are generally bounded by swamps and cane grounds. These, together with numerous ponds, lakes, and marshes, render the climate unhealthy. In the months of August, September, and October, the fevers become predominant and contagious. The soil is sandy. The chief productions are cotton, rice, Indian corn, and indigo. The produce of these is abundant and of high quality. The culture of indigo is nearly renounced. After several years of sad experience, the planters at length found out, that, on an average, it killed every negro employed in its culture in the short space of five years. Notwithstanding this monstrous discovery, there are still a few who pursue the murderous traffic. The poor slaves they employ are reduced to mere skeletons, and exhibit the number of their days in a poisoned aspect, and the melancholy expression of languor and debility which mark their countenance

So well assured are the

But it is

and frame. indigo planters of the number of days their slaves have to live, that it is a common practice with them to send them to New Orleans market for sale, before the expiration of the average period of five years, and there buy new wretches to undergo the same toil, and be destined the same short space to live. now so generally understood at New Orleans, and elsewhere, that Indigo slaves have the fountain of life irrevocably corrupted, that little or no price can be obtained for them, and for the future it is probable they will be permitted to die on the spot where they are poisoned, without being exposed to the degradation of being dragged through the country, and put up to sale at public auction before an insulting and unfeeling multitude.

I took a ride into the interior to visit the remains of the nation of the

Natchez Indians, once the most powerful and enlightened people of all the continent of America. Their tradition says, they came from South America, and indeed their habits, customs, and manners, say the same thing. They are now reduced to a few hundreds. When the Anglo-Americans first became acquainted with them, they courted their alliance, and dreaded their enmity more than that of any other tribe. The ravage of war, the small-pox, and spirituous liquors, have since reduced their number and character, and they are now slighted and despised. I shall only remark them for one particular: they are nations of Indians East of the Missippi, who worship the sun, and who used to offer to that luminary human sacrifices, which they consumed in fires, attended by priests, whose office it was to renew and keep them up perpetually. Human sacrifice being forbidden by the

United States, the Indians now make offerings of the most valuable articles, and often burn property to some thousand dollars amount. Their manner is on the adoration-day to assemble round the eternal fire, as they call it, light a calumet and present it to the sun. Then certain persons called Children of the Sun, cast the sacrifice into the fire, and while it consumes, the warriors, and young men, women, and children, in separate circles dance and sing around. Missionaries and others strive to turn them from this destructive kind of devotion, but all in vain : they still persist, and on the day answering to our first of May, in particular, they are known to destroy nearly all the property they possess, and which they acquire by hunting. and trading with the States.

It is not true, that their fires are constantly alive. Several years have elapsed since they were suffered to ex

tinguish. They are now only illumined on particular festivals and state days. On my arrival at their village on a Western branch of the Alibama, I made very minute enquiries on the subject, but could gather no information more interesting than what I communicated to you from the Mouth of the Ozark.

Every thing which surpasses the understanding and capacity, every thing whose cause cannot be comprehended by Indians, is called by them "Spirit." There are two orders of Spirits: the good and the bad. The good is the Spirit of Dreams, and all things innocent and inconceivable. The bad is the thunder, the hail which destroys their corn, a tempest, and in short all things capable of inflicting distress and injury, and the cause of which they are not acquainted with. Hence, when the gun of a savage bursts and wounds him, he says the Evil Spirit was confined