replied the colonel-"true. Pass the bottle, and I'll tell you what we'll do I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll make a day of it—we'll make a day of it; we'll have a light breakfast here-slops (catlap, you know) and so on-then drive there and have a regular tuck-out; broiled bones, sherry coblers, sausages, and so on." The colonel munching and smacking his lips, as if he was engaged with a plateful. "And send the horses on, I suppose ?" observed Mr. Gape. "Oh, of course," replied the colonel-" of course you wouldn't disgrace the regiment by riding your own horse on-that would never do. No, send them to Heartycheer's, get them fed, and so on: cost nothin'-old man has plenty of money. One groom will take two horses. Servants will come back in the drag, you know." "That'll do capitally, thir," observed Major Fibs. "Capitally!" exclaimed the opposition toady. "You've a wonderful talent for arrangement," observed Major Fibs. "Wonderful!" echoed the other. |