Havannah, and Demopolis, all in Alabama, are examples.

It is about 200 miles before reaching Mobile that the low lands begin to be apparent on either bank, and here the swamps abound. The cypress flourishes in the greatest luxuriance in this region, and alligators and mocassin-snakes are frequent; one of the former was seen as we passed it basking in the sun, stretching out its length for twelve or thirteen feet.

About sixty miles before we reached Mobile we passed, on the right bank of the river, a solitary trunk of a tree, with all its branches gone, standing like a pillar in the wilderness. On the top, crowning it like the capital of a column, was an eagle's nest, in which the eagle was then seated; and one of the oldest pilots on the Alabama, who had been twenty years navigating the stream, told us that he remembered the eagle's nest as a landmark used by the pilots, when he first came upon the river, and he never recollected a single year in which the eagle did not brood over her young there, so that a sort of sanctity was now attached to the tree, which no one seemed disposed to disturb.

The principal fishes of the river are the sturgeon and the trout, both of which are abundant, large, and excellent; the cat-fish and the buffalo-fish are still more numerous, but are not so much esteemed. The shad, which are so plentiful in those rivers of Georgia and Virginia emptying their waters into the Atlantic, do not frequent any of the streams discharging themselves into the Gulf of Mexico.

About fifty miles before reaching Mobile, we passed the mouth of the large river Tumbuk bee,

usually spelt Tombigbee, which here runs into the Alabama. From this point of junction, on to the sea, these streams lose their respective names, and their united waters are called the River of Mobile, just as in Mesopotamia, the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates, where they unite in one, lose their distinctive names, and their mingled waters, and from Korna to the Gulf of Persia, into which they discharge, are called the River of the Arabs. Along the banks of the Tumbuk bee are prairies, or extensive undulating plains, without a tree for many miles. These were formerly occupied by the Choctaws and Chickasaws, tribes of Indians, who are now all gone westward to the regions beyond the Mississippi.

Not far from the junction is a military arsenal of the United States, at Mount Vernon, about three miles back from the landing-place on the right bank of the river. This arsenal and the navy-yard at Pensacola, not far to the eastward of Mobile, are the principal stations of the United States Government, for the general supply of their army and navy within and around the Gulf of Mexico.

It was past sunset before we drew near enough to Mobile to see the town, and it was then chiefly by their lights that the houses were visible. At halfpast seven we reached the wharf and landed, when we made our way to the Waverley House, where apartments had been previously provided for our reception, and were glad to find ourselves once more, after our tiresome land-journey across Georgia and Alabama, in a place of cleanliness, comfort, and repose.

CHAP. XVI.

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Description of the State of Alabama-Foundation, progress, and site of Mobile-Public buildings, academy, churches, hotelsPopulation, classes, and occupations - Dissolute manners, murders and outrages-Intemperate habits-Public bar-rooms -Fires and destruction of property from this cause-Hibernian Society-Concert-Newspaper manifesto-Municipal election -Drunkenness and riot.

THE State of Alabama, which we had now traversed, from Columbus to Mobile, is but of comparatively recent settlement and separation in its present form. It is thought, however, to have been visited, especially on its southern coast, at the same period that Florida and Louisiana were first explored. It was in 1539 that the Spanish governor of Cuba, Fernando de Soto, visited the territories named, in his way from Florida eastward to the banks of the Mississippi, where he died within three years after his leaving Cuba, when his dispirited followers soon dispersed, and became gradually scattered and extinct.

Nearly 180 years elapsed after this disastrous expedition, before any other European attempt to settle in these quarters was made. Early in the eighteenth century, 1718, the French formed the colony of Louisiana, which included not only the territory on each side the lower part of the Mississippi, but also the lands now forming the State of Alabama, at least near the coast, for the Indians still

276

ALABAMA ADMITTED INTO THE UNION.

possessed the interior; it was by the French settlers of Louisiana, that Mobile was first founded, and a fort built where the present city now stands.

The original charter granted by the crown of England to Georgia, covered, however, the greater part of this territory, from lat. 31° to lat. 35° N.; and this so remained until long after the American revolution, when, in 1802, a cession was made by Georgia, to the general government of the United States, of all her Western Territory, between the Chatahoochee and the Mississippi rivers. In 1800, the whole of this tract was erected into a territorial government, under the name of the Mississippi Territory, which continued a distinct section of the Union until 1817, when, by an act of Congress passed in March of that year, it was divided into two portions, the westernmost forming Mississippi, and the easternmost Alabama; the former enjoying the distinction of a State, from its greater extent of population, while the latter still remained a Territory. Within the next year, however, 1818, the increase of population was so rapid in Alabama, as to entitle it to admission into the Union as a State; and, accordingly, an act of Congress was passed, empowering the people of Alabama to form a constitution, which being done, and ratified by the national legislature, the new State became a member of the great Federal Union.

Just previous to this period, and for a few years after it, the inhabitants suffered greatly from the hostile incursions of the Creeks and Seminoles, the two most powerful and savage tribes of Indians, by whom the territory was occupied. Their complete subju

gation was only effected by long and sanguinary struggles, in which the troops of Tennessee, under General Jackson, subsequently president of the United States, took a conspicuous part. The Creeks and Seminoles dispersed chiefly into Florida, where the latter still remain in large numbers.

The State of Alabama, as at present constituted, is bounded on the north by Tennessee, on the south by part of Florida and the Gulf of Mexico, on the east by Georgia, and on the west by the State of Mississippi. Its length is 280 miles, its breadth 160, its area 46,000 square miles, or nearly 30,000,000 of acres; and nearly all this vast area is covered with productive soil.

zones.

The surface of the State is divided into three The southernmost, or that bordering on the Gulf of Mexico, is low, level, and swampy, covered with pine, cypress, willow, and other trees. Within this, and at an elevation of from ten to twenty feet above it, succeeds a fine rich black soil, covered with trees of hickory, black oak, post-oak, dogwood, and poplar. Beyond this, still receding inland, and at a higher elevation, are the prairies, which are widespreading plains of level or gently-waving land, without trees, but covered with grass and flowers, and said to exhibit, in the month of May, the most verdant and variegated carpet, of beauty and fertility combined. In the northern parts of the State, the level is much more elevated, where the south-west extremities of the Alleghany mountains, coming down from Virginia and Tennessee, extend themselves into Alabama, and beautifully diversify the surface of the country. It is thought that in no part