them to fall and clear the land, but which they sometimes refuse to do for years.

The background is one unbroken forest, which would still be some relief to the eye if the trees were in foliage, but in March the forest presents only one long, low, and dusky outline. The islands along the Mississippi are a curious feature of this river. They number about one hundred and fifty-appearing and disappearing as the river rises or falls, or alters its course. Sometimes it sweeps away a whole plantation, at another time half of a town, and occasionally, when taking a short road to some tributary stream, it forms a clean-cut triangular island, which may last for years, and be only gradually washed away-dwindling down into a sand-bar, and at last disappearing altogether.

The towns on this portion of the Mississippi are few and far between. Austin was the first we touched at, and it presented the pleasing variety of a few hills-at the foot of which were half a dozen brick houses, a few others in wood, four churches, and a dilapidated court house. Numerous sheds and shanties were scattered promiscuously about in the mud-all of them slightly out of the perpendicular, but whether from the same cause as the leaning tower of Pisa I cannot say.

The next place was Helena, on the Arkansas

side of the river.

The main street fronted the

river, and no two houses, or, rather, dwelling places, in it, had the remotest likeness to each other. One faced gable-end, another had a round front, and one no front at all. It seemed to consist of one enormous sign-board, inscribed with the words "Eating Saloon," in letters which must have been visible for miles down the river.

Helena looked very dreary when we saw it, for the day was heavy with clouds, the river was dull-more muddy than ever-and its surface, and that of the gigantic puddles ashore, was ruffled by a cold and gusty north-easter. It was Sunday, too, and the Helenians had nothing to do, being, apparently, not of the class who • can make themselves "merry" with "singing psalms," and so they had sauntered wearily down, and picked out, a moderately wet spot on the landing-place, to see what excitement could be got out of the arrival of the steamer. As we swept out into the stream again we could not help casting glances of pity on those listless gazers, upon whom the twilight of that dreary Sunday afternoon was coldly settling down.

But Helena was well-to-do and cheerful compared with our next halting place-Napoleon. There most of the houses, public buildings, and churches, had no bottom at all, and absolutely

stood upon pegs. We thought at first that it was some novel and scientific mode of ventilation, on the principle of keeping the feet cool-the men of Arkansas being proverbially hot-headed. But it turned out that the Yankee soldiers had helped themselves to the lower portions of the buildings for fuel, or other purposes. Anything so utterly woe-begone and desolate as Napoleon, could never be described by any pen. Somebody on board the steamer said it looked " Godforsaken." Perhaps it did. What remained of it was almost an island-the great river having a few years before taken a short cut to the little river, and washed Napoleon away, regardless of the interests of a widow-lady, who owned the greater part of the city, and who, between the depredations of the Yankees, and the ravages of the waters, found her income reduced from a hundred thousand dollars a year, to a hundred dollars a month.

The Code Napoleon in practice there was to shoot any and every man that offended you. I was told on very good authority, viz., clerical, that there were only three men in Napoleon who had not conformed to the code by shooting, or otherwise destroying, some one who had offended them. It was not to be supposed that those three men would survive long, as, in default of conforming, they were pretty sure to be shot

themselves. However, there yet was hope for them, for they had lately been petitioning the bishop for a priest to be sent there. But Napoleon was fast falling a victim to the caprices of the Mississippi, one of which was to transfer the property from one individual to another, or to remove a whole estate from one State or county to another. An immense estate, belonging to the brother of the ex-President of the Confederate States, was transferred from the State of Mississippi to that of Louisiana.

We had not the pleasure of seeing President Davis, but if he is of the same stamp and intellectual calibre as his brother must have been in his younger days, the President is a man well worth knowing, and one whom any nation might be proud to call her son. Indeed, Col. Joe Davis, although upwards of eighty years of age, had retained all his clearness of intellect and brilliancy of conversation.

CHAPTER XXX.

VICKSBURG, MISSISSIPPI.

ICKSBURG is the city of America most calculated to live in history, not so much from its memorable siege, as from its being more likely, owing to its situation among the fifty and one hills, to survive the vicissitudes which overtake other towns on the Mississippi. From the "caving in" of the ground, from the overflowing of the river, and from the capricious route it often takes, there is no telling where the largest towns on the Mississippi may be fifty, or even ten, years hence, for in Napoleon we sailed over the main street, having fifty feet of water under our keel, where only six years before we might have walked high and dry.

But the river would never attempt the assault of Vicksburg, the capitol of which stands perhaps one hundred and fifty feet above the highest tides. The worst that could befall it, would be

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