CHAP. XXXII.] VICKSBURG TO MEMPHIS. 163 



are their opinions, and how they would vote on certain questions. 

 I met with more men of property in Mississippi who spoke as if 

 they belonged to an oppressed class, governed by a rude, ignorant, 

 and coarse democracy, than in any other part of my tour. &quot;Many 

 of our poorest citizens,&quot; they said, &quot; would freely admit, that nothing 

 is so difficult, for the individual, as self-government, and yet hold 

 that nothing is so easy and safe as self-government for the million, 

 even where education has been carried no farther than here, where 

 there are still seven counties without a single school-house, and 

 large districts where the inhabitants have but recently been con 

 verted to Christianity by itinerant Methodists. They forgot that 

 even honorable and enlightened men will sometimes do, in their 

 corporate capacity, what each individual would be ashamed to do 

 if he acted singly.&quot; When I heard these remarks, and reflected 

 that even in those parts of the state where the whites are most 

 advanced, as in Adams County, more than half the population 

 are slaves, I felt more surprise that English capitalists had lent 

 so much money to Mississippi, than that they had repented of it. 

 At the same time there is more hope for the future, for education 

 must come. 



The town of Vicksburg is beautifully situated on the slope of 

 a wooded bluff, about 180 feet high, and walks might be made, 

 commanding the river, which would be delightful. At present 

 no one can roam along the paths in the suburbs, as they are dis 

 gracefully filthy. * 



We took our passage in the Andrew Jackson steamer, from 

 Vicksburg to Memphis, a distance of 390 miles, and paid only 

 six dollars each (25 shillings), board and lodging included. The 

 monotony of the scenery on the great river for several hundred 

 miles together, is such as to grow wearisome. Scarcely any ves 

 sels with sails are seen, all the old schooners and smaller craft 

 having been superseded by the great steam-ships. The traveler 

 becomes tired of always seeing a caving bank on one side, and 

 an advancing sand-bar, covered with willows and poplars, on the 



* For observations on the Geology of Jackson and Vicksburg, see a paper 

 by the Author, Journ. of Geol. Soc. London, vol. iv. p. 15, 1847, and Silli- 

 man s Journal, Second Series, vol. iv. p. 186, Sept. 1847. 



