been bombarded at all, though several hundred tons of iron had been thrown into it, and only when a building was set on fire did any serious damage appear to have been done. The capitol, for instance, was somewhat dilapidated from loss of plaster, etc., but not more than could be effected in an hour by Edinburgh students with brick-bats. The Catholic and other churches were constantly made targets of, yet they bore little traces of damage.

CHAPTER XXXI.

NATCHEZ, MISSISSIPPI.-THE CITY OF ROSES.

ATCHEZ, for its size, was the most beautiful city I had seen in the South, and its site-a high bluff, projecting

into the river like a promontory-one of the most romantic on the Mississippi. The clayey soil had all the appearance of precipitous rocks, embowered in a luxuriant growth of flowering trees, such as the white acacia, the lilac, the china tree, the superb magnolia, and a perfect wilderness of roses. It would be difficult to imagine a more complete earthly paradise than Natchez at about the middle of April. That part of the town called "Natchez under the Hill" lies at the foot of the bluff, and close upon the brink of the river, where the road winds up to the main portion of the town, and behind the bluff.

The streets are well lined with the china, or other shady trees, and nearly all the private

houses have well-kept gardens, in which flowers of every sort abound, filling the air with fragrance, and regaling the eyes with delight. The variety of roses appeared endless. In one garden, belonging to a Scotchman, they must have numbered hundreds, and in quantity amounted to many waggon-loads. There the blue-bird, the "owasa," was flitting about radiating cobalt wherever the sun touched its gleaming wings; also the "cardinal," and the oriole - their plumage forming a brilliant contrast with the dark glossy leaves of the magnolia. The air seemed laden with the sweet notes of the mocking-birds, and once or twice, from the shrubbery, rose the whirr of a flight of partridges. A pleasanter spot than this Scotchman's residence can scarcely be imagined or described. Beautifully situated upon the river, every improvement to which art and good taste could suggest had been adopted to increase its natural beauties, and almost every shrub and flower was there to be seen in perfection. In a cool, shady arbour, formed of the evergreen cape-myrtle, young squirrels were frolicking about, very much at home, and quite inclined. for a little mischief with any stray visitor intruding upon their sanctum.

Natchez, before the war, it appeared, had been the Bath or Clifton of the South, and the

residences had more the appearance of wealtlı and style than those of any Southern city, with the exception of Charleston and New Orleans. They were the town residences of the planters, who owned large estates on the Mississippi, but who lived, for the most part, at Natchez, as being more healthy than the low bottom lands of the river. The houses were mostly detached, and really merited the name of family residences. They were solidly constructed of brick, covered with brown cement, resembling stone, and had massive columns, ascending from the front doorway to the top gable of the house, giving to it a majestic appearance, and affording also a delightful shade. Natchez has no public buildings of any pretensions, the Catholic church, as usual, bearing the palm. The neighbouring country is hilly and romantic, the more so from a peculiar tendency of the earth to split, thus forming deep ravines, which finally settle into wooded dells. Two of these, called the "punch-bowls," are very curious, having the appearance of two basons, some fifty or sixty feet deep. Their sides are precipitous, and rounded like a bason at the bottom. Large trees grow in them, whose branches do not reach the top. Roses, jessamine, and verbena, grow wild over the whole country, and the profusion of white clover would indicate a rich grazing land. But there

are no sheep or cattle, not even goats. Pigs there are, but their natural food is not grass, and they cannot fatten upon it. The very

indifferent mutton is brought from another part of the country.

Everywhere the same want of husbandry and farming was observable-the one prominent idea being cotton-aut cotton aut nullus. They must eat, drink, live, sleep, have their being, and save their souls, by cotton. If cotton fails, they find themselves destitute of everything else; yet, with a little management and industry, the inhabitants of these favoured climes need scarcely know a want. Artichokes, inestimable for feeding poultry, are almost ineradicable from the soil, yet poultry are left to forage for themselves, and have to exert their muscles so much in this undertaking, that when cooked, they usually represent so much roast or boiled hemp. Nature has done everything and man little or nothing.

Natchez could not then boast of a railroad to anywhere, and the whole of its traffic was carried on by water. As this is more or less uncertain, letters only pretended to arrive or depart twice a week, by steamers which called in, sometimes one day, sometimes another, or being blown up, burnt, or otherwise lost, did not call at all. We had a narrow escape of being