as the overseer himself.  He then proceeded to detail several instances of fugitive negroes being dragged in capture to the foot of the gallows, where, with halter-encircled necks, they were made not only to acknowledge the error committed and expose accessories, but “pumped dry,” as he facetiously termed it, as to the intended flight of other negroes on the estate.  Sometimes, he said, it was necessary to suspend the culprit for a moment or so, to intimidate, but this was only in cases where the victim (he used the word rascal) was inclined to be sullen, and refused readily to give the required information.  I inquired whether it ever occurred that actual execution took place; to this my new acquaintance replied, “Wall, yes, where the nigger had dar’d to strike a white man;” but that it was usual to go to a magistrate first, in such cases.  The appearance of these gibbets, after the information I had received respecting them from my slave-holding acquaintance, made my flesh creep as we steamed onwards, the more so as, in many of the grounds skirting the river, where these sombre murky-looking objects presented themselves to the gaze of the traveller, gangs of negroes were at work, looking up complacently for a moment as the vessel glided by.  I was subsequently told by a gentleman who had been long resident in the state of Louisiana, that no punishment so effectually strikes with terror the negro mind, as that of hanging, the very threat being sufficient to subdue (in general) the most hardened offenders.  This I do not wonder at, for perhaps there are few field-hands living in the south but have, at some time or other, witnessed the barbarities used at a negro execution, sudden death by pistol or bowie knife being far preferable to the brutal sneers and indignities heaped upon the victim by the cowardly assassins who superintend such operations.

The monotony of the scenes which had for a thousand miles rendered the passage irksome, began to break as we approached Natchez.  This place takes its name from the Natch-i-toches, or Red River, which falls into the Mississippi, the abbreviation being a corruption of the original Indian name, which is as above stated.  The town stands on a declivity or bluff, and is of considerable extent.  I did not visit it, although the boat halted for a considerable time, to land letter-bags and passengers.  I was informed by a fellow-passenger of gentlemanly bearing, who resided in the vicinity, that it was a dissipated place, and gambling the chief occupation of its inhabitants.  The locality has been remarkable for landslips, owing to the siliceous nature of the soil; I saw traces of a fearful catastrophe of the kind which had, some time before, buried or destroyed many of the houses and their occupants, the enormous mass having also sunk several steam-boats and other vessels which were moored at the foot of the bluff under the town.