CHAP. XXXII.] TRANSFER OF STATE-HOUSE. Id 



Curiosity led me to order the last-mentioned beverage ; but I 

 soon repented, finding it to be a liquid of a pink color, made of the 

 root of the sassafras tree, and having a very medicinal taste. I 

 was told that many here drink it for their health ; but the general, 

 seeing that I did not relish it, supplied me with some good &quot; foreign&quot; 

 tea. My host then introduced me to several of the lawyers who 

 sat near me, which gave me an opportunity of asking whether 

 there was any truth in the story told me by some of the Whigs 

 at New Orleans, of the manner in which the seat of legislature 

 had been transferred from Natchez to Jackson. I related the 

 story, which was as follows : Natchez was the metropolis of 

 the state, and the chief town of Adams County, which was so 

 wealthy as to pay a third of all the taxes in Mississippi. It was 

 a city to which the richest and best-informed citizens resorted, 

 representing both the landed and moneyed interests of the state. 

 It was, moreover, a center of communication, because it com 

 manded the navigation of the great river. That the Houses of 

 Legislature should meet here, was so natural and convenient, so 

 fitted to promote good government, that the Democratic party 

 could not be expected to put up, for many years, with an arrange 

 ment of affairs so reasonable and advantageous. They accord 

 ingly decided, by a majority, that some change must be made, 

 and gave orders to a surveyor to discover the exact geographical 

 center of the state. He found it in a wilderness, about fifty miles 

 in a straight line east of Natchez, and pointed out an old cypress 

 tree, in the middle of a swamp, accessible only by a canoe, as the 

 spot they were in search of. This was welcome news ; all might 

 now be placed on a footing of equality, the spot being equally 

 inaccessible and inconvenient for all. When the architect, how 

 ever, came to build the capitol, he took the liberty, instead of 

 erecting the edifice on piles in the center of the swamp, to place 

 it on an adjoining rising ground, from which they had cleared 

 away the native wood, a serious abandonment of principle, as it 

 was several hundred yards from the true geographical center. 1 



When my auditors had done laughing at this Louisiana version 

 of a passage in their history, they said, the tale, after all, was 

 not so exaggerated as it might have been, considering the vexation 



